Recent reviews by Ren

Gaijin bad.

Honestly, when this game came out, I was skeptical if I'd like it as I was not the biggest fan of the first Helldivers. After a fair amount of convincing, I tried it, and I felt like this was a breath of fresh air the gaming community has not had in a long time. Even though by all means the game is not perfect, the developers clearly care about their game and community engagement more than any studio I've seen in the last few years. The sheer level of effort and immersion they put into the game is commendable.

This had one of the worst game launches I've seen in a while. I don't even think the Battlefront 2 (2017) launch was this awful. The multiplayer doesn't work, there's tons of UI bugs and the UI itself is very clunky and lazily designed, and there's tons of performance issues. The one reason 90% of people bought this game was for the multiplayer, and given that it doesn't work, there is literally zero reason to buy this. Also, the game for whatever reason is around 70GB. Both of the classic versions of Battlefront on Steam combined don't even take up that much space.

This game really lives up to the hype. At a certain point it does feel repetitive but that just makes it easier to come back and play on a whim. This is one of the most original games I've played in a while, and it's almost always hilarious when bad things happen.

For something that came out in 2006, this is a really really good RTS. If you ever have a particular scratch for skirmishes of fleet combat in the Star Wars universe, this scratches that itch quite well.

This game is actually made up of 2 games, the original Empire at War and its later sequel, Forces of Corruption. I can't say much about the original Empire at War other than that it seems like it had some balancing and combat issues, where units would not die quick enough and there wasn't much contrast in power between vehicles and infantry. There were also power scaling issues in space combat as well. Forces of Corruption fixed all of these issues and added more maps, more characters and units, more mechanics, and an entirely new faction called the Zann Consortium, a criminal underworld faction.

The main differences between the two games thematically are that the original game is set prior and a bit during the events of A New Hope, and Forces of Corruption is set after The Empire Strikes Back. Each of these games has a story-driven campaign involving each of the major factions. The original Empire at War has two campaigns, one for the Empire and one for the Rebels, whereas Forces of Corruption only has one for the Zann Consortium. One of the drawbacks of this game is that you can't actually play all three campaigns in Forces of Corruption, only the one for the Zann Consortium. There may be a mod to do that, but I'm not quite sure.

Speaking of the Zann Consortium, during any Galactic Conquest runthrough, they are incredibly unfun and annoying to deal with. They can corrupt star systems and allow them to steal daily income or bypass territory completely with fleets, and it costs money to get rid of corruption. Lots of their units seem to be incredibly overpowered and needlessly difficult to deal with as well given the nature of the game's rock paper scissors mechanics. There's also the Rebels' plex troopers which are good at killing almost literally everything.

Overall despite the lackluster ground combat and balance issues, this is a really really fun RTS. There's all sorts of fun mechanics like building structures on ground and space stations to produce units, individual unit abilities, heroes, tech upgrades, smuggling, bounty hunting, and territorial bonuses.

If you for whatever reason don't like the way the base game is, there's a massive amount of mods online and on the Steam Workshop which modify the game in various ways. One of the most popular mods is a total conversion Clone Wars mod called Republic at War.

If you like Star Wars and you like RTS games, I highly recommend this one.

I see this game as being the Garry's Mod of tabletop games. It has insane replay value, and it's a really good place to test if you'll actually enjoy a tabletop game before you buy it in real life.

There are game packs that can be bought specifically for Tabletop Simulator, and there are other scripted and non-scripted games that can be downloaded for free off of the Steam Workshop, all the way from Monopoly and Uno to stuff like Warhammer and Battletech.

It has little to no bugs, multiplayer service is really good, and the interface is very clean and functional. Overall, it's a really good way to play a tabletop game with online friends over long distances.

Also, there's an option to literally flip the table. Nice touch.

Having been out since 2006, I can say with certainty that this game has one of the highest replay values out of any game in existence. For a Sandbox game, it functions extremely well as a framework for any number of things that you may want to do provided you have the knowledge and skill to do it.

There's tons of different options for gamemodes, such as the famous Prop Hunt, Deathrun, and Sandbox gamemodes. There's also roleplay focused gamemodes like Star Wars RP, Dark RP, and Halo RP. You can even create gamemodes of your own if you know how to code and are familiar with GMod's base functions which are on a wiki.

