Recent reviews by Common

Love it. Really immersive, and does not hold your hand at all.

My opinion on the combat system -
1. You actually have to invest time training if you want to be any good at fighting, and it's actually extremely important to learn perfect blocks, and master strikes, as well as leveling your stats.
2. Early game you will get beat pretty handily, even against weak opponents.
3. You have to strategize before going into a fight, especially if there is more than 3 opponents at once. Early game don't expect to win these fights. Do damage with your bow, which you will probably miss 90% of your shots before they get too close and yank you off your horse.
4. Stamina is the most important feature. If you let this get low you will be unable to block, and if there are 2 or 3 people hitting you, you will get combo'd very hard, and probably start bleeding, or die.
5. 1v1 Fights - These are pretty good with the camera lock feature. Some of the early fights can last 5-10+ minutes.
6. 1v2+ Fights - This is where the camera lock feature struggles. You need to constantly backpedal for minutes at a time, trying not to let them circle you.. all while trying to slowly land a blow. This is extremely hard if you have not learned master strike or perfect block.. as every block will cost you stamina without these moves. I feel like these fights are usually pretty clunky, and can be really annoying.. especially when there is a dog involved. Don't try to sprint away if you are close to them, they will destroy you. For some reason it's like everyone is Usain Bolt in these fights.
7. Perfect block. Perfect block is learned earlier than master strike, and you will start to become decent when you learn this. You will still not hit your opponent 80% of the time, so fights will be long, but you'll take way less damage.
8. Master strike. You will not lose a 1v1 anymore, unless you are bad. This basically counter there attack with using a perfect block, while giving you 1 free hit. Rinse and repeat a few times for a win every time. Add in a group attacking you, you will probably not time the master strikes up every time, and will have a hard time landing the free hit, because you will be getting attacked from another angle.
9. I had almost max tier gear around 15 hours in. This is a pretty big complaint of mine. Besides trying to make some money, there is virtually no reason to do much anymore.
10. Don't spam click. You will be punished for it.
11. Combos - I've yet to hit 1 successful combo in 40 hours lol. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, or I am bad. It seems most of my hits against any opponents with any skill at all block almost every strike outside of the free master strike hit. If I try to combo off of that they almost always block the next hit. The opponents I could probably combo without them blocking me usually die in 1-2 hits at this point in the game, but I will keep trying.

Overall - Combat is fun. It just gets annoying when you fight a group. Go train with Bernard as early as possible or you will suffer. Taking the HUD off would probably be a really fun way to play, as well as hardcore mode. I will be testing these out for the future. Im 40 hours in and don't feel like I have done hardly any of the main quest. That's a plus.

I liked how the story took a pretty cool twist. Short game, but definitely worth it on sale. Took me a little over 10 hours to beat, but I have been glued the last couple days. Ill probably be picking up the other 2 in hopes they are as good as this. Combat is enjoyable, but my facorite part of the game is how you can choose any way you want to complete a mission. There are so many different options to choose from. This is one game in which the clues for certain objectives are hidden just hard enough that you have to think about it, but not so hard that you was hours trying to figure it out. If you want a fun single player game pick it up.

One week after I buy Combined Operations for 24.99.. It goes on sale for 4.99... Would buy again for 24.99