Recent reviews by DerBaer86

the best of the best in Warhammer 40k. Art, Sound, Music and Setting is topnotch. Control is a bit rough and not easy to understand (prepare to get wasted quickly if you miss the parry/counter/dodge mechanic).
Have played 5 Operations so far and its freakingly awesome and exactly what i expected.

If you work around the weird META of weapons, most of the weapons are pretty useless if not aiimed and hipfired - this slows you down sometime and i dont really like this approach but get the idea. Being a space Marine means going in quick and close. So CQB is mandotry and executions are a requirement.

Payed the full price for the gold edition and i am sofar satisfied overall and looking forward for more to explore, but i will not rush this game. every corner has to be inspected and i just love the amount of tiny lore service they have done here and their.

Itemization in the campaign with 5 Operations in is....mediocre. There is no real progression with the weapons in the campaign and i dont know if this will change. Afar from the loadout (chose a main weapon, a secondary and a melee weapoin, there is not much to decide). I am switching weapons often, depending on the most fitting one - close and big enemies - MELTAGUN. Psychertyranids - plasma or sniperrifle.
Grenades are mediocre and i dont like their delay in explosions.

Meleeweapons are awesome sofar (chainsword, combat knife, power sword - all are very fitting).

Heavy-Weapons: Heavybolter feels weak often, due to no small enemypenetration.

Bolterrounds - i know their are alot of different bolterrounds in the lore, in SM2 - the weapon defines the round and boy, bolterrounds feel weak as hell - they will have to take a glimpse look at the boltpistol from darktide. This bolter feels awesome and we need more powertrips with bolters. Bolters fire minirockets that penetrate smallsoft targets and explode inside. Furthermore they have armorpenetration features wen encounter bigger targets by penetrating the armor layer and explode inside the target. This is not happening currently - so their is some work to do for Saber.

This just reviews the single player campaign and i am currently not planning to play coop right now, until i have finished it.

Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 8/10 (bolter could be meaner :D)
Controls: 7/10
Gameplay 9/10
Story: 10/10 so far
Technology: 32:9 UW-Support is now released and i must say, it changes the feel alot. Some good, some bad.
Inside of cutscenes the UW-Support is poor, cutoff heads, strange camerac angles that do not show what is really happening. also you loose alot of the Aestestics of a WIDER Area as it seems, that the camera is zoomed in a bit, so sometimes it hinders your to take in the size and dimensions of stuff.
The gameplay in UW is fine and i can handle the more zoomed in characteristics - but i would love a FOV-Slider and also a way to move the camera away from the character by i would say 2meters. It would greatly benefit the gameplay as you often loose oversight in battle at 32:9 with 5140x1440 pixels.

Bugs: i did not encounter gameplay breaking bugs - > just some glitches with duplicate stormbirds taking of in a cutszene or boxes being catapulted into the sky. Game seems to pretty polished so far.

The patch greatly enhanced performance, even for me and game runs on ultra in (5k). i dont have any stutters or janky feeling when playing and i also noticed a slightly easier game, as you can now better see and hear audio queues to parry, dodge. enemys seem to be a bit more based and not that overwhelming. i play on normal just to enjoy, this may change in the future, if a partake in multiplayer operations.

Emperor protects.

Democracy prevails and we will stand in the ashes of a trillion souls...until Super Earth is everywhere.

Drop On: Helldiver's 2 is THE live service game that everybody else wanted to create. Arrowhead nailed it.

i started playing on Xbox Ultimate quite a few days after global release - NO PREORDERS :)
at the start Darktide was....amazing in following terms:

1. Graphics and Art-Department
knocked it out of the park - 40k VIBE is awesome and the performance with a 4070 ti is awesome, DLSS Frame generation works well for me and i sometimes use even raytracing. it looks awesome!
At release the performance was pretty bad and i had a ton of problems with an AMD Card - but they fixed most of it

