Recent reviews by AdAstraWill

(I am aware that some of my complaints centre around money but I should point out that the best place a free to play game can go is cosmetics for money not weapons or characters, this isnt an MMO in any way shape or form no matter what anyone wants to tell themselves).


I really want to like this game.
I really want it to be good.
I really wanted to enjoy it.

But it isnt and just cant.

Tried this game for 76 minutes and while the first few minutes were enjoyable the problems the game had were immediately glaring.

The premium part of the game takes over a lot of flexibility you should have as a player indeed going as far as to limit your ability to choose where to fight. Unless you're premium you cant pick where to fight on the world map.

If you're new like I was then you are immediately put into fights with people who have clearly been playing for a lot longer than you and you just get mawled over and over and over. I was expecting to be matched against people just as new to the game as me and such but this was not the case.

I cannot speak for the war gear i.e weapons and such as I didnt get to try much of it except for the base class gear from which I learned that Range = crap, Melee = good. Purely because I was on the recieving end of so much melee that ranged felt almost meager by comparison.

As far as optimization goes, it seems the game doesnt fully utilize your hardware resulting in frame drops in large scale fights. Average temperature jump should be in the 60's for a 980 and i7 4790k with 8GB ram but nope it stayed below 40. In terms of % utilization it was barely putting my computer under any load. Which is odd for a game of this scale.

The tutorial basically teachs you nothing and instead of it showing you in detail how the mechanics of all things work you end up basically running around a predetermined map with servo skulls explaining the keybinds too you. Which frankly you could just go to options, controls and learn for yourself.

Finally the community. within 2 minutes of playing I instantly got flamed and this continued for all 3 matches I managed to play. Honestly, Ive never come across a more hostile community with this intensity. The flaming never ended either and that was the point where I just quit the game. Even the major culprits of ♥♥♥♥ communities i.e CS, Dota, LoL were not this bad.

ive spoken about the bad things and there is more but the good things? from what ive seen there are not many but some.

1) The maps are interesting and dont have "pointless" cover on them like some games do meaning that while you may be covered from one angle you're exposed from multiple others encouraging you to always be on the move.
2) The lore is definitely important to the game though I would argue that the skull helm on the legion of the damned character is a bit of a joke to be honest.
3) its visceral, bloody and brutal just as warhammer should be.
4) Movement is believable mostly as it does feel like you're running around in a suit of armor that would crush a normal human being.
5) while weak the ranked weaponry does feel as it should where as the melee weapons being strong seem to be true to how they would be used.

There are some smaller things but thats it as far as I could see.

I want to give this game another chance but right now I just cant. Too much is locked behind a pay wall for a free to play game, the DLC pack prices are a joke and the legion of the damned character is also locked behind a paywall (Yes They should make money as a company should but the price hikes are obsurd). Performance is lack luster. No black templar chapter choice (deal breaker), imbalance between melee and ranged weaponry, the game can be unresponsive.


How should they make this game better?:

- Rebalance the weapons, melee and ranged to have strengths and weakness's the maps seem to cater to melee to be honest. This game should be more like Planetside II than what it is currently.
- Reduce the prices on a lot of content. Seriously £15+ for a weapon pack in a free to play game? let alone the fact that it contains WEAPONS They should be skins NOT weapons. Yes free to play but obviously pay to win without any other way to obtain them - NEVER play a game that asks you to buy power EVER at least if there was a grind to get everything it could be argued its pay for convenience at a stretch.
- Give players a way to obtain the legion of the damned character without having to pay. Content locking behind paywalls is fine in most games if it doesnt effect the game balance but this is warhammer, locking the legion behind a pay wall is almost heresey. Everyone should have a chance to play their favourite chapter/faction available in the game.
- Forget content for a single patch and do a pure performance patch fixing as many major performance issues as possible to increase the game longevity and improve the fluidity of the combat in the game.
- Take the game down for a month or so and finish it. Honestly the game overall feels unfinished and barren.

Download and play at your own peril this game is not the greatest at all.

One of the best games I have ever played.

