Prime8 最近的评测

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.

I'm having fun with this so far. Not regretting the purchase.

Yet another case where I'm glad I didn't listen to the negativity in the reviews. I've learned my lesson, and people will typically review the game they expected rather than the game they received. Then it becomes a bandwagon thing and people try to come up with the most creative ways to agree with each other's gripes.

And no, I don't care what the company promised about the game. Another lesson I've learned (and more gamers probably need to figure this out) is that you have to stop buying games based on what you think they're going to be -- even if your expectations are set by the developers. Buy the game for what it is. Enjoy it for what it is. If you don't, you're going to be unhappy with most of your game purchases.

Anyway, I pulled the trigger on this one simply because I've been craving a new action shooter and I love the dark aesthetic of the 40k universe. (I actually tried Alien: Fireteam Elite first and returned it because it was extremely flat and boring.)

My biggest worry was that this game just wouldn't run on my three-year-old MSI laptop. I noticed a lot of people with built rigs complaining about optimization and whatnot. So far, this laptop has been able to run any game I throw at it, but it's gonna hit a wall eventually. This game is not that wall.

Darktide runs surprisingly well. I get no stuttering, no lag, no crashes, nothing to complain about. Am I running it on the highest graphic settings? Of course not. I took whatever it recommended (probably very low) and the game still looks great.

I really don't need to run 120fps at 12k with ray tracing and whatever-the-hell-else to enjoy a game. If it looks good, I'm happy. I can deal with lower settings in favor of being able to actually play. If you -need- the highest graphic settings for whatever reason, I imagine this will put serious demand on your system.

If you're not some kind of graphics settings size queen, and your ego can handle not being at "ULTRA MAX OVERCLOCKED MADNESS" quality, you'll most likely avoid the technical issues people are reporting and still enjoy a nice-looking game.

My second worry was that Darktide would end up being as boring and repetitive as Fireteam Elite. I played two missions on that game and was pretty much done with killing the same two types of aliens in the same places, and in environments that were incredibly stale.

Darktide has definitely done a better job at capturing my attention. I keep going back for one more run. And it's not just because I want better weapons or whatever, but because playing is actually fun. Imagine that? Playing because it's fun, not because I'm obsessed with the loot! Even I fall into that trap these days and it's nice to enjoy a game for its play, not its reward system.

So, I'm going to keep playing until I get bored with it. Could be a week from now, could be tomorrow, but either way I still got my money's worth. And I will be looking forward to improvements, additions, new maps, etc....but I'm not going to based my enjoyment of this game on what it might become.

Better to just enjoy it for what it is.

Glory to the God-Emperor.

Someone compared this to Division 2, and as a huge fan of that game I decided to give this one a try. Unfortunately, other than being a third person shooter, there's nothing about this that reminds me of Division 2.

So I played for two hours and requested a refund. It's just...boring. Usually when I start a new game there's a sense of the unknown and anticipation of what lies ahead. Cool weapons? Creative builds? Lots of loot? Exploration?

I just didn't get any of that from Fireteam Elite. Alien swarms are repetitive by nature, and when they're not dropping loot, killing them feels like a job with little reward. The builds struck me as being kind of stupid, with your Marine launching rockets and beam weapons out of his shoulders like Iron Man. And some things just seemed weirdly unpolished -- like when you're in the hub before starting a mission, you can walk around your own ship spraying bullets and setting off explosions while NPCs just sit around completely ignoring you. It's just weird.

It didn't help that I wanted to play with a controller and it just felt very clunky. I'm persistent enough that I play tons of PC games with a controller vs. KBM and still manage to be competitive, but this just felt sloppy.

I once broke my ankle so badly that my foot was completely backwards. After three surgeries, a metal plate, fifteen screws, and nearly of year of having my foot in a metal cage drilled into my bones, I was able to try walking again.

My first uneasy steps with a swollen, scarred foot in a plastic brace were faster than my character RUNS in this game.

Running is slower than walking in most games. Walking is slower than the speed that you creep in any other game's "stealth mode". This bothers me because of the crazy amount of walking involved in the game.

Also...why is holding your breath still a thing in every game with scopes when we've known for at least twenty years that you should NOT hold your breath to take a shot?

I’m by no stretch the “target audience”, especially based on reviews and recommendations.

Here are the many reasons why I shouldn’t play Hunt:

I play solo most of the time.
I like having the TV on while I play games. I generally hate wearing a headset.
I’m not a fan of horror games.
I don’t like battle royale games. (Hunt is not one, but many people make the comparison)
I’m not a super-competitive player and PVP is rarely interesting to me.
I never, ever “study up” on a game before I play it. I like to make my own mistakes.
I like using a controller whenever possible. I’m too old and lazy to use keyboard and mouse when I’m trying to kick back and have fun.
I have to be really invested in a game to learn dozens of intricate minutiae like what sounds every weapon makes and from what distance.

