Recent reviews by cbethax

Group-oriented grind-fest.

If you try playing alone, you'll find yourself hitting trees and rocks for hours, only to get killed by some high-tier player with an AK-47. But don't worry, he can take all your loot, and the game will spawn you on the other side of the world, so any progress you've made is nullified, and you can once again enjoy the wonderful sound of a rock hitting a tree. What is that? It's the superbear. It goes through trees, walls, and climbs mountains in the blink of an eye. Don't worry, after it has mauled you, the game will take care of you by teleporting you miles away, so any resources you've collected can't be recovered.

Seriously though the game is horrible for solo-play. In the time I'm writing this review I'm 15 hours in, and still haven't passed through the early phase. And not in the good sense. You can get most of the enjoyment in most games for 15 hours, what I saw in Rust for 15 hours is trees, rocks, and bullets to the face.

Best factory simulation management game. If you like factories, automation, micro-management, and tower-defense, you'll F*CKING LOVE THIS GAME.

This review might change in the future, but for now it's this.

While at first it looks promising and it does deliver a few things to tinker with, it's still quite barebones.
My review is kind of biased, since I'm getting tired of all these 'sandbox' games, that feel more like tools the developer made to create the actual game, but never did. As of writing the review, the game version is 0.1.11, which means that it has a long road to go, until it gets to the complete version. It might get faster after it's up on steam, but at this point it's believing on the promises the devs made, and I already have trust issues with most early access titles in the past, that seemed really promising, but did not go in the way I thought they would.
See, the problem is, I see this as a promising game, but when it gets to thinking about the future of it, it can go many ways, and only a few make me want to play it. There are a lot of questions that the game does not answer. And we are not talking about the creative mode, we are talking about the other gamemodes, that will actually make the game challenging.

Will it be more like Factorio, where you make automated factories for extracting resources, or do I have to grind everything like Minecraft?
Are most of the stuff cosmetic, or would they have an actual use? The electricity panel, the pipes, etc.
Would my car run out of fuel, so I'll have to extract fuel to make it run?

Is it going to get more in-depth, or is it going to get more content to work with? I prefer the former, since I'm already tired of all the games that provide the second. Can you promise me that? No.

For example, I saw 'Multiplayer', and when you first hear multiplayer, you are thinking about a server list to join in. Nope, you make a world and invite your friends to play with. I personally am not fan of that kind of 'multiplayer'. I want to join and do stuff with random players, not convince my friends to buy the game, so I have to play it, in a specific hour, and a certain period of time. I don't want to be dependent on that, I want randoms that go around in circles and do stupid stuff, so I don't feel like the last person on the planet.
Will it improve? Probably. Can you promise me that? No.

The game currently doesn't give me any info on how is it going to be developed further. Sure, I can ask the developers, but there are two factors - Player feedback, and realization. If most of the players want more content, and it gets more content, then I paid for a game other people want, not me. Then it's the realization, I might speculate all day how it's going to be done, but in the end, they are going to do it their way.

So, should you buy it? Depends.
Do you want minecraft meets GMod? Yes.
Do you want in-depth resource management, and complex contraptions that go beyond a house-car transformer? Wait, and see how it goes.

In the end, we've gotten to a stage where 'Early Access' titles are not even in Beta, nor Alpha, but merely Prototypes of the actual game.

Basic controls. Check.
Core mechanics. Check.
Map to explore. Check.

And by reaffirming the devs with all the positive reviews, and that it looks 'promising', you are going to see a lot of future titles, that are no more than prototypes that look 'promising'.
Castle story also looked 'promising'.

Quite an unique piece of game, must have for petrolheads.

Tried the game some months ago, reached days 10+ twice and gave up. Just started it a few days ago, reached day 14 without any progress and started watching lets plays.

Some of the main tips I missed was:

* be there at roll calls to know who is gonna get a cell search (if you don't want to lose everything and go in the solitary every other day)
* forks can break walls, spoons can dig holes (makes escaping from earlier prisons much easier, when advanced items are harder to access)
* roll of duct tape can craft you a LOT of things (poster, cutters, pickaxe, shovel, contraband pouch, tying guards, and many more things)
After that and a lot of spoiling from let's plays I managed to escape the first three prisons in 5 hours. If you know all of that, it's just a matter of time and proper timing to finish the game. I kind of wish I tried it myself, but I can't even imagine how much time it would've took me if I tried to learn everything myself.
So I say don't feel stupid if you give up and want to read wikis on craft recipes and which does what, the game does not have that art style just to save on artist salaries, it is also a reminder that old games were hard as ♥♥♥♥ and didn't give you step-by-step on how to wipe your own ass and left you there wondering 'what the ♥♥♥♥ do I do now?'. The game truly is a masterpiece in that regard.

The best company tycoon to date.

Always online DRM doesn't let me play it in offline mode, no official mod support for PC and stupid greedy price raise for steam summer sale (bundled with a shark cash card that doesn't let you refund the game as of steam's refund policy).
Good job Rockstar. Good job.

Amazing game, with an immersive atmosphere. Very challenging. You'll find yourself restarting a few times before you understand what is important and what is not. It's quite rogue-like, and that means making mistakes could lose you the entire progress. You'll most likely have to play it through a few times to see all the content for two reasons. 1. There is randomization which means that you won't see all characters, locations and events in one playthrough and 2. It will take a while before you start to manage your resources better, which means that you will most likely not be able to craft everything until the end of the war. On my first playthrough's I didn't get to make a guitar and weapons until day 40, and some places are not reachable without some firepower. On my latest play, I had 4 AK-47's, full armor, guitar and huge amounts of food on day 20. On day 25 I had already scavenged the whole Military Outpost. Awesome game overall, lots of content, very well balanced and everything is neatly made. Combat is not that bad as some people make it sound. 10/10

Best offroad game. If you are a fan of big trucks and physics, you'll love it.