Recent reviews by Markbnj

RDR2 is an amazing game... and sometimes it's a frustrating game. If you were a fan of GTAV or really any of the games in that franchise you already know Rockstar has their own, sometimes quirky way of doing things. Odd controls, strange design choices, and characters that sometimes make you feel that you're only marginally in control come with the package.

If you can live with those things then RDR2 is an immersive treat for the senses. It has knocked The Witcher 3 off the top of my list of best open world story-driven games, and that was no easy feat. I've never experienced a game world so richly realized, with so many details and animated behaviors. The game has a truly massive world, a compelling story, and characters that are brought to life in striking detail, not to mention something like ten billion different things to do.

The game is not without glitches, but I have not run into any deal breakers, and it runs very smoothly at 1440p on high settings on a GTX1070. Most of the issues I have run into have been minor game play bugs that have either been ignorable, or correctable by resetting the current mission or activity.

I reviewed this title a couple of years ago and marked it recommended for several reasons. As a long term owner of Train Simulator 20xx (indeed going back to before it was taken over by Dovetail) I was excited at the graphical and simulation fidelity improvements in Train Sim World 20xx, even if I was confused by the introduction of a new independent title. I understood that the devs needed to move forward without breaking all the existing third party content for Train Simulator, and I hoped that over time Train Sim World would become the new platform with similar levels of community support.

Fast forward to now, and sadly that hasn't happened. Dovetail never delivered the editing tools necessary to allow that to happen, even for missions/scenarios. As of this writing there is still no workshop support at all for this sim. There are 15 or so routes available, and some power and rolling stock, and that's it. Worse, the developers still haven't fixed many of the bugs and glitches in the title, including some scenario bugs that ought to be relatively simple to fix compared to core simulation issues. Then, to add insult to injury they have now released "Train Sim World 2" with a 30 USD price tag, and some promised portability of existing routes (but not NEC!), and some noise about future support for editing tools, etc, and it all sounds very familiar to me.

I love the rail sim genre, and it's not like there are a bunch of alternatives. I wanted to see this game succeed, but I confess I have no idea what the developers are thinking or what their strategy is beyond trying to squeeze the community for another title purchase. I'm not biting. Hopefully Simrail (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1422130/SimRail_2021__The_Railway_Simulator/) will breathe some life back into this segment.

I think you basically have to give this game a thumbs up if it runs. If you're looking for a ship simulator that is at all realistic and runs on the PC this is pretty much it. If you're not looking for a ship simulator then don't buy this, no matter how cheap it is. You'll just be disappointed. It's old code, the interface is complicated, there are bugs (which may be actual bugs or just incompatibilities that have developed in the nearly ten years since its development), the graphics are way dated (obviously), but... it runs, it has very decent ship physics (I say this as someone who has handled large-ish vessels), a bunch of ships and ports, interactive controls that you can use in free-walk mode while maneuvering, and so it's a lot of fun for people who are looking for these things.

I had no problems running the game on the current build of windows 10. A couple of things to note: the water rendering on the menu screen is broken for me but it's fine once the game has loaded; UI elements don't scale so its difficult to run the game in higher screen resolutions, 1920x1080 seems like the sweet spot for me; the few crashes I've had were all in "walkthrough" mode, and required me to kill the process through task manager to control of the desktop back. I have not had it crash while in "orbit" or "helmsman" camera positions.

As a long-time fan of Bethesda titles I'm of course biased, and this review will be biased. That's ok, because sequels to successful franchises are made for fans first, and they should be made for fans first. And as a fan I think this is easily the best Fallout ever, probably the best Bethesda open-world RPG ever, and possibly one of the best first person RPGs ever.

For me these are the highlights. I'll follow this list with a few things I don't care for.

+ Atmosphere. A combination of appearance, sound, animations, and effects. This game has it in spades, and while it enhances the experience in many ways it's all true to the Fallout legacy. Some people have knocked the game's graphics, and some of the screens I have seen from console platforms don't look great, however running on my PC with a GTX660/2GB, 16GB of ram, and an i3770 the graphics look very good, run very smoothly, and are a big improvement over Fallout NV and even unmodded Skyrim. Textures look more realistic, lighting and shadows look better, rain is occluded when standing under cover, birds and other animals move realistically, weather effects are well done and the fog in particular is very eerie. Aurally the game is more than adequate: voices are clear and loud enough, ambient effects are smoothly blended in, etc. Nothing to complain about there.

One thing should be said about the size of the world: various people have commented that this is a smaller map than FONV's. I think it's important to note that this is Boston, not the desert southwest. First, you're not going to get much in the way of sweeping vistas, and second, you can't expect them to pack the density of Boston into a map the size of Fallout NV. They'd be working on assets for another five years. I think they've made a good design decision in sizing the map for this game.