This game is hilarious and its co-op counter part is just as fun perhaps even more so because of your partnership with friends.

it doesnt look like it but this game can have you sitting there for hours fixed on your screen doing nothing but finding food and beating monsters including my early game arch enemy (the tree gaurd) who you will see soon enough if you buy the game.

There are multiple areas in each map called biomes which provide all the things you need. Finding these biomes, especially the ones you need are critical to your survival!

it can be fast paced and slow paced and the replayability for the game makes it one of my favourites no question.

It does have its down sides, it can be frustrating and the seasonal changes do force you to think about what you're doing when it comes to your survival as you'll need to craft different items from materials that can be hard to obtain. But overall the frustrating and stress of the game can come from the sheer unforgiving nature of it.

Though there are downsides they are mitigated by just how much fun this game can be and I encourage all of you to buy Dont starve Together to play with your friends as well because this is game is one you will remember.

When you purchase though, beware the seasons and their effects for there are things that go bump in the night and day that will take more than a stick with a pointy stone to beat!

This took me way back and I mean WAYYYY back.

Grey Goo - Thats not a name I would of expected of a old school RTS however its aptly named considering the story behind it.

Faction Gameplay - Overall you have 3 unique races, the beta's focus on expansion while the humans focus on fortification and the grey goo...well they do everything.

Overall the human faction will have you feeling most at home if you love turtling up and making impenetrable bases just like the old C&C series though expanding was an option back then im betting like me most of you turtled built up a massive force and just overwhelmed your opponent haha. Funnily enough the human faction seems more alien than human or rather far more advanced than we'd actually consider to be possible so dont be suprised if you feel less human when playing haha

The beta's will claim victory through rapid expansion their ability to maximis the use of their production through tech addons and various other extra's which allow you to spread across the map at a rapid pace will make you love them they are extremely adaptable, it will take some getting used to of couse as it might not be something you're used too however once you get the hang of it you'll enjoy every minute of it. The beta's are essentially closer to human than the human faction although obviously they are not, they use bullets, shells etc all the things you'd find in mondern day humanity but with much more advanced tech, think of them as us but within the next 200 years.

The grey goo.. well, they or rather "it" is the most interesting Faction Ive encountered in an RTS in a long time and they can do 1 thing that nobody else can...scale cliffs and mountains...you start off with the mother goo and essentially just divide, divide, divide until you have such a large force and so many reasources that you overwhelm your opponent. If you love the idea of just completely and utterly dominating your enemy through sheer numbers and doing rediculous flanking maneuvers over mountain tops where the enemy can barely touch you, you should play the as the goo. The goo are well... the most unique life forms in the game, they are many but one at the same time I suppose if you said they are legion that would be a fair and valid description. If you ever wanted to be flubber from the 90s movie this is probably the closest you'll get although you aren't green and you arent bouncing around 24/7 haha, generally if you want a unique gameplay experience then you'll have that with the goo.


Campaign - Ill try not to give any spoilers here;

You get to play as 3 factions but all bundled up into one story you transition from one to the other learning more and more about the entire story. I actually appauled this form of story telling, simply because it allows the continuity of the story to flow quite fluently without any contradictions or plotholes though im sure there could be one or two I havent actually played through all of it so far so I wouldn't know. However overall you start off as the beta's then play as the humans then the goo so dont expect to start off as whomever you want it doesnt work like that.

you start off as the Beta's who are explorers they are simply looking for new life and new civilizations - very star trek, Im looking at you old westwood peeps. Anywho as they were "exploring" their scientific abilities they created a "hole" (gah trying to limit my description due to spoilers is not fun), this let something through something they thought they had escaped when infact it was something far different and confusing than they had ever thought possible, from there you discover quite a bit and learn about the enemy you have been fighting and then just when you think your day couldnt possibly get worse, well... you get the picture.

I appologise wholeheartedly for the poor description of the story but im loving the game so much right now i dont want to spoil it for anyone else.


Multiplayer - I havent actually played the multiplayer yet but if you just have a glance at my description of the game play you will find a similar answer for the multiplayer. Very unique, very diverse and quite enjoyable enough said.