2. Gameplay - Topnotch:
i really struggled with the amount of stress higher difficultiies imposed and i started to really become a god among the guards men. damnation is after 250 hours a walk in the park and its awesome
Slicing, mushing, smashing, rattling or brain bursting, flaming, slashing - what ever you ever wanted to do to some heretics, YOU CAN and the DMG model in the mobs is awesome.
Teamwork is required, otherwise the game director will pick to kill you off quite nicely.
Audio-Queues are perfectly used (most of the time) give away specialists to take care of
Specialist range from tanky smashers, over disablers that take down players instantly to the ground and hold them their, over area effect specialist like bombers, flamers, gunners (close and longrange) - hounds that pounce you and there are mission modifiers to empower specialist
finnaly mini-bosses are added to the mission like Monsters (Plague Ogryn, Chaos Spawn, Beast of Nurgle) and finally even a Demonhost can be battled but is mostly left alone in public games cause it will kill at least 2 people of you dont know what you are doing and the reward is pretty non existent


3. Itemization:
mediocre - you can pick a melee weapon and a ranged weapon as well as 3 Curious (trinkets with passive effects) - 2 things can be changed per Items until the rest of the passive effects or blessings (small skills or buffs that activate in certain conditions) will be LOCKED
There is NO Armor equipment at all - its all just cosmetics that can be obtained by penances (challenges with various objectives and each class has their toxic or quite well crafted penenaces) - BUT it seems like Darktide would BENEFIT from a more diverse setup and introducing more items. otherwise its just a barbie simulation for 40k Fans -> with no effect
the weapon variation so far in 11/2023 is quite good - but to many weapons lack the power to be used in damnation and beyond

4. Crafting
was nonexistent at release, it got better with the Blessing of the omnisiah BUT the bad part still feels like a bad gatcha experience - you roll the dice on a grey weapon and PAY Plasteel, Ordos and Diamantin for UPGRADING or sanctifying the gun - to green, blue, purple and orange status (like in RPG MMOs) its ridicoulus. They should start to think about a system, that Weapons are leveled by USING them and Sanctifying them BY USING them to avoid the gatcha slotmachine of hell that hold us back to build the weapon we want.
give us weapon customization like a mod already does and the blessings should be worked for in playing and ARCHIVING kills with them (combine it with penance system for the weapons to unlock blessings).
Weapons are a holy thing in 40k - and the MORE we and others "believe in them", the more powerful they get. The crafting system is not resembling any of those 40k facts. the most powerfull weapons in 40k are hundreds of years old and battleworn and they are sanctified by their usage - not a techpriest that applies some plasteel and diamantin on it. this sounds much more canon.

5. Classes
- at release - mediocre and the talent trees and abilities were limited greatly. finnaly with PATCH 14 in Oktober 2023 they released the full talent trees and the game makes much more sense now. Every class got 3 unique abilities more or less and 3 unique blitzes that can be more or less combined freely

6. Ingamestore:
great FOMO and i really dont like 90% of the cosmetics and the price strategy
A full outfit costs 2400 Aquilas = 9-10€ in europe (payed ingame currency) there are always 4 full outfits, one for every class in the store, 1 weaponskin or accessory skin, and mostly 2-3 helmets. Sadly the helmets, if they look good cost around 1400 Aquilas. Thats dull and dumb tbh
you dont ever need to buy cosmetics and its just for the style - which is good.

7. Bugs:
some bugs are in every game and it will be like this all the time - but they keep on improving and fixing things

Music:
Jesper Kyd made the OST and it is awesome - some stuff could be bit more like in the modern Doom but the tracks bounce the hell out of you if you fight your way through the hordes. RIP AND TEAR, until it is done!

