VIPER 最近的评测

This game ia a true love child by its developers.
All the incredible work they have put into this game over the years is just incredible...and they're not done yet.

I haven't played on Steam much yet. Most of my gameplay comes from standalone version of the game.
I plan to start with Steam, when they are finished with all the expansions, so I have all detailed expanded Europe at my wheels.

I don't want to be long (although I'll probably be), so...this is a driving game, no racing involved. I think this game would be perfect for people who play The Crew, Forza Horizon, Midtown Madness, Test Drive Unlimited and racing is not the core of their gaming. I call all of those driving games, because if you take them as such, and racing is just some extra you do, then you're taking the most out of them, if all you are set on is racing, you'll quickly reach end of life for them.
And ETS2 is all about joy of driving. No rush, apart from deadline, just enjoyment of driving these large trucks, enjoying the scenery, some music of course and just have a zen experience. Top that off with fantastic physics engine, fabulous visuals, amazing sound, incredible level of detail, 5 star AI traffic, perfect public roads simulation, great day/night cycle and weather simulation and let me not forget, perfect controlls wether it's gamepad or wheel, and it's hard to imagine how could this all be better? Well, maybe 1:1 Europe :D but then I doubt they'd finish in this century.

Really can't wait for all of Europe to be fully released, so I can dive into Steam version of the game.

If you're not all about racing, if driving is something you love as well, this is your #1 choice...assuming you're fine with trucks instead of cars.


EDIT: Finally started playing on Steam as well, during the Pink Ribbon event. The whole Europe is not out yet, but I guess my urge for deliveries, or something like that, got the best of me. Everything above still holds, but I wanted to find a minus to write :D, so here it is. The hired drivers aren't really smart, they have a tendency to always pick the worst paying job available. It would also be nice if they drove while I'm not playing the game as well 0:)

EDIT 2021: It's insane that in a not to distant future, we'll have the whole continent in the game, including some of Asia. Sure, it's a scaled version of the actual world, but it's an incredible one. Put on some good music and just drive. Pure joy! Game that just keeps delivering more and more months and years in.

Great Zen experience.
Sure, you have to hunt first to unlock everything, but then you can just swim and enjoy.

Is the table difficult? Most deffinitely.
Is there a whole lot of different things to do? I guess not.
Will you reach Game Over over and over with nothing to show for? For sure.
Will you give up?

In short... You start off with the incident, a pre-story 2-ball multiball, where high score will always carry on to the story. But getting a good one, will take many retries and quick ball drains. Then you have to assemble all 8 heroes, by performing various tasks around the table and by winning fights. Neither easy. Time limits are short and hitting the right lanes and targets can feel in a galaxy far far away from easy. Once you surprise yourself by having the full rooster on your side, you head over to the Wizard mode and this basically is the whole table. But it's not a bad one.
Sure, it's minimalistic compared to many others. Auto-combo shots are one of rare pop-outs. The figths basically turn the table into a smokey theater of civil war with hard visibility and are all the same, apart from how many seconds or targets you have available. The balls love to drain. Quite often they will even fly between the flippers.

I get it most players are frustrated with the table. Though some tables are harder than others, there's no really extreme difficulty. Even on Darth Vader for instance, where completing missions is quite difficult, there's a lot to do and piles of points to gather. Few of the oldest Zen tables unfortunatelly didn't make it to Steam and there are few quite hard ones to complete things and score good.
But it was the same in the 90's Pinball games era. You had easy, intermediate, hard and extreme tables. Most were intermediate, but you got an occasional "nightmare". One very hard table came in EPIC Pinball, Magic. Not much to do, points were low (low like tens and hundreds), balls liked to drain and 100k was a good score. Getting to 7 figures was wow. And in the old days devs weren't so gifting with the closeness of the flippers. There was often a canyon between them.

So, I get the frustrated people, but I don't agree with the negative reviews a bit. Yes, I also lose the balls. I often have hard time hitting stuff. My score is nothing special. But why would all the tables need to be easy, have huge score and almost have a safety need? The table is cool. It projects the theme of war very nice if I may use such a word with such matter. The basics of what you need to do are explained well enough, but it fits with the theme that it can be harder to spot your goals and evne more the time limits and difficulty.

