Recent reviews by -<{AfroBob}>-

Abandonware

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This is the first game (out of hundreds) I ever refunded.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the previous games in the series, I was already on the fence about it because of other reviews and gameplay videos. However, with the 50% sale I decided to have a go at it. However I was almost instantly hit with the sensation of this being a optimized/unfinished game.

The first thing I did was go into the customization menu, and was shocked at the character-model that was standing in front of me: An ugly model that was clipping with itself at several points while not even being animated. The shock about the graphics continued when seeing the models ingame. I generally don't care about graphics as long as they aren't an annoyance. But in this game they seem like they were placeholders that still had to be updated but never were. Even Tropico 1 has animations that are more fluid then this. (Legit, just go check a video or play that yourself.)

I continued playing though, as this is a game where the gameplay matters! Within minutes I was hit with repetitive text lines and "build X" missions that asked for the same (completely unnecessary) building in a row. While the voice acting was good and the dialogs felt Tropico-ish, there was such a disconnect between them. Like they were never really finished all the way: after saving Penultimo, he instantly goes on like he always has been, like he has been at your side for ever and that is basically the whole story of the first mission.
There are instantly noticeable improvements too like being able to actually get a top view, but, there are to many obvious shortcuts taken to truly enjoy t this game for me.

Addition after playing the game a few more hours on a mates PC:
The music in this game is more subdued than in the previous ones, the average BPM (Beats per minute) is slower and the volume of it seems normalized and lowered. (I had music and master set to 100% with the rest around 50-70%.) This makes the music truly background music, you can perfectly watch a stream on a second screen with it going for instance. But this isn't a good thing; The music in the previous games was more on the foreground and grabbed your attention in a good way, it suited the theme/feeling of the game greatly.

That fact, accompanied with the fact that a lot of tasks are just "plop X down and wait for Y" makes this game grab my attention a lot less. Even after hundreds of hours, when I start a mission or a sandbox in 4 or 5 it grabs and holds my attention until the game is over or I suddenly realize the time. Tropico 6 doesn't do that and I find myself losing attention (while waiting) a lot more.

Speaking of the tasks you get, this game seems to reward "the humane president" a lot more than "the harsh dictator" and pushes you way more into bending over to everyone. Even though I play mostly play as a good president in the previous games, it feels a lot less like your will is absolute law (even though you make the laws). In the previous games factions had requests, in this one they have demands and telling them to F off has a lot more consequences. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but because the way it is implemented makes like you are just doing chores for factions, instead of being that almighty dictator.

Tasks/demands also seem poorly tested and implemented:
-You can just turn (unwanted) edicts off right after enabling them because of a demand. (This wasnt the case in previous games).
-They love to make demands for the same building over and over (even if you keep them), the military loves having 12 roller-coasters....
-The Dual demand sometimes requests the exact same building for both parties, yet you still have to choose.
-Non of the tasks are challenging, they just ask to plop X down, or wait for Y to be produced: No time limit to put any stress on it.
-The urgent demands that cause "terrible"events to happen (forgot the ingame name) are very trivial at best.

TLDR: Having played this for just less then 2 hours, I felt like I'd rather go back and replay ANY Tropico except 2 than this. (1 and 3 for nostalgia, 4 and 5 because they are arguably better than this one.)

Love this game!

Although I can't recommend TPS, I can recommend this DLC!

Compared to BL2 this is ♥♥♥♥.
But even when not comparing to BL2, this barely holds up.

This game...

• is buggy AF. (Yes even when comparing to BL2.)
  
• loves to listen to itself, making you wait ages before opening a door or updating your quest. The dev's also know this, having characters comment on how much talking there is and how boring it is trough the (second) playtrough.
  
• treats you like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥, giving pop-ups that aren't instantly skipable constantly for the first hour(s).
  
• has awefull, cringy, badly timed and weirdly voiced dialog.
  
• has verticle exploring but crappy mechanics to traverse them.
  
• has boring, and lazely designed, missions: "Go to X, can't because of Y, go fix Y/take long route round". Sometimes they add a "Still doesn't work because of Z" to mix things up... In fact, the events of the entire main story follow that formula. (Without to much spoilers; hunt vault->Can't because of X->Fix X->Go hunt vault.)
  
