Recent reviews by Arkalem

This game brings me intense joy. I love every second of it.

I have spent hours *reading lore*, which is something I never do in an RPG. Hell, I barely even understand that happened in BG3, because every time a lore opportunity presented itself, my mind phased out.

But I love the world building so much in Veilguard. I'm deeply invested.

The playstyle is very different from Origins and DA:II. It's more akin to Inquisition, but with more emphasis on fast-paced third person action. That's going to be a turn off for some folks, for sure. However, there are 6 Difficulty settings, and if none of those work for you, you're able to create customized difficulties with a range of different options, truly tweaking the experience to your liking.

The art is unreal. This is, plainly put, the most beautiful game that has come out this year.

I love Once Human. Partially because I dig the aesthetic... the art is gorgeous, the environments are breathtaking, and I really like the bizarre Cronenbergian monstrosities. It's a *little* jarring that horrifying subway car beasts are prowling right next to burlap bodied cutesy beavers, but honestly I find it kind of charming. It's like Palworld, with all of the adorable little critters, smooshed up with The Division. It takes some getting used to, but I really love it.

The building is simple, but you're able to make some surprisingly gorgeous homes... so long as you don't mind your stylistic options MOSTLY being 1950's era split-level ranch houses. That said, there are SO MANY placeables that you need for various things that it really feels like you have a reason to build multiple rooms... and you can fill them all too! If anything, I wish that the building footprint was a bit larger, but I'm a sucker for sprawling mansions, so YMMV.

There are a TON of systems, and I know that some folks have been kind of turned off by that. In my opinion, though, they're all awesome. I have ADHD something fierce, and I always feel like this game has something for me to do. There are seasonal tasks, progression tasks, story quests, crafting quests, exploration quests... all in all, just a TON to do, with pretty decent rewards for doing them.

I actually really like the seasonal reboots too. At first I thought I would hate it, since I love building so much... but the truth is that it's REALLY EASY to build awesome structures in this game. Nothing like Conan or Ark, where a complicated structure might take an entire clan days to gather resources for. The resource gathering in this game feels speedy and enjoyable, and you can build a great starter house with about 20 minutes of farming wood and gravel.

In any case, the game is free to play and all of the micro-transactions are cosmetic. Try it out for a little while, and if you don't like... who cares? You didn't spend a dime on it!

Great game.

Can't play it due to server instability.

I love a lot about this game.

The story is compelling. The art is RAD. I love the 40K universe, and being given the latitude to play how you want in this setting is pretty wonderful.

But this game just isn't finished. Not even close. Fully a third of the skills just don't work. There's no warning either. You just pick out a really cool skill from your recent level up, get in combat...and notice that the numbers seem wrong. You try the skill again and again, and no matter what you do, you realize that the skill is just...not real.

This skill is supposed to increase damage with a certain kind of weapon? Nope. Run the numbers several times, and you'll see it doesn't do anything at all. Characters in Rear designated zones are supposed to be immune to enemy priority while this skill is up? Nope, enemy snipers immediately wipe out your back line as the combat starts.

And this isn't just synergies confusing me. Several major streams are offering cool builds, but warning that certain skills LOOK super attractive, but are useless because they don't seem to actually be in the game at all.

Then there's the cover mechanic. My GOD it couldn't be any more busted. Often times, you'll have what looks like a perfectly clear line of sight to an enemy. The moment you try to fire at them, your character turns towards a wall and fires their entire action directly into it.

Rogue Trader has the skeleton of a damn fine game. Unfortunately, it's implemented so poorly that I just can't recommend this game in its current state. Check back in a year.

**EDIT**

Okay, this combat system is absolutely laughable.

There is a fight at the end of Chapter 3 where you have no chance to heal for the entire chapter... so by the time I got to it, half my characters couldn't equip their main weapons anymore due to trauma.

The boss has 10 guards, and every 3 rounds 8 more spawn. On round 4 or so, two AOE turrets also come online.

When my MC sniper killed the boss, she immediately respawned and one-shotted my MC.

Before too long, ONLY Cassia was alive.

And Cassia singlehandedly killed the boss and **36** adds.

They didn't even TRY to balance this mess XD

I am bad at this game, but I like it.

