Recent reviews by The Machine

if the goal was to make a boring game, bungie #nailedit. had to press like 90 buttons before getting into a game because it needed to introduce every singular pixel on the home screen with a description as to what it does. wow, pressing the arsenal button takes you to your arsenal? thanks bungie! then when my friend and i got into a game, we found only one real party, wiped them, then when we got to the objective theres like 100 NPC's we're expected to be able to kill with nearly base loot. why are we being given a late game loadout required task as our very first mission.

i hate extraction shooters.

15 minute tutorial go ♥♥♥♥ yourself

awful game that rips IP. has never paid nickelodeon, dreamworks, microsoft, etc a singular penny. poor mechanics, balance, etc. toxic game, dont touch.

In ~23 hours of playtime, I was able to nearly 100% the game. I know Steam says 27 hours, but I AFK frequently and the in-game playtime tracker says just over 23 hours. I just have to replay a few levels to collect a few red bricks and WayneTech Caches, but I have 100% the main story and everything there is to do on the main map.

I enjoyed my whole playthrough. The story, although not as interesting as the original Arkham trilogy, was still entertaining. While not all the jokes landed for me, it was overall pretty funny. The primary reason I would not recommend this game is because of the price tag. It is simply not worth $70 in my opinion. I'll explain:

Cons
- As mentioned, I just about 100% the game in 23 hours. That is a ridiculously short game to be charging people $70. On average its reported most people will take 30 hours to 100%, but even then you're paying over $2 an hour for a video game.
- While I didn't experience any game breaking bugs, you will certainly come into noticeable bugs that can take you out of the story, or just be annoying. (EX: Enemies stuck in the ground, character getting stuck on surfaces while grappling, weird NPC pathing, character gets momentarily stuck while trying to place an object, etc.) If you're charging $70, your game better be almost completely bug free.
- I noticed it being pretty frustrating to grapple while exploring the map. It rarely seemed to want to grapple on the ledge I wanted, and would frequently target the most bizarre grapple spots. I think it may be programmed to prioritize grapples your character is facing rather than grapples your camera is facing. I never had this issue in Arkham Knight for example, so I expect the same here.
- There wasn't a lot of engaging content beyond the main story. You get some side quests with Catwoman which I really enjoyed, and a side quest involving killer croc which I also enjoyed. For, again, $70 I would expect significantly more side quests.
- Somehow nobody is really complaining about there being paid cosmetics. Yes, they are cosmetics that will not effect your game in any way shape or form. However, if I am paying this much I better get every single pixel involved in the game. They somehow are charging even more for a DLC which should absolutely be included in the base game, requiring an HBO Max subscription for a skin, requiring you to purchase a real batman Lego set for a skin, and I just think this is all absurd.

Pros
- It is optimized pretty well. I only noticed frame drops if it was raining and I was intentionally destroying a ton of things at once, but even then it wasn't too bad.
- Graphically the game is beautiful. The water drops on each character, the plastic look of everything, it was all done very well.
- The Riddler/Cluemaster challenges were pretty fun in my opinion. One issue with the original Arkham trilogy is most of the Riddler trophies are just hidden and you have to find them, but in this game each Riddler/Cluemaster "trophy" requires you to complete a challenge that were each fairly unique, aside from a few that were used more than once.
- Ending Spoiler: I enjoyed that it wasn't a Joker ending like so many batman games are. I won't spoil who the final boss is, but it's not the Joker.

I have 100%'d all Insomniac Spider-Man games, and most of the Arkham Trilogy on console. Aside from Arkham City, they all graphically stand up to this game so I think it's fair to bring up their price and time to complete compared to this game:

Arkham City ($20 now, $60 launch) - Main story ~15 hours, side content ~40 hours, ~55 hours total
Arkham Knight ($20 now, $60 launch) - Main story ~20 hours, side content ~30 hours, ~50 hours total
Spider-Man 1 ($60) - ~45 hours to 100%
Spider-Man: Miles Morales ($50) - ~23 hours to 100%
Spider-Man 2 ($60) - ~28 hours to 100%
Lego Batman: LOTDK ($70) - Took me ~23 hours, average according to google is ~30 hours

So Lego Batman, up against these 5 games, has the highest price tag with nearly the lowest amount of content.

