Recent reviews by Marius

MotorTown has the bones of an excellent driving game even at this stage of development. The goofy voxel graphics are charming, and probably help this small indie developer push out content quicker. The location is based on the real Jeju island in South Korea, and driving across it for all of the many activities that you can do in MotorTown actually takes quite a bit of concentration and time.

This is a hard game to describe, but it's basically a driving job simulator, and the gameplay loop is similar to Truck Simulators like ETS. There is surprising depth here, with jobs including delivery from place to place, recovering crashed or broken down vehicles using towing equipment, towing trailers of various kinds, taxis busses and limos all ferrying passengers, racing on several circuits, offroading, high difficulty offroad delivery using special offroad trucks, and in the recent update loading steel coils onto trucks with a forklift. If you get bored of jobs, build a drift car, or something, there are quite a few performance cars and motorcycles. I especially appreciate how they have balanced many deliveries in a supply chain so that if you really want to make the most money in a single run, you need to communicate and work together with random people on your chosen server to deliver raw materials to the place that makes the second tier materials.

This is a game you can play for 20 minutes or 20 hours. It picks up where you left off. It features NPC drivers, and even allows you to switch to an autodrive mode so that you can AFK while still making (slower) progress.

There is something that just feels RIGHT about how vehicles respond. Every vehicle feels different to drive, even similar vehicles in the same class. The engine is sensitive to input like it has high fidelity on it's throttle position and rev range, engines produce a proper torque curve, and the transmission and tyres work together to put the power down, or to slide out in some cases. The vehicle moves around on it's suspension properly, and gear ratios become increasingly important with heavier vehicles on steep inclines.

Lastly, this is multiplayer experience with a growing community of player, and because you can customise each vehicle with a number of physical, performance and suspension modifications, paints(RGB#), decals, yxz placable auxiliary lights etc; you will never see someone else driving the exact same vehicle you have.

Thoroughly recommend you give it a go.

Ride 5 looks and sounds great. Even some parts of the physics model feel good, and a step ahead previous entries in the series. This is all let down by the controls. I tried various configurations, but the bikes feels extremely tippy in a straight line, making steering adjustments very imprecise, and then very sluggish to respond once you enter the corner. You can even see this in the in-game footage promoted on Steam. The brakes feel ok, and i was excited to see that they had an "unassisted" throttle setting, but the rear end feels incapable of breaking loose and sliding like in Ride 2. The bikes just wobble all over the place, exactly like you'd expect in a video game, and that's quite off putting. Combine all that with probably the worst menus i have ever seen in a modern video game. Disappointing. Ride 2 was a fantastic game, and the series has gone downhill since. The forced tutorial and nauseating number of tool tips popping up didn't help at all.

Edit: October 2024 - Changing my review to recommend. The devs continue to issue regular updates and so far the direction is positive. The handling of cars feels much better after the latest physics update. Race rewards have been buffed.

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I've played 25 hours as of this review, and completed 3 of the clubs, 2 racing and 1 drift.
I reached level 30 and, own 7 cars, but only 3 have modifications currently.

Overall I am enjoying this game, and for the price I think it provides reasonable value, however it is a flawed game that in it's current state, I hesitate to recommend.

• The grind is significant. Races pay little and upgrades are expensive, and the best upgrades are locked behind speed coin currency. While that provides a "sense of value" to the vehicles, progression is very slow, and It's easier to semi-softlock yourself with bad choices. The economy would benefit from a 30% boost.
  
• Races sometimes feel unfair, especially some of the drift events, which a few i was only able to complete because you can cheese them by donuts if you find the right spot.
  
• Cars are quite slow, even fast cars feel slow. So far i haven't been able to exceed 300km/h.
  
• The car physics is arcade like, unfortunately it just doesn't feel as satisfying as DRO. Cars feel grippy, but prone to understeer.
  
• Depth of modifications and tuning is just not there compared to the previous entry, and every thing costs money and can't be tested first.
  
• Car Rating system is frustrating and unnecessary.

There are lots of good things about the game.

• HUGE open map, the map and the game vibe in general remind me of nsf ug2 but modern.
  
• Graphics are nice, cars look good and the environment is detailed enough.
  
• Quite a collection of cars, and many quite true to the original designs.
  
• Good AI traffic that serves to make the world feel alive as you race through it, and provides a real challenge to dodge at times.

I'll probably keep playing it, but I hope it improves, because it has massive potential.

Satisfying.

Satisfyingly crunchy gameplay, Retro nostalgia mixed with modern brutal difficulty. Excellent catchy BGM. Great reply value!

There is something very soothing about playing this game.
Beautiful art and music, although i wish there was more variety to the BGM.
I look forward to picking up it's sequel next time i'm shopping.

This game is HARD if you want to 100% all areas. It has a nice progression, and not once did i feel it wasn't explaining the mechanics clearly, however once you've played a few hours in, the puzzles get really tricky, but never unfair. It's super satisfying when you sit down and think it through to the solution. An absolute masterpiece of game design with a strong narrative rooted in metaphysics.

Pretty damn fun game to pick up and play for 20 minutes at a time. I purchased Redout because i have fond memories of Wipeout games, although not exactly the same, this is still a really well put together arcade racer.
The tracks are exciting and some are extremely challenging, its pretty tough to keep up visually as everything whips by at several hundred Kilometres per hour.

I died more than twice.

NieR:Automata is a masterpiece. Alas, in the medium of a text review it is not possible to convey just how special this game is to me.

What if machines had feelings? What if machines could love? What if a machine could be afraid to die? What is an autonomous machine to do, if it no longer serves a purpose?

NeiR shows you AN end of the world, an empty, lonely existence devoid of man-made meanings. In many of the game’s endings, and through bloodshot, tear soaked eyes you will be delivered two things; an overwhelmingly hopeless situation, and profound awe at the beauty of such misery.

Suspend your disbelief and you will see Artificial Intelligence struggle in vain to live, love and reason a meaning to their confusing existence. Is this analogous to our own lives? That one thought grows inside of you as you experience NeiR.

The gameplay is fast and addictive. The plot is unique, intriguing, and wonderfully disturbing. The soundtrack is outstanding, I can listen to it for hours.


You need to install FAR (Fix Automata Resolution) to get the most out of this game.