Recent reviews by Prime8

Absolutely brilliant concept, executed in a fun and engaging way.

I'm a long-time fan of the survival genre, and Rust has been my top-played game for years now. I tend to try every new entry that comes along (eventually) including fantasy versions like Conan and Enshrouded, various zombie and monster survivals, and your Valheim types. What's been sorely lacking across the board lately is any true originality.

Abiotic Factor addresses this right out of the box. No starting in the woods, and no building campfires. Instead, we're faced with a mildly campy form of urban survival — something that I haven't seen nearly as often as wilderness survival (or zombies).

Stuck inside a massive science/industrial complex, you're looking for water coolers and vending machines rather than freshwater streams and berry bushes. You build tech out of old office supplies. Instead of chopping trees (THANK GOD) you're smashing computers apart for circuit boards and CPU fans.

New areas are unlocked as you progress through the story, and hidden rooms/sectors abound. While you're obviously not dealing with miles and miles of expansive terrain, I was surprised by how fun it can be exploring hallways, air ducts, and bathrooms for hours on end. And when new areas unlock, I've found it to be right around the time I become desperate for more resources and new tech.

AF has maintained a decent difficulty curve so far. I'm not one to speedrun a game, so I've been taking my time. I played for quite a while before settling on a good spot to set up my "base", and then spent hours building furniture, crafting supplies, and upgrading my bench before unlocking the second area.

Now, I've come face to face with the military force on site, akin to Half Life's Marines. Since I have a crossbow made out of office supplies and a pistol with no ammo, I don't do well in stand-up fights against them. The game has turned pretty heavy on the sneaking for me. I will say I'm not a huge fan of stealth games, but the prospect of gathering the items I need to upgrade my arsenal and going toe-to-toe with the enemy has me pressing on.

I've been gaming for a long time, so I feel the immersion even with the Source Engine look. Yeah, there's some Half Life nostalgia baked in, but I feel it's just a good-looking game on its own merit.

Haven't found a bug yet. And I don't have any performance issues despite running AF on a five-year-old MSI gaming laptop. Doesn't even warm up the laptop, much less send it into meltdown, so I'm not sure what's going on with those hitting problems.

Highly recommend this game for anyone who likes survival, horror, sci-fi, Half Life, and/or crafting. It's a unique entry to the genre that deserves the spotlight.

I’m going to give away the key point of this review right up front: Enshrouded delivered far more than I expected. This is a fantastic, engaging game, and I’ve been playing it for hours every day since launch.

Now, into the details. When I first saw Enshrouded, I got the same Valheim and V Rising vibes that I assume most people ran into. As a longtime player of Rust and an RPG lover, I liked those games. Thing is, I got bored with both of them in about a day.

That disappointment left a hole in my heart, aching for an open world building game in a fantasy setting. Then Enshrouded popped up, and it is basically everything I could have asked for.

What I Like:

The beautiful world. It looks great, and it seems pretty damn big. If the fog-of-war on the map is to be believed, I’ve been playing quite a bit since launch, and I’ve only uncovered maybe ten percent of it. Different environs are promised, and just as I was getting bored with the woodland area, I found myself being sent into a rainforest for higher-level quests. From the top of a huge tower, I can see a cool-looking desert biome, though I haven’t found my way over there yet.

Quests. These keep things interesting and guide my exploration. Handed out by NPCs I’ve rescued, they’re largely responsible for locking new blueprints and recipes.

Construction. The main reason I’m into these games in the first place. Building is easy, and the variety of shapes makes it possible to build damn near anything. I love that overlapping blocks automatically “merge” to create optimal transitions between two materials or to remove seams. Even the gardening part of the game is fascinating, and I’ve found myself spending hours just building up and populating the garden outside of my home.

Build locations. I love that I can set up my bases inside existing towns or caves. My first “real” base took shape inside an abandoned farm with multiple barns. Over time, I was able to repair the broken buildings and take over, giving me a sizable base with a lot of space — without needing to build it from scratch.

Setting. The eco-horror aspect feels fresh and unique.


What I Would Change:

Enemy variety. Unfortunately, I haven’t run into a huge variety of mobs. Wolves, scavengers, and a couple of different mutants in the Shroud zones, for the most part. That said, I’ve run into and killed at least four different boss types so far, including one that required me to change my playstyle completely just to survive.

Theme. I’m getting a little tired of the “grimdark” takeover in fantasy. While Enshrouded’s setting and lore is cool, I long for the days when fantasy games had you fighting something other than mutants, skeletons, and zombies. What about good-old bandits? Orcs? Things that aren’t undead? Maybe some non-grimdark stuff lies ahead, so I can’t fault the game yet. But so far, it’s all been fairly dark. And grim.

