Recent reviews by Shadow Doctrine

Beautiful game. Challenging, but fun it's not my usual type of game but it's a nice break from the norm. It's like Banished, but prettier. Nice soundtrack too, though sometimes I put my own tunes on and just zone out.. It's got combat too but I play it to chill.. just a decent game overall.

Hard to get into, but an amazing game. I put it off for many years, though after getting a HOTAS joystick setup for DCS I figured I'd branch out into other games and this one is incredibly fun, even if nearly 30hrs into it I'm only just getting started still.. a few game over screens are expected learning something new and you don't have to restart from scratch but I like the whole 1 life thing so that's what I do. I feel that's the intended way to play, otherwise there would be respawns.

Amazing on it's own and with mods even more fun. Definitely not what I was expecting when I bought it. I saw a comment on someone's YouTube video that explained it best, this game is like Eve Online with it's business-like management systems and Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen (though this is better because it's released haha). I find it difficult to learn the ins and outs as I'm not a numbers guy so it can be a bit overwhelming at times trying to build up your empire, also as a sandbox style game you're basically on your own when it comes down to what to do. I like the freedom of choice, not sure what the end-game is like or if there even is one. As far as I can tell the goal, like the ultimate goal is galactic domination lol..

There are a bunch of factions already established but as you're in charge of your own little Empire that grows I imagine you're only limited by your own ambition and I say why be 'one' of the top dogs when you could preside over them instead :)

It's fun, looks nice.. gradually gets harder as you progress, limiting your deployable units to 5 vehicles at a time is an interesting approach though, kinda forces you to go online eventually and play coop. Which Isn't necessarily a bad thing, but at the same time I have been playing these games solo since the first one back in 1999, i think it came out a year before but I didn't have a PC until i needed it for "homework" ha.. Anyway, besides forcing me to coordinate with other people against my anti-social old man personality.. It's decent.

Though a lot of us have been attuned to the mods of the last games where things have been realistically revamped and were hoping for this one to be in line with the modded gameplay providing more realism in terms of what your deployed teams can do but alas we have yet another arcadey style Emergency, the only reason it gets difficult as you progress is because the amount of tasks and rate of escalation increases. Not because the situations evolve to become more complicated, it simply comes down to being restricted to having 5 vehicles deployed.. One cannot achieve good results with 5 vehicles deployed across multiple incidents.. It just isn't possible to control a situation with 5 vehicles in total.. For example, my last play through solo had 8 separate incidents, a couple of fires, a riot, some kind of gang shootout, a car accident etc.. I have 5 vehicles in total to deploy to multiple areas.. Fire spreads, Riots injure people with fights, shootouts injure people with guns, fire injures people with.. well fire.. all the while you are expected to deal with everything in a 30min time frame while being restricted it's like having one arm tied behind your back. I understand it's to push people into playing Co-Op but doesn't mean I have to like it. Overall it's a decent game, just would've preferred less arcade style gameplay and more emphasis on realism.. I'm sure glad this one was free though, that's partially why it's a thumbs up still and not another negative post.

Goodluck with your next game guys, I'd pay good money for a good realism based Emergency game. Similar to the modded versions and I'm sure many others would too. Go back to the roots like in EM4 and you'll make some money out of us :)

Good fun, with a lack of decent RTS around lately this ticks both the boxes for another fun shooter and RTS. Graphics are really nice, gameplay is a little buggy, but with weekly updates and tweaks I can see a future for this. Many say otherwise, but I'm old enough to have played Command & Conquer: Renegade back in the day and it was fun, similar style to this with the RTS base building and on the ground FPS perspective. It's been attempted a few times before but Silica seems to be doing it right, so far anyway. I heard from the community during one of the sessions I played recently it's supposed to be getting some kind of aircraft update in the near future too, that'll give us an added dimension to gameplay. Looking forward to it, though some instructions or tutorials would also be good, took me a while to figure out the Alien team doesn't collect silica like the humans, they have a completely different resource collection method lol.. I'm not complaining i like that kind of variation but it would have been nice to know in advance haha. I got wrecked running out of resources constantly trying to harvest Silica with the Crabs lol.

