Recent reviews by OldManGamerBoy

This would be a fantastic first game for anyone who likes cute stuff, building little streets, and making their people happy. It's also ideal if you just want to chill for a while. It's like Stardew valley only without crack cocaine: a similar concept of "building" and "chill" but incredibly simple and with no combat. It's entirely simple and wholesome.

OK, so I have only played 3 hours but I have completed the game and got all but one achievement. But heck, at the price, that's like 1 EUR per hour, which is much cheaper than streaming 2 movies. There's also a sandbox mode which I can go play around in if I ever want to chill for half an hour.

The graphics are simple and cartoon-like (in a good way). The game is easy to learn and to play. The buildings are so pretty! And a couple of the manual, tedious jobs from the early game are automated later.

Ways the game could improve would be:

1) more levels (there are only 5, hence only 3 hours of gameplay for me, although a beginner gamer would get a few more). Perhaps even a random goal generator would keep the game fresh for a while longer.

2) a little more automation, so I don't have to always click on cats and bikes

3) different difficulty modes... by the final level I had so much money coming in every day that it felts unbalanced

4) it'd be nice to be able to have 2 recipes per shop: one for old people, one for young people. That would mean not having to build one of each, which can make long streets difficult to manage

But overall, if you like building cute villages and don't expect a challenge, just chilling, then this game is a very good bet. I got it by chance in a bundle, but I would be willing to pay full price for it, now I have played it! So go play it.

This is a really, really chill puzzle game without many puzzles and trying to restore biomes. I'm disabled and can need a really easy but satisfying game sometimes. This fits the bill. You may not get a level done the first time, but you'll learn about the game dynamics. It took me a while to learn the optimal strategy, but it's really not hard.

I play this while with TV in the background. I don't usually have to concentrate hard on it but it DOES fill the time and stops me going craxzy from boredom when my disability is preventing me from doing anything difficult.

If you want a hardcore challenge, try Civ or Factorio. If you liked Stardew Valley, but want something easier, then this will suit you very well!

The whole X3 series is excellent. One of the great space trading games. It shows its age in some ways (time acceleration doesn't last through a jump gate and graphics are not modern) but this is still a HUGE universe to explore as a fighter, a trader, or any role you choose. You can stay solo or build a huge fleet, with carriers, fighter squadrons and factory complexes pumping out all the missiles and shields you can't easily get elsewhere. Become a billionaire through selling narcotics, if that takes your fancy!

So this is a FIRST impressions review. I have played Civ since version 1 came on four floppy disks. V remains my favourite (and I have 2,600 hours in game just on that version). I could never get the hang of 6: partly due an acquired disability which hinders learning complex systems.

I saw that most of the complaints about VII were due to complicated stuff being removed so I gave it a go, and I am loving the first few hours. The interface is simple and intuitive. The tutorial is detailed and helpful. Every choice carries good explanations. A couple of things aren't obvious (how to pillage an independent state requires a click instead of just moving onto their cirty). But the removal of barbarians feels right, as do a lot of other changes. For example, iron now makes units stronger. you don't have to mine a source of it to even create units. And it's a tech, not a resource.

I look forward to exploring this. If you are a hardcore Civ addict but fancy something simpler, this is for you. If you are looking for a way into the series, then this is for you, but wait for it to go on sale (which it will do in 6 to 8 months, if previous form is anything to go by).

The downsides: even on release they have issued DLC. That's a moneygrab. You get nagged to link your [whoever released this game] account to get Napolean as a leader. No, I am not creating an account on your system. I have a Steam account. I am not downloading DLC on day one. This is REALLY disappointing, and I hope they take another view on it because I don't want a game like The Sims which has a base game but then you have to spend hundreds to actually enjoy it. That would destroy this franchise.

