Recenzii recente de DeadlyBacon

The first thing that needs to be said is that Grey Zone Warfare, at its core, is almost *nothing* like Escape From Tarkov. Take away the little sprinkles of EFT inspiration like the inventory and equipment systems, and in reality GZW is more a combination between ArmA and Ghost Recon. And that's a *good* thing, because GZW is a true tactical multiplayer shooter. It rewards the slow methodical approach expected from games like ArmA and Ground Branch, and it punishes the reckless and hyper aggressive "meta" seen in shooters like EFT and CoD. The AI, even in their "placeholder" state according to the devs, is still a significant challenge not because they are made artificially harder via extreme accuracy and mindless charging, but rather by relatively intelligent tactical behavior and movement. The missions are rewarding, make sense within the world and story, and aren't intentionally made to be an irritating hassle such as tasks given by a certain hunter in Tarkov.

Grey Zone Warfare is a surprisingly competent game for a self-admitted early alpha build, especially one that is only $35 USD. All the key systems and features are there and functional in-game, and they work well for the most part. The biggest thing holding the game back in its current state is the performance optimization for non-40XX GPU users. Server performance and AI behavior can be better, but they are honestly still better than many AAA games out there today. The graphical optimization, however, its a big reason why it has so many negative reviews; there are ways to get around the issues and actually get the game to run smoothly, but they are not optimal nor obvious solutions.

That all said, let me reiterate that this game is, 1) still in an early Alpha build, so these kinds of optimization issues are to be expected (and are, in my honest opinion, in a far better state than a game in early Alpha has any right to be), and 2) is only $35 USD. Are there other "editions" with supposed better benefits? Yes, but unlike with Escape From Tarkov's "editions" which are all significantly more expensive, GZW's editions provide no real advantages whatsoever nor does the game encourage you to buy them. The other editions besides the "standard" truly are only there if you wish to support the devs.

I've been playing this game since Day 1. And although there have been a few hiccups here and there, I have been enjoying my time with Grey Zone Warfare the entire time. If you enjoy tactical multiplayer shooters, I would definitely recommend this game for $35.

The Snail is slow. The Snail only knows how to feed itself. The Snail does not care for anyone or anything else.

Don't feed the Snail.

0/10

This game is the poorest of poor man's Hearts of Iron... and it's blatantly Pay 2 Win. The only thing Gold (the in-game monetized currency) cannot be used for is to make your units move faster. Otherwise, players can literally spam Gold to do everything from instantly researching units and upgrades, mobilizing (recruiting) units, building structures, buying resources, and even healing units when they are not in combat. My very first non-tutorial match was plagued with people constantly using gold to heal units, with one wallet warrior in particular winning by just spamming gold at every problem he faced to instantly research and build whatever would stop him from losing a fight.

The people who play this game like it's a job and spend every hour of the day stuck to their computer or phone will tell you BS like "oh it's not P2W, you just have to play smart". Granted, being a good strategic thinker is indeed a good way to succeed in this game (I had never played this game before, and yet in my first non-tutorial match managed to conquer the entirety of the Americas as Brazil by playing smart with Air Superiority), but the person who spams more Gold is going to win 99% of the time if they are not a complete moron. If two people of equal skill fight each other, with one person putting money into the game and the other not doing so, the one putting even $10 into the game is going to win without a doubt. And that is the definition of Pay 2 Win.

What makes this P2W problem so frustrating is, as mentioned before, this game does have a good core gameplay (minus a few balancing nitpicks I have) which rewards good strategic thinking. But that good core gameplay is tragically overshadowed by the P2W nature of this game.

Unless you are willing to throw your credit card at this game, I cannot recommend it whatsoever.

I want to start off by saying that this was my first foray into the "Soulsborne" series of games, and I very much enjoyed the 75 hours it took me to complete my first playthrough. Within the time it took me to get to the ending, I was entirely addicted to Elden Ring; I played no other game. If you are a fan of action RPGs that offer true freedom of choice in a wide and varied selection of playstyles set in a beautiful fantasy open world, then this is the game for you regardless of whether or not you have experience with FromSoftware's notoriously "hard" games. If that is enough for you, then I recommend playing this game as soon as you deem best. Simple as that.

Now, with all that said and done, time for a more in-depth review...
**WARNING**
POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD

PROS:

- OPEN WORLD: Elden Ring's The Lands Between is, with only a handful of exceptions, an entirely seamless experience. You see that castle out on the horizon? You can walk the distance there, enter through the gates, climb the ramparts, and explore its inner sanctums without a single loading screen. Furthermore, the open world doesn't suffer from "Ubisoft syndrome" - Elden Ring's HUD is very minimalistic in the minute-to-minute gameplay outside the "pause" and inventory menus. Even the map screen is not cluttered with the typical trope of "objective" markers (although it does start getting occupied by all your Sites of Grace/checkpoints as you progress through and explore the game world). Overall, Elden Ring does Open World right, and it does so with a fantastical setting that is beautifully handcrafted in its every nook and cranny. It's a wonderful achievement considering this is the developer's first dive into the Open World genre.