Good game, I don't really like single player games but this one is beautiful, runs well (admittedly, had to upgrade my PC a little first) I don't care much for the story but the environment is so well done in this with the animals and changes in weather, it doesn't really matter what you're doing it's good fun.. i usually play a few hours at a time, i might do a couple of missions here and there in single player or online, but mostly i just roam around the map hunting stuff and enjoying the open world content. Just now after nearly 30 hours I noticed lightning strike a rock in the near-distance with a magnificent light show, sparks flew up in the air and i stopped what i was doing just to watch the environment do it's thing lol.. I play mostly in first person and they've done well to make things just as immersive and fun in first person as it is in 3rd person.. movement is sometimes bit more chaotic than 3rd person, but it's mostly fine.

Anyway, 100% recommend it - the only negative thing I can think of right now is the hackers aka modders.. a few minutes before this review my game crashed to desktop from an online session with some weird error and after googling it, turns out it's directly related to someone using a mod-menu to force a theme on their camp that isn't accessible to anyone else as it's been removed from public access apparently but still within the game code. So because this one person enabled a previously disabled theme, I and probably everyone else in the server crashed..

While it is extremely irritating it isn't all the time and your online game play encounters will vary from the friendly mind-their-own-business types of people that say hi as they ride on past you to the super toxic-lasso-hogtie-and-murder-you types that scream profanity because they're inbred yokels immersing themselves in outlaw behaviour.. Each can be equally fun to interact with but the other types are just weak minded losers, their only purpose is to ruin your day but not with murdering or tying you up, or even screaming all the words their parents forbid them to say elsewhere but by spawning bears all around you constantly, fixating on you if you call them out for needing to touch grass, they'll teleport behind you and kill you repeatedly, where ever you spawn because they are the highschool shooters that never had the courage to follow their dreams. The cowards of RDR2 Online. The Modders..

Jokes aside, the game is great, covers all bases for single player and multiplayer, missions have a bit of variety too it's just an overall good experience. Despite the modders I prefer online play, just because I get bored and most of the time you'll get a decent bunch of people to play with... I mean some modders are even decent, it's not a blanket statement that they're all bad.. Some of them are fun and enhance the experience, but most will annoy the crap out of you..

Had it in my library for many years, was put off by everyone saying I needed to invest in a proper stick and throttle setup recently got a Razer Wolverine V2 and set it up for War Thunder and it was alright, but I'm not really into WT so I thought I'd give it a chance in DCS and it's amazing, lol. After going through the training with the SU-25T that you get with the base DCS I managed to fly around but as I don't speak or read Russian all the instruments and warning sounds were beyond me but I could take off and land at least.. So anyway I went on to get the A-10C II because it was on sale recently and as an American aircraft I can understand the cockpit much better..

I've only put about 14hrs into the game so far since purchasing the A-10C II so the total 16hrs right now is me not even finishing the training, I've not yet learned to use countermeasures or the air to air stuff but I can safely say it's well worth it and 100% doable with a gamepad if you have no stick. I come to DCS from an Arma 3 background so I'm used to having to use a lot of modifier buttons to achieve things, It's all muscle memory at the end of the day and once you learn the button combos and get used to the controller you can fly and adjust the MFCDs on the go, perhaps in a combat situation the joystick would make things easier but for now while I'm learning to use the aircraft it's perfectly fine.. If you just want to fly around and enjoy the game a gamepad works just as well as a full HOTAS setup.. though as I said, the stick will probably make it easier not having to do a combo of buttons to achieve the same results lol.

First and foremost I've read a lot of the reviews today and noticed a lot of people stating it's a tech demo and the map is small and sure, they are technically right; but that's what you're buying into. Those same people probably neglected to read anything about the product they're complaining about. The whole point of Reforger is to iron out the bugs in the new engine to pave way for development of Arma 4.

To put it simply, Reforger is something you buy if you care about the future of Arma. All your feedback in this temporary installation of the Arma series will be forwarded onto Arma 4 as that is it's sole purpose. Bohemia's already stated this product will only receive 12 months of support after it's released, then all focus will be on the main Arma 4 development.