All told, if you like building things, and you like fantasy settings, this is a surefire win.

TLDR: I HIGHLY recommend watching a few minutes of a no-commentary playthrough of the game before buying it. You will find out very quickly if it’s worth your time.

Complete Version (Early Game References, But Not Really Spoilers):

After giving up an hour in and refunding, I proceeded to fast-forward my way through the rest of the game via walkthrough video so that I could deliver a more informed critique of the storytelling.

I felt it necessary to contribute a few counterpoints that aren’t related to the controls for people who are looking for a review of the story itself. After all, that’s the promise of this game. A story. And you can tell from all of the other reviews that if it fails in that department, gameplay isn’t going to save it — because there really isn’t any.

I’ll begin by saying that this game is a testament to something, but it’s definitely not competent storytelling. Maybe a testament to unsubstantiated positive reviews? Proof that industry awards are bought, not won? Frankly, I’m shocked that so many reviewers laud the story. I work in publishing, and I’m not seeing whatever it is they’re seeing.

That said, the reason I recommend watching a walkthrough is because it’s the cheapest and fastest way to experience the product you’re actually buying: the narrative. It’s also a quick chance to see how poor the writing actually is, which is a terrible sign for a story-driven game.

First, I have to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Beyond: Two Souls is insanely similar to Stranger Things. So much so, that I can’t possibly believe that the game’s premise did not influence the show’s writers. (Can you watch the very first scene without thinking…oh, that’s Hopper and Eleven and I’m actually playing a Stranger Things game? I couldn’t.)

What’s important in the comparison is that Stranger Things is a masterpiece, while Two Souls is written at a level I’d call ‘middle-grader’s first stab at NaNoWriMo’. That is not an insult, just an honest appraisal of the level of writing skill on display. The kind where there might be some clever ideas, but the writer lacks the skill to make those ideas work.

There. That’s out of the way.

Moving on, the pacing is all over the place. That’s part of the disjointed narrative style, but I don’t believe the time jumps add anything. It’s actually detrimental, as the plot device in play here is the flashback. Everything you’re experiencing in the game is a memory.

In reality, the protagonist spends the entire game sitting at a desk writing in a journal, which is an interactive fiction no-no from day dot because it pretty much means that nothing you do as the player matters.

The gameplay has already happened. We know the PC is only remembering these events, not living them, so there can be no peril when peril is implied. Your choices could matter, but probably not when you’re making them out of order.

Then there’s the absence of emotional ebbs and flows, replaced instead by breakneck cuts from chronologically-scrambled scenes that hardly relate to each other.

As others have mentioned, jumping from a fast-paced gunfight with exploding helicopters to a memory of the protagonist puttering around the house as a toddler is odd.

The dialogue throughout is mundane and reflects the poor writing quality. Every line exists only to move the plot along rather than amuse, entertain, or develop the character that’s saying it.

Seriously, these are basic mistakes that someone who’s taken a creative writing class should be able to sidestep.

For example, there’s a SWAT character who appears in a few different segments, but his dialogue is always limited to crackerjack lines like “Hold your positions!”, “Cease fire!”, and the award-winning “I SAID CEASE FIRE!” This is a recurring character and his dialogue is what you get when you pull the string on an action figure. No characterization. No effort to make him a believable human. Seriously, it’s painful when they dramatically cut to a medium shot of a recurring character — specifically to show that he’s in the scene — and his ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ line is “hold your positions.”

Granted, ‘SWAT Commander’ is not a main character, but the central cast isn’t much better off. Bad dialogue leads to major problems with the actors’ performances. Because the writing is so awful, the actors were forced to “give the words life” through melodramatic delivery. That never ends well.

Then there's the constant feeling that I’ve seen it all before. I’ll be the first to tell you that creativity involves the synthesis of old ideas into new ones, but there’s an element of alchemy to making the familiar into something new.

A skilled creator can reform familiar mediums, styles, palettes, and subjects into a masterpiece that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Newer writers — and dare I say, bad writers — tend to lack that alchemical skill and simply glue other people’s ideas together like a ransom note cut from old magazines.

Two Souls is rife with that phenomenon. Every scene, every character, every predictable twist, every moment comes across as something I’ve already seen elsewhere.

A toddler using mystical powers to steal cookies from a cookie jar at the bemusement of mother? I know I’ve seen that somewhere. A father freaking out and saying “that’s not our child any more…it’s a monster”? I’ve heard that exact line in several other movies. The locations of fight scenes? Done to death. The espionage setting? Done. The paranormal experiments? Seen it. The misunderstood teenaged girl with inexplicable powers who gets picked on? Holy crap, have we seen that in spades.

