Recent reviews by Hobbes

So. I'll skip over any discussion about optimisation and speed, my system being the terrifying beast that it is did not have any issues running this game at max settings and didn't drop below 60 fps. We can ignore the technical discussions and I'll leave that to the rest of the Steamiverse (yes, that's a word, I've made it, it exists) to discuss.

The big question is how does Watch_Dogs compare to the two important benchmarks in the field, the first being the immediate predecessor - Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag, And the second being GTA V. This is where the discussion starts getting a bit tricky, it would be far too easy for me to TLDR the review as Hacking Creed : White Jacket, but that's essentially what you're getting. The open world -feels- a lot like the AC4 open world, in so much as it's full of window dressing but ultimately you can boil it down to some shops which you buy stuff from, and a mass of side quest markers that you can interact with.

There's a but. Some things have been *lost* from the trip from AC4 to W_D, most notably that the Bunker feels like the biggest missed opportunity for Ubi imaginable, this could, should have been the place where Aiden and co built up a base and resources to open investigations, side quests and other opportunities, but in the end it's "just another hideout". That came across as a big disappointment, and I'm amazed that Ubi missed a trick on this.

The story too, for all the sophistication of the toolset and the world, isn't as sophisticated as it should have been. It's played as a straight revenge plot, when there was so much more that it -could- have been. The whole plot concerning bellweather and the political rigging, blume and the CTOS and how it connected to Chicago, these are themes that could have been explored in so much more depth, giving texture and a much more significant plot to proceedings, but instead we end up destroying a lot of the criminal underworld because Aiden is angry. Angry Aiden. This game demanded better writing, AC4 -got- better writing, why this game didn't, I'm a little bemused by.

My problem is that this game has a lot going for it, the AR games are insanity akin to SR4, the digital trips represent Ubi at their blood dragon best, Songsneak is a very clever idea, and the multiplayer implementation when it works (which isn't always as reliable as you might wish) is perhaps a collection of some of the most brilliantly thought out espionage gamemodes in an open world to come together. There's a lot of good here, but unlike CTOS, it's not interconnected, instead the brilliance is scattered among seperate threads that spiral off in different directions, and you end up seeing fragments of what could have been. A great game reduced to merely -very good- because Ubi perhaps lacked the bravery to commit to something more.

Buyers remorse then, hmmm, no. I think in time, with the no doubt mass of DLC that will come down the pipe for it including T-Bone's campaign, we'll see a more fleshed out experience and possibly Ubi willing to experiment more with the themes they touched on in Aiden's story, but neither can I unconditionally recommend it. This is a good game that strives for greatness, but sadly falls just short. Unlike GTA V it lacks the sheer quantity of things to do to make it feel like a world come alive, and unlike AC 4 it lacks the "epic feeling" that made you grin when you were being a mighty pirate.

So close and yet so far.

I. What. Oh god. My brain. This game. Where do I. What do I. I don't even.

Okay, get a grip. You've seen crazy before. You've read crazy before in books, calm down, this is fine, everything is fine, take the pills, breathe. Relax, relax. Okay, Dark Scavenger - Roleplaying game, mostly a point and click with turn based combat, though without levelling (that's handled with the loot you gain opening up progressively more and more powerful tools as the game progresses), where you play the part of "an human" who for some reason ended up in space, alone, with naught but a spacesuit on. At least, I hope you've a space suit on. You meet a creature called "Den", a big giant spacefaring blob, who beats you up and leaves you for dead.

When you come around you find yourself on a ship home to three alien scavengery sorts, who immediately promote you, you lucky soul, to general gopher, and person who's going to get beaten senseless. In exchange, they agree to convert any loot you find into items that will surely help you to help them keep their rickety little spaceship going. Cue the game proper beginning. You are told that the ship is nearly out of fuel but thankfully the planet nearby happens to have a fuel source, unfortunately, it's in the hands of the bandits. You've been told that you're off to get the fuel, in exchange for your continued passage on the ship, and the services of your three newfound friends.

Mechanically, you move from room to room, represented by static screens with highlighted "hot spots" which bring up text style choose your own adventure style dialogs, depending on what you pick you may end up in combat situations, or you may gain items, or gain life / lose life, or even end up dead. Such is the way of the game, the events are far, far off the insane end of the spectrum, and you'll quickly find that your arsenal will consist of things that shouldn't make sense, whilst fighting things that make no sense.

