Recent reviews by barduck

This game is so mesmerizing and addicting. If you love building, automating, organizing and engineering, it doesn't get much better than this. Lots of fun in a humorous non-drama environment with endless re-playability.

It can also serve as OCD detector - if you find yourself compulsively rebuilding things over and over because conveyor belts don't align perfectly, it might be a clue.

Not to say the game is perfect, there are the occasional bugs and glitches here and there but nothing major. It could also benefit from many various quality of life features (eg. why can't blueprints be renamed? Why can't I move around things like containers? Aligning and measuring stuff can be really improved, etc).

Overall, absolutely recommended.

This game redefines the term "Early Access" and confuses it with early alpha. Displaying a popup with Early Access disclaimer doesn't exempt the developer from meeting basic player expectations and delivering a playable and enjoyable game.

More so, the lack of developer attention to details is really frustrating. I could write a really long list of small/medium bugs, UI/UX design and features (or lack thereof) that don't really consume budget or time to do right, it shows either incompetence or indifference toward their game.

In short, the game is very intriguing and shows a lot of potential, so if you believe in it and want to support the developers, go ahead and buy the founder's pack. But as a product, in it's current state, the game can be rather frustrating and isn't worth your time or money. Maybe in few months, maybe.

I'd give it "neutral" because the game does have potential but in it's current state it's pretty frustrating. LOTS of bugs, missing features, oversights. Plenty of things you'd expect from modern ARPG in 2023 are not there, or not even planned (hey, the fact that Diablo I & II got away with no character customization or gender selection over 20 years ago doesn't mean it's still acceptable today).

Yes, I'm aware it's called "early access" for a reason. Still, I form my opinion on games based on what I can actually play today and not what it could theoretically be in few months.

Will give it another chance when they polish the game some more.

UPDATE:
After 60+ hours, I just uninstalled it. The main quest is over after 2 hours and all your'e left with is a very shallow end game, boringly repetitive even in APRG standards.

Bottom line is, Last Epoch doesn't really bring anything new to the APRG genre and it has neither Path of Exile's depth nor Diablo's polish,

There aren't nearly enough good modern isometric party based RPG's around and Pathfinder:WotR is certainly a great one.

Sure, it has its quirks but overall it delivers a very enjoyable experience. The Pathfinder settings, game mechanics and lore are some of the best and the story, thought somewhat cliche, is very engaging.

For fans of the genre, this is really a no-brainer purchase.

Train Simulator 2014 is the first game ever that made me test the [sadly non existent] Steam refund policy. I still can't believe I spent over $50 on this totally crappy game. I played it for barely 3 hours before I realized I will never want to play this game again and uninstalled it.

The base game has very little content out of the box and DLCs cost so much I thought it was some sort of a glitch with Steam at first, then reading the forums I realized it is how the routes and train model are priced. I still can't believe they are seriously trying to charge $20-$40 for a route or train model.

The game comes with no tutorials to speak of. There are supposed to be tutorials in the game and they do appear in the list of in game tutorials but trying to run them gives some cryptic error. I had to dig through the forums to figure out that these tutorials are leftovers from previous versions of the game and require some DLC (which of course, I will never buy).

The game crashes too often. By today's standards, It doesn't look all that great graphically. The User Interface feels like it was designed by a fresh year student as a home project. There isn't much content and overall, the game is pretty boring.

Maybe total die hard train simulator fans have no choice but to buy this game but for anyone like me, who just wanted to play with trains, this game isn't worth it.

Stay away.