izigame.me

Expansive Worlds not only continues to shrink the scope of their maps but also their ingenuity with a subpar, out-of-place, brief, story. A lack of meaningful addons which instigate to gauge the player to want to discover and hunt the included fauna. While the environment is appealing and accompanied by the subtle music at times can be quite immersive there is too much that seemed to be left out that really hampers the experience that could have been.
Pros
+ Rural Mexican Environment
+ Subtle Music
+ Doesn't Rain Every 10 Mins
The moment I spawned into the main ranch I was like, "damn, looks like they spent a bit more time on immersion in the environment here. There's an actual building with an interior that's not a duplicated shack or lookout post. It has homely atmosphere with a soon-to-be-occupied sentiment as it appears to be 'moved into'.
Stepping outside you are accosted with a refreshing environment that is quite different from its northern predecessors. rolling Mexican hills greet you and heading westward taper off into low desert with a distant haze that helps to thrall the player into a sense of the sweltering weather. The outposts that actually appear to be lived-in, adorned with Mexican trinkets and verdant decor (The door beads are awesome!). Combined with the subtle Spanish music; plinks of a mandolin that fades in and out time to time all combine to immerse you in rural Mexico.
Cons
- Missed Opportunities
- Lackluster additions
- Pheasants Are Not Fun to Hunt
- Out of Place Story, No Side Missions... Again
First the missed opportunities. Right here on the store page they tout this being the 'Wild West' yet provide no opportunity of a horse mount is almost criminal. People have been asking for years on possible new modes of transportation and IW blew it on this aspect yet again. As others have said as well that a lot of the resources from other maps have been recycled. Even the shed in the one mission right down to the camp stove and hanging sack on the wall were ripped right out of Layton Lakes. Come on IW, how long does it take to make a custom shed, geez.
The shotgun included (Couso Model 1897) has the worst sight (if you want to call it that) out of any gun in the game that I've used. No option for tritium or anything other than the Meridian if you are dedicated enough to have it unlocked with the 5406 shotgun score required to unlock it. Sure, I get its an old shotgun but c'mon.
The pheasant being the only animal type not found on other maps are just not fun to hunt single player. You have to be almost right on top of them to get them to take off and flee (shooting them on the ground will not pass the check). They will detect you from too far out and 'run' away leaving the only viable method is to run at them full tilt when detecting a call hope you see it before it runs off and start whistling while practically right on top of it to get it to take off. Then, they sometimes glitchily lag while flying making a precise shot wasted. They are not fun, at least for me, whatsoever to hunt. No caller provided, like they have in The Hunter:Classic either. Another missed opportunity would of been to have added a new canine (what many others have been asking for again) that can flush out pheasants from brush like people hunt them IRL.
What is with these stories recently as well? Sure, it gives use something to do I guess but I'm playing a hunting game to uh, hunt. They just seem to be getting way out there in terms of story line. Once again there are no side quests in the DLC. Having side quests will only add to keeping people engaged. If people don't want to do them that's fine, there are many of us that do appreciate the added means to earn xp and money as well as some alternative objectives. you can't possible tell me they are too time consuming to make. All they have really been are; 'go here at this time and shoot that' or 'hunt this many of these from this far away'. There are no people that you have to physically render in the game, hell my guy doesn't even have legs... It's just laziness.
Which leads me to my final criticism. Immersive Worlds seems to care a whole lot more about churning out half-baked maps for more income that inevitably break the game with every release. At the current time of writing this review the Mississippi map has released and completely broken fowl hunting (geese and ducks). That was three weeks ago with no patch in sight. IW needs to start supporting its fan base and listen to what people want. Bugs patched! New modes of transportation added (boats!), new means of hunting (ie. new canines for flushing out wildlife, etc.), new settings (rain slider, caller sound slider), and bring back side missions! An algorithm that produces random missions would be so cool to see for each map.
Unfortunately until I see an effort being made by IW to heed changes toward criticism from their player base I will not be buying any more future content. The only reason I bough this map was because it was almost half off. If Immersive Worlds continues with this pattern they may as well change their name to Generic Worlds.