Recent reviews by Herodotus

Excellent premise, but difficult in the execution. For simmers only.

The Roadwolf requires some understanding of it's stats, as with all of the DLC cars. I have won events and/or scored highly with this one, where with the stock cars I have struggled, as it might be slow to accelerate, but it is faster on the straights, and handles well in the corners. If you don't finish with a crumpled vehicle, more often than not with flames licking from within, you aren't racing aggressively enough.
Buy on sale, with all of the others, and you'll enjoy the game a whole lot more.

While a big shift in theatres from England and France, and all that's in between, The Desert War is a great theatre for dogfights and particularly bombing. In fact, if you don't like bombing, that's half the DLC gone right there. Dogfighting, for me is great over the desert, especially when a ground battle is under way, or at sea, trying to save a convoy from the plentiful and experienced German and classic Italian bombers and torpedo bombers. Bomb Alley, as the passage into Tobruk was well known earns it's name in this sim and joining the Scrap Iron Flotilla (the Aussie destroyers) in getting the fleet into safe harbour is exciting.

Models are beautiful, as always, with many variants and new roles for old birds (torpedoes for He-111's for example), but that's also part of the problem. Variants. If you aren't into the minutiae of variants of established aircraft, you're missing half the toy box. New aircraft are welcome, like the P-40 and tropical variants of the Spitfire and Hurricane are more than welcome, as the desert variant of these fighters were my favourites, but if you are expecting loads of new planes as with "IL-2: Great Battles", forget it..

You also have the Italians, missing the Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero (Italian for sparrowhawk) Torpedo bomber that makes me scratch my head. It was the most utilised Italian bomber in theatre, and it's missing. What gives?

Missing also is the lack of a reward system, promotions, and medals that the first "IL-2: Sturmovik" had for its scripted campaigns, and these are all scripted campaigns. You get a half dozen, but they are empty, soulless and in the end pointless with no progression. It's the problem "IL-2: CloD" had but it should have been fixed.

If you're into ground vehicles, then that is the meat and gravy of the The Desert War, where pathetic British tanks such as Stuarts ("Honeys"), Cruisers and Crusaders go up against the German PKZ. III and IV (short barrel) then you'll be scratching your head as to why the British stuck to 2 pounder weapons, fighting against 75 and 88mm German weaponry. Even the vaunted Matilda II, with it's much heavier armour still only had a 2 pounder pea shooter that simply bounced off German armour. Makes for gripping, if painful clashes.

Ultimately the map is well done,very detailed, the ships are beautifully rendered in a bright blue Mediterranean, where a lot of the fighting will take place,and dogfights at dawn and dusk, with desert storms raging below, or clogging your intakes are a sight to behold. Try lcrash landing in one.

With an atrocious and frankly uncalled-for price of A$73.50 you'd be right to think long and hard before laying down your cash on this one and go knocking on "IL-2: Great Battles" door instead, sticking with "IL-2: Clod Blitz" as it is. There's plenty there to play with. You'll get way more value, and long term support but with a caveat. Team Fusion, wrongly have associated the price of this DLC with each new module of "IL-2: Great Battles". Why wrongly? Because the latter is a new product, constantly updating and with great mod support and "Desert Wings" is based on an ageing product which shows.

Hopefully the new 4K TrueSky update will breathe new life into an old dog and this DLC. All we need now is a Pilot Career.

