Recent reviews by Comrade Cowboy

After nearly 3.5 months of Stormworks and enough playtime to make my PC question its life choices, I think I’ve seen enough to give my verdict.

This game checks every box on my autistic hyperfixation bingo card:

✅ Trains
✅ Planes
✅ Helicopters
❌ A sense of self-preservation

Stormworks is what happens when you give a mad scientist unlimited Legos and a complete disregard for OSHA regulations. My time in this game has mostly been spent designing vehicles that range from “highly sophisticated” to “violently unstable,” all while working on logic circuits that probably qualify me for a job at NASA (or at least as a particularly dangerous electrician).

Do you want to build a sleek, high-tech search-and-rescue helicopter? Too bad, you’re going to spend six hours debugging why your landing gear won’t retract and another three hours questioning why your engine keeps catching fire. Oh, and when you finally get it flying? Congratulations, you forgot to put enough fuel, and now you’re gliding gracefully into the ocean like a majestic, very expensive rock.

Would I recommend Stormworks? Absolutely. But only if you’re prepared to spend hours building, tweaking, cursing, and then watching your creation spontaneously combust for reasons you will never fully understand.

10/10, would get stuck inside my own submarine again.

**Score: 7.5/10**

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Before diving into this review, a disclaimer: I spend most of my racing time playing Richard Burns Rally (RSF install) and ACC. My priority is realism over aesthetics.

This game has some fantastic aspects but also a fair share of "meh." EA has a tendency to over complicate racing games (looking at you, F1 24), and the menu system and quick race accessibility could use improvement. The career mode left me underwhelmed—I had hoped to start in older rally classes and work my way up. Instead, career mode only allows for JWRC, WRC, and one other category, all beginning in the 2024 season.

On the plus side, the ability to build your own car adds an immersive element. The best gameplay options, in my opinion, are the quick-generate rally championship and the time trial mode. The quick-generate feature creates a randomized year-long (or longer) championship with a mix of rally classes and events, which keeps things fresh. What truly elevates this game above a 5/10 is the extensive selection of rally cars and stages, featuring varying weather conditions, times of day, and surfaces.

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It's a game with sim elements.


- Visuals: The game looks good. I'm not going to nitpick tree or building assets—I don’t care how realistic a tree looks at 80 mph. The weather effects, particularly snow and rain, are impressive and impact the driving experience.
- Content: The sheer number of cars and stages is commendable, offering great variety.


- Menus & Online Play: The menu system could be more intuitive, especially for online rallies. They should take inspiration from RSF RBR and allow players to join and complete rallies at their own pace. Multiplayer should be a core experience, not an afterthought compared to career mode. Most of this seems like its EA being EA... Similar menu feel to F1 24 (which I initially returned because I hated the menus so much)


- Shifting Mechanics: Let me shift into a gear without using the clutch. Sure, in real life, you'd typically clutch in—but you shouldn’t *have* to. Let improper shifting damage the transmission, but don’t prevent the action entirely.
- Handling & Damage Model: The handling is too forgiving. There have been instances where I should have spun out, but the game allows major corrective inputs. The damage model is also too lenient—rally is about pushing the car to its limits without wrecking it, yet this game doesn’t punish mistakes enough. A big part of rally is going over that fine line and ending up in a ditch with a broken damper.

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I will continue playing this game, but it won’t replace RBR (keep in mind RBR is free, if you can get past the graphics). That said, it’s a step above DiRT Rally 2.0. The variety of cars and stages keeps it engaging, but its shortcomings in realism, shifting mechanics, and online play prevent it from reaching a 9/10.

I have a lot of problems with these negative reviews. Kunos was very clear on the expectations of this launch. They want users to help them through the EA phase. Starting with that pretense is 100% necessary for EVO. The UI isn't overly optimized, but that is expected for this kind of EA game. I will take terrible UI as long as the game plays well.
1. there are 5 tracks, BUT they also have variations (Brands Hatch GP and Indy,Suzuka GP and East/West)
2. Each model of car feels unique. For example, the Ford Escort feels and drives like an escort versus something newer
3. The brake, suspension and tyre model is fantastic. Major change from ACC in the best way possible.
its hard to judge the bad because of the expectations that Kunos set. The UI has a bit of clunk to it. Setting up my wheel, pedals, shifter and handbrake took a bit longer than I'd hoped for. This was because the UI has a few elements that dont automatically pop up. The biggest issue I had was not all 20 cars are available. It looks like I only have access to the road cars and not any of the race cars. I also wasn't able to connect online.

All in all, the game is very much EA but thats not going to stop me from getting hundreds of hours out of it before 1.0 launch. If you are in to sim racing, this is 100% going to be _the_ game.

I have played a ton of Stormworks, 1000+ hrs. I absolutely love this game. The base game and weapons DLC are fantastic. I cannot say the same about this DLC. The new island is cool and it has a ton of railways. However the mining is pretty bad. You can tell the devs reused some of the steam components to hold "minerals" instead of coal. This is most obvious when setting up a hopper to carry ore. When youre building it you have to go box by box and remove the coal from it (not sure why they wouldn't default it to empty). The new components for mining are clunky. I really wish there was a conveyor belt brick (you can kind of make one with a few of the blocks but its just kinda ugly). Im also not a huge fan that the minerals HAVE to be transported in the weird box component instead of just in an empty hopper that you build. Another issue I have is with the minerals themselves. The terrain is not destructive at all in the mining areas. You take your Mining drill up to a resource and it just grinds on the surface and thats it. However, my biggest issue with mining is the MASSIVE performance hit (i7, 32g ram, 3080ti) when I created a fairly small mining vehicle with a hopper my guy was moving in slow motion. My hope is as seen in previous work, the devs add components and update a bit of the performance issues. Im honestly okay giving the devs another $10 given how much time ive gotten from the original game and how good they are with updates. until some of the fixes/content come I will keep this as a negative review.

I've been staring at the edge of the water
'Long as I can remember, never really knowing why
I wish I could be the perfect daughter
But I come back to the water, no matter how hard I try
Every turn I take, every trail I track
Every path I make, every road leads back
To the place I know, where I can not go, where I long to be

See the line where the sky meets the sea? It calls me
And no one knows, how far it goes
If the wind in my sail on the sea stays behind me
One day I'll know, if I go there's just no telling how far I'll go

fantastic game. would recommend.