Recent reviews by C.M.M JCN "Thrapsos" Duck

Would you like to fly for 6 hours, then put in pause and when you come back find out that the airplane has still consumed fuel and oil? Then, this game is for you!

Truly, nothing is commendable about it: the only thing that improved is the graphics, everything else is a dumpster fire.

Save your money.

===== Actual review =====

I am now officially through all the stages of grief for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. After 54h on this game, trying to redeem it in any way possible, I am confident it is beyond any hope of redemption.

I should now probably mention I have some 28+ hours, at the time of writing this updates, behind the stick of an actual airplane (a gorgeous Tecnam P92 Echo - a lighter version of a Cessna 152, by many accounts).

I can tell you that, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, as a flight simulator, is nowhere close to the real thing, and much further apart than its predecessor. If you are wondering how, you can find an in-depth analysis from another person here: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/651279-flight-model-comparison-2024-vs-2020-unexpected-results/ .
Please note it dates back to *October 13th*, 2 full months before this review.

I have also played most flight games on the market, of all levels of immersion (e.g. from The Brew Barons to DCS) and I can tell you - Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, as a game, is really frustrating. And not in the stimulating way a souls-like is: the source of all woes is simply the abysmal quality of this product. The bugs are simply at a Cyberpunk 2077 level, 2 weeks after launch.

This means they fully knew, and decided they still needed the cash before EoY for the 2024 financial reports.

♥♥♥♥ that.

============== 3rd day review ==================

This is hands down one of the worst flying simulations, or flying games really, that I've ever played.

From the abysmal synthetized voices that will make you feel like you're flying a rack full of WALL-Es, to the FPS crashes that will have you convert said flight into the plunging of the One Ring into Mt. Doom, this is a testament of how to f*ck a sequel up.

**The glaring issues**

* The UI has taken 10 to 12 steps back, for some imperscrutable reasons
* FPSs drop to abysmal levels due to random memory leaks when too many geometries are loaded (of course, no setting to handle that - never it be that we learn something from DCS)
* The whole premise of having everyone buy a new version was that the Career mode and the live streaming of data would've been so revolutionary that it couldn't be worked into MSFS 2020. Thank the Lord, at least we will still be able to enjoy that - until they shut down that service too, that is

**Conclusion**
I am fairly confident people actually enjoying flying simulations had no say in the design of this ♥♥♥♥, or it was never tested in a realistic environment where you were not sitting on the datacenters that are now taking two glacial eras to stream geometries to us.

I don't know what was mismanaged in the development of this game, but it must be a *lot* given how recent and better the prequel was.

For a recount of how disastrous their launch was, read the unbearable essay below:

============== Launch day review ==================

3h45m after launch, still most of the players can't get in, and Asobo is saying nothing. So, here's the message I posted on their Discord community-support.

## Servers are so 1995
We say servers only to over-simplify, but their infrastructure is (most likely, I don't work for Asobo but dear God I hope I am right) made of little virtual servers (fellow tech-priests, let us not squabble on them being containers), which run on a thing (orchestrator or hypervisor) which then runs on a server.

## Isn't that over-complicated?
In part, it does add a layer of complexity - mostly in procuring at a reasonable price and additional cost in pre-launch development. However Asobo, being part of the Microsoft family, has direct access to Azure computing power - and given they (hopefully) don't pull sht like NVIDIA GeForce Now (which does rely on hardware in limited supply), so they should be able to scale out (add more virtual beams) or scale in (remove them) very easily - to be as capital efficient as possible.
Yes, the real reason was money all along : )

## So, why it's not running?
Once it's running, the only remaining challenge with systems like these is simply guessinghow many* virtual beams is enough to bear the load. They tend to buckle under the load if you grossly mess up your prediction.
And, on that front, Asobo is extremely privileged, compared to those running other online services, because you can only access the game if you've purchased it - and an overwhelming majority pre-purchased.
With all that, keeping a bit of leeway for peace of mind and soundness of engineering, they should've been able to launch smoothly.

## So, why it's not running YET?
That's what's truly dismaying, and the question to which I have no answer.
Frankly, I'm hope they understand the seriousness of the situation and aren't enjoying some fantastic Bordeaux winery.

They haven't fixed this in 3 hours and a half, and this speaks of either gross incompetence (and I choose not to assume this, given the good results of MSFS2020) greater issues under the hood.
Usually, when you have a scalable system as the one above, and someone botches the guesswork for the number of instances you need, you may not have given a fantastic experience in the first minutes but you can very quickly (30 min, tops) ramp up the number and solve it.

