Prey was and still is probably the best immersive sim I've played.
+Great controls that let you interrupt some animations to keep combat and platforming feeling tight and responsive +Short and sweet! Just the right duration +Good checkpointing +satisfying to use the environment to your advantage +roguelike arena mode with modifiers takes some clever queues from games like Hades -Some lip synching when your character speaks would be nice, but I get budget constraints
+Good art style +Addictive grinding +Plenty of character -Too much grinding -How to go about completing some quests step-by-step is often obfuscated -Have to keep a wiki open mid-late game -Needless complexity -Automation of tasks is more work than its worth -Way too much travel/walking time -Combat dungeon is too easy and feels tacked on Although I spent a whole weekend unable to stop playing this game, I eventually realized that the game wasn't respecting my time at all; a lot of time is spent walking from place to place, and the high cooldown fast travel item doesn't help enough. As much as I want to keep playing, I don't feel like the rewards for progress add up mid-late game, and I'm going to be moving on to other relaxing gaming experiences with less needless complexity.
Far: Lone Sails is one hell of an achievement from some student developers. It's a delightful indie game journey with some good environmental storytelling, moved along through a delightful gameplay loop of managing your little doomsday land-ship and solving puzles in a world that's falling apart. You may want a little more of a narrative by the end of this short and sweet game, but Far: Alone Sails never ceases to delight and never proves to be frustrating. Highly recommended. --- You'll like this if you've played: The Final Station, Inside, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
Even after all the necessary technical precautions, No Man's Sky still begins to chug unbearably after about 2 hours of gameplay, without fail, until a restart. When the going is smooth, which is most of the time, the game seems like a highly ambitious but only mildly interesting version of a Minecraft in space. The survival isn't as deep as I'd like it to be, and neither is the player-driven narrative. On that subject of narrative, there isn't much of a story, and the bits that are eked out to you should you choose to follow the story aren't presented soon enough or with enough impact. I still remember my first space anomaly and black hole fondly but they were both little more than a subdued dialogue and a flashy fast travel sequence, respectively. Most things about this game, particularly the combat, mining, and inventory management/crafting don't feel as good as they should. After putting in over 10 hours before writing this, the only hooks that keep me coming back are the very rare instances of cool planets or neat looking ships. But those planets are still largely following a rote formula and the ships are rarely much better than the one I bought a few hours into the game. I keep playing this game with podcasts on while I wonder why I'm playing it at all.
