Recent reviews by Bovril Brigadier

Finally, a good RoboCop sequel!

You can tell this is a British game when the first level is a pub and you need to know how to play darts in order to 100% the game.

HDoom feels more tactical

Kind of wish Steam would allow a "Meh" recommendation when it ain't quite yes and ain't quite no cause there is a lot to love but also hate. What sets this over the edge to "No" really is that it feels a bit overpriced even discounted at the moment.

If I were to sum up the main issue with this game is that this feels like it was created by people who watched nothing but competitive AOEII gameplay and as a result completely failed to understand AOE as a whole. Every screen and part of the menu seems catered to trying to throw competitive online modes in your face and its really annoying. It feels you have to do a fair bit of digging to find out where to get custom fun gamemodes and maps which realistically the vast majority of online players actually play, and even more digging trying to find out where to get the modtools to make content yourself. Seriously, RTS developers keep falling into this pitfall trap of catering to what is frankly maybe 1% of the RTS audience. Stop trying to force competitive down our throats, if your game is good enough a competitive scene will appear naturally, trying to force it just alienates a large proportion of your real audience.

Now the side issues are a weird mix of having the good mixed in with the bad:
This does a good job of trying to be a history channel documentary before it became whatever it is today, certainly not history. Nice to show the places where the battles took place with decent footage to visualise what was happening.
Problem is that because it's trying to tell a story the missions have way too much handholding. You end up feeling very limited with what you can do to achieve victory. It also feels that a few achievements/objectives are bugged as you can complete them but it won't show as being done.

This game has way less micro than AOEII and honestly that is for the better. It's all about using terrain and positioning to your advantage in AOEIV, and I wished the game made that a lot more prevalent. Its nice also units were automatically cluster into formations as well.
Problem is that you don't have a lot of options when deciding the formation or direction of your units, at least none that are advertised. There is also a severe problem where units just frankly disobey any orders you give them and can take multiple attempts for them to follow your instructions. Pathfinding is also a weird issue is that sometimes they'll do a good job, othertimes they'll do whatever they want to do, typically follow terrible paths or get stuck.

The mode that most players will try playing and a bit of a weird one. Best described as having the design all right but the engineering all wrong. It's interesting that Scouts are basically the ones that can herd sheep now but it does turn the Dark Age into a rather hilarious game of sheep herding simulator. What ruins the mode though is the AI but not for the reasons you'd expect. It doesn't feel like it cheats which is to be commended and does a decent job of building its economy, however the main issue is that it is trying to play the game as city builder. I'm not even kidding when I say you can successfully rush and beat the hardest AI in the Dark Age for the simple reason that it refuses to build units to protect itself until the Feudal Age. Needs at least some change to the build order so it at least makes an attempt at defending itself.

This is where AOEIV gets interesting as it tries to mix parts of AOE with Stronghold. Something that AOE games were definitely lacking was the ability to build impressive fortifications so it felt like you besieging a castle/city with troops mounted on the walls. It's also interesting that buildings essentially terraform the terrain to make it feel like you are building a true settlement and makes it feel more alive. Nice enough if you are playing city builder, but makes you wonder why it isn't utilised in something like a siege gamemode?

This basically tries to be a remake of AOEII with nations while trying to make them feel more unique like AOEIII. Interesting enough attempt I guess although sometimes it feels neither here nor there, even though they try to give each nation their own gimmick. What will definitely stand out is that there is a lack of nations compared to AOEII without it feeling as unique as AOEIII roster, as a lot even with unique mechanics do end up feel like playing the same.
I am a bit confused why the Danes/Vikings are not in game as a choice or as an upcoming choice, because there are units/model assets for them that appear in the Campaign. It's like having most of the work done on a project then completely forgetting it exists.

