Review for Frost Punk. PC game, the video game came out on 24/04/2018
Living in Victorian England, being part of the working class, didn't have to be easy at all. Poverty, deprivation and deaths at work were unfortunately on the agenda.
Imagine then, how things could have degenerated if, in addition to the already not very happy conditions of life, we added the arrival of a new and relentless Ice Age! Ladies and Gentlemen, the opening words for Frost Punk it served!
Frostpunk, management title with a robust survival component, made by the guys from 11 bit studios (This War of Mine tell you anything?) already out for PC su Steam in 2018, finally lands in console version, for PlayStation 4 e Xbox One. The sad plot that characterizes the game remains substantially unchanged compared to the computer version, both as regards the development and for the various management choices (including the consequent moral repercussions) that we will be called upon to take, so we do not dwell more than so much in this regard by referring you to our review of the time.
Instead, let's talk about how Frostpunk has been optimized on consoles, especially as regards the controls topic, which has always been a real thorn in the side of this genre of games faced with a joypad instead of the more canonical mouse and keyboard.
Fortunately, the Frostpunk conversion we tested boasts a more than effective adaptation to the pads, both for what concerns the basic commands and the orientation of the camera, both for what concerns the more complex orders and the management of the menus and, finally, also for what concerns the various contour features such as, for example, the paused and the alteration of the passage of time. All you have to do, after a minimum of practice, you will succeed in a simple and natural way, without being forced to "knot" around the controller to execute a simple order. In the same way, even the management of the various buildings and the always too scarce resources will not (or almost) regret the keyboard and mouse.
A notable improvement, compared to the first version for PC, is that the texts of the game have been entirely localized in Spanish, both the dialogues and the narration, and the game communications, the options and the various menus and submenus. An addition perhaps not strictly necessary to the economy of the game itself, but that will certainly be more than welcome by many users, thus able to fully enjoy this sad, yet engaging, setting.
One of the greatest strengths of Frostpunk lies in fact, even in this version, in the sense of identification and "attachment" to the virtual characters that populate this small and inhospitable frozen virtual world.
Trust me, you'll be really upset when, for your own short-sightedness, many of your surviving Londoners die of pneumonia, or worse. Or when the morale of the younger segment of the population will almost entirely lose the hope of a better life because, I play it, it had to be employed in dehumanizing and dangerous productive activities. All this, thanks to the short but touching lines of text and descriptions of each individual in the game.
Unfortunately, however, this version of Frostpunk suffers from some defects, fortunately rather marginal, which, however, go to soil a title otherwise much above average.
Like the previous version, the console version also suffers from a certain rigidity of gameplay. There is certainly not only one way of dealing with the various situations, but the range of possible solutions could have been much wider. Sure, you have to make do with what you have, and this can do credit to the setting, but a little more flexibility wouldn't have hurt at all. In addition to this, we must say that the longevity of the main campaign is not very high, but fortunately a good replayability (mainly linked to our "moral choices") partially buffers this negative point.
In conclusion, the console version of Frostpunk turns out to be a very faithful port of the original, with an excellent implementation of the joypad controls. Unfortunately, even in this case there are practically the same small defects that we have described, a sign that perhaps more could have been done to add something that would embellish this version a little.
► Frostpunk is a Simulation-Survival game developed and published by 11 bit studios for PC, the video game was released on 24/04/2018
