Recent reviews by Drake Kurthem

With a killer beat and stylized visuals, the game is a blast to play. It's a perfect palate cleanser after too many map games.

1100+ Hours in, I can say I love this game. Plus I've learned more geography playing this then 2 years as a freshman in highschool.

Truest Canadian simulator ever made. Farm the syrup, race the cars, eat the poutine. BE FRENCH-CANADIAN.

I've been waiting for this to release on Steam since I first heard about it in my Sim circles. The game itself is excellent based on the earlier public build I played. I'm just sinking myself into this release even as I type this.

It hits that spot between arcade and simulator. The first one to get a decent center mass shot generally wins except at long range or oblique angles. No HP bars, you need to disable the crew or the vehicles internals just like IRL. You get to see what every round fired in a match did, whether it missed, ricocheted, or slammed through the upper glacias of a T-72, sluicing through the driver's torso and the commander's leg as the FSDS exits through the engine and rear of the tank. It's a cool feature.

The missions are an excuse for Cold War era tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to be pitted against one another. It's fun, but don't expect to feel like you're playing a video game version of Team Yankee. It's tanks on tanks and it is good.

It runs the same steady 45 fps between my laptop and my desktop and I have a feeling it's not my hardware. Your miles may vary. The only bug(?) i've run into so far is that I can't use the mouse to select what controls I want to change in Settings. I have to use the keyboard which is a bit slow but it still works.

I look forward to seeing what lies in store for the game, it's good enough as is for me to throw in my money.

*EDIT* They have fixed the minor bug like I knew they would. The developers have continued to add more content to the game on a regular basis as well which is commendable in a world of cash grab EA titles.

BUY THIS GAME IF YOU LIKE TANK COMBAT

Having played a fair bit of Gold Rush simulator I can say that this has a similar feel but it's more than that. Hydroneer allows a lot more flexibility and creativity. It's charming in aesthetic and rather pretty. Get down and dirty, there's plenty of decent tutorials on YouTube.

Look, if you haven't played the sleeper hit of 2021 you owe it to yourself to try it.

FOR VALHALLA!

The game is fun, better with friends. Best of all is that none of the content you paid for is hidden behind a secondary pay wall. You actually play to unlock stuff. Novel idea.

Truly though the story is decent, you have to search it out but it's worth it if your a fan of the lore. They do a better job in this game explaining The Engineers better than any movie to date.

Think SCP mixed with a dash of XFiles, Nightvale, and Alan Wake. Fantastic game that's beautiful and fun. 10/10

Be the monster.

Game play is simple and that's not a bad thing. The graphics are awesome as is the sound design. Plus there is just the right amount of weight to the creature as it grows larger, it simply feels larger. The only downside I can see is that it is pretty linear and I don't know if this is going to have any replay value. That's only worrisome based on other reviews I've read stating the game is short.

Those two negatives aside it's a fun game, and having fun is supposed to be the point. Try something different. I know I have gotten my moneys worth.

TL;DR: If you loved Warband you'll love this. If you never played a Mount and Blade game before try this first. I think it might be the best game in the series yet as is.

Will you like this depends heavily on if you enjoyed M&B:Warband. At this point in EA Bannerlord is little different in the overall meta of both games. You still start out by yourself and have to build up your kingdom from there. Dialogue is still hilariously stiff and English is plainly not the first language but it's not too distracting. The graphics and animations though shine. It all just feels smoother than Warband and is thus even more enjoyable to ride down your enemies.

Being EA you can see where the loose threads are that the Devs are going to fill in as time passes. It's not feature complete but even so the base is solid. From what I've seen so far you can take Warband and add layers of spit and polish and you'll eventually wind up with Bannerlord and that is a great thing. A most welcome addition is pretty clear information given through tooltips about pretty much everything. I always felt Warband did a really bad job of making information transparent. That's mostly changed for the better in Bannerlord.

Also, fans of Warband; no more having to herd those damn cows! They're just held in your inventory now.