+ UI changes. I was skeptical but I have ended up a huge fan of the interface. It's not easy to make something that works for console players and doesn't leave keyboard users fuming, but I think Bethesda has hit the ball out of the park. There are aspects which retain the clunkiness which has almost become their signature, but overall it's a huge step up. Highlights are the rollover looting, being able to disengage and move around during dialog, and being able to interact with NPCs and companions at a distance. I know a lot of thought went into how this should all work and I think in large part it has paid off.

+ Crafting/building. I don't think it's possible to talk about these two systems separately, or to overestimate their impact on the game. The crafting system itself is very streamlined. Fans of detailed crafting systems like those found in some MMOs will probably be bored by it. The game manages recipes and ingredients and there is little to do other than select what you want and see if it's buildable with what you have. Having said that, the way that the crafting system expresses itself in the game is a breakthrough, in my opinion, and it comes in three areas: world loot, weapon and armor modding, and settlement construction. All the loot in the world is now useful, because it all breaks down into components. In fact it might be that going from needing no loot to wanting to keep all loot might be a little much, but the game offers tools to make it easier to manage (sorting loot lists, storing all junk in one command). The components that you get from loot are used to mod armor and weapons, and to construct stuff in settlements. I've only just begin with weapon modding but have already enjoyed boosting the capabilities of my 10mm pistol.

Settlements and construction deserve their own section, although again they are intimately tied up with the crafting system. This aspect of the game is truly a breakthrough for first person RPGs, and if you have ever loaded up a Bethesda construction kit to mod up a house for yourself you will love this. Within the bounds of a settlement (defined as an area around a workshop) you can build structures, walls, gates, defenses, power systems, water systems, shops, furniture, containers, plant crops, the list goes on. As you add amenties to your settlement you attract NPCs to live there, who make it stronger and more prosperous. Later in the game you can link your settlements together in trade routes. It's a completely new aspect for Bethesda RPGS, and adds a huge amount of gameplay variety to the package.

+ Combat. I never liked using VATS, so although it has some nice improvements I won't say much about it here. Bottom line is that I like the combat. I like the fact that mobs move fairly realistically and will change position and seek cover. That alone is a big improvement from FONV. I like the sound and feel of the weapons. I like that durability is no longer a consumable. It always felt to me as if weapons in FO3 and FONV degraded too quickly, more so in FO3. Combat has never been the prime attraction for me in FO games; it's more something I have to be able to do to explore, scavenge, and profit. But so far I can at least say I haven't found anything I hate about FO4's system.

Ok, now for some dings. No game is perfect.

- The perk system. It's not that I hate the perk system. I don't mind that skills and perks have been rolled together, although I preferred them the way they were, What I don't like, at all, is the "wall of perks" animated interface. This had to have been built with couch players and big screen TVs in mind. Not my cup of tea at all, especially the amount of noise the thing makes.

- Dogmeat. Ok, I don't dislike Dogmeat. As in FO3 he's a great asset in combat... unless you were hoping to sneak in and not engage in combat right away. I love that I can interact with him at a distance and get him to stay or come with two quick keypresses. What I don't like is his behavior while we're moving. As a programmer I can appreciate the work that went into the code which predicts which way I'm moving so that he can stay ahead of me and roam about a bit, but really, I want him behind me. I want him to stop bashing doors and gates open before I'm ready to open them, I would like him to stop barging around and knocking crap over. Hopefully someone will mod this so that he is a little more laid back until he is actually needed.

- The workshop interfaces. One thing that puzzles me is that everything you store in any of the workshops ends up visible in all the workshops. I guess I understand why, since it all breaks down into components that are usable for different things, but it ends up seeming like a confusing mess. In fact, as a general rule the whole crafting/building UI is pretty complicated and not well explained at all. Check out some videos online and it will make everything a lot easier.

- Boarded up buildings. The bane of all the previous first-person Fallout games as well. Hopefully the modders will do for FO4 what they did for the previous games and open some of these interesting buildings up for exploration. I've heard there are more to enter once you get south of Concord as well.

- Character appearance and animations. It's almost another one of Bethesda's signatures that their character faces and animations look like crap. No change here. The animations are perhaps a little better than FONV but nothing to write home about. The facial textures and facial animations, including the lip syncing, are pretty bad. Modders will fix this up as they have for the previous game, I'm sure.

Bottom line for me is that FO4 is the best Fallout game I've ever played, and certainly the most fun since Skyrim, which I played and modded off and on for several years. I hope they bring this technology to a new Elder Scrolls single player experience, but in the meantime I will be expending many hours crisscrossing the wastes of eastern Massachussetts, trying to save myself and the last remnants of humanity... and that damn dog.