Recent reviews by HenoGarvey

It's like conversing with a toddler with no object permanence. You tell her something, she's forgotten it by the next time she speaks to you. The AI doesn't care about tone, doesn't remember important threads from what you've told it. It's a space waifu simulator with little to no depth. It's just a data-gathering device. Never give it truthful information.

This game has a lot of potential. Whilst it's a little frustrating that it lost a lot of content in the switchover to UE5, the new beta is very promising. The plot is now built from the word go rather than being dumped on a dock with no context. I hope they keep updating until the game becomes something a lot bigger and better. The bones are there, but it has been in development for quite some time now.

Beautifully made game. Well written, engaging, open world, with brilliant mechanics. Whilst it's entirely fictional it captures the era it's based in well and the inner workings of the Shogunate - with some level of artistic license. Whilst the main storyline is relatively short, there are side quests and legendary tales that bolster the runtime somewhat. If you like open world RPG-ish story based action games, this one is for you.

Ok, So this is a totally updated review as of 28-07-24 after about 100 hours playing. I have given the devs quite a while to improve this game and unfortunately, it's still a "not recommend". Whilst they are generally speaking, making the correct noises when it comes to supporting and continuing to develop the game, it's still basically the same empty, uninspiring game it was to begin with, but with a different economy system. I will get into this as my review progresses.

So, I guess I will categorise this review into a few sections:

Graphics/Interface
The graphics are pleasing to look at, smooth for me on a 3090 RTX and a 13th Gen i9. I have however seen plenty of people who are having issues with them. I get a very intermittent stutter every so often, so I can maybe see this being correct. Aside from that, I am pleased with how it looks. The new interface rolls on nicely from the first one, works in much the same way, and is relatively intuitive based upon the first game

Gameplay
The game play is much like the first game in the sense of building roads, utilities, motorways etc. You can expect a similar experience in this regard. There are good additions to the game such as power and utilities automatically running under roads much like the powered roads mod from the first game. This is a time saver. There has definitely been an attempt to streamline and add to the game in useful ways. But maybe not quite there, in the sense that to do a lot of the "missing" stuff that should have been added - like the "move-it" mod, you still have to mod to achieve this, basic TP:ME features should have been added into the game from the start, but once again, this is a mod.

Development
This is the main reason I am still saying to wait on buying this game, as I am very concerned at how empty the game is. I really think the devs, if they ever get this game to a position where it's half as good as CS1, will start to release paid for DLCs to add content to the game. At present, this game still feels like a late Alpha not a proper release. If you go into the tourist buildings, there are 4 things. There's no features even close to the parks and gardens from the first game. As far as I can see, no water based activities, not even similar to the first game.
In my view, it should be that we get basically what we got in the first game + DLCs, and then if the devs want to release DLCs, they should release stuff we didn't already have in the first game. I see CS2 as almost a DLC loader, even a base game that should have been free or £15, and then if they wanted to release everything else in DLCs, I'd have less of a problem with it. But they released an expensive game at AAA prices, and it has no content, and still has no content. I may as well load up CS1 and spend my hours in that.

Other comments
I am very disappointed in the devs and the way they are going "the EA route" on this. Releasing a half finished mess and then having a slow slog to get to a working game people want to play. They have spent a lot of good faith they built with CS1. If they in fact do a "No man's sky" and make this game great again, then brilliant. But it really doesn't look that way at the moment. How many months have they had to rectify this now?

Love this game. Really interesting and unique plot. The scenery is beautiful and so far in my play time it's been the perfect mix of side quest and main mission. I am hoping it doesn't devolve into a ton of fetch quests, but am really liking it so far.

This is one of those hidden gems of a game that I personally never saw advertised and I think Ubi did a really bad job at marketing. It's fun, self aware, occasionally 4th wall breaking. It's an open world greek myth inspired tale, heavily stylised in a very attractive way. I'd encourage people to give it a try if they like open world action-rpg games and simple but fulfilling puzzles. The story is full bodied and engaging, the characters fun and interesting, and it really harnesses the greek myths in an accessible way.

