Recent reviews by SeveredSkullz

Was hyped to see Hawken get a reboot that was primarily PvE focused instead of 4v4 PvP - Came in expecting MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf-esque vibes, instead was left with probably one of the biggest bouts of depression I have experienced in a long time.

It's Hawken without any resemblance of itself - only the visuals. It has been stripped down to a single map where you "explore" an open world spanning a few kilometers. The main game loop is that of a extraction-shooter like Tarkov... Get in, get some loot, and get out before the arbitrary timer is up. No story, no missions, no additional lore, just the most barebones mech-combat. The only way to get loot is by completing these randomized objectives at various locations - be it hacking a terminal, blowing up a crate or energy orb, or defend an objective.

The game locks all of your progression behind blueprints and components where you are expected to grind for materials in order to assemble these items. Meanwhile any damage done to your mech is permanent and must be repaired in between rounds or you risk being destroyed the next deployment.

To add insult to injury, the game also seems to be restricting weapon parts based on your "Class" of mech. I can understand this mechanic from a balance perspective, but for a straight PvE game, this design decision makes no sense. I should be able to strap on whatever weapons, jump jets, and chassis I feel like using.

Core gameplay issues aside, it also leaves you with a horrible user experiance for the first few rounds. The first "Patrol" was softlocked where I couldnt even get past the main menu only to be told I had no weapons / jumpjets equipped. The convoluted and barebones UI does not help in this regard as it was difficult to realize there were sub menus inside of the hangar that you were expected to click. My first instinct to go to the Workshop screen was ill-fated as I was trying to fabricate new weapons only to be told they were locked as I didnt have the blueprints in order to craft *anything*. After a little bit of fumbling about I eventually figured out how to outfit my mech and jumped into a patrol. The "Tutorial" if you can even call it that simply throws you in the game and says to get loot and to a transporter. Thats it. No pictures showing me what it looks like, no examples nearby, no pictures, nothing. I have no idea what I am looking for and there are already about half a dozen icons on the radar screen that I have no idea what anything means. After about 45 mins of stumbing around shooting things and picking up the little resource orbs, I finally *BY CHANCE* stumbled upon a transporter and extracted. Oh - and by the way there is absolutely no map for you to get even the most basic of bearings as to where you are, so you better memorize the map and landmarks!

After about 4 rounds, I had had enough. Did dozens of the "Missions", upgraded my mech a bit, unlocked a few blueprints and chassis from the enemies I killed, and then closed the game, entirely disheartened.


This is not even remotely close to a "Reborn" or even any semblance of a spiritual successor. This is not Hawken. This is not good.

Fun and enjoyable F2P game. Steam once again reminding me that the average consumer just regurgitating what they see others post without actually taking the time to read, attempt to comprehend, and verify information posted on the internet.

Warcrime Simulator

Great Multi-Crew game. If you like Star Trek: Bridge Crew, Barotrauma, or Pulsar: Lost Colony, then this game is for you.

Abandoned by developers. No updates in years.

Once again, I wish Steam had a "Neutral" or "Informational" review...
Full review cuz it wont fit: https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/1566690/discussions/0/4362373279649225150/

The gameplay loop is fun and engaging for the majority of the game, but gets stale quick as you are constantly trying to play Risk vs. Reward on hundreds/thousands of materials to expand your base to take on higher challenges. The "Tarkov" style looting is fun, yet held back by an extensive lack of variety in maps / POI. The route-based "Pacific Drive" encounter system adds a bit of flair to the exploration side of the game, but I feel there are too many punishments for actually *USING* your hard-earned base which eventually will run your resources dry before Recovery Day.

Weapons can be customized with different effects and abilities, which make them versatile and fun to use, but I argue the level of customization is lackluster and in the end it likely forces players to utilize high ROF / damage later on due to the sheer volume of enemies in the later stages of the game.

• Buffs can be swapped out on the fly during deployment
  
• Handling is excellent. Recoil and "feel" is on point.
  
• Customization of different parts can alter the behavior of the weapons, like a 3-shot barrel, or grenade launcher under-barrel.