I wish I could recommend this game, but $70 needs to be a price tag reserved for physical games with a case, bug-free, and at the bare minimum 50 hours to 100%, preferably closer to 75+ hours. This game, content-wise, is much closer to Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and that game is $50 while also being significantly higher end visually.

TL:DR
This game has a similar playstyle to the Insomniac Spider-Man games, and Arkham Knight/Arkham City. If you absolutely loved those games and NEED more, feel free to spend the $70. Otherwise, I highly recommend waiting for a more reasonable price tag of $50 or less.

not sure how much the game usually costs since i got it while it was free, but if you can get it for $5, its definitely worth it. graphics are great, fighting, while has some to be desired, is pretty fun, and the story is interesting.

just boring with extremely linear progression. i didnt come across anything innovative that made the game more fun. its literally: dig to layer 1, collect ore, upgrade drill to dig to layer 2, collect ore, upgrade drill to dig to layer 3, etc.

inflated player count

If you can get it for under $10 then I would recommend it. The game play is fairly unique, there are some cool cut scenes, and it is well optimized. At the end of the day I think the game is fun which is the most important aspect when it comes to these simulator games in my opinion.

My main critique is not being able to pick up multiple things so you need to walk back and forth several times to perform an action. I wish there was a dolly system or something that lets you carry multiple things such as crime materials to your back room so you don't need to make so many trips. I really wish there was an inventory system because a lot of aspects in this game feel extremely tedious to me with how many trips I need to make.

I am also surprised there's little automation and no employee system. It makes progression feel like you are just being given more and more things to put on your plate with not much help. The only automation I have come across is you can purchase a self-service ticket machine so you don't need to deal with customers using the self-serve washers.
Edit: There are some upgrades that enable automation on annoying machines like the money printers. I wish these are a little more obvious as I have just now noticed them after nearly 3 hours

There is also a decent amount of AI art used. From what I have seen so far, all of grandma's pictures are AI and the icons that appear above the text while talking to some people (Dude in the Alley way) are AI. It's not a massive deal for a game of this size but at the same time, profiting off AI is pretty frowned upon, especially when it's used to replace what would probably be cheap to purchase from a real artist anyways.

TLDR:
I would give this game a 6/10 all things considered. The price tag is the main reason I am recommending the game despite my critiques. It is overall enjoyable and this review was written immediately after launch so I am hoping some of my critiques are taken into consideration and there are updates to address them.

An upgrade from Escape Simulator 1 in every aspect I can think of. The graphics got a substantial upgrade so the rooms no longer feel like a cartoony puzzle and more like a real immersive escape room. Played through the full first chapter with only one minor bug, and one fairly substantial bug. The first bug was my character lagging while moving but turning off V-SYNC fixed that. The second bug was on the first room of the Dracula chapter. We placed an important book in the center of the well, so when it opened it fell outside of the map and we had to google what the book looked like to proceed with the level. Typically if something falls out of reach it is supposed to teleport back into your inventory, but it didn't in this case for some reason.

My only critique is so far on launch there are only 3 chapters, 4 levels each, so 12 rooms in total. In my opinion 12 rooms for $20 isn't great, so I hope to get at least a couple more full chapters or a couple more levels for each current chapter for free before they start charging for DLC. There is a new Room Editor so people can build their own rooms, so in a couple of weeks I imagine there will at least be more solid rooms built by the community.

All in all I think I would price this game at about $15 given the current content, but they did add an additional chapter post launch for the first game so I'm hoping we get at least one more in this game.

i was having a lot of fun until i realized that the only way to save is to find these reels and then put them into the film camera. in 44 minutes of gameplay i found one single reel meaning in 44 minutes of gameplay i was able to save once. horrible game decision since you basically need to rely on being able to find a rare item to be able to save. loved everything about this game in terms of gameplay, but unfortunately having to search and search to hopefully be able to find an item to be able to save is just not good game design.

better game design would be to have these reels activate these cameras permanently and make them save hubs that you can run back to.