Finalresult: 7/10
I can recommend it now - if you loved left 4 dead like coop-shooters and love 40k - this is it. Like the guardsmen on the morning star qoutes: "there is nothing better...."
Truly, there is no better 40k teamshooter out there and Fatshark COULD make this a huge success if they start to work on it (which they did, the past month and should continou)

Ideas: Ascencion Riser and Archivum Sicorax made use of some ideas (carrying a payload to the exit) - but i feel that the missions lack a bit of variations. Why not make shortcuts available for some - like a demonhost will open up a shortcut in a level, or if defeated give the players a reward in the game (like a stash of items, relics or cosmetics to be unlocked)
Personally i really loved the idea in Left 4 Dead that DIFFERENT tasks had to be taken care of
Possible Ogryn tasks:
fill up a gastank, close a door while shouting HODOR, block a pathway with debree or destroying a pathway with brute force, pull levers that only the ogryn or the psycher could reach move to open up secrets in the maps

veteran - fix a generator and switch on a fuelpump, electricity, hack a computer to open a shortcut, finding ammo or stashes that others can not see (he is a veteran, he knows his stuff :D - using explosives to blow something up with a charge only the veteran has

Zealot - finding a special relic or leading the team down an alternative path to carry a chaos or holy item to the exit for an extra reward for all, killing destroying some effigies of chaos along the line to weaken corruption and the forces of chaos. purging a special enemy like a demonhost, should release corruption if a zealot does it

Psycher: finding warp-rips that need to be closed by the team for a special reward - team fights and psycher closes it with a few quick time events, finding chaos psychers along a mission and open up a path to them for a reward or a sanctification of a weapon

Overall - i think the missions are currently quite well crafted, but except from killing and clicking buttons - there is not much to do for us and i am desperate to change the course of a mission with my choice of class a bit and open up new opportunities

My ideas could be garbage in game and NOT possible - but 40k was always a bit more than only KILLING and pushing buttons. Send guardmens for the killing and pushing buttons. An Inquisition strike team of specialists should be able to to some more than a mere guards men - EXCEPT only KILLING everything :)

Thanks Fatshark so far, for 250 hours of a great but sometimes depressing time - i even stopped playing out of frustation of the crafting system cause i could not archive the weapon that i would needed.

i am a longterm player and i started playin in Beta. Since that time, WOWS went up up up, until something changed bigtime.

Monetarization:
2018-2019 was reasonable and the ingame economics were POSSIBLE to manage without Premium quite good.

Credits (buy ships, buy ammo, repair ships, buy flags, modules, upgrades) - winning or loosing was reasonable and i and my friends had great fun.)
Dubloons: Premium Currenty to buy (Premium Playtime, Premium Ships or CAMOs, Containers, Flags) - also quite okaish and the prices were high but you did not need to buy at all).

I startet to buy containers (Christmas or Dubloons on Discount with Coupons) and had a great time - even got my hands on the mighty mo with Captain Seagull :D - which is now John Doe *dull* - Steven Seagull sucks anyway.
After they removed the Missouri mission i noticed a big change in monetarization.
New Currency's were introduced and HELL - there are alot of them. Every ♥♥♥♥♥♥ event we get a new currency of Marks of the Summerfest, Christmas Tokes, Easteryear Tokens, community tokens, and every damn Event has there own Containers. It is complete bonkers and i highly dislike the Shop.
Hell the Shop has more TABS or Categorys than the Port or any gameplay related menu.
It is one of the worst shop experiences and it was one of the reasons i stopped playing completely. You get bombarded with popUps for every event and you cant escape those events.
AVOID at all cost and NEVER early bird ships lines and or buy stuff from the events with dubloons. most of it is simply CHAFF without any meaning and its a system to drain your money (real, dubloons or credits).

Containers and Win-Chances - i highly dislike the introduction of containers and IMHO EU should rule out EVERY lootbox mechanics or currency mambojambo to avoid players realize the real cost of a Ship, a container, a camo, a flag or whatever.

Ahhh, i forget Steel and Coal -> those are the only currencies i CAN understand.
Coal is earned through Ranked Battles -> fine
Steel is earned through Clan Battles and competing in ranked.


Graphics:
Art Department is still topnotch - keep pushing it - here everything is good and Performance is fine

Sounddesign:
was incredible - loved the sound update in 2020 and 2021 - but the 2023 one - ughh - please revert.