- RPG: Few games outside the best MMORPGs allow players to truly have Freedom of Choice in how they play the game, and yet Elden Ring shines in its ability to allow players to build their characters in whichever way they enjoy, while simultaneously making every such imaginable playstyle truly viable and competitive. Want to be a magic user excelling in the arts of sorcery? Go ahead. Want to be a religious apostle and gain power through incantations and weapons of faith? Sure thing. Want to be a long range archery expert and take your enemies out from a distance? Go get 'em shooter. Want to Unga Bunga your way through the game, clobbering your enemies with massive weapons more akin to large slabs of metal and stone rather than actual tools of war? Wack away to your hearts desire! The beauty of Elden Ring's combat sandbox is that it lets players choose whichever kind of character build they enjoy best without (mostly) forcing them into a "meta" pit.

- FAIR DIFFICULTY: FromSoftware is a developer (in)famous for creating notoriously difficult games, particularly with its Dark Souls series. However, at least when it comes to Elden Ring, this game isn't nearly as hard as it may first appear to be. Will the game punish you for fighting enemies you aren't ready for? Abso-f**king-lutely. Elden Ring won't hesitate to (painfully) show you when you aren't ready for a fight. But that's the thing - when that happens, what the game is really telling you to do is go somewhere else in its massive open world and prepare to come back later. There is never a part of the game where you might feel trapped - if one direction might have a presently insurmountable obstacle, then there will always be another direction that will have the means necessary to build yourself up to hurdle that obstacle later on. And in those instances, the game nigh always has a way of keeping its challenges balanced. In my opinion, Elden Ring is Difficulty perfected. And it certainly isn't as obnoxiously difficult as HALO 2 on Legendary. F**k Jackal Snipers...

CONS:

- JANK: For as smooth and diverse as Elden Ring's combat system might be, it unfortunately has no shortage of jankiness. There will be painfully obvious hitbox issues at times (Ex. an enemy weapon or AOE effect may not visually hit you, but the game may register damage anyways, and vice versa; your weapon may clearly hit an enemy, but the game may still not register it as such). A certain few enemy types (specifically faction Knights and Crucible Knights) will also often suffer from animation jumps. Worst of all, however, is how the game will often "queue" actions several seconds in advance when said action command was previously interrupted. Want to dodge an enemy attack? Well sorry, the game thinks you want to attack instead because you pressed the attack button 3 - 5 seconds ago when you were stunned on the ground. Nevermind that you were spamming the dodge button for those vital few seconds you were waiting for your character to no longer be stunned. ADDENDUM: I'm not sure if this "queuing" is an intentional feature done by the developers, or if this is something seen in their other titles, but the point stands. In a game like Elden Ring where its combat system is almost entirely reliant on observational skills and precision timing, these examples of jankiness can often be painfully jarring.

- A WORLD-DRIVEN STORY: In many ways, Elden Ring can be comparable to Skyrim and many of Bethesda's other RPG games. Most especially can it be compared in the sense that the entire story and plot of the game, more or less, is driven by the open world setting itself. Environmental story-telling at its finest. However, there has always been one key flaw with this form of game design - any form of character-driven experience is often thrown under the bus in favor of the grand vision of the setting itself. I believe Elden Ring, unfortunately, suffers from this "Skyrim syndrome" moreso then Skyrim itself. To put it simply, if nearly every "important" friendly NPC you meet throughout the entire game was to be removed, the plot and primary conflicts the player must undergo would more or less remain completely unchanged. It feels as if none of the characters have any effect or impact on the world and the game's story whatsoever. Worse yet, this even applies to the player's actions until the last act of the game. Because of this, Elden Ring doesn't truly have a "story" in the typical sense. At the end of the day, all the player is really doing is going around knocking out a series of enemies and growing stronger over time. Otherwise, there is little to no character-driven experiences that are ultimately relevant and feel important enough for the player to invest their time to. In my own experience, this made the gravity of major events in the late-game fall a bit flat, because there just wasn't much there to feel a connection to other than the world and setting itself. For some people, that may be enough - Skyrim was widely successful after all - but it certainly will be a sore spot for people who appreciate more character-driven stories akin to The Witcher and Mass Effect.

