Recent reviews by ElectronicSource

Tough decision. It's look is amazing, the mini-games are nice and well done and overall it has a satisfying progression. But it's like going up a mountain just to drop off a cliff once you're there. The end game becomes crazy grindy with no content or replay value at all anymore. Every few days a conversation pops up and some tiny story droplets come across - but at the end all you do is wait, cash your customers in the store, restock and end the day.

I know there are still other endings and maybe even more story to follow along, but discovering these is ... almost impossible because the game becomes super boring in the end game. You simply don't have anything to do anymore and it's no challenge at all anymore.

Very unfortunate, because overall this game has a lot of potential and is really well made. I still give a thumbs up, as it's okay. You have ~10 hours of fun playtime which is okay and the game is really well done with lots of beautiful details.

Tough decision honestly. I played the game during the demo for months and bought it when it came out. But honestly, I'm a bit disappointed.

The concept is great and it has a lot of potential but seemingly the devs did not decide on using it. The game hooks you for a few hours until it becomes bland. Most buildings you research are there to convert between the available resources, so the primary goal is to keep them all balanced. This is hard, as the indicators how much per day you get/spend are not very accurate and flucuate a lot. You always have one resource in shortage so either you micromanage buildings like cranes to collect them from environment (which they do fast, so you need to move them constantly) or you need to convert between resources ending up in another shortage soon after.

The society and events seem to have no real impact. It's easy to get them all loyal and to increase your influence. Most event outcomes are irrelevant to what's happening. It's simply a trade of resources but none ever feels like it has any significant impact.

AI becomes worse the more areas you uncover and the more the sea level drops. Eventually it's becoming frustrating as they navigate worse and worse and you have to micromanage more and more.

As someone mentioned: The game is called "All will fall" and yet nothing ever falls. There are no hazards or game events that actually threaten your buildings to collapse. Only thing is when you break something and suddenly it's about to collapse. Bad weather doesn't destroy anything, it's just an effect and makes raincollectors work. When something collapses you get a timer to fix it and if you build something instable you see it collapse, can revert and fix it until it's fine (because there's no use in building it if it's about to collapse immediately then). So the whole thing this game evolves around is ... not put to any use.

Last but not least since the game evevoled out of the demo / or they are at least the same game with and without limits, the bugs never end. I can imagine that it's really difficult to simulate the physics correctly and well, to test it and to build things like navigation and so - but it's annoying. You build something, they break a part of the building that is nowhere connected and all of the sudden somewhere else something is about to collapse. Some buildings simply aren't placeable as anywhere you place them does not support them, even if they're built on a column of concrete. Lots of these small issues make it less and less fun.

In the end even though you have different scenarios with different goals, it does not provide a lot of value to play through. The core loop is always the same, so not a lot of reason to play through all the scenarios.


But in the end it's a new take on the colony/city builder genre. It's a good idea and it's well made in regard of building/placement and camera controls. It's fun and can hook you quite a bit - but lacks long-term gameplay.


So as of now I cannot recommend it unless on sale and some patches in. I really hope that the devs will consider adding more gameplay mechanics that make this game use it's full potential.

I'll keep an eye on it and hope the best.

I do like games like these. There are a few great ones like Papers Please or Contraband Police. Quarantine Zone seemed like a good one at first glance but if I knew I wouldn't have bought it in it's current state.

Even though there are a lot of symptoms with progression and all it eventually becomes extremely boring. Often times it's just unclear what it should be (internal symptoms are really ambiguous sometimes) and the constant opening of the bugged symptom selection menu makes it very annoying to tag all the symptoms.

Overall it seems like it has a lot of depth but the whole base expansion system is kinda pointless. It's super easy to get most of it early on and some upgrades simply never make sense (in campaign at least, which is limited to 5 extractions).

The final thrust of the dagger of boredness was late game (almost last day of the campaign) my quarantine got bugged out because it was full and I had to check one guy - but since it was full and somehow devs seemed to never playtested that scenario, he just couldn't get out. The game doesn't allow to call any actions until the person stands on their designated spot. So... I was done with the day but since that guy was bugged and I couldn't do anything (except kill the whole quarantine) - the whole day was pointless. 30mins wasted because it only saves at the end of each day.

Won't finish the game anymore. I hope devs care about their game and bring in some content, otherwise I wouldn't recommend it (unless <5 bucks sale).

Steam should really add a neutral option for reviews.

