Michael {United Critics} 最近的評論

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Sid Meier’s Civilization V is a 4X turn-based strategy game developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games and Aspyr Media. The game was released on Microsoft Windows and macOS in 2010, and later on Linux in June 2014. It is the 5th installment in the Sid Meier’s Civilization franchise that has sold over nine million copies worldwide.

Civilization V is challenging and super fun, but it never gets repetitive or boring. You start of by leading a prehistoric civilization into the future with the help of research, exploration, diplomacy, and military conquest. You can choose from a total of 43 cultures and assume the role of its leader, where each one has two unique combat units and buildings. Over 6050 years, your small settlement must grow & achieve the victory conditions to win or survive until the end of the game turns, after which the civilization with most game points wins. The end victor is decided on many factors such as population, culture, and technological advancement.
Victory in the game can be attained by focusing on scientific research and building a spaceship to win the space race. Or you may focus on diplomacy and subdue other civilizations. Otherwise, world domination is possible, but other options are more straightforward than this. In the core gameplay, over the turns, the player has to manage civilian and military tasks. The civic duties include finding new cities, expanding, spreading religion, and building the most magnificent human-made wonders. On the other hand, the military can be used to raise an army & battle to take over other civilizations.
What’s changed?
Civ V encourages tactical gameplay after they renovated its warfare mechanism. You cannot stack your troops into a single tile, unlike its precedents, thus allowing different types of strategies to face your enemy and allow flanking. Now each combat unit occupies one unique space; Therefore, unit positioning is very crucial in Civ V as it’ll require a bit of planning, although it might get tedious to move around each unit in a large force individually. Once you capture a city, you can place a puppet ruler who will rule in your stead, thus freeing you from governing it and focusing more on warfare.
Unlike previous games, the game now wholly divides the map into hexagonal tiles instead of squares, and not only cities defend themselves by firing at enemies, but also, the town expands one or two tiles at a time.

The diplomacy system remains mostly unchanged; you meet other leaders and can trade with them or enter agreements like Co-operation and Pacts of Secrecy. If you are helpful to them, and do the tasks or give them gold, they will provide you with food, culture, or military units. But if you attack them, they may declare permanent war against your civilization. The system is not perfect either as leaders may suddenly declare war and catch you off guard even without provocation. The city-states are a great addition to the game. They are not to win the game or take anything over, but they just add complexity to world diplomacy.

Graphics may not be the most significant concern it’s a a turn-based strategy game after all, but Civ V does an outstanding job on attention to details and its art style. The map is bright and vibrant and almost feels like a lively virtual board game. Zooming in on fur resource tiles will show foxes sporting together. Mounts and food resources will show sheep, cattle, and horses grazing in their tiles. Each style of buildings and wonders differs from other cultures and civilizations, which makes the game visually striking.

Civ V is the most fantastic and critically acclaimed game by fans all over the world. It is one of ‘better’ empire-building games that remains unmatched even after ten years of its release. Its also considered among Top 50 games made for PC with over 90+ hours of playtime potential and additional two expansions to add even more. I highly recommend it undoubtedly.

Rate: 10/10

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Deathgarden: Bloodharvest is a game where you play as either a ruthless hunter trying to eliminate your target, or you play as a helpless scavenger trying to survive and escape from the death garden. This game was both developed and published by Behaviour Digital Inc.

