Recent reviews by Jev 💙 🦊

Still amazing 25 years later.

Short, but sweet. A great way to show off the Steam Deck controls.

Very relaxing and addictive. It's fun to drive and explore all the different cities around Europe.

Still fun to play after all these years. It's short, but sweet.

One of the best co-op games ever made. So much fun to play with friends. Nice to see updates still coming out for it too.

Sonic Mania takes the series back to its roots with some good old fashioned 2D sidescrolling platforming.


Pros:

Gameplay (9/10):
The gameplay in Sonic Mania feels just like the old Mega Drive/Genesis games. Smooth, responsive, and no input lag. There's also a new move called the Drop Dash, which executes a short spin dash when you hit the ground after jumping. The level designs are well made, and have various paths to take. The special stages are also pretty cool.

Soundtrack (10/10): Very rarely I give anything a perfect 10 out of 10 score, but this soundtrack deserves it. Every track in the game is wonderfully composed by Tee Lopes, who did such an amazing job at creating some epic, catchy tunes. I'm absolutely addicted to the music in this game, and could listen to it for hours on end.

Graphics (9/10):
The graphics in Sonic Mania are very reminiscent of the older style games from the Mega Drive/Genesis era. The graphics are colourful, vibrant, and overall very pleasing to look at. The low poly 3D models really fit the Saturn era aesthetic well too.


Cons:

I can't think of any cons gameplay wise, but as many other people have said, the game uses Denuvo DRM. Why this is necessary in a single player game I have no idea. However, I'm not going to let it ruin the game for me, it's just a minor inconvenience.


Overall score: 9/10

Despite the the inclusion of Denuvo DRM, Sonic Mania is still an amazing game, and one of the best Sonic games ever made. If you enjoyed the classics, you will absolutely love this.

Sadly I cannot recommend this game in its current state. Whilst the game itself is good, it suffers from some issues, including bad performance on high end systems (I'm only getting 45 FPS on low settings with an AMD Ryzen 7 1700 and Nvidia GTX 980), and buggy netcode. Until these issues have been fixed, I don't recommend buying it.

As of writing this review, I have about 12 hours of gameplay. This is what I think of the game so far:

Pros:
Beautiful graphics.
Great terraforming tools.
Tons of customisation. You can build your own custom coasters, scenery, buildings, etc.
Steam Workshop support with thousands of items already uploaded.

Neutral:
Not much in-game content. However, the massive amount of content on the Steam Workshop makes up for this.
Paths can sometimes be picky to build.

Cons:
Very little management options. If you want to change the prices of food stalls, staff wages, etc, you have to do each one individually, which can be slow and tedious if you have a lot of shops and staff.
The system requirements are quite steep, and there are performance issues when parks get bigger. Even with the recommended specs (I have an AMD FX-8350 and Nvidia GTX 980), I'm only getting about 15 FPS with a large, developed park.

Right now I would give this game a 7/10. It's fun to do sandbox building, but I feel like there could be some improvements, mainly with management and performance.

One of the more underrated games in the series, IMO.

Pros:
An interesting story which is completely different to other Driver games
140 fully licensed vehicles
Great optimization

Cons:
Some missions can be quite difficult and are partially RNG based
Forced 16:9 aspect ratio (There is a mod to fix this)
Requires a Uplay account

OMSI 2 is a realistic bus simulator. It's set in Germany in the late 80's and early 90's, and you can drive buses from that era. You drive on bus routes with a timetable, pick up passengers, sell them tickets, and drop them off at their destinations.

Pros:
Realistic controls. Each control on the dashboard does exactly what it would do on a real bus.
Great sound effects. The buses sound just like they do in real life, with gear changes, shakes, bumps, etc. There are also some nice sound details like outside ambient sounds becoming louder when windows are open.
Nice weather effects including rain and snow.
Large variety of different buses to drive, including single deckers, double deckers, and bendy buses.
Includes a map editor so you can edit existing maps or make your own.
Various mods that add extra buses, maps, etc.

Cons:
No Steam Workshop support for mods.
The English version of the game isn't fully translated, and some dialogue boxes are still in German.
Performance isn't great. You might have to lower the settings on larger maps to get a decent frame rate. Even on a high end PC it struggles on max settings.
The game can be unstable at times and randomly crash.
Only 2 maps are included with the base game. There are some DLC maps but you have to buy them separately.

Overall I would give OMSI 2 a 7/10. It's pretty realistic, but it can be unstable and does lack in content without buying DLC or installing mods. Though the game was only made by 2 people, so you have to give them credit for what they were able to make.