Recent reviews by Ness1228

Firewatch but it's Subnautica

Finally, a game that lets me use my understanding of statistics to justify shooting myself.

Bought a $1000 gaming PC so I could stream this game to friends

After repeatedly revising my reviews, sticking around through updates and actively noticing game improvements implemented through player feedback (the devs are very good about this), and after giving this game the ol' college try as they say, I'm finally concluding this game is another case of "I like this game but I cannot recommend it".

Don't get me wrong; this game is great for people starting out playing Mahjong, and caters impeccably well to a casual audience. Unfortunately, once you Git Gud™ at Mahjong, that's where Riichi City falls off and other platforms, such as Mahjong Soul, stand above it, which is ironic given the games' tagline and presentation thematics of "strive to be the best".

My biggest gripe is that, at higher levels, the game passively punishes you even if you are playing well. This is primarily due to the 3rd place penalty being about 1/3 that of the 1st place reward. On other platforms, coming in 3rd is acceptable; you still lose a few rank points, but the loss is almost negligible compared to coming in 4th which is often a slam-dunk. This encourages defensive play, which is essential for improving at the game. Unfortunately, Riichi City did not get this memo; to succeed here, you need to throw caution into the wind and play like a beginner at all times, as defensive and consistent play is punished in favor of aggression seen in lower-ranked rooms on other platforms simply due to the players not knowing any better. Half the 6th-dan-and-above players I encounter have deal-in rates well over 16% (I've seen some over 20%) and 4th place rates over 30%, which is just downright asinine.

Case in point, my stats in both Riichi City and Mahjong Soul are roughly similar; 20~22% win rate, 12~13% deal-in rate, etc. In Mahjong Soul, I'm steadily climbing my way to Master Rank, with firm belief I'll get there eventually if I keep at it. In Riichi City, I'm on the brink of de-ranking down to 3rd dan simply due to how the game's ranking system is set up. It's almost as if every other Mahjong Client has their ranking progression set not to punish 3rd place for a reason.

I won't go into how I have saved a few logs of the game blatantly favoring one player, as there's no way to prove the game isn't rigged since they apparently put their tile-generation code on their website. Still, it's hard not to notice the frequency of kanchan ippatsumo one player gets across multiple games, when another player early-riichis with a sanmenchan and it goes to noten (or another player wins out with a single wait) in the same game. Again, this wouldn't be a problem if the ranking system didn't punish players who get luck-issued into 3rd place simply because one person runs away with everything. The fact that I'm playing two very similar Mahjong Games the same way but with drastically different results over several months is almost impossible to ignore.

Another issue is the new Tournament Mode; this is easily the most casual mode of Mahjong I've ever seen in my life, and quite honestly it should just be called "Battle Royale" mode because calling it a Tournament is simply a disgrace to actual tournament play. The Tournament is played across 8 tables with 256 players; the first round is an East-only no-dealer-repeat game, where the top 2 proceed to the next table which is... a 1-round only match, where the top 2 proceed to the next table. This repeats until the final table, which is another East-only match. The tournaments are held only once a day, at only one time as well; if you're unlucky enough to be in an incompatible or inconvenient timezone for the tournament, you can't even play! I decided to try it several times (even though the tournaments are at 5am local time for me) and have concluded they are not worth it at all. Imagine having to wake up (or stay up until) at an outrageous time to play Mario Party with strangers for prizes, and if at any point you get unlucky, you walk away with nothing (or next to nothing). It's not a good time, and it's the polar opposite of a competitive environment, which is what the word "Tournament" implies. This could easily be mitigated if the tournaments were held multiple times throughout the day to make it more accessible to people who aren't living in or near the developers' timezone.

Despite all that, I do like this game; the cosmetics and characters are far easier to obtain than other Gacha systems (not just limited to Mahjong Soul) and are completely optional, as they do not affect gameplay at all. The visual presentation is superb, and my friends prefer this platform for the same reason. Unfortunately, this game is holding itself back by using a different ranking formula that simply does not fundamentally work with how Mahjong is structured. Hell, even a simple change as making the 3rd place penalty half of what it currently is now would probably make playing ranked more tolerable, especially since higher-ranked rooms are usually dead at most hours of the day due to the limited playerbase and the aforementioned flawed ranking system.

... or maybe it's just me who's in the wrong for not going 100% aggression at all times, instead learning from the many Mahjong improvement resources to play more consistently with a 1st-2nd-3rd rate to be well above my 4th place rate. If that's the point of Riichi City, then I guess the joke's on me.

Do I like this game? I love it. Do I recommend it? Absolutely not. In its current state, F1 Manager 2022 is littered with bugs and half-baked game elements that severely detract from the playability and experience... unless you know absolutely nothing about motorsport and only came in to F1 because you watched DTS on Netflix, in which you'll probably enjoy this game.
Update: I've edited the review since experiencing the latest patch update; anything fixed or changed since the update, I've crossed out with revised text. In short, I only recommend this game if you are complacent with a full-priced game that's littered with bugs and flaws amidst a sea of perfectly functional games for less than half the price.