Gameplay:
At 2018 to 2019 the gameplay was diverse and i liked it alot - there were brawls, rushs, ambushes and Sniping. It was great and i enjoyed grinding the tech trees and we had a reasonable amount of ships to reasearch, weapon types and gadgets to play with but you could remember the amount of stuff the enemy will have in his pocket quite well.
Radar was given out rarely and DDs were powerful. It was some sort of balanced and doable - and if you died, mostly you could analyze WHY you died and what error you did.

this changed with the CV rework and brawling is nearly always punished (except in a schlieffen or GK). Brawls are only really happening in - guess: in brawls - cause these are fast paced rounds with at least some brawls or rushs with limited players.

2021 Radar ís now mandatory for Tier 8 CCs and even DDs get Radar at a steady pace. being a DD without those gadgets is hard and punishing.

then 2022 they introduced Subs.....i thought - hey cool halloween event. maybe we get a new game mode - WOLFPACK vs Convoi. Something asymetric to play as a lackluster.

At first it looked like it, but boy -> i was wrong.....since they introduced CV Rework, Subs into randoms and ranked - stuff goes completly bonkers.NEXT Up will be Sea-MINES - there will be even less action and the punishment is brutal for extending to the enemy team or go near them. It is way harder for DD, Cruisers or BBs nowadays IMHO.

Recently i still enjoy some games (Ranked and Brawls) but random, operations or what not - its all not worth your time, without Premium, nor does it any good for your economics.

Steam and WG-Account - i have joined my WG Account to a steam account - BUT guess what - i cant login to the game with a steam version ....... i tried every community thread or reddit that suggested playing WOT Blitz and join the accounts. IT WILL NOT WORK in any way. So i will stick to the WG Launcher....great stuff for long term players :D - WG Style way of saying: WE DONT CARE... GIVE money for your new account.

Community Management: AVOID at all cost to get involved
they had so many community meltdowns and highly discouraged ANY youtubers or key figures and banned or shut them down if they dared to raise critism against changes that were plain wrong.
its obvious that the DEVs at WG dont play often there own game - hell i bet the gameplay staff is short 20 people, but the shop team is inflated as well as there marketing department.

They fired data analysts from the community and slandered their reputation by calling them liers and behaved like apes in a cage hurling ♥♥♥♥ at the community.

They moved from a website forum to......DISCORD and its also obvious why. To stop people keeping track of stuff written and to silence people or simply ban them.

So many youtubers stopped there work, cause Wargaming sabotaged or excluded them from coverage and they even canceled the content provider programm for 90% of the people that pushed the game into social media and HELL even brought me into the loop of WOWS.

i still play, but i will never invest any money nor will i recommend the game to anyone.
I played more than 3500 Battles (2800 Randoms, 600 Ranked and some co-Ops i dont really count).
So my review is not based on some review bombing, its based on experience and a long term loyalty to WOWS.

But enough is enough

9/10 - Would ride again with Arthur.