Even if you're not interested in making your own gamemode, there's also the option to make your own addons. The whole point of the game is that it's customizable to your heart's content. You can port models and sounds from other games as well if you learn how to. If you don't want or know how to do that, you can just get content from the Steam Workshop or add files directly to your game client.

Certain communities within different gamemodes do have a reputation for being toxic, such as Trouble in Terrorist Town and Dark RP, but there's nothing saying you have to join any of those gamemodes and communities.

Ultimately for how much this game costs, I can't overstate that it's a worthwhile buy. Highly recommend it.

TLDR:
The game itself has a lot of promise, but ultimately it falls short due to the numerous bugs, clunky controls, bad unit AI, and sub-par UI. Furthermore, the heavy focus on DLC content is another incentive not to purchase this.


This is one of those games that I really want to enjoy, but there's a plethora of things that get in the way of that, and for me that's a really upsetting situation to be in. First, I'll talk about the good things. For a WW2 RTS, it has a lot of potential. The maps are really diverse and numerous, the unit variety is perfect, the attention to detail is fantastic, the music is appropriate and fits in well, and the game is very immersive.

There are tons of mechanics I like, such as machine gun suppression, specific positions providing different kinds of cover, the ability to steal abandoned vehicles, being able to build additional resources on captured points, unit upgrades, anti-tank criticals and armor, and being able to build things like bunkers, mines, and sandbags. Conceptually, all of these mechanics add for a super cool and immersive but functional way of playing.

The resource mechanics are also really nice. There's different points that allow for different resources to be obtained as the match goes on, so if someone doesn't have a specific point that does that, they can build one on a generic point to compensate a bit. The manpower mechanic is also nice, and this places a heavy emphasis on keeping units alive so they gain veterancy. This is what makes the game more focused on having a couple handful of units rather than a massive army in something like Men of War or Supreme Commander.

Now comes the bad. Ultimately, this game starts to fail when it comes down to how it handles. The UI is not particularly good as far as UI's go for an RTS game. It's spread out all over the screen and takes up a needless amount of space, and it's a pain in the ass trying to select things at certain times. I'm sure this can be mitigated with hotkeys, but still.

Next, unit abilities. I've never seen an RTS with this level of jankness when it comes to using abilities from units. A fair amount of the time, they won't even do what you're telling them to do and will get themselves killed needlessly. It feels very clunky and imprecise trying to use certain abilities, even when using hotkeys to do it. There are also bugs with certain abilities, specifically infantry explosives that are on a fuse, where if the explosive is thrown while someone does not have it on their screen the timer will not appear making it impossible for the target player to know when it is going to go off.

The AI pathfinding in this game is also not the best. I am aware that units will attempt to take the least obstructed path to get to where they need to be, but during engagements in close quarters, they'll often get stuck on things like tanks or small obstacles even when you tell them specifically to go a certain way around it. This is especially the case with tanks, as half the time they will refuse to go on a specific path they are told to go, even if there are no obstructions.

There are also many issues in terms of combat between units as well. A T-34/85 had 3 point blank shots on the side armor of a Panzer IV, yet all 3 of them bounced off of the armor and the 4th shot after that missed. The T-34 was moving but very slow, and so was the Panzer. Infantry battles between single squads also typically take much longer than I personally think they should, taking usually around less than a minute and a half at most. There's not really any feeling of satisfaction when killing something when it takes that long and is dragged out as much as it is. It's stuff like this which stacks up as the match goes on and ultimately provides a very unenjoyable match.

Lastly, you're restricted to 2 factions out of 5 when you buy the game; the Soviets and the Wehrmacht. The United States, Oberkommando, and the British can only be obtained by purchasing a DLC for the game. Having that little diversity in factions right off the bat with 2 out of the 3 starter factions being German places a heavy reliance on the DLC content to avoid repetition. It's required to buy the DLC if you want to play something other than the Soviets or Wehrmacht. It also restricts certain maps from being played until you purchase the DLC as well. I think it was a really scummy move to restrict specific factions and maps to DLC content, because it's very difficult to play an RTS unless you know what your opponent can do, and not having access to their units to try them out for yourself makes it arbitrarily difficult to learn.