Reviewers would have you thinking that I should absolutely not, under any circumstance, play this game. Without a doubt, the above is a list of traits that could be used to define the antithesis of a Hunt player, or at least one who can’t possibly compete.

I hesitated for hours before buying it. Fortunately, my curiosity about a game with such raving reviews and players with thousands of hours invested took over and I bought it anyway.

It’s a damn fun game and I’m glad I gave it a shot. If you’re thinking about it at all, don’t let the “rules” of how to enjoy this game discourage you.

Am I so gimped that I can’t possibly enjoy the game as people say? No. Within ten games I’d killed a couple of enemy hunters, killed a boss, and recovered two bounties. Do I die a lot? Yes, but I suspect most newbies to the game do.

That being said, let me go into more detail.

Everyone seems to discourage solo play. I can see why, but I honestly have had no issues with enjoying the game as a solo player. Yes, it’s harder without someone watching your back. Yes, almost every time I’ve died, it’s been to a team of two. But hey, I’m not trying to be a professional Hunt player, so who cares?

The audio element of this game is…intense. I would agree that it’s an essential part of being the best player you can be. Since I don’t care about being a Hunt champion, I decided not to alter my usual ways and played my first few rounds with TV playing through the same speakers as my PC. Interestingly enough, I’m able to hear all of the important audio cues without the filler. I tried using the headset once, but there’s so much dread music and random ambient sound that it actually triggered my PTSD. When I use the speakers, I don’t get the full directional benefit, but I still hear NPCs, horses, birds, footsteps, rustling, etc. just fine without all the extra noise. I continue to play without a headset.

The horror genre doesn’t really do it for me. I don’t like cheap jump scares and other things that usually make a game “horror”. I still love the aesthetic of Hunt. The horror is kind of sublime without being overwhelming or relying on annoying gimmicks. And the world just looks awesome.

I played PUBG at launch and after a few dozen rounds, decided I didn’t care for it. The lack of persistence and random chaos is not thrilling to me, just tiresome. Hunt does have some battle royale aspects to it, but it’s far enough removed from that experience that I like it.

I’m usually not into heavy PVP and I’m not a hardcore FPS player. I tend to be fairly good at some games and terrible at others. I could consistently rank high in R6:SIEGE (which Hunt reminds me of in many ways), Destiny 2, and Battlefield games. Most other games, not so much. I feel confident that spending more time in Hunt will make it one of the games I’m not too bad at, and the PVE elements make it even more enjoyable for me.

I don’t want to have to study a guide or watch YouTube videos to be proficient at a game. I like to learn as I go. Hunt has been forgiving enough to allow for that, and the tutorial/PVE game modes are great for learning.

I like to use a controller. I type all day for work and the last thing I want when I’m relaxing is a keyboard in my lap -- especially since it’s like adding fuel to the carpal tunnel fire. Aiming is very hard in Hunt with a controller, I’ll admit. I’ve been messing with sensitivities like crazy trying to nail it down, but it’s definitely rough. Even still, my second hunter kill (in my fourth game) was a snap headshot through a sniper rifle against a running enemy. It’s not impossible, but yeah…using a controller is not easy. Though I will say the control scheme for a controller is extremely intuitive and easy to learn. Way better than keys.

I really don’t like games that require a textbook and correspondence course to be competitive. I’ve already seen guides online for Hunt that are twenty pages long with ballistics charts and penetration graphs and all kinds of crap that the writer swears you must memorize if you want to be good at the game. Meh. I’m not good at the game yet, but I’m learning. And I’m learning by picking up on these things as I play, not from Professor Sweaty’s intensive syllabus.

The bottom line is that there are many reasons why I’m not supposed to like (or be good at) this game, but I think it’s awesome anyway. That’s probably the best endorsement I can give.

I don't follow the world of game development. When I see something launch and it looks interesting, I try it. This gives me the benefit of going into games with zero expectations...something that usually makes me enjoy it more.

I did have -some- expectations about Elden Ring going into it, though -- because of all the obvious comparisons to the Souls games. This made me hesitant because I own every Souls game but I've only played one of them. There were things I liked about Dark Souls, but many things I just couldn't get into. Hence they collect virtual dust in my library and I may never play them.

Boy, am I glad I didn't let this stop me from playing Elden Ring. I have not been able to stop playing this game since downloading it. It became an instant addiction.