There’s just nothing unique about any of it. It’s trope leftovers warmed up in a low-wattage microwave.

The few times that I wasn’t bored by the predictability and lack of depth, I was repulsed by…and I hate using this word as a noun…the cringe. If you’re curious, skip about 20 minutes into a walkthrough video to the birthday party sequence. It’s so unbelievably bad that I’ve given up trying to describe it in words. It plays like it was written by a ten-year-old male who was asked to write what he thinks a high school girl’s party would be like. And then they kicked him in the head before handing him a pen.

Then there’s the issues I have with the protagonist, Jodie. Others have mentioned she has no agency, but I didn’t expect it to be this atrocious. In the couple of hours I was able to tolerate the game, she served mostly as a talking prop (albeit one that doesn’t talk much).

The scene with the most dialogue — the aforementioned birthday party scene — is entirely centered around a boy trying to get into her pants. I was hoping Jodie would get better further in, but I came away knowing the writer has no business writing female characters. That becomes a real issue when you’ve decided to go with a female protagonist.

It often leads to their entire story and “emotional arc” centering around horny or angry men and sexual abuse because the writer can’t imagine any feminine struggle that doesn’t stem from their own masculinity. “To write from a woman’s perspective, I just have to make men evil” is the axiom of terrible male writers everywhere.

And it’s on full display here, complete with the overwhelming feeling that in the midst of her supernatural powers, CIA school, shootouts, and infiltration, the writer believed Jodie’s biggest emotional struggles would invariably center around a man every single time. That is the reddest of red flags.

Two Souls has a really cool idea at its core. But it also proves that a good idea does not make a good novel, movie, or game. Ideas are cheap. It’s the execution that matters, and the execution here was lazy and uninspired.

As far as I’m concerned, the twist ending to Two Souls is that a writer can bury a single good idea under five hours of rote tedium and walk away with a box full of awards.

Normally wouldn't do this, but the bugs in this DLC have rendered my save game unplayable.

I was having a great time with Tenants, and figured I'd give Pets a shot. A few minutes into the Pets tutorial, a bug in quest tracking has made the game unplayable. It's telling me to do something I did to trigger the step, and since I've already done it, I can't do it again. So, I'm stuck with Uncle's message and no possibility of continuing. That also means all of my previous game play is lost, because of the single save file. (If your game has as many bugs as this one, you really should let us create our own backup saves. At least give us a fighting chance.)

Per the discussion boards, I'm not the only one with this problem. I will change my review if the devs get this issue fixed.

There have been a ton of patches since I bought this four days ago, so I thought I'd leave a review highlighting some of the oft-mentioned technical problems.

First, let me say I got this on sale for $10 and it's definitely worth the price...now that it works. The day of purchase, there was a nasty bug that stopped the game from loading at all. Based on the message board, I'd say this was affecting most players, if not all. I nearly refunded the game, but I'm glad I kept it now that the problem was addressed.

BUGS/PROBLEMS:
- I haven't had any issues with crashing, but I do get some nasty lag spikes from time to time.
- I've had tutorial quests bug out and stop registering completed tasks. I was able to correct this by reloading the game both times. (With credit for the tasks I've completed.)
- I think the calculation of cash flow is buggy. I had a quest to earn $8k positive cash flow. I was hovering at ~$2500 for a LONG time, even with tenants coming and going and lease terms changing. Didn't make sense. Then one day it randomly said I completed the quest, even though I have no idea how I suddenly had an additional $5500 in cash flow. Either it's buggy, or the way it's calculated or displayed is not intuitive.
- DEVS...please put in a way to mute or change the doorbell sound. It sounds exactly like my real doorbell, and it's louder than the rest of the SFX, so it's really annoying. The first time it went off, I didn't know that the service action cued it and actually went to my door. It makes my pets freak out every time it sounds. Just let me get rid of it because it adds nothing to the game anyway.

EDIT: One warning. After leaving this review, I purchased the Pets DLC and the buggy tutorial broke my game. I had to start an entirely new game with the DLC disabled. Just wanted to stick this caveat in here in case you're thinking of getting both.

GAMEPLAY:
It definitely reminds me of the Sims in the sense that you decorate homes in hopes of satisfying various needs. You can purchase various apartments/homes/unique lots and decorate them as you see fit...with the goal of attracting and keeping tenants to generate cash flow. Within your owned properties there is some basic wall building/removal allowed.

There are also other jobs, but I don't play them unless the tutorial forces me to. You can "babysit" other tenants, which just means dealing with their problems for a set amount of time. You can also work the lease negotiation for other property owners. Since I hate the lease negotiation part, I choose to avoid these.

