eino

I got a glimpse of the game through the academy tutorial, which looked interesting. After that, couldn't see much more. I launched the career and started in Kiel. First assignment was to get to some area in North Sea. Alright, so I leave the doc filled with people waving us goodbye. Bye bye! After some time sailing out the harbour, then toward the Nord-Ostsee canal, I I tried to increase the time compression. Not that I don't appreciate the landscapes, but I was eager to get into the real thing. Unfortunately, It wouldn't let me get above 4. I suspect because I was close to the shore. At one point, we passed another ship, for which time I could get to 32x. Once it was too far, back to 4x (not really logical, but well...). So I don't know how long it took in real time to cross the canal, but at least it was a game which let me practice my guitar. After about 30 minutes, and 1/3 way in the canal, i had other things to do, so I saved and quit. I should have known better. Next time, trying to load my save... Loading screen.. and crash. Damned. Try again, same thing. 30 minutes sailing gone to waste. Ok, I try to load the start save in the harbour... Same crash. Try to start the career over ? Same. Delete it and create a new one ? Just crash. Sailing the forums for solutions, at least one thing appeared, crashes are a quite common thing with this game. Especially, I read you mustn't save while a boat is in sight, or the game will crash on next load. Wha-- ?? Wait a minute, you can't save if there's a boat in sight ? In a friggin submarine game ? No wonder it wouldn't load my harbour save! How could Ubisoft quality control let this kind of problem out?? If I was playing a game about guiding camels in the desert, I could be ok with a such a rare circumstance. But this is a naval battle game goddamnit. 1 because the few I saw of the game was interesting. Still, it was 6 wasted dollars.

On first approach, Banished is a really polished game. Its game-play is smooth, graphics are great and there are a lot of nice details. However, what it offers in attractiveness, it lacks in depth. What you see in the first hour is mostly everything it has to offer. Buildings and actions are pretty limited, and after a few hours of play, what you are doing is always pretty much more of the same, on a different scale. The game is hard, basically you can lose a lot at any point, which is interesting and keep things spicy. However the mechanics here again means you will just fall back at an earlier point in progression, and run again the same actions once more time. With more content the game could be great. What it needs is a lot more buildings, actions, and generally possibilities which are unlocked with your progression.