Recent reviews by vassilevb

Almost everything I wrote about ATS is also true for ETS2: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/vassilevb/recommended/270880/

I am upvoting this one for one simple reason — I enjoy driving stupid trucks in a game. I.e. I want a simulator, not a tycoon/management game (the word "simulator" is in the frickin' title of the game, isn't it?). Do you want a simulator too? Okay, let me share my experience.

1. Buy the G920 wheel & pedals (or something more expensive, if you can afford it) + gear shifter + Tobii Eye Tracker* (or some cheaper gaze tracking alternative, if you're on a tight budget; just google - it's almost unbelievable how much money you can save by not spending on overpriced sh1t like Tobii Eye Tracker). You will thank me later.
2. Buy this game and its map expanding DLCs (it's quite pricey, I know, ATS got the negative review already and, you know, there's no "neutral" reviews, so I believe I'm being fair in my assessment as a whole). If you've got the money, take the "Special Transport" DLC as well - the $/km is always high (around 40 EUR/km), although, it requires slower than average driving (you're part of a convoy and the loads are quite heavy).
3. First things first, find your favourite online radio station and start in inside your game. You will thank me later.
4. Start driving quick jobs to get some experience. You need to focus on "Long Distance" skill, because this is the most efficient way to level up. After this, focus on the "High Value Cargo" and "Fragile Cargo" skills. This may take around 50 hours of grinding.
5. In the meantime, take some loans and buy one more garage (it sounds easy, but it's not, because garages are quite pricey, I know). You'll realistically have no more than two garages.
6. Hire as many AI drivers (try to never let your garages be empty) as you can afford to and assign the cheapest trucks that you can buy to them (do not assign a truck to yourself, keep doing quick jobs (free gasoline, free trucks for you), you will thank me later). Try to have your garages in more populated areas (the more surrounding cities/towns/villages, the better), otherwise your AI drivers will drive back without active jobs more frequently. Focus the AI on leveling their "Long Distance" skill. You will thank me later.

Now, here comes the banger...
7. After about 50 hours of grinding for money (it took me 100 hours** until I got enlightened by the marvels of the Internet), you can start acting like a true capitalist (a.k.a. exploiting the sh1t out of everything — mostly other people's labour and legal loopholes — for the sake of, you guessed it, profit).

a) Go to "Driver manager" and check your employees with status "on road". Their current job will have a "finishes in" value.
b) Pick the one with the highest amount of "finishes in" hours.
c) Go to the "Truck Manager", select this particular employee's truck and click "Drive it". Unlike IRL time, the game time will magically "fast forward". You will get all the money for your employees' current+future jobs during these "finishes in" hours.
d) Reassign the truck to your AI driver.
e) Repeat steps a) to d) over and over.

This is the capitalism-style exploit that you need to keep repeating to make some money, buy more garages, buy more trucks, hire new employees. Now, the game will feel a bit like a spreadsheet simulator for a few hours. That's okay, you will thank me later. Just keep listening to your online radio station and do this until you're satisfied with the amount of money you've piled up.

... and this is when you can finally start enjoying this game as an actual simulator — no more "how am I going to afford this føcking thing". Buy whatever the hell you want and simply enjoy your precious time after spending so much IRL money for this game and getting f-d in the @ss by the "brilliant" game design decision of implementing the artificial scarcity of in-game money.

If you don't have the nerves to do the initial grind, there's another option for you — unlike IRL (thanks to physics), you can teleport yourself and your truck with console commands (thanks to computer science). So, you can become even more genuine capitalist by starting the money printing machine right from the get-go. Just watch this f§cking thing: https://www.youtu.be/neiDrNyXRjU

* If you're a lazy dümbäss and you've spent half (or a third) of your salary for a Tobii Eye Tracker (like I did; and I'm obviously "very proud" of myself), to improve your in-game experience, just watch this sh1t: https://www.youtu.be/doGbxuKrGuc

** To get some idea of how grindy this game is, for my 100 hours of "it ain't much, but it's honest work" driving I've only had 14% of the whole map discovered (mind you, I've got all the map expansion DLCs).

Yes, I know, you can thank me later / 1o.

The Man here is just a crime boss, so no "power to the people" themes here. The humour is not very British, the art style is grotesque and quirky, the story, although less interesting, reminded me a bit of Terry Gilliam's movie Brazil. I wanted to like this game, but the gameplay offers nothing original (it's basically a jump&run, nowadays called "platformers") and the art style and the story don't make it entertaining enough for me.

Maybe you'll like it though.

I found the premise and the setup intriguing (spy movies are one of my favourite genre and no, the "Mission Impossible" movies are not spy movies), but it feels too artificial, restrictive, and, ultimately, dull. The cherry at the top is the ridiculously inflated price (the guy(s) who made the game probably has (or have) major self-confidence issues). Mind you, you can't play this alone, it's a multiplayer game, so you can try wasting your time for queuing with randoms, or you need to gift it to a very enthusiastic friend of yours (they, most probably, won't buy it by themselves).