There's so much about this game that I want to like.

It's impossible, though, since half the game barely works and the other half is so mystifyingly complex that it's fundamentally nonsense. I spent hours prepping to build my little cottage, only to discover that, no matter what configuration I tried, one wall would always be "Area Restricted." I tore down (and got less than half my materials refunded) and rebuilt my base about 10 times, and no matter how many times I tried this was always the result.

Eventually, a wolf with more damage and health than a flipping Terminator broke in and killed me, destroying a bunch of my stuff in the process. Hours wasted, all because the game can't seem to parse how its own building system works.

Maybe the game will kick ass in a few months, but as of right now, I'd advise you to save your money.

We Who Are About to Die isn't a game for people who are easily frustrated or unwilling to experiment and fail with its detailed but sometimes difficult to grok systems.

Unless you're some kind of savant, you absolutely will spend the first 3-5 hours getting your dome caved in, your legs chopped off, and your rib cage split like so much kindling. Something happens, though, around that fifth hour of play.

Suddenly, without really understanding what has changed, you just...view the matches differently. You start to understand what portions of an enemy's body his shield covers...and how you can maneuver to place a spear tip over it, or a sword slash around the left side. You begin to plan for quick attacks with rapid, guarded retreats. You slowly but almost intuitively begin to notice how weapons perform, and how they're best defended against.

Suddenly, and quite without you sensing your own progress, you find that you can routinely win fights...even when you have 3, 4, or even 5 opponents. It never really gets *easier*, but if you're careful and patient, you will soon be smearing the blood of your foes across the sand of the arena as the crowd chants and cheers.

WWAATD is not an easy game, but it *is* a phenomenally fun little gem, and it's lone developer is responsive and helpful. I genuinely believe that, as he tweaks the game's intricate systems on the way to full release, We Who Are About to Die will only get better!

But I *still* won't be able to throw for ♥♥♥♥.

A baffling mixture of punishing design choices, abysmal optimization, and irritating bugs kneecap what could otherwise be a brilliant survival game

Look, I desperately want to like Icarus. On paper, it's a game that's right up my alley. I love the idea of living the hard-scrabble life of a frontiersman, desperately eking out a meager subsistence life while dreaming of better things to come. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that I'd have more fun actually trying to survive in a semi-arctic wilderness than I am having in the onerous, painful mess that is Rocketwerkz most recent offering.

It isn't just that the game is hard. It is, but I cut my teeth on ARK and Conan: Exiles, so I honestly prefer my survival games to be on the spicy side. But the design choices of Icarus are beyond simple difficulty bumps. They are so unbearably punishing that they drain any joy from the experience at all.

Take, for instance, the system of XP debt. It's not an unheard of mechanic in survival games: you overextend yourself, get eaten by local fauna, and end up losing a bit of the hard-earned experience you've gained. It's generally kind of annoying, but it's not usually a deal breaker. In Icarus, however, the amount of XP you lose when you die is...all of it...every ounce of experience you have gained into your current level. This is true if you have just leveled up and have 4 XP towards your next level, or if you have hunted for hours and are 4 XP from your next level. In either case, a single death empties your bar and you are left to regain it all.

This is triply frustrating when it is leveling itself that unlocks the gear and structures that you need to easily survive. This is another utterly baffling design decision by Rocketwerkz. Almost as soon as you land planetside, you are subjected to "weather events" that range from annoying to potentially lethal, and the only way to withstand them is by seeking shelter. Of course, there is no hard shelter available except for what you are able to build...and you aren't able to unlock the requisite pieces until you've leveled up at least a few times. The same is true of night time survival. You will almost certainly experience your first evening well before you've unlocked a torch, and with no Gamma options available, you might as well turn your monitor off for the unbearably long night cycle. Even once you are able to make a basic torch, it's only able to light a circle about 3 feet from your body, and you can't hold it and use any other tool or weapon. If you're attacked by wolves in the dark (you will be), then you had better hope you only have a few XP to lose.

