Recent reviews by Sudaksis

After 2,000 hours of this game, I finally feel able to properly give this game my opinion.

Gameplay

The shooting mechanics here are very realistic and are more relatable to Insurgency but faster paced. You have a primary and secondary gun, a limited tactical gadget, drones or cameras at your disposal, and a gadget unique to your operator that can play a big factor into how the round may turn out. The mechanics feel tight, enjoyable, and well balanced.

There are a ton of maps that are multi-level and destructible with many rooms and ways to move about. Anyone can learn to use a gun easily but the hardest thing to do in this game is learn the ins and outs of the maps, and this will make all the difference. Learning which walls are soft and which are hard, where hatches are, where the entrances and doorways are, where default cameras are located on the map, even which objects in the environment create audio like music from jukeboxes or beeps from metal detectors.. there's a ton here to understand beyond what good lines of sight are. For the most part, most of the maps are great and only a few I would call unsuitable to competitive play, which are thankfully not part of the ranked lineup.

Many military FPS games have matches under time limits with respawns or other game modes that are completely different in how they play split the player base to do whatever they want but Siege having strictly 3 game modes for competitive play with the same mechanics between each really keep the game uniform and the player base intact. This is objectively integral to the game and really excels here.

A big difference Siege has from other games is there is no actual downtime in match. Other games, when you die, you sit and wait to play again either by respawn or the next round if no respawning is enabled. Siege offers use of drones and cameras when you die so you can still support your team and provide valuable information. Information really is the name of the game and can turn the tide of any round in an instant from a single ping or audible footstep nearby.

When you go into ranked play, there is a heavy focus on outplaying and outsmarting your enemy through tactics. One of the special tactics in this mode is the ability to ban operators on attack and defense sides. This is done to be a detriment to your enemy's planned tactics so that you have an upper hand but they have the same ability to harm your tactics too. There is also more limited time in each round here. Ranked mode is well fleshed out and really shines as best around.

And terrorist hunt still exists I guess.

History

The multiplayer gaming scene has been rife with military FPS games left, right, and center for a long time now. Back in 2015 was when Call of Duty and Battlefield were the norm, those of us wanting a deeper tactical shooter were playing things like ARMA, Insurgency, and Rising Storm. While these more tactical games offered more versatility in gameplay and cooperative mechanics, they still lacked a certain polish that AAA games could put out. Even mechanically, the best we could hope for was Due Process to get past alpha and release as a full game eventually. Then Siege held an open beta where I was able to participate and I immediately saw the potential in the game, primarily because of the destructible environment and the tactics of choosing operators based on what unique abilities they can bring to a round. Even more than that, the inclusion of camera usage after a death was a huge factor that helped it stand out from other shooters given that even down time can be active and helpful to your team.

When it released in 2015, there were a number of problems and the lack of content at launch was definitely worrisome to the longevity of the game. As much I loved of it at the time, I was a bit scared no one else would find what I found in it and it was possible for it to have died within 6 months unless they made changes. Everything, even how awful the Uplay launcher back was in 2015, was out to make this game fail, but hard work and dedication from the developers was able to not only keep it alive but improve it beyond anyone's expectations.

Even the community was entirely unique in its space in the gaming industry. While Call of Duty and Battlefield were incredibly popular, they were rarely better than toxic cesspools. Siege harbored an oasis of players who were not only kind to new players and willing to teach but also incredibly creative in how to approach the game's mechanics and tactical maneuvers to catch the enemy off guard.

From early things like operator balance with Frost and Blackbeard, to adding better maps like Border and Coastline all the way to 2020 where we have base content like maps and operators getting reworked to a more acceptable state in the wake of more than triple the amount of starting content in update content now. We have Vulkan support, planned next gen console support, cosmetics that are mostly awesome, seasonal game modes, pick and ban to ranked play, incredible tournaments to watch.. there really is no end to the amount of great things we have and have coming in the future.

TL;DR
Where other games are playing checkers, Siege is playing Chess and Go at the same time.

It's incredible the trajectory a game like this has had and I feel entirely grateful the gaming community and the developers have put as much attention and faith into this experience as they have because they have all made the game worthy of its status. A game with a strong foundation can be built upon and repaired, and no other game has demonstrated how important that is than Siege. It will take time to learn and even more to be decent at but I would highly recommend to anyone to give it a go because its unlike anything else out there. Now, may you seige the day.

This is a puzzle platfomer that is more than meets the eye. Beyond the lovely hand crafted visuals and solemn score is a series of complex puzzles and a deeply engrossing story.

The main mechanic in solving these puzzles is a device that allows you to create clones of yourself that also mimic your actions. This is used in many diverse situations that involve block pushing, gravity shifting, and logic puzzles, to name a few. And where this could have been a run-of-the-mill puzzle platformer with a cool mechanic, this game includes a fascinating story around that mechanic that leaves you wondering.