Everything you knew about real-life Formula 1 strategy, you can toss right out the window. As many other reviews have stated, tire degradation is completely meaningless; until the tires have degraded all the way down to 30%, they will perform as if they were fresh. If 30-lap old hards could compete against fresh softs IRL, Pirelli would have a freakin' field day; Hamilton's final lap of the 2019 British GP is besides the point. Fortunately, just like reality, the most efficient way to overtake is with DRS... except in this game it's far too potent. With the power of DRS and used hard tires, GOATifi can keep up with Verstappen on fresh softs. The tires feel like they have different performances now, with gradual degredation over time; unfortunately, DRS is still way too powerful, still allowing me in a slower car with older harder tires to keep up with a faster car on fresher, softer tires. which is a double edged sword; breaking a DRS tow from a competitor is nearly impossible, which simply does not make sense if the tire difference is between fresh softs and old hards.

While the onboard cameras are incredible and are actually my favorite part of the game, the racecraft itself is nothing short of pathetic. The cars are essentially on rails, which is fine in theory until you account for the AI simply making completely illogical decisions. My competitor's ahead on old tires, time to undercut! Let's push on the outla- okay why in Michael Masi are you braking for literally no reason on the front straight? This is so not right. But it's fine, next lap you have a massive speed advantage to the car in front, and they left the door wide open going into turn 1! Set ERS to overtake, driver strategy to maximum attack aaaaaaaaaand, oh, you want to just slow down to their pace with a half-baked look on the inside before just tucking behind? Okay that's fine too I guess. All part of the IRL Ferrari Master Plan. The AI has been improved quite a bit, but still has very noticeable and ridiculous hiccups. The most notable examples would be if a driver makes a mistake, all the other drivers behind him simply brake and line up behind the very slow car instead of zooming by, which is kinda the point of racing.

Some aspects of the game simply do not work as intended. The fuel delta? Throw that out the window; you have to keep track of that manually. I learned that the hard way as I ran out of fuel on the final lap. In qualifying, cars on their in/outlaps clearly get out of your way when you're on your flying lap, but lo-and-behold! Your driver will slam the brakes for them anyways, completely ruining your qualifying. The patch claimed to fix the fuel delta, but it's still broken as before, just now displaying in kg instead of laps, further making you manually track it.

The way I see it, F1 Manager 2022 was designed for people who are new to F1 coming in from an over-dramatized Netflix Documentary; if you want an actual F1 Motorsport Management game, just play an F1-modded Motorsport Manager. Quite shameful that a port of an old mobile game outperforms a nearly full-priced officially licensed game, but such is the pathetic state of the gaming industry nowdays. Fortunately, the devs have acknowledged some of the issues, and have fixed... *checks Day 2 patch, since there was no Day 1 patch* absolutely none of them. I want to believe that, in the coming weeks, there will be patches that will fix the current issues, but at the time of writing this review, F1 Manager 2022 is just another over-hyped unfinished release to add to the pile. The latest patch is a step in the right direction, for sure, but is still at the base of the mountain of issues this game is plagued with.

But alas, I'm a sucker for F1, and I do extract as much enjoyment as I can from this game, doing everything I can to play around all the current issues; In the event that more fixes come out, I will continue to edit my review accordingly.

Played this with my best friend, we opted to use the in-game push-to-talk and boy was that the right call, pun intended. Both of us were so immersed by the end that our way of just talking normally via discord VC has changed. Definitely recommend to play with a friend.

Worth noting is that there are occasionally some mild horror elements, but nothing jump-scary or terrifying; just enough to make you unsettled a bit, which fits the atmosphere the game is going for.

>First run
>Get a gambling-based item that multiplies my damage depending on where the ball falls at the end
>Keep getting x0 multipliers
>Die

I hate this game

>Second run
>Get the multiball
>Get an item that allows me to use the same ball twice in a row
>Get an item that heals me every time I hit a certain number of pegs
>Get an item that makes the pegs take 3 hits to disappear but still counts as a peg hit each time
>Become the lord of falling balls and storm through the game

I love this game

This is one of those games where you already know if you're gonna like it going in, based on the appearance of the game.

I was surprised how well the game's progression was handled, and before I knew it I had binged the whole game in one-go, achieving 100% completion in 4 hours. Worth noting is that there is one achievement that I had to look up a guide for, as - while it's a bit intuitive - it isn't listed in any of the in-game recipes.

Unfortunately, after completing the game, there doesn't seem to be much replay value outside of potential self-imposed challenge runs (e.g. finish the game without a single villager dying, etc). However, the initial playthrough was quite enjoyable and satisfying, and the game continues endlessly if you decide to keep playing after completing all the quests.

A certain video on youtube completely spoiled me on The Witness (and also gave me ample reason not to play it).

As such, The Looker is the absolute perfect complement to it.

Let any fish who meets my gaze learn the true meaning of fear; for I am the harbinger of death. The bane of creatures sub-aqueous, my rod is true and unwavering as I cast into the aquatic abyss. A man, scorned by this uncaring Earth, finds solace in the sea. My only friend, the worm upon my hook. Wriggling, writhing, struggling to surmount the mortal pointlessness that permeates this barren world.

I am alone.

I am empty.

And yet,

I fish.