Recent reviews by S_freck

Backed by developers with ambitions to recreate the Maryland campaign of the Civil War, War of Rights is a beautifully detailed immersive civil war game.

The gameplay itself immediately demonstrates its focus for immersion and teamwork. No kill feeds. Slow methodically reloading that slows down the pace of the battle. A ticket system that tracks whether if you are killed alone or with teammates. Working as a team is probably the only way you will get the most enjoyment. Though not to say there's no thrill of laying in wait in a bush while numerous enemy soldiers pass you by, as you carefully aim your rifle at the officer leading at the front. Just that its geared with a team oriented mindset.

The visuals and sounds are also a treat for the senses as well. With lots of references to the actual battlesites, they have been able to recreate scaled map areas (all connected together into one gigantic map that is planned to be completely playable as one map). The large sweeping landscapes from large hills, the variety of detailed US civil war uniforms, the rustling of branches and corn stalks to the ever changing weathers (thunder storms, rain etc). I mean, you leave blood stained footprints on the ground when you step over your dead friends! Pretty detailed

The community in general is pretty nice too. Especially the regiments. Oh the regiments. Always out there with welcoming arms to any potential player at the deployment zone. You definitely won't be limited in your choice of finding a group to play a more structured match compared to the public matches.

In short, if you are interested in experiencing an historical immersive civil war FPS, this game should definitely deserve your attention (whether you join now while its in early access, or wait for it to be fully released).

Hell, I hope when they finish with the Maryland campaign, they move onto other campaigns (US civil war or not) with the all of the tools and systems they developed.

Barotrauma captures the trial and tribulations of managing a sub descending to the deeper depths of the unknown. You got monsters tearing up the hull trying to eat your delicious crew, naughty crew members messing with the wiring, management of chemical ingredients that may or may not react violently with water (beware that darn butterfly effect).

All the worlds problems crammed in one rust bucket of a sub as it slowly descends to great unknown depths of Jupiter's moon. Its punishing. Its chaotic. Its great. Its Barotrauma.

As an early access game, Barotrauma is one of the games that have a lot of potential in the future as it continues its development, much like from my experience in Rimworld. Just from the Supporter Pack's magazines, which adds to background lore of Barotrauma, the developers have definitely shown a lot of enthusiasm to further create a world worth exploring and surviving in. Very excited for the upcoming rework to environments coming later into December. Definitely would recommend to hop in or wish list for the future as it continues development. And would be a great candidate for the Labor of Love award for the 2020 steam awards.

Update 2021: Development continues to chugging along with major updates and more content and systems have been implemented that continue to make Barotrauma a great game to play. Decision remains the same. Highly recommend.

Update 2024: Still fun. Still recommend.

When first playing SCP SL, I knew a little bit about the overall fictional setting SCP and about SCP: Containment Breach as a singleplayer survival horror game adaption. So, I had some ideas or expectations of what the game it would be like but I was a bit interested of how it would be work as a multiplayer. After playing a few initial rounds, SCP SL is definitely an great adpation of the SCP setting into an multiplayer environment.

SCP SL's game design really shines in doing two things. Ensuring that each match is different and thus is overall replayable. And really capturing the mysterious and chaotic nature behind the fictional setting of SCP. The fear of the unknown and trying to survive the unexpected. I think nothing better demonstrates this then in the way teams are set up and interact with each other thoughout a match. Even describing how the team works is a bit chaotic. There are a number of layers behind the relationship between each teams and the ability to switch teams mid game ensures changes the over flow of each match. But the basics is this, each match is set in a containment facility and you are placed on one of three main sides (scientist, D-class, SCPs) and supporting teams (chaos/mtf-security), each with different objectives to achieve. The entire match revolves around either escaping the facility (for scientist/D-class), neutralize opposing teams escapees (Security and MTF/chaos) or killing everyone (SCPs). The winning team is dictated by a score by the end of the round, which is heavily based on the number of escapees of either scientist or D-class. That being said, there is a certain degree of flexibility in the way teams interact and accomplish their main objectives. For example, certain tools can allow D-classes to be detained by MTF and escorted out to join their team rather than outright being killed, scientist and D-classes can convince each other to work together to the higher levels of the facility, even SCP's talking dog (yes there is a talking dog) can convince other teams to work with them to kill the other side (usually MTF/security). There's a surprising amount of freedom in the way an person from one team can interact with a person from another team, which does add a layer of uneasiness. A person playing as MTF/security, for example, could detain you and escort you out, be a bloodthirsty monster and simply gun you down or be really sadistic by first detaining you then gunning you down with your back turned. And this is just with a fellow human being, we are not even talking about interacting with an SCP. If its confusing, it might be something you have to experince first hand for a couple of rounds to understand. Just from this aspect alone there's a degree variations between matches, which is pretty great for a game that is free to play.

