Recent reviews by Danneskjold

Far Cry 4 rides the line between Expansion and Sequel. Far Cry 3 was a big step up over FC2. Far Cry 5 was a big step up over FC3 (at least mechanically). Far Cry 4 basically has identical mechanics, guns and gameplay to FC3. There's a few new features, like some mission choices. But when I'm using the same exact guns doing the same exact things in the same exact way, you realize you're playing an Expansion, and not a Sequel.

I know the concept of the "Expansion" has died off recently, but that's what FC4 is.

It's a decent game. But if you're an outsider and given the choice between FC3 and FC4, pick FC3 for the same mechanics, but MUCH better storyline.

Again, I wish for a "meh" button. It's interesting, it may have a bright future ahead of it. But it's not quite there yet.

For example, it is absolutely infuriating to watch your villagers do nothing (waiting) when there are resources literally a city block away that they need to do their craft. And then it's doubling infuriating to watch those that make the same resources literally do nothing to deliver them.

From there, it's aggravating to watch the AI opponent gather up 7 out of the 9 regions, field mercenary armies 12 units deep that would cost you 330 coins PER MONTH to get, all the while you can't get build a manor because your citizens absolutely refuse to go get the resources they need that's within throwing distance.

This game is pretty good! One of the tightest Early Access games I've ever played.

It's not perfect. It has some flaws:

* The game is both twitchy and unforgiving. IMO, it'd be better if it had slower play + unforgiving, or twitchy and forgiving. 9 times out of 10 that you die, you die so quickly that you don't even have a chance to prepare or react. It would be better if it was one or the other.

* The entire weapon catalog needs balancing. I've heard it's coming, but it hasn't really started. There are several weapons that are better than anything else out there, and even a few classes of weapons that are worse.

* The games weapons level up based on total level, and not by class level. I.E. Playing as a medic can unlock weapons in the Engineer class. And since medics can level up faster than everyone else, people are farming the medic.

* The medics can heal themselves. Get clipped? Step behind a wall and heal yourself to 100% health. This, above all else, needs to be addressed ASAP. It would be fine if medics could heal other medics, but as it stands in the game with the deficiencies / bad balance of a lot of weapons, Medics are the ultimate tank in the game. Even considering that some classes get heavy armor.

1.0 / 1.1 Update: While the game is still progressing, in no way shape or form should this be considered the full "1.0 release." First, there is a startling lack of weapons, utilities, and perks. It was an acceptable amount for a pre-release game, but it's just not good enough now. Doubling the amount of weapons, utilities, and perks (even if there is cross use between classes for some of them) should have been the baseline.

The tutorials are interesting, but they are so poorly crafted and designed. You will play a 5 minute "mission" that will teach you to press *this* button. End Mission. Next 5 Mission will teach you what happens after you press *that* button. End Mission. Rinse, repeat.

I still recommend the game, but barely. It needs to progress rapidly to be worth this new, higher price tag.

0.8.1 Update: Things are actually turning around! The bugs now have weakspots, and they feel like real, living creatures. Still a long way to go, but it's enough to make this a positive review.

New Update: So far the new "big" update is a bust. Performance is tanked. Graphical options to get the game under control cause more bugs. CTD's and server crashes abound.

The game may be fun, but it's hard to tell when every other match is a crash, or a game breaking bug. Not to mention the original bugs STILL in the game and not fixed yet.

Old, still valid review: I have come to a stunning realization about this game. Starship Troopers: Extermination is **NOT** an FPS game.

It's a Real Time Strategy game. I know. I know it seems like you're holding a gun. And that you're looking through a first person view. But the game is missing the ONE thing that makes an FPS game an FPS game.

Skill.

Take a generic zombie game. They'll give you an automatic weapon, and you'll hold down the trigger blasting the zombies. You empty the mag, reload, and keep at it. Soon, you'll realize that any zombie that gets clipped in the head drops instantly dead. Quickly you'll learn that shooting in short bursts and ONLY aiming for a zombie head will kill zombies quicker and more effectively than how you started. Skill.

That skill is utterly lacking from ST:E. The bugs either don't have weakspots that can be exploited by skill and experience, or if they do they are so meaningless that it's not worth the time to try to hit only the weakspot.

And *THAT* is what makes ST:E a RTS strategy game. Couple base building, and resource gathering with the fact that the most rank newbie is JUST as deadly as the most experienced trooper, and it means that YOU are nothing more than a generic unit on a RTS battlemap.

It's fun. At first. But this game won't have any longevity or staying power without building in the personal skill factor into the gameplay. And with the complete lack of any confirmation that they are fixing the game to make it an actual FPS, my review goes from Thumbs Up to Thumbs Down. I'll gladly change it in the future if they fix it. But they seem more interested in adding content than fixing the core mechanics of the game.

Obviously it'll be compared to KSP. So I'll give you a breakdown of the differences. Most of the time one won't be better than the other, it'll just be a different way of approaching the same problem.

The basic of the game is that Juno is more based on Science and engineering, KSP is based on items. I.E. Juno will give you fewer rocket engines, KSP more, but Juno allows direct modification of those rocket engines. (KSP can allow some modifications, but only via mods.)

KSP lives in a fictional universe with little green aliens, and a little bit easier "earth" to fly off of. Juno uses people, and something MORE resembling actual earth.

KSP rewards career progress by doing experiments in various different ways in different locations. Juno rewards career progress by accomplishing certain things, and then repeating those accomplishments a lot rewards more progress. (Though not necessarily in a linearly rewarded way. 1 landing = 10 Tech Tree Points. 5 landings = +20. 20 landings = +30...)