There is a story in the madness somehow, in so much as your arrival may well change events which are playing out on the planet you've just landed on, but given the madness inherent in what you're playing it's a bit hard to make out all the fine details when you end up creating "your mother" as an ally (no, not a joke, you can summon your mother as an ally, and she stuns all opponents if you're at low health). The best way to enjoy this game is to take it on it's own terms, almost as a Hitchhiker's guide with fighting thrown in, for the ridiculously low price point - it's a steal, and an easy sell in my book, for any RPG fan.

Just don't play this game on any psychoactive or hallucinogenic substances.

In the interests of clarity - I've owned the CD version of this for *Ages* and picked up the Steam version the very second it came back on sale.

Where do I begin. This is probably -the- best Anno in the series. No, sod it, it IS the best Anno in the series. Deliciously complicated, wonderfully detailed, an artstyle that has an attention to detail that makes the very most of every texture and polygon going, and two distinct building architectures that compete for "eyecandy" status, both bringing with them a unique set of challenges and such lavish, luxurious gameplay. This is a game you sink into, hours will pass, trading routes will be planned, your empire will sprawl over many islands, your burgeoning populace will span two very distinct spheres, goods interconnecting between them, as you work your way up through the citizen levels. Familiar terrain to any Anno player.

This one stands out in the purity of execution, and in the sheer attention to detail and balance provided, everything fits together in increasingly complex interlocking resource puzzles, yet it's like watching a perfect piece of clockwork when you've got it all running, your empire gradually pushing against the limits of your ability to keep it supplied and happy, and so gradually you expand, seeking out more resources, adding more ships and more trade. In particular you'll deal with two very different land types, the fertile green grasslands of the north and the dunes and sands of the south, both have very different challenges attatched, and both bring with them markedly different styles and looks. Wandering through the deliciously Arabic buildings as your southern cities grow is one of many highpoints.

Graphically this game is a looker, the spectacle is in the sheer detail, it's not a game that does explosions or anything like that, but you'll find yourself sitting back and watching the waves lapping against the shore (the water effects in this game are gorgeous), the gentle sway of the trees, the people going about their daily lives, the inherent detailing of the buildings, it all comes together in a way that not even Anno 2070 could quite manage.

The Venice addon which comes with the Gold package is, like the deep oceans expansion for 2070, all but necessary, providing a root to branch expansion of the game as well as many quality of life improvements that flesh out the game in continuous mode. It also further expands the diplomacy and espionage options, giving you plenty of covert and subtle options to convert islands to your cause, as well as opening the option to economically dominate a game by *buying out* competing islands with keys to the city.

Sound too, is a genuine high point, the music is reasonable but not anything that'll stick in your mind, it's the -atmospheric- sounds that are the real winner here, again, it's the little things, zoom in and listen near buildings, and you'll hear precisely what I mean. This game drips with atmosphere, both visual and audial, it does not spare any expense in this matter. The voice acting of the somewhat cartoony but excellently animated talking head figures you'll be interacting with is also of a superb standard, occasionally tending toward the dramatic, but always memorable.

Weak points? It's an Anno game, and as such Combat is at best rudimentary, this is a game that encourages sly diplomacy and economic domination, getting the guns out is the last resort and naval combat is a sheer numbers game, but long time Anno fans won't be put off by this and should already be grabbing this as quick as they can. To everyone else, if you're looking for a resource management slash empire building game that revels in detail, trade, and intricacy, your prayers have been answered, the dawn of discovery awaits.

It's very important to note that whilst 1404 gold comes with both the original and Venice, there's absolutely no real reason to run the original, since all that does is infest your system with TAGES drivers, and offers you a more limited experience. Running Venice in admin mode from the source folder the first time will solve your problems completely, and from that point on the game will run smoothly and you'll be able to enjoy everything available. To that end I highly recommend googling the unofficial patch that's availble as that fixes up a lot of the translation bugs that Blue Byte missed, as well as restoring a lot of missing text, bringing the game up to a standard that it truly deserves.

You fly a ship. Sort of. Well, you pilot something, you point it vaguely at something which is trying to kill you, there's a lot of flashy graphical effects, things explode. There's loot everywhere. You scramble to collect the loot, it comes in a rainbow of colours and flavours, there's guns, oh dear god there's so many guns. You're spoilt for choice, it's practically like Borderlands all over again.

