Recent reviews by ViaVirtus

Like all Bethesda games, 76 started off rocky and grew better and better over time. Even in the earliest iterations, though, the game showcased the environmental storytelling that the studio is known for.

ARK itself is probably one of the most fun viral games I've ever witnessed. At one point my friends and I ran a 3-server cluster (Survival Evolved, Sorched Earth, and our Modded RP server.)

The Official Servers are a mixed bag, but my friends and I have found a few that had pretty cool communities. Game is fun, mechanics aren't bad, but ARK (and most persistent survival games) are NOT casual friendly, which as a casual player can be disheartening.

For the sake of disclosure I was a pre-Steam early adopter at the $120 level and ran a fan podcast about the game for 1.5-2 years. The following review is updated from my previous review, but I still recommend this game.


Good - With Eternal Crusade you have a solid multiplayer title that is actively trying to be better than JUST a shooter, and more than yet another entry into the 40k "bolter porn" catalog. You have a title that takes the good elements of Dawn of War and Space Marine and combine it with the same overall concept that governed the old GW global map campaigns. In light of the stuff you'll read below, the community has stepped up and taken the reigns of this games destiny, which is no small thing.

Bad - Eternal Crusade has some problems. Animation glitches, the trademark Games Workshop favoritism towards Loyalist Space Marines, and a game that used to market itself with asymmetric faction design but no longer seems to mention it despite it still being a cornerstone of the game. More obviously, the players left standing in EC are a small community but with a VAST amount of play time logged, making entry into even normal matches a daunting process for your average player.

Ugly - The worst part of Eternal Crusade isn't the game itself. Lack of support from Behaviour corporate in favor of other, more popular/profitable titles, their habit of pulling developers away to said projects, and the sheer salt/rage of the community at how corporate is treating this game is a palpable thing to overcome.


Its a good game, at a great price, and a worthwhile addition to the pantheon of 40k games in existance.

So a friend bought me this game. SWEET CHRIST is it hard! I've already lost more than a dozen survivors to Oxygen deprivation while FAILING to connect a drifting airlock module. Only by looking on forums did I find out I had an Alpha bug I had to deal with and that there's an actual EVA suit once I can gain entry into the Airlock module.

The game is beautiful, even on lower settings, the physics is... Newtonian (fully; you've been warned,) and I can see a TON of promise for this game. I wish it were less unforgiving early on, but your first quest isn't punching trees: its hopping out in EVA to a local derelict spaceship to see which parts in its hold you can bring back to your module to maintain your failing O2 scrubbers. That or if your spawn is lucky you've got an airlock module that USUALLY has an actual EVA suit which is a massive upgrade over your starter Pressure Suit.

For $25 on Steam, its a cool game I really hope does very well, but its not ready for a full recommendation from me YET. It really feels like early ARK, which is a compliment, but its too brutal to recommend for people to just try out. In fact I probably wouldn't invite people until I docked an airlock module and a habitation/life support module onto my base so I can bring people in together.

In ARK you at least are making slow progress even if you die a few times at first. In Hellion you can't craft new suits you lose and you're running out of Oxygen survivor after survivor... You have to be stubborn not to get demoralized at the moment.

Star Trek Online is a net-positive for me, despite not always agreeing with the direction of the game I enjoy it virtually every time I play and come back for long swaths after every major storyline update. The fact that with every passing expansion they get cameos from Trek alumni and even go so far as to get said alumni to record updated sections of the game (ie Worf used to be voiced by a different actor until they got Michael Dorn to come in.)

Even if you don't get the premium membership, STO is the most open and accepting to Free-Players of any F2P title I've owned, and via dilithium mining and other events you can easily exchange for the Zen needed to buy anything that cash would earn you.

Ground combat is fun and thanks to the away team system you're never alone on planet. Space combat is fun with many different styles of play available to cater to most play styles. The Bridge officer system allows you to build a team capable of either responding to any type of threat or existing in pure support of your directives as Captain, as you choose. Finally, the Duty Officer and Fleet systems allow you to progress even when offline so die-hard or casual, you're never in a place where you feel like you're falling behind.