30+ hours in on PS4 this is my review/opinion & bug report
Hey guys,
As the Lucky Dutch girl I got the game a month early. I’ve been playing for 2 weeks and I got to say I LOVE the game! Great work! I got a few bugs but not many and I did get the game too early so it’s logic not everything is working flawless yet I just point them out so you know there there as I'm very likely your most realistic tester for the PS4, as I actually played the game.
Story;
I liked the story it is a long stretched tutorial getting you familiar with all sorts of options building it up story after story. It’s not a boring tutorial like “click here” but a story based getting to know the game. 5 levels +/- 10 hours (if all optional objects are done) is a nice pace! I liked it!
It’s great in many aspects! But a bit of a drag if you have to wait for programs to finish but you’re done with everything else. Also the glitch/bug in G.A.B.O.S didn’t help my experience (see details on this later)
Pre-build Warden maps;
I think they could be nice, the concept is interesting but it’s “too easy” as for the Inspectorate Of Prisons trophy you need to play all the warden maps 10 in game days (which is till day 11 and slightly confusing but you realize that at number one so it’s ok) but if you put the settings on county and run it very fast for one hour you’ll be fine when you hit day 11 without interaction. You can simply leave the game and come back on hour later and passed it. I think it would have been more fun if stuff would happen regardless of the difficulty.
Architect mode;
It’s GREAT! I was very skeptical, I thought it would be boring. It’s not! Starting up your prison keeping your inmates happy and their needs low. It’s quite a challenge. Then you think you get it, you build up to 500+ inmates, and the riots start. It’s funny, great, you can play fast pace and risky or slow and secure it’s whatever you prefer. I like the fact you can choose wardens to give some extra dynamic to your play.
PS4;
All I said above it game related nothing really new. What’s new is that it’s on the PS4 not on PC where you got a mouse to help you out. I’m a simulation/strategy gamer on PS (yes they are rare but exist) In the last year I’ve played Tropico 5, Grand ages medieval, Nobuna’s ambition, Dungeon’s 2 and Battle Worlds Kronos all on PS4. This game (Prison architect) does NOT come short in regards to interface or control. I got to say the player interface is easy controllable the menus are clear and with a good overview. the user of the square, triangle, cross and circle buttons are logic and efficient. The only think I had to get used to is when you want to built and object, door or wall you don’t have to select it with the cross button, which I do all the time and results in me building or placing it in a random location on the map. That’s due to my experience with kalypso games (Dungeons, tropic & grand ages medieval) where you select before building. But I’m quite sure I’m on of the very few people encountering this as the choice to build straight away is actually more user friendly and saves you a click so in my opinion a good choice even though I can’t get rid of my habit placing stuff at random locations.
Overall;
Music is cool, tune is a bit standard but when you zoom into the map the music gets better as your inmates make sounds in line with their mood, they can be angry, use the toilet etc. It’s one of many small detail that add up to the global fun feeling of the game.
Speed within the game is good menus browse easy, even when 500+ inmates and 100+ staff you can easily browse the detail pages. Same goes for building rooms or objects it works great on the starting map. It gets a bit lagging when you have purchased multiple pieces of land and built it full to the limit, it started lagging with me when I try to build foundation under a 200+ cell block of pre-made quick build cells. Which is many a big extreme, most of the gameplay is not lagging at all.
Small buggy stuff;
When you built a foundation or a quick room it sometimes happens that your workers don’t finish it.
Sometimes they leave tiles in the foundation empty but still the foundation get’s “done” except that one tile. The problem is that you do get walls etc. but the room will indicate it’s not indoors because that one tile is not finished, getting it prioritized doesn’t work. You got to demolish the room and rebuilt it.
Same goes for objects in my 200 quick room cellblock example I had 4 cells that didn’t have a bed… they did get delivered but never got fitted. At some point I just removed the beds, which lead to that the workmen brought the delivered beds to storage. And bought new beds which again didn’t get fitted… but 196 cells went fine, so it’s very random and I don’t know how to fix it.
A more frustration glitch for me was that the Prison Hotel trophy doesn’t work. I have 600+ cells in my prison and created a riot on purpose so a lot inmates had an entitlement of 1 or 2. Leaving me with 100+ over entitled cells (so the cell was 4 and the prisoner was entitles to 0 or 1) that didn’t work. Then I bought 70 luxury cells and placed new prisoners in them (on arrival prisoners have entitlements to 0,1 or 2) and all 70 cells where over qualified for the inmates in them, still no trophy. I did get all my other trophies in that same game so it’s not the “standard difficulty” setting that’s messing it up. 7 people have played this game, no one has it, which doesn’t say much as I’m the most advanced player but still, it doesn’t seem to work. All other trophies seem fine though!
See all my trophies here; http://psnprofiles.com/trophies/4839-Prison-Architect-PlayStation4-Edition/NemoG
One last thing, in G.A.B.O.S you need to secure the 3 cellblocks from the riots, center goes fine, then you need to clear 2 and you can pick the order. BUT if you secure the west (with fire) before the south (with hostage) the game will not acknowledge you secured the south. I tried EVERYTHING to get that prison secure, all rooms where in white, guards were placed everything as fine but the game just didn’t move on. Very frustrating! I restarted the mission, did south before west and it worked fine. Another small thing in this story is when you look at the objectives list (by pressing L1) it states how many % you have calmed the cell block from the riot. It’s either 0 or complete, it doesn’t really count the % of progress.
Again I got over this by redoing the mission so no blocking issue but it was frustrating so maybe someone can fix that before big crowed get the game?
Conclusion:
Overall I LOVE the game! I got 30+ hours in and I won’t be surprised to play another 30 before the actually release date. (my brother played for one evening and loved it so much he got himself a PC copy!) . I got it pre-release so I’m not fussed over these few bugs. It’s happens it’s ok no big deal still very much enjoy the game. I just wanted to share them so you know and maybe can prevent it.
If you wish any screenshots or video clips I’m happy to share them if that helps!
Cheers and keep up the good work!
Némo