The major difference from a mere decorating game is the phone that never stops going off. You have to handle tenant complaints, manage leases, and help your tenants with things like dates and workouts. (Realistic landlord sim it is not.)

TENANTS:
It's hard for me to care about them because they're so hard to manage. They're unpredictably moody. I was thrilled when I was able to hire an agent to pass off some of the work. I've started just bombarding them with services and gifts to keep them happy.

I don't get lease negotiation at all. I have really happy tenants, yet they always try to lowball me. Most of the time, they won't agree to pay enough to even cover expenses so I have to let them go. This is even when they're satisfied and I spent thousands of dollars doing renovations based on their requests. I don't know how they can be paying $1500 a month, be really happy, and expect to sign a new lease at $200 a month. This is insane.

Then there's the timing of the lease re-negotiations. I've lost good tenants because I don't get a final warning to negotiate the lease before they go. I see one warning, then they just text me and say "see ya". I get that the time management and stress is part of the game, but it sucks when I lost a client forever (after spending tons of money and research on them) because I was busy when I got my one warning. Would it be so bad to get a text message saying "I'm about to pack my crap and leave...do you want to talk about this lease? Last chance."

For the most part, the tenants are annoyances that get in the way of building cool apartments.

JOBS:
As I said, I only do the renovation jobs. They can be pretty entertaining. The early jobs make it seem trivial, but they get much harder. Sometimes you have to fit a ton of furniture and decoration into a small space, or you have to hit a target prestige level on a low budget. I've had a few where it took 20 minutes of fiddling to get the project how I wanted it.

Unique jobs are cool. It was a nice surprise that I would also be asked to renovate gas stations, yoga studios, restaurants, and a military barracks (to name a few). You do get repeats, but you don't have to take them.

FURNITURE VARIETY:
There's quite a bit to choose from. For the price, I wasn't expecting as many options as I was given, and I'm still earning more on a regular basis. You can get really creative with your projects, which is the whole reason I got the game. I spend a lot of time on my owned properties, where I'm entirely in charge. With remodel jobs, you can focus on nailing a good score without worrying too much about the looks. (Sometimes it's just about cramming stuff into a room.)

You can make a very personalized, unique home with what you're given, especially as new decorations and items unlock. If the devs release new furniture/style packs, I would most likely buy them if the price is right.

VERDICT:
If you like decorating and arranging furniture, it's a go. I'm a fan of everything from The Sims to Big Ambitions to Tavern Keeper/Winkleje/Crossroads Inn, and this game reminds me of all of them in some way. Just imagine playing the former and having the Sims on autopilot while you focus on being a property manager and you've pretty much got the idea.

As far as I can tell, the most terrible bugs have been fixed (save games, crashes, failure to launch, etc.) Get it without hesitation on sale. IF it gets to the point of bug-free, it will be worth every penny of full price.

The devs could do a LOT with this premise, and I hope they do. Besides adding new furniture/decor, it would be awesome if they added some kind of business aspect to it. They already have gas stations, laundromats, and restaurants as renovation projects, so it'd be cool to open up my own to generate revenue rather than turning my properties over to crappy, ungrateful tenants! ;P

Edit: After sleeping on it, I wanted to add a couple of things. First is that I'm really looking forward to playing again later tonight. To me, there's no better sign of a worthwhile game than it leaving that kind of impression. I'm also adding some small clarifications below...

I took a chance on this one because it looked weird. I'm not a fan of kung fu movies or martial arts games, but I do love innovative RPGs. The thing that almost dissuaded me from buying it was how many of the (few) reviews compared it to Kenshi -- a game that I could never get into.

Personally, I don't see the comparison. Other than that it's a sandbox RPG with rice paddy hats, I don't think it's anything like the other game. The text in Matchless Kung Fu is borderline undecipherable and I'm still less confused than I am in Kenshi.

COMBAT:
It's a mini-game-style combat system unlike anything I've played. (Although it's probably easier to pick up if you like these kinds of martial arts games.) I still don't think I understand how it works, but I am able to win fights, so I guess that's all that matters.

Combat does look pretty cool. The freeze-frames of kicking dogs and monkeys in the crotch are hilarious. I guess you don't need to fully "get it" to appreciate it.

TILES:
I was intrigued by the map that you build yourself. As an avid board game player, I found it to be very accessible. If nothing else, it's a new spin on exploration. Rather than knowing there's a built map out there for me to run around, I kind of lay it out myself and choose (from the given options) what biomes and threats I want to see next. Yes, you end up with a square continent, but it's a game. I can make the small sacrifice of seeing a perfectly straight shoreline if the mechanic is new and interesting.