Just outstanding 9/10

1. Gameworld:
Valheim is beautiful as hell - i sometimes stand in the grass of meadows or in the shadows of trees in the black forest and stare at the screen and it looks like a glimpse of paradise.
Wind, Vegatation, Wildanimals (only a few, which is fine, could be more)
I dont know of what the world is made of, but i presume voxels, since you can dig, mine, cut, destroy everything | trees, stones, ground, big rocks, metal - what ever you smash with the right tool, will be desolved and can be picked up.
2. Gamemechanics:
I really like the idea of learning by doing - Valheim is just that. An if you die, you lose some that progress, which is fine.
Finding recipes while collecting stuff is pretty okay - would be more interesting to to find recipes in a Dungain perhaps.
3. Building: Very good - i like the stuff that is avaivable at start - you can build a very decent Barn or Longhouse with the parts and it looks pretty to me. I love the idea of Wind and Weight, which can make building collaps at certain point, if build to weak or to foolishly. Good solid Work
4. Landscaping - could be better for somebody like me (i'd love the 100% flat surfaces for building) but it wont suit valheim, since Vikings couldn't care less about the perfect flat surface to build their afterlife-castles on and it good enough
5, Mulitplayer: 10/10 - everything is working atleast to my extend and i did not find any bug or problem in Multiplayer. Excellent craftsmenship and very well done!
6. Enemys: the smaller ones are pretty good and i love, that for an example - a Boar is hurt badly by flintstone spear and instantly dies at one strike - a skeleton by the way is not - you cannot hit them that good with a spear - an AXE will to much better against a skeleton, than a spear -> i smiled up to my viking ears, as i noticed that :D -> good way of advertising change of weapons
This mechanic explained above works to some extend to other enemys:
greylings or wood enemys are weak against fire, so i made fire arrows to battle the treeants of valheim it worked much better than a spear.
7. PVP and PVE: Valheim is PVE focussed and i do love the idea of getting rid of grievers with the pvp switch.
To many peoples agenda is "destroy other people, harras them, get them out of play, if they are not good enough to defend themselves from my 500 hours + viking god" Valheim is pushing the right buttons here - if you want to fight against each other - you can - but if somebody denies that fight -> nothing bad happens :)

In Short: I loved the 14 hours i played until now and i am deeply satisfied with Valheim and can recommend it.

Best longterm motivation (i always come back for some hours of starbound - cause it soothes me. If you have friends with 10 bucks - buy it - even multiplayer is decent and ded. servers are also possible :D

thx chucklfish !

WOW, it is phenomenal and its an experience some other game devs could learn of. Create tension not with stupid unneeded violence or bad story writing. EVERYTHING is spectacular - even XEN was marvelous and i loved every minute of XEN.

WELL DONE and Thank you for your tremendous amount of passion, work and suffering you put into this. You earned every Cent of the 18€ and i would pay 18€ more, for someting like opposing force, blue shift.

The Music was one the best crafted OSTs in a long time - i had heebie jeebies all the time music started in different scenes that was so intensely good that i started to grin like a little child and watched in awe how the things unfolded.
BLAST PIT 3 on the OST is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ GOOD and it fits so well the feeling of going through situation so pressing and dense and you want to escape this nightmare that gordon fell into and see his fellow scientists eaten, blown up or killed by machinery was hard but necessary.

10/10 - played it on hard and though it was pretty ok and i died maybe 20 times in dumb ways were i deserved it^^
10/10 Saving Points - very fair
10/10 Movement
8/10 Graphics - very good sometimes - XEN was lush at first and got very smudgy the further on you pressed - some places in the palace look very good, some not
10/10 Gameplay was topnotch
9/10 Bugs - dont hit escape during a saving game process or instantly after pushing save - it will destroy the UI and the menü - changing levels fix this - nothing major and i was just stuck ONETIME on a ladder when levels changed -> totally fine
10/10 Sound - loved every bit of it and the sound effects even the suit were so nice - "Minor fractures detected...administering morphine" - JUST AWESOME

Thanks again and best regards from Germany to Crowbar Collective - YOU GUYS MADE A DREAM COME TRUE

Finally i've finished my first colony and hell it was a tough ride. I've played on 0.17 to 0.19 from 1800 to 2006 Version and i am amazed by how freakishly good my trip was.

I started with 3 humans, a builder/Craftmen, a cook and forester.

Through my journey i was countless times under attack of 3 or nearly 4 tribes, other colonies or simply pirates, manhunting animal packs, schnitters and lances (a robotcreature of powershell plasteel and deadly weapons), i've slayed, recylced, burned or turned everyone and everything. It was great and felt very rewarding, winning all those tough fights.

At first i dug myself into a mountain and maintainend a rocksolid mountain base, researching and building marvelous rooms for every human i took care of, i also took most of my enemies hostage and turned them to my side.