Funny enough, I've been chasing that dragon since the first game I ever truly got hooked on...Everquest in 1998. That game was all-consuming and probably the most pleasurable gaming experience I've ever had. I've played dozens of other MMOs trying to recreate that experience, and nothing has ever given me that same feeling.

Until Elden Ring.

Sure, it's not an MMO, but that feeling of entering a new world with infinite possibilities is absolutely there. Some of the familiar fantasy tropes exist, but the mechanics, characters, and stories are unique enough that I don't feel like I'm just walking into "Tolkien Ripoff #26233424". The world carries a variety of tones. While it's all kind of bleak, it doesn't strike me as the hopeless, dark underworld that I found quite dull in Dark Souls.

I love the variety of builds and approaches that the game supports. I've already experimented with at least a dozen different play styles, each unique.

The world is large and rewarding. Exploring and just riding around on my horse is often entertaining in its own right. I'll sometimes find secrets in areas I've already spent hours in. Zones are varied and visually interesting (except for the big swamp. Every game has to have a swamp and they're always ugly and tedious. Sorry.)

I have a feeling I'll be playing this game for a long time. I've been playing nonstop for days (at a fairly mild pace) and I don't think I'm even remotely close to finishing a play through. I have, however, killed at least 20 great/area boss enemies and one of the major demigod bosses. The game is not so hard as to be unplayable casually -- not by any stretch. When a boss is too hard, I just run off and do something else. If I feel like I'm -almost- ready to take on the boss, I go grind out a couple of levels real quick, do some gear upgrades, and repeat the fight a couple more times until I win.

It's really a pleasurable cycle without being repetitive or frustrating (which is one of the reasons I couldn't get into Dark Souls).

Seriously, this is a great game. I would feel like I got a good value even if I'd paid $100 for it.

I've been thinking about this one for a while since I vaguely remember enjoying Dungeon Keeper 2 back in the day.

This is a fun game, but I have to say that I almost couldn't make it past the completely godawful storytelling and dialogue. The campaign starts off with a few "on rails" missions with a LOT of exposition. Interesting gameplay broken up with long, boring narration that reads like it was written by a ten year old who fancies themselves the next Douglas Adams. The narrator is quite good at VO, but I actually feel bad when I hear his lines because they're so cringe-worthy.

Seriously, this could be an excellent game if they just stopped trying so hard to be funny. Humor should not be forced, people. It's painful. For example, in the span of one mission, they used the "main character accidentally says a line from Lord of the Rings and then corrects themselves" joke at least three times. It wasn't funny the first time, so imagine my joy at having to hear it over and over again because all of this dialogue kicks off during the game with no option to skip it. (You can -- and should -- skip cutscenes if you hold down the "escape" key. A fitting key binding if I've ever seen one.)

Get a new writer for the next entry in the franchise, please. Or give me the option to omit all of the crappy dialogue in favor of simple mission objective popup or something.

Or just make it a serious game instead of trying to completely copy the tone of the DK games. You're playing a freakin' dungeon lord -- why not make it a dark game that maximizes that anti-hero ethos rather than trying to turn it into a parody piece?

My final word is that the gameplay is just fine and has kept me interested for the first six hours or so. By the second mission, I'd figured out how to build an overworld party that's pretty much impossible to kill, so that part got a bit easy. I was afraid the game would get boring, but now the raids on my dungeon are increasing A LOT and adding considerably to the challenge. This problem is compounded by the fact that traps don't seem to do a whole lot to stop invaders.

Worth a play at a discount, but I wouldn't buy this expecting a bunch of laughs. If that's what you're going for, do what I did...mute the game and put "Crossing Swords" on TV.

My experience with Cyberpunk 2077 is two-fold. First, as a game, it's provided a ton of entertainment in a world that I really love. Secondly, as an unintentional social experiment aimed at the gaming community, it's become quite the rabbit hole.

For those looking for input on whether or not to buy the game, I'll keep it brief. If the theme and aesthetic interests you, you should just buy it. If you like shooters, stealth games, or RPGs, I think it's worth your time because it has enough going on in all three that it's quite good. I've already started and nearly completed a second play through and it was like playing a completely different game because of my build choices. It's very similar to Skyrim in that you can be stealthy, ranged, melee, magic, etc. and it seriously changes the nature of the game. I would recommend against doing every single side quest and gig during your first play through so you have some new things to try out when you create a new character.

I find the world incredibly beautiful and immersive. I've probably spent ten hours just walking around the city, and disparate areas do feel different enough that it doesn't come across as a big map of copy/paste assets. Yes, I get visual glitches from time to time. NPCs handing me things that aren't there, mostly. There was one car chase where the driver I was following was sitting in the air about ten feet to the right of his car, but that proved to be more comical than anything. Is that enough to condemn a really entertaining game? Hell no.

