Recent reviews by [LK] Euthriel

What happened? i thought this would be half ready by now; its was all looking so promising at the end of game 2..

PROS
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Bigger immortal empires map (includes Cathay and Chaos wastes) and a new campaign.
Multiplayer campaign now supports up to 8 players with extra mp scenario.

New races to try.
Some game mechanics improvements (supply lines, dmg resists, trade settlements, allied recruitment, lightning strike, diplomacy etc).

More varied maps.
Map Artwork, Unit Models, Voice acting and sound design are great.
Its still Warhammer Total War and the modding community looks active.

CONS
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BUGS (HIGH) - Pathing just...wow (especially sieges), formation, forgetting orders, LOS attack, reinforcement, Textures and LOD, UI, gameplay mechanics, recruitment, quests and AI.

Campaign AI - same issues as TW2 but somehow this is worse even without the bugs. It just runs away now unless it has a huge advantage so the amount of the campaign you just auto-resolve now is almost all of it, you get a couple of actual battles per campaign.

Battle AI - worse than 2, confused by: walls, siege maps, map edges, pathing, reinforcements, being attacked, moving, attacking, unit cohesion, having more than one target, being an allied reinforcement.

BALANCE - its all over the place.. half baked factions, lords, campaign mechanics, units, rosters, unit limits, items, abilities, auto-resolves and despite this apparent available variety it all ends up a 3 click ability melted in 3 min samey blob regardless.

OPTIONS - the newer factions especially chaos feel like half the buildings, agents and units are missing.

PREFERENCE
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Battles - over too fast for my taste, units increasingly feel flimsy more so than 2. Not the epic army magic clashes i was hoping for and more a second rate classic rts with overtuned spike damage. I can see what they were trying to do in settlement battles with the points building towers etc but it just doesn't work.

Tactical abilities - never really liked timer "orbital strikes" that cant be countered in a fight even in classic RTS where at least you could take out the building. Manageable in TW2 kinda obnoxious in TW3.

Unit limits - i thought when they introduced them with the TK and BM they'd use them in 3 to limit and balance the doomstack unit spam and keep the whole roster viable; they didn't.

Campaign map - its still too cramped. most of the towns are less than one move away from each other so almost every fights still a settlement battle.


TLDR - Too big a cake for the oven. A grand campaign battle game where the optimal play is to skip the battle part and auto resolve everything so you don't have to chase the AI remnants around or deal with pathing bugs. Considering the flawed core that this is built on and how far we are into its lifespan and the series i doubt its getting anything but minor script fixes and DLC; maybe mods will fix it for you?. Ah well nvm.

The doom sequel you allways wanted...

A Soild visual and gameplay update for the iconic fps game; no corner peeking, magic health restoring cover or reloading here.. if your not punching it in the face your probably allready dead.

Pros :
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1. Combat is smooth, fast paced and leaves you feeling like a action movie badass.

2. Collectables of various sorts are well thought out and not just a time sink.. be it upgrades, secret levels or codex entries that tell you the demons weak points.

3. The soundtrack

4. Well designed levels and Artwork

5. Just the right amount of story to weave it all together nicely without seeming out of character for doomguy

Cons:
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1. No Coop campaign

2. Multiplayer is Meh and its active population reflects this.

3. there's not enough of it (tbh this is more of a pro than a con)

Sadly another franchise in decline..

It feels very much unfinished, lacking in detail and polish. This game was released long before it was ready.. which is a shame, as it features some very interesting ideas that given more thought and development time would have made this game really something special. Sadly it appears to have been carved up and rushed out for a rather shameless DLC cash grab.

If your looking for a game in the series to buy Pick up Tropico 4 with the DLC in the next sale. Skip this

Pros
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Era's - your island now advances through various eras from colonial to modern times each with its own set of available buildings, technologies, politics and edicts

You now have family members forming a dynasty

Multiplayer Mode - a feature that this game really could have run with.

Its still tropico

Cons
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Many of the building options are gone (some can allready be found in the overpriced DLC shop) the build options for each era are also therefore painfully limited especially the early ones. Often what is available in each era makes little historical sense at all. Also most of the buildngs most notably housing only has one skin per type.

Much of the fine tweeking from the previous games is now simplified or simply gone, the new system often leads to seemingly random swings of popularity, unrest, strikes and uprisings with no clear reason why or control over the events that follow, just hit fast forward and hope for the best.

The dynasty members dont really do anything interesting; theres a handfull of scripted events that rotate for them.

The humour is tired and repetitive very much a one gag pony.

The campaign missions are for the most part all very much the same set of scripted events on rotation and the story doesnt really go anywhere it just peters out.

It is entirely possible to totally cripple yourself for later on in the campaign with no way short of going back two levels of fixing it (if you happened to save it). The alternative is also true you can set yourself up so well you will just face roll through half of the missions.

Everything you'd expect from a corporate design by commitee product. Buggy... Boring... Beta...

The Best FPS hat simulator to date and homicidal fun with friends at its finest.

If your tired of taking yourself seriously while murdering your friends and looking for something a bit different from the usual call of duty modern warfare simulator gameplay look no further.

Pros
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One of the few FPS games that even a beginner to the genre can find something usefull to do; be it pushing the bomb cart, healing the team, setting up teleporters etc.

Valve Servers are and remain suprisingly non toxic community wise. Gameplay trolling is limited as its mostly part of normal legitimate gameplay design to be doing something insane in fact its practically mandatory.

Its free to play - all maps, modes and with all players and maintains a busy playerbase as a result.

There are no game breaking DLC's, in game items, levels or skill systems, no pay or grind to win options at all in fact... Only cosmetic items and sidegrade weapons; its all practice and skill.

Quake style physics and gameplay, Rocket/Grenade jumping, health packs, no ironsight headshots or KDR

Mann Vs Machine mode - team up with friends and take on waves of robots.

Cons
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Its a mature game; probably now drawing towards the end of its development lifespan, so new significant content updates are few and far between its mainly community designed cosmetic items now.

The number of weapons and what they do can be a little bit overwhelming to the new player at the start as can the classes and what each one is capable of, although later this unpredictability becomes a core part of its replayability.

The mann vs machine (mann up) servers are generally not beginner friendly and the mode difficulties in general combined with the matchmaking system could have done with more thought to help smooth this out a bit.

GG