Then there's the truly bizarre system of debuffs. If that wolf managed to get its teeth into you, and applied the "Deep Wound" debuff, you will find that even after death you have a permanent reduction in your health and your oh so precious stamina that can only be solved with a suture kit...and you guessed it, that item is an unlock that you either won't have access to yet or that you skipped in favor of shelter pieces because you didn't initially understand its importance. What's worse is that, if left for too long, that debuff adds another negative effect called "Festering Wound" that applies an additional reduction to your health and stamina and, for whatever reason, a 5% reduction to your accrued XP. When you're on your 5th attempt to make it through level 6, this transitions from simply irritating to fury inducing.

And all of this, all of these really poor design choices, are hugely compounded by a litany of bugs so profound that they make the game nearly unplayable. If you drop an item on the ground to manage your inventory, there's a good chance that item will fall through the geometry and be lost. If you equip armor, it is very likely that it will display in a strange way that blocks your visibility when trying to make shots with your bow. Sometimes, for no reason that seems to make any sense, your bow will simply not react no matter how many times you attempt to use it. On one occasion, I ate a stack of wild berries in an attempt to restore my water, and just...died for no discernible reason (I was about 25 XP from level 10).

It's possible...even likely, that the game gets significantly easier and more rewarding later on. Unfortunately, the truth is that there are too many other, better games on the market and I don't intend to waste much more time trying to get to the part of this game that isn't terrible.

I have been excitedly awaiting Icarus since it was first announced, and it's an extreme understatement to say that I am terribly disappointed. Hopefully, Rocketwerkz will hear the relatively unhappy feedback from its fans and make some desperately needed changes to the game. Until then, I'll probably uninstall and treat the game as what it is: a promising Early Access title that isn't ready for public consumption.

I began my Shipbreaking career much like anyone else.

I paid attention in class. I studied hard. I took it seriously.

When the other cadets in my Company at Lynx would go out on the weekends, I'd just kick it at the library and slam those books. I was envious of the camaraderie I was missing out on, sure. God. I'll never forget that night, when Ensign Carullo came back to the dorm with Laura. He **knew** how I felt about her, and he did it anyway.

I guess he was trying to teach me a lesson...something about living life to its fullest, even when it might cost me a point or two off my GPA.

Jokes on him, though. It was worth it to me. Because, see, it wasn't about the grades. Not really. It was about being the best. It was about being the first newbie to get assigned when the lists dropped. It wasn't just about getting rich; it was about staying *alive* in the deadliest job this world has ever known.

And I was good. I mean, I was prodigal. So good that I got assigned a solo strip of an Industrial Gecko on only my fifth day at the Platform.

But...I guess everyone gets complacent sometimes. I guess it's a human tendency to lose focus for a second here or there...especially when that peculiar cerulean glow off a Coolant tank reminds me of the color of Laura's eyes.

I was the best. Right up until I misplaced that one ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tether link, and send the Gecko's reactor core careening into the cargo hold instead of down to the barge where it can be disarmed. Even in Zero-G, it hit me like a truck when it glanced off of that interior bulkhead. I'm pretty sure my legs are broken, but that isn't really a concern.

Looks like the blow also knocked out my dorsal thrusters. I can't move.

And the sounds that reactor's making...I remember learning about critical cascade failures in class.

They're gonna find my teeth in Jakarta, and my eye sockets on Mars.

I'm sorry, Laura.


10/10, great game, would get blown the ♥♥♥♥ up again.

A diary of my journey through Green Hell.

Day 1: Made a lovely little shelter out of palm fronds and vines
Drank milk from a coconut.
Ate a frog.
Wrong frog.
Dead.

Day 14: Finished my simple mud hut. Neat fireplace!
Ate a frog.
Right frog!
Hear a snek.
Dead.

Day 21: Found a grappling hook.
Hear a snek!
Oh ho little snek, I see you!
Don't see cliff.
Dead.

Day 41: Mauled by a panther.
Put maggots in the wound to kill the infection.
Make antibiotic bandages to heal wound.
I am a survival master.
Eat beans.
Wrong beans.
Dead.

I cannot recommend this game enough. Especially if you're angry at yourself for some reason.

EDIT: Thanks for all the love guys! I've never had a review go viral before. It kind of makes me feel like the mayor of my own little town. Maybe I'll start reviewing other games for funsies!