Disclaimer; I see a number of poor reviews due to bugs and developer attitude. I experienced no bugs while playing the game, nor have I seen reason to interact with the devs. This is a game review. I found this to be a funny, genuine little gem that brought me back to the 90s. To me this is a melange of Jones in the fast lane and that SNES boxer (punch.. up?... super punch... whatwasit?). It is, like Jones, a time management game at its core. The fighting per se is more like a rock paper scissor exercise where you choose your strategy up front and then see how it fares. It is not very difficult. And, like Jones in the fast lane it has numerous parodies both of real life and pop culture, Rocky, Karate kid, Street Fighters and TMNT being obvious 90s referances - but you can find Fight Club and more modern, even contemperary referances. This makes it very enjoyable to me, even if the gameplay quickly gets mastered to a point near, (but not at) boring. It certainly has that one-more-round addictiveness in there somewhere. The game would have been stale if not for the visuals and the music. Very well made are both, in that regards it also reminds me of the giant of old, OMF which never was a superior *fightin*g game, but it certainly was the superior game to me, compared to the more refined fighters. It was well worth its asking price at release, it is more so now. Would purchase again.
What an absolutely enjoyable experience! This is a tycoon-ish indie business sim which manages to hit the right switches for me. Managing a tiny ganjiistan micronation - literally starting in your parents basement - and developing it into a giant sprawling weedpire is about as fun as it sounds. There are many small minigame-like elements to selecting, growing, optimising and selling your product in this game, but it never feels too mobile-gamey nor does it ever become a hassle - you can automate most things over time and spend your time doing what you like best. The storyline is actually fairly engaging, characters and dialogue better than expected and the scenarios are well planned and executed. My only heartache is the fact that there are not that many scenarios, and no real sand-box stage. Some very few of the storyline "missions" can feel contrived and pointless - why a mission to grow a specific strain and sell x amount of it, when I already have a better one doing fairly well - but overall way too few of those compared to fun ones to subtract any from the game. I'll finish up by mentioning the absolutely fantastic graphics and music. Exquisite, thematically well put together and awesome. The graphical look and feel - while not at all photorealistic - is just well designed. It all fits. It looks nice. And the "tactile" feedback from performing certain actions - you just feel that someone has spent time making everything nice. No glitches or errors (I have had one single CTD - which is way better than average games today). Laptop ran fairly hot - it takes a few resources but ran well. I wish there were more scenarios, and I wish there was a true sand box scenario - but these are not complaints, merely the same kind of regret one has after eating something fantastic. You just wish there was a bit more... For 15€ this is a perfectly priced and made snack you wish was a meal.
This title has all the potential to be very good as a low intensity casual game - but the linearity of the progression - tied to the storyline, makes the game feel like a giant tutorial for a game. Which is not fun at all. Sadly. It took me hours to figure out that it was not a tutorial and that the linear progression never ended. The gaming culture references, the mechanics and the graphics are very charming, but alas.
The good: It is fun Diversity of tasks and situations good Interesting twist The bad Never got a good feel for the interface and the controls However, all in all I feel its a "theme hospital" type game done at another location. If you loved theme hospital, you'll like this one as well, but in the end find theme hospital better.
