
Empire of Sin sure promised a lot. The premise was fantastic, and the pedigree of the team behind it – led by none other than Brenda and John Romero – gave plenty of reason to be optimistic about this "gangsters meets XCOM" turn-based offering.
Sadly, as you'll know if you consulted our review, Empire of Sin didn't quite live up to its tantalising potential. Some of this is down to basic game design – its management and combat systems don't work as well as they should – but it's also riddled with technical issues which drag the experience down even further.
We said in our review that we hoped future updates can solve some of these problems, and one such update – the seductively-named 1.02.38645M – certainly appears to be having a good bash at it.
Here are the patch notes, which should be digested with a hot beverage whilst sitting in a comfortable chair:
UI
– Fixed issues around UI notifications overlapping other game UI
– Fixed icon issues
– General UI polish
– Radial menu unclickable icon fixed
– Implemented additional tooltipsTutorial
– Fixed issues around skipping tutorial
– Tutorial polish
– Fixed tutorial disabled buttons that should be active
– Additional tutorial textCombat
– Fixed camera issues
– Improved combat AI
– Polished combat abilities
– Fixed issue with characters spawning off the nav mesh so not engaging
– Combat balance polish
– Throat slit execution fixed
– Fixed pooling blood issueArt
– Updated character flags
– Adjusted lighting in sitdowns
– Safehouse interior variants
– Animation polish
– Lip syncing polish
– Improved particles and lighting
– General fixes and polishMiscellaneous
– Fixed various VO bugs
– Updated localisation
– Implemented Paradox SDK for telemetry
– Fixed issue with sitdowns timing out
– Fixed issues with selling buildings
– Mission fixes
– Sound effects polish
– General audio polish
– Fixed issue with game saves delaying loading
– Softlocks fixed
– Faction AI polish
– Optimisations implemented
– Gameplay balance
– General bug fixing
[source gonintendo.com]
Comments 20
Still, unsure about buying this game.
The fact that this took up so much room during a direct for so little, im only mildly less upset by this than I am by the Bakugan game hogging up the final slot
Nice.
Still opting to buy this for christmas.
Hooray they are gonna make it playable. I hear that when you start the game it prompts you to play something else.
Are idiot publishers not testing their games anymore?
They release beta builds at full price and expect customers to tolerate their incompetence and complete lack of pride in their work. And often there is no guarantee that any particularly egregious issues will ever be fixed (cough WWE 2K18/2K19 cough).
Would it kill publishers to release games once they are actually FINISHED?!
This seemed like such a promising concept, but the laughable issues have made it an easy game to skip.
What good are deadlines if they are still working through bugs? Release dates should be considered once a game is in its marketing/localisation phase, and not merely a date by which whatever unfinished build is ready by the deadline is pressed to disc/cartridge, quality be damned.
@Silly_G
Fully agree with you.
"the seductively-named 1.02.38645M" made me actually laugh out loud.
How could John Romero release a game in this state?
Don't you hate it when you have an issue with your pools of blood.
@Elvie to make you his b*tch?
Good to hear. Still looking forward to this.
@Silly_G All good points.
I hope i can find someone that will do a patch review.
@Elvie : Especially disheartening considering his reputation as a pioneer. I don't think it was at all unreasonable to expect better from him.
@VenomousAlbino Man. Now that game was a dumpster fire.
@Silly_G Yeah, I just thought Daikatana was a fluke. I would had imagined that he try to avoid being associated with another broken game like this.
This seems like “John Romero is about to make you his bitch!” all over again... 😒
@Silly_G
Although I've still supported this game (I didn't realize Romero was the Dai Katana guy), there's an article on cracked.com about one of the other people who worked on Dai Katana under Romero. If that guy is to be believed about the group's practices, the state of this game isn't that shocking.
The review was so poor I can't imagine a solitary patch will fix how enjoyable the game is. This is one you pick up at 50% off in a year...maybe less.
Pre-ordered this game ($80 version) and Cyberpunk 2077 together for PS4 and needless to say I will never pre-order another game ever. This experience has also soured me to Sony as well as these trash developers and I don't even want a PS5 anymore. Even if I were given one for free, I would just sell it or give it away.
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