In the end i had 20-30 Wargs, 20-30 Labradors, countless chickens, 40 Cows, 30 pigs, 12 full grown elephants, 2 Alphatrumbos standing by for "Seraphim" my transhuman melee warrior with a deadly powerclaw and a shieldbelt that protected her from bullets and projectiles. I befriended 3 of the factions on my planet and repelled every attack with only one major loss: Ben, a Drone - he was killed by a headshot from the pirates - we gave him the nicest grave with roses around so we would be able to mourn our loss... FOR BEN...and for Us! Community is key - together we can reach for the sky!

My colony had 28 colonists and at the end i build a spaceship with - exactly 28 statis chambers - no one (except for the animals...) was left behind - i fought day and night, side by side with my allies and animals to repell every attack or blitz the enemy could think of.
My main soldier "Herculas", a formerly tribes man who joined my cause, was the best and fastes men alive.
In countless battles he lost both his eyes, which i replaced with an bionic eye and an archotec-eye, both his arms got ripped of by a schnitter, i traded for 2 archotech arms until "Hercules" could work again and be complete again.
He lost both his legs in two different encounters with pirates - they cut one off and the other one was crippled - i found an archotec leg and traded another one, until he could walk again. He even got a heartattack due to heatstroke, so i replaced also his heart with a bionic heart. His Stomach was shot through by a shotgun and Hercules could not eat, so i created a bionic stomach and another time, he recovered fast in our medical beds to defend us again. Hercules also lead all our caravans to other colonies, held peace treaties and solved conflicts around our home. Thank you Hercules.

Hercules was my favorite colonist, fast as a train at 150%, his eyesight was at 138%, his bloodproduction was at 125, his workspeed was also 150%, he got the BEST Energy-Armor and helmet i crafted (which was build by my first craftmen "Builder" - the best woman in my colony and also an absolute bad ass human being :).
Hercules and Builder both got an energy lance and buffed their shooting skills to nearly 18 or 19 over the time.

They all protected our new spacevessel and it was the best feeling to start up the ship engines with everybody on board.

Thank you for RIMWORLD!
I loved every minute of it (around 150 Hours)

Please give us 1.0 and take some mods into consideration to add to the main game:
1. Weapon, Armor and Apparel Recycling - simply destroying a plate armor seems very wrong in space...on a vast planet, where ressources are key...
2. Colonist keep switching their tasks (Like seeding 2-4 fields on a growing zone in the north east of the map - then they stop and travel ALL across the map to seed another 2-4 fields on a another growing zone in the south west of the map
They keep doing unlogical travels to do tasks so sometimes small things take very long)
Assigning growing zones to colonists would be nice (so bad farmers are can be assigned to low level stuff) - high level farmes will only seed healroot and devilsstrand
3. Dubs-Hygiene is very interesting and adds well to the colonists needs
4. Fertilizer and Water supplyment are interesting features
5. Friendly Fire avoidance is a pain in the a$$ - sometimes my colonist would receive more dmg from their own kind, than from the enemy

Logfile 0001: plunged onto a colorfull vibrant planet...found 2 other astroneers digging themselves deeper and deeper into the brittle rocks of the planet and placing metal rods in the ground.
Followed them and found a strange locking mushroom with red crystals in it. i snitched two the little things into my backpack and took them back to the base.
Showed them to the others...nothing happens....threw them away and drove of to mine something.

Came back to a place of Chaos. The mushromthingy grew inside our base and i cant remove it, go near it and stings you to death with long crystal needles...

We all laughed for a bit...and then....relocated our base xD.

Lastly i got the best 4 hours of gameplay out of a game for the first time. Extremely satisfied for the archievments, good learning curve, the urge to explore seems endless. i dug a hole so deep, i found some strange locking caverns far below our base and it turned out to be our miracle cave with a good supply for research objekts, minerals, metals and other nice stuff to see.

9/10 : Add Liquids and Fauna and it will be one of the most interesting and rewarding survival games their is.

Bugs: i did not search for them but i didn encounter any big onse or showstopper.

For me Astroneer rocks it and is very well designed and crafted. Keep up the good work! :)