Recent reviews by CynicalFinch

Updated review (April 4, 2024)

Dev's have finally fixed the bug previously mentioned below in my original review. The patch that addressed the HUD Text disappearing was released on April 2. Took them since launch, but at least they got it done & I am grateful.

I definitely recommend this game, (Solid 8/10). If you're unaware, Helldiver 2 could be summed up as a 'PvE Extraction Shooter'. If you've ever played 'Deep Rock Galactic', then you'll feel familiar with the game play loop. Instead of Dwarfs on a ship in space, going down to planets to mine resources for a company while shooting alien bugs, Helldivers 2 has you playing the role of a human being deployed on various planets delivering "Democracy" to alien bugs and robots amidst a greater war effort within the galaxy.
(Though if you haven't played 'Deep Rock Galactic', you should give that a shot on top of Helldivers 2 because you are missing out on greatness!)

Note that Helldivers 2 is 1-4 player co-op. You can play solo, but it is more fun with friends and/or randoms. Another key difference between Helldivers 2 & Deep Rock Galactic is that this is 3rd person instead of 1st person.

All that said, if you have no idea what Deep Rock Galactic is for a point of reference, all you need to know is that Helldivers 2 is a 1-4 player vs Environment, 3rd person Extraction Shooter. It has tons of progression, lots of weapons to unlock, 9 different difficulty levels, all wrapped in a comedic "Starship Troopers" theme, and most importantly, a lot of chaotic FUN for those who like co-op style shooters.

Can't recommend in it's current state (March 26, 2024).
There is currently a bug which makes majority of the text in HUD, Menus, etc disappear. This is especially annoying when it comes to having character abilities on a cooldown timer, but you can't see the timer due to text just vanishing. Only fix currently is to restart the game, but that means you're restarting the game every 5 to 15 minutes. And I'm not in the minority with this bug, The first mention of it on the forums (that I could find) was Feb 9th. Searching this issue on the forums brings up 16 pages of results with literally hundreds of players notifying the devs of this bug, yet this bug is mentioned nowhere in their "Known Issues FAQ". There's also been several patches since Feb 9th, none of which seem to be aimed at fixing this bug according to their notes.

I will update my review to positive if & when they ever fix this bug. Until then, I strongly recommend avoiding this game.

I've played a little bit. It's alright...

This game is pretty awesome. It's pretty much Rimworld and Oxygen Not Included rolled into one, so if you're someone who likes either of those games, you can't go wrong with this. It's better than Rimworld, and equally as good as Oxygen Not Included. (I've seen others mention Prison Architect, but realistically, the only similarity is the art style / graphics rather than the mechanics.)

If you're not familiar with any of those games, (which would be crazy if that's the case), then the summary of this game is that you're managing a space ship with several hundred human colonists (and pets) who are all asleep in cryo stasis pods. Your goal is to maintain the ship, guide it through the galaxy from star system to star system in search of a planet for the colonists to call home.

The game has you start by taking control of a randomly procedural generated ship that's just suffered some kind of emergency event, having left your ship in fragmented shape with various hull breaches. You'll repair & redesign the ship, make it better, research new tech, and guide some colonists out of their stasis pods and into the ships workforce along the way. Once you've got the ship up & running, you'll be flying it from planet to planet, star system to star system, and even galaxy to galaxy. While flying on your journey, you'll mine planets for resources, and trade with other space fairing folks. (Think 'Star Trek: Voyager). Through all of this along the way, there will be random events that throw curve balls at you & your ship, Much like the game FTL.

So far, as of writing this review, I think the developer has really nailed every aspect of the mechanics in this game. While the game is really good at pushing you deeper into the mechanics and inspires you to get more ambitious with your ship, it also doesn't punish you in any unfair ways for sake of "difficulty" or "Challenge". All of the random events that are negative are survivable. Scary at times, but definitely not demoralizing. This game has a really good balance of challenging moments vs moments of 'smooth sailing'. That being said, the options are there to tweak the settings of a play-through when starting a new game.

The only thing I can really criticize this game for is the 'new player / first time experience'. Currently, the tutorial feels a little cumbersome. The user interface is partly to blame for this due to multiple rabbit holes of pop-up boxes. It requires patience, and a major eye for detail. If you're someone who tends to skim over text when reading things, don't do it in this game. Take your time, and read clearly. Sometimes in this game it's worth it to read things twice and really let the info sink in. If you're someone who happens to be Dyslexic, then I feel for you, since you're first time playing the game will definitely be an uphill battle. The good news is, once you've read & understood all that you needed to play, you'll know exactly what you're doing and you'll only be squinting when you need to trade.