Juno "just" released, and KSP has been out for a while. Juno is missing some vital things, for example, a sense of scale. In KSP you build your rockets in an animated hangar. You can see all the little "people" running around, and how big they are compared to the rockets. In Juno, there's a complete lack of scale. It's hard to comprehend how large (or not) your rockets are. The "hangar" is an entirely blank building space with no background.

But Juno is promising. I'm still playing around with the scale of construction. I can make a rocket, and then scale it up and find my new scaled up rocket isn't even as good as my previous rocket for achieving the same tasks, even if my deltaV stats are identical.

Ultimately, it's a decent game with a promising road map ahead of it. It's fun, it's engaging. It has a decent story. But there are problems.

Personally, I'm a Starship Troopers fan. A BIG fan. When I was a kid, I watched the movie so many times it used to put me to sleep. I've read the book, watched and own all 5 movies, AND (this is the important part) played the game Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendency. A great Starship Troopers RTS game. Any new RTS Starship Troopers game will be compared to any old RTS ST game. And the old game is better than the new one for several reasons.

* Terran Command has WILDLY swinging difficulty. It can go from so easy you don't think about it, to enragingly difficult mission to mission.

* The unit special abilities are not optional, they are REQUIRED for success. Even on the easiest difficulties, you are required to micro manage every single unit's every single ability and their cooldown timers. These special abilities are so necessary that they need their own individual hotkeys. In addition to this, some upgrade abilities are so good that it's only ever worth it to take one over the other.

* There are contradictory gameplay mechanics that need to be fixed. The game sets up a great LOS system. (Most) Every unit needs a clear field of fire to shoot at the enemy. Most units can't shoot through / over other units. BUT most every unit has a very limited range they can shoot. Hence the contradicting gameplay mechanic. If I have to micromanage a battle line, then it doesn't make sense for soldier that can fire a bullet reasonably accurately over a thousand yards to only be limited to start shooting at 50.

* Marauder implementation is very lacking / uninspiring. They are NOT good enough to be worth the extra effort to get them. There are bugs that EASILY destroy them, but the marauders aren't even that good compared to other bugs out there. It's not even a rock-paper-scissor system. Mobility wins battles, and the one Marauder is NOT better than the 1 squad of troopers, plus rocket launcher, plus 4x HMG emplacement replacement cost.


Now, these problems don't make the game bad. But fixing them will change the game from Good / Good Enough, to Great.

Double Edit: --Problem is back in force. Back to a negative review.--

Edit: --I seem to have tracked the problem down to overlay programs. Epic, Discord, Overwolf. Turning these off seems to reduce control problems to a minimum. It's not completely gone, but it's only occasionally there.

Ultimately the controls are very janky. You'd think that after 4 Batman games, 2 Shadows of War, and others, that control schemes would be inspired to be better and more smooth than this. Maybe SM2 fixes it? Changing review to positive.--

The game is beautiful, well written, and seems to run well. But it's got a major problem that is infuriating.

I completely lose control of the character. After a few combat scenarios, I noticed that occasionally spiderman wouldn't do what I wanted him to do. It even got me killed a few times. I thought it was just a skill issue, but as a veteran of the Batman Arkham games, I knew something was wrong.

After it kept happening, I completely took my hands off of the controls. Spiderman kept moving, running around, doing whatever he wanted for 10 seconds or so. Nothing I could do could stop him, or interrupt him. I had 0 control over him.

I've got a ticket in to support because I don't see anyone else having this problem, but I just can't recommend anyone else suffer this frustrating problem.

So far, it's my favorite map. It's a love letter to LOTR and J.R.R. Tolkien. There are literally different realms you can visit / teleport to. The only thing I don't like is how you have access to a teleport function on the radial menu for no cost. Or that there aren't other teleport locations hidden throughout the land.

Imagine they release a new COD or BF. It's extremely well made. It's enjoyable. But it's only got one map. And it's only got one gun.

That's Prominence Poker.

It's a fun game, but ultimately in this well crafted Poker Game, there's **ONLY ONE TYPE OF POKER.** The game is fun for occasional enjoyment, but I don't see myself putting in a lot of time to play this. I wish there was a "OK" recommend, rather than straight yes or no.


Edit; After thinking about it, I'm switching my recommendation to No.

Subnautica is a great game! Very engrossing and captivating, putting you into an alien environment where you have to adapt, hide, and run away to survive.

Pro's:
*Marvelous upgrade system.
*Fascinating creatures.
*Great graphics.

Con's:
*There's still a few major bugs floating around.
*Very little replayability. You can't play a stealth character one playthrough, and then a Rambo the next. There's no diverging paths for how to survive and escape. The best way to replay it seems to be to get the Sequel to Subnautica, which itself is a good value (probably).
*The character interface is very terse. Maybe it's the design, but you have something like 10+ total tools, and only 4 hotkeys to use to select them. (Though this is fixed by mods.) It just seems like an odd choice to have a very restrictive inventory system (which is fine), but also not be able to access all your carried tools all the time.
*The story that guides you through the game is very lacking, and has large gaps that you as a player would need to spend an inordinate amount of time exploring to figure out. And with how large the environment is, and the lack of a map (which is understandable), there should be a system, possibly a narrator, that can help you along given enough time to trigger it.
*No Multiplayer. A game like this would thrive in a 2-4 person coop environment. (There are efforts to make it MP through mods, but it's very early.)


Over all, I highly recommend the game.