A very cool and cute island defence game. It could use a little bit more tutorial, as I had to google quite a lot, and learning the icons for enemy types off by heart isn't something I managed to master. But the game is really very playable! I switched on the ability to restart a level, which is kinda "easy mode". Getting the balance of promotions right is really tough and it wasn't until my third playthrough that I didn't make huge mistakes like trying to upgrade everyone. Nah, focus on a few core commanders because in those later levels you HAVE to have string troops!

This used to be a pretty chill game. I went to have a nice relaxing hour or two of play.

Nah.

Custom launcher.

Custom launcher which insists you read some legealese.

Said legalese needs much scrolling. No way anyone is reading that.

Dudes.

You are ON STEAM. STEAM IS YOUR LAUNCHER.

No way am I going to read all those pages of Ts & Cs.

I mean, I click OK because I want to chill for an hour or two and I live in the EU so what they did is almost certainly illegal and unenforcable in any meaningful way. Also, if they took my data, they are getting fined SO much that they may well actually go out of business (the EU doesn't play with that).

Dudes. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

Review was initially negative. Now positive.

I love/hate this game. If you’re not bothered about getting gold medals then it’s a LOT more chill, but the way things are transported is, I think, massively overcomplicated. If you are competing against the clock, then a single setting made wrongly (sometimes in a surprising place) can set you back by game days or game weeks, until you notice. Troubleshooting why on earth (for example) the wood you have stockpiled isn’t moving involves checking the following: the docks on both islands (and those in between if there isn’t a direct sea route); the settings on the storage yard; the setting on the other storage yard (if that’s where you are shipping to); the setting of EVERY road marker (which appear every 4 tiles of road). It can easily take half an hour to work out why things aren’t moving.

And you DO have to use storage yards. I think that places that need resources simply order the oldest available resource. It could be right next door to a storage yard FULL of brick, but it will order two bricks which were created on another island.

This can get ridiculous, as your entire production system grinds to a halt because one building is waiting on brick from an island 3 days away by boat, while it sits next to a storage yard full of bricks. For real fun, wait until you see those brick being exported to that island 3 days away, and watch with glee as the ships pass each other in the night! even better is seeing a port which can't shift anything because it's full of brick it has imported but it can't move any because it's full of brick to be exported and the backlog of brick to be exported won't allow any movement on the roads. Ships full of bricks arrive, wait, then go away again. An empty ship arrives! It takes some bricks! The backlog shifts a little. Not much. You must simply wait.

Beware having two ports on the same island. They will often just export to each other.

Add in priorities. Each type of building can be prioritized so its goods get preference. So can each type of goods. So now you have a massively complicated matrix of priorities and permissions, and the game gives no feedback at all why a request for (say) brick can’t be fulfilled despite your having
six storage yards full of bricks.

Oh, and you can set export whitelists from storage yards (sometimes I find this necessary to actually get stuff shifted). But you forget and later you can’t work out why the storage yard full of glass isn’t sending glass to the place right next door. Can’t be the docks, or the road posts. Or the priorities. Ah! You set the export whitelist to go somewhere a few hours ago and forgot! Or, alternatively, the import whitelist of the building wanting stuff.

While this does give a huge amount of fine tuning, it’s really a lot more bothersome than it could be. Or, at least, a place not getting goods should raise a nice big flag on the GUI, and clicking two buildings should tell you if they can send each other goods and if not, why not. The game must know, because at some point it decides it can’t be sent.

But.

Once you get past that it’s a pleasant building game. Actually quite easy once I learned how to configure everything!

My tips: use whitelists for ports. Never blacklists. Blacklists grow unwieldy, you always forget something, and before you know it, you’re exporting logs to a sawmill three days away which is next to a lumberjack. Use them both for imports and exports. Constantly scan around for idle buildings and work out why they are idle.

Centralize as much as possible. Don’t export cider, food, and water to an island. Instead, build a set of housing which consumes those three resources and then ship the (one) item of power off to the other islands. Always ship to storage yards unless you’re building the first watch tower on a new island, or something which (for whatever reason) won’t benefit from being stockpiled at that moment.