This game is a time hole, if you start it up at 6pm, you're still playing it at 11pm, the time flies by and once you start installing community workshop items, even more of your time is spent playing. It's a brilliant city builder, it's what the recent sim city should have been. A grand scale and brilliant depth. The DLC stuff is also well worth it.

Ok, I'm a couple of hours in and the gameplay is a bit poor. It's not the smoothest thing in the world. It looks a tiny bit dated given what other games are doing nowadays, and does things that a modern game really shouldn't. Quite clunky imho.

The main issue I have right off the bat is the dialogue. Whilst your character is voice acted by a decent British actor from Foyles War, it all seems a bit clunky. He's obviously only there to record his voice and do what the guys in the booth say, but he's putting emphasis on words that sound strange in the context of the game, like getting super angry seemingly out of nowhere. On top of that, the dialogue sounds a little like it's been written by the almost American foreigners from Family Guy who say things like "Oh for definite, it's just like a childhood game of hide and find!".
Take for instance the nurse you meet just after arriving at the hospital, she couldn't sound any less English, and couldn't deliver her lines any less impressively. Obviously, it's not the strangest thing that could happen in 1918 London, but ok, I'll forgive it that wierdness.

The fighting dynamic is kinda crap, it's a bit run and slash so far, not that much finesse and the level of the bad guys mean you're constantly having to feed and heal, or fight them by jumping in, attacking, and then repeating.
The levelling up feature is nice, spending XP points rather than using staged level ups like most games, it's a pretty large upgrade tree, so things might improve from a fighting pov as well. A huge downside, that I find quite annoying though, is that the second you leave somewhere and come back, the badguys you may have killed ten minutes before are right back where they were and you have to kill them again, which is annoying when you just want to run and turn in a mission.

As for everything else, it's got a nice atmosphere, it's a first for me, I haven't played any games set in London at that point in time.

I think personally, and it's really about an individual choice on this, the thing that may stop me from playing this thing from start to finish as a story based RPG is that dialogue thing. It will get on my nerves as I'm a pedant for this stuff when it comes to RPG. I need it to be as immersive as possible, especially with dialogue. I would've prefered Dontnod to do a sequal to Remember Me, I really liked that game. It was quirky and fun. But hey, this games still gets a luke warm review. I would recommend it, but only to people who don't care that much about a Patrick Stewart level performance.

If I had my choice over, I'd get the new Jurrassic Park game by collosal.

There isn't an option to "Kinda Recommend" the game. For me it really depends on what you're happy with putting up with, and if you're willing to revisit the game as it gets updated.
If you're not happy with coming back, there are a few show stoppers like the occasional runtime error which crashes the game out. I was just getting into it when the first one happened.
If you don't mind crashes but have issues with gameplay glitches, then it's fun and seems very playable. So far, there are only a couple of issues for me which are
1) I can't work out how to move something once its placed, which means I end up deleting it and then creating it again, and thus far I haven't worked out if you lose money doing that
2) The conveyors are a bit clunky to lay down, they like to multi-step across gaps rather than giving clean 45 degree angles, which is fine sometimes, but isn't very neat. The conveyors also spazzed out when I put them down and got confused about which way they were facing, nothing I did seemed to remedy the issue.

I think with a bit more work this game will be really playable, but for now, there are some annoyances related to the early development stage.

Absolutely brilliant and innovative piece of software. I was cautious with a piece of software that claims to teach you something like this. As with any piece of software like this, learning a lanugage, or any other slightly more abstract skill isn't always something you can compress into software. However RS2014 really does what it claims. The Realtone cable matched with this software is a winning combination and a pleasure to use.
In the few days that I've used this software, I'm already feeling more confident, and am moving more easily up and down the frets (even if still very spazzy). The great thing about this, is because it's a hybrid of game and learning software, it doesn't feel like a chore. The only thing stopping me from using it longer are my sore fingertips. Jamming along with your favourite tunes makes you want to learn, and it almost doesn't even feel like learning.