Recent reviews by Colonel Frosting

I've not played a game of this style which held my attention and that of my friends for so long. The pacing of providing you with new parts and ways to approach problems is perfect, as well as the pace of new varieties of quests and other toys getting unlocked. The attention to detail and consideration on everything to make the game just plain fun is outstanding.

Whether you're a wannabe engineer who's willing to spend hours tweaking and refining a suspension setup, or looking for something goofier and more casual, I feel like there's something here for everyone.

It's aged but you get used to the quirks pretty quickly. I'm not sure the game holds up as such but it's still a very engaging experience. Though from about the three-quarter point onward the level design starts to get downright mean, in my opinion. Like, in the obvious way of "The level designer specifically set this up to ♥♥♥♥ you over". Which is frustrating but also honestly adds to the charm, I think. Even if it did mean I had to savescum liberally to get through several sections.

Simple but fun and very addicting with immaculate vibes. Peak indie game.

The addition of 4-player PvP makes this a must-have for the price.

Without waxing poetic my takeaways are:

- The attention-to-detail with several pieces of this demo to make me hopeful (e.g. the similar feeling movement to HL2)
- The amount of unique assets created and displayed in the prologue is nothing to sneeze at, and further builds a foundation that can be used as development progresses.
- There's definitely jank regarding the physics (somehow worse than source) but this can be improved as UE5 matures hopefully.
- Hopefully, the fact that the team has managed to complete enough content to make this prologue (albeit as short as it is) should be an indication that the production pipeline is in place to allow a higher pace dev cycle.

I see this as a proof of concept for many fundamental background systems required to press forward. With things like menus and UI, movement, and some level of AI system up and running, it should hopefully be easier now to focus on level design and production of the assets therein.

We're a long way from a full release, I'm sure, but this is a key milestone for the team and is a great sign of progress.

It's... Fine? On heavy sale, at least.

The driving is fine, the story is very weak, customization is fun, but the mandatory time crunch you're constantly under with the central plot heavily discourages experimentation. I appreciate the decision to have that pressure, but I wish it was a bit less so or over a longer term in order to try more vehicles and configurations thereof.

Given how few interesting new racing games are coming out these days, I would loosely recommend this one for fans of the genre with how often it goes on sale for less than ten bucks. It's not amazing but it's a fine way to spend a few hours.

My experience with this version as of August 2024:

Get about 70-80 FPS average with everything on max at 4k (running a 12700k and a 4080, RT Boost disabled)
HDR is totally broken, oversaturated and generates many artifacts
I had two instances of crashing in my playthrough but nothing major
Checkpoint system is a bummer over manual saves (didn't encounter the missing save glitch others reported previously)
Missing attention-to-detail items from the original PC version are absent (foliage reacting to explosions etc.)
The alien ragdolls frequently glitch out

OVERALL it's not the definitive Crysis but it's similar enough to the original experience that I can't say no to it. Seems a lot of the super crippling bugs have been patched out by now so that's good.

pls fix HDR I beg

Fun little pack for eight bucks, all new content and assets too! Though I would've been fine with additional story missions that recycled assets if that was an option.

A fantastic remake of the 1997 classic with a couple changes here and there, though in my opinion they're certainly not bad ones. Except for the fact that all the standard doors now slide to accommodate VR folks, eugh.

The only glaringly obvious issue I have with it otherwise are the character models. I recall seeing better back in Far Cry 3 and that was 12 years ago. But given you don't see them very often, this isn't the biggest issue, especially because the environment design and texturing is top-notch. The golden dome especially just looks real, I can't believe how good the texture work on that is specifically, and the whole of the game looks absolutely stunning besides which.

If you're a fan of the original game or even if you've never played it, this is an easy recommendation. It's faithful enough that even a new player should have no problems jumping in and getting a similar experience.

Edit: Looking at this again with a like-for-like comparison of the original, I'm surprised how much was changed and cut. There are many paths which no longer exist, and comparing screenshots to screenshots from the same locations, some areas feel very much smaller and likewise the distance between areas seems to have been shortened in some cases (albeit not too dramatically).

If you're a fan of the genre you'll definitely need to play the original still for the authentic experience, but this remake is still fine all the same.

If it wasn't always-online and didn't crash as often I'd say it's a decent coop shooter in the vein of EDF, albeit not nearly as goofy or in-depth with equipment.

Conditional recommendation at the moment. Definitely a bit janky but pretty foundationally sound, but nothing gamebreaking. My biggest issue with this game at the moment is the lack of content in the form of levels - there's only about five at the time of writing, which have a bit of procedural randomization, but with the amount of heisting you'll need to do in order to get better getaway vehicles (and even unlock the additional maps at all) it gets -very- tiring, even with coop partners.

I have hope since it's still just early access and a lot has been done in the short time it's been on the market, but I'll believe it when I see it. Once this game has more maps (maybe mod support for third-party maps?) and maybe some progression tweaking I think it'd be an easy recommendation as a VR party game.

Oh also the VR versus non-VR controls are kinda weird but definitely tolerable after you get used to them.