BUILDING:
What lured me in was really the prospect of building houses and shops. I love building things. I was able to put together my first house within fifteen minutes of starting the game. To my surprise, an NPC ran up to me and offered to buy it. So I sold it, then built another next to it. It seems like I'm not just able to build houses, but an actual village with NPC inhabitants. And I'll eventually build shops that sell things to those NPCs. That part has me excited.

NPCs:
They're interesting. I haven't fully figured out what makes them tick, but they have plenty of relationship stats you can parse. I'm currently trying to make friends with a random NPC who showed up in my little village. Unfortunately, there are other NPCs who don't like her for some reason and will constantly beat her half to death. It's interesting, I'll say that.

QUESTS:
No overarching plotline that I'm aware of. I think there might be one hidden within the Chinglish near-jibberish...something about having amnesia and trying to find a cure. Maybe?

Each new tile you add to the map has its own objectives that you can complete. You can go up to any NPC and ask for quests, resulting in a list of fetch quests for resources or special items. Since you need money to heal after getting beat down, I found it was a good idea to do a bunch of these early on.

LANGUAGE:
The translations aren't just bad, they're abysmal. At times, it's pretty funny, but the outright incorrect word usage gets in the way of learning the game. For example, the word 'recycle' used to indicate that you can pick something up. It took me a minute to realize that they used the word 'Orion' to mean 'hunter'...although I guess that should have been obvious. (?) They used the word 'marriage' to mean 'relationship', as in the gradient of possible relationships (I think) so you're constantly running around 'married' to things.

The conversations are indecipherable. I've had to make a lot of guesses when it comes to commands and conversation trees. I couldn't tell if the first NPC that talked to me was being nice or threatening. My choices for responses all seemed to pretty much mean the same thing, so I chose the one that I thought meant 'thank him for saving me'. Turns out it was an insult to every belief this guy holds dear, and more than enough to warrant beating my ass for being some kind of religious zealot. I have no idea.

Many commands are just as bad. You gotta guess what they mean. (Like 'take relic' means chopping off someone's head. So be glad there's a warning on that one if you try it.)

A dog beat me up, then had to 'decide what to do with me'. He chose to break my legs. A LOT of NPCs decide to break my legs. This is the funny stuff. I don't mind it.

--

If you like games where figuring things out is part of the fun and the challenge, this is a winner. Granted, the language barrier adds an unwanted element of 'mystery', but it's not impossible to navigate, and the game seems pretty forgiving when you guess poorly.

Overall, it's surprisingly fun and unique. By imagining that I'm inside the mind of a psychotic beggar, everything makes perfect sense. Including getting beat to hell for saying 'thank you'.

I wanted to post a review because I've noticed that there are a few high-up negative reviews that don't make sense now that I've played the game. I wouldn't want misinformation to stop someone from trying it.

Long story short, if you want to build a mall or run a bunch of shops, this game will quench that thirst. I can honestly say playing it was pretty much what I expected. (That's a good thing.) I've been playing my first game over the last two days, so my 40+ hours includes some ant farm idle time where I just had the game running while I did other work.

MYTHBUSTING:
* A review said that placing objects and furniture is tedious -- specifically pointing out that it took a long time to place theatre seats. You can click and drag most objects, including these seats. I filled three theatres with seats in about a minute.

* Another review said that the mechanics work against the premise. I see two problems with that. First, I don't believe there's a set premise in the sense that "the game wants" you to build a specific type of shopping center. Secondly, I built both a strip mall and an enclosed mall on my first map. Both work great. They're easily managed either way, and I've never even come close to going bankrupt.

WHAT I LIKE:
* You can get creative with assigning zones. I had no problem putting a coffee shop inside my book store. I also have a pharmacy inside my big-box store that has different operating hours than the rest of the store (just like real stores), and a bar inside a restaurant that stays open later than food service. Making a food court is simple (sharing seating between multiple restaurants).

* There's a lot of liberty in creating stores. Depending on what products you stock, your store will be classified automatically (50%+ of one specific product makes it a --niche-- specialty store. A majority of a specific -type- of product, like housewares, will make it a specialty store, and so on.)

* Few restrictions on mixing and matching products. I have a store that sells candy, snacks, soda, and comic books. I have another that only sells things that are popular when the "pandemic" event kicks off -- a prepper store. I have a grocery store with only food, and another that's more like a supercenter, with a large food section, clothing, and HBC.

* Everything is flexible and intuitive. Once you see how stores are laid out (and their requirements) you can do whatever you want. For example, I fit three displays and a checkout counter into a little 4x4 block to make a kiosk in the middle of the mall atrium. Works great.