Just remember the golden rule: When in doubt, click on words. Nearly every line of text inside the pop-up boxes can be clicked on to bring up another pop-up box that will give you more details & info about something. Just start clicking on the text in the pop-up boxes and before you know it, your screen will be littered with pop-up boxes like you're grandparents infected PC.

All that said,
This game is an easy 8/10 for me.
If the Dev can come up with something better than pop-up boxes for the UI, and flesh out the tutorial just a bit more, then it would be a solid 10/10.
Either way, I'm going to enjoy playing this game for hundreds of hours.

Edit (7.2 hours after buying): This game is digital Opioid.

Don't judge this based on it's cover.

Best Game in its Class / Genres
Best Game in its Price range

Basically, out of all the games out there that have ANY overlapping mechanics with this game: Vampire Survivors is the BEST at it.

If you're thinking if buying this game after watching the video on the store page advertising the games "Survival Mode", then just don't bother. Currently as of writing this review, Survival mode is nothing like the video depicts. Not even remotely close to the actual in game experience.

The video for the Survival mode is all hype and very misleading.

As someone who's horrible at RTS games, and therefor doesn't play them a whole lot; Company of Heroes is the one exception for me. It's just so damn good, even despite it's age. What makes it shine is its innovative mechanics I've not seen in any other RTS, such as units being able to adapt to the battle field on the fly and the resources being gathered by capturing & holding territory instead of mining crystals or cutting down trees or some crap like all the other RTS games on the market. These two mechanics combined make every match, skirmish, & campaign mission feel fresh every time with adverse challenges & successes arising in different ways every game, writing a story of battle that you'll reflect on & learn from. The depth of Company of Heroes is so rewarding that even in the midst of a loss there's fun to be had.

To top all that off, would be the map selection. If you like multiplayer, co-op, or even skirmishing against the AI (which is no joke), there's a ton of maps to play through, giving you large amount of replay value after completing the campaigns. Most of the maps are well designed. I can only think of a couple that are rough around the edges, but that probably comes down to preference.
Also, speaking of multiplayer, it's not that hard to find a match despite how long this game has been around. As of writing this review (December 2021), I still see players in the lobbies every single times I fire up the game. That's not to say it's a large, booming community, but still enough activity that finding a match shouldn't be a problem as long as you're not looking for a match at 4 am or something.

All that said, Company of Heroes is a must have & a must play for not just RTS fans, but also those who DON'T like RTS games. In fact, I believe this is a 'Bucket List' game: a must play just for the experience before you die.

10 out of 10 game.

Edit: Almost forgot. DLC is totally worth it in my opinion, however you can't go wrong with just the base game either which has plenty to offer.

This game is my drug, my escape. Haven't had this much fun with a survival crafting game since the old days of Arma 2 DayZ mod. Exploration is rewarding, crafting & building is fun, combat is fun, progression (while at times a bit of a slow burn) is fun & rewarding, and the survival aspect can surprise the hell out of you! In split second you're wondering where the hell a group of zombie grizzlies & zombie dogs have come from and how the hell you're going to survive with your broken leg in the midst of praying, spraying, & hobbling away. Also, whether you're playing solo or with friends, getting ready for horde nights is fun. There's always those last minute nerves that hit you on horde nights which I love. You'll nervously second guess whether you've done enough, or built enough for defenses, all while the red night sky thunderously growls at you, as if to taunt & mock your efforts of preparation.

I honestly can't say enough good things about this game. Even when I'm not playing this game, I'll sometimes find myself theory crafting different character builds in my head. There are certainly some minor "hiccups" here & there in terms of mechanics and/or bugs, but they are too feeble to break my immersion (and boy do I get immersed), so I'm not going to bother listing them. They'll more than likely be fixed by the time this game comes out of early access...... in someones lifetime, just might not be mine. On that note, don't let the length of time this game has been in Early Access for scare you away. What's here now is fairly polished, and all though some things will change over time, it should always be fun. It feels like the dev's are a small team which is why it's been "slow & steady" to "win the race", but again, what's here now is fairly polished, so don't let the Early Access development scare you away.

