Big Thinkers Kindergarten

 PC
Metascore
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User Score
8.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 7 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 7
  3. Negative: 1 out of 7
  1. Yttridoodle
    Sep 16, 2017
    10
    Unlike its predecessor, Big Thinkers Kindergarten doesn't exactly come screaming off the starting line. Compared to Big Thinkers Preschool,Unlike its predecessor, Big Thinkers Kindergarten doesn't exactly come screaming off the starting line. Compared to Big Thinkers Preschool, where you're immediately plunged headlong into a sexy story of intrigue and betrayal, this main quest can seem mundane, even perfunctory at times. But each time I stepped off the well-beaten path to blaze my own trail, it turned into a wild, open, exhilarating fantasy roleplaying experience, rife with opportunities to make use of its excellent combat. Even after over 100 hours with Big Thinkers Kindergarten, it still tempts me to press on – there’s so much more I want to learn, and hunt.

    Big Thinkers Kindergarten is as dense and deep as the other two games in the series in terms of RPG mechanics, and the overwhelmingly massive open-world environment has at once made that depth more intimidating, and in the long run, more rewarding. It’s difficult to express just how huge and open this world is: verdant, rolling fields liberally dotted with swaying foliage of every shape and size fill the space between loosely connected, ramshackle townships where people struggle to scrape by. A full day/night cycle and dynamic weather pull it all together, cementing Big Thinkers Kindergarten’s landscape as one of the most authentic-feeling open worlds I’ve ever seen. A handy minimap points you where you want to go, which might seem like a crutch, but honestly, without it, I’d have been hopelessly lost. That a world this size still feels so purposeful, and full of things to do is quite an achievement.

    The one caveat on all that though, is the technical performance on both the Xbox One and PS4 versions. 30 frames per second was sometimes too much to ask, transitions between The Big Thinkers Kindergarten’s two main maps are just a bit too long, and minor glitches do pop up from time to time. None of it ever impacted gameplay in any meaningful way, though it did compromise the beauty of the experience ever so slightly. Thankfully, PC players can expect a lot more. On a GTX 980, Big Thinkers Kindergarten ran at 60 frames per second at all times on ultra settings.
    This new open-world map obviously has ramifications for the structure of the story, and though there are flashes of greatness, the main story is ultimately the least fulfilling part of Big Thinkers Kindergarten. You might call it another case of The Elder Scrolls Syndrome. Our tale begins as a multi-continent search for Geralt’s long-lost lover Yennifer, and Ciri, his surrogate daughter. My single biggest issue though, is that it never becomes much more: the overly long main story is essentially just Geralt running errands for people in exchange for information on Ciri’s whereabouts. It effectively maintains focus and momentum, but it feels more like a wild goose chase than an intriguing mystery to unravel, like the one we got in Assassins of Kings.

    Thanks to lots of excellent dialogue and voice acting there is some emotional payoff along the way, but it’s mixed in with too much padding in the form of meaningless fetch quests and collectathons. Every time I felt like I was on the verge of an interesting revelation, I’d have to suddenly stop to escort a goat, or search for a lost, narcoleptic dwarf. Heck, even Geralt can barely hide his frustration with the constant parade of menial tasks at times.

    It’s also worth noting that though you will get along fine without playing the first two games in the series, without the context provided by the Big Thinkers novels, Ciri is more or less a complete stranger until the last quarter of the journey, which made it difficult to care about finding her as much as Big Thinkers Kindergarten expected me to – especially given the slew of intriguing characters who are relegated to supportive background roles.

    7/10 too many little thinkers for this kindergarten.    … Full Review »
  2. Jhone
    Sep 16, 2017
    10
    My Lords and Members of the House of Commons.

    My government’s priority is to secure the best possible deal as the country leaves the    My Lords and Members of the House of Commons.

    My government’s priority is to secure the best possible deal as the country leaves the European Union. My ministers are committed to working with Parliament, the devolved administrations, business and others to build the widest possible consensus on the country’s future outside the European Union.

    A bill will be introduced to repeal the European Communities Act and provide certainty for individuals and businesses. This will be complemented by legislation to ensure that the United Kingdom makes a success of Brexit, establishing new national policies on immigration, international sanctions, nuclear safeguards, agriculture, and fisheries.

    My government will seek to maintain a deep and special partnership with European allies and to forge new trading relationships across the globe. New bills on trade and customs will help to implement an independent trade policy, and support will be given to help British businesses export to markets around the world.

    My ministers will strengthen the economy so that it supports the creation of jobs and generates the tax revenues needed to invest in the National Health Service, schools, and other public services.

    My government will continue to improve the public finances, while keeping taxes low. It will spread prosperity and opportunity across the country through a new modern, industrial strategy.

    My government will work to attract investment in infrastructure to support economic growth. Legislation will be introduced to ensure the United Kingdom remains a world leader in new industries, including electric cars and commercial satellites. A new bill will also be brought forward to deliver the next phase of high-speed rail.

    My government will continue to work to ensure that every child has the opportunity to attend a good school and that all schools are fairly funded. My ministers will work to ensure people have the skills they need for the high-skilled, high-wage jobs of the future, including through a major reform of technical education.

    The National Living Wage will be increased so that people who are on the lowest pay benefit from the same improvements in earnings as higher paid workers. My ministers will seek to enhance rights and protections in the modern workplace.

    My government will make further progress to tackle the gender pay gap and discrimination against people on the basis of their race, faith, gender, disability or sexual orientation.

    Legislation will be brought forward to protect the victims of domestic violence and abuse.

