Recent reviews by Poek

I spent ~10 hours to beat the story mode on 'easy', and while I did take my time I died a few times along the way.
I'm still not sure what a "rouge like" really means, but this game has some excellent parts, and some poor parts.
Poor first:
- Gear descriptions: They are misleading, or useless. What does tainted gas do? no idea, try it out! Is boar better than rabbit? no idea, try it out! This is frustrating.
- User Interface: Much like the gear descriptions, you're on your own to figure out what they mean. Hunger, Thirst, Body temperature and fatigue are labeled, but what does that thermometer mean, and how do I get the thing to move? No idea, try it out!
- Controls: WASD to move, or click... or both, try it out! The frustrating part of this is it's possible to bug yourself with the hotkeys (press 3 while moving to open traps, and you won't stop moving), and bug out your selections if you change your mind (don't want to pick up that dandilion after you clicked it... too bad)
Dialog: There are at most 3-4 options to choose from, you can't un-choose an option, but you have to confirm your selection after each you do. This part is minimal, but seriously?

The good:
Gameplay: Interesting gameplay, drifting down a river is something relaxing and the game makes sure it's both relaxing and part of the game.
Story: with 4-5 cutscenes, the story is pretty minimal, but well told.
Art Style: not my cup of tea exactly, but well put together and cohesive. You can tell it was intentional and planned out.
Music: slightly repetative, but enjoyable. There are lyrics, if that bothers you, but it's actually very well paired (if not written for the game).

I've already told friends and family about it, so I guess I recommend this one.

The story is the same, the mechanics the same, and everything balances out... nostalgia at it's finest.
RPG at it's finest. Soundtrack is infectious, and only gets better with time.


After some hot fixes and configuring (edit the .exe in your arcanum folder to run as old directx, not emulated old direct ex) it runs better than I remember it ever running.

Excellent gameplay, weekly challenges (i'm not sure why though... other than a scoreboard that resets weekly) and a decent story campaign.

Would recommend.

There are some GREAT ideas, and some terrible execution.

First is terrain deformation, at first you think COOL! they figured it out, that's awesome. However, in reality the game is using auto generated planes as 'terrain'. and the deformation is either a + or - in height. There is NO other detail or deformation other than height. The texture is low quality, and doesn't deform with the mesh, so you get stretched and grainy textures all over the place. In addition to this, the tiniest 'down' deformation on an otherwise flat area will trap your character, stopping you in your tracks. Super annoying, and a tip that the terrain is calculated as a series of boxes, instead of a mesh (lets stack boxes under a blanket, and ignore the fact that you run into the box and can't move, despite the blanket still being flat).

Second is the mouse controls. Do you really expect anyone to play at such a low mouse movement speed? I'm REALLY glad I've got a G9x where I can adjust sensitivity on the fly. The menus are great on my 'normal' but at this speed it takes 6 swipes across my XXL mousepad for me to look in a circle. I adjust it up once, and it takes 3... which is reasonable. Then there is the fact that you start each level staring at your feet. You can move like normal in this view, which caused my death in the training... I was shooting my feet the entire level. AND this is the normal start for EVERY level.

Lastly, Powerups are cool, but the default 4 are the obvious choices. "oh, I can pull money from the entire map if I level up this one first?... nah, I'ma go with leveling up a weapon first." The lack of damage counters, or additional effects also makes any weapon upgrades underwhelming. With just a little bit of effort, this one could be stricken off my list of complaints.

LAST WORD:
decent repetitive gameplay. Try it out if you must, but get it on sale when you can.

A solid start, with poor design choices made early on.
First, let me say that I bought into the hype when this was released. I couldn't WAIT to get my hands on it. On deliery day it was the greatest dissapointment ever. Multiplayer just simply lacks the people, mechanics or environments to make this my go-to (or even regularly played) multiplayer game. Enjoy getting stopped in the middle of a driveway stuck on something invisible? Enjoy taking a rocket to the face seconds after you ducked behind cover? Absolutely love getting killed before the 'you've been hit' red marks show on your screen? Then this game is your multiplayer paradise... assuming there are anyone populating the servers.

With that aside... single player. Holy Smokes this SP tells you a story. There are scripted tunnels of cinematic moments that are meant to evoke emotion, and they do (almost, more on this later). The gameplay is fairly linier, you go forward in a straight line, no room to wiggle or backtrack to get something. Nope, forward it is. However nice the story is, it is objective based. For instance, one of the opening gun fights you're trapped in a gas station trying to clear out the enemies so you can make an escape. I huddled in the station taking stock of things, and sniped out the enemies out by the pumps, turned around to look at something, and BAM! enemies respawned out front. I took my time in that gas station, and after 45+ enemies, I realized they were respawning... But once you move past their spawn points, they stop spawning there. Cool effect to move you along in the story, annoying as heck if you're looking for the hidden objects.

Now, the cinematic lock down sections. I get it, you're trying to tell a story. Thank you for attempting to inject story into a genre that lacks it. However, if you're going to lock me in a bus for the first 3 minutes of the game... make it a cinematic I can skip. Please. For the love of all things sacred. Let me skip watching people being executed on the streets.