Recent reviews by Sgtpanda

The best of the three DLCs, the game play is simple but the broadcasts are absolutely brilliant. In terms of humour and quality it's on par with the best of the base game and it's a decent length too, probably around 5 hours. It's a great sendoff for the game but I now wish there was more.

My main reason for not recommending this is that the UI is so buggy and poorly thought out that it's borderline unusable.

Tracking missions sometimes doesn't work, sometimes the cursor highlight is in a different place than the cursor actually is meaning you pick the wrong item, sometimes menus act like they're expanded even when they visually aren't.

When it's not broken it's just straight up bad, they changed so many buttons from snowrunner that it absolutely wrecks your muscle memory, for seemingly no reason. Critical information is often hidden away in obscure places or not visible at all.

And as for the game play, it feels like such a regression, rather than an open map to explore how you like you have defined linear missions. There is a free roam mode, and you can continue free-roaming after you finish a mission, but you're stuck with the trucks you brought at the start, and once you're out of fuel that's it, back to the menu, any progress you had on uncompleted objectives gets completely reset. It feels very claustrophobic and punishing.

If you can't tell by the name alone, this is a pretty weird game, I can't claim to understand what's going on so far, but I'm really enjoying the puzzles and aesthetics, and that alone is enough for me.

If you like other Annapurna games, this is another great game from one of their teams, an indie team that definitely deserves the price of admission.

Honestly... this game feels really lazy and padded out.

Number 1 complaint: The control scheme is incredibly lazy, it's like they mapped the controller keys to keyboard buttons and then just stopped there. Most of the keyboard is unused, yet some keys serve multiple functions. Example:

• E is select, except when it's back. Escape is back, except when it isn't. Tab is back, and "put away item" and "bring out item".
  
• J opens the journal, but only when the game prompts it, the rest of the time it does nothing, and you have to scroll through a painful menu. Same for R for the Geiger Counter.
  
• Camera? No quick button! Weapons? No quick button! You gotta scroll through the menu every single time. The entire number row on the keyboard is unused.
  
• Right clicking on the map places a marker, how do you clear the marker? You don't. If you change areas the marker still doesn't get cleared, it stays at the same position, which is meaningless in the new area.

Number 2 complaint: The game does not respect your time and just pointless pads out sequences. There is a part where you end up in an underground lab and it has the following sequence: Press E to slowly crouch under shutter -> Walk for 2 metres -> Press E to slowly squeeze though gap -> Walk 2 metres -> Press E to slowly climb down ladder -> Walk through pointlessly long tunnel -> Press E to slowly climb up ladder -> Realise you needed the water level to be raised, repeat all the previous steps in reverse to get back to the control room to adjust some switches, including riding up and back down a slow elevator -> Repeat all the first steps again except this time you're slowly swimming through a tunnel instead of walking. It's just filler.

You also can't skip dialogue, which is all in French, so if you don't speak French and you already read the English subtitle you're forced to wait for the character to finish their sentence.

Number 3 complaint: The story is borderline nonsensical, things are barely explained to you, when you're exploring the narrator will constantly bug you to get on with the objective, but when you're actually stuck you get no help. There's a whole compass system that is completely unused apart from the map marker that you place down. The map does mark your objectives but often with unhelpful icons that are the same grey as the rest of the map icons. The journal will confusingly trigger events before you actually see them at times, spoiling story elements or just leaving you lost.

A fantastic game from a small indie studio, compelling, interesting, and unique story with engaging gameplay, and plenty of hidden jokes/secrets to be found that reward you with achievements. Definitely try the demo, and if you like it, then pick up the full game.

Mostly I agree with the other reviews - This game is not your average Portal clone, the story is unique and engaging, the characters are really engaging, the environments are fantastic.

The puzzles are the only place where the game is slightly let down, as they can feel a little tedious, and if you're a puzzle addict, then they probably won't feel very difficult, but personally they were good enough, I did feel like I was dragging myself through them to get to the next story segment though.

This game was basically a 50/50 for me, and I decided to side with recommending in the end because it's a small indie team, I think it's their first game, and so ultimately I'm hoping they can get some success from this, learn from the mistakes, and come back with something even better. As for why I was 50/50...

Gameplay: It's a very linear experience, your choices have little impact, and your character walks ridiculously slowly, although personally I didn't mind any of this things, I saw them going in and decided to go ahead with it anyway, although the walk speed is borderline annoying.

Story: The premise is not bad, the way the story is delivered is not bad. Sadly, the story is very vague, and the ending is very unsatisfying. Some plot points go completely unresolved.

Tech: The models look fantastic, the environments look fantastic (although they are quite limited due to story constraints). Again though unfortunately the game is let down by a lack of Ultrawide support, no HDR, and no raytracing. These are really disappointing omissions in a game that is trying to be cinematic.

lol

Decent story, a little on the short side but it's a fair price and a small team working on it so worth it

I really enjoyed it, the negative reviews seem to be angry that the game chastises the choices you make and puts you in impossible scenarios without realising that... that's the entire point? There are no right choices so the game tries to make you question all your decisions by telling you that you're making the "wrong" choice.

As for the whole "dog" debacle, again, that's the point, the game is making fun of you, don't take it so personally, it's just a game, laugh!