Recent reviews by Kingbarbarossa

Excellent game, my favorite in the series. While the visual improvements were the first thing i noticed, the most impressive was the gameplay. Easily my favorite combat system in the series. Fast paced, frenetic and fluid, combat was fun and challenging throughout the game, and was often what drove me to play for hours on end. I played as a warrior and specialized in parrying, which had a lot of fun effects i could build my gear set around. But i could see a ton of different ways i could have played warrior instead. Each class has significantly different build options and can interact with the party in different ways. Many abilities will "prime" enemies for "detonating" abilities, which create delayed explosions, which are a blast to play with. The environment was surprisingly critical in many of my fights, as I was often able to boot enemies off cliffs with a stunning combo or ability, bounce enemies against a wall to stop a charging attack, or simple duck behind cover to avoid a projectile. I really enjoyed the cast of characters, each coming from wildly different walks of life and adding a ton of depth and flavor to the world. I could see my choices have dramatic consequences on the world, and i'm already excited to play though again and see how things change when i make different choices. I've played 75 hours, and i'm already excited to play more and experience fights with a different set of powers and moves. I'll be paying close attention to what this team starts working on next.

Great improvement over the original!

Much shorter, but still sweeter, than the other Kingdom games, 80s includes some minor gameplay improvements with a fantastic vaporwave and 80s nostalgia spin. Great game!

Played the hell out of this game, over 1k hours across platforms. The combat system is incredible. Brilliantly captures each characters' fighting style and power set in, for me, an endlessly fun and rewarding way. Figuring out new combos each time a new character released was always a great time. When the raid released and really took the difficulty of the encounters up to the next level requiring both tight fighting and puzzle solving during those fights, that's an experience I'll look back on fondly for years to come. I was a really big destiny fan for years, easily put 1k hours in D1 and about 300 into D2, but eventually the differences between the classes felt like relatively meaningless minor changes in jump style and grenade color, while gunplay, using the same handful of guns, drove the majority of the gameplay in any fight. I was on a long hiatus from it between major releases when avengers came out and as soon as I played thor, it just clicked for me. This was what I was missing. All the elements I loved out of fighting game combat systems, canceling, I-frames, juggling, dodging, parrying, all combined into this glorious fluid bombastic whirlwind of lasers, bullets, fists, feet and the occasional flying shield. I still play it occasionally, I find it relaxing when i'm listening to an audio book, especially ones with plenty of fighting. My favorite characters to play are Kate (who I knew almost nothing about before the game, but quickly grew to love), T'challa, Odinson, Tony and Bruce. They each have wildly different fighting styles, different ways of dealing with various combat challenges, and different gear perks that make them shine.

I, personally, had an amazing time playing avengers, and will continue playing it occasionally for years to come. While Exoprimal offers a much better metagame loop and better user experience, it's combat isn't nearly as complex or rewarding. A fun distraction for the 100ish hours i've played it, but certainly not a replacement for me. I can certainly understand that for many others, the strengths of the combat system don't outweigh the failings in other categories. But for the current price, if you enjoy 3rd person action games, it's a steal, and one that won't be available much longer.

Excellent digital version of one of the best board games I've played in the last decade.

Fast, fun and engaging. Even if you're not a marvel fan.

Another great tactical game, part of a battery released this year, Chaosgate puts the player in command of a space marine grey knight tactical cruiser patrolling a sector of the empire searching for corruption. Players will need to balance their deployments, racing from one planet to the next to cleanse the forces of chaos before they consume the whole sector. Solid storytelling, well executed characters, fun combat, great class variety and challenging missions add up to a great experience end to end. While not a massive departure from genre classic xcom, there's enough different here to give even Long War vets a new experience. Great game!

A massive mechanical departure from previous Firaxis titles, Midnight Suns is all the more impressive for reaching the same heights as it's predecessors. Where players in xcom were constantly outgunned by alien soldiers with advanced technology and biological advantages, they experience the opposite in Midnight Suns. Each playable character in Midnight Suns is orders of magnitude more powerful than the average rank and file hydra soldier you'll encounter. Which is a good thing, because you'll be significantly outnumbered, by as much as 10 to 1, in most encounters. You'll need to learn how to play efficiently, maximizing each action to knock out as many targets as possible. After completing each mission, characters learn new moves and improve their existing kit. Upgrades will improve damage, add status effects, decrease costs, increase range as well as dozens of other effects. Each character has a unique kit and all are incredibly powerful. There are performance and stability issues, not unlike xcom 2 at launch as well. Finally, the writing isn't amazing. The main story is passable, and some of the optional social bits are quite funny. I found some of the best jokes in the social posts. In the end, both performance and writing are minor blemishes in the face of the phenomenal combat system. In a year of excellent tactical games, Midnight Suns stands out as one of the most creative, engaging and rewarding games in the genre i've played in a decade. I eagerly await the release of the planned DLC!

If you weren't a fan of two point hospital, this won't change your mind, but two point campus is a solid evolution on an already great management game. The most significant change is the introduction of the school schedule, which means your intake of students works very differently from your intake of patients. I like this change, it makes the pacing of the economy easier to grasp imo. I'm also enjoying the addition of events, which grant you significant boosts for a brief period of time in exchange for a chunk of change. And rather than reacting to the disease present at a location, you choose which courses you're teaching, then build accordingly. Overall, very similar to it's predecessor though with noteworthy improvements.

A unique and furiously intense team combat game, Dreadnought players each control a futuristic battleship, ranging in scope and power from the Millennium Falcon to a star destroyer. Each of the 5 ship classes has a unique role in combat, with many different ship types within each class. The largest class, dreadnoughts, are primarily the tank role, while still able to dish out significant damage. Destroyers provide steady and burst dps at mid to close range, Artillery Cruisers are unsurprisingly long ranged, Tactical Cruisers heal, buff and occasionally provide damage as well, and the Corvette class is a rogue. Slipping behind enemy lines at high speed, and occasionally cloaked, Corvettes are fast nimble ships designed to create a big burst of damage, and are equipped with the tools needed to make a quick exit afterwards. When played together by a coordinated team, the results are impressive. There's a variety of different maps, some in atmosphere, some not, each with a surprising degree of vertical elements to create constantly shifting battle lines that can be shaped by map geometry. There are a variety of modes as well, but all revolve around fighting the opposing team in various ways. The ships are split into tiers that breakup the match making queues, so you have to work your way from the lower level ships to the upper level ones, w/ microtransactions accelerating xp gain. I've found a the game mostly gives me enough currency to purchase a new upgrade per victorious match, so the grind hasn't bothered me much, but it is there. Still, there's plenty of fun and challenge to be had in each tier, the upper tiers simply have more options available in each ship class and type. In conclusion, Dreadnought is a game I've wanted to play since I was a small child gazing awestruck at my old 36" tube tv watching Return of the Jedi on VHS for the first time. It's a unique starfleet combat game that captures the excitement and tension of many of the fantastic sci-fi naval battles I've enjoyed throughout my life, whether that was gunning down a space station trench or executing a devastating broadside that turns the tide at the last moment.