Deathgarden has the same DNA as Behaviour Digitals similar title, Dead by Daylight, where a powerful killer stalks a group of survivors. While on one hand Dead by Daylight is focused on slow and strategic horror that occasionally spikes with a jump scare or two.On the other hand Deathgarden a is fast-paced and frantic type of a horror game.There is a chance the More than once, you would finish a round with your hands shaking and heart pounding.
Each match has 5 Scavengers and 1 Hunter. The Hunter has perks like being invincible, equipped with powerful abilities, and that he packs an arsenal of powerful weaponry. Scavengers are quite fast,really hard to spot, capable of climbing terrain, and they also have unique abilities that help them evade and escape the hunter. The Scavengers have one unique ability and a small bow and arrow, the scavengers are otherwise helpless. The Hunter has perspective of a first person shooter, the Scavengers have a third person perspective and just a couple of offensive capabilities.
The Scavengers have a particular time limit through which they have to survive, once it ends they can escape through exits present around the map. Alternatively, the scavengers can also collect blood and turn it in at any of various pillars around the map. This is far riskier, but once 125 blood has been turned in, the end ends. The Hunter can also trigger an early end game by killing at least four out of the five scavengers.
While there are blood pick-up and drop-off centers form the major objectives on the map, there are also detection drones, ammo crates, power cores, and even the rare ‘golden crates’ which provides unlimited resources to whoever claims it.
Deathgarden: Bloodharvest has a lot of potential, and I have been surprised at how much time I have spent in it since its launch. The trick to keep this game afloat will be to ensure that there is gas in the tank to keep this relaunch going,new and interesting content needs to keep on coming on a regular basis, It has already faltered once, after all. Newer content and game modes keep players busy and interested,it also let players, to not resent,but to actually enjoy the grind of unlocking high level talents and cosmetics. The good thing about this game is that the universe of Deathgarden allows for new content that could be fun and inventive.

Deathgarden: Bloodharvest has a lot of potential going into the future, there are a few drawbacks, but they are far outweighed by the pros, there is a good chance that you could end up spending north of a couple hundred hours in this game.

Game has been removed from Steam store

Rate: 7/10

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Men of War: Assault Squad 2 is a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) and Tactics game set in the second world war. It is developed by Digitalmindsoft and published by 1C Entertainment. The game fully released in March 2014 exclusively for Windows on Steam after leaving a small period of early access. It is the sequel of Men of War: Assault Squad with a substantial engine upgrade and a new revamped multiplayer system.

If you are new to Men of War, it is not like any other generic RTS games; it's more of a Game of combat rather than resource management. It incorporates everything from its predecessor, so AS2 has a truckload of content and missions. You take control over one of the five distinct armies with their unique vehicles, personal weapons, and camouflage. Each mission has the same mix of objectives; what differs is the faction you play and the map. Some of them include infiltration, defense, skirmish, and Tank skirmish. Your primary goal is always to suppress your enemy, call more troops, and finish the objective or eradicate the enemy in any manner possible.
The game features a singleplayer skirmish mode that can be played alone or with friends. But the game lacks an AI, and bots require a separate paid DLC; hence the game is best enjoyed in multiplayer. The multiplayer features 1v1 to 8v8 modes, each designed for strategic battles and different experiences.
What differs in AS2 that there is a self-learning curve rather than the game just flinging tips at you, which leaves you open for experimenting with every feature in the game. There is ample micromanagement that even steeps down to individual soldiers. Every single unit has its separate inventory, which can be sorted & scavenged. If your troop runs out of ammo, it displays a red ammo clip over its head. Similarly, you'll have to manage ammo, bandages and grenades, and trenching equipment of every soldier on the battlefield. But this micromanagement can be avoided by the timely use of supply crate that automatically replenishes the ammunition of soldiers, but the game doesn't tell you that straight up and forces you to learn it the hard way. Not only that but also, learning to resupply squads with a single click, how to rearrange and organize shattered units after an attack, and how to gain ground without exposing troops to enemy armor; such strategies and tactics will be useful in multiplayer because fire and movement make up the basis of most of these tactics.

Realism and detailing in AS2 makes the game very engaging. Vehicles don't have hitboxes; instead, their essential parts break down, unlike having a general health bar. Tanks can get stuck, run out of fuel, become immobile, or get wrecked by AT guns. Every unit can counter and be countered as is expected in real life. E.g., Anti-tank guns are excellent against tanks, posing a threat to even the tougher ones and knocking them out of action. Machine guns are useful to rip apart enormous waves of infantry but will do nothing against armor. Mortars do severe damage at enemy positions but are entirely unpredictable & inaccurate. Overall you'll have to command each of your men to prone, crouch, stand ground, fire, and control their movement and position as this isn't a game where you can just place troops and just forget about them.
Apart from that, AS2 also features a 'direct control' mechanism by which you can trigger control over any troop or tank as if it were a third-person shooter. You'll automatically lock over the shoulder of the unit and can control its rifle/gun, move around and shoot.