If I could Rate this game 10 out of 10? - I would give this game a 10, If you loved the old C&C style games, if you loved base building and expanding to get more reasources, if you loved building massive armies and decimating your opponent with them then this game is for you. Oh and the stories pretty good too :)

note to the old westwood employees: WE LOVE YOU, for the love of god go nuts with this and buy back your C&C franchise and bring back the C&C series too glory! If you can make a brand new game this good then you can do that with C&C!

Recommended? Hell yes.

(This review is for non-competitive new players)

For a long long time I've loved the counter-strike series its been a great contributor to the void of free time I seem to have and I really do enjoy the games quite a bit even 1.6 as outdated as it is now its still fun to play and I imagine Global offensive will be for years to come.

That said, this particular CS game is well "not AS good" as Source in my opinion it feels like it was made easier and the weaponry takes up more of your screen than you'd probably like, likely this was done in an attempt by valve to make it look and feel different but also add some semblance of realism to the game. Though it doesn't contribute to the fun.

So whats good about this game? (not in any particular order)

1) Community initiatives:
Gun skins, maps. - Both are made by valve and the community itself.

2) Match making; yeah I know there aren't some terribly good aspects to this, but its good for new players and people who want to start getting an idea what competitive is like on the low end of things or if you just want to have fun "competitively".

3) Modded servers

4) Tons of mode varieties for you to choose from.

5) Plenty of ways for you to practice should you need to.

6) No story, No Dramatic cut-scenes, no bad script (unless your scripting ;) ) just aiming, shooting & killing. Oh yes and winning.

7) The community is overall decent and contains all sorts of people :)

So whats bad about all this?

1) Gun skin prices can be extremely high and rather disgusting lol - I advise you wait if you want a skin that has just come out and you haven't won it from a crate otherwise your just helping those people who hike the prices of them on the market :P

2) Matchmaking is good but the insistence of using 64 tick servers is tiresome and rather frustrating. Not to mention the lerp is annoying.

3) Great fun but usually contain a lot of cheaters or end up being buggy as hell. (normally because VAC is crap)

4) While there are quite a few varieties and sub varieties (player owned servers) of modes you can try, It gets old, fast.

5) There's no real specific way for you to train, while this isn't necessarily a bad thing it doesn't help new players. Much like throwing money at rich people doesn't help the poor - Crap analogy but the principle of something not helping remains the same.

6) If you like your games to come with campaigns this is not for you - unless you want to Role play or something like that but I haven't seen anyone do it in a CS game haha.

7) The community is largely cool nice peeps here and there but be warned there are a lot of trolls a lot of flamers and a lot of angry teenagers on their periods but I assure you that a vast majority of us are much older and much more mature - I hope.

Verdict?

Recommended - This game is great fun and really enjoyable when you play with friends or teammates that you know, this can even be fun for a group of real life friends. the competitive scene is massive and honestly great to watch. there are always streams going on and matches of all types. From Low - High competitive and pro level this game is great. It has quite a few annoying things but nothings perfect and its cheap to. so try it!

As someone who is new to the series I was initially impressed with the game and I still am to some extent however there are rather griping issues that are bugging the hell out of me currently.

Ill try to list them:

1) the tutorial is not useful. Instead of it being about teaching new players or existing players about new or old mechanics and how they work and how your colonies work with production, manufacturing etc. it is instead used as a story spring board ready for the campaign.. which I really do feel like it should be for teaching as you know it is supposed to be a tutorial, Of course it has information on how things work but doesnt accurately explain it, in other words its extremely vague.

2) Lack of audio communication from Characters. When talking to another race for example, or something your research scientist is telling you about your recent upgrades. I really do feel like if they added some decent voice overs it would bring a ton of depth to the game. I realise many of the old school GC players would not like this that much is clear from what ive read on forum posts concerning this however its a different time now and you need to expect that immersion is important and right now Voice Acting even a little goes a long way, nobody wants to sit their and read paragraphs upon paragraphs while playing. Adding voice acting + a on/off option would solve this anyway. I believe the campaign would benefit heavily from some voice acting immersion. instead of "oh look we're retaking earth lets click our way to victory yay". I have a fine imagination I can imagine voices for the characters but it really doesnt do them justice. in a game this big and this well known they deserve a bit more "soul" i guess would be the correct word.