* I don't think the game is that hard. I'm surprised the word "punish" even showed up in some reviews. Follow the tutorial and watch the profit and losses of your first store. Don't take out loans, because you shouldn't need to. Just stay in the black and save your money, then build another store. Repeat.

It's fun. Give it a go.

I have no previous experience with the Jagged Alliance franchise, so I’m hoping my POV will help those of you who aren’t looking for a comparison to older iterations of the game.

I will say this much…when I saw the title pop up in New Releases, it immediately made me remember old issues of PC Gamer with ads for the original game when I was a kid. It looked cool. I wanted it. Never ended up playing it.

But the memory got my attention. I bought, played, and have been thoroughly enjoying this game.

The first thing I noticed right out the gate is that it reminded me a LOT of Pillars of Eternity 2, the cRPG. Maybe it’s using the same engine…I don’t care enough to look into these things. But everything from the UI to the graphics made it feel a lot more like a cRPG and less like XCOM (which I am familiar with).

JA3 is a combat-heavy cRPG in my mind -- just about mercenaries, not wizards. I probably feel that way because of the open-world aspect, but the characters, side quests, and stories definitely contribute to that appraisal.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS --

I thought the opening cutscene was a little cheap…just voiceover on a fairly static 3D-rendered desk. That had me worried about overall quality, but far be it from me to make crazy snap judgements based on something that superficial. Ahem.

I always go into games blind, so I just did what the popup tooltips suggested. Start with three mercs, it said, so I hired three. I pretty much just grabbed three that looked useful…Steroid, Fox, and MD.

A reminder, because I have no experience with the past games, I did not expect the “humor” part. Somehow, I managed to get into the first combat map still thinking this was going to be a fairly serious military game.

Then the characters started talking. I’ll admit, it turned me off pretty bad at first. These are some really, really heavy-handed jokes delivered by one-dimensional characters. First was Steroid, voiced by a bad Arnold impersonator. Everything he says has something to do with being pumped, flexing, or hoping to find protein powder in a loot crate. Eh.

But what really killed me was Fox. I guess she’s supposed to be a total sloot, because every one of her lines is thinly-veiled sexual innuendo. I got tired real fast of her saying “sometimes it’s more fun when you have to be quiet” (or something close to that) every time I told her to move while stealthed. Her lines were so bad, I ran to the menu and started over, vowing NOT to hire her again.

Second go-around, I replaced her with Mouse and was much happier. She hopes to find cheese in loot crates, but it’s less annoying than a merc who sounds like she’s trying to bang the enemy rather than shoot them.

Choosing the right mercs along the way helped a lot with making the experience as enjoyable as it ultimately was. At one point, I hired a guy who ended up being kind of boring, so I just kicked him out of the squad, exiled him to a bottleneck on the map, and relegated him to training militia for the rest of his life. Problem solved.

I did that after realizing I could create ONE custom merc. Not sure why it’s just one, but I’ll take it.

GAMEPLAY AND DIFFICULTY --

It’s straightforward and fun. I’m pretty sure if you’re familiar with any kind of turn-based combat, you’ll pick this up in one turn. After a few battles, you’ll probably know the bulk of the mechanics and nifty tricks.

I don’t think the game is that hard, but that doesn’t make it any less addictive. There have only been two battles I’ve had to save scum repeatedly to get through, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to be rushing that far ahead on the map to begin with. My lowbie mercs with ratty weapons weren’t doing too hot against the security squad with full heavy armor, super soldier drugs, high-end small arms, and a machine gun emplacement.

But we eventually beat the fight with only one casualty, my only dead merc of the game. (Not counting my exiled merc dying like an idiot in some auto-complete battle for his outpost.)

That tough-as-hell fight was where I learned that positioning is everything. Once I figured out the best mechanics for moving and grouping the squad, it became very difficult for us to lose.

And what about the income from diamond mines?

I’m not one for rushing games, but the diamond mines with limited lifespans made me feel like I should. I spent a good amount of time building up the squad on the first part of the map, then just blitzed through everything else, capturing every diamond mine I could.

From what I figure, the mines shouldn’t be a problem for most players. I’ve already run two or three of them to empty and I still have a hefty income and over $1M saved up. I’m three squares from what I assume is the final battle of the story, which is why I decided to take a break to write this review and put off that sad feeling when I finish a game that I really enjoy.

PROBLEMS --

I agree with many other reviewers about the UI annoyances. On the overland map, it’s really easy to accidentally send a squad running all over the map with a wrong click. Since that often means that they will run into a fight you didn’t intend on starting, it’s pretty irritating. Sometimes it just means they get on a boat and haul ass halfway around the world before you can stop them. Not the end of the world, but it does mean more time resting and traveling, which in the early game could be bad when you’re pinching pennies.