The graphics haven't changed majorly in AS2. But they shouldn't be the primary concern either as you'll be watching the game from a height. The maps live up to the thematic element of WW2 and are vividly designed to be fully destructible. It is almost satisfying to watch buildings crumble after getting hit by a shell, seeing tanks break down, etc.

The game is very strategic and skill-based. The singleplayer is lackluster, but multiplayer makes up for it. The game supports modding, and you can have endless hours of fun with that, its dedicated steam workshop, designing your custom missions and mods. Note there aren't any updates of late, and some bugs still exist along with server sync issues in multiplayer. But still, it has a great community until the date and definitely worth the buy even in 2020.

Rate: 8/10

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“Explore, raid and conquer your way across the vast continent of Calradia, making friends and enemies along the way. Raise your own army and lead it into battle, commanding and fighting alongside your troops in the thick of the action.”

Basically it’s a game that lets you be whoever you want and do whatever you want within reason of course. Fair warning, Bannerlord is really light on story, this is the type of games where you make your own stories about the adventures and challenges that you face.

• What is it exactly that you do in the game?
  Like I mentioned before, Bannerlord is the type of game that is more focused on the sandbox and simulation side of their gameplay rather than in the RPG. Sure this game offers you a deep character customization with dozens of background stories and classes, each one with a play style associated with them. Along with this there is the classic stats, gear and crafting system expected in modern RPGs. But the whole point of the game is for you to look for your own fun looking for adventures and sometimes misadventures in the huge open world map that it has.
  
  I personally played as an archer, the charming son of a merchant, and I spent most of my time with the game going around raiding towns and castles in order to get more resources to raid bigger towns and castles. But I had seen people doing pacifist runs of this game or joining factions and climbing their ranks to become the emperor of the whole world. My point stands, this is the type of game where you make your own fun and the sky's the limit on what you can do with the mechanics that the game offers you.
  
  
• Will it make my eyes bleed?
  It looks a bit dated in some places and decent in others. For example, the top down view of the open-world map looks incredibly bland and simple. Maybe it’s just me who compares it to the Total War games, but the terrain textures and the map density feel like something from the early 2010’s. The game starts looking decent when you engage in 3rd person gameplay. The armors, NPCs and buildings don’t look so bad, a bit dated for modern standards but since this is an AA size game I will give it a pass.
  
  Something that I love from this game are the animations that the characters do during combat. You can feel the weight and impact behind all the attacks. It’s something hard to describe with just words but it helps the combat feel great and like I said before, it’s my favorite part of this game.
  
  Historically Mount & Blade games never were “good lookers” and this game is a huge improvement over the previous installment. But I honestly believe that for the $50 that this game asks for, it should have looked way better.
  
  
• Does it have a good story?
  Doesn’t apply. This game virtually has no story.
  
  
• Does it have a good soundtrack?
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ksqhX_Rdc
  
  It’s all orchestral songs that aren’t that catchy or memorable. The OST is not particularly good or bad, but it gets the job done.
  
  
• Does it have replay value?
  Tons of it. From the multiple combinations of back stories and stats that you can get, to the random encounters that you can find in the open-world and the multiple weird and niche play styles and builds that this game supports. You easily can get dozens maybe hundreds of hours out of this game.
  
  
• Does it run well?
  No complains on this from me on this front. I maxed out all settings at 1080p and got a smooth 60 FPS all the time. I didn’t find any major bugs or glitches in my 30 hours play through of this game.
  
  
• Is it fun?
  Yes, but only if you are willing to tank through the inherent jankiness that his game has.

It’s probably the best medieval life simulation that lets you siege castles that exists on steam to date. But it is also a game that looks somewhat dated and has a huge learning curve. The amount of amazing and deep mechanics that Bannerlord offers you is sometimes overwhelming. From the whole banner system that gives buffs to you and your army, to how complex the diplomacy and trading systems are and how it lets you do all kinds of crazy and fun stuff… this game sometimes amazes me. There is simply too much to learn and do. This is a good problem to have in your game, Bannerlord luckily has a tutorial that explains the base mechanics of the game, but it is lacking in some aspects. I had to look for guides to understand enough of some mechanics to not get myself humiliated on starting areas.

