rompafrolic legutóbbi értékelései

Caveats first: I love games with spaceships. Always have, always will. I've also been a big fan of SoaSE since the original launch back in the early 2000s. This game ticks all my bias boxes and then some. Feel free to take a pinch or two of salt with this review.

Right, now onto the game.

Gameplay:
The game is an incredibly robust re-imagining of Sins1. The ship combat identities have been stripped of hidden stats and modifiers, what you see is what you get; capships have been made the stars of the show; planets R O T A T E now(!); planet development and construction have been greatly streamlined; faction identities have been dialled all the way up to 11.

In short, the game plays like sins but better.

Most of the iconic ships and abilities from the first game are still present. Javelis swarms are still a nightmare, Advent still have strikecraft for days, the Coronata titan still hasn't learnt to chill out, and ships still jump between planets a lot.

Put simply: in gameplay terms Sins2 is a direct and meaningful upgrade to Sins1.

There are several new aspects to the game. The most notable of which are the staged HP states of capital ships, and the new interactions of Point Defence and missiles.

Capships now have their HP split into shields, armour, hull, and "crippled hull". Shields is what it says on the tin, a bubble around the ship which only starts to regenerate after a moderate delay. Armour, much like shields is an extra hp bar, it however also offers damage reduction to the ship, and is likewise depleted as the ship takes damage; as with shields, when it no longer takes damage it starts to regenerate, but after a much longer delay. Hull is what it says on the tin: it's those squishy fragile bits under the armour plating. This leaves us with Crippled Hull. When a ship has no Hull remaining it goes into a Crippled state where it can no longer fire or use abilities, but can still use its engines to attempt an escape. This adds an interesting tactical decision-making aspect to larger fights, as its easy to eject capships from fights, but not so easy to finish them off decisively.

The new Point Defence interaction is really quite simple: missiles can now be shot. As compensation, missiles are now a fair bit punchier, and my god do you REALLY need to bring PD along to survive.


Art, Music, Sound, Visuals:
Visually the backgrounds and planets and other assorted decorations of the game are superior to Sins1. Stars glitter a bit more, the backdrops have godrays sometimes. Transitions when zooming in are gorgeous. There's no doubt about it, the backdrop is picture-perfect.

Now for the ship visuals. In short, TEC look gritter and more armour-clad than ever; Vasari look like the ancient scions of a long-forgotten empire lost to the depths of space, and advent decided that their ships should also have togas and crystal spires too. The capships of the first game have all had an incredible makeover, making them shinier, pointier, or heavier as the faction identity demands. Ships were already very distinct, but now they also ooze character too. That visual upgrade is not solely limited to the capships though. Even frigates and cruisers got a makeover, and the new characters to the factional lineups are just as good. This visual display is not just limite to static ships however. Turrets turn and track, lasers, kinetics, beams and missiles all contribute to a fantastic lightshow which makes even tiny skirmishes a visual delight. Have no doubt, the game is a visual spectacle without compare, contesting Homeworld 3 directly for the title of "prettiest space game".

The game's soundscape is similarly well crafted. Ships do not only have single barks and shouts when commanded and selected. They now react to the situation of the battlescape. A capship losing its shields while heavily outnumbered will sound scared while a capship on the verge of destruction in a battle you're winning will happily make its sacrifice for the empire. This alone is an excellent development, making the battlescape alive in a way which few games have done previously.

I would be remiss at this point if I didn't mention the UI. It's a good UI. Nothing revolutionary, it's clean, direct, and reflects the faction's aesthetic in a pleasingly traditional way.

Finally we come to the art. A lot has been made of the usage of AI in the art of the game. Let me be clear, this is not random art ripped from artists online. Speaking with the devs reveals that they used an AI framework and fed it a diet of exclusively in-house SoaSE art before generating anything. There is no question of art theft here, nor of a lack of originality. The art was always going to be derivative on the second game, but in this way at least there's some certainty that the art identity has remained purely Sins.


So, what is there left to say about the game?

Well, it keeps the spirit of the previous game, loses a few of the more awkward and inhibiting aspects, and adds in a whole lot of new ones; then it also makes the stuff it kept better. It's Sins1 but better. This is basically how HW3 was hoping to be compared to HW2, only Sins2 succeeded.

Foxhole is an exercise in wild and contrasting opposites.

It's a wonderful example of the glory and beauty of hundreds of people playing towards victory. It's riddled with griefers and alts who are capable of undoing the work that took you several days in less than a few minutes.

It has a level of complexity in warfare that can only be matched by factorio-like games (Yes, that's right, it's a factory game disguised as a war game). Yet all of that gameplay is accessed by less than half the playerbse, probably less than a third of the playerbase if I'm quite honest.

It's a slick and complex top-down shooter. And at the same time the devs seem to add new toys without rhyme or reason, while nerfing in a seemingly haphazard and careless way.

It's glorious and horrifying all at once, which I suppose is a philosophical statement about war in general. And I cannot go far enough in recommending you steer clear of this thing. Do not buy it until the devs begin communicating properly. Do not spend your time here until there is a semblence of long-term balance. Don't commit your time which can be wasted and undone oh, so easily.

A very good XCOM-style 40K game. Story is about what you'd expect from this style of game - it's cheesy, full of cliches, and very predictable; but the writing is still good and the characters enjoyable, if sometimes a bit stiff. On the gameplay side it's visceral, satisfying, and 100% imbalanced in your favour... eventually. In proper 40K style you must make choices, and things *will* go wrong for you, and you will eventually get all of your overpowered kit that lets you slaughter half the enemies on the map in no time flat.

Recommended for fans of the Grey Knights, Space Marines, XCOM, and chaos.