Recent reviews by nene's wife

The same Reach we know and love but the port has too many issues currently:

• Perfectly fine original progression system now changed to a 'season' type, which you can't gain any xp for from the campaign or firefight.
• Lack of proper graphics settings and certain controls being non-rebindable are a joke for a PC game.
• The audio sounds like you've got cotton wool in your ears.
• Friendly AI is somehow even worse than the 360 version.
• Subtitles don't work for any dialogue outside of cutscenes.
• Requires an Xbox Live account to play online.
• You can't crouch while moving.

Wait for a patch before buying into the hype.

Skip to the end for the TL;DR.
Let me preface this by saying that I will gladly change my review to 'Recommended' once the basic issues I discuss have been appropriately addressed.

Cooking Simulator is the epitome of a game that deserves the option of a 'Mixed' review. It is an excellent concept that regrettably falls flat on its face with issues regarding basic functionality.
The concept of the game revolves around being a chef in a restaurant and performing all the duties associated with such a position such as preparation, cooking and cleaning. By creating dishes for your guests to enjoy, you gain money and skill points to invest in more recipes, cosmetic upgrades, and perks upon levelling up. It's not exactly groundbreaking, but the simplicity of the concept, along with a sandbox mode, potentially make for an enjoyable and addictive experience.

Unfortunately, there are a few basic issues that lead me to advise that you avoid purchasing the game at this time.

Firstly, you are unable to change any keybindings whatsoever. In 2019. Yeah... This vast oversight coupled with an awkward control scheme, lead to a frustrating experience. At least after much outcry by 'Day 1 purchasers', one can now invert the x and y axes. Things only get worse however, as your player character moves as if they are on an ice rink, and this isn't one of those simulators where awkward movement makes it more fun; it's a pain in the neck when you're desperately trying to coerce any precise movement out of your floaty character.

But oh, it still gets worse. Mouse acceleration you can't disable seals your character's fate of being utterly uncontrollable, along with camera movement that would make even the most seasoned sea captain queasy. (Variable mouse smoothing has been added in the latest beta, but a proper solution is yet to be implemented in a full release). "But why not just increase the FOV/disable motion blur to counteract this?" You may ask. For the latter point, once again, you have no ability to do so, however there are vague promises that this will be rectified at some point. God knows when considering this game was in development for such an inordinate amount of time. Regarding the FOV, you are able to increase it and decrease it at your pleasure, however, you will be horrified to find that instead of widening the field of view as you'd expect, you are now instead viewing the exact same field of view, using a camera that makes things appear further away in the centre of the screen, and grotesquely stretched at the sides, as if looking down a telescope. Once again, a big disappointment. Using a controller is sometimes the way to go with games with frustrating controls, but this did little to solve my woes in this instance.

Finally, a brief word on performance. For such basic graphics in 2019 and a small area of play, it runs like complete ♥♥♥♥. Even at lower settings it utterly tanks both my CPU and GPU as soon as things start getting busy. As a test, I tried to see how many objects from the larder I could put in a pan. I got to around 20 chillies in the pan before the game had dropped to unplayable framerates (<20fps).

It's a damn shame that such a promising concept could be so poorly executed at its very core, and as such I suggest you do not purchase this title until these issues have been addressed sufficiently to avoid basic functionality issues that make what should be an enjoyable game a ridiculously frustrating experience.

❤ Audience ❤
☐ Beginner
☐ Casual Gamer
☐ Normal Gamer
☐ Expert
☑ Everyone

☼ Graphics ☼
☐ Bad
☑ Alright
☐ Good
☐ Beautiful
☐ Fantastic

♬ Music ♬
☐ Bad
☑ Alright
☐ Good
☐ Beautiful
☐ Fantastic

☠ Difficulty ☠
☐ Easy
☐ Average
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Hard
☑ Unfair (read review)

§ Bugs §
☐ Bugs destroy the game
☐ Lots of bugs
☑ Few Bugs (but many poor/missing design elements)
☐ You can use them for speedrun
☐ Nothing encountered

☯ Story ☯
☑ There is none
☐ Bad
☐ Alright
☐ Good
☐ Fantastic

⚔ Gameplay ⚔
☑ Frustrating
☐ Sleepy
☐ Boring
☑ Fun
☑ Challenging

$ Price / Quality $
☐ Full price
☑ Wait for Sale
☑ Don't buy (until these issues are rectified)
☐ Refund it if you can

Just no.