There are way better social deduction games out there (I haven't discovered a game that has a central genuine spy theme and core spy mechanics so far, maybe "Papers, Please" comes a bit close), e.g. Town of Salem. Despite the theme of SpyParty, the detective work/spying mechanics are quite shallow, compared to Town of Salem.

Save your money for something more entertaining / 1o.

It looks like they have some sort of a contract with Steyr that resulted in this DLC, despite having plenty of Steyr rifles in the base game. Well, at least there's some variety caliber-wise. So, now you could roleplay even harder as your favourite Austrian hunter.

There was a survey recently... I gave a thorough feedback. In a nutshell, I'd like to see Tarkov-level of variety here. If that happens, maybe I won't think "I could be playing Tarkov right now" every time I launch some game other than Tarkov.

Maybe you should save your 5 EUR, unless you're a gun nut who needs something else besides the good old .308 (although .270 is better in the game) and .338 (according to Ryan Cleckner, you should definitely switch from .308 to 6.5 Creedmoor).

Arcadey and easy AF even on the hardest difficulty (half blind & braindead AI), but at least somewhat fun. It is very similar to the old Sniper Ghost Warrior game(s). Looks like I paid 12EUR for it two years ago. After I tried it, I wouldn't have spared more than 5. There are definitely better and more realistic (as far as a video game can go) war crime/mass murder simulators sniping and stealth games (Way of the Hunter, Hunt: Showdown, Escape from Tarkov), but if you want less technical issues, a less stressful and less complex experience for less money* (during a sale, of course), go ahead.

* Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a great alternative that I'd recommend even more.

I remember I played sudoku back in 2012 and I enjoyed myself doing it. Pictures of (nine) cute cartoony cats instead of numbers adds a little bit of flavour to the game for cat people like myself. And it's not an achievement spammer game (usually these kinds of games are precisely that), which gets bonus points in my book.

1o / 1o I'd listen to Rage Against The Machine while playing this game again.

When I march armed against the authority of the day and be ready to die, I will be listening to RATM in my head.
Until then, I will have a bullet in my head, I'll be the victim of the in-house drive-by and when they say "Jump!" I'll say "How high?". :(

Do you want to sück Hidetaka Miyazaki's johnson?
Are you a FromSoftwaresexual?
Are you drooling for $hitty manga-inspired lore in your games?
Are you a member of the Church of GitGuddery?
Do you believe that beating a game with PS1-era cr@ppy design choices can make you a better person than people who don't like to waste their time and be treated like garbage by a software product that they paid for entertainment purposes?
Do you approve cheesing and exploiting in your games?
Do you genuinely become proud of not enjoying video games (or feeling elitist for enjoying really bad ones)?
Are you a victim of the sunk cost fallacy?
Do you perceive valid criticism towards stuff you claim to like as personal attacks (so you feel bound to reply with personal attacks towards the critic)?

If yes, well, this is your game, you miserable fück. Have "fun" with it. I have, without exaggeration, hundreds of better games to pay attention to.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/yantelope/recommended/570940/
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/sashathebear9/recommended/570940/

EDIT:
For me, a) a good (i.e. entertaining and rewarding) gameplay and b) respecting players' time are the most important things for a (functional and stable) software, made for entertainment (a.k.a. a video game). For me, the aesthetics are secondary (maybe even tertiary), the stories are also secondary (maybe even tertiary). That is why I'd say that Onimusha, albeit an older game, is a similar game (gameplay-wise), but a better one. If you play it in 2023, you will feel entertained and you will feel that your time is being respected. When it comes to Dark Souls, the two most important checkmarks for me are missing. Before you decide that you know better and that you want to insult me or make a snarky/meaningless comment, please, keep in mind that I've put myself through Escape From Tarkov for a little more than 3000 hours. Did you play Dark Souls for more than 1000 hours? I very much doubt that.

EDIT 2:
Here is some more embarrassing evidence on why this is not "the masterpiece" that its fanboys believe it is. Keep reciting your juvenile "git gut" mantra, if it somehow makes you cope with reality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypNtyMVV8S4

This is a stoner/streamer piece of unfun junk (similar "games": Blood & Bacon, Shark Simulator, Goat Simulator, every "Postal 2" clone, including Postal 2 itself, etc.). I really have to stop throwing away my money for garbage like this. Just take a look at the top reviews - there is nothing that can be subjected to a proper review here, so they're all filled with one or two sentences.

I honestly feel like I gave someone money, expecting to hear "thanks", but I got insulted and spat on my face instead.

This "game" has a lot of things that make a good story-driven "game":

— pretty hand-drawn art
— cool music
— idyllic Nordic island setting
— getting mulholland'd/David-Lynch'd
— 40ºC below zero
— booze
— alcohol caches
— murder
— breaking the 4th
— FMV
— Klumben
— rape
— a few "puzzles"

The only problem is that the gameplay is too bland for me (it's an inherent genre limitation though, so it gets my thumb up). You must be in a special kind of mood to be able to enjoy this "game", or be the type of person who's attracted to and enjoys games of this particular genre.

No elks though / 1o.