So what's the deal with all the complaining and bad reviews?

This is clearly one of those games that was "ruined" by consumer expectations, not the devs. Sure, the devs played a hand in setting expectations poorly, but at the end of the day, they released a fun game that's well worth what I paid for it.

The comments of "this game sucks because it just makes me think about how good it could have been" are misleading and...well...pretty immature. These are not objective reviews. They're not even useful reviews. They're whining, nothing more. Dismiss them and try the game for yourself. When you enjoy it, come back and leave a good review. It REALLY pisses off the people who have made a career out of hating on this game.

Look, whiners. Every game ever made "could" be better. Same goes for every meal, movie, or consumer product ever produced. The idea that something should be judged on a person's arbitrary ideas of its potential is ludicrous. This way of thinking is the fast road to never enjoying anything. If someone hands you a fun game that thousands of people clearly enjoy and YOU can't enjoy it, that's on you. And that's why you hate seeing the positive reviews, because it reminds you that you actually have a great game in front of you, but your own vitriol and ego are keeping you from enjoying it.

Now, here's the irony that begs to be pointed out: the game literally is cyberpunk if you think about the genre and the deeper meaning of its themes. (Based on discussions I've seen in Reddit, many of the younger players don't seem to realize that "cyberpunk" is an almost 50-year-old genre, not a creation of CDPR. Or "Altered Carbon".)

Think about it. A bunch of people were promised a technological world that didn't arrive as promised, proved to be full of flaws, and left them feeling empty and adrift? Consumers feel like some dev corporation screwed them over? They feel like no one listens to them? Modders need to break into the system and change things to make it better for the common people?

These ideas LITERALLY form the backbone of the cyberpunk ethos. I can describe the consumer perception of the game using the same paragraph as the game's premise. Cool, right?

So the early disappointment around Cyperpunk was either an accident that led to a great teachable moment, or it's the most clever and artistic marketing payoff in the history of gaming. (Eh, it was probably an accident, but still...)

Anyway, I fully recommend it. Gotten at least 80 hours worth of entertainment out of it already.

For the record, I've written a multiple award-winning cyberpunk novel titled 'Into the BeanStalk', so I'm familiar with the genre. (Here's the book, if you're interested: https://amzn.to/48juwfj)

Death Stranding opens with a parable about a rope and a stick. I can only assume this is to prepare the player for what’s ahead: a game that ties you up in interminable cutscenes and beats you over the head with forced and heavy-handed symbolism.

I’m a very forgiving game reviewer. I don’t expect every game to give me 40+ hours of entertainment. I don’t demand perfection, and I try to begin every game with minimal expectations. I just want a fair exchange of money for entertainment, and that allows me to enjoy -- on some level -- nearly every game I’ve ever bought.

But when a game tries to elevate itself to the level of “art”, and when it’s widely talked about as such, that’s a different story. Art is subjective, sure, but art also has a very different purpose aside from entertainment.

If a game is supposed to be evocative or carry a message, as art does, the developers need to understand subtlety and undertone. Death Stranding has neither, and instead rams the same strange concepts down your throat in a dozen different ways.

The narrative plays out like a writing class experiment where students draw two words out of a hat and are expected to cram those words into their story and wrangle a theme out of them. Kojima’s words were, of course, “Strand” and “Bridge”.

You will see these words a hundred times within the first hour of the game. (Even the president’s name is Bridget Strand. No ♥♥♥♥.)

Your rope -- a utilitarian tool -- is called a “strand” because the thousand year old word “rope” somehow fell out of vogue after the apocalypse. And it’s woven with your blood, because it also serves as a form of high-tech biometric identification. Yeah, your rope, which is meant to be used in the field, is also your ID badge. Anyone who knows the first thing about biometrics knows that this is completely insane. There’s no point in using blood as an ID if someone can just take your “strand” and walk through a scanner. And what happens when you actually want to use your rope? You have to risk losing your ID? (Here’s a roll of toilet paper, but use it carefully because you also use it to unlock your apartment!)

This is what I mean when symbolism is forced. Art shouldn’t completely throw away reality and common sense to jam in a minor bit of message.

This kind of thing carries on throughout the endless, dull cutscenes. Cities are called Knots for some reason. And the terminals within the cities are also called KNOTs. There are multitudes of items -- and people -- in the game named “strand” apart from your stupid blood rope. Including you (Sam Strand), although you’ve adopted a name that reflects your job (Porter) and affiliation (Bridges). So you’re Sam Porter Bridges. A man who lives in Bridges (both a place and a system of government) building bridges for president Bridget Strands using strands while avoiding strands with the help of a bridge baby. For ♥♥♥♥♥ sake.