A DLC for the main game, the player finally gets their own Chaos campaign, scripted to suit a storyline. The idea is solid, and if it had been perhaps based upon Abaddon attacking Imperil fleets or worlds across the systems, then it would have been fun as many Chaos and Renegade Legions follow him reservedly, or even planning to kill him at their leisure.
You do get a storyline of sorts, but like some missions the first game (Data Retrieval, Protect the Flagship) and the Domination mode in this main game, that so many complained about, that an option for it to be removed from your campaign was added (replaced by Cruiser Clash). Right off the bat you are faced with timed missions, unskippable cutscenes that play while the battle rages on, so the player can only sit on their hands watching things play out unable to take part and stealth missions (my pet hate). Worst design decisions yet, and as outlined already, both games have had their share.
Also, how many times do you have to destroy the Phalanx (at least 3 by my count now)? Added to that are the escort missions, that I think are universally hated in every strategy game ever, and you have a very frustrating, rage-quitting campaign.
So, why the positive rating? Because you can play as Chaos in a campaign, as both traitors (Word Bearers), and renegade (Alpha Legion) factions, not to mention the Black Legion. Frustrating as all get out? Absolutely. Spittle covering your screen as you rage yet again after failing a mission for the silliest reason? For sure. Should you buy it on special?
Absolutely.

Short, but sweet.
I pre-ordered this game when a manager at what is now called EB games (Electronics Boutique, back then) and drooled over the preview article in the Australian owned PC Powerplay. It looked so advanced as compared with what was already available, with destructible environments, truly 3D maps and units in such detail as to believe it was all artificially rendered, as "Battle for Middle-Earth" screenies had been done (still a good game, despite it's rating of 6/10 back then).

But it wasn't hype, and it wasn't exaggerated. I played the campaign so many times that I still know how to beat each map, and which were so challenging even on Easy. The graphics blew every other RTS at that time away, with sound to match (hearing a tank explode and seeing pieces flying literally was an experience first seen, never forgotten. Played a lttle MP, but mostly all SP.

I bought the two expansions the moment they hit the store shelves, and regretted their content not all, unlike many who criticised "Tales of Valor" and rated it accordingly. I loved the change in gameplay, with direct control of a tank, etc. I must have played the whole gaming experience for hundreds of hours over the years, always playing to meet all primary and secondary objectives, even if it meant playing a campaign scenario again, after already playing it for almost two hours, as one secondary was not achieved. "CoH 2" came out, and quite frankly I felt it could never capture the lightning-in-a-bottle of this tile.

As i had all the games and codes (with the boxes and manuals included), I was able to get the Steam version for free from Relic by proving ownership of the original releases. Re-installed"CoH 2" the other day, and yet again, I was not overwhelmed by the changes, so yesterday re-installed this, playing through the tutorials to remind me of things I had forgotten.

Aside from the cut scenes showing their age (though not by much), the in-game look and feel is still streets ahead of many newer titles. Many say that graphics don't make a game, gameplay does, I have to disagree here. Aside from the original "Ground Control", that still play no matter the look and the original "B-17: Flying Fortress", if it looks bad I'm out. The immersion from the look and sound of this game is so fantastic, that lesser looking titles get left in the dust, no matter how well they play. Also helps that the gameplay does match the graphical beauty, if war can be called that, so that's that.

When I've finished (for the umpteenth time) all the campaigns, I will install the Crete mod, as it includes ANZAC forces vs. German. Shame we can't have a New Guinea mod, as that field of conflict went on from 1942 to 1945 (Japanese were still coming out of the jungle to surrender when I was born in Papua in the 1960's). A truly ferocious series of campaigns that saw prisoners taken only rarely by either side and both believing the other side to be close animals. Truly, a clash of cultures they has some Australians, Americans and Japanese still visiting New guinea to search for the remains of family members, or even to this day, friends they fought beside, assisted by relatives (more so the Japanese as most Aussie diggers from that time have long passed.

P.S.
Finally, do not install the Legacy edition of this (unless a mod asks for it). Install the original and you get the two expansion packs. They are not what we now know as DLC's, as they were stand-alone packages (A$ 60 each from memory) and were almost full-fledged games in themselves, except for their length.

