Recent reviews by vmetric

Few games convince me to buy their successor on launch day (pre-release, even) -- and Titanfall 2 is one of them. Awesome gameplay, smooth mechanics, and for being released in 2016 it's held up incredibly well. The campaign is pretty short without a completionist mindsight (I casually looked for collectibles, and it ran about five hours for me), but everything is fresh throughout. There's charm and humor in just the right places, in the best of times. The brief dialogue options give you some choice in your character's attitude without being intrusive or overwhelming (I would've appreciated longer timers for dialogue choice, though).

I have yet to try multiplayer, but I'm sure I won't be disappointed.

Overall, I'm really looking forward to Titanfall 3, whenever it may come.

If you read nothing else of this review, read this:
This game was made with the id Tech 4 engine - the same engine that runs Doom 3, released in August 2004. I challenge you to compared screenshots of Doom 3 to Icarus. (spoiler: Icarus looks better) It seems Midwest pushed the engine to its limits, and still produced, in my opinion, a good-looking, well-performing, and downright fun starship sim. Many limitations mentioned in other reviews are to be expected from a 16 year old engine, and holding Midwest accountable to such limitations isn't fair (again, in my opinion).

I'll always have a special place in my gamer's heart for indie games. Their charm, their spirit, their character - more often than not, indie games are products of passion, and with Icarus that shines true. $4 really is a deal for such a game.

Before you dive into the Steam reviews, please consider looking at IGN's review of it; it's short, to-the-point, and is UNBIASED.

A lot of the hate comes from changes from previous games. Helicopters, a "Dog fight mode" (close range dog fight) and a different setting are all changes I can think of off the top of my head. To die-hards of old Ace Combat, these changes are probably going to drive you nuts (*cough cough* steam reviews *cough cough*) but if you have an open mind, understand that the developers are HUMAN BEINGS and not some perfect-game-making-robots, you'll enjoy yourself.

I found the game really fun, beautiful, and rather thrilling in some parts. The dog fight mode (called DFM in the game) was really an adrenaline rush at parts. Particularly near the end, when things ramp up. The helicopter missions were very fun for me (though the gun controls were a small bit clunky). The story, while kind of cliche, is still worth paying attention to in my opinion. The graphics are beautiful (you can tell the developers put some work into properly porting it to PC :D )
Some of the missions do seem to drag on, and I feel like the developers put more focus on their new mechanics (e.g., DFM) than they should have, but hey, why hold that against them? It's pretty hard to guess the perfect way to implement a brand new mechanic on the first try.

It took me about 8 hours to beat the campaign on an easier difficulty.

All-around a good game. :)

TL;DR
Worth the $20 if you plan on playing multiplayer (not sure if anyone plays it, I haven't looked), maybe closer to $15 or $10 if you plan on only playing campaign. Take the Steam reviews for this game with a grain of salt; a lot of them just really don't like the changes.

P.S.
Sorry if some of the review doesn't make sense; I'm writing this really late at night XD

This game is exactly what I've been looking for for ages. Love. It. I absolutely can not wait to see what it will become.

I don't say this about very many games.
I absolutely loved it.
For the price, it is very well worth it. I haven't even gotten through my first playthrough yet, and it already has a place in my pixelated heart.
If you're looking for a game to buy during a sale, or just a new game to play, get this one.

In my 30 hours (at this point in time) playing this, I thoroughly enjoyed this game, especially for $10.
It has the feeling of a budget game, which I expect it was (the first Air Conflicts has recieved so much Flak [Ha ha ha, get it? Flak? Anti-Air? Anyone?] that they probably were a little scared of how the second would turn out) but they managed to make this game a very, VERY, good budget game, especially for $10.
I'm not sure what people are talking about with the low resolution stuff. These past two weeks I've been able to play it in full 1920 x 1080, no iffy decals or anything. Though, on my laptop (I used to play this on a laptop, ran pretty well actually) I encountered a bug where the text, some of the logos, and most of the decals were very, very, low res. Didn't happen to me when I played it on my desktop, though.
I'll cover a few key parts:
Gameplay - For a budget game (budget game in this context is something that doesn't have EA throwing money at it) the gameplay is excellent, furthurmore with it only being $10. It CAN be repetitive and frustrating at times, but it was still a fun game, for me at least.
Voice acting - Lemme let you in on a little secret I bet a lot of people didn't notice. They had, I believe it was four or five (can't remember) voice actors, for about eight or so characters. Don't believe me? Watch the credits. Despite this, those voice actors deserve some (a lot) of credit. Personally I heard some similarites, never suspected it was because they were all the same voice actor. I just thought it was (no offense) the English accent.
Graphics - In my opinion, 9.5/10. You must remember this is "AIR conflicts" not "GROUND conflicts" they put a lot of work into the planes to make them detailed. Seriously, the machine gun bullets ACTUALLY shoot out of the machine guns! (This is a big deal because this is pretty rare among air sims under $20) The ground graphics were sacrificed, of course. I was able to fly through some of the buildings to a point without exploding, as an example. The building textures seem low res as well. But if you want this game for it's ground graphics, you really should spend your $10 on a FPS shooter.
Camera - VERY well suited for this game. You can change camera locations, such as 3rd person, in-cabin without the cockpit visible, in-cabin with the cockpit visible. There's also a follow bomb/missile ability.
Missiles are NOT lock-on/tracking. You must manually aim them. As said in-game, they did not have tracking missiles during WW2.
My experience was probably made better by the fact that I have a joystick (Logitech Extereme 3D Pro)

