First of all, this review might be a bit biased, as it's written straight after the end credits, but whatever. This was awesome. A sweet, hilarious and engaging game with a comfortable runtime - not too short, never overstaying its welcome. A breath of fresh air, as some would call it. Deliver At All Costs is a (semi-)open-world sandbox game, with an obvious emphasis on driving. A GTA-lite, if you will. You play as Winston, uh-, Green, a down-on-his-luck engineer hoping to find a brighter future at the local courier company. Much to both Winston's and my surprise, "We Deliver" would change his fate forever. But before anything crazy happens, you are free to explore the surrounding areas and cause as much mayhem as you want. Seriously, the destructibility of most EVERYTHING in this game is commendable, and the game stays stable, too. Of course, as is with many other sandbox games, it's not free of occasional bugs, especially when it comes to physics, though they've done nothing but put a smile on my face. The open-world activities consist of traditional collectables and side jobs, all for the pleasure of completionist maniacs, such as myself. Unlike most GTAs (I'm looking at you, V), the story is as linear as it gets, and spans across several years of Winston's life, presented in the form of short episodes covering major events. Most missions are wacky delivery jobs, complimenting the absurdity of the setting and demonstrating different gameplay aspects. But the seasoning of our meat-and-potatoes dish is character-driven cutscenes, ranging from heartwarming to eyebrow-raising and outright shocking, especially in the last act. Don't lose hope mid-game, Deliver At All Costs still has much to show you. The ups and downs, the twists and turns don't stop until the final minute of this gorgeous creation. A debut project deserving applause, or a budget raise. Really, I want a sequel. A solid 9/10 in our trying times. Maybe an 8 if you're coolheaded. I'm not, though.
Imagine what Warren Spector described as his dream one city block RPG, wrapped in a dystopian retrofuturism-gone-wrong aesthetic (no, I'm not calling it cyberpunk) and shipped as a procedurally generated detective game. You play as a rusty PI making buck by solving cases, of which there are 2 main types - City Hall cases (murders, kidnappings, etc.) and side jobs (locate and bring item A to point B, take a picture of person X after throwing a burger at them, that kind of stuff). After completing each one you get money (the amount depends on how many objectives you've completed) and social credit, which is really needed if you want to get away from this hellhole to somewhere nice. Now, it wouldn't be an "immersive sim sandbox" if you hadn't tons of ways to solve your cases. Crawl through vents, barge into apartments and businesses, talk to witnesses (or anyone for that matter), hack cameras, hack computers, hack your genes (yes, there are bioimplants in this game), hack the world!!! Or buy and furnish your apartments, get into fistfights, flush gallons of booze down your throat and vomit as far as you can see, escape authorities without paying your fines, be a menace to this isolated society... Until you realize you've seen all the game has to offer, which is not much, sadly. The variety of cases leaves a lot to be desired for a game focusing on replay value. NPC behavior is very unpredictable and really dumb at times. AND, to top it off, the game is notoriously unoptimized and buggy (after 17 months of ironing it out in Early Access): constant frame drops, occasional out of bounds and NPC schedule errors... Which isn't so acceptable, but pretty understandable considering the game's proc-gen nature. Your first 10 hours will be a blast. Then the cracks start to show, you optimize every case and decide what to do next. If it's not your type of game, better leave it at that. If it is, then Shadows of Doubt will remain your gem. A gem that will never become a diamond.
Just Cause is an open-world action game and Avalanche Studio's debut project. It takes place in a fictional (presumably Latin American) country San-Esperito, you play as a top-class operative Rico Rodriguez sent by the secret organization called "The Agency" to help local guerilla movement overthrow local establishment in the name of freedom and democracy while pushing local cartels to fight each other in the meantime. You can shoot through various missions, complete in races and collect boxes and other mandatory collectibles scattered all across San-Esperito, destabilize regions and support revolutioners on their way to reclaim their ground and the freedom of all citizens. While progressing through the story, you will be awarded with hideouts, where you can heal, save, restore ammo and grab parked vehicles. Huge and diverse open world is also one of the game's key features. And by huge, I mean REALLY HUGE. To traverse through hundreds and hundreds of square kilometers, you're given a whole bunch of different aerial, water and ground means of transportation, including jet planes, military helis, armed pickup trucks and speedboats. Unfortunately, the driving controls are far from perfect, and driving a car can become really tedious and frustrating, especially when you are chased by an army of government officials or trying to beat a race on a mountain road. The steering almost makes you feel like you are driving a smoothing iron on ice. That's one of the reasons why I used the grappling gun (another tool for transportation, you'll use it a lot, trust me) more often than any car or bike (which have an awful habit of launching you forward like a catapult after even the smallest bump on the road). Another big issue was the braindead AI. When neutral NPCs didn't try to get under your crossfire, they rammed you with cars. And oh boy, did it hurt. Overall, I give it a 7/10. A worthwhile experience, though be prepared to fight the game itself for your fun.