Something that I hear a lot when someone mentions the Mount & Blade games is how “fantastic” the combat system is and well… it’s going to depend on what you expect of a modern RPG combat system. I can admit that (like most of the mechanics of this game) it has a somewhat stiff learning curve and it has a lot of complexities that makes it deep and strangely addictive. I also mentioned before how the animations give it an extra feeling of “weight” and “impact”, but I can’t ever shake up the feeling that it never really clicked with me. I think it’s because it’s slower than most modern action RPGs out there but I’m not quite sure.

For me, the moment that I understood why this game is so widely praised despite its shortcomings was when I was besieging a huge castle and I found myself in the middle of my army giving them orders and trying not to die. This is not the type of game where you can fight 5 to 10 enemies at once, in Bannerlord you have to be tactical and smart in order to beat just one enemy and watching the whole carnage around me… it felt real… it felt like I really was there. Bannerlord is probably the most immersive game that I have ever played. It encapsulated perfectly what it is to live in the middle ages with all their ups and downs and never forces you to do anything. This is a niche experience that you can’t find anywhere else.

• Deep combat system.
  
  
• Fun and complex sandbox mechanics
  
  
• It’s the best sieging simulator out there.
  
  
• Great RPG mechanics.
  
  
• Amazing mod support. Everything on my dislike list can be fixed with mods.

• It’s janky.
  
  
• No story at all.
  
  
• The graphics are a bit outdated.

Chances are that if you like the Mount & Blade series you already own this game and you have several hundreds of hours of play time in Bannerlord. So… If you like games like the Total War series and you don’t mind janky games that look like the early 2010’s… Buy Bannerlord on sale… It’s a game that offers you an experience like no other game on steam has but… $50 is a hard sale for me. At the time of writing this review, Bannerlord gets regularly updated and the devs constantly add more content.

Rating: 8/10

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Warface was originally developer and published by Crytek, but later the rights for the game were sold off to Russian game developer/publisher MY.GAMES, Warface is a good old fashioned FPS shooter which tries to do a few things differently.

It provides all the basic thing that you might expect from a FPS game and also tries to do a few things differently, first of all it provides the ability to slide while sprinting which is implemented in quite a good way as multiple broken walls are present in all maps through which we could slide across the wall and flank the enemy team.
Warface puts a heavy emphases on team work, this could be seen as in order to reach higher areas 2 people are needed, initially the first person helps to lift the other person up and then he him/her self is pulled by the other person. This might look like a good idea on paper, but most of the time the only people looking to go on top are snipers, so sometimes especially when you are playing with random people (as we gamers don’t have any friends) you would just have to wait for someone else who also wants to get up, but nevertheless this feature does come in handy in many situations.

Warface provides a huge variety of gun selection with lots of weapon attachments and upgrades available, the monetization of the game progression and how the in game economy works might feel a bit grindy and excessive grind need to be done in order to attain a higher level equipment. There are numerous options available for weapon selection, but you can’t buy them instead you’d have to rent them, and when the rental period expires you have to rent them again. The guns feel satisfying and the map design is good and interesting, quite similar to the older Call Of Duty games.
Warface has various modes to play along with friends, there are PVP, PVE and various co-op missions, the PVE missions provides players with lot of funny moments, especially with friends. There a lot of different maps in all of the modes, all of them with different gameplay features.
The graphics of Warface are not high fidelity but are decent and also due to this fact the game is not very resource hungry and runs extremely smoothly even on low end computers.
The main strengths of Warface are seen in team-work abilities, as a well as in weapon variety segment where it provides the player with a lots of vivid options in terms of weapon selection.

Warface is free to play game that does a lot of things right and a lot of new things that most game don’t do, this game is definitely worth a try and Warface just like most other games becomes way more fun with a few friends.