At the end of the day, it's not the worst RTS I've ever played, but I am hesitant to call it good.

TLDR: I cannot stress how ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awful this game and community is.

For an early access release, this game has a lot of potential. The art style is great and emphasis on positioning and unit composition/upgrades is a nice concept for a game like this. The music is also nice, and the models are very well designed. The game has interesting strategy mechanics like flanking, shields, deployable missiles, and temporary or permanent upgrades which can be purchased from the base structures. The tutorial doesn't mention the upgrades from the structures, so that's already something wrong with the game albeit minor.

At the start of the match, you'll be given a choice of 4 specialists, each coming with 2 unit types which are randomized, which provide short or long term bonuses in the match. Some of these specialists are terrible and are a handicap if anything, namely the Cost Control, Marksman, Rhino, and Quick Supply specialists. The 2 unit types you are given at the start of the match are not what you're limited to for the rest of the match, as you can purchase 1 additional unit type at the start of every round.

At the start of every round, you are presented with 4 special cards in addition to being given a certain amount of supplies (currency), which the amount increases round after round. Some of the special cards cost supplies, some don't. The cards give either passive bonuses, modifications for units, or abilities to use throughout the match. Both opponents are given the same choice of cards, however they are only able to select 1 at the start of every round. I like this system, and it's something the game deserves praise for.

For the meat and potatoes, this is where the game starts to fail. For the most part, the way units are set up are okay, but the game has a severe lack of balance with some army compositions and units. Stormcallers are a long range rocket artillery unit which do insane amounts of damage and have no direct unit counter unlike most other units in the game. That being said, even in small amounts they require a massive investment to deal with which doesn't pay off most of the time. There is no drawbacks to using them in 90% of situations, so there really is no reason not to use them. They are that broken. There is also no drawbacks to mass spamming certain units, namely Sledgehammers which are heavy tanks and Phoenixes which are an air unit which do high damage to single targets. Issues with unit balance and inherent power like this are what make the game bad currently.

Most of the community in their inherent wisdom (by wisdom I'm referring to their cliche appeal to authority by citing top player strategies to determine what units are and aren't OP and then being unable to reason for themselves) refuses to acknowledge the game has flaws.

Next is the unit AI. Since you have no individual control over your units other than how you position them, it's up to the AI to decide how to engage your opponent. It does this by prioritizing the closest target to whatever unit is moving to engage. If the unit starts shooting at something even if something else moves into closer proximity, the unit will continue shooting at whatever it was shooting at initially until they kill the target. This isn't inherently a bad system, but the issue comes from when it hasn't started shooting and something does move into closer proximity. Sometimes units will ignore other units that come into closer proximity before firing commences. This is a very big flaw especially considering what the game strategy boils down to.

There are some minor polishes that need to be made with the game. Grammar issues here and there, unit selection being a bit jank where sometimes when you spawn a unit and attempt to select one of your structures it will reposition the unit instead of opening the structure menu even though you clicked directly on the structure, and the camera being moved by the mouse to observe the battlefield will sometimes get stuck or stall if you attempt to move it to the far reaches of the screen (WASD is a workaround). The blacklist system also doesn't work at all, and there is no way to blacklist users from in game or through Steam as far as I know, and the game chat has a heavy delay and new messages will most of the time not appear unless you send your message making it very annoying to read chat.

Lastly, the community of the game seems to be profoundly retarded. They are very narrow minded and don't listen to any reason or logic on how something might be unbalanced. Their entire argument is that new players aren't worth being listened to even if they can prove their point. There is no amount of proof outside of sucking off the top players or developers to convince them that something is broken.

Overall as I mentioned, the game has potential but it has some very blatant balancing issues and polishing needing to be done. I can't really recommend it until they fix these issues. They also mentioned the game going free to play at some point with microtransactions, so that in itself is a big red flag.

Valheim is extremely relaxing to play despite the numerous enemies in the game. Progression actually means something and feels rewarding, the environment is very pleasant to explore and look at. The only drawbacks I notice in the game are on the network connectivity side, boats randomly taking damage whilst in the ocean, some AI issues where certain enemies will just stand there and stare at you, and some text related issues where you're limited by number of characters you can use, such as the password for a server requiring to be a minimum of 5 characters.