Zigfrak is a space.. game... sortof.. you fly around and shoot things, lots of things, and collect a lot of loot of various sorts to pimp out your ship with, as you level up and gain experience, the things you can pimp out your ship with get ever more ridiculous until eventually you're shooting drones armed with minature nuclear warheads (which will cause all kinds of hilarious screen glitches, no, do not adjust your monitor, the designer MEANT FOR THAT TO HAPPEN!), and your shield can withstand you being in close proximity to said explosions, mostly...

Over the course of the game you'll obtain a dubstep satellite that explodes with the power of nuclear wubs, an inflatable mini party station that you can dock with and resupply at (which will also pump out some most excellent dance music), you will be exposed to cerulean blue and become addicted to this gorgeous colour. You will hack satellites via minigames. You will encounter Bear Grylls in a worm, and have to construct shoelace traps. You may end up eating shoes as a result. You will work for the space equivalent of the mafia, and for the pirates, and for the police, you will do all these things and yet somehow you'll still be managing to stick to some kind of overarching story which takes place on a very interwoven backdrop.

This game is the product of the mind of one man, and if this game says anything about his mind, it's that this guy probably should be in a room with nice soft padded walls, and his keyboard, monitor, and PC should be securely fastened to solid surfaces, and also coated with drool and chew resistant materials. Insanity does not even come close, yet for all the insanity, there's genius here, a rare diamond of genius that you really ought to try out for yourself.

Beware the refreshing drinks though, I'm pretty sure he laced them with something dangerous. Ditto for the cookies, do not eat the cookies.

Some games take hours before a decision can be made. Some take just minutes. Some games are glorious. Some...

... some are just hideous.

Ducati World Championship is the most putrid, plagueridden piece of decomposed penile tissue I have had the misfortune to review. I wish that was hyperbole. It's the gaming equivalent of lutefisk. I'm sure someone, somewhere enjoys this game, that someone probably lives in a dark cave, and lives on a diet of raw fish. They probably want to know what I have in my pockets.

This game is often bought as a gag gift, for good reason, it's cheap, usually less than a euro or a dollar, it has a horrible metacritic rating, sub 30's, and like another gag gift, bad rats, it's an odious piece of garbage. The stink of sewage can be sensed long before the game has had the chance to imprint its' accursed signature upon your hard drive, and believe me, once it has, uninstalling it will be something you follow with religious rituals. You may need to burn the hard drive and scatter the ashes somewhere sacred, just to make sure the game doesn't come back from the dead.

The store video promises that we'll be in for a treat, giving us glorious footage of a badly rendered CGI woman who wears what looks like two strips of shiny gaffer tape over her wobbly bits to ensure that the video doesn't get an R rating, and only occasionally a look at the bikes in what is a bike racing game, all the while subjecting us to some hideous "rawk" music (and the music follows you into the game, it gets worse, it's musak, it's musak for videogames).

But wait, it gets better. This horrific satanic mutation requires you to delve into the install folder and set it to compatibility mode, if you're in windows 7, and not what you'd expect. Normally compability means XP. NOT SO here, dear reader. Nope, here, it's compatibility for windows Vista.

Let's pause to consider this. A game that requires windows vista compatibility. Windows Vista. The Operating System from hell. In case you needed any clearer a signpost, this is it, this is "Abandon hope all ye who enter here", and hope is quickly extinguished. The resolution caps out at 1680x1050, which for current day computers means you're going to be upscaling to get it to fit onto 1920x1080, it's filled with some horrific motion blur, the graphics would look modern on an Atari Jaguar. Yes, that -thing-. That dared call itself a console back when the original Playstation was owning face back in the day.

The control system is poorly documented, and was designed by someone who had no idea how racing game controls SHOULD work and probably didn't CARE. Requiring you to fumble about like some poor sod in the dark hunting for the light switch in the bathroom whilst trying not to urinate all over the floor, when you do finally figure out what keys make the bike actually -go- in the relevant directions you find that there's zero smoothness in the response, the bike literally slides over the course like it's 1989 and we're playing ENDURO RACER ON THE ***KING SINCLAIR SPECTRUM WITH TAPE LOADING GAMES. ARE YOU HEARING ME? A SODDING 128K MACHINE DID A BIKE EXPERIENCE BETTER THAN YOUR ***KING DUCATI ***KING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP YOU ***KING USELESS ***KING ***KERS.

