Recent reviews by Znurf

So simple yet so much fun!

Easy way to go "Oh... its monday already??" on a tuesday...

Could perhaps do with something more to do when not out "mining", like an armory or something to look at unlocks and stuff? Maybe cosmetic stuff? Buuut im sure more content will arrive in the future, has great potential to add more stuff :) Maybe some infinite relax-n-kill-bugs mode :)

Update:
But the game is 99% based on Luck, which can be somewhat negated by grinding all the permanent stats to max, but with Not-Great Luck on your rolls it doesnt matter and it's not up to you as a player how well you will perform on your run(s). Make 1-2 rerolls free each time and you might have a chance to get affect your gameplay and get somewhere on the harder / later levels

With a few updates, mod support and maybe some additional content (DLCs), i dont see how it wont become bigger and better than Cities Skylines 1 in every way.

Update 31-10-2024: A long time has passed and we havent seen much in the way of updates. Last straw came when someone uploaded random DLL files through their Paradox Mods platform without the creators knowledge. I dont know how they upload mods to Parados mods but i guess its open FTPs or something cause how the heck do you upload .dll files to random mods that sync with your game. I have been trying to be positive about this game since its release but its very hard with this level of incompetence...

Addictive... Dont have anything else planned the day you jump in for a quickie,,, "Just 30 minutes" you think, but NO, there is no "just 30 minutes", there is only "oops, what, its tomorrow?!?"

Well i have played ~750 hours, what can i say? Sometimes barbarians are frustrating?

Conclusion (This is what you want to read anyway)
A fun game which even if the current content "only" lasts for 24 hours of play, it is well worth the money. There are no stability or gameplay issues other than lack of tutorials/hints/help with gameplay. Lots of potential for content in the future. Plus the devs seems to be somewhat active in the community and read what we, the players, say.

Sound
The sound works when it comes to effects, but as far as ambiance goes, i just search for workshop or factory ambiance on your favorite tube and run it in the background while playing, adds a little life to the party, which could be more by default in game. Some sounds are a bit louder than others and sometimes when working the electronics station and you (for some reason) spam open/close of power gates the sound glitches a bit (so don't do that).

Graphics
The overall graphics and models are nice, the design of the mechs are clear for their purpose and the level of detail works with the type of game (but come on, who wouldn't want 10x the amount of greebls and details? But it might just make the mechanic part more annoying if you have 40 screws instead of 4?).

Gameplay
Pretty straight forward on what your objectives are and you just want to jump right in and get everything and unlock everything and buy every mech. As i mentioned in the previous review i was afraid that the game would "run out" of things to do and get repetitive rather quickly, and it feels like this is still the case, after about 12 hours of playing, without rushing into things, i have bought (as far as i know) all upgrades for the workshop and seen and worked on every mech. So i would guess at most there is another 12 hours left until its all done (again, i'm not there yet, so this is speculation).

Some of the features and workstations could need a little bit of polishing, painting and calibrating are two of them. Also the gains for doing optional objectives are usually not worth it since they usually require you to replace with New parts and not parts you can source yourself, which can get rather expensive, it might need a little rebalancing, or maybe it is a feature you are supposed to keep track of and only do the jobs that are worth doing, i don't know :)

Future Features?
I see a lot of potential in expanding on a game like this, with expansions or content patches (yes we all want what No Mans Sky did, lots and lots of extra content, for free ofc ;P) with more mechs, parts and what i really would like is more upgrades to your workshop. There is no advancing out of your starting workshop (as far as i know) and it is looking kinda worn out and old, so you sit there with (potentially) millions in your account, running your own fleet of mechs, from a tiny dusty workshop (the android doesn't clean very well :P).

It kinda just misses that "feels like home" feeling, which it would really need (all games need that). I don't know the answer to what it is missing to have that feeling, but i guess the lack of that feeling is what stops this from being a game that lasts compared to the game that just fades away after 24-36 hours of playing. Those first 12-24 hours though are pretty good, so i never regret buying the game! :) And i don't know, maybe all the things i mention here does exist and i just haven't gotten to that part yet, if so i will update you when i get there ;)



There is no help in this game, if you disable the tutorial cause you think "I got this, i'm an EXPERIENCED gamer", there is no getting it back without restarting (it seems) and well, i'm not doing that :P "One day" there will be guides and help but maaaybe when you play a game on launchday and there is no keymapping or faq to find online, playing with tutorial enabled maybe isn't a bad idea :P Fun game so far but i am expecting it to get quite repetitive once things are unlocked, which i don't know when it is, cause there is no manual or information in-game :P (But you cant play a game like this and expect it to Not get repetitive after 20-30 hrs of play?) It feels like i have gotten at least 50% of the way (but i don't know) and i still haven't figured out how some basic things work and how to do some things that i have had available for a long time now... Calibrations... I'm waiting for that part to be posted somewhere online so i can learn wtf it is about and how to do it (Not the first part, its what comes next) xD

