Recent reviews by core.bee ;>

TL;DR: Has some heinous mechanics that can be abused, annoying campers and misbalanced agents but overall a solid game that has a lot of potential to give you some good hours.

So, after about 111+ hours, I will have to say that the game overall feels very good. No weird lags, hitreg is also quite good (even with higher ping enemies) and the anti cheat actually works better than e.g. Valves AC does.

Do I enjoy the game? Yes. Either playing ranked or unranked always gives you a good lobby and they will fill it to the brim so that you can have your 10-30 min battles (Warfare).

Do I enjoy the campaign? Meh, not really. After a combined 10k+ hours in different shootergames I do not think the campaign is that well done. If they want to have it tactical - then they need to make it tactical and also nerf enemies when solo campaigning.

What are the downsides of this game?
- unpunished campers on every single map. Some maps are just absolute BS and on some maps you can battle them easily.
- vehicles (i.e. both ground and air vehicle) have too much armor and ENDLESS flares... Helis always just fly out of range and come back. Battle them with 10 stingers is still pretty useless. (Needs fix/nerf!)
- some weapons are misbalanced: AT4 can kill tanks on 100m but not an enemy in front of you - what?
- some game mechanics are blatantly annoying: bellyflopping whilst shooting, crouch flying across 10m and more... pls fix. Yes, some are maybe game mechanics for a good reason, but still - some of them are so annoying to battle against. And everyone is abusing the crouch/duck-exploit to make your head nearly impossible to hit. (I am in the top ranks, trust me - it is just blatantly annoying)
- some maps need a little more balancing and less options to camp. The map design is really good overall but there needs to be a little bit less clusterf***ing here and there.

What are things that I would wish to see in the future?
- balance AT4 and Stinger abilities to tackle helis and vehicle better.
- stop campers
- adjust the mechanics on bellyflopping and more
- give us a CQB-option for every map pls!!! (I am a solely shooter guy and I hate to battle vehicles, even in BF3 and more I hated them...)

If carnage was a game - it would be this. So much fun to play.

I have spent around 150+ hours and somewhat around 5000 EUR* to find out that I am poop at racing. :(

Just kidding - the game is pretty nice and the races feel intense. There is a lack of content here and there, but if you race online in leagues like LFM or PitSkills you will meet other players, have nice races and still spend a lot of money because it fixes you with an addiction to Sim-Racing.

But you do not have to go down the money pit - you can also race this title with a controller. Not even joking, I have spent the first 120 hours of the game with a controller (Thrustmaster eSwap PRO X) and it made a whole lot of fun. Even a girlfriend of mine got so into this game that she has purchased it for the Playstation. Unfortunately we cannot race together but that is okay.

--- TL;DR---
Graphics: 7/10
Story: 6/10
Physics: 10/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Free Choice: 10/10
My skills: 1/10 :(

I am very looking forward investing even more time into this game and by upgrading my setup I benefitted a whole lot. This game also saved a little bit of my mental sanity because other games got flodded by cheaters that I raged every day. Now I just sit in my rig and drive around Nordschleife or Monza which fulfills me very much.

* = Yes, I really spent that much money for a whole sim setup with a rig. PC not included though.

Just don't buy it at the moment until KT and Nacon have figured out what good server connectivity or an offline mode are. I cannot even connect to a single damn race at 3 o'clock in the morning because the server has lost its connection (after already trying to log in for 10 minutes already...). Big NO NO.

--- MAJOR ORDER: Disrupt Sonys undemocratic delivery of account linking ---
- STATUS: democracy has won! -

Game is great, but with the linking account policy this game got ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Sorry, but I will not trust in Sonys loose safety approach. They are known for several customer data leaks and killed the game now. Well played Sony!

TL;DR: 9/10 - would recommend for hunting amateurs and pros. Quirky storytelling and a save-bug drained one point.

> Graphics: The game was released back in 2017 and playing it in 2024 it has really matured a whole lot. This game does not only sound nice, it also looks astonishing. From a graphics point of view I'd rate it a high AA-title.

> Mechanics: Ballistic curve, different calibers, different animal that need a specific approach each. It is nice. Tracking a wounded animal feels real but sometimes the animal despawn. That is the only uncool thing about hunting. This game is possible to be played as noob or pro alike.

> Storytelling: This is the only point I always found very annoying. Unskippable cutscenes and "calls" from someone I am not interested in listening to. If you want to completely immerse yourself, it is probably still a solid 7/10.

> Bugs: Saves. Saves is the biggest issue. Your guns and scores will be saved correctly but everytime you join a map everything is reset. You have to go and unlock all the houses - over and over again. There were none other bugs I came while playing this game.

Overall rating: 9/10 - besides the quirky storytelling and the save-bug I would highly recommend this game. You need some time and also a calm personality to play this game. If you are more a run and gun shooter guy - this game is probably not what you are looking for.

TL;DR: 10/10 - I highly recommend this game for some chillsome gaming adventure in a "cute" environment.

> Graphics: simple but also very powerful (if you take a closer look at the water for example). It has some Animal Crossing vibes but enhances on top of this. I really like the aesthetics of this game and how it looks.

> Mechanics: Sometimes the camera AND grid-based actions can be a bit annoying (shovel and wheelcart is the best example here) but mostly you can compensate this. The crafting and building, the progression and storytelling is sooo very well done! This is the main criteria that keeps me in the game. A friend of mine and I always play this game together and it keeps us wanting to play more.

