Five hours and a few quests in (and having played the originals for thousands of hours) I can comfortably say that this game is the sequel I had hoped for when I first bought Clear Sky many years ago. The gameplay, mechanics and environment are all faithful to the originals whilst still being updated appropriately. The sound design and gunplay are superb. The envorinment is beautiful and the (now rebalanced) enemies a familiar bunch. My only constructive criticism is that the 4 quick slots are bound to 2 keys - clearly a concession for ease of console porting, but a frustration to adapt to as a PC owner. There are plenty of teething issues as with just about any game on release and they're all being patched out faster than I could hope to find them for myself. My own experience has been everything I enjoyed when I played Shadow of Chernobyl for the first time. And these guys made this whilst in the middle of a damn warzone! A+, gentlemen <3
This game is freaking great fun. I love it! The graphics are simple yet stunning and the gameplay is as moreish as it gets. Totally worth buying when it's on special. The problem, though, is that I've only ever had one world actually take off. After a winter or two, people just stop eating. The population expands quicker than food production can keep up if you're not careful (invest in fisheries and crops early!) but that's not terrible. My gripe is that, when this happens and the population starts to die off, it never plateaus out again. They just keep dying regardless of how much food might be coming into the village. They also refuse to go and pick food up from the storehouse. It's as though they are so depressed by being surrounded by the corpses of their loved ones that they give up on food; notwithstanding the consequential availability of a new, fresh food source (beggars can't be choosers...). My lesser complaint is the climate. With summers this cold, it's a wonder I can't herd penguins, polar bears and seals! I'm terribly curious as to just where this game is set. Notwithstanding all the above, when you get that one village that really takes off it is tremendously satisfying. You don't need the threat of some hostile alien force or senseless economics (anyone else remember the $5K nuclear plants in SimCity?) to create a challenge. Best survival game I've played in yeeeeeears.
