Recent reviews by Winter Woofer

It's a game where you can allow people to eat poop and they still willingly follow you. What's not to love?

There's nothing I can say about this game that others haven't elaborated on far more eloquently and effectively, before me. And with the more recent iteration having been released, the sale price on this title makes it all the more worthwhile to dive into and indulge. It's a beautiful game, a cornucopia of sight and sound, an indulgence in enjoying a world either alone or with friends. But critically and most importantly:

Car goes vroom.

It's a simple game, but that doesn't have to mean it isn't enjoyable. And this definitely fits the bill! An amusing way to pass some time now and then, building colourful, cheerful little settlements. Definitely don't pass this up! Even as it stands, it's worth the asking price, and there's likely (hopefully!) more to come with it. Support this dev! Build quaint towns. PUSH YOUR MOUSE TO ITS LIMIT.

Half an hour with this game is all that I needed to tell myself a refund was in order. Having played hundreds of hours in GWYF, I found the recent changes to that game to be steps in the wrong direction, and wanted an alternative. Having heard mixed things about this game, I decided it can't be any worse than the other has gotten, so I figured I'd try it out.

Do yourself a favour: don't bother.

If you want an easy to understand/use mechanic in something that should be as simple as "swing this stick to hit the ball", this isn't the game for you. How do you quantify how hard you just swung on your last attempt? You can't. There is no way to know how quick/hard your individual shots are, so you have no way at all to make any attempt at adjusting for your next shot. It's just one big guessing game, and I spent most of my 30 minutes on this game just hitting the ball and assuming there was some magical RNG at work in the background, deciding whether my shot went 5 inches of 5 feet.

Even at its sale price, it's not worth it. You'll end up like my friend and I... playing through the first course, getting a dozen points over par on every hole, and completely unsure how to fix or adjust what you're doing. It's not a learning curve, it's a learning wall. Even for less than 5 bucks, save your money for a game that you'll actually be able to enjoy. Thank me later.

I'll make this short, because... what can I say that hasn't already been said? I played the original Spyro way back when, on the PS1... and it had been so long that I was super excited to see it come to PC! Yes, there's probably a degree of nostalgia bias, but I really don't care... they did an amazing job with this remaster, so far as I'm concerned. I'm sure there are purists who will find this or that to complain about, but overall, if you're just after some simple fun playing a game you played 20 years ago (or a game you've wanted to play in the course of those 20 years), then definitely snag this one! It looks beautiful, the sounds are fantastic, the voice acting is perfectly fine. I've no complaints here... just fun to relive a bit of childhood in the modern age.

While I appreciate the "thought" (which we're always told it's the thought that counts) of updating this game 5+ years after its initial release... I don't see the point in "fixing" some things if you're just going to blatantly break other things.

I had no trouble in co-op previously, playing this game with my girlfriend for a while. Post-update, it's practically impossible for us to get into a lobby together, now. We've managed it two or three times out of the dozen or so times we've tried. Sometimes it works... sometimes it doesn't. I'm now getting a constant case of "leaving lobby" the second I try to even make a co-op game for us. And when the only solution offered by the community is "verify your game files" (which we've both done), with no help offered by the developer after a problem that, looking through the forums, goes back months... I'm about to uninstall this game and move on.

If this is the kind of "support" we get after years of playing this game, I'll think twice about buying another title in this series again... if the message I'm getting is "don't expect to play it for very long before we mess it up and then you're SOL." It pains me to give this a thumbs down. I've played every game in the SE franchise. I loved SE1 and V2. I bought SE3 on PS3, PS4, and Steam. I had SE4 on PS4 and Steam. I got SE3 for my girlfriend as a gift last year, so we could play it together. And now less than a year later, it's been rendered practically useless by an update with "fixes"... and no solution in sight.

If you're going to play the single-player, then you may be alright. Get it on sale, sometime. But if you want to play this with a friend, forget about it. You'll run into multiple connection issues, and no word from Rebellion on what to do about it. They blatantly don't care.

It's hard to know how to rate this game, simply because there so much I honestly don't like about it. But the good outweights the bad, so I suppose a positive overall rating is in order. Let's be honest, at this point no one is going to read my review and use it as a deciding factor in whether or not they pick up this game. Still, I figured I may as well toss out my worthless two cents about it. That said, let me touch on a few things:

The campaign is decent, albeit with its own irritations that I won't delve into (mainly the usual loose character/plot developments that make you question how or why they exist, but it's a fantasy world, so just go with that I suppose). If you only want to buy a game for a worthwhile campaign, not to mention an amazingly fleshed-out world to explore, then by all means... grab this. Especially when it goes on sale for under twenty dollars. The world you play in is, in many ways, incredibly detailed and well thought out. There are little things everywhere to be discovered and enjoyed. Exploring the map is probably the biggest draw in a game like this, to me. Immerse yourself in it, and have fun with it... you'll get that much out of the sale price, for sure.