## Why would that be such a big deal?
I am not so naive as not to understand that Asobo has people fully capable of performing this simple scale-out - so it means they can't scale out at least some critical part of the game's infrastructure.
This, together with the fact it happened despite knowing the pre-orders number, bodes really bad.

What isn't working? It's been 3h36m and they haven't told us squat. Have they figured out the root cause? Is there even a viable solution (e.g. they haven't loaded some critical assets on a shared resource that has a hard limit on its performance, right)?

It reeks of non-technical management making technical choices, of not reading data but following opinions, and if we couple that with the fact that MSFS 2020 was supposed to be supported for around a decade, and here we are with a replacement not even an olympics apart, it means they see us as the stupid cash cow you have to milk since XPlane just can't hold a candle to MSFS anymore.

Despite how deeply we feel about this passion, people willing to shell out this much money for a simulator aren't a legion beyond counting.

We're actually pretty few. And they hold us by the family jewels.
And that leads to decreasing product quality, increasing cost, and a worse way to spend my free time.

Don't tell me it can't be done any other way, because other games are doing it.
DCS doesn't have half their capital and has worked in many more features (from a strictly flight simulation perspective, such as force feedback on controls).

All of this, for greed.

What's not to love?

Art & Graphics: 10/10, the game looks positively stunning even ad medium settings, and doesn't demand the computation power of a K2 civilization on the Kardashev scale to run (I'm looking at you, Wh40k Space Marine 2). The design and ambient is nothing short of fabulous, truly adding a vibrant chapter to the fantastic works by Wizards of the Coast.

Soundtrack & Sound: 10/10, the detail goes in an absurd amount of detail to immerse you in the experience, and some pieces of the soundtrack are Mozart-level masterpieces, such as Raphael's Final Act - SPOILER WARNING, don't listen to it before finishing the game!

Story: 10/10, I don't even. For the love of all that is holy, I've been left in tears by a specific finale.

UI: 8/10, not exactly super-intuitive at first, but once you get the gist of it you easily forgive its quirks.

Conclusion: 10/10, absolutely a masterpiece. I was initally wary of the hype - 'tis so well deserved it's not even funny, I was ridiculously wrong.

So, it turns out that all of the issues I have encountered below all stem from one root issue: this game only runs on SSDs - or some exotic RAID configuration of your choosing, but if you know that I'm talking about you already know how this would not be cost effective (at least, for this game only).

Having spent a fairly decent amount of time in the multiplayer now, I feel confident in upgrading the vote to 8.5/10 - definetely a good purchase, especially under discount!

================

I'm really, really, *really* sorry to be leaving a negative review - and I'm more than willing to change this at a later time should matters change, but as of now I DO NOT recommend buying this game.

The Good:

* The art direction is leagues ahead of most other games, and the breath-taking graphics depict the most vibrant WH40K galaxy of any game I've tried (and I think I'm not missing any, from Battlesector to Gladius passing by Speed Freeks).

The Bad:

* The game is, simply put, broken: I wasn't able to enjoy cutscenes as the video got stuck and phased out of sync with the audio, the AI has very, *very* poor intelligence and performance varies wildly - whether you use upscaling technologies like FSR2 or not; and this is the real deal-breaker for me. Please don't call my specifications into question, because I ran this on 64 GB of RAM, a Ryzen 5900X CPU and a Radeon 6600 XT card, and I still had the patience to try and tune every single parameter to see if I could get this title to work properly at least at 1680 x 1050 - yes, this is how excited I was to play this.
* The soundtrack is... well, your run of the mill. Not bad, mind you, but nothing I'll write home about - this is not Raphael's Final Act from Baldur's Gate 3, not by a long shot

Conclusion:

While I think *eventually* the game will be of a quality high enough to justify a € 40 price tag, from a sheer entertainment product point of view it is nowhere near that - and I say that with the delusion of a pretty avid Warhammer 40k fan - and there's no price I'd pay for a game that lags and stutters *during pre-rendered cutscenes*, as it simply isn't serviceable from a story enjoyment point of view.

4/10 with the bugs, 7.5/10 without.

TL;DR: This is nothing short of a masterpiece, brimming with even mopre potential - everything KSP on Kerbol was supposed to be and more!

I could write a lengthy review on how the music is super-catchy, the snap and fairings model fantastic, and how minor improvements would already put it ahead of SimplePlanes, Flyout and ofc KSP (the 1st, a comparison with the 2nd would not be merciful to the latter...) - but if you're looking at this game something has piqued your interest.