• Not much variety in terms of "Cores". Ive found a Rapid Fire, Marksman, Fast Reload, and Damage core so far. The effects of which do not seem to do *anything* other than flavor text. The Rapid Fire core says its got some sort of accelerator on it to increase the ROF, yet Spray (the "fast" weapon skill) still has a 0.3 second cooldown between shots. The highest increase in Ammo I have found was 45 on a Legendary gun, which is next to nothing considering the average cost for the skills is around 10-15 ammo per shot. The cheapest I could get Spray down to was 6 ammo per shot. That means the most I can get is an extra 7 shots in my magazine... Whoop-de-do.
  
• Adding to the above point, there is not enough variety in terms of "Style" of FPS play. Ive found 2 types of skills that essentially turn the gun into a close range shotgun, but the range before the projectiles disappear is way too short to be useful on anything other than Exploration. There is nothing that would allow me to have an insane magazine size to fit something like a Machine Gun / SMG. The Marksman core is supposed to be your "Sniper" but I just took the skill off of it, and threw it on a Rapid Fire with a Heavy Barrel and it behaved exactly the same.
  
• The parts and benefit variety is extremely shallow. The only thing it seems to serve is damage / crit boosts, and some extra utility, like the previously mentioned 3 shot barrel, grenade launcher, and scopes that have thermal. I have yet to see any sort of bonus on it other than Damage related buffs. Give me some bonuses to the ammo capacity, or the rate of fire, or a cooldown reduction on my skills.
  
• Every weapon has a base "ammo" of 180 per magazine. I highly enjoy the idea of different guns taking different amounts of ammo in order to fire, but give us a way to mitigate this issue other than using the Core that gives us a tiny bit of extra ammo. Maybe introduce a Magazine weapon part?
  
• The design philosophy of the TDS modes do not encourage any sort of high damage / low ROF weapon combinations as the sheer amount of enemies will overwhelm you unless you are HEAVILY reliant on the TDS side of things, which we will get into the issues with it later.

The environments look pretty, but the maps are extremely small and same-y. The variety of POIs for each map are very minimal - less than a dozen different structures. If the map is procedurally generated, perhaps using some sort of tile-set fabrication of some of these POIs would have sprinkled a bit of variety to it. Once you see the current POIs and learn their loot locations, it becomes very monotonous and the "exploration" honey-moon phase dies off almost immediately. Combined with the fact that the most I've seen on these tiny maps is about 5 POIs, you can run through them in less than 10 mins or so for each map.

The Tour mode on the other hand is a decent substitute for the lack of large open-world maps. The problem I often run into is I am being penalized too greatly for *USING* features of my base rather than trying to save everything for Recovery Day.

The Base can auto-harvest Building Materials for free, but the rate is *ridiculously* slow, and dependent on your X-Field size, which is barely enough to cover a few resources. On average, youre likely going to get only about 100 materials at most on average in the early game.

Penalties for using your base during exploration are *INSANE*. Benefits of harvesting scrap materials like wrecks and trees are not worth it until you have *multiple* power cores to convert 150 material into 15 Energy. The Power requirements on many of the ability should be removed. Scanning the map takes 5 energy - to get this for "free" you would need to harvest a Huge Wreck for 300 Mats which costs 25 Power, leaving you with a net positive of 5 Power, which you can now use to scan the map. Ammo Boxes take 100 Mats which would be 3 Boxes (3000 "Ammo") for 25 Energy. Drones take 30 energy in order to deliver items *directly* to your base and avoid the need for recovery. This cost is at - and sometimes double - the cost of traversing to an entirely different zone.

• There are no pros.

• The UI is a NIGHTMARE to navigate. There is no QOL features like hotkeys to select troops, facilities, etc. The only hotkeys you get are *after* you have already selected something. This wants to mimic RTS-style games, but lacks about every single basic feature in one. The only exception is command groups with Control + a number to assign them to that group.
  
• Reiterating the lack of hotkeys, In order to convert materials, I have to scroll to my tower and click it, or click the Tower button at the bottom right, then click the convert. Why cant we just have a hotkey to select the tower, or power converters, or ammo converters...
  
