Recent reviews by Area Of Defect

Although a bit cliché, a rough diamond is perhaps how I would best describe this game.

The majority of negative reviews on here seem to complain about the last few years of the game so having only played for around a year I can't comment on how the game has evolved over the last four years, however what I can do is say what I think about War Thunder without the rose-tinted nostalgia filter of someone who remembers 'the good old days'.

True the devs don't often listen to the community and have a reputation for bad customer service but recently this has been somewhat improved albeit not fixed (the BR change of the 262 being a good example), but in the end they have produced one of the most enjoyable vehicular combat games available and for no upfront cost, even the charge of 'russian bias' doesn't really hold true at the moment: the most common complaint I have seen since patch 1.55 has been 'british bias', 'britain OP', 'nerf UK tanks' etc, something I struggle to understand: at least in my experience I have encountered few issues with 'bias' either russian or british, when I die it is either from being outplayed or from my own stupidity (or that of my team).

Again, true the game has a slow grind and buying premium vehicles or premium account for real money helps a lot but what would you honestly expect? The devs aren't making this game in their spare time out of the kindness of their hearts, this is their job, it is delusional to expect a company to offer a product for nothing: as Robert Heinlein wrote: "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."

So enough with the justifications and on to the positives. This game offers three different levels of realism; Arcade, Realistic, and Simulator for whichever level you wish to play all of which are well developed and different. However perhaps the greatest advantage of War Thunder over other similarly themed games is the high quantity and more importantly quality of the vehicles available: 604 highly detailed planes and tanks. Although there are some issues with some flight and damage models, overall Gaijin offers a higher level of detail than any competitor (that I know of and not including IL2). It may be frustrating to be one shot while driving a tiger but it won't have happened because your enemy made enough sacrifices to the gods of RNG but because your enemy positioned themself cleverly or aimed well. Of course this is all based on my experiences in my 720 or so hours so I don't speak for all players but this is a review from my perspective so is dependant on MY experience with the game.

Despite its issues I would recommend you try this game: if you don't like it then fine but don't write it off on the basis of a review that tells you this game was better four years ago and let Gaijin's work speak for itself.

I found this game to have great pacing, a very explorable open world; much like the original Far Cry 3, with a good, if somewhat limited range of guns however...NONE OF THAT MATTERS! THIS GAME HAS CYBERSHARKS. C-Y-B-E-R-S-H-A-R-K-S. The only way to sum up this game is to say "You can mow down CYBERSHARKS with a LASER MINIGUN as a CYBER-COMMANDO." It's like Doctor Evil dreamed of a perfect game and ubisoft made it. Shame it uses P.O.S UPlay though. More like U-don't-Play.
CYBER 10/10 (now with 100 cyber % more cyber), (apart from UPlay; still better than Origin though).