Recent reviews by Robo-Connery

A bit of a mixed bag here,

The game clearly is much improved in many areas, the match engine in particular seems better, the new tactics system is really excellent and the 3d visuals are an absolute generation ahead of 24.

On the other hand, the game suffers from quite a few UI problems both in terms of bugs and bad design. Some of which players might get used to but a lot is just...bad

The reason for the positive review is simply that the stuff that is bad is a lot easier to fix than the stuff that is good. If they can polish the UI then this could be an excellent entry in the series.

An extremely zen game, hits the itch of the jobsworth simulator game genre very well.

The framing story itself is very forgettable and, if anything, gets in the way of what is an extremely satisfying core gameplay loop: chop ships up and make cash.

Probably one of the tightest designs I have ever seen in a video game, Factorio has a vision and executes it near flawlessly and the result is an incredibly engaging, addicting game with almost limitless replayability. Factorio is a production management game, a genre that has seen a reasonable amount of innovation recently.

On the face of things, the goal to progress through a tech tree, making increasingly more complex components from increasingly more complex interlocking resources, until you can build and launch a rocket. However, the minute to minute goal gameplay is puzzelesque where you bounce from self-determined mini-goals as you discover and surpass each roadblock in turn: create a new advanced component; increase iron production; produce robots to help expand your factory. Each of these goals is not only satisfying to solve but continues to be satisfying to solve again and again as you constantly innovate and improve on your techniques.

I think what sets Factorio apart from its cohorts is the ease of scalability in the gameplay. It is never tedious to expand or to replace. Each time you have to iterate, due to mistakes, inefficiencies or just to scale up it never feels like a chore and there is never a time when you are at a loss for what to do next.

P.S. The modding community is one of the best of any game.

Solid installment

This is a very enjoyable game. Definitely recommend. They take a very unique concept and manage to design the gameplay around it successfully resulting in an easy to pick up and play game that kept me interested throughout.

The Good: The core gameplay mechanics are very interesting making navigating their obstacle course fun. When you nail a section it is incredibly satisfying. Losing and retrying is not frustrating, the restart timer is short and the checkpoints are plenty. The FMV videos are really well done, definitely a huge part of my enjoyment of the game was my enjoyment of the cutscenes. The visual aesthetic is excellent; the car, ui and the enviroment are all nice to look it. The game is well priced for it's content.

The Bad: If you do not like collectibles or high score hunting then this game is probably not for you, without hunting for the collectibles ore retrying missions to get challenges and high scores then the game is very short; around 2 hours long.