Recent reviews by The Frying Pan Samurai

Avoids the pitfalls of most sandbox RPGs with actual content, and less needing for players to fill in the blanks. Delightfully fun - would recommend.

Just pure, stupid fun. Love the aesthetic, love the theme, love the humor - and it's one of the best shooter games out there right now. Awesome

Everything I've wanted in a CRPG. A love letter to the genre that has been pretty looked over or bastardized for sake of "battle passes" and "microtransactions" Larian loves the fans - and the other devs are angry about it.

I tried. I really did. I was hoping for the same energy, level of fun and replayability as the Left 4 Dead series. I had faith in Turtle Rock to remake the magic - but it seems they Left all of the fun behind with Valve.

I could never put my finger on it - maybe it was the characters? Or the script? Or the fact that each episode felt too serial versus Left 4 Dead's semi-independent, semi-contained compaigns. Maybe it was dropping the movie-feel for a 'realistic' adventure.

All I can say is that I played Left 4 Dead for about 400 hours. Left 4 Dead 2 for about 800 hours. Back 4 Blood? 18 hours.

And now, Turtle Rock is dumping this to move onto new pastures. I can say that every now and then I'll go play some Left 4 Dead 2, when there is nothing new occupying me - but I don't think I'll ever be Back 4 Blood.

Turtle Rock - Do better.

Unfortunately, the dev team seems to only rely on Steam Sales for an influx of players, while mainly ignoring the needs of the players the rest of the year. Updates frequently include "retexturing rocks" while game-breaking bugs are allowed to persist for weeks or even months on end (Picket Patrol).

They are more focused in bringing easy content (new flags, new uniforms, new textures) than living up to the promises of the original kickstarter campaign and beyond (200 player count, more maps, cavalry, etc).

They rely on this being the only entry in a niche game, while one or two competitors are quickly catching up to the development.

At this stage in the game, I would not buy in, and instead save your money for one of the other Civil War game projects in development.

It's less technical than Space Engineers with more gameplay depth

A spiritual successor to the much vaunted Neverwinter Nights series! While there are a few minor issues in terms of in/out of combat stuff that causes some meta-playing, it is easily still a gigantic win.

Superbly acted. Excellently Executed. A return to true PC-RPGs with multiplayer capability.

This game, brilliant from its inception, has made leaps and bounds to truly give something special and unique to gaming. I can only imagine what sort of awesome features this game will have in the future.

Finally, a FPS that focuses on squad tactics and realism over jet-packs and 180 no-scope shots. A type of game play long abandoned by MoH and BF, without going overboard like some of the battle-sim games such as ARMA. The game works so well and provides hours of fun with a good squad. Battles are intense and the Ai keeps the fight rough.

I only wish that other game manufacturers would look at this model for their own, genre-specific games. (Insurgency + L4D would be amazing).

Mindless fun.