Recent reviews by vassilevb

This is my second favourite reserve. I enjoyed my time and find the snowfall very pretty. The wolves are the least fun thing in the whole game, unfortunately.

I didn't play this right after it was released, which, I believe, was to my benefit. This is explained here:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/vassilevb/recommended/1608440

Nothing changes from what I wrote about Rancho del Arroyo*, besides the fact that I have a soft spot for snowy environments and I'd say that this is probably my favourite reserve.

They also added grey wolves to this reserve with some recent update. There were no grey wolves on this reserve two years ago. So, you may expect them to add alligators too at some point. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I also I ruined my shot on an diamond brown bear with albino fur two years ago. Don't do my mistake and truly understand the truism shared by Paul Harrell: "there is no replacement for shot placement". Luckily, nobody dies or gets injured in a videogame, except for all the wasted time that went into the nothingness...

*
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/vassilevb/recommended/1608440

Most of the reserve/map DLCs for this game are a mixed bag. Erm, what the heck am I talking about... the whole game is a mixed bag. You'll be constantly stumbling upon recycled animals with different names and the exact same behaviours. Every new map comes with some "updates", some good, some negligeable, but the most noticeable are the new bugs. I played Rancho del Arroyo two years ago and didn't notice the then-new bugs (it was one year after its release).

I gotta say, the game is more stable in general in 2024 (less crashes than two years ago)The game crashes increased. In less than ten days (playing every day for more than 3 hours), I've had at least two crashes per day, regardless of the reserve — absolute unfun junk. And it is still almost too buggy to be consistently enjoyable.

Let's face it: in this particular game, different maps are just different environmental cosmetics. I like to pretend roaming in this environment. Looks like I do care about at least some cosmetics, after all.

The best advice I can give is based on my 500 hours of experience with this game: play a new reserve not right after its release. It's the most reliable way for you to not be let down by hype or unrealistic expectations.

If you enjoy pheasant hunting, Cuatro Colinas will give you a more enjoyable experience than Rancho del Arroyo, because there is significantly less obstructions of your view and the areas are significantly more open (lots of farmlands). You can hear them from 200+ metres, spot them from 150 metres, sneak 50 metres away (or less) from them, whistle to flush them up in the air and shoot. My first pheasant was gold, my second was a diamond. I got very lucky - it is a constant RNG-fighting in this game in general.

I don't like goats or sheep, because I don't find the meat tasty, so I don't feel particularly enthusiastic about the ibex species here.

The wolves are one of the least fun animals to mess with in this game (at least for me), and this reserve makes no exception.

I find red deer majestic (in my language, they're even called "благородни елени") and I enjoy seeing them here too.

The "story" is similar to the "stories" of the rest of the reserves - dealing with poaching and political/economic/land management drama.

My friend has a black Labrador IRL, named Trixy. This is also the go-to breed for guide dogs. Thus, I said to myself that I had to own this virtual dog. I named it Trixy. It can fetch a 10kg (virtual) turkey.

If you know how to cheese for in-game money (i.e. mass murdering waterfowl with a shottie), you would probably find this helpful to increase your efficiency.

Unfortunately, after the most recent update, the Bloodhound's behaviour (another DLC) became even messier than before (mine is leveled up to the maximum). Today I had three blood splatters within 25 square meters, and, while I'm standing on the biggest splatter and after giving the "track" command, it just didn't react. I'm tired of all the bugs in this game in general, so I stopped using it altogether. :( So, experience says that you may expect the Labrador to become unresponsive as well (I just saw other people complaining in their reviews already).

It looks weird (being a Blender noob at the moment, I know that messing up a 3D model is not very hard), but I like it. If I could, I wouldn't pay more than 1EUR though.

The .45-70 handgun + the .243 handgun (another DLC) = the new meta (low mass, both take rifle scopes).

The .45-70 is also my new favourite bear perforator.

Also, two more autoloaders for mass murdering virtual non-human animals - 10ga and .300 Magnum (previously, we only had lever-action and bolt-action in those calibers).

While I'm disgusted by the software-as-a-service model, I'm still wearing my caveman brain that forces me to "accept reality and give it a thumb up". I am so føcking dumb.

P.S.
I don't give a s#it about cosmetics.

SE5 is now 15 EUR and has 9 missions. This is now 20 EUR and has 3 missions. It's just impossible not to feel ripped off, if you want more of ZA4 or SE5.

Up yours, Rebellion!

Me playing American/Euro Truck Simulator:
"This game is cool, but it doesn't make you a competent truck driver. I'd also never do that IRL for money."
*plays for 200 hours and parks automobiles IRL notably better than before*

Me playing Rocksmith:
"This game is cool, but it doesn't make you a true musician and can't teach you the feeling of the rhythm. I'd also never be good enough to earn money for my cr@ppy playing."
*plays for 300 hours and my friend (an actual musician) tells me that I got better at playing bass*

Me playing Tarkov:
"This game is cool, but it doesn't teach you competent handling of firearms. I also wouldn't want to have anything to do with military/law enforcement people."
*plays for 4000 hours and teaches the basics of firearm handling to six people with IRL firearms without a single negligent discharge; also having more firearm experience (more shots fired) than a senior lieutenant with 10 years of experience in the army*

Me playing Bitburner:
"This game is cool, but it doesn't have a true IDE, doesn't have JSLint, there's no version control system/GitHub, it's set in 2077 when the absolute nightmarish mess called "JavaScript" would most probably be long forgotten, uses the scam fiction trope of "passive income", the automaton is just a tool for getting more in-game money/rep, etc."
*I did the same r3t@rd3d s#1t on my last cr@ppy IRL job*

Reality is f°kken weird, man.

P.S.
I'll just leave this here.
https://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript

EDIT:
A "Wow!" moment! PowerShell users like me would be pleasantly surprised to find that after completely closing the game and opening it again, your previous terminal commands are saved and can be invoked with the up and down arrow keyboard keys. What a nice touch! <3

EDIT:
If you press F12 you'll see that the game is a standalone Electron browser running HTML+JS+MathJax+etc. A lot of the game files are also .JS files, he-he. Cool! <3

EDIT: I don't like the "wiping" aspect of the game (installing augmentations resets all your money, XP, programs, etc.), but I understand it from a game design perspective. Still, it's weirdly fun to delve into the lore. Reminds me of the "Legend of the Green Dragon" — a text-based MORPG (they were called MUDs back then) I played back in 2007 (written in, unsurprisingly for that time, PHP). Fun times.

It's chaotic fun (for casuals), but it's also one of those games that need a few hundred hours for you to gain map knowledge and begin grasping the basics (i.e. the basics of tactics that allow you to achieve winning consistently). It's also one of those social deduction games that involve a large amount of luck, since it's asymmetric and there's a lot of people involved. Basically, if you know what to do, you have a massive advantage against the enemy (or enemies). Naturally, playing as the monster or the traitor as a beginner is quite hard.

It can be still fun though. And it's less than 10 GB! <3

If you had a PSOne, you will know that this is pure & raw 37 megabytes of fun / 1o.

P.S.
You can coop in 1) local/couch or 2) remote play (if your friend doesn't own the game) or 3) online (if your friend does own the game). Dope AF.