... but sadly, it lags far behind. I ended up uninstalling shortly after the first set of main missions. What could be an excellent game and lovely successor to the previous installments feels empty and incomplete, especially considering years have gone by since release. The various bugs and QoL issues have not been addressed, most glaringly the UI: There are only a tiny handful of hotkeys, none of which are remappable. But for most of the actions you need to do (e.g. selecting an action, selecting a dialog option) you must simply point and click, no keyboard shortcuts. I've seen better UIs from the 1990s. Most of the time, you will be staring at a small portion of the screen on the right, reading small yellow text, none of which (0%) is voiced. Then you will click on either a small ellipsis ("...") to continue reading or select a dialog option. The writing is decent, but not nearly as excellent as I was let to believe (standard cyberpunk tropes and clichés). The combat gets repetitive fast, being not nearly as varied or interesting as other tactical grid-based games (e.g. XCOM, Marvel, etc.). The world environments feel empty and forlorn, the only things you can interact with are the stock characters (who stand around waiting for you to trigger their dialogue options) or pieces of money lying on the ground, highlighted for your convenience. I was greatly dissapointed.
I managed to play about 2 hours before the sound deteriorated, from constant audio stuttering to, finally, silence. Afterwards, it seems that running CP2077 also corrupted my bluetooth drivers, it seems like I now need to re-install windows. 4 years after release and *still* pretty bad issues...
I'm not very far into the campaign, so perhaps much of the laudation this game has received is more visible later in the game, but so far, I'm not impressed. The setup seems to be a fairly standard squad-based tactics game in which a handful of units are controlled in battles and the overworld map can be navigated between battles. There doesn't seem to be much innovation here. I'm guessing it's the setting which attracts the most amount of fans -- giant cybernetic machines with big guns. It does feel quite puerile, and sadly, the writing of the "campaign" is absolutely abysmal (although the voice acting does ok). It's so cringeworthy it's put me off a bit. What's odd is that the main appeal of this game -- commanding these giant metal beasts of little-boy yearning -- feels far off, because they appear to be just little tiny figures in an otherwise very bland map. The scale does not feel daunting. The game was written in Unity, which means performance is fairly ok but will still make your machine run hot. The controls are clunkly and slow, with much reliance on mouse-use and additional clicks just to confirm. I've had to restart once because of a crash, and apparently my game was not saved either; since you cannot save from within a mission, at least during the scripted campaign, that means backtracking all the way back through the drivel. I'm hoping the later battles will be worth it.
PP is a lot of things earlier incarnations did less well, with some exceptions. One of the exceptions is the UI, which is cumbersome but not hideous, and the other is the bugginess of the coding - in unity no less, which runs slowly and hot. There are some poor design choices as well (early game heavies: just not thought through; almost all DLC), but most of the core gameplay is still solid. Overall a recommendation despite the drawbacks.
I remember playing DW when it came out, finding much of it innovative in a 4x environment. Sadly I cannot determine how well the dlc added to universe hold up, since the game will simply not launch. No error Message, nothing. For this price: never.
This game has not aged well, but even ten years ago it would have felt repetitive and shallow. There's not much variation, or much to do, let alone look at.
Fairly solid if significantly more boring version of Darkest Dungeon. While the entire game loop is faster and slimmer, since unlike DD you return back to base and can replenish your crew after each battle, this also makes the game much, much easier and removes almost the entire sense of dread and suspension as well as any strategic overlay to the tactical battles. Add to that the hideous humor and it gets cringe worthy. It did not succeed in capturing my interest enough to complete.
I bought this game recently, as it was on sale, and do regret doing so. While I agree with other reviewers about most of the aspect of this game, one aspect remains relatively unmentioned, and this, sadly, is of such poor design that it eventually caused me to quit after a few hours. W40k:Mechanicus is a turned-based squad tactics game, with some layers of post-tactical strategic tuning that most people will recognize from others of its genre, such as the XCOM locus classicus. There are a few additions and variations that make this game unique, or at least slightly different from the scores of others in this genre, such the way that units are upgraded or the way that "navigating" the map opens up choices much like in primitive "choose-your-own-adventure" stories of the 1980s. Some of these features are done well, others much less so. As most other reviewers have noted, the atmosphere and the sound of this game is enjoyable, unique, well-done and consistent. Most of this becomes moot, however, when faced with the hideous, inexcusable UI. I would rather clean the kitchen than frustrate myself with clicks that do nothing, uncustomisable and idiosyncratic keybinds, and the inability to glean any information whatsoever about units on the board, even your own units. There were points in the game during which I literally found no solution as to how to proceed with combat, since my feeble attempts to engage the enemy were, seemingly, not allowed, the reasons for which remaining obscure. Life is simply too short to be stuck on poor software. Surely die-hard fans of the 40K universe might struggle through, but otherwise, I cannot see a reason to invest time into this game.
The Witcher 3 was superb. I just don't care for swordplay, and the quests bundles got too dense, and while it started off challenging, it soon became too easy even on hardest difficulty. That's different in HZD. I was not expecting much; my expectations are entirely left behind. I couldn't stand the horrid voice acting in Skyrim and the idiotic writing, and that damn world filled with apples and cups. HZD gets it right: It simplifies everything, leaving all the small bits to your imagination (not that there's no detail, quite the contrary, it's very very meticulously done, it's just that you can't pick it up and stick in in your inventory). The voice acting is top-notch (not everywhere but where it counts). The writing is very good, even if the premise is utter nonsense (machine animals?!), but I can suspend my disbelief if the rest is decent. It's exceptionally well orchestrated. And speaking of orchester, the music is really noteworthy. The costumes and makeup are good. The way the protagonist moves is good. Even the climbing is good. There is some rudimentary level-up system that seems to be stolen from the Far Cry series, as is much of the crafting, but the rest seems stolen from the Witcher, and that speaks for it. Horizon Zero Dawn even does Monster Hunter World better than MHW: The beasts are not giant bullet sponges, there are real meaningful tactical choices to make, and even the "little" machines are fun and challenging. Even the weapons are better than MHW. This is turning into the best FPS-ish RPG I've ever played (back in the day, that was the original Deus Ex). I play it on a decent laptop, on which it performs without a hitch. It comes highly recommended.
As it was on sale, I gave it a shot, thinking it couldn't be quite as bad as everyone says -- I was wrong. The writing is clichéd and cringeworthy, the language of the interface is written in a confusing, bizarre English, and the gameplay is buggy, stilted, halting and quirky. Life is too short to play games like this.