Now, as for the online? Unless you have at -least- 3 other friends to play it with, don't bother. Random public lobbies are full of hackers and people who will kill you repeatedly the second you step out of your garage/apartment/wherever. Get a group of friends, do a private lobby, play some of the smaller game modes... don't bother with the business stuff that you need to be in a public lobby for. You'll only get irritated and lose more money. Except on the rare occasion you find a public lobby where multiple businesses are co-existing and doing their own thing... I've found a few of those, and they're so gloriously enjoyable... particularly as a giant middle-finger to the money-grubbing developers behind the mess covered in the next paragraph. And, if all you want to do is grind heists, more power to you... though I wouldn't call that an enjoyable gaming experience. But to each their own.

The heist-grinding brings me to my biggest complaint of all, and it's one you'll hear the back and forth on nearly anywhere you look: money in GTA online. It has become painfully obvious, in the past 2 years, that the powers that be behind this game are interested in one thing: selling Shark cards. The first few updates to this game included cars and accessories that were... costly, but obtainable with a day or two of playing and saving up. Recent updates, however, have seen the introduction of vehicles and buildings that require dozens of hours of grinding to be able to afford, apiece. An "expensive" car in 2016 was $1 million in-game. Nowadays, you're looking at cars in excess of 5 times that, which can only be stored in special buildings that cost millions more, and can only be upgraded in special vehicles that cost millions more. Once it was discovered that people would fork over insane amounts of REAL money for in-game money (I believe Shark cards officially made more overall cash than the actual game sales sometime early in 2017), items in-game skyrocketed in price. It's atrotious business practice, and I absolutely find it disgusting that a company would be so blatant about it... and that people would blindly defend them because "hey, the updates are free." That's exactly what they want you to think/say. Good job. Enjoy the clustercuss that will be GTA 6 and its online.

So! In the end... do you want to play the campaign for some reason or another? Okay... go ahead and buy this (on sale). Do you have a few friends you want to run around online with and cause silly mayhem and have casual fun with? Buy this (on sale). Otherwise, find something else to play with your friends, or on your own. There are plenty of good options out there. This one is only good if you have the patience and the company for it.

Where do I begin with reviewing a game like this? I want to make this short and sweet, but I feel that's a bit impossible given all there is to cover. At the very least, I'll attempt to be concise. There are too many reviews on here that are <20 words, anyway. And those don't add much to giving someone a good idea of what this game is really about or capable of.

I spent countless hours playing SimCity 4 back in the day... I loved that game, despite its minor shortfalls. It was great for what it did, in the time period it did it in. There weren't too many other city builders of note out, then. But now you have a lot more games of that "settlement builder" variety springing up... city builders being a smaller niche amidst that, wherein there are two (maybe three) major players: Cities Skylines and... another big title that we all know, due to its shame.

There are no words to express how much I adore this game. It has so much going for it that I don't know where or how to quantify or qualify the enjoyment it brings. There is an immeasurable amount of flexibility here that one always feels there's more to see, more to do. Each successive city I've built has brought more and more satisfaction and pride, as I learn better zoning layouts, better transportation arrangements, better decoration techniques. There are instances where I feel something doesn't come out exactly as I want it, but I know that there must be a way to make it happen because the game itself has very little limitation. However, I will note that said lack of limitation stems largely from one major reason: mods.

You will have those who say they play this game vanilla, sans DLC (which I'll get to shortly) and mods. Modding is THE reason this game is my favourite game of all time, hands down. The fact that the creators understood there would be a demand for such, and left the game open to modding, and even provided an in-game editor to make your own assets (parks, etc) is one of the best things a developer could do. Now, is the game still playable and enjoyable, sans mods? Absolutely! But the modding community adds so much to this game that there is no going back, once you start to indulge in what it has to offer. The aforementioned flexibility offered by the base game is expanded on one hundred fold by the mods and items created by a steadfast and dedicated community. My cities have so much more diversity and presentation thanks to mods that I cannot speak highly enough of them. The mod support alone makes this game a labor of love, in the same way that the modding community for Skyrim took a good game and made it fantastic. And the community is, on a whole from what I've seen, very welcoming, friendly, and helpful in sharing what it can in aiding other players to fix or improve upon anything they may inquire about. And that only serves to help, rather than hinder, further growth and creativity.

As mentioned above, some will also say that they proudly play sans DLC, which I don't fully understand or agree to. The DLC offered is often quite beneficial. Now, I will say that a) the prices asked of said DLC are generally too high, and b) some DLCs bring much more to the table than others. Solution? Buy the DLCs when they go on sale for 50%+ off... and buy only the ones that seem to add the most to the game. For me, that included things like After Dark, Snowfall, Mass Transit, and the upcoming Parklife. Other DLCs add plenty of other things, depending on your tastes, but this allows you to fine-tune the content of the game to whatever suits you best. But they -do- add things that are worth having, in many cases. So don't let the base game be the end-all, as some suggest it should be.