One of the most captivating games of the genre I have played in a while with fantastic aesthetics and music. It was such a stellar experience that I even played through the game twice...
...or was that someone else?

A modern point-and-click adventure with fantastic pixel art and one of the most immersive soundtracks I have ever heard in a game.

Puzzles make sense, exploration takes place in interesting settings, music and sounds are perfectly timed and appropriately themed, fighting is sparse but meaningful, the story is seen more than read, and the humor is witty and self aware. The game can be beaten in a few hours but there are achievements and secrets to find.

One of my favorite games for its immersive atmosphere and music, which comes automatically with the game. Now we're cosmic friends forever, ok?

A rogue-lite 2D platformer with plenty of gameplay and unlockables to keep you invested for dozens of hours of single player alone.

Each map has a certain amount of randomized variables to keep each run feeling different, every character plays differently, the game is difficult but fair (you can even beat it with the sniper!), tons of unlockables, a bit of a learning curve at first but scales well for experienced players, plenty of unique enemies, solid local co-op and multiplayer (though connecting online is a bit awkward), and an outstanding soundtrack.

Nearly half of my play time was solo, the rest local co-op and a bit of online multiplayer. The music alone was enough to keep me at it again and again.

An exploratory adventure game with some action, some puzzles, and some problems.

This is not so much a negative review as much as a general warning about expectations before getting into this game. I did enjoy my time and there are plenty of good things here, but this is very much a case of "not for everyone."

What I was expecting was a puzzle exploration game in a gorgeous world similar to Sword & Sworcery EP, and for the most part it is. There is beautiful scenery to see, puzzles to solve, and some fighting involved, but all of these aspects have some issues.

The art style is great to look at and would make nice wallpapers but the issue I found is that sometimes paths will be obscured by the foreground or areas that you actually can access do not look accessible because it looks like the background or the surrounding scenery which are solid. Most times this was not an issue but it was a problem more than once. The inclusion of a map might have alleviated that but there is none.

Most of the puzzles in the game are rather easy to solve. I would have liked to see more or have more challenging puzzles instead. There is also a unique language written on stones but many of the letters look like their English counterparts, making deciphering not actually challenging like it was in FEZ.

As for combat, I wish this game opted to forgo it entirely. You either throw rocks at creatures or grab them to throw into spikes while they jump or dive at you. It seems fine enough on paper but the way the physics work in the game make this aspect frustrating, especially against the large birds.

Lastly, your objective in the game is to collect crystals to bring back to the hub area which unlocks a center chamber at the end. All around the world you discover various ruins and remnants of a former civilization, there are things written in a mysterious language, and what you do at the end is very dark and unexpected. One would assume these are the secrets of Rætikon and that there would be answers in the end. Instead, the game decides to make you play Pong and abruptly ends. Nothing is revealed about Rætikon and I felt my time was ultimately wasted. The worst part is that I actually found out more about the world by reading the art book than playing the actual game.

Despite all of these problems, I did enjoy my time flying about, collecting things, and exploring the beautiful world. As for recommending this game, if you do not mind the clunky combat and lack of answers, this game is a fun few hours. Oh, and there is a level editor too.

Simple, fast-paced fun with a hypnotic soundtrack.
Controls are minimal but the game is actually quite difficult.

Definitely worth buying.

...wait, didn't I write this review already?

Simple but challenging controls, a non-linear map layout, and a timer for speedrunning each level. A fresh take on the platformer genre thanks to its unique, physics-based diving mechanic.

The start is simple and straightforward but the game gradually becomes complex and challenging. Level design and pacing here are fantastic, testing a player's skill and problem solving while never feeling that a failed attempt is because of unfair or broken game mechanics. Completed levels unlock multiple new ones, allowing for a non-linear progression through the game, and each new quadrant unlocked adds a new color scheme, a new layer of music, and a new platforming mechanic for that area. For the 150 or so levels there are also record times for high score lovers and speedrunners alike.

This game will take a while to finish and even longer to beat the times. An addictive platformer that is really worth checking out.

A first person puzzle game with an existential atmosphere and a mind bendingly difficult set of puzzles to solve.

The initial experience gets you familiar with the mechanics of the game before adding in a "gun" that allows you to manipulate blocks to solve puzzles. The upgrades to the device allow for more interesting uses of the blocks and puzzles become more challenging as you progress.

At first, I was loving the game until the logical puzzles were introduced with the block gun because I felt the game was set up do some really unique things that could only be done from a first person perspective and logical puzzles like those made it seem like a waste of such a build up. I still felt that way after the green upgrade but, upon getting the yellow upgrade, I was glad to find the puzzles that try one's lateral thinking were back and better than before. It was definitely worth giving the game a second chance because it is one of the better games of the genre and a uniquely worthwhile experience.

