Recent reviews by pharanoise

I've almost played 100 hours now and I think that should be enough to form an opinion on a game.

I think the concept of this game is amazing. A mostly realistic post-apocalyptic survival game set in a fictional '91 post Soviet Union region on an open map of 225 square kilometers complete with towns made of enterable buildings where long-range gunfight is a thing and stealth and perception are fundamental? Leave aside the zombies, because quite frankly they're mostly scenery in this game, but... wow! I still can't get enough of it.

The execution is what drives me crazy. This game was apparently born as a mod for another game: (Arma 2 released in 2009) from which most base mechanics and assets come from. It was then trasformed into a stand-alone game in early access on 2013, and then launched in 2018. We are now in 2025, so give or take this game has been in the works for 12 years, and not even from scratch, by the same company of the original game too.

While writing this review, I am unable to join the official server on which I have my things because the game reports it as offline. However, it is not: reloading the game correctly refreshes the server list (which sometimes bugs out to show 3 servers instead of dozens) and allows me to join. Servers themselves need to be regularly restarted many times per day in order to function (memory leak?) and will still disconnect you or cause latency spikes at the worst time. These problems should simply not exist on a game with a price tag at all, let alone a game sold at 50€. (absolutely do not buy it for over 25€, and even then it's kind of a rip-off)

The development roadmap (and the respected roadmaps of the past) look like those of a dead game: it won't get fixed and you won't see substantial new features (only minor recycled ones). Not knowing these things, I bought it, and I might aswell play it some more: I enjoy it when it does function. But if you're in doubt? Probably better don't.

It's pretty fun in its simplicity. You are dropped into missions where you need to complete a bunch of objectives and then extract.

You will be fought by one of three enemy races (terminids, cyborgs, and illuminate) trying to stop you. Each has several types of units of different size and role: from small units meant to swarm you, to colossal units meant to disrupt your lines. Units have different parts with different armor, so shooting them in weak spots and picking a weapon strong enough to penetrate the parts you're shooting is essential.

There are many "stratagems" (abilities) you can use to request orbital/aerial bombardment, support weapons, transports, and automated turrets which keep the game interesting. They're strong on your enemies, but on your friends as well: friendly fire is there, and will often get you more than the enemy does in sticky situations.

After a first few hours of adaptation, the game is actually very simple, so it's a good way to relax after a hard day of work. After 80 hours of almost exclusive play I'm starting to find it a bit repetitive (there's not much to spicy it up after you work out your solution for everything the game throws at you), but if you're not looking to sink hundreds of hours into it all at once, there's still good value.

Not much to say except: very creative, I really recommend it!

I initially wrote a quite harsh review after completing the main campaign: I was very upset. After cooling off and having played 30-ish more hours in PvE and PvP modes, here is a more collected opinion.

The game has 3 modes: campaign (PvE), operations (PvE), eternal war (PvP). Campaign and operations can be played in co-op with up to 2 between friends and random players. That's mostly what I bought it for: to play with a friend of mine who dislikes PvP. I also enjoy PvP so I tried a bit of that on my own too.

What I really liked was the immersion: I think models look good, voices sound good, and environments are spot on. You really do feel like a Space Marine and to me that's where most of the value of this game comes from. If you remove that from this game it becomes a below average third person shooter that is by no means worth 60€ (current full price), I probably wouldn't even have bought it.

The campaign story is essentially a re-skin of the first title: just swap orks with tyranids. The writing is very bad: characters have no depth, plot twists can be seen from space. It lasts about 8 hours of play, and whenever something exciting looks about to be happening, it's an in-game cinematic. Forgettable.

Operations are small independent campaign missions where you get introduced to classes. They're okay for what they are, but are your first peek into this game's main issue: there is little meaningful content (7 missions that can last between 30 and 50 minutes depending on skill) and a lot of required grind: 6 classes, each with several weapons, both class and individual weapons must be leveled. It takes about 20 missions (give or take) to upgrade a class to max, and some classes are very weak before that happens. Levels get you perks which have some positive of effect on how you play your class, but don't really unlock any new moves, it's just bonuses on the existing ones. Weapon levels are mostly percentage damage upgrades that prevent you from playing harder difficulties until you have them. So to unlock the full experience you'll be playing these 7 missions over, and over, and over... are they fun?
Kinda, but not enough: there's no procedural level generation, so once you play them 2-3 times you'll know exactly what happens and when. The only real variable is enemy spawn randomization, but their variety is lacking. There's about 10 types of them (and you'll mostly be seeing 4-5). It's simply not enough to mantain interest.

What's left is PvP. I've not played enough to figure out whether it's balanced, but it seems fun.

