Recent reviews by frobnic8

Beautiful and evocative in a richly fantastic setting with deep, deep mechanics that allow you to enjoy the game at whatever level of depth you are tempted to plumb it to. The controller support is mind-blowingly good once you give it just a touch of time to wrap your head around it. Mod support is vibrant and thriving, which only adds to the depth. If the vibe and gameplay tempt you at all, you won't be disappointed, I promise.

Used to support Linux just fine before the Open Beta, had a platinum rating on protondb, but it looks like they forgot to check the build option to allow EAC on linux, so now it just kicks you within a couple minutes of starting.

A huge, handcrafted, absolutely fascinating world that just begs to be explored at every turn, combined with a delicately balanced system that encourages you to experiment and improve make for the perfect learning curve that lets you slide effortlessly from no idea what you're doing to building ever more complex factories. A game that teaches you to play it in the delightfully addictive way that only games can. Wonderful devs, co-op multiplayer, and gently dark humor put the bow on this incredible package. If the premise interests you at all, you simply can't go wrong here.

Yes, the learning curve, even in this updated Steam version, is incredibly steep. But there's a reason the depth of this game and the stories that come from it have inspired so many. You owe it to yourself to experience it, even if you have to take a veteran to guide you along the way to get there.

This game promises everything I want, but only delivers enough to prove it COULD have been if Bethesda had actually finished making the game. Every game system, every UI interaction, and mechanic and mini game leaves you knowing they had the tools to make an amazing game, and then just didn't. The voice acting is excellent, and the writing on individual dialogue lines is sometimes quite good. A few characters are even standout and fresh, but literally every other bit of design and execution is nothing short of painful. If I didn't want it to be what it could be so badly, if I didn't already install so many mods just to make it playable, if I wasn't already so accustomed to glitches and crashes every single time I play, if I didn't feel comfortable with console commands and deciding myself where to cheat the games mechanics into something playable at all, or maybe if I was just smart enough to listen to sharp reviews from Yahtzee and Girlfriend Reviews, I'd have watched a story overview video, saved my money, and been a lot happier.

It's certainly unforgiving in its combat, but death costs little if you're careful and the world is gloriously beautiful and engaging with tons to explore and discover.

One third of an amazing game. The opening section sets the mood and pacing flawlessly with incredible voice acting and a pitch-perfect discomfort to its art style. The middle section is a tortured yak-shaving fetch quest with too much wandering that shatters the dramatic tension that sees the main character's morality get thrown out the window as she turns to arbitrary thievery for half the puzzles and for no good reason. The final section is too long with a linear story that both fails to resolve anything but the central plot thread and stubbornly insists it is a story, not a game, player agency be damned.

The protagonist and the player have all the information to make a variety of different choices, but the game forces its choice instead. They could have held back on the big reveal until it was too late, but instead doubled down on locking down the player's choices to try and sell that the protagonist was obsessed - something the writing and voice-acting just didn't support.

It's a dark game, and that's fine. There doesn't have be a happy ending. A smarter design would have left open the option that both the supernatural and the mundane explanations were both possible, as other stories of this type have done. A smarter design would have conveyed the hopelessness of its dark tale not by railroading, but by letting the choices the player made be different, but not enough to stop the antagonist.

It's not about winning, it's about deciding how you lose.

There's a lot to love here, but unfortunately it only gets worse as it goes along and ends with frustration at what could have been so much better.

A pitch perfect co-op romp with beautiful scenery, a finely-adjustable difficulty, variety of mission types, and a pitch-perfect setting and tone. Plenty of fun on your own and simply a masterpiece when played with others. The incredible community and the generous, responsive, and active developers only make it better.

A must-own game.

The game has a cool concept, but the story is a bit heavy handed and execution is just a bit too clunky for my taste.

Plus, dropping Linux support for their other paid products after people bought it is pretty shady.

It's hard. It's demanding. It's simple. It's perfect for that arcade-style, one-more-go play with addictive music and so many "oh, I almost had it!" moments. Nothing but learning how to read the screen and react in time, it's fresh approach makes it oh, so engaging. Trust your gut on this one. If you think you'll like it from the trailer, you probably will, and vice versa.