Recent reviews by Siledas

At the time of writing, this game has a stable peak-playerbase of around 700,000 people. Every week, the developer bans 50,000 of them.

Statisically, a full lobby should have around six or seven cheaters in it. Maybe they're teaming, maybe they're spread out over six or seven teams. Either way, you're probably not getting chicken for dinner.

This game went on sale for under $10.

Aimbots are free. Let fire ants rip apart your sack if you're into self-flagellation. It'd be a better deal.

Cool idea, pretty decent execution. Cheaters have ruined it, like pretty much every online shooter with a competitive element.

Don't buy it unless you're a masochist.

This game is actually fantastic: the sound design, the art direction (with a few exceptions), the core mechanics; everything about it is really fresh and compelling, and the ability to approach every encounter with such widely varying tactics means that the core loop has a lot of longevity to it.

But as with virtually every PvP shooter out there these days, the problem with the cheaters is too difficult to overlook, and is compounded by the fairly inconsistent hit detection that can see you often shooting handfuls of sand at your enemies at truly inopportune moments.

It's a shame, because in an era where most popular shooters are content to just cannibalise one-another whilst gouging their audience with hilariously overpriced virtual baubles, a game like The Finals coming along without much fanfare or recognition will only serve to ossify the industry attitudes that lead to this level of creative stagnation in the first place.

I really want this game to do well, but I think for any game like this to do well, the developers will need to start by doing a few simple things to ensure that the online experience is fair and enjoyable for everyone who isn't cheating.

Namely, they could start by:

1) Implementing an account-age threshold for public matchmaking
2) Enforcing a requirement for accounts to be publicly viewable for matchmaking
3) Employing thoroughly-vetted player-admins who can keep an eye on activity in-game
4) Having any degree of transparency whatsoever with their anti-cheat efforts beyond an occasional "we're doing stuff" in the patch notes

Until they start caring enough to actually police how the game is being played, you're more likely to be tearing your hair out than you are to be having a good time.

> Boot up Steam
> Download and install AC: Unity
> Launch
> "Login to Ubisoft Connect"
> Fatfinger password typo
> "Too many login attempts, come back later"
> Go to register a ticket with Ubisoft
> Can't, because you need to login

Let me play the game I bought from you. Why do I need to authenticate with the developer who I am when I already authenticated who I am with the distributor when I bought the f**king game?

In what way is this even remotely acceptable as the standard way of doing things for PAYING customers when the guys you're TRYING to target (i.e. pirates) will just circumvent all of this crap anyway?

Apparently unfinished with the concept of inventing stuff that already exists, Saber Interactive's CCO Tim "The Snake" Willits has used 40K as a vehicle in which to take Doom Eternal's 'push forward' combat, and forced it to mate with the hack-parry-slash-dodge melee combat of Dark Souls. It could easily have been a clusterf*ck, but more often than not, it's brilliant (assuming you're not immediately turned off by something this unapologetically dude-y). If you're on board with what they're selling, it's sometimes hard not to laugh at just how much fun it can be to catch a pouncing Tyranid mid-air by its tail, before swinging it head-first into the ground in a shower of viscera.

The sound, music, art and animation are all uniformly top-notch, and if you're looking for a co-op shooter that's relatively casual, there's more than enough here to justify the price tag. That said, anyone wanting there to be more meat on the bone might be in for a mixed bag. Higher-tier difficulty settings lean far too heavily on bullet sponge enemies and wonky RNG, and when the game is at its most unforgiving, you may be unpleasantly surprised by some wonky hit-detection too. The executions recharging shields is great for encouraging aggressive play, but when multiple people are in the mix, you'll often find yourself competing with your allies (which could be easily fixed by just having a small shield-recharge radius for executions, but whatever).

To make matters worse, the progression system that ties directly to difficulty is extremely grindy, and clumsily implemented (e.g. character customisation, livery and equipment loadouts aren't shared between PvE and PvP, and in order to change your setup, you need to change to that game mode, which can only be done by entering matchmaking, exiting the queue before it loads you into a match, then physically heading towards the armory).

On top of all of that, there's a lot of unnecessary friction in the user experience. Just got back to the battle-barge after coming back from a mission? Whoops, the session host quit, and instead of doing host migration, it instead boots you back to a lengthy loading screen in order to call in the assets for the environment you were literally just in.

It's far from perfect in terms of the total package, but it's hard to get caught up on the annoyances when your lizard hindbrain is lighting up like a f*cking Christmas tree because your big metal boot just crushed a Tyranid skull in slow-motion.

