I got this game with a humble bundle on steam for pennies and it's good. My problem with it is you could buy 10-15 other games for the price of this one. This is the same reason why despite me being interested in a couple of their other titles I haven't purchased them. It is good, but not better than having 10 good games.
The game is kinda playable but it's tedious and uninteresting. For one of those old free flash games that used to be everywhere it would be been okayish for maybe 30-40mins, but as a game on sale I can't recommend it. I got it for free, thankfully. The way I ended up playing was watching my base for people to get back, send them to medical, and send them out. If you miss someone they could die so you need to be on top of it. There are no real choices to make, the base equipment breaks constantly, and your people are suicidal. It's more annoyance and tedium than anything. There are no good things about this, but it at least loads and runs so hey, it's something.
So I played this quite some time ago and it's one of those titles that just gets worse as you play and start to see how poorly made it is. Here is my list of serious issues 1) Enemies don't actually move or do anything unless they're in an activated state. This has a few problems: - If you move slowly enough you can see aliens without activating them and just pick them off without them fighting back - Since the aliens don't actually do anything, any civilian you do not have eyes on has a chance of death every turn even if there are no aliens anywhere near them. They just commit suicide I guess? 2) Cover doesn't actually do anything unless you're right behind it. Bullets will fly through everything like they're not there, but take one step forward and all of a sudden you get lots of cover.....but only from that one object directly touching you. The difference would really be minor in reality but the game is all or nothing. This forces you to play a certain way and makes it so taking a more covered path is pointless because to the game you're in a wide open field, though visually it's a forest 3) The removal of time units and other things reduces your tactical options even further. I would write more about this but really this game is a hollow shell and I can't be bothered anymore. The music in new X-com is good though, so there is that. Anyone interested in games like this should be looking out for xenonauts 2. It's pretty much guaranteed to be far better for anyone who wants some depth and choice.
I liked the game well enough and had no issues, but I did find it a bit gamey at times which can annoy me. **minor spoilers ahead** For example one of the first boss battles had you fight some armoured guy which had to be disarmoured before you could kill him. You could hit him in the unarmoured spots all day and blood sprays out but it does no damage(which would kill any other typical enemy). Or the final boss fight which has you hit someone in the face with rocks which you can get multiple rocks off, but only the first hit counts because he goes invulnerable until the next phase in the fight is reached. I would have given it 4/5 without those issues. The game runs and works fine otherwise and the story is interesting enough.
Since I cannot update my score for This War of Mine(their previous game) I will be writing this here. This dev team will patch their games into an unplayable state and call it good and move on to their next project. If this follows the same pattern as This War of Mine, frostpunk will become an unplayable mess and then they will move on. I originally thought this game looked interesting but when I learned who made it I decided to not bother. Why would I buy another broken product? If they fixed TWoM AND sold this at a heavy discount I might consider looking at it but as it stands I cannot recommend any products coming from these guys.
I am required to log into GoG galaxy to play this multiplayer...as in an account and login information to play....this sounds like DRM to me. I am pretty disappointed by this. As to the game itself, eh it's okay. I would probably give it three stars if it weren't for the DRM.
Since gog will not allow me to edit reviews I guess I will rate this in place of the original TWOM/little ones expansion. When TWOM first came out it worked and played well. I really liked it. However every time new content or patches were released the game just got buggier and buggier. It was minor at first, stuff like dialogue not making sense. Then the merchant broke, though honestly I liked that bug because it made things more difficult. However we are now at the point that the game starts in this new expansion mode but since you're not playing the expansion nothing can progress. It just doesn't work anymore and since none of the previous bugs were ever fixed I can only imagine this is just how things are now forever. A once great game, now a broken mess. I won't be buying this new stuff.
Adds more bugs to the game. With this addon my characters won't even move after coming back from scavenging if there is a child in the house. I have to quit every time it happens. In addition the trader comes once and only once for the entire game. This bug is actually something I like though as the game was, and unfortunately still is, too easy. Adds kids though which is okay. Not worth the bugs though.
It's a pretty decent story, which I won't talk about here because spoilers. Your character is completely incapable, being blocked by shrubs, unable to climb small ledges, etc. That was a little irritating especially when they're talking about the impassable terrain...which is like a couple of sticks you could step over. You can't get past them without an axe. Gotta axe those twigs. They do the same thing with climbing....you need special climbing gear for some parts, which when you look at them in game you see you could just walk up. I understand from a gameplay point of view why you would do this, but I find it a shame that they pretty much didn't even try to make it look like you really needed these things. It isn't too important, but it does take a toll on the immersion which is unfortunate. Anyways, I'd have rated this game higher, but I think the price is a little much for what it is. I'd rate this a 4 if it were around $15.