Rate: 7/10

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At the first glance Oriental Empires might just seem as a Civilization clone, but it is much more than that, much, much more. Oriental Empires is a turn based 4-X strategy game, it was developed by “Shining Pixel” studios and published by Iceberg interactive and was released on September 2017. This game is what you would get if Civilization had baby with Total War.
Oriental Empires is set is medieval China, your aim is to grow in authority and power to ultimately rise-up as the emperor of the world.
The atmosphere in this game does a good job of sending you into the dawn of Chinese history, you start as one of the 24 small factions (of which only 5 are available at beginning) all of whom has different skill sets and abilities.

The graphics are quite solid and fluid, there are two modes of view the traditional top down approach and the other is more zoomed in view to see how the towns folk are doing, although the art style are quite appealing, but there is a noticeable lack of diversity, the music and sound design is decent and does a good job on setting the ambiance, but might get a bit repetitive after long time of playing.

You will come across other factions while expanding your nation, sometimes you might be able to take them with brute force, but other times you might need to take more of a diplomatic approach while tackling with the more powerful nations. Authority and happiness of citizens is something that needs to be kept in balance as excess of either of those might lead to problems in your nation.
Unlike in Total war games, you have to pre-plan all of your attacks, the AI takes over once the attack begins. The progression and the management is quite intricate as it needs delicate balancing of various different parts of your nation, and maintaining balance between authority and happiness of your citizens is really important, even if one of the parts fail, the entire nation would be affected by it.
Since the release of this game two more DLC’s have come out, and both of them add to the experience, in addition to new content these DLC’s also provide a few new gameplay elements, and better map design which makes the games overall feel even better.

Oriental Empires has a lot of potential but also has a few bugs which needs to be fixed, the management system is pretty good intricate for the people out there who’d like a bit of challenge, Although it has few problems, Oriental Empires is a game worth trying if you are a fan of turn based strategy games, as it provides a fresh take on the genre.

Rate: 8/10

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Total War: Three Kingdoms is turn-based, real-time management and grand warfare strategy game developed by Creative Assembly and published by SEGA. It is the 13th addition to the famous Total War franchise that released on May 23, 2019, on Windows Mac and Linux. It sets in the Three kingdoms period of ancient China, where you lead one among 12 warlord factions to form an empire and eliminate the others to become China’s Ultimate Ruler. It features both the Single-player campaign with two game modes – “Romance” and “Records” along with multiplayer gameplay.

The game features two modes which differ a bit from each other –
Romance: Is based on the ‘Romance of the three kingdoms’ novel wherein Generals are extra powerful along with plenty of cavalry bodyguards who will increase with your experience levels. You can also equip all your heroes with weapons, armors, mounts, ancillaries, and followers, which will make them appear different on the battlefield and grant them unique bonuses and abilities.
Records: It’s based on ‘Records of the Three Kingdoms’ and presents a more historically authentic version. In this mode, the generals no longer have superhuman powers and can no longer be commanded separately, in addition to changing specific equipment in-game to be more authentic to history.

Three Kingdoms has a deep, intense, and yet balanced gameplay. It requires excellent strategy and diplomacy to win battles or keep the peace. The atmosphere is impressive alongside with its music and ambiance. The voice acting is terrific in Chinese Mandarin. The Battles in the game resemble Total War: Shogun 2 with its Spear/ Sword/ Ranged/ Cavalry/ Siege basic archetypes. Each army features Generals who are powerful heroes with abilities that can change the tide of the battles. In Siege battles, players can command both infantry and cavalry units. These units are divided into different entourages, each led by a commanding General/Hero. The player can deploy up to three generals into the battlefield at once along with three in reserve. The player can also command each general separately and they can engage in one-on-one duels (only in Romance mode) that ends when either one of them dies or flees. Dueling and killing generals will crush morale; Although the AI in Three Kingdoms is quick to accept and propose duels it cannot win.

The game introduced a new gameplay mechanic ‘Guanxi’ system in the game, which generals can use to form social connections and relationships with other characters. Based on this, other characters will form positive/negative opinions between each other based on the experience that they had with each other, including past events, friendship/jealousy, faction friendliness/hostility, etc.
Unlike previous Total war games, all armies have a pool of 100 supplies that slowly fills in your territory and rapidly drains in Enemies’ territory. Once your supplies hits zero, you’ll suffer massive attrition & losses. Running out military supplies in between prolonged sieges is extremely risky. So aside from conquering armies and settlements, there are no effective ways of replenishing your supplies during an invasion. This, combined with the very slow replenishment of supplies and mustering of replacements, it forces you to be very deliberate with your aggression and defense.

