Recent reviews by John Nuclear Option

It walks this razor edge, giving you Ace Combat tier moments and enough realism to feel like you earned the right to be in them. It's the goldilocks flight sim, offering equal parts beauty, panic and charm. Every airframe has the slightest hint of cartoon exaggeration, just a little bit bulgy around the cockpit, or almost comically proportioned. Somehow it makes it more lovable without breaking the immersion at all, and feeds into this light hearted atmosphere.

I call the flight model 'simplified realism'. You can fly hard as hell but you know exactly when you've messed up. Later, there's this very satisfying knowledge of your airframe's limits that comes with time, allowing you to pull off some borderline fictional maneuvers (cobra). The way radar works is fantastic, simple enough to work out how to avoid them (under 20m my dudes) and complicated enough to offer you some depth to planning your own ARAD ops.

The actual combat is simplified but rewards research into the in-game wiki. Missiles aren't restricted by target type, everything works but understanding how your tools work is key. Try using AGMs on slow, bulky air targets.

And the gameplay as a whole? The AI battle mechanics are fairly rudimentary and ground units are very slow. Massive 4 hour battles often do end up with huge gaps in the middle of the map and long waits for troops to arrive. But whatever, just start the mission again or change it yourself to suit your preferences. Remake that mission from Top Gun Maverick if you want (please do it).

The combat feels earned, real tactics work, real teamwork works. You can fly AWACS and coordinate your friends while AMRAAMing the radars so they can't be tracked. You can run nukes through valleys with predefined targets, so you and you buddy wipe the enemy in a swift, well planned, swoop.

What I'm trying to say is that it's the absolute goldilocks flight sim, realistic enough to punt you into the ground and arcadey enough to make you laugh as you do it.

Wtf how are these snakes so good at hide and seek

Absolute nightmare setting up an account

The whole town is hooked on my horse semen infused methamphetamine.

Absolute banger, offers simple mindless fun at lower difficulties and considered tactical play at higher ones.
Undeniably best with friends, but public lobbies are just as fun.

Oooh that's why they're called retrievers.

I found it clunky, unintuitive and overall not a lot of fun.

I had heard shooting down a ridge from where I was, I crept down from tree to tree to do my best to stay concealed, I had an AK47 on me with a sight so all I needed was an opportunity. A player had ambushed someone in close proxitimity and was looting the body, and a second player had fired at them from a distance, closing it while the looter was reeling.

I ended up no more than 20 meters from both of them, all I needed to do was wait for one to go down and loot the other.
It happened, I lined up my shot with the drop on the unarmoured attacker, hit! Hit hit hit! I missed, they swung about and blasted me to bits, only blackness.

The gunplay is 'weird', it feels floaty and weighty, the mechanic is likely to prevent sprinting around the map with your weapon shouldered but for some reason after an hour it never felt intuitive. I could never reliably pull out my backpack, even had to search online how to open the settings.

I guess the game is certainly not finished, it's a better game than it was but it's not cooked. Paid DLC for EA aside, try it, maybe it's your thing, it's not mine.

Hey hey people...

Rumble has been a test of my own relationship with myself.

Learning anything can be difficult, it causes you to start blaming external factors, frustration, giving up. But every time I keep coming back to this gem, every time I push through the frustration, I come out having learned something, a move, combo, mechanic, or a better understanding of myself. Even better, the community is second to none and everyone is willing to help, every black belt knows the learning curve is tough, just chat with them.

No other game offers the experience that a martial art does, Rumble is entirely unique, challenging and and a diamond.

Counter Strike with Siege style mechanics, but I'm not really a babysitter kinda guy and this one is plagued with kids.