Recent reviews by minicoaster

I see my days of not taking Ubisoft seriously are coming to a middle. The gameplay is decent, but yet again they require you to log in with their launcher even if you buy through steam, and the password requirements for a Ubisoft account are still criminally incompetent.

feeesh

Commemorating the full launch of half-baked functionality you "soft-launched" (but they swear it was ready) last DLC with more DLC is not demure, but very much up KSH's alley. One of these days their competence will overflow from negative and they'll be worthy of praise.

This is a terrible, though enjoyable, game. If you're playing it, you probably know what you're getting into, and can make an informed decision between FS19/22/25. I'll keep playing it, and enjoying it, but I can't recommend this objectively terrible game to others.

But if you're new to farm sim, don't buy this. Giants is getting lazier and more incompetent and this game is a blatant cash grab. The difference between this and FS22 is _barely_ more than cosmetics, flavor text, and should-be-free DLC, and in exchange for the total lack of meaningful new features they expect you to put up with an embarrassing lack of optimization. Giants wants you to spend money, but they couldn't be bothered to put in enough effort to deliver net-positive value.

Much like Skyrim, the mods make these games. FS22 has the mods, and it's telling how few of them have made their way to FS25.

I am enjoying Roadcraft so far, but I cannot recommend it. The marketing for this game presents it as a simulation/sandbox game, but it is neither.

Starting from my personal list of priorities, given that I was expecting a simulation/sandbox game:

* Physics is terrible. Explaining all the ways it's broken would turn into a novel, but to keep it short: you should expect immersion breaking physics issues every 5-10 minutes or so.
* The UI/UX is terrible. Some of the things that come up off the top of my head are:
*the controls are bad (and no - it's not a matter of "getting good." there are other games which support smooth and intuitive control on pretty much any input device, including keyboard and mouse). by contrast, for RoadCraft the controls configuration options are lacking to the point of uselessness. joysticks aren't supported, arbitrary gamepad controls aren't supported, custom analog inputs are only supported for steering wheels, Game hints will repeat every game session, and sometimes multiple times a session.

I enjoyed the core gameplay loop for a while, though it got repetitive due to the lack of QOL features.

What put this firmly in the no category is that pretty consistently in later game fights some of your gladiators will just stop doing anything, ruining your strategy.

With some polish this could be a great game, but since the developers are talking about taking it out of early access without fixing these acknowledged bugs and shortcomings I'm not convinced this game will ever live up to it's potential

feeeeesh

"Aim for the moon, even if you miss you'll land among the Starfield"

The Starfield marketing certainly aimed for the moon, but the end result simply did not deliver. Yes, there's a lot of random side quests, but the amount of time spent on random side quests is an insult and a slap in the face considering how little time was spent on the main game.

Starfield uses a somewhat modified version of the Fallout 4 engine, which results in obviously dated gameplay rife with loading screens and utterly lacking in fun quality of life features. There are fewer major quest chains than either FO4 or Skyrim, and those quest chains are overly simplistic and poorly written. The remaining mechanics are a grab bag of shallow, half baked, or simply broken. Dungeon crawling is reduced to muscle memory, since the vast majority of the locations you see will be repeats of the same dozen pre-built locations with literally zero variation - once you've scouted it once, you can be certain there will be the same number of enemies, all patrolling the same areas or leaning against the same rails.

Starfield would be well positioned as a $30-$40 FO4 overhaul DLC, but as a long-awaited $70 AAA headliner, it's simply an insult to both consumers and the people who clearly put a lot of time into writing stories for the game.

The steam release is certainly less smooth than the classic version (mostly in terms of minor control-related annoyances), though I doubt new players would notice the gripes, especially with how much better the experience is overall for new players.

Overall, still a very fun game, which is now a bit more approachable. And given the history of this game I'm confident it will continue to trend in a positive direction.

If you're looking for a building game, this is an alright option. If you actually want to use those creations, look elsewhere.

The developers put in virtually no effort to make the game fun to play - a lot of the available mods simply fix core issues with vanilla content (e.g. drag with wedges), or fill gaps that absolutely should not exist. The bug tracker is apparently run by a certain ex-president's PR team, because all you'll find there is gaslighting, denial, and lies.

The rescue gameplay is fun with friends for a few hours, but career mode is so unbalanced (without abusing exploits you're likely to lose money on most missions) that the developers clearly don't play it or care about it.

Don't bother with the weapons DLC, just play from the depths instead.

The developers don't listen to the community & are happy to use community created content in official promotional material without any credit to the creators.

It's really a bummer, the concept has tons of potential, but with the state of the game and the developer's track record I don't think this game will ever be a fun implementation of the rescue game concept.