Recent reviews by [OmG]swarthoid_gooner

im just here to unlock hacklaw, otherwise im ♥♥♥♥ at any kind of FPS whatsoever

for a demo, its surprisingly good. gameplay is a bit similar to XCOM, whereas overworld is akin to warband/battle brothers. technically, could be more optimized tho. hopefully it will see the light of day and fully released.

overall a solid 8

firefly really peaked with this one and then squander it all to dust with each following installments

very bundian

goon/10

i think the "main" AOE devs(aoe2's) are contributing much more in aoe4 development right now than before, there are a lot of new balance changes compared to what it was before, for starter, there are no more siege spam meta, you will see all types of units in the battlefield, each have their own uses, sieges are highly situational and tactical in their uses, just like how theyre meant to be. lack of balancing and basic QOL features are my main criticism of this game at the time of its release, which are currently being patched in constantly.

while there are a few things that cannot be changed like the artsyle choice, the campaign desing(both are a major turn off for half of the playerbase tbh), and the core gameplay design(unit roles, balancing, and civ design), and undoubtedly it has lost its momentum to be the successor of AOE2 with the abysmal release state, i can see the potential AOE4 it has to become the next AOE2 if the devs keep up the good work at improving the game, and lowering the price tag or keep giving on discounts/free2play events in order to attract new players toward the game.

and for the last bit, my other criticism toward the game at this state are the "liquid" feeling of melee unit pathfinding, the buggy attack move feature, and the lack of stances that makes you had to keep a leash on every control group at all time because you might have them all killed off because they decided to chase a lone scout to their base. there are some balance issues as well, especially civ design, abbasid and delhi are notably weak even for a late bloomer civs because they dont have a solid opening moves, and their specialty are just lacking. meanwhile, some factions like french(whats with AOE devs and their french bias tbh) got a solid unit tech tree(xbow, knights, sieges) that have a constant power spike throughout the game(feudal with knights, castle with +8 melee armor xbows, imp with sieges). atleast give the delhi their own camels(at castle age), and make abbasids could open with camels in feudal, and lower their unit cost to solidify their role as a mobile knight/cavalry counter

overall a 7/10. more playable than it was, but still an unpolished gem

i advertise this game to my friends with lines such as "you'll like this ♥♥♥♥ if you've played diablo before" even though i never played diablo before and i dont have that many friends rn, pretty much my first diablo-like hack and slash arpg game, and its pretty good. what i dont like about it is the map structure felt too linear and combat for half of the game gets dull esp. if you play as non-mage class, but gets better as the game progress since the enemy gets harder and you're not stuck doing "spam mouse1 and mouse2 till theyre dead" and status resistance item starts getting important. might be very biased since this is the first game of this kind that i've tried but overall if you're looking for a simple fun and you got hoarding issues this game is for you

usually played it with my frens for funs, mainly coop against bots. one of the finest tactical modern RTS out there, espescially if you like world war 2 and semi-realistic games, it also got a huge modding community, from ports from older games, historical scenarios, hardcore realism mods, alternate history scenarios, or even content straight from other works of fiction(notably star wars and wh40k). but with a huge of content came along a huge amount of bugs too.

pros:
+massive content
+high replayability
+WT-ish vehicle armor mechanics
+very tactical approach to infantry combat for a RTS with quite massive scale
+huge modding potential

middle ground(your mileage may vary)
-/+ steep difficulty cliff
-/+ for entry players, it might be quite overwhelming
-/+ micro intensive(see above)
-/+ graphics and animation might be dated to some

cons
-not that optimized for modern system
-bugs, bugs everywhere, CTD in middle of a match happens quite often(and we usually called it "MOWAS'd"), especially if we use mods that comes with huge contents compared to vanilla(WW3, Valour, Robz)

if youre an autist with a penchant for tactical ww2 eurojank RTS, its worth the buy, preferably get it when its on sale

single handedly delay my thesis for 2 years(this alongside with dota 2), not everyone cup of tea, but overall a pretty good game even if you are not into the heavily competitive multiplayer scene

even with a very ♥♥♥♥♥♥ medium-low laptop, i still enjoy this game. i mostly play only coop and limited player pvp like firefight and domination in a few select maps(mostly old maps from the first game) since those maps are smaller and runs smoother than newer maps.

from a gameplay perspective, this game is a massive overhaul from the first one, it revamps the CQC element from the first game, with new features like interactive doors and reload types. other than the cqc elements, this game also try to appeal to the Red Orchestra/Rising Storm/Squad playerbase with new features like commander support, driveable vehicles, and larger maps. bullet are no longer hitscan but modelled projectile that can bounce off some surface and affected by gravity(albeit most maps rarely have any engagement over than 100m).

graphics is an obvious improvement over the first game, but then again i dont care about graphics that much as long as it looks easy on the eye and theyre informative enough for the players

on the other side, my view on the character customization are rather mixed, i like the many variations they offered to you, but on the other hand i also dislike the newer dlc skins(especially insurgents) that often caused confusion (and unfortunately, TKs) - mostly in hardcore mode with low visibility(smokes, night maps) - since they got similar silhouette outline as those worn by the BluFor (tactical gears etc). cannot really complain about technical issues that others complain about though, since i admit that my system arent built to play this game, so 50% of the game runs ♥♥♥♥♥♥ for me.

might update this rough review when i got newer system

a nice blend between your traditional RTS and Colony manager, with a little bit of 4X element as a cherry on top
summarized review

+each faction plays differently
+as a whole, the colony sim aspect are not too compilcated, but not too simple either
+lovely artstyle
+still looks good while not that demanding(at least for modern standards)
-its kinda hard to get into at the start (tip: try to play as bear, stag, and goat clan first)
-6 out of 11 factions are sold as separate DLC, but atleast im content enough with the varieties of the vanilla factions
-sometime your winning chances are dictated by how lucky your placement is inside the map
might update this review after another several hours of gameplay
-lack of unit variants and depth of combat, but recently theres unit collision and thats a good thing