Recent reviews by Dagrond

Haven't played this after finishing it when it first came out. Tried to play it today and it just chokes on the keyboard inputs - trying to be a controller game. Totally munted UI now. What was great is now garbage. Maybe they will fix it with the upcoming update. Doubt it.

What kind of a moron makes a driving game that doesn't support the most common wheels in existence? EA.

It's unfinished and the things they do in updates have yet to bring this to a release level. Game-play is poor, leaving out FSX features. Base airplanes held back so they could up-sell you later. They ones you do get are poorly flushed out, missing functionality, and/or have incomplete check-lists. 100GB needed to actually run this and the internet footprint that it makes is massive. What a huge disappointment for what - in its day - was the shining example of technology in computers.
I would look into competitors like xPlane and such. I'm stuck with my purchase, don't make the same mistake.

Every time I start liking this game, it does something to tick me off. It has redeeming qualities and they pulled off some pretty nice technical advancements to make this all happen. Its not enough however. I've been trying to play it through calmly forever. Quit for two years. Thought I'd try again.

It's always something else though. Hitching graphics, t-pose AI running around, flat out bugs, goofy UI that is hard to navigate and use, always something. Then, I find out that there is absolutely no way to skip dialogue and cut scenes, so when you get in a spot where you have to restart a mission, you have to go through all that slow, meandering, delay-filled conversations that you no longer care about.

I wouldn't recommend buying this even on discount. It will just make you salty.

Update: Tried to play it again and see if the updates improved things. Turns out it won't even start now because my second card that I use for the other monitor doesn't do ray tracing. Nice job. Hot garbage on a new level.

Update 1.5yrs later:
Tried to play it again and see if the updates improved things. Turns out it won't even start now because my second card that I use for the other monitor doesn't do ray tracing. Nice job. Hot garbage on a new level.

It is as bad as Far Cry 5, the one redeeming feature being that it is shorter. Stupid boss battle at the end. Trite. Seriously poor plot. At least they came to their collective senses in Far Cry 6. Go play that. You won't miss a thing with these two junkers.

I thought I liked this, but during the free weekend I just got a bunch of arcade driving experiences. I guess if you have a controller and a few hours to kill its OK.

It just gets uselessly harder to get stuff done. Not that it is hard to do, that it is stupidly pointless to grind until you get a particular drop. It gets worse as you progress. Too bad, would have been a game I played for years. Pointless difficulty does not make the game better.

Addendum: I still play it. Hell, its free. Not pay to win. It really frustrates me a lot of the time. I only really chip away at rapport each day. Don't know why.

COULD BE GREAT - NOT THERE YET
I can recommend only with heavy reservations. Between the terrible wheel support and the awkward and difficult UI system throughout, this can be very needlessly frustrating. If you are playing with a controller it may not be an issue for you. Maybe.

The game has a nice puzzle aspect to it where you need to work out what tasks to do first. And there is either a lot of content or it is just a time sync. Not sure just yet. Driving for half an hour to work on a specific task does add to the realism. At the time of this writting I have about 80% of the first area (They call it Michigan for some reason but it is really the Pacific Northwest). I have yet to touch Alaska, Russia and more.

Some of the physics are unrealistic. I drove IRL off road testing vehicles for years. But, if it wasn't a little over the top it would likely be boring. You get used to the behaviors and meeting the challenge becomes part of this game's charm.

I do wish they explained what they wanted better. Nothing more aggravating then making a deliver run of a certain trailer only to find out that you were supposed to pick a specific one already on the map to deliver. Named trailers would have eliminated any confusion, but I guess it is one of those things you learn the hard way. Do the tutorial or watch a starter video unless you are stubborn like me.

Modding community is HUGE for this game, you can get just about anything you can think of. Crazy right?

CANNOT PLAY ON OLDER COMPUTERS

You can meet all the specifications, but you won't work. There is an added requirement quietly hidden on the bottom that your processor has to support the AVX instruction set. Basically, if your chip is older than about 2011 then you will likely get a crash on start. They could have caught that error and put up an easy to read message but I guess that's too hard these days. Better to have thousands of people waste hours trying to get it working.

Its probably a good game. I hear its a good game. But an uncaptured crash on start is all I can get out of it. 505 won't answer a support request and Steam won't refund. Makes me salty.

UPDATE:
Spent $1700 on a new computer and it starts right up. Same hard drive, and previously downloaded files. Even though I met EVERY SPEC they had, it just crashed on start with the older PC. And support was not help, just boilerplate things todo when I had already told them what I did (they didn't read anything I guess).
Still wont recommend, still salty.

UPDATE AFTER 8 HOURS:
The only redeeming thing about this game is that it works better than CyberPunk. The content however is just too much 6 year-old bathroom humor, or some kind of potty fetish by the developers. Worst walking simulator with invisible zombies ever.

Played this when it came out a decade ago. Combat can be frustrating as hell because it is nothing that you would expect. Found a write-up by a player named Brain_Dead that was really helpful in reminding me what you have to do in this game.

Yeah, he looks silly with the sword above his head, but that is not a bug.

Now that I can play again, can recommend. Old schooooool.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/20900/discussions/0/558754259977987044/#c540742579463142236