*ahem*

I'm trying not to completely lose my temper here. I know that the programmers probably tried their best, and that people invested time and effort... oh who am I trying to kid, this is shovelware. It's the lowest of the low. It's frothing knobcheese of the most torrid variety and like Bad Rats, only barely qualifies as a "game" and only qualifies as "entertainment" if you're looking to put up youtube videos of you suffering through playthroughs to give other people a cheap laugh. If that's something you want to do, go ahead, be my guest. BE MY ***KING GUEST. BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT? I QUIT. ***K THIS GAME. ***K THIS ***KING GAME. NO MORE. I WILL PLAY THIS NO MORE. IT WILL TAKE UP NO MORE OF MY TIME AND NO MORE OF MY HARD DISK. I CONSIGN THEE TO THE FIRES OF HELL AND MAY IT BURN THERE FOREVER MORE.

...

And if you really need to ask? No. No I do not recommend this "Game".

Reviewing GODUS as is at this time is not an option, the new build has mostly revised the rules around the game and thus invalidated a lot of the issues and complaints I would have listed. However, instead, I'm going to review the development narrative behind GODUS. Specifically, I'm going to look at Peter Molyneux's approach to developing games.

Molyneux reminds me of a child who's managed to find himself in a factory full of paint cans and brushes. Every colour is available to him, every possible brush thickness and shape, he wanders through the factory, his mouth open in a permanent expression of amused shock, his fingers delicately stroking the paintbrushes, his eyes full of childlike wonder. His imagination explodes, runs riot, he dreams of wonderful fantastic vistas, much like a child's imagination unchecked is capable of roaming so free and so far. However, like a lot of children, his imagination far exceeds his fine motor skills, so when it comes to taking the brush and applying paint to canvas...

... we get a splotchy mess.

GODUS is a splotchy mess. Fable was a splotchy mess. Most games that Molyneux has been involved in have been to some extent, a splotchy mess. The successes have come about when the rest of the team have been able to refine the splotchy messes and turn them into something that resembles what is actually either going on in Molyneux's head, or a marketable game, or somewhere between the two. It's tricky to figure out where the magic is, when it hits, like Black and White, it opens up whole new ways of looking at games in general, but unfortunately, you wind up seeing a lot of splotchy messes between the rare flashes of inspiration.

Not that it stops him. Now this would be perfectly human and forgivable were it not for the fact that Peter has a ... well, an almost Steve Jobs like "Reality Distortion Field" that he projects. It's as if there are two different worlds in existence at any one time when Peter talks about his games, and when he talks, we're getting a glimpse of the game -he- sees, and not the one -we- see. Case in point would be "Curiosity : What's inside the cube". Peter called it a profoundly lifechanging experience. Pete, mate, IT WAS A GAME WHERE YOU CLICKED CUBES. IT WAS COWCLICKER FOR APPLE DEVICES. THAT IS NOT A LIFECHANGING EXPERIENCE.

One day someone will tether Pete to the ground, and then we may once again see a return to form like the Bullfrog games of old, until then, we're going to see splotchy messes, infused with occasional strokes of genius, but often way, way oversold and far over marketed by Mr. Molyneux himself. Take anything that comes from him OR his dev team with liberal quantities of salt, and look up information about the game from other sources, then make your own decision if things like GODUS might appeal in the long run.

This is a review that's going to make me very sad. A sad tiger is not a sight people should have to witness, but nonetheless, hear the tale of the tigers' lament. Hear the tale of the RPG that once was, and will never be. The tale of Amalur.

Kingdoms of Amalur was pitched as a wide, sprawling, epic world. Written by R. A. Salvatore and artwork by Todd McFarlane, this was a world where big names came together to produce an impressive, colourful vista. One where grand battles were fought, where the history of races was told in rich tapestries and stories of lore. Where gnomes were no longer the comedy option (World of Warcraft, yes, you, stop hiding in the back there, this is you I speak to at this point!). A world where the strings of fate invisibly guided everything and everyone around them, and those who could read the weave could fortell glimpses of the future.

The story revolves around the antagonist, one who has managed to unpick the very threads of fate, and the protaganist, you, similarly freed from fate, and your journey from the rags on your back (and the start which sees you unceremoniously dumped in a pile or corpses), to eventual confrontation with the evil that threatens to consume the world. The story has been told many times in many other games, but it is presented with a style and sheen that carries itself well here, the core plot quests keep a coherency and pace that maintain your interest through the rather lengthy world. Not to mention the absolute *ton* of side quests and factions you can involve yourself in, and their own stories and backgrounds, all of which are intricately details and have their own little plot twists. This is a game that prides itself on depth.

