Recent reviews by Plakat

Always come back to it. Can't escape it. Rimworld is the best Colony Sim and has a huge community of creative and talented modders.

It's fun.

Fantastic survival base-building game if that's what you're into, which I am.
If you're thinking about getting it, I'd say definitely do, especially if it's on sale.

My villagers shot a dragon with a ballista then butchered the dragon when it fell in my city, then sent the meat to an outpost of mine that relied on my central city for food.

I've binged this game since I got my hands on it. Can't believe how good it is. Definitely go for it if you love city builders with good attention to detail and satisfying mechanics.

Yeah this is the best strategy game I've ever played hands down.

This has got to be the biggest disappointment ever. I come from four playthroughs and countless recommendations of the core game (Life is Strange). I preordered this because of the trust I placed in the company that made the original - here's the twist: Before the Storm wasn't made by DontNod (the Paris-based devs who brought us the original) but shuttled out by the publisher, Square Enix, to Deck Nine - an obscure company that brought us such blockbuster hits as "Neopets: The Darkest Faerie" and "Ratchet: Deadlocked", both flops on the PS2. In fact, when they got Before the Storm handed to them they hadn't developed anything since 2013.

Even so, the name "Life is Strange" carries a lot of weight - it's a brand of quality I expected to carry over no matter who the developer is. Characters with depth, surreal and immersive storylines, heart-wrenching plot twists, and cringey-at-times but emotive voice acting are all elements of Life is Strange fans came to know and love.

Before the Storm has none of that. We follow Chloe with (spoiler alert) no time travel powers like Max had in the first game - which leaves the game feeling void of any gameplay elements to set it apart from other choose-your-own-point-and-click story games. Instead there's a confusing and rarely used "backtalk" element that's as poorly introduced and explained as it is boring to use. The mechanic holds no weight and adds nothing to Chloe's character.

Otherwise, the game's game mechanics are practically identical to its predecessor, with a few more technical issues probably due to the jump from Unreal Engine to Unity. Graphics look a lot worse - might as well be a PS2 game (and judging by the developer's portfolio, it's no surprise that PS2 graphics were the standard they held themselves to).

All this could be excused if the story and characters mattered. I spent most of my time in the first couple episodes waiting for something to happen. The most interesting things in this game are tie-ins to the original like meeting characters or visiting locations from the first game, but there's very little point beyond "hey, remember this?" Locations and characters have very little purpose and value to the story.

What story? Who knows. The plot meanders around aimlessly. Chloe gets in arguments with her parents, spends time at school, meets Rachel Amber who she has a crush on? I guess? It's unclear and heavy handed at the same time. Stilted voice acting doesn't help the process, and while I know some people criticized voice acting in the first game I tend to disagree - the voices and mannerisms felt right at home in Arcadia Bay when DontNod did it. Here, however every time a mouth opens on screen what comes out sounds like it was recorded phoenetically by non-nativespeakers. By the end of the second episode I found myself not caring whether the main character and her squeeze lived or died.

Follow up: Life is Strange 2 on the other hand is really good. Go play that.

Good.