I'm a huge fan of Dying Light. I think I finished the first one at least 5 times. The second one was okay but overall a big disappointment due to their big hypes and the sorry game that it became in the end (compared to what they promised).

The Beast takes the middle lane between both. But it suffers from all the same issues that modern titles have. While there's a lot of complexity in the making of games and things like combat and AI take a lot to get done right what really annoys the most are things that should be given nowadays: Controls.

It's not just DL but all modern games that feel sluggish to play. Movement just feels odd and things that were done right a decade ago (climbing in the first Assassins Creed titles for example) nowadays just work as bad as ever. I can't tell how many times I had to replay climbing passages because things that seemed climbable weren't, jump to climb failed because the game just didn't get there's something to get on to. And with high passages it's exceptionally frustrating if you die due to these isssues and respawn miles away - resetting the ladders you unlocked which act as shortcuts if you fall (but only if you survive, which you don't necessarily).

While the overall difficulty is good the zombies just grapple to often and fast. You can barely walk or run a meter without being grabbed by a zombie. Sometimes fighting feels off as well in these situations. You charge a swing with a two-handed hammer, release, are already swinging and suddenly you get grabbed mid-swing disabling your whole attack. Like come on.

Third issue that annoys heavenly: Enemies see you from a mile crouched behind an object. It's hilarious how you can be basically invisible and yet enemies can spot you. And not like it's slowed down like in a lot of stealth games - no it just takes a splitsecond and they found you. It's so unrealistic and basically disables any stealth approach. Just let some bullets fly or smash yourself through - sneaking is simply useless.



BUT - with all those issues it's still a decent DL game. It's fun most of the times and it feels like a lot like the first part. They did get the best of both into it (for the most parts).

Still, it's not living up to the first part. I really hope if they do the next part that they really go back to what made DL a great game. I feel like the big studios really lost sense of what makes great games. With all the flashy features and graphics - I still think that Dead Island and Dying Light were the better games overall.

REPO shows that you don't need flashy graphics and AAA-budgets to make a fun game. This game looks low budget but is polished and smooth. The idea is simple and the game is damn hilarious. There's rarely any boring run - even if you're bad enough to not get past Level ~5 - it's always amazing.

GOTY for me, A+ for the devs as they really care about this game.

Great game with great art style and voice acting. For me it felt a bit off at though at times. Sometimes I had no clue how you would come to certain deductions and basically just brute forced it just to be confused how that makes sense. Felt more straight forward in the sequel.

Overall playtime is super short, but worth the quality.

Definetly the better thought through game in the series. The first one had it's flaws were it was easy to overlook things and not catch relations between things. In the sequel it's easier to make the connections and more satisfying overall - but resulting in even less playtime.

Great art style, great voice acting, lovely story with nice twists. Pricey for the short playtime (not even 1 1/2 hours for me) but worth the passion that's behind this game. In case of doubt just wait for a sale.

I would wish for (if there's gonna be another sequel, which I assume) a bit more content. More puzzles, more investigation. There's more potential in this series.

Amazing game - not that challenging but it has some unique gameplay twists. Great story with some unexpected plot twists as well. Very much recommended :)

The overall idea is nice, the survival aspect is really strong in Forest. But it just doesn't live up to it's predecessor at all. The story is flat like gas station coffee and once you're through you just ask yourself: that... that's it?

So obviously it's a lot about exploration and the survival feeling. A lot about building and going through slow. But in that process you really see the flaws living up. So. Many. Bugs. And Glitches.

It's out since February and hardly anthing has been done since then. When me and my friend played it after 1.0 launch it felt EXACTLY as bad as it did during it's first hours. The most obvious issues were never fixed. The building system, while genuinely great in it's concept, never really worked. Almost any construction other than a regular rectangular building was impossible to build because at some point the building system just stopped working or glitched out entirely.

So in the end it's really hard to say if it can be recommended. On the one side: Yes. It's a nice game and we had fun with it. On the other side: No. I can't get rid of the feeling that Sons of the Forest has been a cash grab. At least you'd expect after the hit it's predecessor was that the team would manage to deliver something better. And while a lot of things have been way better, the lack of polish really makes it shine badly. What's crazy graphics, elaborate building system and weather worth if all of those things are bugged to the brim.

In the end it does not have enough replay value to go in again. Which is sad. Truly sad.

I'd really love a third option for the reviews. I feel like it has not deserved either or.
But unless at least some patches fix the core issues, I can only go with a no.

What time is it? I don't even know the year anymore. Guess it's a decent game, though.