Recent reviews by Esméa Tuek

Why do you not have this game yet!?

Interesting game...
mindless arcadey fun. Certainly what I think of when I think of something I'd want to play on something like a Steam Deck

First game was great! Second game has so many things that are annoying.

Can't dual wield weapons anymore.
Weapon accuracy is garbage.
Constant crouching while trying to turn around... more than half of the range of my right thumbstick makes me crouch... this, coupled with the manual reloading change means that combat isn't difficult, it's just frustrating. I have looked up the comments and seen that others have had the crouching issue... which is unique to Seated Mode players. It makes boss fights impossibly difficult; and I have the game set to Story difficulty!
There are other game design elements that feel out of place.

It makes me sad, as I really enjoyed the first game very much, but find that I am getting so frustrated by the gameplay flaws that I cannot finish the story of this sequel.
This game needs more than just a remastering... it took everything that was great about the first game and threw it out the window.

This is the game that I first recommend to anyone who asks me what games to play in VR. It is an experience that makes everything feel complete. Better yet, they still keep adding amazing new features!

Play it with your friends! The multiplayer is implemented wonderfully. I would go so far as to say it can even exceed the fun one might have at a real life minigolf.

Sometimes, I find myself ignoring the minigolf aspect and just chilling out in the scenery because of the perfect atmosphere.

Edit: this is still the best VR game ever... how is it this wonderful?!

What on earth is this thing?
It's worse in just about every way than both Civ V and Civilization: Beyond Earth.

Just when I start to think that maybe there might possibly be a chance that there's something I like about this game, something absolutely jaw-droppingly frustrating happens that makes me question any and all thoughts that not only led to me launching the game and playing it, but also which led to me purchasing the game in the first place.

So why do I keep coming back to this game?

This game is janky.

yeah, that's the word: janky.

This game suffers from the unfortunate and most depressing condition of not being compatible with any VR kit.
Otherwise, I swear I could practically smell the pine trees and cold mud as my chair rumbled and my steering wheel attempted its best to dislodge my arms from my torso.

Playing this game with friends is a world-changing experience. If your friends are not secretly your sworn nemesis, hellbent on your eternal mental torture, then you may experience moments of comradery and adventure as you battle the elements together and pull each other out of the water. If your friends are your secret sworn nemesis, though, you might not get anything done, but you'll still have a good time exploring the limits of physics and despair.
Also, playing with friends is great all the way up until someone disconnects, or does anything fuel-related, or drives across a loose physics object. Still waiting on those things to get fixed, but I'm hopeful!

I've been playing this game since the release on Epic, and I was ecstatic when it came to Steam, but playing on Steam has been such a sad, lonely, yet superior experience. A shame that the crossplay is a hot pile of garbage... or the networking in general. Why is the networking so awful?!

I love this game, I really do, but the game is trying so hard to make me not love it :(
Also, I think it sometimes wants to break my steering wheel.
Also, I really wish I could customize chorded bindings so that I don't have to use the crappy defaults if I want to keep the few sensible chorded bindings.

Edit: Hey look! they fixed all my complaints!
I'm now 201 hours in and having loads of fun.
Waiting now for that sweet 1.0 release.

Thank you, Coffee Stain! you really brought it around!

Original review:
129 hours in, and I consistently and thoroughly felt vexed the entire time.

Sure, there are problems that can be forgiven as 'expected early access experience'.
Those bits can be easy to list.

The bits that make the experience so unpleasant feel to be a bit deeper of problems; ones that aren't going to be fixable without major changes to fundamental parts of the game.

So many times I was asked, "so, why do you keep playing it? I'm not having fun, are you sure you want to keep going?"
each time I kept saying, "I'm not having fun, either, but I vowed to give this game a fair run of a chance."

I don't know what to say that I didn't like... felt like most things felt off.
I can say for sure that there was one thing that I did very much enjoy: driving around in the Explorer vehicle.


Fortresscraft Evolved remains my favourite of the genre.

tl;dr - it's not even frustrating, or boring, it's just not fun.

I'm sorry, I've spent HOW MANY hours in VR?!

This game seriously needs Steam VR...