Edit: Also just wanted to mention that the game is very customizable in terms of how you want to play. Of course there's a "Creative" mode, but beyond that, you can shut the horde nights off, or change the amount of days between hordes. If you're like me & don't accept that zombies can sprint or run (if they were real) then you can set them to walkers only. Also the zombie count can be changed, along with XP multipliers, Loot percentages, and a bunch of other options. You can literally set up the perfect zombie survival scenario for your self! There's also randomly generated maps, much like in minecraft, but I can't speak to that feature at all since I'm still in love with the default map which obviously has been a labor of love by the dev's, and that really show's when you're exploring the world.

The developers of this game (Hinterland Studio Inc.) berated my steam news feed with "#BlackLivesMatter".

To which I replied:
"#ALL_LIVES_MATTER :steamfacepalm:

Racism will never stop as long as any color is favored by anyone, especially those against racism. Discrimination out of empathy is still discrimination!

Now please, keep this moronic SJW crap out of my Steam news feed. Stick to making games instead of spreading oxymoronic hashtags...."

They deleted my comment while leaving up literally THOUSANDS of other comments sharing identical sentiments.

I get that has nothing to do with the game itself, however I kinda feel really gross having purchased a product from such ignorant closed minded SJW dev's who cover their ears & scream racism when they get called out on their oxymoron publicity stunts, which also, has me kind of convinced that no one on that team has a clue what an "oxymoron" even is....

So yeah. I want nothing to do with this developer. My 2 pet-peeves in life: Ignorance & Superficial actions/people. Both of which plague the culture of Hinterland Studio Inc.

Comment at your own risk. I don't give a fu.. if this review has you triggered, & I don't need anyone's approval to leave this review. In closing, if you think I'm racist for anything I've said here, then I can sincerely & factually tell you this: You have minimal, to no understanding or comprehension of the English language. So get a dictionary & thesaurus before you decide to flame at me for being racist.

"Is the game any good though?" you ask....
Meh.....
kinda dumb that you don't have control over all of your actions. Half the things you want your character to do are done to a Clock on a black background, counting down an hour or two while the game rolls the dice to decide the outcome of the action/task. Sorry, but that's the last thing I want to see in a survival game.

Update April 15 2021: Elite Dangerous is about to go free-to-play. Do not buy even though it's on sale. Wait for free to play launch.
----------------------------------------------------------
First off, I want to make clear that I have way more than 9 hours in this game. I was a founder, & bought this game long before it hit steam, back in the days of "Beta". So my total time in this game is probably closer to 200+ hours.

That said, those hours were spread out from the games early days to its present day state. I certainly have had fun playing this game throughout all of its updates & content additions. But where this game is today is absolutely soul sucking & depressing compared to where it was during its evolutionary stages of development.

Basically, this game is now the most grinding game to play in the history of all games. I'm sincerely not exaggerating when I say this. The philosophy of development & updates for this game (which has drastically fallen off in the last 1-2 years) is to simply suck you in at a triple-A price tag & force feed you nothing but free-to-play mechanics & systems for gameplay.

There's a heck of a lot more to say about this game, but I wan't to give credit where it's due and share this review written by steam user "siftycat", whom I feel really hits the nail on the head with their review and says exactly what I think/feel about Elite: Dangerous in a much better way than I could articulate myself.

Bottom line: if you need a fix of space gameplay, only buy if it's deeply discounted.
I promise if you buy this at full price, you'll have major buyer's remorse after experiencing the grind long enough for yourself.
I'd also recommend checking out Everspace if you're looking for fun space combat with less grind/depth. Or even give No Man's Sky a shot before giving Elite: Dangerous a chance. Who'd have thought that No Man's Sky would become a more improved & better space game than E:D?!? I know I sure as heck never thought I'd see the day; but never the less, here we are..... Feel's Sad

This game is amazing. Mechanics go deep, and the environments can be vast (as in an entire solar system for you to explore & expand in). I'd play this game a ton more if a had a circle of people to play this with, but sadly I don't mingle with squeakers & my adult friends are busy working and/or playing other games. When I do play, I do certainly have fun building & mining, but after a few hours it gets hard to ignore the fact that I'm literally the only living thing in my solar system. Inevitably the temptation to craft a beach ball, name it Wilson & start having deep conversations with it becomes quite scary. So for the sake of my sanity, after 2-4 hours playing alone, I switch to a game where I know I'll run into some familiar faces.

Needless to say: having a few people to play this with is Strongly recommended.

8/10 playing alone
10/10 playing with others