Recent reviews by InMania

First off, want to say that this game can still be fun... but it's a slippery slope long term. Used to be one of my favourite games to play but after TFP's decided direction... it's fallen from grace.

Their development direction is absolutely horrible, they've lost the plot. They're constantly changing systems and features in attempt to improve upon them, but ultimately have pulled this game away from it's original character and fun. Horde nights aren't as fun as they used to be, because you're essentially pushed into building bases that ultimately takes advantage of the zombie's AI and their need to follow the path of least resistance. Essentially removing the risk of failure entirely, because you design in such a way where the zombies do not damage the structure you're standing in, only the random hits against walls as they walk the path. You are punished hard if you do not play like this, as over the years they kept buffing the damage that zombies do, so you're essentially encouraged to play like this.

Secondly, there are nonsensical decisions such as the water situation. Water is vital not only for your survival but for your ability to craft things such as glue. The only renewable way of getting water currently is via a dew collector, which is extremely slow. You can no longer bottle up water from pools/lakes and boil/purify... honestly silly. Most recently, they made these dew collectors attract screamers... for why I have not a clue, considering you can hold down a trigger on a machine gun and attract less screamers than 3 dew collectors would.

Just really, over the years, the gameplay has truly been degraded imho. (The price was also increased recently during summer 2024 by double, for something I would consider an inferior product of what it was a few years ago)

A great game full of nostalgia and good story writing. There's definitely issues that come to balancing, but is a whole lot of fun.

The main downside is no good way of playing online co-op. It's remote play only which isn't ideal.

This just fuels my soda drinking habbit.

I've had this game for a while, and with that I can tell you exactly how this game went (online). (Long Review. TL:DR at bottom)

When I got this game, it was good, it was fun, things weren't exuberant in price, you could get a good car within a day, and a good place within a few more days, grinding for money was a thing but you could play the game without focusing on gaining the money. CEO is kinda cool. But that's how the game for me started.

I played for a while and then Motorcycle club stuff came out, yet again this for me was pretty nice, the abillity to gain money over time without physically spending the majority of your time getting the loot for your club to manufacture into better worthwhile stock. Allows you to mess around with your friends without penalizing you for not actively gaining money.

Later on, CEO got a new update, Import/Export, Vehicle Warehouse. You could steal vehicles and sell the vehicles for money in the way how special cargo worked. (You collect small bits, and sell bulk.) Vehical Cargo was similar but you gain little stock and sell little stock. for big money. (As of currently, one of the best ways of gaining money in GTA Online). With this update we saw the release of "Special Vehicles", these vehicles was fun, but was the start of power creep. These were costly, (The Nightrider car is $5mil.)

Now Gunrunning released. Major powercreep here. Explosive Heavy Sniper Rifle makes planes pretty weak within combat. You had vehicles which you could upgrade to be more resilient to damage and protective of your fleshy body. These vehicles aren't cheap either. The upgrades were locked behind research, researched can use stock you can steal to do overtime, or you can fast-track the research, which for the first is $100k, then $225k for the rest. (Fast-Tracking can reduce all the research into a 3hr time period). These items can dominate a game if used by a group of competent people.

Now the new update as of writing this: Smuggler's Run. Oh boy, what do I have to say? Except it's of subpar quallity to previous updates. Yes the previous update had problems, but even that update was better. The planes aren't worth the money, even when upgraded. Balance is another problem with this update, the planes are fairly low damage, unless you're a fan of homing missles on the planes. A Hydra is a straight upgrade to them, and that already exists in the game, and is considerably cheaper since you don't have to buy a hangar to store it. The hanger's money making system is the same as Special Cargo. Build up supplies by grabbing bits and sell bulk. Except unlike special cargo you can only get 1 crate of goods at a time, which is worth $10k. Special Cargo is worth twice the money (If you go use the Large Special Cargo Warehouse). And you can gather up to 3 at once. Also, the update is buggy, but that's to be expected. The update on a whole appears to be rushed. Compared to Import/Export and Gunrunning, this DLC doesn't have missions to reduce price of the vehicles, that's an unlock of just doing supply runs. That is a downgrade as the missions were actually fun, the supply runs not that fun, in this update actually really fustrating. You shoot down the enemy and more enemies spawn constantly throughout the mission. It's tedious at best. It's also worth considering that this update's stuff at the best options costs $30 million in total. If you bought the cash cards that's £240 worth of cash cards to get this stuff... O.o

If anything, I hate to say that Rockstar has made a hash of the current update. As this update is more buggy than Gunrunning was on release. The supply missions are tedious at best. On the whole, this update isn't fun. GTA Online as the entire thing is a boring grind-fest. You need money if you want to have fun with things like the Half-Track. And I'd dare say that modders that actually drop money for others make the game a more of a balanced experience. Not everyone has the time and/or funds to unlock the expensive content.

TL:DR; GTA Online is a grind fest to get the good things. Unbalanced, and possibly contains Pay-2-Win elements.

Mann Up Ladies. Team Fortress 2 is in your Library - for free! Thats right. Team Fortress 2 is a Free To Play game that is really fun. Seriously. If you haven't tried this game you are missing out.

10/10 Would dumpster dive again.