Recent reviews by JWPSmith

I'm a bit torn on this game. I loved the story mode. It was a ton of fun. However, there was little to no point in making a camp. I started to build one, thinking that I would need a base to work from, but I quickly realized that the entire map was very restrictive. It wanted you to move through it in stages, and there would be no point in backtracking to a previous save. You are best off just carrying everything you need on your back. Collecting items to get to new areas by going to key story locations.

No big deal, I thought. I would just play through the rest of the story, and then start a new game in the endless survival mode. Sounded good... Then I realized there is only one map in the game. A map that can feel open, but also very linear since all areas can only be accessed by singular story based choke points. That killed a lot of it, but I figured I would try to look past that. Then I realized that you still had to revisit all of the story locations, to get the items needed to get between the different areas. So, there's no real, actual difference between story mode and endless survival mode, and since story mode heavily rewards not actually having a base, but just carrying everything on your back, then there's no point.

I wish I could give the game a mixed review. The survival aspects are some of the best in any game I've ever played. Unfortunately, the game also encourages you to just try and rush through it all instead of living in it. All they really need to do to fix a lot of the issues I have with the game, is to just create a separate map for survival. A great, big, open map. Maybe have a few areas here and there with only 2-3 passages through, but shouldn't require any special items to pass through them that can't be crafted.

One of the greatest RPGs of all time, easily. Every single side quest has it's own unique dialogue, and story to it. Every monster is completely unique and interesting. If you want a game that has so much content it will feel like you'll never experience it all, this is the game for you. Every aspect is beautifully and lovingly crafted to perfection.

You play as Geralt of Rivia. A crotchety old man-mutant created for fighting monsters. The world is full of death from war, plagues, famine, monsters, political and religious infighting, and most of these are causing the others. Creating a spiral of death for many people. You don't really care about all of that. Your primary focus is getting your adopted daughter back. All of these characters are explained in the books, as well as many references you will see throughout the game, however you by no means need to have read the books. Few players actually have.

This story can be played without having played any of the other Witcher games. If you do feel compelled to play the others, just play Witcher 2 to get a good base line. Witcher 1 might as well have been in an alternate dimension. It in know way informs the player of what is going on in 2 or 3, and it completely goes against the books in many aspects. The Witcher 2 follows the books somewhat, and Witcher 3 follows them extremely closely.

There isn't much to say beyond, if you like RPGs, then you have to have this in your collection.

One of the all-time best games I have ever played. I normally write long winded reviews, but this game doesn't need long-winded explanations. Get this game as soon as you are able. Don't wait for a sale, just buy it. It is worth the price of a triple-A title, easily. It's worth every bit of money I spent on it, several times over!

This game has phenomenal potential, but has too far to go for me to reccommend buying this as is. A lot of the concepts are fantastic! I haven't seen much of a story or point to literally anything, but that may just not have been added or maybe that takes a while longer to get to.

You start the game as a clone. You live, die, and are reborn from the vats of clones left behind by someone long forgotten. The game is mysterious, and what story I did find was from the ruins of a long forgotten civilization much like our own. Exploring "anomalies" was really interesting and made things a lot of fun. I don't want to describe too much, as most of the fun is in the discoveries.

You definitely noticed that I don't reccommend this game. It's not that it can't be a great game, it absolutely can. It could possibly compete with the king of all Alpha titles, Subnautica. It really could be that good! It has the bones. I just don't feel comfortable telling people to fork over money for a title that needs as much work as this one does. Especially since any purchaser of Steam Alpha titles would be aware of, many alpha titles are often abandoned.

Sadly, the crafting was convoluted and ridiculously excessive to make even the simplest of items. Even if all they added was the ability to select what you want to craft, and it would auto-craft all of the base components necessary, that would improve things considerably. Even then inventory management is nearly impossible due to the massive amount of materials there are to gather. I love challenging, survival-crafting games, but backpack organizing simulator isn't really my idea of fun.

There is intermittent stuttering going on all the time. Throwing your camera all over the place. Good luck trying to survive against the cold, I have to look at the sky and run around and circles to get the campfire to actually appear above ground. Found some ruins? Get ready to play hopping simulator! Your character will get stuck on everything! A bottle, a random brick, a street curb, absolutely everything!

Again, stick this in your follow list, or wishlist, and wait for them to make some improvements. The massive bugs and lack of any streamlining may be due to them being more focused on adding content, rather than anything else. That is fine by me! I don't mind waiting, but that's exactly what I'm going to be doing, and what I advise any potential purchasers to do until improvements are made. I will periodically be checking in and updating my review. I'm eagerly waiting to see what these developers are capable of.

Edit: Still can not reccommend as of October 21, 2017. It has gotten much better. Far better in fact. However, there it still just has too far to go. There really isn't much to say that has changed. It hasn't changed much, they just made small tweaks that made things far less annoying, but the bugginess, the awkward and clunky animations. Crafting is less annoying but still not good. It would be far better if you could just select a recipe and it crafter all of the core components. As it is, you are just spending large sums of time crafting massive amounts of the same item, to make another item, as an ingredient for another item, that will be used for another item, that is needed for what you actually want. They release frequent updates but I don't notice much of a difference. This could be because of where they are focusing their efforts, but I just hope they aren't trying to keep up appearances, and don't actually have an end goal in mind for the game.

I can't recommend this game as of right now. It can be a lot of fun. However, the glitches, pathfinding issues, and other bugs can be something extremely minor such as being unable to build something in a particular location (your bases walls seem to be nothing more than a giant bug) which in itself would not be a big deal, but can completely halt game progress. I am unable to even explore what else this game has to offer because my base is constantly being raided by squads of bandits, which would be easily manageable, except I can not place defenses (mounted crossbows, which would be cool), the walls are glitched to where the bandits can walk right through in most places (or will pop up on top of it, despite having to build ramps for my own squad), if I give a squad member a task they will run all the way around the compound and unlock all the gates just to come back inside the gate to perform the task, etc. Before the base building it is a good game, but has little content. As you progress and begin to build it begins to really take shape and become a unique adventure! The bugs would appear minor, but are in fact game-breaking. If they could fix these few things then I would gladly recommend it.

Edit: I am now officially recommending this game. It still needs quite a bit of bug fixes and balancing, but most game breaking ones have been fixed. My main reason for changing it is the speed and effeciency that they have released their updates. At first they were slow to release and at times it was difficult to tell if they were even still supporting it. Now they roll them out fairly regularly. I do wish they would try to slow down on game additions and focus on game fixes, but I understand the hesitation to go that route as it slows the progress for releasing all the intended features, and due to constant changes they would be creating more bugs than fixing. It is really beginning to feel like a full-fledged game at this point and I am excited to see it flourish.