The sound design should also receive some recognition in the way it contributes to gameplay and the overall eerie atmosphere. Specifically the loudness of sounds based on proximity to the player maintains this constant feeling of unease when walking around the facility, especially when its dead silent. For example, hearing distant footsteps (or whatever sounds like footsteps) growing louder to the opening of a door in the corridor ahead indicates something is near, though you do not know if it is friendly or not (its probably not). This is especially important for hiding as sounds help act as an early warning system. The use of proximity voicechat is also a great feature for that same reason; you can listen for distant conversations between security guards (or whatever wants to kill/rescue you) to enjoying the the muffled screams of a crowd of people trapped with an SCP in the room next to you. Furthermore, sound cues are also used in a way that further maintain the overall ominous atmosphere in each match. Spotting an SCP plays startlingly music you would expect to find in a jump scare in a horror movie, which is especially unnerving when you enter into a dim lit room you expected to be empty. The PA systems occasionally blares important information throughout the facility, which is neat way of both keeping track of whats going on around the facility and constantly reminding you that you are trapped within a uncaring facility with things that want to kill/rescue you.

Overall, I think SCP SL is a great multiplayer game and highly recommend it, especially since its a free to play game. With megapatch 2 coming out soon at the time of writing this review (adding new content (scp items, rooms and bug fixes and adjustments), I'm sure SCP SL will continue to be developed. There's already great potential considering the large amount of SCP articles already written to draw inspiration from; whether it be items, beings or hell even major events. I hope in the future they continue to develop and expand on this theme of uncertainty, making each match varied (e.g. currently each map has different modular rooms connected together to make different layouts for the next match). I do feel there is a danger that given enough time players, having encountered the same scps over and over again and knowing their weakness, will be more confident and lose that sense of uncertainty and fear. But maybe that is unavoidable. I would like to see certain aspects related to hiding be expanded upon, whether it being able to crouch behind boxes/crates or hiding in lockers, just as a way to further open more ways players can interact with their environment. I think there's certainly a lot in this game the developers can experiment with.
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The developers do have a patreon set up to support their development of SCP SL, if you really enjoyed playing please consider supporting them: https://www.patreon.com/HubertMoszka

Pandemic Zombie Express is an interesting zombie escape game (inspired from CS mod zombie escape (ZE)). The basic concept of zombie escape revolves around two teams of humans and zombies. Where humans have to reach an objective to escape, while zombies have to "convert" all the humans to their side. For the most part, these objectives in Pandemic are generally similar; humans have to escape on a train (or possibly in future game modes in an large ship or cable cars hell even in an spaceship).

However, where Pandemic distinguishes itself from CS ZE mod is setting it as an open world map. Humans are able to explore various locations, forage for weapons in abandoned houses, drive cars and boats across vast landscapes and all the while being hunted and tracked by zombies and running from the looming safety zone that is closing in. Pandemic's zombie class system adds another level of fun for the team that is usually denied any fun *in smacking humans. The simple reasons being that zombies can't close the distance due to those darn guns. Varied zombies allow for number of playstyles to get around that. For example, the mimic (a human disguised zombie that is able to place mines) adds an element of deviousness to the zombie side. You can watch from afar as an human explodes into the air because of your first mine, and as they run panicked to the health station, explode again to a second mine sneakily placed in their path. Its like watching a Rube Goldberg machine, its fun to see the all the pieces fall together.