It took me some time to dive into this ARPG, as having played “W40K: Inquisitor – Martyr” since it first appeared in EA, I had heard rumblings on that game's Steam forums that this title would far outdo the one I was playing. The game was released, and all the negative reviews began flowing in.Still, it sat on my Steam wishlist, being a big fan of the Warhammer universes (Fantasy, End of Times, Age of Sigmar, The Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000, in reverse order of interest). The Slayer Edition became more than affordable on deep sale, so I took the plunge.Now, I do enjoy ARPG's, especially as I say Warhammer ones, though never quite getting into Grim Dawn or Diablo 3, so I was a bit hesitant, noting the reviews the many negative reviews. Made me somewhat cautious as at launch, the reviews were universally bad.Well, almost 30 hours in, I am having a ball.

At first, it was a bit 'samey' in that every task undertaken (mission) had the same foes and were easily vanquished with loads of items, gold, and fragments after each. Not being able to trade with the merchant/priest, but only donate was initially a bummer, till I got into the whole reputation scene. Inventory was intuitive as are Skills, active and passive and the God Skill Tree, which is fun to play around with as you can reset at any time.Now, I have been a PC gamer since the '80's in my mid-twenties, and strategy games are my meat and potatoes. Flight sims were always my first choice, but that's another story. Aside from straight strategies, TBS and RTS (Dune 2 blew my mind) the only ARPG's I'd played had been “Diablo” and the isometric “Syndicate” – not a true ARPG, but you get the idea). As I say, I have played strategy games since they were first written, but loving them and being great at playing them are two different things.

So I tend to play on Easy, or Very Easy, unless the only other option is Normal.This game, however, heavily penalises players on Very Easy, with few rewards coming your way and I only realised this when looking at bumping it up after the game became far too easy, and I saw the rewards differences. After Level 24, I started playing on Hard, then on Very Hard and Chaos Level 3 - selectively (many players suggest Very Hard, from the start). I killed my first Boss (The Great Unclean One, a favourite of mine), only having to resurrect twice and kept it on Hard till my next Boss fight where I died far too often with only one of the Boss's three lives taken from it. I see I will have to play some sections on Easy, which is made easy by the game, as you can change difficulty levels between tasks/missions.

A great addition is that when you've defeated a Boss, you can approach the market priest and do battle with that Boss, paying for up to four challenging additions to the fight available for purchase. The downside, is that if you die it's permadeath and you fail the challenge. Playing and beating a Khornate infected leader, another portal has opened with the priest, something I'm yet to explore.Is this game wroth buying and playing? On special, it is a must-have for ARPG gamers and first timers alike, as the streets of Nuln are terrifically realised, even without the 4K texture pack, which brings a questionable increase in graphics quality.Graphics are great, as is the sound, and the effects of your various skills look amazing when enacted.There are also 5 classes to choose from, quoting the Store Page as:“…a soldier of the Empire who can take heavy damage, a Dwarf specialised in melee combat, a High Elf who deals ranged damage by manipulating magic, a Wood Elf who lays deadly traps and wields the bow like no other, or a versatile Dwarf Engineer who can blow off steam, literally!”. Can't wait to play them all.

Conclusion:
Do yourself a favour, get it on sale and spend hours lost in the main game and the expansions. Might not be the longest of games out there for the seasoned ARPG player, but for the average gamer like me, it's a blast.P.S. to casual players like myself who play many games on Easy or Normal, sometimes facing difficult challenges on Normal giving me a sense of accomplishment, I would recommend playing on Hard 90% of the time, and only dropping to Normal when you have a Boss challenge, even though I fought and won against my first Boss, the nurgle Great Unclean One, the rest have been too much of a challenge, with each having three lives. Might change that when I get better at playing, as "Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr" doesn't have an option to change difficulty.

As with so many of my games, books and interests in life, my interest in this title was one of confused attraction, or in other words an attraction of dislike.
I was looking at what was, to my mind a very bland and Excel-like 'game' with all the UI and information pages a silver tin-like appearance and bland map. The more I looked at the screenshots, then slowly building into videos I just could not imagine how anyone in their right mind could pay such a high price for, and spend any hours at all in playing this dismal looking maths-driven title. In short, it had no redeeming features...and that was what attracted me.

