Recent reviews by $crooge

In my lane,
purging,
praising the Emperor.

+ Clean gameplay
+ Secrets
+ Choose retro filter strenght
+ Accessibility Options
+ Ultraviolence
- UWQHD is streched in cutscenes

Disclaimer: Beta Review, 50hrs played, previously played all Fatshark titles

With this newest entry in the -Tide series, Fatshark finally comes to the 41st millennium of Warhammer and brings their tried and true horde combat into this glorious setting. There is more ranged combat, of course, but also visceral melee engagements and tough and frantic hordes of Nurgle to fight.
You can level up each character/class you play up to level 30 and unlock feats/skills that are adaptable to your playstyle, as well as weapons and trinkets/curios that improve your damage and impact upon enemies. You will also collect money to buy those and a premium currency to buy special deals. Everything this far is unlockable by grind, but the market is randomized every few hours. The second money is collected through weekly missions, per character, and increasingly time-consuming.
Crafting is not fully unlocked at this time, allowing only weapon upgrades.
(This just as general judgment-free context, thoughts on score impact later)

The Good:
+ Hefty combat, with excellent hit feedback, whether in melee or with the many new ranged weapons.
+ Hordes of small enemies keep you on your toe, elites challenge with more than just health points.
+ Rewarding 'getting better by learning' progression, as you learn to handle special enemies and how to support your team best, besides just leveling up your reaction and special awareness skills get challenged, and it just feels great to prove yourself at higher difficulties
+ Warhammer 40k visuals, sound and music, the whole atmosphere, in a hive city goes even above previous games in the setting. There is little details in dialogue and impressive visuals and soundtrack to take you really into this world.
+ Varied reshuffling of maps, with changing victory conditions the variety is greater at the start (at the start), there is no campaign or specific selection yet
+ Looks great, runs smoother and previous releases

The Bad:
- Progression systems clearly unfinished: everything you unlock is basically the levels and feats, weapons are so randomized, they don't feel like a reward, nothing carries over cross character. Needs more options to have choices over weapons and benefits for multi-classing, currently you only play one character and grind with that.
- Apart from getting bigger number of equipment with level up, the items all have many hidden stats, they are all randomized, so just a quality upgrade is not a guaranteed hit, unlocking a weapon class is no reward, even taking a limited deal is only useful if you currently have the currency since the deals vanish.
- Performance hungry at 1440p and up resolutions, you will need FidelityFX/DLSS to get constant frames, but those also come with many visual glitches. Needs better optimization or AI upscaling driver updates.
- Some (most) special enemies can disable and wreck your situation through some glitchy behavior, hounds have too much hp, trappers short setup time and various range, chargers can hardly be deterred - just look at the many complaints, There is clearly not just balancing but improvements to special sound, movement, aim to do before it feels rewarding to outsmart them.
- Weekly missions are hardly rewarding, can be done in 2-3 days with intense play, but you need to do a week of weeklies per character, and with the amount of currency gained you only get 1-2 items, the rest you just see and miss.
- Two currencies, has and will always be a bad sign, especially if one unlocks only that slow and limited.

The Weird:
~ Random weapon stats communicate nothing, no overview of your characters' health/toughness/dmg numbers, no numbers, basically could use more numbers, descriptions and legends.
~ Low weapon for playstyle choice: Random access to weaponry, without guaranteeing you your favorite weapons, this is worse than Vermintide. New weapons classes unlock by leveling, but to get a playable one you have to wait at the shops, needs at least crafting at current level.
~ Crafting not finished makes hit harder to judge here, I'll just say towards release I would have hoped for a finished system and in Beta we could have collected some feedback. There is only upgrading, at that one is weird as well, because btw the weapon base rating is not tied to rarity. Also, no crafting materials from collected weapons (smelting).
~ Difficulty ramps up highly with each level, that is clearly intended, but could be communicated better to new players, maybe with level suggestions.

Final verdict:
Darktide is a good game, feels great in the core gameplay and perfectly captures the Warhammer 40k scenario. There is that rush and feel of improvement when you master it, there is joyous combat and cool weapons. So far, Fatshark got everything about the core gameplay right. Even with janky specials, you feel like you can always get the mission done and up the ante for the next, this is what keeps you hooked.
A big fail though is the progression system, if you really care about getting that weapon for your playstyle, min-maxing your equipment, working towards a reward, there sadly is none of that possible right now. With random weapons, no class carry over and unfinished crafting you have as much control about your equipment as with a random deck of cards made of different games, you could prove your skill with what you have, but actually building the deck would be better.
There is also still a lot of balancing and glitch hunting to do, but that is par for the course with a Fatshark release, I personally do not find this ruining my experience, just weird there is still no higher priority set to this.

For the Gamers™: 6/10

Recommended if you just want to purge some hordes for the Emperor, honestly it is great for that.

