Crashes at random intervals and the controls behave in a bizarre manner. Sometimes the character will spin in place for no apparent reason. I understand that it's a good game when it works. For me it was random behavior unconnected to what the controls were supposed to do.
No easing into gameplay. Learn by dying.
The game is moderately fun although it involves a lot of button mashing and little thought. I gave up trying to play with keyboard and mouse because it continually forgot the default configuration and things like the left mouse button stopped working. It does not allow you to change the difficulty level except when you are starting a game. I was having difficulty with a boss fight on standard and finally started a new game. The game stopped auto saving, or did not preserve the last auto save after shutting down. I uninstalled several times. I finally gave up. Windows 11 i7 processor, generic mouse and keyboard drivers
I finished it. The story and the voice acting were ok. The game play was a bit rough. The transition to and from hiding was klunky. There were times when it seemed like NPCs could shoot around corners. Stealth is paramount unless your reflexes are a lot better than mine and you manage to get your hands on a lot more ammunition than I did. I played by the empirical method. In each segment I kept trying different stuff till I didn't die. I died a lot. The maps sometimes seemed designed to obfuscate. Figuring how the different levels in an area overlay one another is time consuming even with the shadow coordinate system provided. FWIW, like every game I've ever played the music was annoying to forgettable. Turn the music volume way down, keeping it just loud enough to get hints of danger. Overall it was a positive experience although I got pretty annoyed with the amount of dying.
Gave up in middle of training mission in the dark room. Careful systematic movement in all directions resulted in no progress.
Overall I enjoyed this game. It has the same attitude about corporate/consumer culture as the Fallout games. It's like a lot of '50s science fiction in this respect, e. g. Pohl and Kornbluth's "The Space Merchants." I loved the quest titles taken from pop culture. The dialogue and voice acting is good. The plot gets a bit saggy from time to time but it's a video game and unless you fetch things and have combat, it's just not an RPG. I like the way SAM manages to translate all his experiences into cleaning robot activities. There are no pure good guys although several of the characters have good intentions. I liked the weapon improvement system. One thing that disappointed me is that at the end of the game SPOILER FOLLOWS your character build has a strong influence on how you solve the final problem. There was no easy way to go back and change that. You can complete the game either way with the same result.
Pros: Some of the story lines are fun with a wry twist. Some of the voice acting is good. Stealth and allowing your allies to do the work is the best approach to combat. Cons: Random crashes. Random loss of focus requiring task swap back to game. A lot of quests are either fetch this or kill this person with no story value. Grinding for crafting and leveling is required. The map is obfuscatory. It has the standard Bethesda climbing problem where some inclines are impossible even though others that look steeper aren't. I enjoyed the game overall. It held my interest enough to complete the main story line. The Nuka World DLC is a delightful satire of theme parks. I enjoyed seeing Fenway Park as a settlement and getting to repaint the Green Monster. There is also a Ted Williams allusion. Several of the NPCs were well developed, e. g. Desdemona, Piper, Nick Valentine. The crafting required some grinding and storage but you can improve your weapons meaningfully.
I went through 4 different character builds before I managed to finish the game. I got to the next to the last level with 3 of them. To be fair, I wouldn't have put so much time into it if I hadn't enjoyed it. I ended up going heavy on psi with moderate emphasis on conventional weapons. Invisibility, the wall, and the health drain thing were what enabled me to finish. I enjoyed the idea that different opponents had different strengths and weaknesses forcing you to diversify your abilities. I went with psi emphasis because my temperament and reflexes favor range weapons and stealth. The cons for me were that opponents frequently appeared from nowhere and some had the ability effectively to shoot around corners. The controls using mouse and keyboard aren't very precise, sometimes leading to the inability to use the hide and pop out to shoot tactic. I gave up on the resurrection feature early in my first character. I just seemed like a waste. I saved very often. If you repeat a segment you can often get through it with no damage. The other thing I discovered was that hacking security stations is only useful to disable turrets. A thing I learned from other games was to save before hacking and reload if the first hack try fails. Saves nanites. The graphics look a little dated but I kind of like the feet. All in all, I'd happily buy it again.
I've finished the main story line and am in the middle of the DLC. Pros: The story , artwork, and voice acting are good. The presence of Lance Reddick in the cast is a big plus. There isn't much need for grinding in order to reach the level necessary to complete quests. Combat involves patience and the heavy use of range weapons. Cons: There are two types of puzzles, operating devices and navigation. The device related puzzles aren't especially interesting. The navigation puzzles, which mainly involve climbing, can be frustrating. Lateral movement can be downright weird because the left/right keys often don't behave in the way you'd expect. Also your character encounters ledges that are impossible to jump to even though they're not as high as ledges that are reachable. This includes areas that don't use the color coding system. Overall it's fun. I wanted to finish it.
Hobbes characterized life as nasty, brutish, and short. This game appears to be designed to show that life in the Renaissance was nasty, brutish, short, and very tedious. This game is the story of Henry, son of a village blacksmith in Bohemia who experiences a catastrophic upheaval in his life. His parents die when the village they live in is sacked by troops supporting one side in a civil war. Henry becomes a sort of fixer for the local feudal lord. He very gradually develops skills in combat, alchemy, rhetoric, reading, etc. His learning curve is long. In a way the game is kind of a simulator because acquiring basic skills requires many hours of play. The story line is slightly better than pedestrian. I finished the main story line after way too many hours of play most of which was occupied in grinding to get to a level in alchemy and combat skills necessary to survive the later stages of the game. Many of the quests are of the go fetch or go kill variety, often padded with surprises that seem to be there just to make the quests take longer. Combat leveling requres many hours of literal practice with an instructor. Alchemy requires making literally hundreds of potions in order to reach a level where it's useful. Support for mouse and controller is very poor. It makes simple things like picking up objects a chore. It makes the fancy combat tricks available, lock picking, and pickpocketing almost useless. In combat stick to whacking, blocking, and dodging. The visuals are nice and the voice acting isn't bad. The game involves a tolerance for tedium that many won't have. Oh, the only inexpensive way to save voluntarily until your alchemy skill gets up to the point where potion making is worth it is to use quit and save. It's not exactly a quick save but it doesn't cost any groschen.