I read all other reviews and I could easily negate all the complaints, but this review is already very long as is.
Just give it a shot and don't quit because it punches you off your feet and keeps kicking you while you're face down in dirt bleeding...Superheroes surely wouldn't.


EDIT on AUG 27, 2017
http://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1121596719
65,505,059

http://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1121596864
93,151,877

http://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1121596988
121,752,241

I'll just put it like this: Difficult my a** :P
Finally had some time and a bit of energy to really take a stab at it (4h I think)[my previous runs were around 1h playtime]. Not counting several restarts, I had a load of good scores. The above 3 are just those that improved my high score. Otherwise I had plenty of 40-90 million runs. I completed missions over and over and over again. Completed all of them, including the Wizard mode several times.
Apart from higher than average inclination of balls to bail out, there's not one really difficult thing on this table. OK, time limits, some are always short (5s when ball goes in the lanes next to bumpers), some are short to normal (8-35s fights, usually 30s missions) and some long (wizard mode 60s if I recall right).
No lane is that difficult to hit. Harderst one is probably the 3rd from the right, the one that loops onto right middle flipper. Other 5 not difficult at all.
Holes are a bit tricky. Left one can be hit without too much hastle, just some risk of losing the ball (plus the reward in it is not worth going for it imo, even though it gives you kickback that is quite usefull here). The right hole is actually difficult to hit intentionally (rewards of course worth it).
The targets on the right of the 3 bumpers in left-middle of the table are easy to hit, so is the hole there when it opens. The button between left loop and left lane to top center flipper is quite easy for skillshot but I find it difficult to hit when lit in play.
All top 3 flippers are quite easy to hit. The only difficulty present sometimes is the speed of the ball (which is the case on a lot of other tables), but not impossible to hit even then (many many many successful hits to confirm). They are all high on traffic (unless you decide it's impossible ;P ). If I had to rank them by difficulty (aka percentage of times missed a shot with them), I guess the easiest is actually the top-right one, because the ball is always slowest on it and you have much more time to hit the ball with it unlike the other 2, where the ball just flies by if you time it wrong (some exclusions on top-center one, when you can have 2-3 takes on hitting the ball when you are direct hitting one of two heroes and you don't get to go towards the top-right flipper).
And yes, sometimes the ball will fly directly between bottom flippers (as it does on several tables). So what? Do we really need a safety net everywhere? And in most cases (like it's the case on other tables), this happens because of poor shot. You didn't hit the lane well, the ball comes back and ocassionally it will fly between flippers. BUT, those comebacks can be quite securely remedied by a nice bump of the table from any side, to change the trajectory. Most useful on left loop failed shot and left upwards lane failed shot.

I have to say, I liked this table before, after today, I love it. It is really well crafted table, accompanied by great (desperate) ambiance to fit the situation. All you need is to put some effort in it and not give up and look for excuses. Basically, like at the beginning of playing this table, you have to choose, wether you are gonna be a super whiner or super hero. HINT: Go with the latter.


EDIT: AUG 28, 2017
Apparently my initial, even more my continued review, sparked some controversy, mostly from mistaking my words for an offence/insult. I am a direct speaking person and take controversy as part of it, but offensive I am not. Usually I would not clarify things, because I feel there is no need, but why not make an exception this time, because I really strongly feel and stand by the message I wanted to convey to current and potential Civil War table owners. I'll write it clearly so noone can misunderstand it now.
This table is just disguised as an extremly difficult. It will first punch you directly in the face, but then expect your love. ((Now, most, if not all, negative reviews come only from this punch.)) If you don't give up and do show your love, you Will receive a great experience in return. Of course even then, not everyone will like it, everyone has their own taste, and that's what's great about us. I've shown it love and I was rewarded, going from liking the table to loving it. And that is what I wish for every PFX2 player owning this table to have a chance at. Because it is a shame to give up at the very start, where the table is using you as a punch bag. Love is tough they say, and this table makes an example of it. Just get over your negative thoughts and go on until you really get to know the table. Only then will you defuse the fog and see what's really there. If you still hate it, you at least have dozens more tables to choose from :D But really, give it a real try.
Now, if you take what I wrote here...basically the same as the paragraph with super whiner and super hero, just less colorful and much much longer ;)

It looks alright. Cool that you can go underwater...
I think that's all the positive I can say about it.
...which (being underwater) might be the best part of the game.

