I could get on board with the imposed handicap to the PC to some extent, although getting rid of a -30% dmg reduction to all your attacks seems to be inordinately long-winded. And maybe with the scarce ammunition and med supplies; if anything, F4 had these too much in abundance, much like the power armours popping up left and right. However, the game lost me after it failed spectacularly on delivering on my favourite feature, settlements- they are buggy beyond console commands, and really shouldn't be in the game as they stand. Also, moving around the world map is exceedingly railroaded- there is often only one way forward, and any other route is often blocked by rubble, giant barricades or walls offering no reason to this other than making sure the player moves thru the map like a theme park ride. Invisible walls will be sure to catch you if you happen to wiggle thru some small opening or a hill in hopes of traversing to another district. For the positive, I did rather like the worldbuilding and lore that the dev team managed to conjure to London; most of the sites seemed properly hand-built, unlike the generic Bethesda mess of interiors. The Cthulhu-mythos references and influence is evident, and for the most part the dialogue and delivery are good, as is the sound world, setting a very nice atmosphere. As much as I try to like the mod, it does pose a multitude of technical issues, which one can only hope that the devs can address in future patches; currently, the game is not enjoyable. In the short time I've played, I've become perspective locked (couldn't look around) almost as often as I've interacted with a computer terminal; the ample bolt-lock weapons seem to cause the game to hang in VATS as the slow reload often allows hostiles to just waltz out of firing range into cover, and the aforementioned completely busted settlement feature was a disappointment. Still, if these issues are fixed, London might be quite enjoyable.
I was somewhat dubious of buying Bastard Bonds at first due to the art direction, but I am glad I did. Underneath the veneer of buff bears and overtones of homoerotic fanservice lies a strategic gem not too dissimilar to Ogre Battle or Final Fantasy tactics. The game tosses you into the boots of a convict, and you decide by your charges what sort of character they are- you may be innocent of the crimes laid out against you, or guilty as charged. After being reviewd thusly, you can make your character sprite and use 10 points to determine your starting skills. Each character has similar skill trees, but there are exceptions to available spells and special traits, depending on race. Only humans and orcs are initially open for the player, but you can recruit further people to your band of bastards from random encounters or enemies, albeit this is highly situational. The game features a pretty large, open-ish world and despite the combat being simple, strategy and wise planning are key features to success, as it should be. You can further specialize your casters to healers or damage dealers, your melee into tanks or heavy hitters, and your lithe rogues as critical stackers or dodgers, and anything in between. The game's in-world locations are highly varied and have a great deal of thought put into them to differentiate them from one another. Haunted spas, vampire pleasure camps, horrible meat dungeons, abandoned homesteads or demon-infested villages, and so on. The musical score is varied enough not to be repetitive, and pleasant to the ears. Negatives- Walls can block vision and sometimes pathfinding is subpar, requiring you to backtrack so as to get all four party members together again. Also, enemies tend to blindly charge at you, unless ranged. Finally, the beefcake factor is a bit of a love it or lump it. Expect many pixelated dongs. Lastly, the camp feature is fun, but could use a lot more tooltips. Has a lot of moments where you might need to consult a wiki.
The GOOD: - Vast universe, freedom of making your own way. - Potential for coop is great. - Variety in aesthetics, most worlds have their own looks, tho a single biome. - Upgrade systems are intuitive, good tooltips The BAD: - After 20+ worlds, there's no new events, buildings or anomalies to catch your fancy. - The main plot is a bit hit and miss. Your options tend to be limited to Y/N, and the NPCs feel indifferent and sterile. No player agency. - The language system is just terrible. Going through all the creatures in the universe and asking each one individually to translate a single word seems like a fool's errand. Even the autotranslation software helps only a limited amount, and it doesn't store the translated words. - Some quests are a bit buggy, still. The requirement to have the mission set as 'active' can botch some quests something awful. One example was raiding a Sentinel supply depot for the Arms Vykeen, but it froze up since I blew up the depo before I had selected the mission as active. Also, the endgame event will crash if you have a black hole location lined up. I mostly ended up dying by having my ship ram into the freighter and get stuck; at times, the freighter dissapeared completely from view. The MIXED: - Space combat can be interesting, but I would like to see it in a bigger scale. - I love Freighters, but having a multimillion ship handed over to you for free seemed a bit odd, especially how many loops you had to run through to get the sub tech and buildings opened. The resource management for your fleet is also a blessing and a curse: having all your resources read for recipes and building is awesome; however, collecting resources from your frigates is a nuisance at best, as the storage caps at around a 100 units. You also need to land into your freighter every time to get a status report from your fleet, despite receiving constant status updates from the expeditions via GUI. - Got PK'd on my first online game. Didn't care for it.
Gameplaywise, Zomboid is one of the best zombie survival games in the genre. It truly becomes alive in multiplayer, where the old adage of the zombie genre is true- humans are the greatest threat, not the zombies. But making allies in a zombie-eat-human world is one of the high points of the multiplayer experience, building uneasy trust with people, before pooling your resources and skills. There's a great variety of character builds, and practicing them opens more options in things like carpentry, electronics, and food prep. Time will make things harder for survivors, as the power and water will be cut off, and you're forced to scavenge further afield, or take up agriculture. There's quite a bit of mods and customization going on as well. However, the reason I give this two stars instead of four is simple- it is unlikely Project Zomboid will be ever finished. I've watched the development from the early days as far back as 'Til Death Us Do Part and Baldspot. That's TEN years in Alpha development. Quite a marathon. As much potential as the game held, it now seems unlikely we'll see a 1.0 release, and the long-standing features the developers have been teasing us with.
The game sports a beautiful musical score, drawn graphics and minimalist and subtle gameplay mechanics ranging from trade and diplomacy to cattle rustling and sorcery, painting before you an engaging world full of wonder and dread. As the head of your clan in a land filled with mythical creatures and other clans, you must strive to make yours the throne of Dragon Pass- it is up to you to realize the dream of your clan by a myriad of ways, often with unforseen consequences for your choices and actions with your neighbours, who also vie for the coveted throne.
