Recent reviews by Laughing Man

So far been having fun but there are certainly some criticisms I have for the game. I haven't touched survival mode yet so can't speak to that either. The game is more or less what you would expect, its a hybrid of an RTS and defense game that mix enjoyably well. The game is quite difficult though, and even in the campaign doesn't hold your hand to teach you mechanics. One thing I wish had been more obvious or told to me, would have been build dwellings only on the dirt where possible to save grassland not just woods for hunter cottages. Otherwise food can start to become very difficult to maintain as you progress. So some pros/cons and tips that I have learned the hard way.

Pros
Difficult, it makes you work for each win after the first few missions
Fun mix of RTS/TD elements
Constantly something to do, rarely are you ever coasting
Rewarding of microing units while sending them to hunt to get vet status

Cons
Long... missions start taking hours and quickly, I wouldn't mind this so much as you can always save and exit, unfortunately ALL you can do is save and exit. so if you get into a bad spot you can't just reload and try again, you have to sacrifice the previous hour+ of game time. This can be REALLY brutal if a mission took 2-3 hours and you fail on the very last wave. I get that they were trying to prevent save scumming, but it should revert you to 30 min back or something not force the whole mission over.

Can be punishingly difficult generally due to some unfair mechanics and above. If a wave happens its very vague, just north south east or west, but a lot of missions have multiple off maps for north south east or west, and often times if most of your army isn't in the right spot it can be rough, and indicator would be a god send, you only get a 12 hour warning anyways which isn't enough time to build much.

The "attack" missions especially the first one of each difficulty hike can be really rough, as you have very limited resources for the first mission of each. Felt kinda like beating my head against a wall till i found the right way to win.

Voice acting on some units is really bad lol, but its kind of amusing.

Tips
Expand quick with your starting units a couple patrol you base entrances and send some of them out to get vet status asap, getting the extra soldier and ranger starting unit helps a lot, as a soldier can solo most of the map early on. Once they get vet bring them back to defend, This game will punish you badly for not expanding early.

Don't rely much on rangers, they are tempting due to no food, but outside of a small contingent you don't need many, though they do become reasonable once they get vet status.

Towers are a huge help especially for soldiers due to the range, and your units do not die when the tower goes down, though they could be surrounded so watch for that and leave the tower before it goes down.

Have multiple fall back points can be tempting to demolish your previous choke point when you expand but have won several missions because I kept them around as a last ditch hold. and your units are generally faster than the infected so they can get to them. On that note try to keep houses as far away from the edges of your territory as possible, as a house being hit will spawn several strong infected. as opposed to 1 from a farm or something.

Spend your resources, there is a cap on how much you can hold, and not spending means you are losing them. On this note pause to get things built and plan then resume and you can continue getting units vet status hunting.

Surprising amount of negative reviews popping up on this, don't think alot of them are fair either. Will try to be objective and list pros/cons of the game and let you decide, I've enjoyed it so far.

Pros
+ fun fast combat, cover is a thing but its more like hiding behind a wall in diablo or something for your potion to save you
+ Large skill tree, with lots of options on how to build any given archetype
+ Very thematic feeling 40k wise, captures the low gothic feel very well, you can tell effort was made and the devs cared.
+ Huge variety of weapons, and ways to outfit your inquisitor
+ Bite sized missions you can do and stop at your leisure, good for people with a life
+ Single player side feels very polished
+ Game does a good job of making you feel powerful without making you feel like a god

Cons
- Multiplayer is currently very janky, and you can't do story missions with others
- As of this writing there are a few bugs that can be annoying, but nothing thats been unplayably bad
- Some weapons can feel a bit samey
- If you want a cover shooter the game isn't great at it. You can fight from cover, but it slows down the experience that ARPGs are known for, have seen a few comments about combat not being fast, I assume these are people trying to play from cover. Cover is mostly there to let you recover your debuff resistance (suppression), and buy you a bit of time in a pinch.
- A bit grindy, some people love that but I'm gonna put that here just in case people aren't familiar with ARPGs loot grind
- Because of the bite sized missions the game can feel a bit episodic and disjointed

A very nice continuation of the Civ series, takes and builds on concepts that have been in place from the previous games and expansions. The new district system creates a very interesting dynamic, and means cities are more susceptible to things like pillaging, meaning you need to have a reasonable standing army for your larger cities. The diplo system is where it still lacks a bit, but its an improvement from the previous iterations.

Overall a fun game, that feels pretty faithful to the 40k universe. It would be easy to type a post lamenting things that they had hoped would get into launch but didn't, but instead I think it makes more sense to post about what IS in the game. Currently its mostly a team based shooter/melee, with vehicles, classes, and characters pulled straight from the tabletop. Games consist of tug of war style, points based, and capture/defend type mechanics, all of which are pretty fun.

There is also a PvE aspect where groups of players descend into dungeonesque areas and fight through tyranids for varying objectives and loot. The game has a loose leveling progression system, that unlocks new things to place in your loadouts, or different weapons to try out.