> Storytelling: Yeah, some spots are a bit questionable, but if you look beyond that and let yourself get sucked into the game - it is so nice. Your village will grow, you will become more and more occupied with farming, with "zoo keeping" and lots more. There is so much to see and explore that it compensates the "thin" storytelling.

> Bugs: Well, there is a problem with saves and accountsharing (one PC, multiple accounts --> overwrites instances of your own saves) and another RAM exceeding bug (RAM consumption adds up after some time --> will probably be fixed soon) but we did not have anything else besides that. Nice, finally a feature-rich game that does NOT break if you blink a little too hard.

Overall rating: 10/10 - would buy again and I recommend this game. Feature-rich, no stupid cashgrabbing mechanics - and this is only the Early Access version. I am so thrilled for the future of this game.

Where do I see myself in this game in the future? Probably I will enhance my village even more, because until now I only built it like a drunken baboon and saw some nice Youtube videos about this game and how to make your village look astonishingly nice.

NfS Heat was released 2019, so I have to take that into consideration as well.

> Graphics: Looks stunning, not gonna lie. Sometimes the weather is too moist and the skybox doesn't match the ground-texture but I guess we cannot get everything. (e.g. bright weather but water puddles on the ground...) Where the game can really "shine" is at night. The graphics at night are stunning and really come to play. If it is also raining at night - best game. Ambient occlusion, reflections and the beautiful city are worth exploring.

> Audio: Since I do not listen to the original soundtrack I can only give a feedback about how the game itself sounds like. The best thing I want to point out is the engine-sounds. You can modify them to your liking - and it is awesome. The game sounds nice, has some got "audio reflection" and overall is very well done.

> Gameplay: The storyline is quite okay and I think it is worth playing it, but in the end the map is cluttered with so many things to do and collect that you HAVE to filter what you are looking for. Personally I like the approach of a Day- and Nightcycle - though I would also have appreciated a more fluent transition between both times.

> Characters: Sometimes a bit shallow, sometimes also okay-ish, but I am not here to criticize it too much, because in the end you do not have that many options to write a massive story with deep lore and stuff. So it is okay.

> Physics: This is my biggest dissappointment about this game. Okay, I come from a more simulation-based approach and enjoy other games more but if I would isolate NfS Heat only it would also suck. It has such an unpredictable behaviour and I really did not enjoy it at all. Sometimes you go around a corner, just slowing down the car and it flips like I have tapped the handbrake. Other times I wanted the car to flick it did not - even with a handbrake-tap. Drifting only works with a weird tap and hold approach and not a Scandinavian flick or weight transition or handbrake-tapping. Do not get me wrong, I get it that this game is an Arcade-racer, but I also expect an Arcade-racer to give me the freedom of gaming. On top of this problem there is an absolute strange behaviour and when cornering because sometimes you get superglued so that you take a sharper turn than you want but if you want a sharp turn you slide to the outside. It has no linear features and the game behaves like a coinflip in those regards.

> Bugs: 1440p with the highest settings did not display sharp menu options, looked like a scaled 144p Youtube-video and thus led me to disliking the menus a lot.

> Semi-related topics: Unfortunately I was not abled to make Unite 3.5 work - which was my highest hope about this game so I cannot tell how the game would have felt with a better physics approach.

> Whom would I recommend the game for? Younger players who want to enter the racing genre and enjoy a fun time in an Arcade-Racer.

> Who should not play this game? Someone who enjoys realism, deep mechanics, predictable behaviour and a story-rich environment.



(Note: I have played this game on another account as well, but I write my reviews mostly here, so do not wonder about the hours - I should be around 100 hrs on another account.)

Since I am a fan of other hunting games I have bought this game and played it for a little time.

Pro's of this game:
- realistic hunting experience
- very well composed world
- nice UI design
- huge knowledge base available for the player

Con's after playing:
- quite over-saturated (some UE4 games have this strange HDR problem)
- changing some setup-elements did not really affect the game (e.g. depth-of-field didn't change for me)
- smaller mission-design-related things (no markers on your map, so that tracking an animal is very tedious)

You will also see that I have refunded this game. Why did I do this?
This game is very well composed and done in a great way, but I do not see myself putting a whole lot of hours in this game. I play after work and even with the easiest setup you will still have to put in some effort, where I do not see myself doing it over and over again. If you have some time and also your head is not already drained - this game is for you. It looks good, has a lot of elements that are great and I do appreciate the game for what it is - I just don't share a future with it :)

Cheers to all the devs behind this game - nice job ;)

I've seen a whole bunch of reviews and gameplay videos about this game claiming it is not the same jump-n-run-shooter as it was before. I gave myself some time to think and bought it in the end to see what they've done to this game... and it is horrific.

PC Gamer vs Console Gamer is an absolute nightmare. They jump around a corner, ez track your whole movement because of aim assist (pathetic) and you have like no chance at all. Then everything is laggy as ♥♥♥♥ even with a good connection because c0nSoLe GaMeRs and their good connection from Usbekistan.

After all I would not recommend buying this as a true PC Gamer - just hop into a good game of Ground Branch if you search for something else more satisfying than this piece of 100 quid garbage.