• Mode has a minimap, but does not allow you to click on it to move in traditional RTS manners. The only quick-look feature is snapping to your tower, but as I am on the frontlines, and there is not a button to snap to ME - THE PLAYER - I have to move the camera to find me each and every time I want to look at the towers / artillery near my current frontline.
  
• AI / Pathfinding is a joke. They get stuck on EVERYTHING. I made the mistake of putting the Guardian fabricator inside my base to protect it, and they cant even navigate out the door without me meticulously pointing them through it.
  
• On recovery day, I find the amount of troops so insane that I cannot even take time away to UTILIZE the command mode to call in artillery, mines, etc. I just set them to Auto-fire and forget about them. Even with Bullet Time enabled, I feel its not enough to manage the handful of guardians in traditional RTS-style gameplay where Im telling them to attack specific targets. My damage output as the player is substantially greater than the output of a handful of guardians, so I dont bother.

I find the game fun. The early game was a blast, and I loved every second of it but its losing its charm in the endgame. The Command mode was never used it unless I was forced to. The story is not very memorable and generic, the AI on all accounts are dumb as a rock, the combat was fun but the numbers in later game seem to encourage high ROF / multi-hit weapon configurations which severely hinder survivability in terms of strategy. The material and power system seems too punishing to use the base you worked to build.

Great game at launch, and since. However, requiring user to make a Sony account, when it was previously optional, on a PC game is ridiculous. Bait and switch tactics.

Amazing game, horrible business choices.

Take a look at the average gameplay time in the reviews and you'll understand the issue almost immediately. It's not a bad game - its just that there is not enough content to keep you interested for more than a few minutes. Generated layouts are cool, but the AI is so easy theres little to no challenge whatsoever. The "Operations" gamemode is neat, where you have limited ammo, but 4 out of 4 of my attemps have me stuck on the 2nd or 3rd levels attempting to find "Intel" that doesn't exist. The last attempt involved us going room to room marking whether or not we cleared it by just leaving items or bodies in the room and yet we still couldnt find it. On other modes, the intel spawns properly, but not on Operations. The gunplay is "Ok" at best. The attachment system really offers no incentive to pick-and-choose what you want to bring, as you can put just about everything on your gun with no penalty, so why wouldnt you ever go in without a laser/flashlight/sight? The destructibility aspect of the game is a fun one, but with the current level of AI, its almost completely unnecessary. At no point did I ever think I needed to actually breach a wall or boarded up doorway with a charge when I could just bash down the wood with the butt of my rifle, stick my gun in, and kill everyone in the room without so much as a reaction from the AI. It gets stale quickly, and I don't find myself wanting to come back for more.

First things first: Advertising this game on other gaming communities like "Life is Feudal: Your Own"'s subreddit page is setting your players up for an *extensive* disappointment. Trying to drive fans from a game that has a massively hardcore gameplay loop and then giving them gameplay that essentially boils down to "Place a resource node in the middle of your base and infinitely farm it" is likely not the smartest move.

With that out of the way, let us begin the review...

The game itself is one of the most basic "Castle Builder" games out there. Spawn in, see your queen, and get told to make a settlement. So you go out and find a flat piece of land and build your Town Banner. What happens after that consists of simply placing down a set of infinitely producing nodes that you can farm within your base - One for Tin, Wood, Berries, and Cotton - and either mine/farm by hand or have your people do it for you. There is also Copper and Iron in two other biomes.

Aside from simply upgrading your tools to better metals and getting more output per "hit" on the node, theres little-to-no content otherwise. You can get raided by bandits, or go on the offensive. Had it not been for the fact that I was alone on my server, I could have maybe gone to war with another member, but its effectively the same content just with a player instead of an NPC. The landmass you play on is very limited in terms of choosing your location, forcing you to build on a relatively flat area since there is no terraforming whatsoever.

There is basic Buy/Sell mechanics to earn a profit from your colony by collecting materials, making items, and selling them. Alternatively you could just collect rent from the colonists as a form of passive income.

Colonists provide passive income, as well as consume income for telling them to do particular jobs. The game does not present information to the player well enough to figure out when these salaries are due or how often, leaving me to guess when they would be paid, or if I had enough money to pay them. Some times they worked, other times they just sat in their room doing nothing despite me ordering them to get back to work on numerous occasions.

