Recent reviews by NoxiousPluK

TL;DR: It's a basic management game that might be fun for some hours, but it does not feel finished and it's not worth it at this price point.

So I had this game on my wishlist for a long time, but was not sure I would like it.
I've always had a big thing for management-games and base building, so it did seem interesting enough from that viewpoint, but it does look quite bland and linear.

It turns out this first impression was not wrong.
I'll try to be fair about it, but here are some points:

Pro's:
- Got the basic management thing down
- Puzzling your production lines together can be challenging
- Research for new machines and exploration for new ingredients feels good
- Extensive tutorials and missions to scale up your knowledge and challenges

Con's:
- The tutorial is riddled with typo's, and in some other places as well
- The game has some basic bugs that are easy enough to work around, but should have been fixed (like connecting belts is sometimes really annoying)
- Some very basic issues when running on Linux (typical Unity stuff like launching on the wrong monitor)
- Lack of configuration (again, can't select which monitor to run it on, I had to remove the "~/.config/unity3d/Twice Circled/Big Pharma/prefs" file before each launch to get it to start
- Sound volume is mixed crazy poor by default (announcer voice is WAY too high, same with GUI sound effects)
- Uninteresting and bad quality announcer voice
- Once you get the hang of it, there is nothing 'new'. There are new ingredients and machines, but its uninteresting
- Poor GUI design in some places, also lack of tool tips to explain things
- Lack of insight (financials and pretty much all other numeric information is very basic) and choices (can't set medicine pricing, no realistic demand, etc - I get that some of this comes with the expansion but for a game in this genre this really should be in the base game and of high priority)
- Limited 'base building' aspect was a huge downside for me. As a company this big I should be able to build/design my own factories
- Quite expensive for such a basic experience (I did not pay full price, and I think this game is not worth it at the current price point. Around 10 dollars for the base game would be more realistic, dropping to 5-7 on sale)

All in all, I can not recommend this game. It was released in 2015, we're 4 years down the line and its still full of bugs and basic typo's. Unacceptable.

Finished it in 3.5 hours, very satisfying.

Lovely soundtrack that responds to events during gameplay. I might need more of this.

I'd say there is about 6-8 hours of gameplay in this game, I finished it in one sitting.

Really amazing, well done. Great story, amazing soundtrack, crisp animations - 9/10 from me, and that one point missing is because it is sometimes too hard to keep track of your lesser used commands / no way to rename or alias them properly (or duplicate files, copy/delete folders, etc).

This game needs a lot of polishing and bugfixing, and less paid DLC.

I got this as a part of my April 2018 Humble Monthly (early unlock).

After browsing trough the reviews a bit, I decided to try this game for myself - and was blown away!

The writing, music, all the little details to make you feel home - they hit the spot perfectly for me.
In one rush I played trough the main quest in about four days (~40 hours).

I'm sure there is plenty of more to get from this game, but I did not bother with the side quests.
Maybe on my next playtrough.

The game itself isn't perfect tho, sadly - but most of the problems in my experience come from the technical side.
The engine has trouble keeping up (framedrops), has issues with capturing my mouse cursor on a multi-monitor setup and other weird issues.
It feels like the engine was rushed, but some really basic things are wrong with it. Capturing a mouse for exclusive use isn't exactly rocket science.

Also the menu's (especially the main menu) are really minimal and make it hard to navigate trough the game properly.
Loading times are long, close combat is sometimes tiresome and some clipping trough walls can occasionally occur.

All in all, here is my final verdict:
Gameplay, story and writing: 9/10
Music, sound effects, voice acting: 9/10
Controls, engine, performance, bugs: 5/10

Its a damn shame that some really basic bugs are not fixed, this long after release - but overall I'd like to give this game an 8.

Would I pay full price? Not likely, but one euro a hour isn't too bad.
Get it on a sale, and enjoy your 40+ hours!

Edit: I've just replayed this 5 years later and it still holds up. The Definitive Edition seems to have fixed some of the bugs and also I used the community patch from Nexus Mods, which made a big difference. As an added bonus it adds raytracing via reshade, which gives the graphics a modern boost.

I got this as a part of my April 2018 Humble Monthly (early unlock).

I love the base game itself, this DLC is a miss for me.
While the new investigation mode is quite cool, all the blacklight creepy jumpscare ♥♥♥♥ is not my thing.
If I'd want that, I'd play a horror shooter instead, and it has zero link to anything to do with Mafia.

Unlike the excuse for the police not engaging because being bought of by the Mafia, this excuse does not apply to the cult - and there is no sense in Lincoln going all in on this crap all alone.

If you like horror elements, jump scares and other stuff - you'd love this.

If you dont, it wont be worth it to restore Sammy's bar - I wish there was another way.

I'd love to like this game, and I really really tried (and prolly will try more), but I have some mayor issues with it.