OVERALL SCORE: 8/10

Insurgency is an Indie war game laid out in a large field of modern FPS games, but unlike many others which focus on Running n' Gunning, it brings back many refreshing elements from the old days of tactical military shooters. The best way to describe this is a excellently put together mix between Counter-Strike and the old SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs games, not including that abomination/Call of Duty-copycat that was SOCOM 4.

Insurgency takes place in the modern Middle East, where NATO Coalition forces are put down against insurgent forces who can be best compared to the Taliban. Regarding the story, that is essentially it; this game is honestly a multiplayer only game, so expect it to be like Battlefield in that sense before they started adding singleplayer campaigns.

The factions act much like the teams in Counter-Strike do, in how both have their own faction specific weapons as well as their own overall pros and cons:

Insurgents are armed with old Soviet AK's which kick like a mule and don't have access to such a large variety of additional accessories and equipment, but they most definitely should not be underestimated. The 7.62 AKM/AK-47 easily has the ability to clear a room with a single magazine. The majority of their equipment is hand-me-down or homemade, which means it is all normally more "affordable".

On the other hand, Coalition forces are obviously equipped with a much more modern arsenal, which has an equally modern variety in weapon accessories and overall gear. Coalition forces also normally have access to a free layer of light armor, which provides a clear advantage. However, where the Coalition has its weaknesses is in overall affordability of more gear and the standardized 5.56 NATO round used in the majority of their M4/M16 variants. Where as an Insurgent will be able to buy more toys, Coalition players will have to choose their equipment and grenades wisely. And the 5.56 round will generally be perfectly able to drop the average Insurgent player with no armor, especially at greater ranges, it begins to fail when put up against an Insurgent who was willing to spend his points on armor protection.

The gameplay in Insurgency reminded me a lot of the old days on my PS2 playing SOCOM: US Navy SEALs online:

The time to kill is incredibly and realistically fast. There will be many times where you die so fast you won't even realize you got shot until after your body hits the ground. There will also be many times where you have killed a player so fast you barely realized you even pulled the trigger. A head shot, no matter which round used, will drop a player immediatly and mercilessly. Of course, the smaller the round the bigger the time to kill, and armor adds on to that, but the differences can sometimes be fairly small and even barely noticeable at times.

Insurgency is not a Run n' Gun game; you will die every time if you use that mindset. Much like how SOCOM used to play out, the team that communicates the most and makes the smartest decisions has the best chances of victory. With the different classes, each player can have a very different job. A Marksman should be armed with a BR/DMR or a bolt-action rifle, and should not be seen on the front lines with his pistol out. And the same goes for the players armed with the automatic weapons, exposives, and better armor; they should not be lagging behind at the back. If you are a class that specializes with Carbines equipped with Suppressors, then do the best you can to scout the enemy out and/or flank around to take advantage of that sound suppressor. Etc., etc.

When it comes to Insurgency's graphics, it is true they are not the greatest. One can not simply put Battlefield 4 and Insurgency side-by-side and say Insurgency is the better looking game. But then again, one can not simply say Insurgency is an ugly looking game either. Insurgency may not look as sharp as the other AAA titles today, but the character animations look and feel realistic (and heavy) enough to keep you in the game.

Insurgency, however, clearly starts to show great quality with flying colors when entering the audio department. Everything from the crack of bullets passing inches away from your head, to the gross and realistic explosions and screams sounding off in the distance. The guns sound absolutely incredible, and it becomes completely obvious just how much work was put into the audio and the effort to make it sound as realistic and immersive as possible. When it comes to audio, Insurgency stands tall with other AAA titles that sometimes fail to even bring that to the table.

Insurgency doesn't come without its cons, however. After playing for the first time, you will immediately take notice of how clunky the game can feel. Gun-play is generally smooth and never a noticeable provider of irritation, but the occasional failure for your character/soldier to walk through the small corridors and doorways of the apartment buildings in some urban maps can be fairly stressful experiences, notably when you are short on time or trying to make a tactical retreat against an aggressive enemy on the offensive and you are getting stuck in doorways you would think you are properly positioning yourself to clear through.

Map design in Insurgency is also a fair shortcoming. Although none of the maps feel out of place or are unable to immerse the player, they are clearly designed more for the theme of the game set in the Middle East (I would say Afghanistan) rather than whether or not they are good for the type of tactical/competitive play you would see in Counter-Strike. However, this may not bother too many people, as Insurgency is generally not a competitive game and the maps still serve a good purpose in providing a balance between tactical gameplay and environmental immersion.

Overall, I give Insurgency a 9 out of 10.
If you are a fan of Counter-Strike and/or the old-school tactical shooters such as SOCOM and the older Battlefield games, this is most likely a must-buy for you. I cannot recommend this game enough.