... Right up until you step into it and realise that this was probably intended as an MMO. It... takes a bit of a mental adjustment to begin with, because the world, and everything in and around it, feels at first -like- an MMO made singleplayer, there's the vendors, the towns, the crafting system, in fact, so little of it feels single player tailored you'd be forgiven for asking "Where are all the other players?". Once you begin the combat however, that slowly fades into the background, combat in the game is intuitive, flashy, and visceral, with a wide variety of weapons, and a constant encouragement to alternate between magic and weapon attacks, this is a game that rewards variety and creative use of your toolset.

Get over that initial mental bump however, and you'll quickly settle into a large, expansive game, with a wide and diverse world, which okay, will oft remind you that it does feel like an MMO minus the other players, but then equally it will take you places and on journeys that a lot of Roleplaying games have almost forgotten how to manage these days. It's a wonderful thing.

This unfortunately is why I am a sad tiger. The company that made this game is now bankrupt, and the assets have been sold off and everything connected to it, scattered to the four winds. There will not be a sequel, or an MMO, or any further patches or adjustments. The final product is what you get here, with a few idiosyncracies and all. It is a flawed gem, but a gem nonetheless. If you wish to get lost in a world for a few days and embark on a properly epic journey, visiting Amalur is definitely a place to consider.

This is an Assassin's Creed game. I am supposedly an assassin in this game. Assassins are supposed to be masters of subtlety and grace and patience and guile. They are shadows in the night, that are barely ripples upon the water, elegant as poetry and deadly as poison. You get the idea.

Edward Kenway is none of those things. Edward Kenway's general solution to most things involves a matchlock pistol and a cutlass. Sea shanties and cannons. Debauching and wenching (kids, go look up wenching on google!), rum and eye patches. In short, ol' Eddie here is the antithesis of the Assassin.

Assassin's what? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you over the fun I was having looting and plundering ships and generally screaming YARR. So, hum. This is really a pirate game, where you nominally are tied into the assassins creed universe with the most perfunctory backstory imaginable (HELLO YOU ARE PERSON BLANK WORKING AT ABSTERGO ON THIS PROJECT WHICH IS CLEARLY SIGNPOSTED BECAUSE WE COULD NOT BE BOTHERED TO THINK OF A REAL PLOT). It tries to shove all that sci-fi nonsense out of the way as quickly as possible because well, frankly, you're a mighty pirate. You have a mighty pirate ship, and the carribean is your canvas to do as many horrible things to the british and spanish navies in equal measure. Go have fun. That's about the measure of it.

There is a story to follow, which unlocks various things, much like previous assassins creed games, but here you'll only be following the story so you can unlock more stuff to do AS A MIGHTY PIRATE, not because you have any real interest in the whole Assassins vs. Templar thing. I mean it's made clear that ol' Eddie is a pirate who just happened to pick up the robe and is a dab hand at stabbing people, he's not even an actual assassin! HE IS A MIGHTY PIRATE. THIS IS A MIGHTY PIRATE GAME.


So. Yeah, get on and get through the story, create merry havoc and unlock the stuff as you go, and enjoy life on the ocean waves, which then leaves the sandbox side and the collection, which really is the meat of it. Life on the ocean waves, and life on the ocean waves is pretty damn good. There's a ton of things to do, the waves are -gorgeous-, the atmosphere is terrific, the shanties are plenty, and there's never a shortage of gorgeous vistas and inviting targets to shoot, loot, and generally investigate. Be the pirate and the explorer, stuff the creed in the rum bottle where it belongs.

As an Assassins Creed game? It's terrible. It's not an Assassins Creed game, it's BARELY an AC game. As a pirate game? Second only to the seminal sid meier's pirates, and only because of the animus sci-fi nonsense. Dear Ubisoft, jettison the sci-fi junk, and make a pure pirate game from what you've got, and people will worship the result. That is all.

Continuing a recent trend of rebooting major franchises, Thief comes full circle and starts from the top. The studio behind this particular reboot was also behind Deus Ex : Human revolution, so expectations were extremely high for this outing. Did they deliver?

The answer is... Hum. Yes, sort of.

Here's the skinny. They delivered Thief, but they delivered pretty much Thief as it was in the 90's, with 90's gameplay and AI, the problem being of course that AI -has- evolved in the time since then and well, the AI here hasn't. It's still rather dense, and the gameplay too has that slightly clunky 90's feeling where you rummage through drawers and cupboards for bric-a-brac and slowly accrue gold as you buy an upgrade here, a few arrows there, and improve your general thiefery, as well as avoid the ever present watch.

