Paradox should be sued for this release by the EU consumer lawmakers.

If someone ever said Cyberpunk 2077 release on PC was disastrous, they should fire up this game. I don't know where to start describing all the wrongs present here, and I don't think I even want to, cause it’s heart-breaking. The abysmal unplayable performance slaughtering people’s GPUs? (The Sims 4 plays technically like a next-gen wonder compared to this.) Horrible, horrible graphics with muted art style that was supposed to be more realistic, yet made visuals awfully bland and uninspiring? The bare bones of a base game Paradox product with extremely low variety when it comes to assets, which in consequence uninspires players even more? The significantly bigger maps with shockingly jagged shorelines and rivers ending abruptly somewhere within the actually buildable area (goodbye immersion)? So much more to mention, but I’m already so sad, I don’t want to continue this paragraph.

What stings even more is that this game had the best marketing campaign any game had seen in the last years. Perfect regular videos for six months ahead, extensive developer diaries etc. Biggest fans of Cities Skylines 1 thought they are in for such a treat, but it looks like much more of the budget was allocated to marketing than actual development resources.

At the time of writing this I’ve played CS1 for 1066 hours. Lately I downloaded an awesome, creativity-inspiring map from the Steam workshop which reinvigorated my passion to play CS1 even some more. I can imagine the pure tragedy of people who spent thousands of hours in CS1, now firing up CSII, because it is my tragedy too. I got CSII for full price on Steam, then refunded it, and obtained a dirt-cheap key that was still too expensive for what the game offered, which is almost nothing. I will still follow updates, but I think this title has at least a few years before it comes anywhere near CS1. I will never change this review, even if it eventually does, which I very much doubt. 1/10

I was excited when I read that the guy who created Dead Space was going to make a title described as the spiritual successor to DS. I knew it was going to be very similar (and on the surface it certainly is, to last little detail). I didn’t mind it at all. I’m in the second half of Callisto right now, and oh boy, do I have a lot to say.

Initial horrible stuttering due to shader compilation has been mostly mitigated with day one patch. This can probably only get better with future patches. I haven’t had any other technical issues, but once you stop having to fight the tech aspect, you start to see this game for what it is — a decent attempt at reaching for the fairly earned fame and respect of Dead Space franchise, but that’s it.

It's exquisite in terms of graphics and sound design. Unfortunately, combat mechanics are not up to DS standard. It wasn’t, delicately speaking, the best decision to lock our character in place while fighting multiple enemies, with only options to constantly dodge (I’m not sure if that word should be even used here since you literally can’t move then), use very weak melee weapon or a gun which has like 5 bullets, or use a pulling mechanism that lasts like 5 seconds overall and then recharges for eternity.

The game is hard. You’ll die repeatedly. I don’t mind this, if the combat is satisfying, but I’m afraid that’s not the case here. The arsenal of things you can do while fighting is too limited. You’ll need a lot of patience to push through the story, which doesn’t seem too interesting either.

The biggest downside for me, though, is the poor enemy variance. DS slaps Callisto in the face here, but I guess this goes in hand with the one type of fighting that we got. To add to that, field of view is so low, it sometimes makes you want to throw up, and results in adding another layer of difficulty when exterminating enemies in tight spaces.

I am having fun, and I am recommending this game. I’m loving re-experiencing the overall concept, just as I loved it in Dead Space for the first, second, and third time all those years ago. It’s just that the execution is not something that could push the predecessor down the throne. Not yet. 6/10