Three Kingdoms improved the diplomatic options far better from Shogun 2 and previous Total Wars games, but you will find yourself taking advantage of them more often and outwit your rivals by bluffing, bullying and flattery. Items & payments, and marriages can be used to appease leaders into treaties and trade agreements, and territories can be traded to mutual benefit. Enemies can be effectively extorted when their backs are against the wall.
The confederation system is the icing on the cake. Forging large confederations will require you to navigate carefully, as a majority of existing ones must approve new members, and voting in opposition of members will sour your relations. Furthermore, people will not be interested in joining if your confederation is weak. That means the order is essential, and you will want to confederate with the most widely liked and powerful factions first.

Three Kingdoms is wholly committed to its theme. The game revels in its Chinese setting, with a wonderfully bold color palette lighting up the map, gorgeously varied battle maps, and appropriate music without getting corny; Particularly the design of the Tech Tree. The overall visual is very beautiful to look at, not stunning, but easy on the eyes. The campaign map of China uses vibrant colors to show contrast between rivers, land, and trees, not only is the campaign map beautiful to look at, there are also peasants working on the fields, soldiers patrolling the main road, pandas eating bamboos, and hunters hunting wild animals, Making the entire map feel alive; small details go a long way.

There are a few bugs and maybe a few mechanics that dont work as intended, but nothing game breaking or annoying enough to make you stop playing. There are many unique lords and generals, but there is only few dozen of them. When you play and recruit more, they almost always look very similar, with the same bad weapons and armor, so in the lategame, when your heroes die of old age, the game becomes a bit less appealing and boring.

Total War: Three Kingdoms proved to be a worthy successor and not just another Total War game. It is highly optimized and improved performance combined with its enhanced AI. Its constant ability to provide hostile and challenging battles – it’s breathtaking. The campaign design is brilliant along with unexpected turns and twists. It’s the best game to start with if you are new to Total War and smoothly immerses into its complexities better than any of its predecessors. Overall it’s a colossal Hit all-in-one package since Shogun 2 and Warhammer. The Campaign has over 20+ hours of gameplay potential with its 5 DLCs to add even more. I highly recommend it.

Rating: 9/10

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Payday 2 is a co-op 1st person shooter developed and published by 505 Games and released in August 2013. It is a sequel to Payday: The Heist that was launched in 2011. A somewhat similar game to this one is Killing Floor 2. They both are a coop games and in both games you need to confront different enemy waves, but Payday 2 is still one of a kind. It is the only game based on robbing banks and has a lot of content such as guns, skins and maps. You can even get a great price on the Legacy collection with almost all the DLCs in one of the bigger Steam sales (Summer or Winter).

This game is one of a kind. It has tons of hours of fun gameplay and if you play with friends it’s even better. You have a lot of maps to choose from, a lot of guns and lots of attachments. And with the addition of DLCs it gets better. You get bonus heists, bonus maps and bonus customizations. There is even a DLC name “Payday 2: The Goat Simulator Heist” so you already know how it’ll be.
You can do heists in two different styles. Either strategic, crouching, shooting cameras, not alerting the guards either the more destructive way, killing any guard you see, going full in and getting cursed at by your teammates. Either way, you will have fun.
Doing heists is not a simple job. You have to break in without getting seen by anyone. If you kill a guard you need to dispose the body, by that I mean that you need to put the body in a bag and putting it somewhere that can’t be seen. And after getting in you need to be smart too. Someone has to go to put the drill on the safe while the others keep an eye out for other guards.

The graphics for this game are very good for a 2013 game. Even the gun effects and sounds are very real. You will get very immersed in the high tensioned moments and the details help a lot. The cops are very real looking and the death animations are very well made.
The music also helps a lot and sounds very good. It fits every situation perfectly. If you are going in stealthy or fighting the cops in full action mode, the music is set to create the perfect mood for both of them.