If you love Arma 3 and want to help create a better Arma 4, jump into this game and join us. As with all EA titles there are bugs and as with every Arma Alpha test there are server issues, I remember the rough transition from A2 to A3 Alpha we had similar issues with desync and server disconnects and that was on an engine that was time-tested as the previous two titles were made on the same real virtuality engine just updated each time. Reforger is built upon a whole new engine, which had it's debut in DayZ but I believe this one is a modified version of that one.

Anyway, the game itself is great, I think people are just too reliant on the GPS and blufor tracking in Arma 3, they didn't have the whole experience some of us had in A1 and A2 where you had limited tech at your disposal and had to actually use your brain to navigate most of the time, learning how to read a map was essential as it is today in this one. Back in 2001 Arma: Cold War Crisis was set in 1985 and Reforger places you on the same map 4 years later in 1989. Reforger's map is literally a remake of their original game map in Operation Flashpoint back in 2001. Some of us are still around from those days and I'd bet money that those rating this negatively weren't even born back when we started playing ArmA/OFP lol.

Aside from the bugs and server issues (that have mostly been fixed now I might add), the game is beautiful. The lighting and shadows are amazing, it doesn't suffer from poor FPS like A3 Alpha did. It has a maximum view distance of 5Km currently, which is more than enough for the small island you're on. When you enter a vehicle you see your hands physically open the door and sit your person in the seat, to drive you need to look at the ignition and interact with it before you can drive anywhere, you see the dude change gears on the stick as you're driving along, it's just a really nice experience for Arma. We've enjoyed high realism in the series for over 20 years now but now when you're looking at your map, others can see you physically holding up a map, or compass or flashlight. Everything is on your person now. If you don't have it on you, you can't use it or see it. There's no blufor tracking either, as mentioned earlier you don't see yourself on the map nor do you see others. The only assistance you get is a little insertion marker when you spawn in letting you know where you last spawned so you can try to figure out how to get where you need to be from there.

I very much enjoy that Reforger has gone back to the Arma roots with realism in mind, it's not supposed to be an easy game that holds your hand constantly, not everyone deserves a participation medal in Arma that's why we have Officer roles implemented there's supposed to be some form of leadership in play at all times even if you're a casual player or not inclined to lead other people, it's not a game designed around solo play it's supposed to be a team effort regardless of the difficulty.

Speaking of teams, the built in radio systems are pretty neat too, those of you that played A3 modded with TFAR and ACRE2 no longer require teamspeak as Reforger's got you covered. Each team has it's own communications network - Long Range radios replace your backpack and double as a mobile respawn beacon type of deal, while the short range can be carried within your uniform, the radios are 1989 quality too there are no satellites bouncing relays back here. Everon is a mountainous terrain and those mountains will wreck your comms even if you're only 1km from your receiver you need to get to high ground to transmit otherwise whatever you say will be incoherent or patchy at best.

Overall with it's new engine and graphics and all the current features, and knowing whats on the roadmap to come I feel it's a good time to start getting into Reforger if you're on the fence, if you have the recommended hardware requirements you will be fine.

In my own opinion I think most negative comments relating performance are because people have crappy systems to be totally honest. I feel a lot of these issues people whinge about with 'high end GPUs' could potentially be bottleneck issues on their end, as the game itself even when it was disconnecting constantly and servers were dying every 30min I've had great FPS and smooth gameplay (between the desync and crashes lol) since the first time I installed it.

For reference I don't have a NASA super computer or anything either, I have an i5-9600KF, RTX 2070 Super, 32Gb Ram and it's installed on a NVMe.2 Evo 970. Even during heavy rain or fog in an urban or forest environment having a firefight with the other team rarely drops my frames down below 70fps with everything maxed except motion blur.. Admittedly, on a 1440P monitor capable of pushing at least double that I get around the same performance/ FPS playing Star Citizen, which again has a ton of people crying about bad performance on high end systems, yet I still have no performance issues because I built this system based on compatibility, not based on what's newest or most expensive.