Bucks per hour: Great deal, standard edition at AA price, premium edition not needed, long playtime guaranteed.

Still crashes, a lot, it must be a memory leak.
Also takes a while to open menus or load locations, after loading screens stuff still loads.
Key mapping could also be improved, no double assigments, no additional mouse buttons assignable and the default layout is confusing.

Pros: Score, VA, action and story - all fine enough.

Get's an overall F because practically unplayable. You might get lucky with an SSD, though this is no way to combat bad software.

With this third installment to the Crusader Kings series, Paradox studios creates a great gateway to grand strategy. A very clever and intuitive UI combined with helpful tutorial and always present tool tips makes for a great experience. Still the game has many mechanics and options to customize your character, dynasty or nation. Personal stories with drama and intrigue form quite naturally and keep every sucession and new start fresh.
Recommended if you like to rule the world, or just insult the pope.

Overlord is a somewhat novel mix of action and strategy, not turn-based but direct-control. A bit fiddly at start but offers the posibility to JUST SWARM THEM WITH BROWN MINIONS; MUHAHAHAH! Sorry, got a bit intense there.
Seriously, this game comes with a nice story, putting you in charge of everthing that is evil and devilshly bad in fantasy worlds, FINALLY THE ELVES WILL PAY FOR THEIR INSULTING BEAUTY! Not sure where that came from.
If you can deal with the controls and a ending that drags a bit, you will be rewarded with a still nice to look at game and your own seat on the throne. MAKE THE HALFLINGS PAY WITH THEIRS LIFES!!

My review extends in the same manner to Overlord 2 and the addon Rising Hell. You should keep your distance from the heresy that is The Fellowship of Evil Spin-off.

Let's keep it simple: does not work, looks ugly (menu) and it is boring.

Review for the full Series of Magic Games.

Duels of the Planeswalkers Gold Game Bundle (2011)
No longer aviable as non-bundle. For casual play quite enjoyable, all decks are easily unlockable without much grinding, but a motivation campaign. Local Two-Headed Giant mode and amazing Mentoring mode. Technically atrocious. 7/10

Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012
Slightly better then the first, more customization of decks (still not fully), quite good decks even, but really good decks. Instable but nice Two-Headed Giant mode, as well as Archenemy. Technically meh. 8/10

Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013
Meh, boring decks, campaign and and still so very mediocre. Has Planechase, but no archenemy any more, while still unstable. Technically worse. 5/10

Magic 2014 — Duels of the Planeswalkers
Tries so hard to hide that it is just the same, but worse. Boring decks and campaign. No exiting modes but 4 Player Free-For-All, unstable to that is. Technically worse. 4/10

Magic 2015 - Duels of the Planeswalkers
Offensive. 0/10

Magic Duels
Promising and motivating again, with full deck customaziation and new, free updates. Free base game. F2P Element adds the possibilty to unlock cards, but requires A LOT of grinding, while playing with friends earns no rewards, only random VS. Has Two-Headed Giant, but without reward again. The campaigns are engaging enough, give rewards but feature only easy challenges. Some campaign decks are really bad. Technically okay. 8/10
As to date it is annouced, that there will be no more updates for this game, the next one is in the works.

On any of these: avoid DLC, not playable on many laptop graphics, instable multiplayer, no surround/ultra-wide-screen support, good tutorials.

Magic Duels is recommended for new players to learn, any other is only recommended to casual fans with a good pain tolerance.

This is a co-operative survival slasher fest, driven by well done map design and challenges. Especially in offering interesting maps and a satisfying combat this game succeeds very well.

Regularly updates added a more motivating contracts system to gather the loot you want and new maps. All the while keeping DLC pricing reasonable.
Any issues are patched in timely fashion by the committed dev team, thus making the game a technically solid experience.
The graphics are atmospheric and detailed, hordes of rats are well animated and the Warhammer universe is captured beautifully.

On the down side, the graphic glitches and clips, depending on settings and system, with AMD systems suffering inconsistencies in performance. Also, some AI freak-outs appear occasionally, but more seldom now.

All in all, recommended to every co-op shooter, or Warhammer fan.

Have you ever liked any boardgame ever? It's most likely available as DLC or in the Workshop here.

This Simulator has to it's name bretheren the uppper hand of actually being well executed and a all-round nice experience. With great VR support and handy controlls, this is the closest you can get to really having your friends over.
And if your lacking friends in your proximity, this game brings them back together, a fair offer for a fair price.

Tons of hours playtime and a still active community prove it: Valve created the commical but mighty king of team shooters.
It's also has been free for a while now.

If you honestly have no clue yet:
- Various and hilarious game modes
- 9 Classes with an endless amount of equipment choices and thus strategies
- (almost) balanced Teamplay
- humoric presentation, in voicelines, videos and every inopertune moment
- Hats

Recommended to every one even mildly interested in shooters.