Wildland Reviews

Cool game, would recommend if you're bored and looking for something low-key to play. Check out this gameplay vid: https://youtu.be/b20iA7BSDBw

'kay... + idea is fresh and interesting, mix of stalker-like game and spintires-ish thing sounds nice +- it does have inventory system, but i'd like to see it as icons, not text, same goes for trade system +- quests are kind of meh +- controls are too fenneky, more on the physics fault. -sounds. All of them are too high-pitched, to the point when it starts to hurt your ears. Try to add different engine sounds for different rev zones instead of pitching idle sound -stumps: they're nice addition, but you can't see them in the grass and they're placed in non-logical places (like in the middle of goddamn nowhere or a field) Overall:6/10, it has a long way to go.

Eh. The game isn't much fun in it's current state. I doubt the state will ever change though, given that It's not marked as early access, and since devs are Russian (I know just how we work, in general, i barely have any hopes). So, the goods. - Vehicles, they're legendary indeed, and LUAZ i've never driven before in any other game, they're all glorious. - Looting is most satisfying! You drive to some pilles of barrels or boxes or stops close by a cargo container and you just syphon stuff out. Yay! - Brutality, the game is unforgiven. Wrong turn or failed risky maneuver and you're probably in deep "it" in the middle of nowhere. Job is failed, car is totalled. It's more brutal than MudRunner in that departament. - Graphics are great, physics feels about right, controls are nice, weather is awesome, map seem to be huge and the overall visual design is wonderfull. Also music is pleasant and the game has some "spirit" overall. And then some bads... So, about that map... there's none. Everything good is beaten by the lack of map in generall. You take the job, you get the point on the compass. If it's relatively close, you're good. If it's on the other end of the county, you're screwed, chances you get there in time are comparable to zero. The dev guys say the design was intentional and is done to enforce the feeling of "an unfamilar place and of old games of the childhood where surroundings are just mezmerized and remembered by landmarks", and it may be true, but given the nature of the camera and that you can't see past fifty meters around you, it's more of a torture than a gimmick to invoke nostalgia. Just give us the map, we are'nt kinds no more, and we can't remember game maps, and you have no real excuses to not to. Then comes the UI. Dialogues are bearable, you can't just panic out of it by hitting [Esc], and have to take the last option which is "Good bye". But then i believe there're some (un?)written laws of UI, one of which says "Press [ I ] to open inventory, press [ I ]" to close it again", right? Nah. Open intentory and then press [0] to close it. Because [0] is bound to the last dialogue option, and inventory is a dialogue window. So to summarize. Driving and getting from point A to poing B is one half of the game, the other half would be dialogues with trading, accepting and finishind the jobs, feeding our driver guy and maintaining our car thing. First half is spoiled by lack of map, the second half is spoiled by cluncky controls. In total we're having precisely one half of a game. A rough diamond yet to be cut into gem. I got the game on recent sale, with a huge discount, for about a dollar or even less. I feel robbed by half a dollar, but i have my hopes, so no refund on this one.

I have to say, this is one of the worst games I have ever played in terms of controls and in-game physics. I have had to restart this game multiple times after getting my vehicle stuck at the very beginning either from clipping into the environment or just not traction or power to get out of a small rut. The slightest incline, you're vehicle isn't getting up without mashing the Q button repeatedly. It's so frustrating that I just turn off the game. There's no in-game map which is fine, but the devs need to at least fix the programming for in-game pathing during missions so you don't just randomly end up at the bottom of the large mountain or hill with no way of figuring out how to get up it. I consider this the Dark Souls of Survivor/Race Against the Clock Indie Games. Unfortunately it's not in a good enjoyable way, but an extremely frustrating one. I'm going to give this game a few more shots and will revise my review after 3 hours of game play. With a final rating.

Don't you just hate it when a title has all the ingredients of a good game, but upon playing it you discover they forgot the good game part? That's about what Wildland turned out to be, it's decent looking and has a cool premise but holy yikes is it lousy. The main problem with Wildland is the in-game clock, which runs far too fast for you to make more than a handful of deliveries before running out of both food and water...and sometimes even fuel as the sliders for all of them tick down noticeably all the time. Yes, some of the destinations you can trade at don't have essentials in stock, meaning you're heading out with another load while hoping the next place has supplies for you. A few of the offered deliveries pay in essentials but most do not, meaning you can rake in cash from reselling those rewards but still be living on the edge. This is loaded with recreations of several Soviet vehicles, which is pretty neat and honestly why I bought this - you can even repaint them eventually. The world is hilly, mostly forested, and has a functional day/night cycle complete with wickedly thick fog. There are dirt roads furnished with the odd AI vehicle trundling by, too. But vehicle handling is pretty iffy and seems to be tied into the FPS, meaning the lag I often experienced caused me to spin out and damage my truck frequently. I get the feeling Wildland started out as a proper game but soon morphed into a cash grab as this developer subsequently released and abandoned another title. This might be worth a peek if obtained as a bundle extra but otherwise I'd skip it. For the Soviet vehicle aficionados out there, Spintires or Mudrunner is far superior to this.

Love the concept, it has a lot of potential, but it's not very enjoyable to play. You drive around in a fog, crashing into trees, and getting stuck on hills, as you vaguely follow a directional compass marker telling you where to go. All of the quests are simplistic, procedurally generated "Deliver X to Y" tasks, and that just goes on forever with no real depth or development. You're not really surviving against anything, and there is nothing to keep the player motivated to continue playing. I do not think this is worth $7.