Recent reviews by Thad

I love it and I also love to hate it. Stormworks is in the uncanny valley of engineering for me. It is so close to how I expect it to work that where it doesn't strikes me as irritating and almost offensive. It is a fantastic game that sucks me in for a week or so at a time then irritates me until I walk away for a year. But I keep coming back.

Edit after a couple years: I like this game now that I can accept it for what it is. It is an arcadey offroad driving game. Use a controller and set the game to wheel mode and it is fun for hours and hours. As an offroad driving simulator with a wheel, pedals, and shifter it is terrible. Auto reverse should still be burned at the stake like the heretic it is. If I wanted I would have selected it. Snowrunner isn't the game I want it to be. But it is a great game so I guess with these disclaimers I'm switching my recommendation to positive.

Original:I loved spintires, I loved mudrunner. There is so much I want to like about this game. The transmission is terrible. I am playing with a wheel 3 pedals and an h pattern shifter and it doesn't work with the game setup. The first trucks only have low, auto, and reverse which I can deal with but everytime I step on the clutch pedal (habit) the mouse takes over the gear selection and changes things. When I step on the brake It says "Auto Reverse" and starts moving backwards. There are no menu options to disable auto reverse. I would like to be able to use a 6 speed manual transmission like in previous installments but that isn't a deal breaker I can deal with trucks with automatic transmissions if I must and I can get over the weird reaction to the clutch pedal by unbinding it but the auto-reverse has got to go or at least be able to be disabled by option. So by a very narrow margin I am giving this a thumbs down. I will be happy to change it if they fix the transmission issues. If you are playing on a controller however SnowRunner otherwise deserves a thumbs up. Fix it please.

I loved this game before and the new update makes it even better. The new mission system helps to unlock things you were a few minutes grind from getting naturally. Things like after building your first tractor the reward is a free trailer. It was going to be the next thing to build now you get it free and save a couple of minutes. The system feels well balanced and helpful to reduce some of the early grind at least while helping with a sense of direction. It doesn't limit what you do just helps show what the next couple of likely projects could be. This game now has everything I want in it. I can't wait to see what this team comes up with next.