A Long Look @ The Long Dark

Over the last 2 months I have invested 351 hours into this Steam early access title from Hinterland.  I had owned the game for over a year but hadn’t given it a try until I saw others playing on Twitch.tv in Dec. just after the “resolute outfitter” update…

There are currently 5 challenges with defined objectives built into the game but the true “test” for players is the sandbox mode where your only goal is to survive…

After playing for a couple days on the lower difficulty levels I decided to explore “interloper” difficulty and fell in love with this title…

Scarcity of resources, the open world nature of the game and the overall ambiance of the Canadian wilderness set this game apart.

Updates are on the way but no one knows when so I would suggest keeping this game on your radar if you just don’t do early access like many out there.

Here is a link to the Early Access “Roadmap” for development…

Roadmap

Mass Effect: Andromeda Review

Review:

The combat in this game is really good.  I logged some 70hrs in this game but just got tired of the side-questing and dialogue with the crew etc…

Pros:

  • Combat is improvement over the other Mass Effect titles, so many options and open world battles set this one apart
  • I didn’t notice the poor character animations that many have mentioned, the animations all looked high quality to me…
  • Scale of the game is great, a lot to do; 6+ full planets to land/explore.

Cons:

  • A lot of bugs.  I played the PC version and had 10+ restarts, many visual bugs, and bugged boss fights including the final boss battle and ending was bugged for me!
  • Dialogue and story is uninspired, just never connected with any of the characters, really missed me some Garrus!

Overall:

This is probably worth $60 at release but the plot fell short of my personal expectations…for me this was a lot like Final Fantasy 15…a solid entry but fell short of my expectations for the characters and story.  The buggy gameplay save/load situation was the worst for any game I have purchased in years but we got through it without any game-breaking errors.