Recent reviews by Cerzi

If you played Settlers 2 back in the 90s, give this a shot. Warm fuzzy nostalgia without being a simple remake.

More of a remake than a sequel, but that's fine with me. An amazing game from over 15 years ago that somehow never had any real successor, spiritual or otherwise, so it's great to see it return.

A great boardgame, but a shockingly bad videogame implementation. There is zero doubt that the developers of this game were learning as they go, with zero previous experience, and completely winging it for the most part. The bugs that exist and the general stability of the game tell an embarrassing story.

Just look at their recent blog post which basically says "We built our entire netcode around AWS but it's completely out of our control when a spot instance is reclaimed causing the match to end prematurely". Serious? Why would they even go that route if they had no plans to handle this fundamental aspect of how AWS functions?

Instead of fixing their netcode (which is presumably a horrifying mess) or implementing traditional P2P, they shrug and say "this is not possible and it's not our fault - here, have a steam achievement if it happens to you because that's all we're capable of doing regarding this". Absurd!

It seems like the majority of the negativity surrounding this game comes from its rough appearance, which is fair enough for many I guess. But if you play these kinds of games for mechanical depth, emergent gameplay and interesting choices then it is definitely worth your time to look past this game's superficial flaws.

If all games were valued purely on their aesthetics then we wouldn't have incredible games like Shadow Empire, Dominions, Distant Worlds, or even Dwarf Fortress. Conversely, strategy games that have had amazing aesthetics are often notoriously bad games (looking at you, Amplitude Studios)

I'm still on my first playthrough but very impressed with some of the systems here that really sets it apart from other 4X games. It's certainly not perfect, and I'm sure there are all kinds of balancing issues, but there is a huge amount of novel content and gameplay systems to dig your teeth in to, and the game is absolutely a lot better than the other reviews here would make you think.

And no, it is not a civ 6 clone. Ironically it seems like the people who are loudest about this also secretly wish it *was* a civ 6 clone...

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edit after completing first game:
this is an easy recommendation from me.

Remember civ 6 at launch when everyone played on Diety because the AI would never upgrade their stone age warriors and not build new units? That was a AAA game being largely broken on release, yet still finding instant success. Meanwhile Millennia - a vastly more complex game - seems to be getting thrown into the dumpster because of what, an ugly UI? Bad combat animations? Honestly people should be praising the devs for creating a game with so many layers of different systems that actually WORKS on day 1.

Again, if pretty graphics and a trendy UI are the most important elements of a 4X for you, then fair enough. But if not, don't get swayed by all these negative reviews that are obsessing over cosmetic, superficial flaws with this game, because you'll be missing out on the most addictive 4X since Civ4.

Easily one of the most fun and uniquely designed titles to come out of the post-roguelite/StS paradigm. There are loads of games out there that have attempted to smash different genres into the roguelite mould, and Against the Storm is simultaneously one of the more wild genre mash-ups and yet also one of the most well-executed.

The devs have captured the essence of the most exciting moments of a traditional city builder and distilled it down into an incredibly clever gameplay loop, whilst finding the perfect theme (from the graphical style and music through to the world building) to fit that gameplay perfectly. Beyond the genius of that core idea, they've managed to thoroughly explore the entire design space to create a huge amount of mechanical variety from one session to the next, and introduced completely novel ideas that make the game really stand out as unique.

To top all of that off, the quantity and quality of updates will have people looking back on this game as a perfect example of how Early Access should be done.

Great mind-bending puzzle game. Perfect for playing on the sofa with the Deck.

So this game is basically "What if the Anno series used trains instead of boats?" - to which I respond "How did someone not think of this sooner?"

There are some teething problems as noted by other reviewers. For example, while there is a pretty decent tutorial and "advisor", some features aren't mentioned and might throw people for a loop (such as having to manually change the "connection" of a station from a factory to the distribution centre if building the distribution centre after the station). The blueprint system for copying and pasting things currently only works with tracks. Menus are a bit fiddly. Signals work a bit differently to games like Transport/Train Fever, OTTD etc, which takes a bit of figuring out, but the approach used here is actually more robust and gives you great control. But once you figure out some of the nuances the gameplay itself starts to really shine.

The main thing I've been enjoying compared to the competition (of which there is lots) is how quickly your rail network becomes congested and requires optimisation. This isn't a model village kind of experience where you just sit back and watch things moving around. The sense of scaling from Factorio is definitely here (the network must grow?!), and a lot of the gameplay satisfaction comes from constantly refactoring and optimising your way towards higher and higher transit bandwidth.

A great example of a good early access game: polished and enjoyable core gameplay with lots of space for more features and content. Easy recommend for fans of OTTD/TF.

Must-play for boomers who stopped enjoying the Civ series after Civ4.

Old World returns to the Old School approach to 4X design: complex, inter-connected systems that interact in meaningful ways to create gameplay that is deep, rewarding and immersive. Unlike the recent Civ games where core systems seem largely disparate in how they function (eg Culture/tourism being completely disconnected from the loyalty system), here each system naturally feeds into other systems in a way that makes sense and makes your civilization feel like a civilization instead of just a collection of boardgame-esque tokens.

Now, there is one major criticism I have with the game which I've had ever since playing the beta years ago, and that is with performance. While it has improved, there is a huge amount of optimization still needed to make the game less frustrating to play going into the mid/late game, especially on larger maps. It's something that recurringly has me shelving the game in hopes it's sorted the next time I pick it up again, and every time I'm disappointed to see there are still huge problems.

For example, the UI becomes a laggy mess, especially the worker's build options, once reaching the mid-to-late game. Hovering over a potential improvement renders yield values for all tiles in the area which, while incredibly useful from a gameplay perspective, remains highly unoptimized and chomps on the framerate each time the mouse flies over one of the improvement buttons (which happens a lot, especially when there's a long list you need to scroll through with the mouse wheel). Beyond that, frame rate is just generally bad unless the camera is zoomed in to an impractical degree. I have a Ryzen 3900X and 3070gtx but have to put up with 15-20fps for most of the game, which is just no good at all.

The game itself is fantastic which makes this issue all the more frustrating. I really hope Soren and his team finally start to prioritize fixing this issue above all else, because it really is the only thing holding back what is otherwise the most special 4X game in over a decade.

Just an amazing - if rather brief - experience.

Great boardgame that takes the Talisman formula and adds a lot more thoughtfulness, to the point where - despite the dice rolls - a heavy amount of skill is involved.