Loot comes in the form of different weapons/cosmetic changes and weapon modifications. Overall the progression system is a bit sparse when looking at a specific class, but there are at least 4 classes so the tree has alot more points to spend then might initially appear.

Eternal Crusade is best personified as a 40k game, that has Planetside 2 aspirations, but has yet to meet some of those goals. The dev team still believes in reaching those goals, but didn't have time to get it all in. My guess on this is publisher pressure. That said the game is still quite fun, and with some hopeful success in their initial launch they will be able to deliver on more and more of their goals. Even if the game made no further progress its still a fun game, and can be appreciated and enjoyed for just being what is currently is, a fun warhammer themed class based shooter/melee.

Very fun game alot of replayability for the price. The game has a top down perspective with a rotatable camera, and is played via hot keys and issuing move and shoot commands via the mouse. It plays akin to some custom games from war 3, and is reminiscent in how it feels playing to some of the old action games of the past like gauntlet and the like. This game is hyper focused on team work, while certain classes and loadouts can get by soloing for a bit, everyone ends up having to group for surival. Managing your ammo, explosives, CDs, and working as a team are the keys to this game. Failing at any of those means death.

Game truly shines in multiplayer but the singleplayer isn't bad and helps you get used to the game via its tactical mode that lets your slow everything down. Multiplayer of course doesn't use that though.

There are of course some negatives, the voice acting work in this game is really really bad, thankfully there isn't much of it. There are also some poor ability descriptions leading to easy misunderstanding of how some things function. There are also a few bugs (currently) that while not game breaking can be a slight annoyance.

Still though I would reccomend picking this game up, its not an expensive game, and its certainly worth the cost for the hours you will get out of it.

Well most reviews I read are pretty negative especially talking about graphic issues. I have encountered an OCCASIONAL stutter if I alt tab alot, but overall the game runs pretty smooth for me, and I honestly have a on the slightlyl uppder side of middle of the road level PC atm. Intel CPU and nvidia gpu, but no telling whats causing some to have issues and others not to have those issues. As for the game ittself I am going to give it a reccomendation.... only if you are pretty into the previous games, and like batman story lines.

TL;DR version
Pros
+Good story
+Lots of references to comic story lines
+Fun combinations and things you can do in non boss fights
+Pretty Graphics
+Batmobile can be fun
+Open world and free form of traveling around the city is fun in and of ittself
+Open world feels natural and organic
Cons (Current as of 6/27)
-Possibly alot of graphic issues depending on your CPU set up
-Occasional glitchiness of some take down moves or interrogations (Batman or the criminal may not interact in a way they should this can at times manifest ittself in some pretty funny situations) Should be noted the game is in no way near as bad a way in this regard as Assassin's Creed was
-Boring boss fights with only a few exceptions
-To many boss fights reduced to batmobile fights

More Detailed Review Starts here

The game game for me runs fine, so assuming they fix the graphic issues that some are experiencing this game does deserve a positive reccomendation, but be wary, obviously some people are having graphic issues. The combat combos, predator mode, and new fear takedowns are quite fun as usual. While the combat is very fun for the generic fights, the boss fights are one of this game's downfall. Most of them are very boring and simple with only a few exceptions. Part of what contributes to this is sadly the batmobile.

The batmobile is honestly a fun addition to the game, at least initially, and for moving around or some of the drone fights. However, it feels that the devs were way to into the batmobile, and litteraly almost every boss, riddle trophy, challenge etc makes you use the batmobile. Instead of being a fun additiona to the game that it feels like when you first encounter it, it feels like something forced upon you to the detriment and enjoyment of other aspecets of the game that made previous installments of the series fun. Many of batmans rogues gallery and potential for fun innovative fights, are dumbed down to either a predator fight or batombile fight.

The graphics are pretty and with the open world this certainly plays to this strength. Simply moving through the world and engaging the random riots, and other objetives like towers checkpoints and more are some of the most fun to be had in this game. This is due to how it can be fun simply traveling in this game by comboing the batmobile, ejecting grapples gliding or calling for the batmobile to catch you are you fly down.

If the bossfights are the downfall of the game (graphic issues and bugs excluded) the story is the savior. The game pays homage to many of the more interesting and popular batman story lines. The story line is interesting and fun in this game, and while if you are familiar with some of batmans story lines you won't be surprised by the games "big reveal" its still a fun interesting story.

In the end I would wait for a little bit til some of the graphic issues others are experience have been resolved after that I would only reccomend it if you were a fan of the previous games in this series and/or a fan of alot of batmans comic story lines. If you are new to this series I would start wtih origins or city as they are a good cheaper way to see if you would want to play this.

Great game with loads of replayability. While not a copy of the original has enough in common to give you some of those same feelings that original gave you, should you be nostalgic but want something a little newer. The gameplay is similiar but different enough to suck you in.