Recent reviews by Fallen

No, the number of hours isn't fraudulent. Yes this is a good game, but the honest way to describe it to you is that it took hundreds of development hours over many DLCs and mods to create the state that it is currently in today. I strongly recommend buying DLC on a larger sale. Put it on a wish list and set reminders for when a sale is active. This model allows development to continue over a long cycle and it rightfully has its criticisms. I'm just happy to have a product like HOI4 which will bring more people into the genre and will ensure military sims have a loud success. Be patient and spend some time learning mechanics. Plenty of tutorials out there ready for you to study. Once you get some games down without mods, go check out Road To 56, Keiserreich, Darkest Hour, Millennium Dawn, and more. There's some amazing work put in for all of us to get another 1,000 hours off our lives.
See you at 10K hours played!

A love letter to the original Half-Life, complete with Source re-design. This is a recreation and not a completely faithful 1 to 1 reskin of the game that taught us how to care about video games as art. Some stages are shortened, like "On A Rail," while others are expanded as in "Xen." Speaking of Xen, it is 4x larger and features new puzzle challenges. This is absolutely worth your money if you are on the fence and enjoyed the free beta. They've been working on this game for over a decade now and the polish shows with every moment. On top of everything in the Single Player package you are granted access to a Source-fed expansion of the Deathmatch Multiplayer. Get your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crowbar and get to work. BUY THIS!!!

One of the most incredible and entertaining looks at simulating a real-world election campaign in the United States. The detail that has gone into this work of art is staggering. I've only spent my entire evening digging into this darling and the potential here is absolutely huge.

What are you getting here for the asking price of $15.00? You're buying in early to an experience that is dynamic and is *actually* updated very regularly. Start as literally nobody with zero campaign funds and fight your way up the chain of American politics. Choose your advisers, tell them what to do, fund their methods and strategies, and attempt to pull a difficult election into your side of the aisle. You can't find something this robust in a political sim easily - this is a layered, for the polisci nerd, addicting test for your ideology vs. practicality. Can you run with your own politics in your home town and district? Are you an effective campaigner? What kind of funding do you start out with? What surprise issues will come up to dominate the campaign and force you to adapt? Like I said - this is complex and will take some time to learn the basics, but what this game may lack in overall polish it makes up for in execution. Sure, you'll find yourself aching for more functionality and wishing more types of committees and legislation could be introduced - these flower buds must be continuously improved and it appears that they will be!

I am an honest person, though, and I can tell you that if you aren't willing to be open to the early access footnote, then you may want to wait until there is more polish OR the price goes down. Look, it's America - you're going to be fundraising A LOT and if you get bored or consider that a waste of your time then maybe this game isn't for you. Worse still, this really draws down to clicking a button to gain money in exchange for time. The scope could be expanded much deeper. Who are you fundraising from? How do your politics interfere with this? Do you not accept any PAC money and you're starving at the start? Do you take any single cent that comes your way at the cost of voter trust? These concepts are not reflected here - YET. There are limitations to what you can and can't interact with, each depending on what level of office you currently hold. Lots of times I was legislating in the school board I found myself hoping for more drafting options. There are options to choose from, mind you, but the complexity OF those options usually are a simple slider. There are many scenarios where you wish there was a more unconventional way to gain intrigue over your opponent in a lob-sided, gerrymandered district. Or, perhaps you want to run as a spoiler candidate and simply tank another party's chance to win... only to come around and switch parties to take advantage of the fallout? We can only dream, right? Get it on a sale if it comes up.

I want to give an example of my evening. I played as a progressive who was soft on gun legislation in Ohio. I climbed my way through the school board and made a good sized increase to overall teachers in our city. The impact of this legislation and the political awareness and power I had gained equated into being able to inspire two outside candidates to follow my ideology and enter American politics. I got to choose what races they wanted to start in and they would follow my politics. In my game, Ohio's Senate and House were majority GOP, yet the Gov was DNC, so I had them start running for other Senate and House races. If they win, they will help ensure MY votes in the future will count stronger and I could use them as a firewall against tactical GOP majorities. I consolidated my wins in the school board, increased the taxes to pay for the programs I instituted, and fundraised for an entire year to gear up for my next move. I had an option ahead of me in the new year: a State House seat with 40% Dem, 45% Rep, and 5% Independent. I decided that I should run for this difficult seat and push my gains in education to format the issue of the year as getting pre-K12 free on a state level. It worked so well across party lines at the city level and it turned out to be an incredible boon for my state run. But, it wasn't that easy - the economy became the dominating issue during my campaign cycle and I was forced to adapt. I tactically chose to run television and radio ads about income inequality as a whole, but did NOT talk about raising the minimum raise. Democratic turn out was already enthused high enough to be supportive, so when I did talk about raising the min wage I made sure it was in a Dem targeted mailer and only in this form. I was able to then depress GOP turn out against me with the positive pre-K12 concept and not enflame it against me from my minimum wage position. I leaned hard into infrastructure to guarantee independent turn out and began aggressively fundraising. I won the primary and spent like crazy to press hard into these tactics. On the night of the election, it appeared that I would not be able to beat the GOP seat holder. They had more money than me and the district was favouring their brand. BUT - the messaging worked: on the last county vote count my old district came in and pushed me over the edge. My strategy plus the successful decisions I had made in my local school board term had helped solidify the edge for this state level race!!! What an experience!

If that has not convinced you... or the rest of you that are seeing "Positively Reviewed" and wondering if this is real: it absolutely is real. The author of this game has nowhere to go but up and beyond. If the developers continue to add and tweak to this amazing product there is no way that this game does not turn into a lightning rod for the simulation fan with genuine interest in real politik.
This is ultimately why I decided to give the game a shot and purchase for the full $15. I am glad that I did and I fully endorse this masterful foundation. Keep it going developers - I will remember your name for many years to come. Don't drop this project: you now have a solid install base and we're ready to spend days on this niche game you've created.
I will get my money's worth and more. I'm happy to support a game like this and to keep it real: I do not buy many early access games.

Thank you so much!
Fallen