Recent reviews by cryptator

For some reason Blizzard and Microsoft thought that even though you have Gamepass subscription linked to your accounts, it will not work when OW is launched via steam, bravo :D

TLDR: 8.5/10, the game is a lot of fun if you like puzzle games.

Pros:
* Great puzzle mechanics
* Good Philosophical discussion points
* Level skip mechanic in case you are stuck
* Decent new characters

Cons:
* Lackluster or Boring ways to get stars
* Lots of unnecessary walking
* Few bugs and crashes (crashed twice and objects/I clipped though walls > 5 times)
* Some stutters even on medium on 3070ti (Though not much of an impact due to being a puzzle game)
* Meh final act of the story

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll begin with saying that I am a very big fan of the original Talos Principle game (have completed 100% including DLC) and hence had higher expectations going into this game, so it will have more critique points. I have completed the full run of this game and have only 3 achievements remaining, which I guess might require a new play-through.

Going into the game, it has a good starting point following up the story of the first game, and I found most of the new puzzle mechanics quite fun to interact with. I found the base game puzzles to be somewhat easier this time around, not sure if it is just due to me being more experienced with puzzle games or they were in-fact easier. I only found the Gold puzzles to be difficult, and even they did not take a long time to figure out. A big plus is the skip level mechanic that requires some exploration but is easy to find.
(Hope that they add workshop tools to this game so that we can see what community levels come up with sooo many mechanics)

The story builds up naturally from the first game. The new characters that have been added are fun to interact with (along with the social media mechanic), but it felt that the conversations did not have much of an impact in general. The voice acting for all of them and the voice notes is great.
I did not feel satisfied after the final act of the story, it did not feel "natural" or "intuitive".
I liked the philosophical notes and quips this time around too, will be reading more about some of those theories in the future.

Exploring the big beautifully crafted worlds (thanks UE) was fun at first but got boring very quickly, especially when traversing to get the stars. It feels necessarily big and IMO did not add a lot of value to the game. Though I understand that one of the key aspects this time was around "exploration", I preferred the prequel game in that aspect: compact and loaded.
I did encounter a good number of bugs during my run, ranging from a couple of game crashes to objects or clipping and getting stuck in walls. There were also stutters on Medium setting with 3070ti, which is not ideal but I wasn't bothered much.

In conclusion, I would recommend this game to anyone who likes puzzle games or enjoyed the original Talos Principle game, but this might be a little bit of a downgrade from the first one.

One of the best puzzle game I've ever played, with a great learning curve and thought-provoking philosophical discussions.

Bumping cars simulator