Recent reviews by Captain Jack Rackham

This recommendation comes with a caveat, the game is "early access" i do not know if further work is being done, but what i do know is despite the genre being saturated with similar titles and there is not thus far anything really to make it stand out amongst its peers, i found myself enjoying running the checkout and therefor i am hoping more work will be done to the game.

Only 7 hours into the game but i have not seen any option to hire a manager who can order stock replenishment automatically but i hope this is added soon so i can sit on my checkout and be superior to the AI checkout staff lol.

With that said, i would also like the option to make the store cash only, i can give change faster than using the card machine so a cash only store option would be pretty epic.

Only 93 hours in the game, but played the demo extensively as the demo was a very good and thorough introduction to the game and really represented the idea that the developers want you to play this as i do not recall any time limits per-se, i just recall the demo being great for a demo!

Most of these 93 hours were spent in Early access, i played it a bunch and had a blast with the automation update which introduced drones and automated logistics and much more.

With the release of version 1 things seem to have improved nicely, some excellent quality of life additions such as supporting multiplayer, new buildings and items to craft, and the map is looking pretty good now with the addition of the rainbow crystal caves etc.

Very glad i found this game in its early stages and very proud to see it come to fruition with an official V1 release.

Having a lot of fun with my friend playing this through since V1 released, i am excited to complete the main questline and see what else is new!

The game itself is fine, the bad news is that finding a good crew can be a chore, you can join a lobby hosted by people the same rank as you and be kicked out because they dont like the number of hours you have in the game like that actually matters past 100 or so hours lol, so new players can be expected to host lobbies titled new players only to prevent them being ejected from a sweaty idiots lobby.

The game itself is one of the most entertaining survival horror games i have played and has brought me and my buddies a lot of laughs and comedy timing. A total Gem!

I enjoyed this game, literally binged it for a day or so and at the end of it i was left wanting more.

I said to myself "this was fun building up my empire and upgrading everything to max, but they need to add a management role for an employee to fill" for the main reason being that the manager should be able to order stock and run things and when i logged out of the game that afternoon i realised there was indeed an update just released, and there was a manager role added :D amongst other things.

So i have no idea of the roadmap the devs have in mind, but i am just happy to have played it in its current state and look forward to seeing the final product, the devs clearly have a sense of humor with regard to how the customers eyes track you lol, it does lead to some moments that can be strangely hilarious in a creepy sort of way, so extra points for the game not taking itself too seriously to the point where it harms the game, features like creepy staring and tracking done in a bit of a goofy way definitely adds an extra layer of charm to the game and i think that needs to be pointed out.

Also....when it comes to my last point about the game not taking itself too seriously, i wasn't expecting to "literally" have a family in the game, much less the gestation period not existing, much less the newborn baby is capable of standing upright a few seconds after it was conceived, this was rather amusing to open the bedroom door and see my family all standing there staring at me, with all the kids identical and the entire scene looking like something out of a creepy horror movie, this game had me totally immersed.

One of my favourite features was the TV, being able to play youtube videos through it without any ads was pretty hilarious if i must be honest!

Wouldnt recommend it for anyone under the legal age *Wink Wink* Not Particularly graphic in nature, however still adult themed.

October 20th update: I was happy to report that i ended my working week by coming home to the nice surprise that there had been another update to the game, Kudos to the dev/devs for regular updates at this moment in time.

Updated review July 30th 2024 122 in game hours
I am frustrated, for all the improvements i still feel this nagging in my mind that the game is annoying me with a few details.

Stations: the warehouse system was theoretically improved by making them proper stations and adding a warehouse to it, straight away i am annoyed that the warehouse takes up 1 of 2 available upgrades.
I want to be clear in no uncertain terms, the original railroad tycoon allowed you to build all of the station upgrades in every single station if you desired. This arbitrary limit of 2 makes it seem to me like the game wants you to have as little fun as possible or make life awkward for the players and also limiting what you can do in a heavy way.

With the above in mind may i say that i understand this game isnt Railroad Tycoon, but i do not see the logic in limiting what players can and cannot do
I was willing to overlook these things but then i look at the DLC.
The base game has 1 Diesel passenger express train, at least in the scenario i am playing.
It has no Electric trains and if you want 10 of these you are going to have to put your hand in your pocket.
But i ask myself, do i want to pay for this DLC? and the answer is unequivocally no!

Reasoning: do not get me wrong, i want those 10 electric trains, but i wont justify paying for those, and yet my other concerns with the game will go unchanged. Having 10 electric trains will not fix the main problems i have with the game in its current state.

