Recent reviews by madmachinegun

Took me 15 hours to finish. Things started to feel a little repetitive around 9 hrs, but I still consider the experience to be well worth the time and money.

I wouldn't normally write a review so soon after getting a game, but I seem to have had a much better experience so far with the game than other reviewers and I wanted to share that. I've been wondering if I've even been playing the same game as other reviewers.

I have 140+ hrs in Dirt Rally and got to be OK at that game. I play with a Thrustmaster T150 with addon pedals and shifter.

TL;DR: Dirt 4 is an improvement on a great game in almost every way.


Cons
- The procedural stages don't feel as characterful as Dirt Rally's. I especially miss Monaco and Greece.
- The graphical performance isn't as good; DR looks better at the settings I need to get 45–60FPS on my GTX 750 1GB.

Pros
+ More stage variety
+ More music
+ More career depth
+ A little more depth with the cars
+ More breadth in disciplines
+ Easier to find people to play head-to-head multiplayer with
+ Online leaderboards are more beginner-friendly, because there's more tiers at the bottom
+ Free-roam for tuning and practicing maneuvers.
+ Tons of small UI refinements

± Physics are at least as good as DR, more likely better. I'm not an expert on these things.

The handling model definitely feels different from DR. I put every setting as difficult as I could at first, except for setting ABS to 1, and I felt like I was learning how to drive all over again. I don't think it feels any less realistic or easier. I've been sliding off of gravel stages left and right in a AWD car and constantly losing the back end in AWD/RWD, in ways I never did in DR, so I really don't know what people are talking about with there being too much grip. Reviewers with actual rally experience on the Dirt subreddit also seem to agree that D4's physics are more realistic than DR's. Coming from someone who's mid-tier at best in sim rally, I think people interested in a serious rally sim should absolutely pick this up.

Dirt is a fantastic franchise IMO, and D4 continues to improve on that. I don't use the assists that would make the game easier, so I would read another review for that, but the core gameplay here is very accessible and scales in difficulty well. I think this is the best game in the series yet and wholeheartedly recommend it.

Really fun, really hard. The solo is epic and the chords have you going all over the place.

I bought this on sale, and I think I got more than what I paid for. I'm somewhat new to adventure gaming, and some of the puzzles in this game were frustrating. If you haven't already read it in another review, one puzzle requires you to get to a certain point and then just wait for a few minutes, with very little clues that you should do this. I agree with other reviews that the story doesn't quite reach it's potential. But the art, dialogue, and voices made it worth it to me.

If you're like me, you've played OpenTTD and always wished for a similar game without the grid. This is sort-of that game. I probably would not have bought this at full price; as many other reviewers have noted, it feels incomplete. Track-building needs to be refined, more industry chains need to be added with more variation between them. There's no texture for transitions between the two main road types, which has no consequence on gameplay but agitates me to no end. The random maps all feel the same, and the game badly needs a map editor and Workshop support.

The UI is surprisingly good, with a couple exceptions. The developers clearly have learned from OpenTTD and tried to minimize needless clicking as much as possible. The graphics are technically great but artistically just OK, though the smoke from steam trains always looks beautiful. Most importantly, it scratches the itch for a modern 3D transportation game, and at sale prices, it's worth the cost for me.

People who are into transportation games to make rediculously complex networks *might* not find this worth it. Players who aren't familiar with the genre will probably end up bored or find it takes too long to learn. People who like transportation games because YAY TRAINS!!! should probably get this, just don't set your expectations too high.

I get the feeling the developers have the design part down pretty well, and hopefully their next game will give them more resources to execute that vision. I look forward to it.

Kind of boring. Tries to do the job of both the assault rifle and the sniper rifle, does neither at all. Even sounds weak.

Beatiful, fun, and relatively unique. The story isn't too much to write about, but the characters are well-written. The action's where it's at, and the game does well on that count.

It's kind of dull as an action game, and too linear and shallow as a stealth game. Kudos for making a detailed sniping model, but that can't carry the game on its own.

I don't usually like hack-and-slash gameplay, but I'm a sucker for good writing and great art. The core gameplay is solid, and the game is beautiful. Highly-recommended.