And all of this overt word association isn’t handled delicately at all. In one cutscene, a character actually talks about the different meanings of the word “strand”. All subtlety and subtext is lost when your characters actually sit there and lecture you about the symbolism.

And there’s never a shortage of NPCs in Death Stranding that will explain the metaphors for you. When you’re told about travelling between “Knots” to connect them, a mind blowingly dull character named “Die-Hardman” even tells you to “think of it like tying different pieces of rope together to make a longer rope”. Doesn’t he mean tying strands together? Oh well, thanks for explaining your deep symbolism for me in case I had a two-digit IQ and couldn’t piece that together on my own.

They might as well just have Reedus scream “THIS GAME IS DEEP AND IT’S ABOUT HUMAN CONNECTION, DAMMIT” into the camera.

And those character names…

Die-Hardman? Heartman? Deadman? I suppose this naming convention is a callback to other games or something, but that doesn’t make it any less irritating and foolish in what’s supposed to be a serious and moving game. It would be like the Mona Lisa being titled “Smirkwoman” -- the childishness robs it of something.

In a further attempt to be innovative or artistic, the game makes even mundane actions painful. There are several items in your room that you can interact with for managing, tracking, or planning out your game. An immersive menu? Sure, let’s try it. But you begin this process sitting on your bed and must look around the room to choose options. Once you select any of the objects, you have to watch Reedus stand up, walk to the item, and interact with it. Exiting that object d’menu forces you to watch him walk back to the bed and sit down. This is far more tedious than I can express in writing. It’s bad when accidentally selecting the wrong object -- essentially a menu item -- causes pain because you know you have to watch Reedus walking back and forth through the room multiple times before you can fix your grievous mistake.

I want to like this game, so I’m going to play it again eventually. I just can’t take any more right now. If I have to watch any more lengthy cutscenes depicting the same close-up shots of handprints slowly appearing on the ground, my head will explode. (Imagine if the original Jurassic Park took the iconic “water rippling in a cup” shot, stretched it out for five minutes, used it ten times throughout the movie, and then never showed you the T-Rex.)

After three hours of “playing” Death Stranding, I feel like I’ve watched a terrible Norman Reedus movie with a controller in my lap. Which is actually better than having the controller in my hands, because the button layout and menu navigation are unforgivable for a game like this. I probably would have exited the game half an hour earlier if I could have figured out how. (Maybe that's how they get ya?)

Some final notes that I needed to add:

What is with the tacked-on Monster Energy product placement? I might have been hallucinating from frustration at this point, but I distinctly remember the tooltip for your canteen saying that it contains Monster Energy drink -- and that it filters fresh water from rain and sweat that it comes into contact with. Which is it?

Then I see an ad for some Norman Reedus TV show on AMC in the middle of this "artful" game. Makes sense. I can't tell you how many times I've been at an art museum and one of the paintings turned into a promo for House of Cards. (Then the docent handed me a Monster that was filtered from his armpit sweat.)

The music. Meh. The first song was good until it played for the third time in an hour. I can live without the MTV-style song and artist readout practically in the dead center of my HUD, though. If there's a way to turn that off, I couldn't find it in the aforementioned terrible menu. Really obscene design choice there, but it's at home among numerous others.

And a final word to all of the people saying that Kojima is a genius, the story is brilliant, and that some of us proles are too immature or uncultured to appreciate the narrative: you're wrong.

Yeah, you're entitled to your opinions, but you can also be wrong. The storytelling is absolute trash, and they don't get a pass on that because of some hipster ideal that "bad is good" or "obscure is meaningful". The idea that art shouldn't be held accountable to its purpose is a lazy, self-righteous cop out, plain and simple.

If the characters are flat and meaningless (they are), the dialogue is hammy (it is), the pacing sucks (it does), the theme has its head up its own ass (very much so), and every beat of the story is contrived (see above), then it is simply bad writing. When you pretend like you're "above" the need for quality, you're not elevating games as an art form -- you're just rewarding bad writers.

I am very impressed by this game -- and became even more impressed when I realized it was the work of a lone developer.

I don't often write reviews, and I never say "just buy it"...but if this game got your attention, you should just buy it. You will find out well before the two hour window whether or not you like it, but I'm pretty sure if you have ANY interest in building things in a medieval/fantasy setting, you will be satisfied.

Good concept, well executed, with almost no bugs (ones I saw were minor and didn't affect the game). Most AAA titles can't even say that. This is a developer who truly deserves support. I'm really looking forward to seeing this game grow.