I’ve a few levels to complete now but just finished one and got gold the first time. Phew!

It's a classic! Nothing else has come close! I hate it so much.

Twenty years ago (or so, I lose count) I used to ace this game every time. It got so easy that I set myself arbitary rules, such as "I can only equip a bolt action rifle". I still went through this game like butter. When I first got it, it was hugely difficult. Took me ages to beat it, that first time! But it's just so playable that I had to go back. And back. And eventually made all these rules which made it very hard to beat!

Well, now I am old (in my 50s) and my reactions aren't what they were and Nazis appear to be killing me more than I am killing Nazis. Ant that is less fun than I had before. So: young people: the graphics are of a certain age. There's no real plot other than "hey, go kill some Nazis". But pick this classic up. Go kill some nazis. Then moan about not being able to do so in 30 years from now.

Money well spent.

It's "The Sims" and follows the exact same business model as all the other versions. You buy the base game (or, in my case get it for free during an offer). It has almost no content. It's a cool thing to mess about with but there's no real challenge. And there is a strictly limited amount of stuff in game. BUT you can buy thousands of dollars worth of stuff as DLC including hats and cupboards!

Aside from the obvious ripoff business model, the gameplay is just bad. If you want to play Sims, go for Sims 3. This game appears to be full of good ideas which were never implemented fully. It's a shame because had they actually been finished then this would be vastly superior to 3. The graphics are amazing! But in terms of gameplay it is really lacking. Your sim often wanders off to do stuff on its own (even if autonomy if fully turned off). Popups come and go with no clue as to what they mean. Social interations are very random. Trying to get to know a specific sim? Good luck with that because (even on a date), other sims will just come and sit with you. You can click and give specific speech options directed at another sim until the cows come home but as far as i can tell, the interactions are still fairly random.

If you're lucky enough to get to know another sim well enough, then htere's the usual romance options. Except they don't work. I can't "do the do" because there appears to be no option for it. And that's a problem with the interaction dialogues in general. In an effort to stuff as many different interactions as they can into the game, the menus have become massively complex mazes one has to navigate.

All in all, this feels like an early access game with thousands of dollars worth of DLC.

This game has SO much promise as Early Access! Wait. It's not EA. It is full release.

It is NOT a farming game. I am 3 in-game years in and can grow I think 24 crops at a time.

The game has similarities to Stardew Valley. If you liked that game, and you can pick this one up for $5 or less, then I think it will be worth it because you'll get maybe 8 or 10 hours of pleasant play before the negatives kick in.

And it's a shame because there are some things that this game does SO well! The day isn't limited by time, but in energy. You can take as long as you like, because it is your ENERGY that matters. You go to bed when that gets too low. Designing the town is a challenge in itself, to keep all the citizens happy with the location of their houses (which you can build and reposition and upgrade).

Crops can be sold but are MUCH more valuable cooked as meals, and the interface to do that is incredibly simple and easy to use compared to games like Stardew or Portia.

But it very very quickly becomes a grind. Everything depends on gathering raw resources and then turning them into basic products (metals and planks). At first the cost is low but even when you fully upgrade the buildings which create the items so that you get a decent bonus, the game is still, at that point, day after day of chopping or mining and never encountering enough of the higher tier resources to make the higher tier goods which are needed to upgrade everything.

Your inventory ends up getting stuffed with useless basic resources while you starve for higher level products.

Opening new areas is pretty cool at first but then you realise that they they also need those resources. So it's chop chop cop, mine mine mine, day after weary day.

I have 13 hours at this point and probably most of those were grind. I expected it to be like other similar games, and the grind to get easier or to be automated.

It isn't, and I see nothing on any wiki to suggest that they will be.

I can maybe unlock the next cool thing with a few hours grind. If grind is your thing, you will love this game. If actually building things is your bag, go for Stardew or Portia.