LOGistICAL 2

Follows on from the wonderful, addictive LOGistiCAL with various enhancements.

Supposedly, one of the factors for getting a game out of profile features limited purgatory is positive reviews, so I'll get over my laziness and help the cause here. As far as the game itself, I like the Logistical 1 model a bit better. But this has a few free modules (note the current achievements (limited to 100 due to the restriction) are in the paid module), and you probably already know if you like the series or not, so act accordingly. I do, so here you go.

LOGistICAL. I started playing it 2-3 years ago, and it's been a great journey. Seeing the game evolve through improvements, new features and expansion, and to be a part of it all, has been truly special. Thank you Sacada :)

Perhaps one would think that #2 in a series would be bigger, better or a mixture of both... in this particular case, it seems the developers decided to cut out insight, foresight and thoughtful game design & planning. - any settings changed during one game map, isn't carried over to any other game maps... in fact, you can't actually access any options regarding screen resolution, color etc until you actually load a map into play! - screen gumps tend to be so large (and unscaleable, or properly closed) that they tend to cover 1/2 if not more of the viewable game area just to display how important said screen is... and this often right when you're in the middle of planning trucks for the next contract location! - trucks get stuck... often... if the industry location doesn't have enough that your truck is sitting there empty, no matter how many times you press the 'stop/start' or 'drop cargo', you'll get the same 'truck is busy and can not be moved' hint... which then tends to cause the game to hang for the player... though this isn't in that the game itself freezes, rather the player is prevented from doing anything regarding said truck... looking at these issues and realising that this is game #2 in the series, one is afraid to ask how many of the current bugs, glitches and obvious insufficient coding is present in game #1, given that often #2 is supposed to be better/had work on bugs present in the first etc... for now, i can't recommend this to anyone unless you are a serious masochist... but given the apparent popularity of this game... well you be the judge!

This review was done against the "Washington" module. I had a whole long review here before Steam ate it so here's the short version since I don't want to rewrite the whole thing (seriously Steam?). Runs awful, is missing tons of quality of life features, freezes all the time, excessively complex in a way that's not terribly interesting or puzzling, extremely ugly, and overall a step down from the first game. Specific pain points are locking basic materials in annoying and hard to reach places (imo this should be reserved for more advanced industries, so there's a progression from basic -> advanced cargo), too much topographical detail (zoom in to upgrade the three pixel section of road you couldn't see!), and a lack of basic automation features besides "repeat task". Overall, there is a lack of design clarity which severely hurts this game. I'm going to keep playing. But the developer of this series needs to take a step back and do some serious QOL work on these titles. I've been playing them for years and they always have the same frustrating UX issues.

⠀

I have a rule not to review games before Ive put in a "reasonable" amount of hours, but Ill make an exception here. The UI is literally the worst Ive seen in decades of playing similar games. It is unintuitive and just makes the whole experience painful. Hard pass.

Edit - 200515 - After spending 3 days with this product I would like to change my view of the UI. It is tremendously good! I went from horrible to great. How? It never was horrible, it was unintuitive and took some time to learn. It is unlike any other UI that I have ever used so was frustrating at first. After learning more, I rate it top notch! There is a wealth of data available at the click of the mouse. No wandering through menus, data screens, etc, etc. This is a superb game for folks that like micromanaging stuff to the hilt. It is great for me, however... The UI is horrible. The documentation is even horribler than that. Content is wonderful. Guy that makes it is great and responsive to feedback. If you can withstand the steep learning curve of the UI with very little help, it will become apparent that it works perfectly for what it needs to be, but it's gonna take some effort to figure it all out. 8 out of 10. Wonderful game. Poor interface, Horrible documentation, and even knowing what's a module of the game, what's a stand-alone-etc, etc., will remain a cloudy mystery for some time.

I am really enjoying this game. Much of the time played is AFK, as I sometimes have to step away while routes run. Then I get sidetracked and watch a movie, and forget I left the game running. I played some of the original, but the IRL map data makes it different to where I won't go back, but rather wait for the old content to be retrofit to the new format. A couple tips. 1. Beware the 1-way streets to getting trucks trapped. Sometimes you have to either sell the truck or use a smaller truck to fix the road. 2. Back to point 1, sometimes a partially loaded truck will get stuck behind a restricted route. If you instruct the truck to dump it's entire load, it can deadhead on the lighter roads. If the truck is stuck with a partial load, you can cancel the load for a smaller penalty than selling and rebuying. A couple of wishes. 1. some way to click-lock a selection, so I don't have to keep the key pressed while dragging the truck to the destination. Either click lock and drag, or click-select, right click to deploy. 2. I wish there were a clear or clearer indicator to show when a town has been partially completed. That is, if a town needs water, newspapers and motorcycles, and I have a truck full of newspapers, but a town already has motorcycles, then that town should show, I dunno, purple, white, some color other than orange or green. Green will show if the town already has what you are carrying. But nothing will show which towns are partially completed. Make sense? To put it plain, if a town requires X, Y and Z, but is already filled with X, and if my truck has Y or Z, it should have some way to distinguish such a town. But, so far, definitely eating up my time. OH Please fix the music.