I promise you, it's better than whatever you're imagining.

11/10, hastily wrote review because I have to build more models.

Laysara is a simply fantastic game, a masterclass in design and execution that not only city-building fans will enjoy, but anyone!

Art: 10/10 - They managed to create an extremely immersive ambient, without becoming overbearing - and throwing in some good fun!
UX: 11/10 - Truly a work of beauty - they've designed a simply beautiful interface that will never, ever frustrate the player
Mechanics: 10/10 - Enough to make things interesting, but retaining a well-tested formula.

Truly a masterpiece, and surely an instant classic!

I really, really wanted KSP2 to work out.
I knew early access would have been full of kinks and missing features.

But this, not this. There's really *no* reason to play KSP 2 instead of KSP 1:
1. The UI is simply abysmal - I really don't know what they were aiming for
2. The parts collection hasn't been expanded (at least, noticeably) in the past 6 months
3. Flight simulation characteristics are absolutely identical, if not a bit worse, than they are in KSP 1
4. There's no intra-vehicular camera. This cuts out a -lot- of fun, as you don't get to share the last precious sights with the unaware green astronauts.

All in all, the only thing that made a significant step forward is the graphics engine - but given that it was written in Unity I don't understand how a considerably expanded team couldn't refactor the logics for the new engine verions. I don't presume to judge anyone's codebase, really, but from a sheer time invested / outcome reached point of view, I wouldn't say I'm happy to have waited for years for KSP2, and neither am I elated about paying twice as much as for KSP 1 for arguably a quarter of the stuff.

I'm sorry Private Division - I'm more than willing to change my review if future updates change the situation, but right now it's looking grim.

An absolute masterpiece, completely subverting the entire premise of the base-building genre.

The whole purpose of the game is to restore an ecosystem and leave it as if you had never have been there. When you realize what a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ wasteland you eventually turn into a wonderful ecosystem it's very hard not to feel happy.

Not just satisfied, *happy*.

The visual assets are simply gorgeous - from the handbook to the building animations, the care and love the team has put into this is clear as day.

The soundtrack is also super relaxing, even if maybe I would've like to *hear* more of a change as the ecosystem recovers. We're still takling a 9/10 for sound, just to give you an idea of how good everything is.

If Steam had scores for reviews I'd give this the maximum, and an additional 10% for good measure. Simply fantastic.

This game is simply fantastic.
If you like a city builder with challenging, but not OCD-requiring, systems design puzzles look no further than the cutest beavers on the block! Timberborn will teach you how precious water is, making you into an A+ eco-terrorist fighting for the betterment of our species - or theirs, after a while.

11/10 on gameplay,
10/10 on graphics,
15/10 on beavers

I'm not super extra keen on the soundtrack, as I believe it could've been more closely customized to each beaver flavor (I want the folktails folk songs and log shanties, and the industrial grunge death metal of the iron tails), but that "not super extra keen" means 9/10 - it's mellow and super-relaxing; this game prevented actual homicides.

110/10, will gnaw again

Well, Humankind! Where to start...

Humankind has a huge issue: it *looks* perfect. The aestethics are extremely pleasing and polished, the ambience is great, and the UI is somewhat exotic but nothing mind-breaking.

The gameplay, however, is the turn-based equivalent of herpes. The war mechanics are nothing short of ridiculous, geopolitics (if one can use this term for the radioactive elephant foot that results from influence, faith and outpost dynamics) has a ridiculous effectiveness even when you're barely out of the neolithic - and no writing, and so we presume no reading, is around.

If I had to pick a key issue, it's that the game is not designed to be played, but to be won in accordance and deference to the developer's opinion.
Despite dedicating each and every civilization to a specific path, you can't win by sheer military might, nor by overwhelming scientific progress - you *have* to play the effective way, which is by stoking influence, stability and production to maximize your force projection to hog as many key resources as possible, by deterring wars as much as possible.
Leave all hope of map painting, even if the enemy are completely crushed all that matters is how quickly you could occupy all of their cities, or you'll have to force them into a surrender that you didn't want.

4/10 - an egregious example of game design gone really bad, and visual design gone very well.

Possibly the worst FPS I've ever played. While not buggy in itself, it shows clearly how "action-packed" may be misunderstood as "clueless mayhem". I've lost count of the times I've died right after spawning due to a drone strike, or how a sniper-rifle (which has a barrel thick and long enough to put a hole through a tank) dealt less damage than an MP-5 pea-shooter.

The developers evidently thought that a Quake-like pace with Battlefield 2142-features would have been great: it isn't. Really.