This game is indeed getting old and I don’t know how many people still play it but doesn’t mean it is not still unique. The concept of the game is still very interesting and the content is rich. I’d say it is worth it to pick up the Legacy Collection at a very good sale (the summer or winter one) and give it a try. I played it for some time and I think it is still one of the best heist simulators out there.

Rate: 9/10

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Mafia III is an action-adventure game developed by Hangar 13 and published by 2K Games. It was released on October 2016 and is the 3rd main game in the Mafia series. A very similar game to this one is Grand Theft Auto V. They both consist in an open-world action-adventure game, however Mafia III is focused more on the Mafia aspect of the world and is set in the 1960s. Getting back to our game, it is the sequel to Mafia II and is set in the fictional city of New Bordeaux based on New Orleans.

The story is set in 1968 when Lincoln Clay the main protagonist returns to New Bordeaux after serving in the army during the Vietnam War. The city is located in the southern states of America and is composed of island districts, ports, industrial complexes and much more. He returns to his old neighborhood where he was an orphan and reunites with his family and friends. After that he starts helping around the city and after a stab in the back by the Marcano family he is thirsty for revenge.
Also, this game is very unique in its own different ways. On the map there are nine different districts. Each of them has a different atmosphere and its own architecture. In some of the areas you can find a swamp land, a shipyard, an industrial district and much more. In the swamp area you can even find some hidden treasure and discover secret areas. Even the police behave different in each district. Also, you can even capture and conquer each district like in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
Another cool feature is that players can interrogate some characters after they defeated them to gain bonus information about their objectives. Also, you can engage in melee-combat and even perform some execution moves.

The graphics for this game are very nice-looking and the structures and vehicles give the game a real 1960 feel. Also, the details of the buildings and cars are incredible making them look very real. The sound of the cars and guns shoots don’t sound bad either. And the soundtrack selection is very good too. The game contains a huge list of licensed songs and features a lot of great tracks.

The game may not be one of the best games out there but it still is unique. If you ever wanted to play as a Mafia member or simply wanted to see how it is in the 1960s this game is for sure the one for you. If you want to see how the city and structures look or just simply drive in one of the classical 1960s cars this game got your back. I recommend it for all gamers and even for the ones who just want a Grand Theft Auto V alternative.

Rate: 7/10

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Kingdom Come: Deliverance is the first and so far only game of Warhorse Studios, and not many games these days apply the same amount of detail into both the world and story, but it certainly isn’t without its flaws. And depending on how unlucky you are there can be many.

The audio of the game overall is great. The clashing of weapons in combat gives epic sensations, the insults, and jeers from enemies amusing as you give them a good metallic bonk over the head, the sounds of nature when walking through the forests, the ambient audio during scripted fights for main quests gives a very authentic feel to the combat even if it doesn’t always seem to fit with what is going on in the moment.

The music has its own charm, especially when around town and you hear tavern music begin playing or during parties in cut scenes gives such amazing sing-along vibes, but unless you really pay attention to it outside of specific few soundtracks in town, I myself haven’t really noticed music outside of towns, as it didn’t stand out when in the open world.

• Speech – It’s dependent on Henry’s reputation with the person as well as the area you are in.
  
  
• Social status, which is affected by the quality and appearance of your clothes. The better the looks the higher the persuasion. Be careful, as those clothes don’t matter if they aren’t visible due to being covered by armor, which leads into the next category.
  
  
• Dangerous – The more intimidating you look by wearing armor and weapons as well as strength and visible blood on Henry the higher chances you are to intimidate someone or be given a quest you otherwise wouldn’t get.
  
  
• Money – As simple as it sounds. Sometimes all you need to do is throw some coins in someone’s way and they will leave you alone or oblige to your requests.
  
  
• Skills – Sometimes a choice can be successfully made if the situation requires a certain skill that your character possesses like having a high enough healing perk.
  
  
• There are a few situations where a quest can be completed with a special icon if you have completed certain objectives even before starting the quest, or by finding all the required secondary objectives resulting in the ability to skip the main ones if you so wish, but those aren’t too common.

