Recent reviews by BobAndy

Not recommended.

45 minutes in a queue for most populated servers (not an exaggeration) before you get in. Zero "realistic" teamwork or combat in this game. It's lemmings all attacking a flag. Objective defensive play is non-existent, the "building" elements are usually co-opted by people who have no idea how to lay stuff out or why a gas station should probably be somewhere near a road.

Gunplay is janky, physics are janky and 'laggy' - drive a car, you'll find out you actually hit a tree half a second ago and blew up - but on your screen it'll show you as passing right between them. Then "boom", GG.

Soldner was a better game 20 years ago, and it was terrible too.

100 hours in, still looking for a worthy successor to Project Reality, this ain't it. Save your $$$ and go play that instead, at least it's free for the jank it has.

Post Big Update:

31 hours in queue later for 27 hours of gameplay, still sucks. Connection issues, desync issues, still jank, still wank. Play something else.

It's a solid management simulation game. It's not "really" early access anymore, it feels mostly feature complete for what it will be.

The bad-ish: The UI looks like it really is from 1998. Which for the purposes of the game itself is fine, it's functional but not pretty. The flow is 'okay' but there's no animations or anything if that is what you are looking for. If you played football manager in the early 2000s and then skipped playing the games themselves, it's like that.

No "run in background" - when you get the later game, even with a high power computer turns can take awhile so it would be nice to flip over the tab (I play windowed) to the internet or something while it processes a turn. Not a gamebreaker by any stretch, but it's certainly noticeable if you do that and it just kinda pauses in place where you left it.

The good: It's deep. If you play on hard, it's hard. If you play on nightmare, it's really hard. This game will not coddle you. I found this game when I asked on reddit about a challenging management game where I can't just "play and win" immediately. Even after 200 hours I can find interesting and creative ways to fail, usually trying a new startup on nightmare... which for a tycoon game and me is amazing. Kudos there.
It's "pretty accurate" for what things feel like they should be. The stock system is pretty simplified but otherwise you get the impression the dev put a lot of research into periods of automotive trends, demands, and such. If you try to build a two-stroke single cylinder POS rattletrap Limosine in the peak of the horsepower wars of the 60s, you'll find it doesn't work. Or if you hit a trend too early, like trying to design and build and successfully sell a station wagon in 1917, or a microcar during WWII. Yet despite that, you can still succeed with those things with guile and planning.

The AI is kind of a neutral for me; it's competent enough to be competition and something to play for (obviously with 220 hours at posting this review, probably another 50-60 before I say "that'll do"), but it's not particularly "intelligent" in my opinion.

It's fun watching your fledgling car company grow using outsourced crap from other companies (if you go that route, like Delorean tried) and becoming a behemoth of industry, stomping all the meaningless competitors in your wake... if you can pull it off.

All in all I'd highly recommend this game to hardcore simulation fans who are unconcerned by dated UI features. Casuals may be turned off by the UI or the difficulty, but I'd still give it a 'soft recommend' even to the casual ones.

I like this game. Go get Darthmod and spruce it up a bit, but it'll scratch the itch. It's on sale often enough, pick it up and just enjoy the fact that once you get engaged in it, the hours will flow by like a bubbling brook. Then your alarm goes off, oh, time for work.

But I can still end the turn one more time...

This game has eaten more hours than most that I own, and it's good.