First the good things tho:
- I really love the atmosphere, the voice acting, the music.. Very good!
- I really love the overal look and feel of the game - and finding secrets all over the place
- I like that the fighting takes some getting used to / skill
- It plays really well with the Steam Controller

But the downsides:
- Plays quite ♥♥♥♥ with keyboard / mouse
- Menu's aren't optimized for PC-play, but clearly from a console port
- Camera control is horrible, and the camera lag (common on consoles) where it doesn't 1:1 translate to your mouse or controller makes me really really sick. It's super jerky and often doesn't do what you want
- Vehicle camera is super bad, forced in driving direction as soon as you move a little, and spinning real fast when you try to adjust it. Again makes me really sick
- Fighting is too much depending on timing / countering - get this somewhat wrong and you're super dead, while getting it right makes it way too easy
- Guns are super rare and not even properly effective

Oh also, don't buy it if you hate quick time events. It's full of it.

I'm sure I'll give it a couple more hours, but one hour at a time is enough to leave me puking or close to..

I've read that some people have issues getting this to run on Windows 10, but I got zero issues.

Using Windows 10 Pro x64 it started without problems right out of the box after downloading, and without any glitches or issues I played my first game in ages (the last time I played this game it was on a Pentium II most likely).

Its just as good as I remember it, and you still have to build a competitive business in a new market from the ground up.

The research that is required to stay on the edge, while investigating new regions and building factories is what makes this game hard to ballance and master. It takes time and experience to get to a sweetspot in all this. Luckily the user interface has all the tools to provide you with the information you need.

After all these years this game is still a lot of fun, and if you don't mind the highly outdated graphics, and are lucky enough that it just runs on your machine - you're in for a lot of fun.

Raptor: Call of The Shadows was amongst the first games I played on my brothers 386.

It's a timeless space shooter that never really gets old - even tho I wish there would be a modern re-make.

This version adds a few things, like a HD filter and some other stuff, but I would advise playing with that all turned off, and just enjoy the game how it's designed to be played!

There is also an alternative '1994 Classic Edition' on Steam, which is just the old game running in DOSBox but this one has a few upsides in performance on most systems.

Pro's:
- Actually a modernized port, not just the old version running in DOSBox
- Added achievements
- Still as great as the original
- Plays really well, even on low-end hardware

Cons:
- Sometimes its hard to make an achievement trigger, and you may have to redo some
- Could use better controller and mouse support, but I prefer keyboard anyway
- I didn't verify this for myself, but I heard cheatcodes and some soundtracks were removed
- There are sometimes issues with savegames

The developers of the port promised to fix the issues, but so far there haven't been updates yet over the past two and a half years.

Is it still worth getting this game?
In my opinion totally, even if its just for nostalgia - but if you like games like this, this is one of the true classics and a must have!

Pressure Overdrive is a classic wearing a fancy new suit, and it's great to have it back - imo better than ever!

Pros:
- Great price!
- Lots of new content (weapons and other items, endless mode, bosses, etc)
- Plays really well, fast paced game
- Local co-op
- Fun campaign
- Great audio - love the soundtrack, and the fake french voices are cheesy but fun
- Great developers, worth sponsoring them!
- Trading cards

Cons:
- No online multiplayer anymore

So, let's put this first: Pressure Overdrive isn't new-new.

Pressure was released in 2013 and published by Topware Interactive.
After a fight between the game studio not having enough creative freedom and the publisher, they won the rights to Pressure.

Chasing Carrots basically rewrote the entire game based on the Unity engine to make it cross-platform, and it is much better than the original with lots new content.
Sadly we also lost the online multiplayer. Some would argue it was cumbersome and unstable while others say it worked great - I for myself never used the online multiplayer so I won't be missing it.

There is a vague promise in the discussion groups that ~maybe they will re-add it in the future, but they were out of budget to include it right now. If they ever decide to add it, that would be a great plus!
So far I'm very impressed by the little game studio that could. They fought a big publisher and won, re-released the game themselves and made it better and have so far been responding to players pretty quickly by things like removing Unity's hardware survey phone home on the day after release.
I think they did the right thing, and I wish them the best!

On the gameplay:
Pressure Overdrive has a fun story, plays really well even on low-end hardware and is a fast paced mix between a racing game and a twin stick top-down shooter.
It's a lot of fun to read the crazy descriptions as you go trough the levels, upgrade your vehicle and unravel the story. There is a lot of dynamic in deciding on upgrades, and there is no 'ultimate best' goal, but a lot of different possible strategies.
The humor is cheesy and old skool fun. It won't make you laugh your brains out, but it might keep you entertained long enough to get trough to the end.

It's sad that the multiplayer is gone, but I personally won't miss it. It's great to find original games like this that are build to have a fun singleplayer campain.
And there are a few nice multiplayer features left, like the online scoreboards for each track.

So the big question is, is Pressure Overdrive worth it's price?

I personally got it 80% off because I owned the original, and I'm not sure if I would have gotten it at full price (since it doesn't add much value over the original, which is no longer for sale) - but if you are coming here and the game is new to you, I would definitely consider buying it.
In my book it's worth a solid 4.5/5 in a pricerange like this one - and it has many hours of guaranteed fun.