1, Station upgrade limit of 2 (this is frankly quite upsetting)

2, Warehouse item limits, similar to station upgrade limits, why do we have to choose only a handful out of many potential goods? i would love to see a warehouse that could be supplied with every type of cargo i need simultaneously to create a hub, and then send trains from that hub to cities, and then the only thing going from city to city need be express or industry freight!
This would just give the players so many more options and freedoms in terms of how they design their warehouse networks etc, i just want the freedom to have all the upgrades i need at a station, and all the goods needed at that station. i feel like in reality a railroad company could do that with a single email.

Note: with points 1 and 2 i understand game design choices were made for "reasons" but for people who want to play in a sandbox type situation, or just in general be able to do more than the game currently allows for, the original warehouse was its own station that came with a warehouse, but now it is a station and you have to build a warehouse, so with a warehouse occupying an upgrade, the player is then faced with the awkward choice that has already been made for them, you need a maintenance depot or a dispatch office, the other options are probably not useful in this instance, and i will say it 1 more time, in the very old and original railroad tycoon game you could upgrade every station with every upgrade:
Livestock pens, Goods Storage,Food storage, post office, restaurant, hotel, maintenance shop, engine shop, Switching yard.

It just strikes me as odd that a game that could have so much depth and options seems rather limiting with just 2 station upgrades, and if 1 is a warehouse, it can only hold a handful of types of goods, i find these limits to be enough to decide the game ethos does not lean into a bit of realism in this way, in reality a warehouse has a finite capacity, the warehouse does not mind what is stored in there.
I am not asking for a storage limit, i am asking for no limit on how many different kinds of things could potentially be stored there.

3, Track placement is still (maybe buggy) idk how to explain, but its so annoying sometimes, i didnt even scroll down but my tracks decided they would ramp down into a tunnel at one of my stations without me asking it to, and i find this happens a lot when building tracks, for some reason rails like to suddenly descend in the planner, you can be placing them like normal alongside an existing track and then suddenly they appear lower than they should be, it is entirely possible i am doing something wrong, but from my experience this seems like a really annoying bug?

For fans of overcooked, this game goes beyond that and brings an addictive and fun game that will keep you playing and striving for peak efficiency in the kitchen.

As of writing this review my friend and i have failed on night 14/15 a few times, just have not made it across the line on 15 yet but we will keep playing until we succeed.

Tiny bit of RNG on the level design and which random upgrades spawn at the end of the rounds will keep things interesting, no 2 plays are identical in that way.

I played it for 12 hours straight yesterday and we still never did hotdogs or fish, so i know there is more content to come.

Overall a great game which puts you in charge in your own fantasy space company,
I have played almost 300 hours so far and i still have some exploring to do, ya know like visit every other planet. The tech tree is easy to complete if you pick the right techs at the start and take advantage of every opportunity to conduct science and recover the experiments back on Kerbin.

At first i found it difficult to get into, idk maybe i skipped a tutorial or something? lol
But then i watched a few videos on youtube and began to understand it a lot better, eventually i was earning a decent load of science points and funding, and once i unlocked a few certain things on the tech tree the game exploded open, suddenly my more advanced rockets were far more forgiving and allowed me to set up a satellite network and use automated systems instead of manned craft.

Minmus is the second moon of Kerbin, it is by far the easiest local body to land a craft or a base upon its flat lakes, or at least the easiest one i have visited due to its super low gravity. I feel like i have conquered that hurdle and mastered Minmus now that i have both surface and orbital refineries turning ore into rocket fuel.

I could spend more time landing on the Mun and performing more science there..... however i have almost every single tech unlocked, science is no longer the driving factor.

With a manned base already on minmus, complete with a mining/refining rover, plus an orbital refining/refueling station around minmus resulting in unlimited fuel from mining and refining ore, it seemed only appropriate that i launch a science exploration vehicle, refuel at minmus and pick up the science team from the minmus orbital station and send them off hopefully capturing an orbit around the closest planet to Kerbin = Eve!

I have no idea what to expect from Eve, but it will be fun finding out!
Just a fly by with a few experiments and then back home should do nicely!

Would recommend to anyone who enjoys trial and error, and improving their designs through testing and learning.

This glowing review comes with 1 small caveat, now this is not entirely a criticism however it must be said that the creators of the game had a great sense of humour and allowed that to shine through on the descriptions of ship components etc, yes the information on certain selected parts is there if you right clicked to pin the box and then scrolled about to find the important details, but the main description to be given the largest space in the box is what can only be described as kerbal comedy lore.
As good and funny as it is, i didn't find them to be useful in explaining why i would pick those certain components on my rocket over another similar component etc, but then again maybe there is a way to compare certain components with far greater detail as to which component is right for which rocket or which stage you are firing, hence i get the feeling that a lot of this has to be learned by trial and error but thats ok because i had fun doing it.

In short the learning curve was initially steeper than it was fun to begin with, but thats just my own experience, eventually i would work out the problems and have a reputable and profitable space agency on Kerbin and beyond.