Building is very minimalistic, and many placeable objects have strange bounding boxes / offsets for placement, allowing you to overlap things like a bed and smith on top of one other, even though that likely is not intentional. The UI for this building mechanic is absolutely awful when it comes to selecting what item you wish to place and really needs to be rewritten.

Combat tries to mimic directional attacks like seen in games like Chivalry / Mordhau / Etc. but ill be damned if I can figure it out. I could not reliably get my character to swing the way I wanted it to, nor were there any instructions or control listings for this feature from what I could find.

The gameplay is sorely lacking to keep me engaged. Mining consists of simply pressing the action button over and over on an infinite node, Farming consists of going to the berry/cotton field and pressing the action button to plant/water/harvest the crops, etc. Either I do it, or wait for my settlers to do it for me.

Most of what is currently in the EA Tag's list of future content, trade routes and such would be interesting, but if you have unlimited supplies at your fingertips, with the ability to just scale up more by plonking down another node to farm removes any sort of challenge in the game whatsoever. As it stands currently though, there's simply not even remotely enough content to make me want to come back for the time being. There are numerous games out there that do everything this one wants to do but better. "Colony Survival" is probably the closest comparing game, both in gameplay and visual style.

TL:DR for the "Nerd" / "IT/DevOps Guy's POV" below is: This problem implies a *significant* issue with the underlying way the game is written.

The networking side of this game is by far *THE* strangest implementation of of a client/server architecture I have ever seen. Period. Upon opening the game, players get greeted with a main menu that has a slew of instructions on how to "connect" to a server, with messages saying thing such that they need to disconnect from the server (At this point you are at the main menu - not in an actual game. Why do you need to disconnect from a server in order to connect to your own localhost? Why was the connection already established upon opening?). Upon actually disconnecting, I'm prompted to connect to my localhost, which then seemingly reloads the entire main menu / game. No visual representation of what server I am connected to appears. There no player count visible, nor any form of server browser / master server to query when looking for games. It just seems to be the most half-assed implementation of a multiplayer game. IP addresses often change as soon as the lease is up, or can change when someone resets their ISP's modem/router. This means not having any form of server browser for even official servers is just silly - And posting the IP address of the "Veteran Server" and pinning it to the Steam Forum Discussions is *NOT* the way to go about it.

Once I finally DO connect to my server and see it established, I still see that I'm "Not Connected" from what the UI says, but I see my connection chugging along in the server's console. So a bug right out the bat. I then get prompted to create my character, which relies on the username only - NO password of any sort. This effectively means that if I "Resume" my game and enter in the username of someone else on the server, I can just play as them. There is no security whatsoever from what I can tell in terms of account ownership. As it is just me, I cannot test what happens if two machines connect under the same account, but that would be interesting to see. There should at the very least be a concept of Username/Password, or - since the game is on Steam - USE STEAM! Steamworks can give you the Steam ID youre logged in to... USE IT.

*END OF NERD BIT*

The recent news article asking to be nominated for the most "Innovative Gameplay" award to me despite having the most basic mechanics and gameplay loops shows that this game is boasting far more than it should with the current features. Sadly there is nothing "Innovative" here. Everything done here has been done countless times in many other games. The earlier point about trying to attract players from other feature rich / in depth games such as LiF:YO only goes to strengthen that claim when it brings absolutely nothing to the table.

I do believe this game is a passion project, and I hope it does well in the long run. Ill be keeping my eye on it, but I will likely not be returning for quite some time. If the game is Free To Play and even then I cant bring myself to tell my other buddies who are currently seeking out a new game to fill this genre/niche, then that's a *big* issue.

I don't understand the "Mostly Positives" here - Its either people being "funny" saying its good, or delusional. 4 of us bought it due to the sale and wanting to give it a shot due to VR. We broke the game about 100 different ways in less than 20 minutes. NPCs ragdolling just walking, being rotated 90 degrees into the world, many many spots that you can fall through the world, each other appear floating in the sky, guns not seemingly do any damage to people/police, cars sliding around as if they were on ice, etc.

The list just keeps going on. I should have looked at other people's playtime in the reviews in the single digits before I thought it was seriously any good.