The game looks great. But some Rania starts talking. Who is this? It's not me. She's saying stuff that has nothing to do with me. I get to the first delivery and the guy has a conversation with her that goes on forever and is not interesting to me. Why can't I skip through this? At this point I am in literal physical pain waiting for the people to stop talking so I can work out if it is relevant in some way. I can't sit through any more of this.
This is someone else's experience not designed to be fun for me.
This is a little gem of a game. Now, this favorable verdict should be taken with nuance. Let's see:
THE UGLY:
- A terminal case of The Woke (1). Gratuitous thinking like gendercrap stupidity, antireligious rhetoric, and similar. They come off as cheap propaganda, advocating an intolerant, totalitarian and (imho) failed worldview.
THE BAD:
- Unstable and crashes regularly. This is compounded because you cannot save the game. There are savepoints but you cannot tell when they happen, the game does not tell you.
- Don't care for the Minecraft-like pixelized/voxelized look.
- Frequent loads, and loading time is slow.
- A terminal case of The Woke (2). The protagonist identifies as a revolutionary anarchist. The whole worldview is EXTREMELY LEFT WING. The developer is German; maybe they long for the Wall and Hohnecker days. However, this is a dystopian city which justifies most of it. Some were not, as listed in "The Bad".
- Car controls are awful. You cannot control it well, you bump everything until reaching a dangerous level, which forces you to seek a mechanic. You can't know the status of your car until you receive a warning (fixed in City of Ghosts).
- Lack of a global map. Most of the time you need to cross through sections and cannot see your end destination.
- No Linux version (at least on GOG).
But...
THE GOOD
- Superb atmosphere and setting. Nivalis is vibrant and alive.
- Great story with interesting twists. No combat one can speak of, mostly a driving/walking sim, but all right for me.
- Excellent, mostly witty voice acting (except when they avocate woke crap propaganda; that was cringe).
- Awesome, atmospheric soundtrack. You should *really* get both base and the DLC soundtracks.
- Lightweight on resources. Runs very well on my Windows.
- Works well on Intel UHD onboard GPU. I got great performance on 720p on High settings. The system reported low FPS but that was not the case at all; gameplay very fluid.
All in all, a fantastic game.
This game is a mellow interactive movie. There's no real risk, not much branching. Drive your Blade Runner hovercar around a dystopian future. I saw several 1-star reviews not from verified owners, so I checked the Steam reviews before buying this, and they are Very Positive. My guess is that some of the content upset the Alt Right Whine Brigade. But whatever your voting politics, if you're comfortable living or working in a diverse environment, I don't think you'll have any issues with the content.
The dialog is not professionally written. The visual atmosphere is 10/10 while the verbal atmosphere is 4/10. But the content is fully voiced. I use the game as a way to relax after a long day.
From my playthrough of the original game to my 2nd time in City of Ghosts, I've never really enjoyed a game like this one. The game mechanics are amazing, the ability to move around and be almost free to do whatever you want really are so satisfying.
Great dialogues too, you get the emotions
PS: (I bought it on steam)
