Recent reviews by bioxz

I love walking simulators and for two thirds of the game Scorn is just that. You explore a beautiful world, solve simple puzzles and try to fathom what on earth is going on. Is it even earth? Are we a human? Graphics are okay, the game mainly shines through the art style and liveliness of the environment. For some movement and progression might feel slow from time to time, but if you expect a game that is made for exploration this feels just right. Overall the game is a bit on the short side, less than 5 hours looking into every path there is. It definitely feels like there is more to tell and it was cut short.

But why isn't it recommendable? Well, sadly the middle part of the game brings combat. Some of the worst combat I've played in a long time. It's sluggish and just not fun. Reloading takes forever and switching the weapon takes forever, while some enemies spawn behind you or have attacks that track you around a corner before you can hit them. There is also a weird kill animation lock during which enemies can still attack you. I stopped playing the game twice during this part. I came back twice to finally finish it, as I wanted to see where it goes. If you're in it, the third part is worth going through the combat part (there is even a nice boss fight, which works way better than all the other combat in the game). But otherwise I cannot recommend to start playing this game. Frustration will hit you. Better watch a video of it.

It's sad to see this game currently sit at "Overwhelmingly positive". Satisfactory was always fun and developed well during the early access phase. A lot of features were added, also a lot of bugs were fixed. But the game also had the tendency to bring new bugs with every release, some only fixed months later if at all. While this was okay for the early access phase, it's a disgrace to see the same and new issues to go into the "release" version as well. This game is not finished, it's a release candidate at best. When the release date was announced I was surprised, as the game did not feel that well developed at that point. And what we got in the end confirmed my fears: They just rushed the release to be done with it. Sure, I do have a lot of fun with the game, what that does not override the frustration from all the issues. Here is a short, incomplete list:

- Pipes sometimes do not correctly connect to floor holes (unfixed from EA)
- Conveyor lift sometimes do not correctly connect to floor holes (unfixed from EA)
- Rail switches sometimes do not connect the rails (unfixed from EA)
- Rail signal sometimes do not work (unfixed from EA)
- Trains start moving slowly on clients, while they standing still on the server (new)
- Server crashes and thus lost progress from last save (unfixed from EA)
- Server is poorly optimized (unfixed from EA)
- Walls and floors sometimes do not disappear when deconstructed (new)
- Copying walls and floors sometimes gives random item instead (new)
- Items on belts sometimes not visible (new, similar issue during EA)

I don't care if this rushed, broken release is on the publisher or the devs. I'm happy for those that do not keep running into these issues. For myself, the game is frustrating. I want to like it, I do have fun, but then I have to clean up stuff because the devs did not do their job and the enjoyment is gone.

Done with the game after the first "puzzle". Controls like a mobile port (which it might be, I don't know), being forced to use mouse gestures to do stuff is not fun. Everything you do is quite trivial, you just click on stuff until it's "solved". I can already tell how the next few hours would play like.

The game has so many issues, it's impossible to recommend it. Crashes, units getting stuck, somehow broken tasks take the fun out of an otherwise entertaining (although really dated) game.

I was thinking for a few days about this...I had a lot of fun, do I really have to add this review? But in the end it's justified. While the game has a lot to offer, it also brings a lot of issues. And sadly those issues lead to more frustration than the positive points are worth.
After getting used to the game mechanics (which takes some time, as many parts are not well explained, i.e. there is an example but not a manual explaining every possible use), the first airport grows and grow. This is a great feeling. Over time planes get bigger, more services are provided (unloading and loading of baggage is my favorite feature) and your airport becomes a huge and complex monstrosity. Sadly at this point, more and more issues show up. I will list my highlights at the end, but overall the issues caused me to stop playing multiple times, because relevant part of my airport stopped working, causing chain reactions, leading to worse rating, leading to losing money. So my final advise sadly is: Stay away from this game. You'll have a lot of fun in the beginning, but will get frustrated over time. Your final thought about the game will not be a positive one, it will be a relieving one, no more issues to work around.

Things that keep happening:
- Total path finding failures as the airport grows. Vehicles take the longest path possible or completely fail to find a path. Urgently needed refueling trucks just leave the airport again. This leads to huge delays.
- Passengers falling through floors. I have still no idea why or when this happens, but single passenger keep appearing on floors below the area where they're supposed to be. This makes them end up in staff areas, in which the get stuck and cannot leave. Rescuing them often costs a lot of money to build an exit they can use.
- Disappearing baggage. Planes cannot be loaded because their baggage is just nowhere to find. Only option is to send away the plane. Airline satisfaction and airport rating take a relevant hit.
- Planes stuck on their stand in random phases, waiting for something to happen which seemingly was not triggered. Same as before, plane has to be send away.

In general, the bigger the airport gets, the more unplayable is becomes. The simulation can handle some hundred passengers without an issues, but if you handle dozens planes with more than 4000 passengers, it falls apart.

I bought this remaster to enjoy a game I really liked in the past on my new PC. Sadly, the game is a weird mix of improvements, issues and design changes. The biggest change is definitely the graphics style: The game went from a atmospheric technical benchmark into...something else. The nature got some kind of poster look, colors are way to bright, cliffs look smoother and the feeling is more of a vacation island instead of an unknown jungle with a dark secret. Gameplay overall does neither feel like I remember it nor how I would expect it these days. All together not a good remaster for me, especially for that price and under the circumstance that it replaced the original, which is not available anymore.

Gorogoa is an incredible interactive storybook. While solving trivial but satisfying puzzles, you slowly learn more about the main character of the story. While the game is very short, only about one hour, everything is animated to a lovely detail and solving it for the first time is really enjoyable. Collecting a few additional achievements, requiring to replay the game (but faster and more efficient), takes another hour. Thus I have to recommend getting it on sale, as even with the quality the game provides, there is not that much game to find.

Game was great when I played last a few years ago. Now there is a useless launcher and starting the game from that launcher does nothing.

I have no idea where all those good reviews are coming from. Are they legit? I'm not sure. There is no complexity to be found, you basically either rush or try to collect enough resources to slowly bomb out the enemy and go trench by trench. Might be realistic, but not entertaining. It seems that the enemy is cheating and does not have the same resources you have, but that's just an observation, I did not actually calculate is. Worst is, that the CPU is always playing on time and let's you come, only to start a counterattack when you seem weak. That might be realistic as well, but it's MY time that's being wasted here.

If you want a game focused on good gameplay and fun, this if for you. Playing this feels a lot like playing a game 20 years ago. A campaign worth 10-20 hours (also unlocking basically all the achievements, nothing's missable), additional maps, community maps and a map editor. Graphics and physics do exactly what you want from this game (although I'm really hyped how a future game of this series will look with something like UE5). If you're done with the story, definitely take a look at the map "Play as creeper is back" for another perspective on the game.