Most fun space building i've tried. Hope they add NPCs someday, but building comes first (and programming/scripting your builds to do stuff is a nice and not that common bonus)

Note: Im a Swede so I might be biased :P
Total Score: 6 / 10 (With current bugs / patch when review was written)

* Score based on variety of quests, voice to quests, mystery of story.
I got the feeling i can get from Skyrim or Fallout where you save the main quest because you want to find out about all the mysterious side quests and wtf has happened and where it leads and who did what etc.
And to get the best possible gear for your character while doing so! After a while though i stumbled on a quest(line) that ran alongside the main quest and it got me hooked and it tied into the main one, so i ended up having to do the main quest anyway :D

* Scored based on how easy it is to play multiplayer, how well the connectivity works, the possibility for co-op.
If you play this game with friends, the sync between people is working, well lets say, not perfect...
Some quests sync between players, some dont, some sync the wrong way, some dont work at all unless you're the "server" and some just get locked cause something buggy happens or you do something out of "order".
And every player have their own "server" - Your game is your server, if someone joins you, they will progress quests with you, and if that person wants to play solo later on, he/she will play on "their server" and thus have a seperate game with their own quest progression (But With all map markers, safehouses you have visited/unlocked yourself, no matter which server, and gear stored on your character).
This is why Public Multiplayer is very unattractive to me in this game.

* Score based on amount of loot, relevance of loot, inventory management.
The system for looting works, but can always need some tweaks, like some things need larger stacks, looting while inventory is full could use a tweak.
And a stash / safehouse somewhere would be very handy, because you do find stuff that perhaps you dont want to use, but still want to save, and that will fill your inventory quickly :P You can use a secondary character for this (you can do this switch/storing solo, no need for other players to help) but, would be nice to have it built in.

* Score based on time when the game plays out (1980s) is new and different, look of graphics / details, feel of the atmosphere and weather.
Very good looking game with very nice environments and weather, it is a bit annoying that it feels like the night is 2x as long as the day, but hey, its Sweden, in late fall / early winter so i guess it is accurate...

* Score based on amount of bugs, severity of bugs and how much they affect actual gameplay.
There are a few, havent found any that is game breaking though, but things like you have to always quit to main menu the first time you join / continue your game because all map markers are ALWAYS (100% of the times) missing, you dont even look anymore, you just start the game twice :P Quests tend to get out of sync, especially in multiplayer, and you can easily do things in the wrong order at certain quests, which blocks progression, sometimes you can quit and restart your game and it reloads correctly, other times you cant.
The closets to a game breaking bug i've come is when you use IR/Night/OPV vision with your scopes or binoculars the game crash to desktop, which is very annoing if you play multiplayer because then everyone gets thrown out of the game, which can lead to quests being bugged for people on the server (For example with Barcodes to bunkers it seems).

This game has alot of potential, but you will end up swearing alot while playing it :P

People say there is a lack in content, and yes, there might be, but you'd still easily get 50 hours of gameplay out of it i'd say. Sure you must be willing to get your grind on, since there isnt enough missions to run more than 1 character to max level before you just, redo everything from scratch.

I think the game will lose Alot of players unless they increase the rate of new missions, but i still think you should try this game before it "dies", because it will give a bunch of hours of content if you like these types of games! The levling up, collecting gear and that you get to keep it feels kinda new for a game of this type.

The things i would say are negative are that the AI (both Zombies and Survivors and mission characters) can be a pain in the ass, but these are things that can be upgraded / patched. There are some things they've added to the game which I dont see any point to, yet (YET! They surely have a bunch of plans for this game and who knows what they have planned in the future with upcoming Episodes). Some things feel a bit too scripted, and Human Enemies are the worst, they got NO sense of survival at all, if they suspect you are there, they will light up the entire mapa with gunfire, attracting hordes of zombies, apparently they dont care about that, and have unlimited ammo in their pocktes (but always manages to fire ALL but 1-3 bullets before they die :P

As i said, enjoy 50-300 hours of this game now, if you want to give it a go in 3 months you might have to play solo :( Or wait until a whole bunch of new episodes are released (if they get to that point, and you can wait) so you can play it all at once, but i'd recommend playing with atleast 1 or 2 friends, there will always be some Crazy Random person joining in messing ♥♥♥♥ up for everyone :P

Unfortunatly this game has a fighting and action system that I cant adapt to. The idea, the story and the world ingame is nice and i like it. I would recommend it if they had a non-target based fighting system where "when you click you swing"-style attacking with a sword, not have delays and combos etc. Combos and this type of fighting does, in my opinion, not belong in a open world RPG. Looking for Fallout or Skyrim type of game but got something much slower and not at all satisfying for me. Not saying it is bad work / poorly made, just that i can never play a game that works like this. Which is Really unfortunate because i liked the other parts of the game and was looking forward to playing it. The whooping 4 hours i played before uninstalling was just filled with sad attempt trying to kill anything larger than a basic rat... I Failed