Almost instantly the game went on sale, and now so far enthralled with the title stemming from an unfathomable non-understanding of it's appeal I bought the game. And as with so many interests that I am drawn to in life, by not imagining how anyone could find it interesting. Believe it or don't, that how my interest in my the biggest universe in my life, that of Warhammer 40,000 began the same way, though I still cannot wrap my head around playing with plastic miniatures as an adult. I was done with plastic planes and yanks in my teens.

The game itself, dragging me in as an old "Steel Panthers" fan is performed in a system called WEGO, something I'd never come across before, but have loved ever since. You play out your orders while the enemy does the same, resulting in sometimes hilarious but more often horrific moments. You re-fight the scenarios outlined in the novels "Centurion", Tom Clancy and Larry Bond's "Red Storm Rising" (the land war anyway) and Harold Coyle's "Team Yankee" about NATO vs The Warsaw Pact on European battlefields in the 1980's. Also, for the Red player "Red Tide" by Ralph Peters, the only novel I've read of the war purely from the Russian perspective only.

The price is right, though on the high side as it is Slitherine after all, yet having played the game for around 30 hours it is so complex and complete without being overly 'weighty'. On sale, it is even more worth it. The game can be as simple or complex as you want it to be, something I appreciate as despite the screenshots showing endless reams of data sheets, the game is essentially 'pick-up&play'. Learn the nitty-gritty at your own leisure. There is a Tutorial Scenario, but it it was down the list so will take a little searching.

So, in the immortal words of Ian "Molly Meldrum: "Do yourself a favour!"

A World War II-based naval action wargame, that utilises the classic Turn-based system (IGOUGO), with elements of WEGO (we go together) Atlantic Fleet is a standout first title from Killerfish Games that only grows from title to title.
From one-off scenarios/skirmish to full-fledged campaigns, which are essentially strings of scenarios pulled together with fleet growth and development thrown in for good measure, this game will satisfy the naval enthusiast in any wargamer. The almost photorealistic style to the graphics, not just from the splash screens but in-game as well only makes for a better game, but looks-over-substance don't apply here with few if any PC resources being used. It can run on a potato, and have oomph! left over..

All-in-all (or TL:DR), this is a WWII naval action game for every naval enthusiast.

There are several variations on the theme of naval combat from surface engagements using main guns, and secondaries, submarine warfare in a basic form and air operations, where you can both level and dive bomb, and perform a torpedo run. These air elements are pretty basic, and to be honest are more hot-and-miss affairs. Why IGOUGO combined with WEGO? Well, you give each of your ships orders (direction, fire control etc.) then hit Play, and the ship carries out your orders...but so does the enemy, and often if you've planned for the enemy to turn to port and they instead remain on a straight heading, or veer to starboard you have to spend painful seconds watching your shells hit empty ocean waiting, and praying for your next turn that you'll get a better result and still be afloat.

Where the Campaigns fall down is unit progression, or not (there is no veteran status or growth of any kind among crews or ships) and just because you have sunk the Bismarck, for example, does not preclude it from appearing several more times in future engagements. Same with all other named ships. Takes away from any realism factor there might otherwise have been. Also, the battles are more puzzle-solving than true strategy. In a typical surface engagement between the big ships-of-the-line, expect to lose one ship, and usually one only, as the enemy will target one ship and one ship only until sunk.
Why? Because that is the pattern. While you take a couple of rounds to 'get you eye in', the enemy have sniper gunners from the first shot. But, whereas your accuracy increases substantially in subsequent turns, the enemy's falls away. What might look at the start like a hopeless situation, rapidly becomes winnable by Turn 3 on. You will tear your hair out, or like me want to throw your mouse throw the monitor as shells splash harmlessly over the target, but the hit ratio climbs blazingly fast.