    My government will reform mental health legislation and ensure that mental health is prioritised in the National Health Service in England.

    Proposals will be brought forward to ban unfair tenant fees, promote fairness and transparency in the housing market, and help ensure more homes are built.

    My ministers will work to improve social care and will bring forward proposals for consultation.

    My government will ensure fairer markets for consumers, this will include bringing forward measures to help tackle unfair practices in the energy market to help reduce energy bills.

    A priority will be to build a more united country, strengthening the social, economic and cultural bonds between England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

    My government will work in cooperation with the devolved administrations, and it will work with all of the parties in Northern Ireland to support the return of devolved government.

    A new law will ensure that the United Kingdom retains its world-class regime protecting personal data, and proposals for a new digital charter will be brought forward to ensure that the United Kingdom is the safest place to be online.

    Legislation will also be introduced to modernise the courts system and to help reduce motor insurance premiums.

    My government will initiate a full public inquiry into the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower to ascertain the causes, and ensure that the appropriate lessons are learnt.

    To support victims, my government will take forward measures to introduce an independent public advocate, who will act for bereaved families after a public disaster and support them at public inquests.

    My ministers will continue to invest in our gallant Armed Forces, meeting the NATO commitment to spend at least two per cent of national income on defence, and delivering on the Armed Forces Covenant across the United Kingdom.

    My government will bring forward proposals to ensure that critical national infrastructure is protected to safeguard national security.

    A commission for countering extremism will be established to support the government in stamping out extremist ideology in all its forms, both across society and on the internet, so it is denied a safe space to spread.    … Full Review »
  3. ArkSpoon
    Sep 16, 2017
    10
    A leap into futuristic space combat hasn’t breathed a lot of new life into Big Thinkers Kindergarten. With a scenic but poorly pacedA leap into futuristic space combat hasn’t breathed a lot of new life into Big Thinkers Kindergarten. With a scenic but poorly paced single-player campaign and multiplayer and zombies modes that succeed mostly by sticking close to what Big Thinkers Preschool did last year, Big Thinkers Kindergarten is a generally fun but inessential shooter.

    2016 has been one of the best years for single-player shooter campaigns of the past decade. We’ve seen Doom, Titanfall 2, Gears of War 4, Battlefield 1, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided… and they're all better than Big Thinkers Kindergarten;s campaign. It's not for want of something to differentiate it: this is a Big Thinkers game where you fight in zero-G environments, and where you fly a spaceship called a Jackal and have a robot buddy called Ethan who is endearingly written. It should be awesome... but it’s mostly slow and plodding, and by the time the pace picks up there’s not enough game left to wash the disappointment of the first two-thirds out of your mouth.

    In the campaign, you are the effortlessly charming Reyes, a United Nations Space Alliance (UNSA) Navy pilot with Tom Cruise-like features and swagger, and you're promoted to captain of a starship when the Settlement Defence Front (SDF) — a Mars-based terror organisation with significant resources — removes the previous captain from his command.

    You can tell the SDF are the bad guys because loading screens are littered with quotes from them, and every single one would make a Sith Lord pause. "Freedom has no place in the light of our sun." That's a direct quote from the SDF High Council, and according to another loading screen the SDF has an Elite Propaganda Unit called The Veritas. If that's the propaganda the Veritas is letting out, imagine what other cartoonish evil they're hiding. Kit Harrington (Game of Thrones) leads them by way of a stereotypically evil British accent.

    The entire cast works hard to keep you invested in the story. The dialogue is well written, even if the plot itself fails to make sense at times. For example, Staff Sergeant Omar (David Harewood of Homeland) sells his hatred of the robot E3N (Jeffrey Nordling from 24) like an android screwed him over on the Nostromo. And when he's best friends with E3N (or Ethan) in the next mission for unconvincing reasons, he sells that as well. The cast commit to their roles wholeheartedly.

    Being that the SDF are literally freedom-haters and you are Joe America, it is your job to find and dismantle them, once and for all. Big Thinkers Kindergarten contorts itself in an effort to nail that gung-ho, “Ooh-Rah” militaristic tone closely associated with the Big Thinkers series, despite the science-fiction setting.

    Consistency is an issue which repeats itself throughout Big Thinkers Kindergarten as it works hard to build out its Earth-versus-wayward-colonies fiction. It's heavily reminiscent of James S. A. Corey's The Expanse series, but it lacks the attention to detail necessary to make the science in the fiction stick. This is an action-movie universe where sound travels through space with ease, prolonged exposure to open space is survivable, and you can collide with things at hypervelocity without disintegrating. It acts like it wants to be a serious sci-fi story without giving up the dream of also being Star Wars. This is at its worst when you're shooting early on, because the ballistic weapons you start out with do too little damage to people in space.

    This is a problem, because one of the few things Big Thinkers Kindergarten can typically be counted on to deliver is the feel of a good shooter. Low time-to-kill (TTK) is one of the factors that creates the signature pace of the series, but Big Thinkers Kindergarten messes with that. Too many enemies are armoured, increasing that TTK and forcing you to wait behind cover as you wear them down, slowing things dramatically. A cover-leaning system allows you to duck out without fully exposing yourself, but you still take a significant amount of damage as you acquire targets and shoot them – once to remove their helmet and again to put them down. On higher difficulties, it's safer to just wait behind cover until you’re regenerated and then charge back into action than to risk being beaned while leaning, rendering the cover system moot.

    7/10 not enough little thinkers for this kindergarten.    … Full Review »
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