All in all, the game is worth the $10, in my opinion.

Yes. Just Yes.

Those calling it junk don't understand it's a gun simulator.
Read the description.
Made in 7 days.
Seven. Days.

I love this thing! IT'S A MUST HAVE FOR ANY STAR WARS FAN!!
Anyone complaining about the graphics, AI, or anything else similar to these, is stupid. This game was RELEASED in 2005, which means that it was being developed in 2001-2003, then give a year for the Steam port-over, and there ya got the 2005.
Seriously. You expect a 2003 game to have all the junk that CoD has? Yeah, go get Ghosts if you're looking for a CoD version of Star Wars.

You're still here? AWESOME! THAT MEANS YOU'RE A REAL STAR WARS FAN!! WOOOOOOOOO!! Alright, this game is beautiful. Flawless. Amazing. The space combat is just... I DON'T EVEN KNOW A WORD TO DESCRIBE ITTTT!!!
The ground battles are quite the opposite of the movies; Movies say that everything is organised... This game says that the battles are hectic and chaotic. That's the way - uh huh uh huh - I liiiike it! - uh huh uh huh!

Let's discuss the space battles first;

NOTE: I HAVE NOT FINISHED THE CAMPAIGN YET!! I AM ONLY GOING TO DISCUSS WHAT I KNOW SO FAR! Thank you for understanding. I WILL update this review, though.

Anyway;
There's V-Wings, X-Wings, LA-ATs, and at least one other ship I haven't flown yet.
The V-Wing is a bomber. Makes quick work of an enemy frigate's shields (and makes quick work of Comm ships as well)
waitwaitwait. Let's do this, instead;

Red alert! Red alert! Seppy forces warping in!
You, a pilot, get into a V-Wing. You take off, and down the enemy shields. Then another pilot (in-game you just land in the ship you spawned in) flies in with an LA-AT and lands in the enemy ship, transporting troopers (You and others, you can respawn at the LA-AT as a Marine or pilot. It's like a mobile CP) to the enemy ship. From there, they sabotage the weapons, cooling systems, targetting systems, shields, and anything else a Thermal Detonater sticks to.
Then they take off and watch as the enemy frigate blows to pieces.

Awesome, right?! Of course this is just a rough example, as there's dog-fights and tricks and a lot of other amazing stuff.
I'll add more later, right now I gotta go!

This game is a work of art. It's just amazing! If you're into strategy in general, this game is for you.

While you're never really IN the game itself (smashing zombie's to pieces) you control what goes on;
Make 'Kin' watch for zombies, while 'Jine' makes ammo.
There's skill levels; One star to five stars (though without making custom content, I've never seen anyone go over 4 stars)
There's medicine; 'Jine' threw a chair at 'Kin' and broke his arm. (The wounds never fully heal while I play, but you can turn off survivors hurting each other)
There's noise; While 'Jine' is making ammo, the noise attracts zombies.
There's custom content; Want a superawesomemegazombiekillingmachine? I did. I made one. It uses pistol ammo, while being a sniper. My survivors also modified it so that it's a shotgun as well!! You can also make custom survivors (AMAZING!!!)
There's rain; ...the rain should dampen the noise.
There's random events; A woman with a shopping cart came by today. She says she'll trade ____ for ____
You can make notes and signs on the map; Cross out a place you've looted and moved away from, circle and note down your base.
You can ajust difficulty SPECIFICALLY; How many zombies per in-game hour flow into the city? How much ammo is scattered? How many zombies in the buildings to start with? How much food? How much medicine?
There's hunger.
Survivors rest after working for some time.

THIS GAME IS JUST AMAZING!!!!!!!

Oh, Pro Tip: CHESS SETS ARE DEMONNNNSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!