Recent reviews by BackspacedTaco

I see a lot of people complaining this game is just a 'graphics upgrade' which did not warrant a full sequel and AA price point.

This... could not be further from the truth?

So many game-play changes that make games feel less like a slog and more focused on the action and actually planning strategy, made even more interesting with planets moving. Immense amounts of QOL improvments from a more appropriate fleet management system on the main hud to a research finder really hammer the game feel so much better.

Multi-threading, to make the game run buttery smooth even with all the graphics improvments

Planets move, creating unique strategy options in any game.

Minor factions have new mechanics that make them more involved with the game, through an expansion of a more diplomatic style of gaining advantages through influence points.

Ship upgrades and new planet upgrades give even greater opportunities to spec into various builds and ramp up in different ways.

Each and every faction has had substantial changes that makes each further unique in how they play and win games, from TEC using trade routes and Advent using psy powers to enhance their ships abilities or use abilities that bombard enemy planets.

I think it is unfair to Ironclad, who despite some egregious use of AI art in some of their research icons, have clearly put a lot of effort and development time into making Sins 2 feel similar yet so much BETTER to play than its predecessor to assert that they do not have the right to release it as a separate game.

I'm generally coming at how the game improved from 2023. Cars finally battle pretty well and the Create a Team is great fun to build your dream team or give yourself a zero to hero challenge. Races in general feel more random and interesting with mechanical failures and mentality being a large influence on driver ability. Are there bugs? Yes! Some of them have not been fixed from 2023 like the infamous menu soft-lock during races which infuriates to no end if you made no save during a race. Others involve drivers running wide and losing anywhere from 4-10 places as they try to join the track safely or being given penalties for changing parts before parc-ferme conditions are enforced. Nonetheless, this game is a significant improvement and definitively enjoyable, but could be made better by a more restrictive penalty system combined with AI drivers that sometimes break the rules, like jump-starting or leaving the track and gaining an advantage.

Yeah this aint it chief.

I wanted to try and enjoy this game, convince myself again and again to come back to play it, but so many things that Payday 2 did that drew me in are either simplified or completely absent in this entry. The menus seem to be following the trend of Call of Duty in being absolutely convoluted and in no way helpful getting you into a mission. No choice over loud or quiet, no lobby choice, or knowledge over whether your chosen difficulty will have a 30 second or 5 minute search wait. Not to mention, there's no overall map with missions spread across it, you simply pick from a row of them. Infamy (level xp) gain is based off earn-able merits achieved in various ways during heists, which, mindbogglingly, do not show up when they've been completed until the post-mission menu. SKILLS, so central to the fun core game-play loop, both in and out of heists, have been regressed to focusing around proccing 10% increases to damage, damage mitigation and movement speed to trigger mostly lacklustre skill effects. Gun variety and customisation also feels lethargic. Once again, there are bars instead of numbers for gun stats; Gun attachments feel so tame in comparison to Payday 2, and a lack of guns leads to smgs and shotguns being up-tiered to primary weapons. Forget heavy weapons too, they (a grenade launcher and a sniper) have been given a separate slot that you can only use in mission after killing enough cops.

For these reasons, there is absolutely no reason to pick this game up over Payday 2, the only clause to this is if the main area of your enjoyment was stealth. I personally have never particularly enjoyed stealth in Payday (nor for personal preference would i still choose to do it over loud in Payday 3), but this game has made improvements to the stealth game-play loop, which makes it more rewarding and fun to do if that is what you enjoy.

Bought an entire game and all its dlc just to play one mod... that is totally worth all of them and more. No seriously, get the collection and download Ultimate Apocalypse, you wont regret it.

It takes what was good in both Britannica & Warhammer and mixes it into what i can only describe as your Grandma's apple pie; A very familiar yet wonderfully rich and tasty treat that you couldn't stop loving if you tried. CA have created and supplemented to their collection a well-polished title, without any of the post-launch issues or bugs previous titles had. The fact it has great optimisation that allows it to somehow run better than Warhammer 2 from launch begs the question, what more could you ask for from a total war game?

I applaud hello games for a Rainbow six siege-esque turnaround who have made what used to be a repetitive, boring and buggy mess of a 'game' into an interesting, beautiful and sprawling universe with constant free content updates that are repeatedly adding more and more ways to play the game. A real big thumbs up guys, you've done real well.

I've supported this game since it's launch and i will continue to do so as long as The Mighty Jingles is my commander barking at me like boo barks at him <3

Download game. Start game. Start new world. Not in creative. No knowledge of how the game works. Dies from removing helmet when randomly pressing keys to see what works.

10/10 still pressing random keys again and again

great sci-fi action and free-roam game!

Great game. Full of criminality and damn right awesomness