Recent reviews by linkerError

This is one of the cutest little roguelikes I've ever played. This is the closest you'll get to the original game if it were an FPS instead of a console hack job. On top of that, you get a full RPG system complete with Elder Scrolls-style skill progression where using skills causes them to increase. That said, it's devilishly difficult and it doesn't offer a long form progression where game elements are unlocked over time in order to ease the difficulty curve, so I highly recommend you turn on all the assists you want while you learn the game otherwise you might never escape the Mines.

I’m not a big fan. Too much wandering around not knowing what to do. I got bored and gave up. Hubby tried it and had much the same reaction. The puzzles in the game are just not very intuitive and the game does little in the way of signaling where you’re supposed to go or what you’re supposed to do. Maybe I’m stupid, but I don’t think I am. I’m a busy adult and really don’t have the time or inclination aimlessly wander about the same areas over and over again hoping to stumble across the solutions to intentionally obtuse puzzles. It’s a no from me.

Addictive as all get out. Fantastic coop.

Ridiculously underrated boomer shooter set in an open world wasteland. Plays like Far Cry and Quake had a crack baby. Unlike the actual Mad Max video game, this one actually has pretty good vehicular combat.

Rogue presented as a 16-bit cyberpunk parody ARPG

No idea how this has Overwealmingly Positive reviews. The campaign mode consists of pushing rocks into holes. The most boring thing I've ever seen. I went into sandbox mode, just to try it out and there's nothing there either. Don't get me wrong, the building mechanics are really neat, but the devs either couldn't figure out a decent progression model for the game or were too lazy to implement it and decided to shove it out the door. This game could have been really cool with some open world survival craft mechanics for instance. As it is, this game has no compelling gameplay loop. It's just a big sea of vehicle parts that there isn't really anything to do with except build curious little lego vehicles that serve no purpose. Note how all the positive reviews don't mention any of this. Avoid like the plague. If you do decide to take the plunge, avoid the campaign mode because all it will do is pointlessly exhaust your 2 hours before you inevitably decide to go get a refund. Don't be like me.

The most immersive space sim there is.

Takes a movie about fantastic, high-octane car chases and turns it into an open world slog about punching guys in the face and taking their stuff. The world feels empty and lifeless, not in the "Wasteland" sense but in the sense that the only thing to do is to drive around, get out of your car, punch some dudes and then get back into it. Maybe every now and then there is a tower to activate behind the pack of dudes.

The vehicular combat, when it exists, feels more like demolition derby than Mad Max. Again, this game misses the mark with its focus -- instead of allowing you to execute fun and interesting attacks with teammates like in the movie, the game revolves around harpooning or ramming into enemy cars to run down their HP. Except that you have to do it with a very specific spot on your car, otherwise it won't work and you'll just take damage or not really do anything. It just feels bad.

What's here is passable if it were called anything but Mad Max. But it isn't and it just winds up making me want to watch the movie again because it definitely does not deliver anything that feels like the movie while copping its visual style and theme.

I'm not even kidding when I say Rage 2 does a better job of doing what this game is pretending to do. Just play that instead.

Ship fires automatically constantly for no reason. My controller works fine with other games. Also, the keyboard controls are godawful. Couldn't even play it.

This is an amazing, genuinely great game, but I just can't recommend it to MOST people. Now, I know what you're thinking: "My guy, you have over 100 hours in the game and you don't recommend it? Puhleeez. Clearly you like it." And I get that. But to me, me personally liking a game is not the same as a recommendation, which pertains to others... and I don't think a lot of other people will like this game.

Please read on if you think this game might hit right for you because there is a LOT to love here, but it's buried beneath layer upon layer of obfuscation, bad/non-existent tutorials/documentation and a godawful UI. If you think you can work around these issues, then I can recommend it.

No other game on the market is doing what this game is doing. In no other space game can you manage a massive fleet of trade, combat and logistics ships and ALSO jump into any one of them and start dogfighting your little heart out. And then when you're done, you can get back to managing your huge fleet of trade ships and network of stations making wares and money hand over fist. The sheer amount of features in this game is absolutely stunning. Taken as a whole, it reminds me a lot of what Star Citizen is trying to do (in a good way!).

The problem with it isn't performance or controls or even the wonky AI -- I can work around all those things. What I can't work around is the absolute pitch black opacity this game shrouds all of its fantastic mechanics in. This game is literally UNPLAYABLE without Google, YouTube and a round-the-clock staff of helpers in the game's official Discord (amazing, very helpful people btw. Great community in general) helping you through the (I am not exaggerating) hundreds of things the game does not tell you or even attempt to. Be prepared to hit show-stopping progress blocks about every hour for the first 50 hours or so of the game while the game expects you to do yet another thing it didn't explain or signpost in the UI. Making things worse, in some cases, the UI elements are actually completely mislabeled and in quite a few more, features don't work at all. Also, bugs abound. Expect to have to reload the game a lot or back out of menus and go back in, exit the game and restart it, things like that, in order to get things to work correctly. Only a handful of tutorials have worked correctly for me -- all the rest got softlocked in some way. [EDIT: As of 7.0, all the tutorials work, however over half were removed from the game entirely, including ALL in-universe tutorials. Some topics are now not even covered at all in the tutorials (like boarding). This is one step forward, one step back.] Even when the game is functioning correctly, it is often difficult to ascertain why pilots and managers behave a certain way because the UI doesn't provide any help or clarity when a unit is in an error state.

Some might defend this by saying things like, "The game has a high learning curve" but when it is required to seek outside help CONTINUOUSLY in order to progress in any meaningful way, your game is broken. It cannot function because the user simply has no earthly idea how to make it do the thing.

I'm going to continue playing this game. I've learned my way around the biggest most glaring issues and, with extensive help from the Discord community managed to get a little space empire going. That being said, I expect the average person will find it a daunting, frustrating and just plain bad experience filled with rough edges and bugs. Hence, in general, I do not recommend it except if you're okay with all of these things. If you are and you manage to surmount the initial difficulty curve (around 50-100 hours you'll finally have a grasp of what's going on), there's a gem of a game here. It's just a shame the devs decided to bury it beneath <gestures to entire product> all of this.