Goose Lets Loose is let down massively by a bunch of poorly implemented ideas and decisions.
Having no real tutorial is an obvious big one since the game mechanics are not that well explained or shown to a new player.
UI is frankly horrendous and terrible to navigate.
I don't know whether it is the maps are too big or the player count is just too small, but you certainly don't get the feeling that you need to fight over an entire frontline. Only a small part of it at a time leaving the entire map to waste.
Why is there even an unlock system in this game for loadouts? It just doesn't make sense for the type of game its trying to be. All it does is to artificially lock playstyles rather than contribute anything meaningful to the game.
Movement pacing feels all off and there is not that much in terms of player feedback.

Overall this game seems like it is trying to have the strategic depth of a tactical shooter while copying gameplay mechanics of an arcade title and succeeding at doing neither.

Are you ready for pain?
Are you ready for suffering?
Then you're ready for SnowRunner early game!

The early game experience is like a lemon wrapped round a brick being slammed into your face.

For a game that is supposed to be about off road trucking you'll be doing very little off roading early on as the game simply does not give you the tools to do the job, and the tools you need are locked behind a grind wall. This in turn gives you very little you can actually do early on as you cannot complete many missions.
To give you an example:
You need mud tyres to complete a mission
To get the mud tyres you need to level up
To level up you need to complete the mission
This is basically the same story repeated constantly. While this can be mitigated by going to the Alaska region which is at least far more forgiving making you wonder why that wasn't the tutorial area, realistically all you get to do early game is run around in a scout truck since you can't do much else thanks to a needless grind wall.

There is a fun game here once you get past this early stage and level up, but honestly its so brutal to a new player I can see why a lot of people are turned off. Clearly no real thought has been put into it. The hints it provides are often useless and more feel like they are mocking the player rather than helping, such as telling you to use AWD when already using it or it is locked behind grinding.

I like this game but I cannot honestly recommend it till the devs completely rethink the introduction and grind.

So thought I'd do a full review on this based on my experiences across the development cycle of this game to this point. I'm going to be brutally honest and pull no punches here just because I want to tell it as it is. I'll try and divide it into sections with pros and cons.

Keep in mind my opinion is that with any Early Access title if you still feel undecided, wishlist it and wait till it releases.

This game is basically a spiritual successor to the early Ghost Recon games as in Ghost Recon 1. Anyone going in expecting something similar to SWAT is in for disappointment, and besides, there are other games that do that. Maps are a mixed bag of open and close quarters. Basically its all about patience and planning along with communication. Its primary focus is small player co-op which is honestly a huge breath of fresh air in the tactical shooter genre. Its also the most developed segment of gameplay. AI is serviceable and not perfect. There's a handful of gamemodes but not a lot to choose from in vanilla, although there are more coming. PvP is getting more features but is not fleshed out as much yet. This game is designed around working well with small player counts and this is what it does well.

So the bad side of this is of course that there is only really co-op and PvP. If you want a Single Player experience I cannot recommend trying it at this stage. AI teammates are coming soon™ but no idea if they will be any good. Speaking of AI, it's an odd bag at the moment. It is getting constant updates but at the moment it will either get stuck or try to surprise flank you. So you get dumb or killbot, nothing really in between, especially on night maps as AI can see perfectly there. Unironically if you reduce the number of AI on some maps they function a lot better cause of less pathfinding issues but good luck communicating that to players. Speaking of communication that is also an issue, not because players won't communicate but some can't because the game doesn't have the best support for mixed sound devices at the moment i.e. those with a separate mic and headset, though from research this is mainly an UE4 engine issue.

Probably the biggest advertisement for this game you'll have noticed is the advanced customisation options available for firearms where you can position all sorts of attachments all over the gun. May have also seen some hilarious videos/images of people making "Scope-A-Rifles" among other weird abominations. This has been toned down in recent updates heavily as apparently it was causing performance issues, though I can sympathise as I was guilty myself of slapping enough flashlights on a gun to make a fully automatic flashbang.

