Recent reviews by BG-0

Finally started playing this in August 2024! Trying to play without spoiling anything to myself (how mechanics work and what content exists (kinda tough, even in-game))

First impression: Somewhat gorgeous and weirdly immersive even though there is a very distinct Disbelief in the air that's not Suspended. Mechanics unravel at a dizzying pace and if you don't read the Esc menu for how things work and then focus on one task at a time very seriously, you get clogged with overlapping learning curves and your HUD SCREAMS at you for the first several dozen hours about things you could be doing instead of whatever you're (not) focusing on right now. Faffing around just isn't supported at all. You can obviously turn off HUD but then you are totally blind (even in the analysis visor mode you don't get icons for what you spidey-sense around you etc) IMO turning off HUD should be WAY more modular

I'm now in mid-game-ish?? Still very much not done with the idk Main Story? Tutorial? Whatever it is. Alone Amidst the Stars (even though I was not alone until I turned off Multiplayer elements(tm))

Will update whenever I feel like it and trying to keep it as spoiler-free as possible! But,,, Well, we'll see.

Right now I would recommend a totally blind playthru to anyone who has any interest in the game. I got this on a massive sale afaik (just found a humble bundle email from 2022 saying i now own it without any clue why i had gotten it lol)

Bro I am so intoxicated and this is on my wish list since forever but I swear I've played almost literally this same game at some point which,, may be why I can review it? Even though I don't own it?

Anyway, looks epic, might have to have a whack at it if I some day have spare cash to buy a game that's potentially just gonna be another forever stuck in queue (I barely play games anymore after losing my suspension of disbelief after just using games to escape the horrorrss of reality)

A story generator, par to basically none. Sims on steroids for your god complex. Extremely enjoyable vanilla, with or without expansions. (Do install CleaningArea mod though, it's incredibly stupid this isn't a vanilla feature yet)

Extremely moddable, for when you've gotten the hang of things and understand balance somewhat (you can totally destroy any semblance of balance even with just a few basic, or 'quality of life' mods. Vanilla balance often relies on some level of annoyance in task handling and such, and very much in space management, so compact storage etc will totally break that)

Don't overstack your value with items that have no direct advantage if you don't want to get smushed by raids!

Uhh. Randy isn't that great even though everyone's madly in love with him. Cassandra has plenty (and I do mean *plenty*) of randomness and still keeps the story flowing at a reasonable rate. You will still get triple events and potentially devastating streaks on Cas, but won't get two years of no significant events like Randy can do.

Anyway, everything else must have been said about the game already. It's absolutely worth getting for most people out there! Get learning!

EDIT2, Feb 26th, 2025: I played again for the first time in a while last year. Too much had changed but some things had been improved. It chugs 100% CPU ALL THE TIME while performing kinda okay. Bots in Normal are ass, sweats in Ranked are ass-er. That's not the the negative. It now tries to cater to Sims fans, COD fans, Fortnite fans, CS fans and ??? fans. There was a 1v1 mode, the esports is turning 8v8, cosmetic shop has 300 dollars worth of new content each month while the core gameplay stays lackluster. Muzzle break was a nice addition to gun porn nerds, but you could idk play ARMA or Tarkov for that. 1v1 was fun for five rounds but you could play an actual arena shooter with actually decent gun feel for that. BR mode has forever been ruined by school shooters who just wanna jump into a deathmatch but refuse to play a deathmatch game. People jizzing over skins make the game kinda 'eyecancer' (i dont necessarily mind, i'm an old sims2 fan). It just tries to bow down to everyone and ends up mooning everyone times 99. All the original focus and vision has been slaughtered years ago. Don't bother, IMO

EDIT, February 2nd, 2021: The game now tries to install unnecessary malware on launch. (A .sys file that causes random blue screens and doesn't seem to do anything, however it will make some other BattlEye games (EfTarkov in my case) think they're not installed if you delete this file. Enable UAC and don't let PUBG make changes to your system) There's slightly less cheaters though, instead 'normal' matches are 30-85% ridiculously bad and obviously teleporting bots. Hooray.

Game continues to be ravaged by incredibly blatant, mostly Chinese (on EU servers) cheaters in TPP and borderline gods/potential cheaters in FPP. Insane performance drops (smooth-ish 120 drops to 20 periodically) near Georgepol bridge has been a bug since launch, still wasn't fixed even in the touch-up. Crouch-lean-spamming doesn't affect your aim, making it the only viable way to engage since you can dodge without any penalty, is ridiculous and unintuitive. Season passes are incredibly predatory in how you need to buy it instantly to get all rewards and then grind every single day to max it out without spending extra money.

That said, it had a lot of potential. A lot has been polished. But overall it's all just a punch in the face as an experience for an average scrub. 6+/10

The classic. Still a fun game despite being somewhat dated with its AI and some other elements. Fun time killing, unless you go for the torture-level difficulties that are barely within the borders of possible. It's a good challenge when you get tired of being held hands by newer shooters though.

Such an awesome game either as a stealthy assassination game or a very insanely hard shoot-'em-up, whichever you prefer. Such a long lifespan, this has, too. Worth buying on a sale at least.