Just sayin' - TL;DR ignore negative reviews from the entitled zoomers that don't appreciate the series - buy Reforger on sale if you can't justify whatever it costs for you, as an Australian it's $40 here so if you're American and crying about the price.. Ehh you should probably wait til Arma 4 comes along.. with inflation and the number of years it'll take to come out.. You might wanna consider Reforger while it's still in EA pricing though lol.

Good fun, tutorial was lengthy but informative and as an avid sub sim fan it's a nice change to have a surface ship to command, gameplay is quite similar to the silent hunter series which i appreciated immensely, made picking up the navigation between stations easier to get used to i think. Straight out of the tutorial i sucked lost my convoy and eventually crashed into another escort but second time around i managed to sink my target and even with a lot of the stations set to automatic it still gives you that satisfaction of getting your first uboat kill.. I mean even with the sonar and radar stuff done for you; there's still a lot of trial and error when it comes to hitting a sub with depth charges as they don't just sit there and wait for you to kill them they are actively evading giving you the whole cat and mouse feel as you're needing to adapt your speeds and course changes trying to guess which direction they're going to head next as you have to drop the charges ahead of them.. if you're into sub sims and love evading destroyers as much as I do, you'll enjoy trying to trap the uboats with your surface vessels just the same, as the lead destroyer you have limited control over other escort ships in your convoy as well as aircraft sometimes. If you miss your mark and have to catch up with the convoy after losing the uboat you can extend your search area using one of your subordinate vessels or utilise the aircraft search.. Great game, limited content as expected in Early Access but so much potential.. Already have it listed in my favourites, can't wait to see what the devs bring in future updates :)

I bought this a while ago (atleast a couple years back by now when it first arrived on steam I think) but came back to see why it has mostly negative reviews, it's worth it if you're literate and can read the f*cking description..

"This content can only be accessed with EVE Online accounts created through Steam. Existing EVE Online accounts not created through Steam cannot benefit from it."

Also the in-game / website store purchases are better value but for convenience I prefer steam purchases regardless. Don't be fooled by the illiterate trash that don't bother reading what they're purchasing; it's not CCP or Steam's fault their parents didn't care for them enough to educate them better. Illiteracy is a global problem, stupidity is also a pandemic in our current world. Unfortunately there is no vaccine for this one though. Not yet atleast. CCP I implore you to create IQ injectors in your future patches these poor, poor people have suffered long enough!

Absolutely recommend it. It's great fun.. like a MMO mixed with MOBA type of thing.. with the added complexity of a resource manager + 4X type of research tree. I ignored it when I first saw it on steam thought it was going to be crap but I ran out of stuff to play and gave it a chance and it's actually really fun lol.. Having a great time with the longbow and dual blades - apparently both weapons are hated and I enjoy ruining people's day with them, sniping people long range and ambushing from stealth at close range, equally fun. Lots of stuff on the web about longbow being nerfed into the ground, but if you play it in a more defensive position it's not bad or anything I mean even if the whole enemy team shifts focus to you, it takes pressure off your team for a moment I've won most of my battles just being irritating enough to make 3 of 5 opponents target me as I run around the battlefield taking them away from the objectives.. I think all the people saying the longbow is bad are just not good at adapting to the situation they put themselves into.. it's a team effort at the end of the game. If you can't get kills, be the decoy for the people that can ;)

10/10 awesome game.

2023 edit: the developers have just done a major performance 'upgrade' the latency for every server has gone up by atleast 300ms for me in Australia, all the 'Asia' servers are beyond 500ms and the lowest ping that's playable for me is the middle east ~180ms I've not noticed any FPS increases with this latest update, but sure have noticed the connection downgrade.. this was supposed to just be a graphics improvement but has significantly degraded the ability to do almost anything now..despite the fun it used to have i can't recommend it anymore.. i'm on the edge of uninstalling it if the latency doesn't go back to what it used to be.. i.e the server i used to play on was around 130ms before and is now averaging 480-520ms :/