Now, when it comes to performance... I will admit that the previous two paragraphs should come with the caveat that, in order to get the most out of modding and DLC, you -will- need a beefy PC. I run a quad-core CPU, 24GB of RAM, and a 2GB graphics card, and I use 1500+ mods and assets with no trouble... other than the fact that it uses about 14-17 gigs of my RAM, annnnd there's a noticable drop in frame-rates the larger my city grows. It doesn't become unplayable, mind... it simply shows that this game will require more horsepower behind it the more you put into it. Bear that in mind.

So! My overall rating? Absolutely, definitely you should get this game if you enjoy city builders! Some mock this game as more of a "city painter", where you can just design a city that "looks good" but otherwise grows without much input from the player. I place it somewhere in the middle. You can turn off the need for money, and just design your dream city without worry of finances for the expense of beauty, sure. But things like traffic management, demand for things like housing/workplaces, and the basic knowledge of what -makes- a city look good (depending on your tastes) will never magically be solved or go away. There is still a management aspect to the game... and there are an abundance of info panels and such that will let you really dive in and see how everything works, if/when you want to do so.

If you're deterred by the idea of the price of the base game and a few DLCs... wait and pick it up on sale. It regularly goes for 50%-75% off, and at that price, it absolutely cannot be beat, no matter what the people say who whine about "Ugh, they're milking us for so much money." I would rather give my money to a company that makes an open-ended, enjoyable experience such as this, rather than one that makes *ahem* a closed-off, boxed-in, clustercuss of a mess like some -other- city builders out there.

I want to like this game, I really and truly do. Honestly, I think this game has a lot of good things going for it. I enjoy playing it now and then. But still I give it a negative rating overall? Why? I'll try and elaborate a bit:

As I said, I like to play it occasionally. I get that creative spark and desire, and I fire up this game so I can indulge in trying to create some outlandish flying contraptions for the sake of amusement. However, I only play it for maybe an hour at most, before I get discouraged by the complete lack of understanding I have for how anything in this game works. Which brings me to my biggest gripe about this game: you're on your own.

Some have noted that there is a steep learning curve to this game, and there absolutely is. And honestly I don't mind a learning curve, so long as it -is- a curve. But this game has so many points where that curve hits a brick wall. It has also been noted by some reviewers that modding and the game's website/downloads are practically required to get the most out of this game. And while I've no qualms with that, I find it rather abhorrent that a game with such diversity and flexibility would still require an abundance of help from the community to make it really -work-. It's one thing for modding to add to a game. It's another for modding to more-or-less replace what is a lacking game. Searching online, I've seen multiple people stating that this or that in the base game are useless... cockpits for example. And I don't disagree. The parts you start with are paltry, and will not help you build 90% of what you see as the "best" planes available for download or use.

And to add further insult to the player, the base game comes with a few pre-built examples of planes that you can load up and fly around... planes that feature parts you will have no way of making without modding or editing. And the game gives you zero explination for this. It doesn't tell you this is the case. So you look at these creations and think "Wow, I want to make something like this!", only to find that you can't because the parts aren't available. Want to make a car? Good luck, it doesn't show you how. Want to make a boat? Good luck, it doesn't show you how. Want to make open cockpit planes? Good luck, it doesn't show you how. Want to make long sweeping slopes on parts of your plane? Good luck, it doesn't show you how. And that's atrotious, to me. A game like this that says "build whatever you want!" needs a nice big asterisk after that, with fine print that reads "But only if you download a bunch of mods or use our other tool program to make/mold what you'll actually need."

Now, I'll likely look around at some mods and such to try and make this game even minutely more palletable, and possibly update this review in the future as I discover whether such is useful or not. But this review is supposed to be for the game, not for all the extra stuff you have to add -to- the game to make it truly enjoyable... apparently.

So! Bottom line... is the game fun? Sure, I suppose on a very base level. It's fun to build stuff and see how it operates.
It's enjoyable to experiment and learn how things work, even if on a simple (thus the name of the game) level. But if you want to jump in and start making the planes you see online, or even the planes you see the game shows off, itself... you'll be severely disappointed. Learning curves can be overcome, that's part of the fun in a game like this.. But this game's complete lack of explination or assistance beyond the initial "put these basic parts together to make a thing" leaves me feeling like I don't need to invest too much time in it at any given sitting. If I have to search and scour for auxillary and external tools to make the game do things it shows me examples of, that's not a good game in my opinion. That's a pain in the neck.

Pick it up when it's on sale... 50% off or more, sometime. You'll get that much out of it, at least. The other 50% should go to the modding community for actually making it do the things it says it can do.

I'm not sure what I can say about this game that hasn't already been said in other reviews, be they well-written or just obtuse. With that in mind, I'll try to come in somewhere in the middle with the following:

Do you like goats? Do you like silly games with no real purpose beyond wasting time messing around in a generally broken environment for laughs and amusement? Then grab this game... especially when it goes on sale. You'll get enough entertainment out of it at the low price-point to feel like you've done well.

If you like super serious games and expect perfectly programmed experiences, then this isn't for you. But that much should be obvious as soon as you take even a passing glance at this game.