Posted August 10, 2018
high rated
So, We Happy Few is out. Not surprisingly, it's not meeting expectations (that's what you get for being an indie dev putting a AAA price tag on your game), some aspects of it are good, but not enough to outweigh all the bad -- clunky mechanics, a boring quest system, awful combat, not to mention the ridiculous amount of bugs. A lot of you are disappointed or downright angry at Compulsion Games, and that's perfectly understandable. But what if I told you there's an old game that did most of what We Happy Few tried to do, except way better? Yup, such a game exists.
What I recommend is that instead of spending €59.99 (or your local equivalent) on a half-finished game, you take €12.99 out of that money and buy Pathologic instead. Sure, artistically, We Happy Few is the better game, it looks better, the art design is gorgeous (in fact, it's the only thing that COULD redeem We Happy Few, if you think about it), but Pathologic does the "three interwoven story paths" that Compulsion shoehorned in to justify the absurd price hike. Pathologic did it way before, and not because some big name publisher wanted to sell their game for the price of a AAA title. It makes sense, it has always made sense, that's how the game was built. Plus, Pathologic has superb world and character building, and it has one of the best -- if not THE best -- stories in video games ever, an astonishing creative, literary and even philosophical achievement, considering we're "just talking about a video game". Mind you, the original localization was... bad. And I mean REALLY bad. But the version GOG now sells has addressed those issues, and the translation has been revamped, so now everyone can enjoy the game to its fullest. Also: no bugs, no need to reload saves when a quest gets botched, no need to have the latest nVidia GPU to even get somewhat decent performance. It just works.
If you wanted We Happy Few for the survival aspects, then Pathologic might not be the game for you. But fret not, you can take €24.99 out of those €59.99 they're selling We Happy Few for, and spend it on The Long Dark, simply one of the best survival games to have been released in recent memory. Heck, you could buy both Pathologic AND The Long Dark, and it would still be cheaper than getting We Happy Few, so you can effectively have the story elements and the survival elements that We Happy Few promised, except better made, you can get more bang for your buck from TWO games and, most importantly, you're not giving Gearbox and Compulsion any money.
Consider it, I think it's a win-win situation.
What I recommend is that instead of spending €59.99 (or your local equivalent) on a half-finished game, you take €12.99 out of that money and buy Pathologic instead. Sure, artistically, We Happy Few is the better game, it looks better, the art design is gorgeous (in fact, it's the only thing that COULD redeem We Happy Few, if you think about it), but Pathologic does the "three interwoven story paths" that Compulsion shoehorned in to justify the absurd price hike. Pathologic did it way before, and not because some big name publisher wanted to sell their game for the price of a AAA title. It makes sense, it has always made sense, that's how the game was built. Plus, Pathologic has superb world and character building, and it has one of the best -- if not THE best -- stories in video games ever, an astonishing creative, literary and even philosophical achievement, considering we're "just talking about a video game". Mind you, the original localization was... bad. And I mean REALLY bad. But the version GOG now sells has addressed those issues, and the translation has been revamped, so now everyone can enjoy the game to its fullest. Also: no bugs, no need to reload saves when a quest gets botched, no need to have the latest nVidia GPU to even get somewhat decent performance. It just works.
If you wanted We Happy Few for the survival aspects, then Pathologic might not be the game for you. But fret not, you can take €24.99 out of those €59.99 they're selling We Happy Few for, and spend it on The Long Dark, simply one of the best survival games to have been released in recent memory. Heck, you could buy both Pathologic AND The Long Dark, and it would still be cheaper than getting We Happy Few, so you can effectively have the story elements and the survival elements that We Happy Few promised, except better made, you can get more bang for your buck from TWO games and, most importantly, you're not giving Gearbox and Compulsion any money.
Consider it, I think it's a win-win situation.
Post edited August 10, 2018 by groze