I went in with good expectations. Those even raised in the controls menu, where you could say it is suggested you should hook up a joystick if you have one.
After I was set, I went for some quick action against bots...and my expectations instantly crashed into oblivion.
Gameplay is anything but enjoyable. Options what you can do are second to none. Sure you can pimp your craft and there are several to choose from (no, I did not try either), but I really can't see how this game could be enjoyed.
There are different daytime conditions and weather/visibility conditions, but not something that can improve the rest of the game.
So, quick action, you can set amount of bots and some conditions, then it is standard dog fight...well, not really. AI is OK, it can surely shoot you down. There are 10 difficulty options for it. But once they got near, it just became a beehive...a swarm. Several aircrafts spinning and turning in an area around 300 cubic feet :D :(
Campaign...some forgettable debrief, boggies fly in, you shoot them down, more come, you win again, land. Writing this line gave me more fun and adrenaline.

I have played many 3D flying games (arcade, sim and all in between) and I don't recall one so depressing. Excuse that this is one man team...come on. 1 or 1000 can make a good game or a bad game. Saying something is good because it's a small team invites just more projects to fill Steam store with time and money wasting products...and we have several 1000 like that in the store already.

Instead of this I can easily recommend 2 20 year old games from DOS times. F29 Retaliator and F-15 Strike Eagle 2.
Graphically they are no match to this, audio is about on par, but these 2 are masterpieces in comparison in gameplay/fun/tactics/options/... departments. I don't know what to recommend on Steam that is similar, since everyhting else I have is Steamless, but surely there are other games on Steam to feed your need for dog fights.

My first use of: Remove this licence from my Steam account
It felt good :)

Since the 90s, EPIC Pinball was the ultimate pinball video game choice. With the arrival of Pinball FX on XBOX 360 in 2007, it finally found its match, and 3 years later with Pinball FX 2, it got its successor, a new pinball king.
Zen Studios brought into the virtual pinball world, something that we have not seen before. Stellar ideas, ingenious presentation and perfect gameplay. Each table is a masterpiece of its own. So much to do on each of them and so much going on. Enriched with beautiful musical scores, great sound effects and animated 3D characters jumping around the tables.
If you take a few minutes away from the action, and hold the camera button while moving the mouse around, you can look at all the details and love that was put in every square inch of every table and also of the surronding area where the tables are standing. I love and play every single table that was made, except 1, Extreme, which is not present in Steam version anyway.
With so many tables present, with new ones coming all the time, you really cannot get bored, because when you make the whole circle through all the tables, the inital ones will feel so new and fresh again, you are ready for another tour, and another,.....

Whatever the system, you're playing on, Zen Studios' pinball game is deffinitely the one you should not stay without.


EDIT: 2 years later
New tables keep on coming. Plenty of new ones for Marvel and Star Wars fans, but, which I appreciate most, several new original tables, conceived and designed entirely from scratch by Zen Studios. As much as I love the license based ones (Can't wait to get my hands on Aliens vs Predator tables. Hopefully I'll be able to get them during Summer Sale 2017), I am most excited by completely original tables. Understandably there are more of the linensed ones, but for the same reason, each new original feels that more special. If you look back we got scenarios like, fending off alien invasion, Don Quixote-like knight adventure to save a damzel, Indiana Jones-like quest for prescious artifacts, sneaking into wizards lair, mission to Mars, Roman conquests, exploration of the great ocean abyss,... And more recently we received a wild west cowboy adventure and got to play an actual football (soccer) match on a pinball table (Unfortunatelly, licenses for the European football teams have expired and are no longer available. But, the fictious Zen Football Team should be back as soon as possible, so you will still have the chance to buy it.).
With the most recent Star Wars, Aliens and Marvel releases, hopefully a new original should be right around the corner.

All I can do is recommend this game even more. I've been playing Zen Studios' pinball's, for around 8 years I guess, across 4 systems and I keep wanting more, and more is what I deffinitely get.
If you like virtual pinballs you cannot miss out with this one. You have a chance to have a short demo of each and every table in the game, before deciding to pay for it, so no excuse not to give it at least a try.