Recent reviews by Rolfe

For Democracy. For Super Earth.

Ambitious, and pleasant. Shows potential. Imagine if you will a team of three stepped off to absolutely dunk on any "TRIPLE AAA" development team trying to release a shooter. What if they almost succeeded?

You have here Battlebit Remastered, a high octane voxel/pixel art esque shooter. It's biggest downfall is that it runs a remarkably ineffective anti-cheat. Game is only a few days old at this point but I've seen at least three bans for cheating today alone. That's just who gets caught. Wanna play a funny jaded game with yourself? Next time you're in a 254 server, and enough time has ticked by, go ahead and check the Steam profile of the top players and see who's got a dirty VACban record.

You'd be surprised, and you'd think there's a good turn around on reports in this system but then you might realize that it's not some AAA grade Dev/Publish house operating here, and even THEY are woefully ill-equipped to address cheating in the modern day.

Reminder that it's never been easier to cheat in online shooters.

Watch "The Wiggle that killed Tarkov" on Youtube. That'll prove to be eye opening in regards to what happens on a shooter that runs Battleeye. A much more "robust" anti-cheat then even Easy-Anti-Cheat.

Yeah, building your talent tree from scratch three times in one year isn't conducive to a fun environment. Making player's relearn the same class multiple times is tedious, especially when it's the result of several hindrances and nerfs designed to Knee-cap my favourite class.

Pair that with audio glitches localized to recent builds in which I lose audio firing an auto-gun, and a monetization model that makes a bolter skin roughly cost 5$CAD and you've got a recipe for my being burnt out on the game before the first year of it's life-cycle. Pick it up on sale maybe?

The following is the review I wish I could've stuck with, But since the closed test Fatshark and it's owner Tencent seem interested in hooking the Games Workshop whales and their attached Micro-transaction economy matches that sorta budget. I'm out. Leading up to that though things seemed kinda nice. Shame it didn't stick.

"The drought of good Warhammer 40k games is finally over. After what felt like a decade. Feels like a video game adaption to the table top role playing game Dark Heresy. I'm honestly so very much pleased, I've clocked in double digits in hours in just a few days. Great fun with three friends. Shows a lot of potential too. Jesper Kyd nailed the soundtrack. A game for those interested in a Left for Dead like FPS set in the Warhammer 40k universe." <- 29.1 + 22 Hours of play at time of review. Before the greed spiked.

Laughably unnecessary, contributes nothing to the story and felt like a cheeky cash-grab Techland attempted on it's way to the sequel. Palette swaps for enemies. Could've fooled me into thinking it's a workshop mod.

A neat way to wrap up the events of the first game and set the stage for what's to come in graphic novels and the game's sequel. Well worth at asking price, and definitely fun on sale.

As vast as an ocean but with the depth of a puddle. Remember how older halos had some nuance and variety to their installations? Zeta-Halo comes in one speed. Green. Sequel bait too so you know they're just going to fleece us for more cash. No co-op available until almost a year after the game's been out? What's the nature of that? Pick up on sale if you must, but I'd far more readily advocate the Master Chief-Collection.

This game has no business being as fun as it is. I've chained run after run and build after build time and time again. The story isn't anything to write home about, but the pixel art is just so well crafted that I can easily look past a little bit of ambiguity for narrative. Another Devolver Digital hit.

As thought provoking as it is hollowing. A perfect pairing to a dark cup of coffee and the listless ennui of the modern day. I can't help but admire just how ambitious this game has been in regards to trying to capture the fallibility of various ideologies. I can vaguely recall that some people have mislabelled this game as somehow espousing one particular political ideology over another and I can't help but feel (after finishing the game three times in three very different outcomes) that they might've missed the point. Failure is not an end state in this game and it's truly a treat if you enjoyed top down games like Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale. That said it's much more tuned towards the film-noir. Well voice acted. I can't help but feel endeared towards many characters in this game.

Treat yourself to this game, but remember "police-work is demanding. Take breaks frequently"

How did you overcome your Inland Empire today?

A sci-fi redress of the Fortress management system I liked in Dwarf Fortress. Not awkward in it's presentation. This is a narrative weaving device masked as a top town civ management game. If you've ever enjoyed reading a dune novel and felt like you would feel crushed under the burden of managing a Space-dynasty, but you wouldn't be afraid to try, It's for you. An emphatic endorsement for me. Remember though, failure to keep all of your colonists alive is decidedly NOT an end-state.

Also don't feel pressured to pick up Royalty and Ideology. These are for all intents and purposes, the equivalent of paid-mods. The modding scene is really vibrant too. Just make sure you stabilize your mod-load order.

Anti-matter games is no longer working for Tripwire Interactive. Anyone that made this game great isn't there any more and TWI has all but checked out. What we have left is a skeletal framework for a high-stakes first person shooter that rewards team cohesion and actual strategy, riddled with middle-aged men and has beens power hungry to enforce their distorted idea of server rules. This is to say they want a cute little fringe roleplay box to espouse their armchair history and defend the use of pejorative racial slurs.

Miss this one. Not even on sale-price.