I am sure you will find it easier than i did to begin with.

If you are a fan of the show then this will be a fun game to play.

Things are still clearly being ironed out so please manage your expectations, but it still captures that crabbing experience.

If i could make a suggestion to the developers, the AI crewmen have improved, but the captain needs more options regarding crew orders and priorities etc.

My suggestion would be to split the duties into better categories such as rail/hydros/bait
With the above in mind you can hire someone to operate the controls on the hydros without moving from that spot and someone else to do rail duty, which means less men running around like headless chickens and getting in each others way.

The only time someone should be moving on deck is when they are moving from the rail to the bait/buoy's and back during pot preparation, or back round the table to sort crab, leaving a second guy working on the controls of the hydros to save the other crew running back and forth from the controls to his other jobs etc and allowing a more seamless crew synergy, otherwise it really defeats the purpose of having more than 1 deckhand.

Additionally, in its current state captains are forced between 3 modes, pot setting, pot collecting, and resting. In order for the crew to work more efficiently we need a fourth option (collect and reset) to pull a pot out of the sea, empty the crab, rebait and reset the pot in the sea where it came from.

This is needed because as of now you have to manually switch between pot setting and pot collecting between every pot you wish to pull out and empty whilst utilising crewmen to perform those tasks.

If i set the crew to pot collecting they will collect the pot, and i can get them to empty it and sort the crab, but there is no option to reset the pot back in the sea, if you have 1 crewman as a sorter you can save yourself a ton of time rebaiting the pots and resetting them yourself while he sorts crab...... however this creates a new problem,

If you reset the pot yourself and your crew is set to pot collection, Harry sorter will run over and begin hooking the pot you have just dropped in the sea because that was his set job, this wastes the bait and uses more if you decide to set the pot back in the water again, only this/next time remembering to turn pot collection off allowing you to rebait and set the pot without the crew instantly trying to retrieve said pot.

You need to manually turn off collecting by switching back to setting and then drop the pot back after you bait etc, and then drive the boat forward and manually switch back to pot collecting in order for your crew to retrieve the next pot.

I hope this made sense, please feel free to comment below if you wish to discuss.

Cheers!

If you are a fan of the Farm Sim games then you should not be disappointed with this.

A lot has been added and is worth exploring with some friends.

And as usual, each game gets prettier and the machinery looks epic!

It is with a heavy heart that i have been flipped from a staunch advocate of the game, to someone now critical of the games flaws.

Subnautica was one of the most immersive (pardon the pun) games i had the pleasure of playing for many many hours and enjoyed immensely.

Where did Below Zero go wrong?

Well it is entirely unfair to judge a game that is either still early access, or still being ironed out, the story was just recently updated, but below i will explain my grievances and try to make sense of why?

So naturally with a game that is being worked on and updated there are going to be broken save files etc and i had accepted that fact and was prepared to wait till the game was finished until i reset my progress and attempted a fresh play through as the game would eventually be intended for.

With the addition of voice over work and more expanded storyline PDA's etc, i found myself hearing the word Allah.
Now normally i would not have given this a second thought, however this time around i find it very disheartening that the creators decided to add or mention a religion that exists outside of the game.

Instead of expanding on the founders or aliens, or perhaps even creating a completely game based religion/theory of creation which would have added even more layers of immersion, i feel like this is a big (slap in the face) wasted opportunity to expand on the lore and even goes as far as to diminish the immersion factor here. Suddenly i do not feel like i am playing a game set in a galaxy far far away, suddenly i feel like the story/reality is being subverted, what next? subnautica 3 finding allah? because i wont be buying that i can assure you.

Instead of a different reality, i feel this game now has the baggage of dogmatic religions from our own forsaken planet and has taken away a lot of awe and wonder at the game.

If you think a religion based in reality has no place in games, then perhaps try another title.

If you do not care about religions, or are not uncomfortable with a religion being given a push into a reality where it never belonged..... then by all means get the game, you will probably love it.

However i feel i am no longer seeing the game develop in the direction it should be going, and instead the game is being diminished by denying it an opportunity to fill its own fictional voids with something new and original.

Maybe i am just getting old, but this is worrying and a genuine concern that the developers of one of the best games in living memory have taken the decision to allow something like religion to be mentioned in a game that is all about science and exploration, all about future humans and how we become a space faring species, about how life finds a way and so far i have seen no evidence of gods within the game nor any other kind of religion.

I find it bizarre, This has the same effect of bringing real world politics into the game, at this point you should probably just add trump and clinton in just for good measure so you can divide your audience into their respective pigeon holes further.

I find any mention of religions extremely distasteful whilst gaming for real world escapism, i think any mention of religion or politics in a game that really doesn't need it is the nail in the coffin of ideas. Baffling!