Nothing else comes to mind in terms of “needing fixing”. Yeah, some of the clicking is fiddly, and sometimes it’s a real pain to find the sweet spot on a crate or something, but that’s about it.

I guess if I had my druthers, some easier way to re-up the merc contracts might be nice. Early in the game, when I could only afford short contract terms, it felt like I was clicking through the hire/rehire screen quite a bit.

Storage is a pain, but I’ve learned to live with it. Maybe I’m missing something, but I just stash all my loot in whatever sector I happen to be in to clear inventory space. That leaves me forgetting where anything is, but I don’t know of a better method. (I hoard weapons needlessly, so it’s probably my fault.)

Oh, and the ammo inventory situation is abysmal. It’s really hard to tell what you’ve got. Apparently, someone already fixed that with a mod, but it looked like the mod broke a lot of people’s games, so I’m not messing with it.

I would say the over-the-top dialogue and one-liners could be tightened up a little, but I’m warming up to it. After a couple of hours, I just stopped hearing it because…well…you hear the lines a lot. On the plus side, Steroid did finally say something hours into the game that made me laugh. Took a while to get there, but it was enough to earn him some credit.

WHAT I’D LIKE TO SEE --

More. I want more mercs, more weapons, and more places to explore.

There are a pretty decent number of weapons, but I just want more variety for variety’s sake. If I’m being honest, the selection is pretty good already. Some of the more fun (distinctive) weapons appear to be lootables from specific fixed locations or are obtained by side quests, which means I don’t think you can load up your whole squad with Colt Commandos. (I’ve only found one.)

Speaking of the forgotten CAR-15, I’m disappointed I couldn’t affix the giant flash hider that made it so iconic. Fix that, devs! Top of the list! ;P


Next on my list would be more places to go. Expand the map, give me a new region. Whatever the DLC provides, I will eagerly snatch up. I would love to take my squad on ongoing adventures for hundreds more hours. That appeals to me far more than starting over with new mercs.

Last priority for me would be more mercs. What I would -really- prefer is a more complete system for creating mercs. I’d really like to have some, even small, control over base appearance. If you want to go all out and make a character creation system for full customization.

I was never able to get into cRPGs.

I've amassed many hours of tabletop time (Pathfinder and a few random others). I was a 20+ year Everquest addict. My fiance and I play Dice Throne at least once a week. From complex to simple, I love it all. It's just that the slow, isometric, reading-heavy world of cRPGs just never caught my eye as something fun to do alone sitting at a computer.

But I had to give Deadfire a second look. I do like pirates and I have yet to find any kind of real pirate-themed RPG, so I gave it a shot. Reluctantly.

Deadfire almost lost me at the very beginning. First an entire page of written backstory sloooooooowly revealing on my screen. (I don't know how poor of a reader they think I am, but I would have loved to speed that up!) Then another, seemingly unrelated intro done in a weird animation style. Then more exposition during the character creation segment.

It was a bit of an infodump, and I spaced out through most of it because I just wanted to test out the character creation and gameplay before I got too invested. Minutes later, I had created a rogue based loosely on one of my favorite tabletop Pathfinder characters. Everything looked good so far, and the prospect of classes, subclasses, and hybrid classes immediately made this alt-oholic think "tons of replay value".

Once my little stump of a rogue was running around in the world, I was hooked. And it wasn't that meaningless, ephemeral kind of "hooked" that most video games rely on now. It was more like the first time I read "The Eye of the World" twenty-something years ago. Very zen and relaxing.

And I started to get it. cRPGs are a bit slow at times. There can be some reading. But, when done right, it's like jumping into one of your favorite books. It's a reminder that you don't have to drown your brain in adrenaline to feel enjoyment.

I'm about halfway through the story (based on my exploration of the map) and I've decided to stop and download Pillars of Eternity. I love the world so much that I'm going to go back and start at the beginning of the series, try out a new class, and then import them over to Deadfire for a fresh start of this game at a higher difficulty level.

I also bought the Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Divinity collections while I was shopping. I'm not sure if they'll be as good as this one, but damned if Deadfire didn't make a full-on genre convert out of me.

A few extra points:

* I've been playing in Turn Based combat mode. I've never tried a RTwP combat system, so I went with what I know. Since I'm about to try out this game's predecessor, I guess I'm going to find out what it's like. =P (UPDATE: See below)
* I chose 'classic' difficulty, which was good for learning the game. It's now far too easy about halfway in. My group just killed a big boss and ended the fight with full health across the board. We can take over entire ships of enemies with silver and red skulls over their heads without taking losses. The good news is that difficulty levels and level scaling can be changed during the game.
* I do get the feeling that my choices matter in this game because I have seen certain opportunities change based off of things I've done. There are some encounters that press you with a difficult decision, and while those decisions don't seem to change the world, they do have consequences.
* This really does remind me of the old days of playing tabletop games for hours on end.
* I have to commend the Deadfire team on their writing and storytelling. My god, that is one area where the gaming industry has been crapping the bed, but this is fantastic stuff.