One thing though is the gunplay itself, its actually pretty good. Aside from all the difference stances you also have to factor in the size of the gun as well, meaning on some maps there's a real reason why you want a small carbine or SMG. In fact one of the best things in this game are the handguns in that not only are they really fun to use but it is a perfectly valid strategy to take one as your primary weapon on some of the tighter close quarters maps as they perform much better for things like room clearing and stairwells. Very few other games make handguns this useful.

Here is the big "but" you are looking for and that is the variety of the guns themselves. There is honestly a lack of real variety here because they are trying to show what would be used in real life. Problem is the joke it is an "AR-15" Simulator rings true as there isn't a whole lot of interesting firearms that show up. There are a least a bunch of weapons in development but a lot of it is nothing you don't see in other titles. Guess though it would be hard to add more variety without turning it into "Forgotten Weapons, the Video Game" Suppose will have to mod what would want to see in.

Going to start off with a negative here since I said I would be honest. The game is several years behind schedule. This was due to an animation update that ate up way more resources than anticipated meaning that a lot of features that were meant to come in like prone, new character and damage models etc kept getting pushed back. I can sympathise here cause honestly animations are a complete bugger to get working as intended, and as they tie in with a lot of features, will slow down development if not done right. While things are picking up there is no doubt though this definitely hurt the development of the game.

As for the developer themselves they do something I find exceedingly rare in development these days. They communicate; openly. I don't mean they hide themselves away in a discord, they will actively come out and get involved in Steam discussions, participate in topics and provide information on what is happening where anyone can see what they wrote publicly. This is insanely rare for game development and is an example of true transparency. Never once have I felt they were ever attempting to pull the wool over anyone eyes as they will just tell it as it is, both the bad and the good. Shame nobody reads the FAQ though.

Please do forgive me as I am about to descend into rant territory on this one but one I feel I need to get off my chest.

When I first got this game it was cause I had a few friends in the Tactical Shooter Community who recommended it to me. I was sceptical at first but I got in, found a rather chill and laid back community that knew how to play and have fun while accomplishing the mission. Things were not too super serious. Since then the MilSim Community has been like a gradual infestation slowly pushing out the Tactical Shooter enthusiast; resulting in a lot of tryhard play, terrible communication and a sharp increase in friendly fire incidents.

If you are wondering what the difference between these communities are then let me explain. The MilSim Community is often an overly loud segment who were at least until recently, a minority catered to in the tactical shooter genre, who play more for the experience and insist everything be super duper serious at all times. You must play and behave exactly how they expect you to at all times. You can spot your average MilSimmer in game as they tend to be guilty of stacking (bad spacing), spouting nonsense callouts on comms, having the spatial awareness of a mole, and generally causing a lot of teamkills cause they fail to positively identify a target (PID) before shooting. Generally you can picture your average MilSimmer as that 400lb middle aged manchild playing airsoft who can't hit anything 10ft in front of him unless he's got an ACOG and gets his jollies screaming at 12 year olds pretending he's a special tactical forces of special forces sergeant.

Now the Tactical Shooter enthusiast is generally a person who just likes Tactical Shooters because they enjoy the gameplay. They aren't in it for the whole experience aspect and just want to relax. They will like to have a laugh while shooting and don't mind what you do or bring as long as the job gets done and the mission was fun. You can generally spot the enthusiast as they will often use spacing extremely well, minimise teamkills as they can perform PID, only use comms when needed as a lot is nonverbal such as one person knows instinctively to automatically covers the six. MilSimmers hate these types of people as they'll show them up and it disturbs their larp. Problem is that your average MilSim player fails to realise that your average enthusiast player is a proper veteran who is fed up of "yes sir, no sir, can I dig you a latrine sir?" nonsense that sure as hell knows what he is doing better than they ever will.

I have no issues with MilSim players wanting their own experience but as soon as you start talking down to others then don't be surprised when you are rightfully called a "Walt"

/rant

Thinly veiled Battle of the Bands game.

Okay for a $1

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