I must mention the constant technical issues. Co-op doesn't work well: joining a party sometimes takes 2-3 attempts because of nonsense errors. You can get disconnected after a campaign/operation mission despite your connection working fine and if that happens it's as if you never played it (all progress lost). Loading times are terrible (which worsens the disconnection issues because every disconnection/reconnection re-incurs in a complete, terribly slow, reload). Matchmaking can be stupid: it can match you with a team where your class is already filled, so you can't play and one of you must leave (right, another reload). Most of the game mechanics are not well explained so you need to rely on the Internet to figure out what most abilities/weapons actually do.

Overall, if you're going to play PvP, you might find some value in here. If you're only playing PvE maybe, if you don't play much and still enjoy grinding.
For the content I'm seeing, if the technical issues were fixed, this game would be worth about 30€ for me. (it's way overpriced and I probably wouldn't re-buy)

AFTER VESSEL OF HATRED (No): I haven't played the expansion, but a friend of mine does and I followed updates on social media to decide whether to buy it without blindly throwing 40€ at Blizzard. And... No, I don't recommend it.

The campaign? Mostly terrible, this time it also feels incomplete.
Game loop? Still makes little sense.
Builds? They made the Spiritborn so broken it makes no sense to play anything else. The best thing about it? Originally caused by a bug, it's been decided to keep it as a feature because players seem to like it that way. At this point I'd rather play a clicker game.

ORIGINAL REVIEW (Yes): I bought this on discount for about 30€. I haven't played previous Diablo games much. I haven't played this one at launch nor I have played every class/build. I mostly played this with a friend of mine as a way to catch up.

I would rank it "okay": I don't think it's great, it has many flaws in my opinion, but it's kinda fair for the price tag.
About the campaign: world building of the series is amazing, the main story and its writing in this game start off as promising, culminate with amazing cinematics, but afterwards degenerate as if they had to stop for budget reasons. From that point on I just got detached from them. The side stories are just lame fetch quests with a half-assed attempt to create pathos using the environment.
About the game loop: I don't really enjoy the open world dynamic much, most of the time it makes no sense: everything dies on sight, you don't even get to play. Elsewhere, enemies have little variety and you mostly deal with each one the same way. Builds are fun though, it's what keeps us playing. Sure, a little less need to dismantle thousands of items every minute would go a great way.

As I'm writing the Vessel of Hatred expansion is about to drop. Priced at 40€, it seems kinda expensive. I'm not sure about that.

I never expected it to be such a wholesomely good experience. Storytelling is great, characters are great, game mechanics are great, soundtrack is great. There's simply nothing I don't like so far. I'm only 26 hours in, but I already feel it's worth every last cent. If you find it on sale, wait for it to end and then buy this game. It needs to be rewarded

It's simply great!

One would think the game loop gets boring after a while, but it doesn't: between randomization and player choices no two runs are the same. The fundamentals are fun, each ability has multiple usages, each weapon makes sense, and their combination with drops are interesting to experiment with. Difficulty can also range from relaxing to very challenging without being a cheat.

What I've always loved about Supergiant Games however is the great care they take in developing world building, setting, characters, and story in their games. It's safe to say they didn't disappoint: it's their best one to date. The way they fit everything in a rogue-like remaining in lore, keeping it serious, but not too much is frankly very creative.

I absolutely recommend it.

This game wanted to be so many things that there is no way it could have been good. Especially when rushed as it was.

Combat is shallow and unrewarding: there are a thousand ways to overkill most enemies, but just about anything will do, rendering all kind of strategies/tactics useless. They are slow, weak, and their decision making is pathetic. Bosses are slightly longer to deal with, but otherwise not different. Melee and quick-hacks are a joke making shooting the only slightly interesting fighting style

Driving is a nuisance at best: cars handle like they're constantly sliding on oil so if you want to go anywhere without crashing every minute the only choice is using a motorcycle. Traffic is brain-dead and chases are not implemented (they happen three times in all the game and they are scripted)

Open world is pointless: nothing reacts to your actions and there are no meaningful activities to be done. To justify its existence it is littered with filler repetitive grinding quests that serve nothing than diluting the game, worsening the narrative

Role playing is simply not there: almost every choice has negligible effects, sometimes reasonable choices are not available

Still, there is something about the setting, the lore and lingo, the visuals, the sounds, the characters and their voice acting that is definitely worth it: it's those things that kept me playing and had the developers focused solely on those it would have been an incredible game.

Should you buy this game for 60€? Hell, no.
Should you buy it for 30€? Maybe, if you're looking for these things and don't care for replay value.

My girlfriend doesn't like videogames much, but she agreed to play this one. She has a very hard time with games with mobile camera, but the slow paced collaborative nature of the game makes it easier to tackle. It's not too hard, but it has a nice flow and I must say it's pretty damn creative! The environment, story, characters are quite diverse and fun. Haven't finished it yet, but already had a blast. The only downside I might imagine it might not be very enjoyable to replay until you forget it at least partially, but who cares. Pick it up!

From time to time I now yell "Rock and stone!" to coworkers, friends, and family. Feels good.