Recent reviews by [95th] Commander Rod

VS-Day is here, Helldivers!
Victory over Sony has been achieved!
Now let's save the Galaxy!

ALL HELLDIVERS, MOBILIZE!
COME ON YOU APES, YOU WANNA LIVE FOREVER?!

Growing up in the 90s and the early 2000s, zombies were everywhere. After reading and re-reading Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide, I was finally able to play this game, and was surprised with how much in common the book and the game had. Zomboid is something to each player-- for me, it's a slow-burn, psychological fight for survival, were every choice has dire consequences-- for others it may be a cocaine-addled, rock-and-roll thrill-ride where you get in a car, blast music out of it, load up a sawed-off shotgun, and die in a blaze of fire and glory. It is what you make of it, and the modding community is there to help you live your own fantasy-- or nightmare. 10/10, cannot recommend enough.

Re-ignited my love for medieval history, taught me a ton about the smaller players of medieval Europe, Africa, and Asia, and allowed me to go fix Westeros thanks to its modding community. 10/10
Could do with more mods that allow me to set-up medieval communism.

What can be possibly said about Baldur's Gate 3 that others have not said before? Perhaps all I can add is that I played one of the previous entries in the saga-- a real-time combat game --and could not for the life of me get into it. I started playing AD&D when I was 7, back in 2002, and after over 20 years playing and DMing my own campaigns, I can say for certain that BG3 is a labor of love, passion, and absolute certainty. It is confident in its stride, and humble in its flaws-- Larian Studios made a masterpiece, and those who doubted them have been proven wrong. If you have yet to play this, I cannot recommend it enough-- it is a masterpiece from every angle and direction. Do make sure to check out the modding scene for it if you haven't-- great things are coming!

Edit: LOL LMAO EVEN. This game has completely turned itself around. All of the issues have been fixed. Literally all of them. The game is fun, microtransactions for cosmetics only, a ton of weapons, all classes are balanced, the crafting system works like a charm, ton of QoL changes, allowing non game breaking mods, it's all fantastic so far.

Absolute 10/10

Darktide has a lot of promise, but some of its flaws are... glaring.
Here's my current review after the Closed Beta, the Pre-Order Beta, and playing Day One.
It is currently NEGATIVE, because even if I enjoy the game very much, I cannot recommend it without the assurance that the following issues will be resolved in a positive manner.

Extremely small selection of weapons per class, and of those weapons very few (maybe 2-3) are viable.
40K is a setting where **everything** is directed towards war. Many of the weapons hit like confetti, and in a game where you're supposed to rip and tear through crowds, that's a HORRIBLE thing. The melee feels fantastic at times, but again, only with specific weapons.
The missions' XP gains are linked directly to their preset difficulty, with the added bonus XP of side-assignments that are either present or not. In a game that encourages you to, again, rip and tear through crowds, you gain no extra XP from doing exactly that.

A failed mission awards you **maybe** 1/100th of the XP you would have gained on a success, no matter how far you got into the mission or how many enemies you've killed. Missions can run anywhere from 10 to 35 minutes in length, and failing is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ infuriating.
In fact, there is no extra XP gain from killing literal SEAS of enemies or even Elite enemies or Bosses. These special enemies are LITERALLY the only thing that can kill a mission run, as the crowds are easy to clear through, and you gain nothing from killing them.
In a game whose developers promised a focus on non-premium currency gameplay, it's very worrying that the in-game currency shops are extremely bare-bones while the premium shops are filled to the brim with costly content literally on Day One.
The crafting system is nowhere to be found, and the current upgrade system features EXTREMELY steep in-game material prices-- materials, mind you, that appear RNG in the game's procedurally-generated levels.
Combine all of these problems with an extremely satisfying core gameplay loop (when you exclude anything outside of missions), and you have a recipe for extreme player turnover in the following weeks, as non-hardcore players will leave in droves due to unbalanced weapons.
In summation, Darktide is a promise. Everything has been made with extreme care for the source material-- it shows in its presentation, soundtrack, graphics, and combat --but it feels very lacking from a QoL perspective, and it fails to respect the player's time at all.

For now, the game is a 7/10 for me.
Needs plenty of improvement on the aforementioned issues. Hopefully Fatshark will listen to its community and make the necessary changes, while relegating the "premium users" to what was promised: cosmetics only.

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hon

EDIT: Clapfoot has banned me from the Foxhole Official Discord for this review. Look closely at what type of thing Clapfoot is enforcing.

EDIT 2: I have been unbanned from the Foxhole Official Discord. The rest of this review remains accurate-- though disappointing, it is not surprising.

EDIT 3: And once again, disappointingly but unsurprisingly, I have been banned from the Foxhole Official Discord. Don't buy this game. The developers support a community of toxicity, filled with unprofessionalism and arbitrary decisions that do not care about the players.

Foxhole as a game has changed a lot since I started playing it in 2018. From an insanely fun experience to a muddled-mess that is difficult to trudge through, Foxhole has become nothing short of a boys' club, meant to serve those who befriend and obey Clapfoot's Community Manager, KFC.
Lying, covering up for a friend who abused their position as a mod, lack of transparent moderation policies, at-will mutes and bans on the Foxhole Official Discord, complete disregard for the complaints of hundreds of players, all of which fall upon the shoulders of the Clapfoot Community Manager.
The Development team is BY FAR the best Dev Team I've ever seen; extremely transparent, receptive to feedback, and downright fanatical to making Foxhole the best game it can be, their only weak link is obviously the aforementioned Community Manager, whose nonsensical decisions are jarring to the more veteran community, and do not line up with the ideals and principles of the Development Team.
It pains me to write this review, due to my love for the game and my respect for the Dev Team, and it IS a pity that an incredible experience such as Foxhole is absolutely ruined by a Mod Team that is led by a dishonest, loyalist, unprofessional Community Manager that mutes and bans all those who disagree with his practically non-existent moderation policies.
Until such a situation is fixed, I'm afraid (and very sad) that my review for Foxhole will have to be extremely negative. The state of the game is such that if you don't fall into what the Community Manager thinks is beneficial to his own vision, you will suffer throughout a game that, for all intents and purposes, is my current favorite game. I had to resort to a negative Steam review in order to get my voice heard. It's a shame, and it hurts my heart to think it can affect the Development Team in a negative fashion, but I want no other players going through the same thing I'm going through.

Do not buy this game. Do not fund the continued embarrassment of Clapfoot.
Knowing how things are with the Moderation Team, this will earn me a mute and a ban from their official Discord, despite producing over ten high-quality radio plays in the Foxhole world, and spending over 600 hours doing my best to spread the word about this game; and doing so with a level of professionalism nobody had done before.

Clapfoot, I am extremely disappointed you would let it get this far.

Commander Rod

An amazing Star Wars story, worthy of being in the same plateau as the KOTOR and Jedi Knight series.
Looking forward to what comes next after the end of this chapter in Cal Kestis' journey.
Had me smiling like an idiot throughout the whole thing, with an interesting difficulty curve that never truly felt unfair while still keeping me on the edge of my seat.

EDIT: After a developer response, I checked the game's status, and they absolutely delivered!!
Amazing work!

I originally loved this game, but then the updates stopped. No new content whatsoever since the beginning of this year.
Which would be fine if this was a complete game, which it isn't.