Trailmakers Review (SHAZBOT)
The bad:
The physics simulation screws up occasionally, but hardly noticeable unless you're really trying to break the game.
There are some basic tips for how to build certain types of vehicles, but unless you're a mechanical engineer you're basically stuck googling or watching youtube videos to figure out why your helicopter's nose keeps wobbling left to right, or why your car spins out after going >200mph. This can be a pro or con depending on your personality, but I feel like the game could do better job educating.
The combat isn't challenging at all, repair mechanics trivialize a lot of things unless you self-discipline (If I wanted to do that I wouldn't be playing video games haha). The boss mechanics are basically identical but with a different arena.
In the new update, they tried to slow power core progression by locking it behind a reputation system for different towns. In theory, I like this because more gameplay. In practice, they make you repeat the same boring pickup quest multiple times, and you remember repeatable quests weren't even a good thing in MMOs. While much of the bliss of the original game remains, you trade a lot of the "build to solve this problem" challenges for "build a general vehicle that kills stuff and hotkey to another that gathers stuff". I think I made like 2 cars and 1 boat for most of the game. It would have been way better even if all they did was double the number of passengers required every time you did the repeatable quest.
Resource farming: I suppose the design principle here is if you gate progression behind gathering, some people won't do it and it will limit their builds, inducing creativity. (Any artist will tell you constraints make it easier to be creative). In practice, if I need more engine seeds to build my car, I'm just going to get the engine seeds, no matter how many times I have to circle this stupid desert and beach. And somehow we've turned a physics puzzle solving game into a grindy gather and repeat quests game???
There are enemies that go underwater and they are annoying because most? weapons dont shoot underwater and diving is locked behind campaign completion.
All the game modes are too short.
Well that's a lot of cons, why do I recommend the game?
Even with all the drawbacks of the 2.0 campaign, it was still a blast to play because lego vehicle building simulator is a great game premise.
The builder is really intuitive, you can copy paste, there are blueprints,
The original campaign is still my favorite. Solve building challenges to unlock new stuff to do harder challenges. Love it.
If you just want to freely create cool vehicles there is a mode for that too.
When you finally make a giant airplane capable of carrying 10 passengers and it still flies straight you feel like a fucking god.
The physics simulation is usually really good. You will notice when you add a bunch of weight to one part of your vehicle.
Multiplayer works and doesn't suck.
It is fun to get better at driving/flying the vehicles you create. I have a whole new level of respect for bomber airplane pilots or whoever is calculating how and when to drop the bombs. Also whoever designed helicopters in real life what a chad.