3/11/23: I played the original PoE last night and it was a pretty rough transition from turn-based to RTwP. I'm starting to think the reason why Deadfire on turn-based got dead easy halfway through on 'normal' difficulty is because it was meant to be played in real time.

I'm going to keep trying with PoE classic, but I keep feeling like I'm more at home with Deadfire and may abandon the original until a turn-based patch or mod comes out.

Short summary: I enjoyed New World for about a week before the shine wore off completely. Then I gave it another week. Realizations about what the game really is and where it's going made me realize I just wasn't into it.

I cannot recommend this game for anyone who wants the "RPG" part of MMORPG. This is a fighting game disguised, poorly, as a role playing game.

If nothing else, New World opened my eyes to the state of the industry in terms of MMOs. If Amazon knows anything, it's consumer behavior and algorithms, and I believe they've built a game purely motivated by how gamers spend money, not what they want to play or what provides real, lasting entertainment.

No vision. No epic plan. No art. Just doing what it takes to build the hype and get the sales.

Why was PvE tacked on to the game at the last minute as so many people say? Because it allowed the game to take money from people like me who would have no interest in a PvP-focused MMO. It's a deceit, really. A thin one.

I honestly believe that games like New World should no longer be -allowed- to call themselves RPGs without meeting certain requirements. With no classes or races, there is only one role to play in the game -- person with weapons. And because there are no soft skills like diplomacy, lock picking, stealth, or any number of other things you see in a role playing game, you literally are just a fighter that will forever be 99% identical to everyone else in the game.

No classes means you can just swap out your weapons and go from being a tank to a healer. As long as you've leveled up the appropriate weapons, you'll get the same skills as someone who has a played a healer since the beginning. But what about your stats? Doesn't matter, because you can also respec your base stats on the fly any time you want.

You don't feel like your character because your character is not defined in any way.

And all of this "freedom" just makes the game meaningless and beige. Everything is so "balanced" that nothing matters. In a real role playing game, it's often possible to become a complete, OP badass at something. Or make yourself extremely useful with other skills. There are gradients and variety. "Balance," which I suppose has to be a priority when you're making a fighting game rather than an RPG, isn't always a good thing. It can become tedious and rob the game of life.

This is why NW is -not- a role playing game any more than Call of Duty or Battlefield are.

That's the core of it, but the problems go deeper. There are only about five different types of enemies you'll ever encounter, so the excitement of "I wonder what it will be like to go up against X" is never there. You'll be fighting the same pirates with your level one character until some of the highest level dungeons.

And those dungeons are boring or frustrating for a certain type of player (like myself) who don't want to watch YouTube videos to learn the meta for beating every boss's lousy mechanics so I don't get one-shot-killed every time. (Then you have to hope you get a group of people who also did the same.) Hey, I played the hell out of Elden Ring and that was a blast -- but these NW bosses were not fun.

Sure, you could learn the dungeons on your own, but during the time I played the game, the group finder was pretty much always a ghost town. There were entire days I would try to get into dungeons without success because...no one was doing them. Consistently empty. So when you do finally get into a dungeon, it's almost like you get one chance to get it right or you're going to be waiting god knows how long to try again.

And to hell with the stupid Tomb Raider jumping and timing puzzles that will kill me before I even get to the first wave of enemies. It's not that they're hard, it's that they're a pointless waste of time. Please fire whoever thought those were a good idea.

As far as I'm concerned, New World represents a trend toward a formulaic, artistically-bankrupt style of game that is designed entirely to play on consumer behavior, not offer entertainment. It's basically using the same ideas that make mobile games addictive without making them "good".

My proof that this is going to be a growing problem is the upcoming game Throne and Liberty. Take a look at that website and tell me it doesn't look like a re-skin of New World. The character models look the same. The mechanics they've disclosed look the same. They even boast that you can "change your class just by changing your weapons" and show images that look like they could have captured in New World... like this is a brag-worthy thing.

And they pull the -exact same- copout that New World did on how lousy the story, world, and lore are. "The most important story in our game IS YOURS."

Brings a tear to me one eye, right? That's just marketing speak for "there is no story. This game is just meant to trap you in a dopamine loop based on shallow PvP, buying gear, and leaderboards".

Anyway. If anyone knows of a real MMORPG that hasn't sold their soul and still offers an RPG experience, let me know.