You guesstimate haw far and in what direction to fire your shells, as it was back then using rudimentary mathematical instruments, get it wrong all the time with the first few turns then jump for joy as hit-after-hit turns the Scharnhorst into a blazing, sinking wreck - yes, the damage is visible and looks great. It's a great little title, especially if bought on sale but even having paid full price on release I feel I've more than got my money's worth. Okay, so 15 hours for a campaign and many scenarios isn't a long time, but the gameplay is just so much fun that for the price you cannot afford to not have this title in your library, to be dragged out and played every so often as the graphics are still amazing to behold (just miss the floating cargo and debris that came with sinking transports/cargo ships in "Silent Hunter III" mods).The following two games after this from the company are far more detailed, and more expensive to boot so if you have any interest in naval warfare, not of the sailing variety then do yourself a favour and pick this up. Thank me later.:)

Deanaut is a hard game to categorise. It's Real Time Strategy for certain, however how it is handled is quite unique. When you launch the game from your Library you'll be presented with two choices. Launch Game and Read Manual (Recommended). My advice, even though you will be as eager as me to just jump in is read the manual. Otherwise you'll start the game, fumble your way in beginning a mission, usually purely by chance and then fumble along until all your little Deadnauts are KIA, or like me you achieve the Objective and Evacuate.
However, even if you win you will not know what winning means for the campaign nor how to replace your losses (Market Place or Cloning). So, you will, if by playing you are intrigued by what you've seen so far, you go back and read the manual.

Many reviewers have compared the game with "Aliens", and I can see why but to be honest if you are aware of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, I'd compare it more with "The Deathwatch", with your little Deadnauts being Deathwatch Space Marines in a Kill Team. Where this analogy falls down is the roster, found to the left of your three-faced monitors. It is made up mostly of female operatives and of course there are no women in the Adeptus Astartes, despite many dissenters now demanding equality. Let's face it, though. A brotherhood has no women, but I am getting off the topic.

As I said, your screen, on booting the game will be presented with a circular monitor being your navigation chart. Here you boost your ship to a target and drop your troops. There is much to explore on this screen, and I have only just re-started playing after being away from the game for some years. In fact on my first run after years away, I won my very first mission (I lost all my teams previously).

The screens to the left are for your troops, equipping them and viewing their stats, amongst other things.
The screen to right (and these screens are accessed by using the Q and [W[/b] keys) lists your Objectives, the Marketplace to buy items or soldiers, or Clone those you've lost in your mission, assuming you've enough Alien corpses to pay for this.

The gameplay is, as I've stated real time as you move your little circles, representing your troops (or Kill Team as I think of them) through a ship, or Space Hulk as I see it. Some of your 'nauts are equipped with sensors and equipment to unlock doors, Hack terminals to restore power, or lock doors. Move through, looking for your Objective and perhaps killing the occasional alien along the way (I think of Genestealers). Once you've achieved your Object, say "Locate the Ship's Journal", you must then escape back to the room you were inserted into (by boarding torpedo, as I imagine), but by achieving the Objective you'll have awakened the aliens (red blobs) that swarm you as you run, unlocking doors and locking them behind you as you go. Once you've reached the blue extraction circle, you press a button on the panel to the right, where the game is played and extract what is left of your squad (teleporting out in my mind).

That's the game, in essence. Of course there is more to it, as I've written, by equipping your troops with more or different equipment as you purchase them, replacing troops and finding your next target in the Campaign. For the price, especially on sale, the game is a worthy addition to any RTS player's library. Watch a gameplay video if unsure, but as I say at the this price, it's worth the time, and effort.

7/10

Next to the savagery wrought by the Dragon Warriors, curse their black souls there are few that can beat the noble savagery the sons of Fenrys can wreak on the xenos, traitor, renegade and generally someone who ticks them off. To play as one is easily the best choice any true Loyalist can play.
Black Templars, a seriously humourless bunch of Imperial Fists successor extremists are the opposite. While equally as skilled in close combat and lethal with their swords, playing as the noble sons of Dorn's more pragmatic son the once High Marshal Sigismund, who became their Chapter Master after the breaking of the Legions. Zealots to the core, you get to wield your chained-to-the-wrist swords in melee to your heart's content.