Recent reviews by Zimph

Great game, but first I want to address the pricing since that's what deters a lot of people. First, it goes on sale relatively frequently, and you can manage to snag it all and the dlc for $60--which may be a bit high for an indie game, but it does offer that amount of value in content. Second, with it being Warhammer 40k and how strict the licensing requirements are for sticking to the lore, this game is lovingly crafted in so many ways to be lore accurate and I'm sure as a result of the tabletop have a lot of elements to play around with and make the game truly interesting. Also, if you're playing with friends, whoever has the best internet can get the unit dlcs and host. The unit dlcs being behind a paywall is a major thing I disagree with though. I think $15 per faction is actually pretty fair. Remember, with Warhammer 40k, the playerbase is spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on plastic miniatures that they still have to paint.

As for my review of the game, It's fantastic. Reiterating a lot of the sentiment you read in these positive reviews, it's a strickly combat based 4x game. It also gets to a huge scale, but compared to civ, you're not playing 14-20 hour games, you can wrap up games in a decent timeframe. The actual combat and engagement has so much nuance. When I finally started purchasing the dlcs (I bought the game on a known website that sells steam keys, sorry devs--I did buy the dlcs for close to full price here on steam), I played as the Adeptus Mechanicus and with how that faction plays introduced a whole new level of strategic gameplay and changed the game.

When you're in the early game, there's always a catch to every decision you're making. Every decision needs to be weighed out. Economy management is important, but it's not what I would consider a major part of the game, but it most certainly plays a major role since it determines your unit output, etc. The early game is a bit annoying dealing with clearing webway gates and wildlife, but when you've gotten the hang of how to handle them, it just becomes a part of the game. It's a lot about tactics, maximizing your damage output with overwatch damage, and keeping your units alive so they are combat effective for as long as possible (also knowing when to sacrifice them as well). Every decision matters.

Once you've finally engaged another faction, it gets extremely interesting. The way that you have to look at it is almost akin to 18th century warfare. With fronts, separate formations, flanks, terrain being a factor, etc. etc. It's extremely fascinating and with how much depth there is and how many options are available for different strategies, there is always stuff to learn and try out and pick up on.

I completely recommend this game to anybody who wants a more fast paced, combat oriented 4x game. If the unit dlcs weren't behind a paywall, I would say that this game is even worth $30-40 full price, but the pricing deters people from wanting to give this game try. The game definitely feels incomplete without those unit dlcs. It's fair for them to have the different skillfully and accurately crafted factions behind a paywall, but this game is just not complete for $40. Wait for a sale and you can get everything for a reasonable price, but Gladius is definitely a great game and worth a try.

Also, native linux client!

This is a fantastic beginners VR title. I believe that this may help people to build their VR legs and get used to smooth locomotion in a controlled setting. It's also so much fun and will get you in shape. Play with wrist weights for better effect on that.

I definitely recommend this. This is the game that everybody keeps looking for on VR (before HL: A release) and it is clear that the developers actually enjoyed all the same classics many of us did.

The only real downside of this game is that it genuinely makes it jut that little bit more difficult to pick up other VR games, since there are just so many little things that are done right. The guns in particular feel the best out of the many I've tried thus far in VR, the fact that the zombies don't teleport 3 feet over in a given direction while you're trying to take well aimed shots.

I think that if this were to be judged against flat games, it would be considered average/above average, but because there hasn't been any VR games of this caliber yet (again, pre HL:A) for VR, it's an absolutely excellent game. I'm going to predict that this game will be sort of the Wolfenstein 3D of VR games, and HL:A will be more of the Doom (mod support, etc. etc.).

If you're reading this decades from now wondering if you should play one of those old first gen VR games that made everybody get into this new technology that's been integrated throughout your life, then I would hope yes. Let's just hope these games hold up as well as for you guys that Doom has for us.

So I saw this game and decided I wanted to buy it, but was unable to. Then I found out that they capitulated to people that don't buy or care about their products, and couldn't in good conscience purchase this game. I have been enjoying 3d Realms products since the time when playing video games was considered "uncool," and made you the subject of ridicule-so to see them turn their back on the customer base to the same types of people that antagonized their customers (and still do) just for being their customers, was a betrayal.

However, they must have realized this and rather than continue to attempt to appease people who don't even like them to begin with, this decision was retracted. Upon this coming to my attention, I immediately purchased the game and am leaving this review as a thank you note to 3D realms.

It also has a native linux client which is great, which is an automatic recommendation.

So apparently if somebody adds free content to your game that you didn't pay them for, that is illegal.

Summary: At $5.99 for 1 copy and $9.99 for 4 copies this game is a steal. Great quality FPS at an extremely affordable price.

Full Review:

When NS2: Combat was first discussed, I like most of the community was very upset that UWE made this decision. The result of which was that I wrote this game off completely due to the fact I would not pay for a mod that was a watered down version of the original NS2.

My friend invited me to a game and I told him I didn't have it and he gave me a key. I ended up playing for 6 hours straight and had a lot of fun. We had a full server together and there was a running joke that NS2 was actually a mod of this game.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the original NS2 and I would take a good game of NS2 over a game of NS2: Combat anyday, but this ended up shattering my expectations. I feel a little bad for just writing this game off as an outlet for UWE to make money from a mod since this actually ended up being a very good game that could stand toe to toe, and in some regards beats the original NS2.

Playing vanilla NS2, there was a steep learning curb. As one of the players that played NS1 back in the day, this wasn't an issue for me, but this was always demonstrated through steam sales where we would get an overwhelming amount of players in a server that were brand new to the game. Needless to say this led to some very frustrating situations of explaining minute details of things to new players that had no interest in specific mechanics and just wanted to get into a game and play.

This is where NS2: Combat beats the original NS2. It doesn't take very much effort to understand how to play the game, which some people might say that it's catering to casuals I would have to ask why that's such a bad thing. What UWE had done with the original game was tailor it for competitive play solely, many changes took place over the course of many updates which required even the most seasoned players to revise their playstyle for balancing competitive play. There was an outcry within the community of this design decision to balance the game in such a way and that there should be different game modes, and UWE's response was that they didn't want to make two different games. So apparently, if they were to balance two different modes it would be two different games entirely. So having a competitive mode and casual mode means two different games? Okay. I'm not going to get into specifics, but there were definitely some silly changes with other things being overlooked by UWE in this regard.

That aside. NS2: Combat is what it would imply. It's raw combat, where you control your upgrades and your playstyle, rather than having to rely on your commander's decisions. In comparison to the original mod I played, experience is earned by damage done to players now instead of killing players. It seems odd, but actually makes for pretty good play. I didn't really like playing combat for that reason, since it gutted a lot of strategy such as resource control, lost resources due to destroyed buildings, lost resources on resource towers and lost resources on time between resource towers being built.

However, if you want to just get in and get into the fight of TSF versus the Kharra then this game is great for that! You can blare your music without fear of missing an important callout or missing a command your commander needed you to do.

All and all, this is a very good game. It caters to a variety of different playstyles and plays more like a MOBA than an RTS. I would much rather play the RTS version of NS2, but there is a lot of fun to be had in this game and it's definitely worth the price. Very easy for new players to get into the action. I will probably pick up a couple 4 packs so I can hand some keys out to friends to play.

Today there is no shortage of games that try to do something new, interesting, and unique and fall massively short.

This is not one of those games.