Being an early access game, Pandemic is continuously being reworked and developed to be more polished (more or less weekly patch updates). There are more game mods (not sure what other game mods other than zombie escape there will be), maps, added cosmetics etc. being planned to be added in the future. Balance between zombie and human teams are being worked on (e.g certain zombie classes are taken out to be reworked on by the developers). In terms of balance, over the times I have played, I feel there has been progress, specifically in favor of zombies, which I hope continues. I am of the mindset that the difficulty for humans to succeed in escaping should be high. The thrill of succeeding against an growing tide of zombies, especially in the final hours, is an aspect of the zombie escape experience I feel is essential.


Pandemic is an fun chaotic and at times intense experience that I would recommend to either buy now or at least follow and watch for the future. The open world nature of its map allows for varied situations for both humans and zombies to fight in that make matches in general feel somewhat unique. The design and art style of the world is another appealing aspect which really contributes the atmosphere of the game. Blaring Danse Macbre on the radio and humans stylized like dramatic actors/dancers really makes you feel like you are dancing with death (added to the fact that you are usually in the air when shooting or gun jumping).

Current playercount may be little low at certain time which is an problem. Matches only start when 15 players have joined, which can lead to long wait times before an actual match begins. Hopeful with future improvements and major releases (new maps/game modes) this will help attract an larger and more consistent playerbase. For now, if you buy I would suggest checking player numbers on https://steamcharts.com/app/939510 to see the number of players that are active to decide when to jump on.

Squad is a great first person team based multiplayer game. While still being in early access, the current available maps, game modes, weapons, kits, factions, and vehicles provide enough content to be fun. Its definitely strikes a right balance in terms of pace (longer re-spawn timers and re-spawn points are not automatically available at flags) The best and most satisfying matches are when there is high level of coordination and communication (mic or no mic doesn't really matter). Which makes it every match potentially interesting, whether if your or their team seems to be losing, by the end of the match it could quickly turn around.

Case in point a recent AAS match (each flag is linked and needs to be capture before the next flag) I lost demonstrates how an seemingly winning but uncoordinated team could still lose. Basically we had pushed the opposing all the way to their last flag. Capping their last flag would have rapidly drain their already low remaining tickets. The entire team was pushing toward their last flag except for one squad which appeared to be guarding their second last flag. Everything seemed to be going well, their last flag defenders were basically being destroyed by our advance and we were capping their last flag. BUT just as their flag seemed to be capped (basically a sliver away from being neutrally capped), they somehow were able to cap the second last flag negating our neutral cap. Turns out the squad that appeared to be guarding that flag advanced and left the flag completely open to the enemy team. What happens next is probably one of the most amazing things in a match I have every experienced. The entire team at the last enemy flag had to move to the currently enemy capped flag, but as soon as they arrived at the flag, the preceding flag was already neutral capped. Basically the enemy team coordinated in such a way that each time our team arrived to recapture, they had already started to cap the next flag. And so it continued all the way to our last flag that we eventually lost and with everybody trying to find which squad left that second flag undefended.

It is these type of matches one could expect to experience when playing.

Also added benefit is through modding, which provides a lot of fun outside of the base game. Two immediately come to mind are SquadZ (zombie based survival game) and Troopers (starship trooper inspired mod). And now there's Galactic Contention (A Clone Wars mod)!

SO in short Squad is a definite recommend from me.

Bomber Crew is a pretty fun bomber simulation and strategy game.
Trying to save a sinking ship (or in this case a bomber) leads to some hectic but great moments. Failure (i.e. your whole ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bomber crew imploding as your bomber runs out of gas or engines, whichever comes first) is expected but is certainly not the end of the war. Takes some time to get used to all the controls and procedures (Such as NOT forgetting to raise the wheels after takeoff and using all the different traits at the right time). But once you get used to it, its a blast.

Looking forward to see how future updates and DLC will further add to the bomber flying experince.

Very addictive colony building game. And I do mean very addictive.
Planning effective layouts for storage and housing, crisis managment that range from handling disease outbreaks to dealing with raids from pirates or mercs...

And thats just talking about the base game! Countless mods help add to both functionality and replayability and will continue to do so well into the future.

Highly recommended for those that enjoy planning and anticipating threats.

Lovable characters, neat weapons, awesome gameplay and MORE!!!
What more could you want?!?