• boring lanscaping.
  
• has hight indicators on the mini-map (above, below), but that's not a good thing. It has it because it NEEDS it and even with it it can sometimes be confussing where to go.
  
• has a dull and kind off unsatisfying story.
  
• It is shorter then BL2, but this feeling is made worse by the lack of interesting/memerable events that happen.
  
• has dull humor. The parts that are funny are generally running gags or jokes that have been done in the earlier games.
  
• has a broken mission skip feature for missions already played in a coop. Sometimes it won't ask to skip and just does, other times it skips missions you haven't even done. (It completely skipped everything from getting the first O2-kit to and including entering Concordia without asking on my second playtrough, never seeing or getting near Deadlift. All because I joined a friend for a few seconds...)
  
  
• does have a great DLC, Claptastic Voyage is good content!

Will add over time.

Explosions?

This review will get hated by the Factorio community but here we go:

Even though I like the game, I would not recommend it in its current state for the current ($20) price.

Don't get fooled by those with 500h in that keep screaming this has major replay-ability, because I am sure that it doesn't to a lot of people. There isn't actually a great variety in what you can produce, every game will involve the same steps en calculations. Sure there are small parts (mostly logistics) you can optimize and change. But the whole process from ores to rockets is a simple and static math problem concerning ratios. (Solved in a few min with a Excell sheet etc.)

So IMHO it's not worth the $20 if you look at the game CONTENT wise. Games like Prison Architect hold much better value in that sense.

The game is fun, just don't get all hyped up cause the forum is full of people shouting this is worth so much more because they have 500+ hours in this. Keep in mind that the community exist mostly of people who have already paid the $20, this is also true for the reviews.

Update 29-07-2018: With the increase in cost of the game, but not a lot of content added since my original review, all I can say now is that it is even less worth it. Not saying it is a bad game (not at all), just that you can get a lot more bang for you buck in the gaming world.

Update 03-09-2018: Those that keep on saying the hours of gameplay make it worth the $30:
That argument doesn't really hold up compared the other top 100 most played games on steam, where Factorio is placed 63th*. Price/gamehours wise, this game is simply expensive**.


*On average per player and according to Astats: https://astats.astats.nl/astats/Steam_Games.php?Sort=8
**Don't counter this argument with the full retail price of other games, other games have sales, it's Wube's choice not to have them. So compare them with the lowest/average sale price.

Pros:

• Perfect for controlling games and desktop.
  
• Fits my hand better then XB or PS controllers.
  
• The grip buttons are love! (If only there were more!)

Cons:

• Its noisy.
  
• I wouldn't have mind some (small) rumble motors. (Simulated just isn't the same)

I've been using this controller as my main peripheral on my HTPC for 2 days now and I love it:
After using all of the Xbox and PS controllers gen's (yes even that bulky OG Fat Xbox controller) throughout my life and this is the first controller I actually enjoy playing shooters etc. with, as I never enjoyed looking around with a joystick.

I also did not feel there was a steep learning curve, although BPM did take (or is still taking) some time to get used to and I don't think I'll ever prefer it to default Steam. The first game I played was Portal 2, and this is a great game to get used to the controller. (Default setup is pretty good IMO, I just changed a few buttons around to my own liking.)

The design of the controller is also perfectly suited for me, it is the first controller that I find comfortable to hold with fingers on the L/R-trigger and the L/R-buttons and in this case, 2 fingers on the grip buttons. Speaking of grip buttons, my only complained about them is that there aren't enough of them! I wouldn't have mind it if they had split both grips in 2 (or more) buttons, I absolutely love them and have been using them for mouse clicks on desktop mode etc. where I like them more than the triggers.

As I've been using this controller for a few days I can't say much about the build quality yet, but it doesn't feel cheap to me. Some say its feels flimsy and light, but it actually weights about a tad more then my wireless XB360 controllers. (I did not weigh all the other controllers.) Also, it doesn't squeak or anything when putting (excessive) force on any of the parts.

My only actual dislike is that it is a NOISY controller, its not one I could use next to my sleeping GF. The haptics are very clearly audible even on low and the buttons have very loud clicks to them. As a comparison: The clicks of gaming mice, the RAT 7 and the G502, seem quiet next to this beauty.