3) Clarity concerning modifications to your ships and fleet "military research". While most of the research details you go through are fairly solid and easy to understand, things like ship hulls and shield strength and how much it actually adds on to your ships current shield or hull strength isnt carried over and communicated properly making things seem tedious and confusing as if your research something for no reason because you dont understand where it goes or what it does fully. Examples would help this or fix it. I appreciate the lack of hand holding in the game, but again for games to be popular in the current industry they need to accomidate new players not just the old ones. Which is why many feel that the game has not innovated on what had come previously.

4) Governance is ...outdated. Frankly with competition like Civ and others in the mix Governance is an expceptionally dull part of an otherwise enjoyable game. I personally think if they wish to rival Sid's civ games then they really should of though about going a step further than they have or maybe a few steps. Instead of giving a player a set ammount of tiles you should of been able to zoom in and actually build upon the planet you found place your city yourself and the various things you need to get production and influence going etc and by that I mean actually control workers to do thats etc and have way more than simply under 10 or 20 tiles per planet or even under 5. I realise that many will use the arguement of "but its not trying to compete with it" or whatever however companies no longer have a choice these days unless they want to make money and frankly the changes ive suggested are hardly anything that would harm your experience if anything it would improve it. What had so much potential seems squandered.

5) Space battles. When launching real time battles between fleets its abundantly obvious that the battle viewer is extremely underdone, ships consistantly fly out of view..the free cam movement is extremely redundant as moving seems almost a chore rather than something you can enjoy as you watch your fleet tear the enemy apart, its clear that this needs to be dealt with and frankly if it isnt, it will be something that ruins the game.

Conclusion:

A game with enormous potential but fell short of it due to being stuck in the past, the graphics are updated and its new enough not to be called a "reskin" based on what ive watched from other videos of GC II HOWEVER this game is stuck in its own past. Instead of innovating they simply stayed still all be it with a few side steps on a couple of things which I personally think is what destroyed my opinion of this game. Now its still possible a lot of the things ive mentioned will be changed or fixed so I will give this game a little more time but this game is far from what stardock hope to achieve which apparently is "The largest, most advanced, strategy game possible.

Verdict?

Not recommended, especially at £30. As I have said while I largely enjoyed this game It frankly just did not hit the marks it needs too in this current day and age, Im glad a game is trying to stick to its roots but if a series is to improve itself it must go forward and not be stuck in the past, I will continue to play this game and try a bit harder to enjoy it though frankly if it was a decent game for the era I would already enjoy it thus I wouldnt have to try.

What is starteling is im finding im enjoying Beyond Earth more than this and thats for one reason:

Depth. Now I know what your thinking "Beyond Earth, Depth? Don't make me laugh" but frankly its true if theres one good thing you can say about that alpha centauri mess up is that at least they tried to make the game at least seem like its got a bit of soul. While GC III does a great job of making the galaxy look beautiful (to an extent) and letting you decide what you want your civilization to be it losing out massively on the things ive listed perhaps bar number one as a tutorial shouldnt be the focus of a whole game. Until they add voices and more depth and explainations as to how things work in game by providing an in-game source and fixing the various new features to actually work properly I cannot actually immerse myself in this game not can I call it a good game beyond a simple "meh its okay". if you prefer the silent type and unnessasarily complex mechanics in games then this game is for you if you prefer much more immersion and a bit more ease so you can just have fun without having too feel like your reading a book rather than playing a game I would advise you not buy this until that changes. it is stuck in the past and frankly its sad, it has so much potential but falls quiet short of a great game in my opinion.

Clearly Stardock have put a great deal of effort into the game but they got too focused on "sticking to the roots", you can stick to your roots and still evolve your game, however it seems they had no idea how to beyond improving a few small things and improving the graphics thats about it.