If only I knew what those pink cubes did...

A video game adaptation that understands why the Alien series started so strong and perfectly recreates its horror and science fiction atmosphere.

Having been a huge fan of the first Alien movie, the atmosphere and immersion this game provides were exactly what I had been craving. The very slow and drawn out start, the mystery about the aliens as well as the corporate interests and the nature of humans, and the fear of being hunted by a unpredictable and unstoppable creature. But enough about the film.

The game itself is mostly a stealth game where you constantly need to be out of sight or else you will be spotted and swiftly ended. The alien is not your only threat, though, as there are some humans still aboard the Sevastapol space station who are desperate enough to kill to survive, as well as some faulty androids that will resort to violence to complete their mission. These separate enemies are not only a threat to you but to each other and getting them to interact is definitely recommended in some cases, but often you are better off not bothering any of them if possible.

There is a bit of crafting in the game to help you distract enemies, heal yourself, or, if need be, to kill. Lower difficulties offer resources abundantly while the higher difficulties make them scarce. Lore is spread about in the form of text documents and audio tapes usually found on computer terminals which can also be explored some other time in the pause menu and provide a good insight into the events that occurred prior to your arrival. The story itself is good and is well paced throughout the game but if you remember the films, you know what to expect. Personally, I did not care much for the ending, but I feel the destination is nowhere near as satisfying as the journey in this game.

The game is great but it is not perfect. There are a few bugs that are not game breaking but definitely hamper the immersion. Amanda, your character, sometimes screams at seemingly random places because whatever system that is supposed to trigger a scream at a cue is bugged. After you acquire the flamethrower, the audio will sometimes bug so the sound of the fuel in the canister sloshing around can be heard every way you move. Animations are sometimes messed up if you travel to places the story doesn't intend for you be. While not a bug, if you activate a quick time or moment where you only have camera control, the field of view will revert to the default 45 and switch back to your set field of view after it ends, which is quite noticeable. Also, the only level design problem to be found is that some of the save station placements are a little too plentiful in some areas and a little too sparse in others. Other than that, the game runs perfectly fine and none of the technical issues hinder progress.

What really sold me on the experience was the attention to the little details and the audio. Like how the motion tracker does not work well in vents or through certain large objects like android storage chambers. How the sticky notes and pictures inside lockers and on terminals are not all the same. One corpse had a magazine stuffed down the throat like the android tried to do in the first movie. The dust on your motion tracker is visible in the light. The quick time events for small tasks were timed just long enough to add tension to your actions. All of the sound effects which emulated the films or created for this were just right for the setting of a 70's vision of the future. The scenes where you don an astronaut suit. This game just had atmosphere in spades.

For a video game based on the first Alien films, this is what we had wanted all along.

If you ever felt that Battlefield didn't feel realistic enough but found ARMA to be too simulator-y, this is your ideal middle ground.

Insurgency, in essence, is much like Counterstrike with a number of diverse objective based, team-oriented game modes. In each PvP game mode both teams are evenly balanced with goals of protecting/defending capture points, destroying/protecting caches, guarding/eliminating a VIP, or simply killing the other team. What make these game modes especially interesting are the high lethality of weapons, respawning in waves, lack of usernames above players, and the very minimal HUD.

Speaking of minimal HUD, you never see your health, you never see the number of bullets you have in your magazine (only the number of magazines you are carrying), you never see a hit marker or kill confirmation, you don't have a radar, and there isn't even a crosshair. All of this really amplifies the immersion, especially when you can only take a few bullets and there is a surpression effect when those bullets are just missing you.

As for the co-op game modes, which involve a team of human players versus AI enemies, there is checkpoint, hunt, and survival. Checkpoint has you as part of a security team tasked with capturing points and destroying caches in an insurgent controlled territory. Hunt has you on a security team that needs to clear a map of insurgents without respawns in the round. Lastly, survival has you as an insurgent trying to survive against waves of security forces as you make your way to various caches for as long as possible. Honestly, most of my time has been spent in checkpoint more than any other mode in the game.

Some of the best features of the game are not even from the developers themselves but rather the community. There is a fantastic mod scene, thriving player base, and generally everyone I've met in game has been a good sport, which are all things few other games in the military FPS genre have. The developers have also been excellent about updating the game with free content, communicating with the community in the forums, holding community map contests and actually incorporating those maps into the main game, and they host livestreams weekly with special guests to discuss upcoming changes and features.

When it comes to other shooters I have played in the past, they all had some form of needless progression, balance issues, poor hit detection, unfair maps, and/or toxic communities. This game came along with none of those problems and instantly became my favorite FPS in years. Insurgency really is an oasis in a desert and there is still so much more to come.