Recent reviews by Rowers

Rotund Carcharodon have finally started to turn things around on the gameplay systems front. Recent improvements have been welcome, but more content in the way of new enemies (second hive faction too?), weapons, and maps are priority.

Addressing the server issues, recoil/sight hitching with guns, and the shoddy FOMO-riddled MTX shop must be on the cards too.

It's come a long way since launch when it comes to reworks in both PVE and PVP modes. But, needs more UI polish and content in the way of battle groups and units.

While the gameplay fundamentals are there (closer to the first game than the second, which I prefer), a pack of clowns without masks thought of the matchmaking system that Payday 3 has in place and I can't recommend it for now. There's plenty problems I've encountered so far, a few to list here:

• Without a lobby or browser system, you get dumped into games where other players intend to go loud/stealth contrary to your own plans. I just want to play some heists as loud right away and you can't even chat in the lobby for one.
  
• If we are going to matchmake, at least let us do it by difficulty instead of map AND difficulty settings - it's absolute struggle street to get players into games on top of the servers themselves being garbo cans.
  
• Matchmaking just throws you into whatever nearby region works (e.g. playing from Australia being put in with Chinese and Japanese players) where high pings and langauge barriers pose major issues. This is completely avoidable by having a lobby browser like before.
  
• The mission UI navigation. HOW MANY ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ times can previous videos games tell devs that horizontal scrolling for long lists/single tiles is imbecilic UX design - it's not as cinematic as a designer thinks it is.

Three Kingdoms is a strong entry with solid fundamentals and mechanic improvements on past historical TW titles. Moreover, there's great potential for expansion to cover more of the map, more characters, factions, and the 220-280 AD/CE period proper.

With Creative Assembly's announcement that no more DLC or patches (there's a fair chunk of unresolved bugs tied to patch 1.70!) are planned, I can't recommend purchasing this game. CA are apparently working on a new title, based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel that will not connect to this.

This is just unacceptable, especially with no communication on abandonment/change/progress around the northern-centred expansion DLC first announced back in July 2020. No matter how much the message is spun to convey that the the right business call has been made to move on, what gives fans much hope for this supposed Three Kingdoms spin-off entry when so much of the original game's potential remains unexplored?

The recent celebrations around Creative Assembly expanding further and becoming the UK's best/biggest game developer really ring hollow.

A lot of reviewers have tackled the multiplayer, changes from past games, and technical problems they've faced.

From a singleplayer campaign perspective, avoid Dawn of War III. There's a multitude of problems, and coming from past DoW games; it's incredibly disappointing. Some SPOILERS follow:

Poor writing manifests throughout the narrative. Adam Bullied and Kyle Berndt's script repeats plot points from previous titles while lacking world-building qualities. Cinematic briefings and screenplay offer dull characters, predictable developments, and uninspiring dialogue.

Worst of all, the campaign serves as a glorified tutorial for the multiplayer experience and is completely subservient to gameplay gimmicks, pacing itself around a factional rotation of missions. With unconvincing artwork cutscenes (especially the fight sequence between Gabriel Angelos and Macha), Ork humour and voice acting are the singleplayer experience's only saving graces.

Plus, there's:

• an abrupt ending, with the fate of factions and individuals left largely unresolved, that only serves as a ‘sequel hook’ for the impending Necron return
  
• the contrived role of elite units in campaign missions, for example: Solaria is introduced too late as a gameplay unit despite her cinematic presence in early missions
  
• health pickups influencing gameplay pacing, for example: the final (17th) mission moves your elite units forward (through in-game cutscenes) once an area is cleared, forcing the player to walk units with lower health, back to health pickup zones
  
• the lack of auto-save and quick-save functionality
  
• poor pathfinding in AI movement
  
• incredibly weak voice acting for Angelos: his sluggish tone made worse by a poor script he's reading off most of the time

Not to mention, the awful UI design going on: ugly artwork for selection buttons, inconsistent character portraits, and gradient backgrounds for icon buttons. Menus also run slowly and loading elite units on a 3D platform is a time-wasting process.

I can't recommend this for both old and new fans alike.