The story from the introduction till just about the end and even after that follows the same simple plotline. Find the sword, find the person who killed Henry’s parents, and skewer him with it like a shish kebab. But to reach that, there is plenty to be done and many obstacles in the way. On the journey, there are plenty of things to be found. Assassination, simple exploration, assaulting camps, laying siege, brewing medicine, romance if you choose it, helping friends in need, all the usual stuff. The story itself may be simple and straightforward but depending on if you are interested just in the gameplay or also the story there is plenty of intrigue but not too much mystery to be found in it.

The game doesn’t exactly look mind-blowing, not by modern standards, but it is still great regardless. The characters look detailed, in cut scenes at least, and they look good in the open world as well. The environment when riding through empty green fields both looks and feels amazing, but forests and bushes could have done with a bit of a better touch.

Absolutely! Kingdom Come: Deliverance feels like the kind of game you would only see once per generation, as there are no other single-player story medieval games I’ve played so far or seen that offer anything even close to it. The combat itself is still pretty similar in terms of basic control to some other medieval games, so that itself is not unique by any means.

There are many different approaches to combat like stealthily eliminating enemies via sneaking up on them or taking them out from a distance with a bow, but that’s where some issues show up as with the way the game works, it’s difficult to remain perfectly stealthy no matter how well you do, as there always appears to be a NPC that spots you knocking someone out in the pitch black darkness through several bushes. You can also take the approach of dropping potions like poison or knock-out potions into food pots and waiting for them to take effect, but nothing beats the good old-fashioned charging the camp to take on all opponents at once.

That is where one of the biggest combat-wise flaws can be seen, as the game has many situations both scripted and unscripted where you have to fight up to even 6 enemies at a time.

One of the bigger problems for me with the game’s combat system is that the game is built around one-on-one combat, and even fighting two enemies at a time can be extremely frustrating early game, as while one enemy attacks you and you have to block, the other gets free hits from the side, as sometimes changing lock-on targets doesn’t work as intended.

You can always attempt to mount your horse to run away, but that isn’t advised as most of the time it will result in you magically getting knocked off the horse after 10 meters leaving you open to getting hit several times before getting up.

One of my better solutions to group battles is sending Henry into a potion induced coma, chugging every single combat-related potion that I have on hand before being locked into combat and showing them why a mace is superior to anything they can bring. As much as these things, especially group combat can be frustrating.

Every stat can be leveled up, but not all of them give the option to level up specific perks, which can be very useful and can to some extent be optimized depending on what kind of character you want Henry to be.

Pros

• Interesting open world with plenty of interesting and not very repetitive quests to do,
  
  
• Entertaining music when riding through towns,
  
  
• Interesting characters connected to the main story,
  
  
• Exploration of random things you come across in the world,
  
  
• Not being some grand fantasy hero and taking on 10 enemies at a time like it’s nothing, but having to actually think about fights (unless chugging 6 different potions),
  
  
• Quests have at least some consequence based on your choices, performance, or the amount of time you take to complete them, which for me is something I love to see in games,
  
  
• Late-game story quests kick the intensity of the main story up a notch

Cons

• Some underused and pointless combat mechanics like combos,
  
  
• Awful group combat,
  
  
• Some janky-ness, especially when horse riding near bushes,
  
  
• Loading times for most actions, even just eating out of a pot, which can take up to a minute if not more,
  
  
• Could have used a few more group battle quests, which are mostly stuffed into the end of the game,
  
  
• Sometimes quests can bug, sending you back and losing up to even half an hour of progress.

Absolutely. For the first game Warhorse Studios made, it’s amazing and worth every penny. For my second playthrough, I mostly focused on the main story and DLCs, and that itself took over 50 hours to complete, leaving with several dozen more hours of gameplay if you do even half the side objectives you can receive. The game has a lot of fresh, engaging, and entertaining content to be had with a great gameplay loop and story despite its simplicity. 10/10 would drink with Father Godwin and ring the village bell at 3 AM.

Rating: 8/10

With better combat, which is hopefully improved if the long-awaited sequel releases it could be 9/10.