[𝙰𝙲𝙲𝙾𝚄𝙽𝚃 𝚂𝚄𝚂𝙿𝙴𝙽𝙳𝙴𝙳 𝙿𝙴𝙽𝙳𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙸𝙽𝚅𝙴𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽 𝙸𝙽𝚃𝙾 𝚃𝚁𝙴𝙰𝚂𝙾𝙽𝙾𝚄𝚂 𝙰𝙲𝚃𝙸𝚅𝙸𝚃𝚈]

Imagine signing up to a gym, only to replace all the weights with styrofoam props so you can use all the equipment at once (preventing anyone else from actually working out) in order to LARP in public as someone who isn't a weak piece of shıt while wasting other people's time and money, and you'll be close to understanding the minds of the dopamine-starved 20-somethings who dedicate their leisure time to ruining PvP in this game when they're not blowing their rent on some NPC's OnlyFans.

Otherwise, pretty good game.

Marauders' blender pitch is pretty compelling: Take a streamlined Tarkov-style shooter and wrap it up in an alternate history art style similar to Machine Games' Wolfenstein titles.

It has a few rough edges due to being an early access indie title, but the stuff that really matters (e.g. movement and shooting) are generally really good.

What brings the game down is that it's practically impossible to get into a lobby without encountering cheaters -- either the kind that try to be "subtle" by giving themselves more health, ammo or better sight than they should have, or the flagrant types who just fly around the arena at mach 10, doming everyone with infinite ammo gatling-shotguns and shrugging off everything you throw at them while singing the My Little Pony theme song loudly over their mic (presumably whilst blowing out their colon with a 12-inch, glittery, ovi-positor dragon dıldo).

It's a shame, because you can tell there's something worthwhile beneath the bullshıt, but as with seemingly every PC game with even a trace of a competitive element to it, your ability to enjoy it directly correlates to how many shıtcunts you run into during any given session, and with fewer resources at their disposal than bigger or more popular titles, the developers behind Marauders sadly can't seem to keep on top of the people actively trying to ruin the game they're making.

Edit: Since writing this review, several updates have been made to the game which have improved it in various ways, though there are still sadly occasional run-ins with people who refuse to play the game on its own terms, which can be a real drag given the time investment the core gameplay loop requires.

That said, this -- at the very least -- demonstrates the developers' ongoing commitment to improving and supporting their game, which is much more than can be said for many AAA developers with much more resources at their disposal (and much less to lose by having some integrity).

Hopefully things continue on an upward trajectory for these guys (and hopefully the sacks of baboon dıcks who have been cheating suffocate under a pile of anime body pillows).

In a lot of ways, Elden Ring plays like an RPG from 15 years ago, with the exception that most other RPGs -- even old ones -- would tune their damage variables in a way that isn't obviously designed to frustrate their players.

Horrendous camera issues, obnoxious over-reliance on i-frames, dialogue options that literally boil down to "yes, I will take the quest" or "no, go headbutt a stalagmite you jabbering lunatic"... it's difficult to understand how something so high-profile and so widely praised can have so many obvious (and easily remedied) problems.

This game obviously has a lot going on, but given how much From Software's games are known for their combat, it's difficult to talk about any of their games without the discussion naturally focusing on how the combat actually works.

For as much as the barnacles that have attached themselves to From Software would like to prattle on about "getting gud", this game isn't so much an exercise in challenge as it is a test of your will to persevere in the face of what would otherwise be considered an inexcusable lack of polish and an array of baffling design decisions (if not outright design oversights).

See, some things in life that are difficult require mastery of skills to overcome -- like learning to play a musical instrument, or training to become a dancer.

Others are painfully, stupidly simple, and will eventually be completed by pretty much anyone who can be bothered to throw themselves at it for long enough -- like untangling Christmas tree lights, or trying to plug in a USB cable behind a full tower case in the dark.

While Elden Ring is entirely capable of offering interesting combat in its gameplay, if far too often falls into the latter category of "difficulty"; a lot of enemies are so hilariously stupid that the mere existence of ranged weapons is almost guaranteed to result in a fight so mind-numbingly easy that literally anyone could win given enough time, which only serves to expose how heavily the designers lean on the damage scalars to artificially inflate the difficulty.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enough of a masochist that I'm really enjoying exploring the well-crafted world and seeing all of the interesting art that there is to see in every hidden corner of this ludicrous fever-dream of a fantasy realm, but if I had to be honest about a recommendation (since that's how Steam frames its user reviews) I'd have to say "no" to pretty much anyone unless I knew that they already had a thing for Souls' games.

From Software might have been instrumental in establishing many of the gameplay hallmarks of the still yet-to-be-properly-named "Souls-like" subgenre of ARPGs, but this is pretty far below what I've come to expect from a developer as esteemed as From Software.

Sure, I've enjoyed it for the most part, but there are a lot of rough edges to get past, and I wouldn't blame anyone for not being able to push through the bullshıt until the cool stuff starts to make an appearance.