What has been updated is the graphics and the atmosphere, on my gaming rig, this is gorgeous, I've placed some example screenshots lifted from the game, and no joke, they -nailed- the feeling of the city, right down to the grim, gritty despair that is felt at ground level. The sound, the visual design, the lighting, they got all of that pitch perfect, as well as the movement and Garret's hands (yes, you see your protagonist's hands as they work!) as he goes about his business. Much like the original, you'll crack open houses, mansions, various locations, and slowly pry apart the layers of security, collecting gold, blackjacking guards, and avoiding combat where possible.

Herein lies the major warning, and major difference from Dishonoured, here there is no leeway. Dishonoured has a lot of flexibility, if things go wrong, you can fight your way out, and there's generally multiple solutions (some messy) to given problems, in Thief, whilst there might be multiple -routes- to solving an issue, they all revolve around stealth, but they're all variations on a theme. The idea is you are a Thief. So if you try playing the game like Dishonoured, you're going to find that the game doesn't cater to you. This is mostly how the game has ended up being savaged in the critical press, it's not a game that deals in flexibility. What it does, it does very well, but it only does one thing, it does Thievery. It doesn't do stylish combat or assassination, it doesn't do bravado or grand improvisation. It does patience, and cunning and guile.

As a direct result, recommending this game is tricky. I do recommend it, but only to people who wanted to see the 90's thief given a fresh coat of paint, and are willing to accept the flaws -of- the 90's thief resurrected in this current iteration. If you want a thief style game with a wider appeal and broader base, then I would recommend Dishonoured in it's stead.

Before I launch into the review, let me make clear - I love this game, I love this game dearly, it's going to eat my life, in big horrible chunks, I can see it beating Dungeons of Dredmor for time played with *Ease*. Recommending it is easy enough, but recommending it to all and sundry is a different matter, this is a game for a specific audience, allow me to explain :

Banished calls itself a city building strategy game....

Right. That's akin to calling Dark Souls a light and cheerful romp through some ruins whilst a few slightly less than alive fellows duel you with rusty metal objects and you meet some not quite all there people on a quest of JOLLY CO-OPERATION.

Whoever came up with the store description is clearly a master of either understatement or satire. I tip my hat to them, I do. Banished is superficially about building a village, yes, but that's merely the outer layer of this rather hefty onion of a game, and it's made of many interlocking layers that are all simulated. Each citizen is simulated properly, they go to their workplace, they get hungry, they get cold, they get old, they die.

They may have children, they may end up marrying someone half their age (oh, and by the way, I had a family who's father was the tender age of eleven, the poor kid's voice hadn't broke and already he was a dad, awesome!). These are people where you can see the interlocking mechanisms take place all the time, you can see them work, you can see them travel to and from, you can see them interact with the world around them.

The simulation doesn't stop at people, it simulates wildlife and nature, you cannot just plop down a forester and assume that's the end to your lumber woes, it doesn't work that way in the real world, it won't work that way in banished. It takes time for trees to grow and mature, time for your foresters to build up an efficient cycle of logging, planting, and treetending, and as a result, much like everything else within Banished, every change you make is rarely immediate in it's effect, but it -has- an effect, and it's cumulative in nature. If you ever wanted a perfect exemplar of "the butterfly effect", this game can teach you far better than many textbooks.

As a result this game requires a level of planning, thinking and pondering which extends far past most normal city builders, it puts it more on the plane of games like Gnomoria, and perhaps it could be seen as an intro to things like Dwarf Fortress (it's a lot less impenetrable than DF thank Armok), but make no mistake, much like such games, it's very capable of whipping around in the blink of an eye and sabotaging several hours of work if you do not take due dilligence when you plan out changes to your village (a single scuffed up plan of mine utterly wrecked what was a solid village of mine, back to the drawing board once more, but from that failure I learned).

In the world of banished, the changes -matter-, treat the village with a genuine level of respect and plan your changes with a slow, methodical hand, and the game will reward you with perhaps one of the most intricate and engaging simulations outside of the aforementioned DF. Play it like a straight city builder and you will fail, and then you'll wonder why. Read the manual, do the tutorials, do your research, this game deserves that much out of you if you purchase it.

With that, I recommend this game to those who are willing.