Recent reviews by Phillus

Teamkilling, the game. BUT FUN.

If you had fun with Magicka and blasting foes & friends into oblivion alike and if you like a not so serious Sci-Fi setting with a special kind of humor (which I pretty much like a lot!), then you'll have a great time with this one.

Skyrim in spaaaaaaaaaaaace.

I had a great time with Starfield so far. The few bugs or glitches I had were "Bethesda-classics", but nothing that got me frustrated really. Also, exploring, looting, fighting and doing missions are quite fun in general. The missions & characters in particular, are an upgrade to older titles, I think. I have not seen all or even most of them yet, so let's see how it will go from here on.

So I'd say, if you enjoyed Skyrim and/or Fallout 4, you will like this game a lot, too.

Thumbs up for singleplayer.
Thumbs down for multiplayer.

But why is my overall impression more towards negative? Well, to begin with on the nice side of things, the campaign and sandbox are pretty nicely made. The music is enjoyable, the new crafting system is cool and there's just more to do here than in Warband (vanilla). Companions are a bit weird and lack personality, but the battles and gameplay itself feel pretty NOICE at times, too, especially when there are 300 vs 300 (or more!) battles with you leading a charge of knights into an infantry formation, decimating them. Rohan enjoyers be like: *Chef's kiss*

However - and now the big HOWEVER - think of all the cool stuff added besides the combat gameplay and just get rid of it. No music, no crafting, no diplomatic interaction, no sandbox-y feel. That's the multiplayer. Barebones, yet functioning. In vanilla (without mods) you have a strict set of game modes - less than Warband -, a class system where you have strict set of equipment on you - Warband had free choice of equipment - and a clan or party-system, that is somewhat functional, yet lacking any enjoyable means of interacting with the community. In general, the multiplayer seems a step backwards to its previous game title, 8 or more years back. There was so much potential cool stuff to bring over to multiplayer (see singleplayer section), yet Taleworlds tried to create a competititve "CS-GO killer" (at least it feels like it wants to be one) and failed miserably. It feels they dropped multiplayer half-way through or just didn't bother with it anymore, because they were fed up by the limitations of their engine by then. They never implemented the replay feature or the camera feature either. And there are still regular mechanical bugs in melee combat, where you block a swing on your left side with a block to the right (or even up).

All in all, Bannerlord is a nice, cozy place for singleplayer sandbox enjoyers. I've definitely had my share of fun and epic moments in there, not gonna deny that. However, for multiplayer people this game is not recommendable.



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Ending letter as a Mount & Blade long-term fan myself:

~I've followed the games state since the early acess release and since then I've seen plenty veteran Warband clans tremple, turn to dust and have people seek their enjoyment in other games. Heck, even the clan I've stayed in for a long time (glorious "Valgarda"!), and still am, had it's peak in Warband. Now it's less and less clans people trying to play Bannerlord where it got to a state, where it becomes a sad meme. I personally feel sad, too, that now I seek my enjoyment in other games instead of hanging around in Bannerord with my clan more. For Warband, I had hundreds and thousands of hours of joy in it. That game had a brilliant mixture of an old game, butter and lots of salt, that made it precious. It had its flaws, yes, but the gameplay was solid. But right now, for Bannerlord, the multiplayer experience simply tastes stale. It does not feel like it wants to invite me back, because it's also just frustratingly low on content and technical quality. I don't know for how long I'll play it, but damn. I've waited 8 years and longer for this game to be released, just to end in this state. (Why end? Well Taleworlds is already working on a new game project at the time writing this. Just take a look on their job openings.)

This game has made me truly feel the great Bannerlord depression. All the hardcore fans waited for Bannerlord to replace the old. But nowadays, it just does not feel like the old, golden times at all. Worse! It does not even compare to Warband in ways of fun. And sure is, I've had my fun in Warband. Lots of it. Good times and bad times, but it was an experience. Be it with other clans people, ludus champions, NW regiments, randoms or who-else-I've-met. It was an adventure that I hold dear and one I will remember. Though, for Bannerlord, I remember just lots of salt, and only salt. Modders might come up with cool stuff for Bannerlord and there are already some cool mods out there ("cRPG"). However, Bannerlord multiplayers fundamental gameplay and technical limitations still pierce my mind negatively with every played hour.

Till this day, the games multiplayer feels just so more tiresome than enjoyable. I wish TaleWorlds best of luck for their next game, but this one they vile beggar'ed up hard.~

Absolutely lovely rogue-like game and if 'Cortex Command' & 'Magicka' had a child, it'd be this. I usually don't play many rogue-likes, because they tend to be frustrating, but this game... is more so addicting & fun! Even after a stressful day I can find a relaxing time in this smooth & bug-less game. It's great to just yeet in there, roleplaying as a crazy mage, with the goal to go as far as you can.

The aspects that mainly shaped my impression:
+ Every pixel is simulated! I've experienced some quite hilarious moments to say the least.
+ Every spell feels hella fun to experiment with... and to kill yourself unintentionally several hundred times.
+ Even though I made it to the "end", there's still so much more to discover & to explore.

It's been a blast to play and I've enjoyed every single minute in this game. So excuse me while I delve into the deeps of Noita once more.

[Updated review, state 25.05.2022] This game delivers a much better experience now than it did way back at the release. Dev-support is continued, the matches are fun and most bugs got fixed, as it seems. Good stuff!


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[Old review, weeks after the release:] Might give a thumbs-up after some updates, as it's a proper game in its core, but it's literally... LITERALLY unplayable in multiplayer at the moment.

Main impression:
+ Love the 2 new civ(s), especially the Inca
+ Graphic artists made a pretty nice job improving the graphics

- Horrible AI pathfinding & coding
- Much worse performance than the old AoE3
- Layout/HUD is so buggy & clunky, you can't properly click unit cards or even browser search fields at times

10/10, would love to watch an image gallery of a multiplayer skirmish again.
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This old-school game plays like a purely-medieval version of "Empire Earth 1" with some fantasy-aspects and I love it!


To be honest, it ain't even bad in my humble opinion. I am actually amazed that this game isn't that popular (I guess?), because I've never heard of this game before, but damn, I wish I had! Nonetheless, I started playing without any expectations and well, I've been surprised how catchy the gameplay is. The presentation is the worst thing about this game, but hey, it's working on modern systems (Win10 here) and I've certainly had fun reliving these sweet RTS-memories of my childhood so far!

(Little side note: At the start, I've had heavy "lags" during gameplay. I solved that by going to the options and fully deactivating the in-game music. Just have some music run on YouTube or something and you're good to go. I hope that helps some folks out there!)

Haven't played much, but most fun I had in a rogue-like in such short time.

I would normally advise to play games with friends, but OH BOY. Nothing is as dangerous in this game like the stupidness of your friends added to your own stupidness! Combine this with the random in-game events and you'll have a great time dying your way to the end of the maps.

(9/10) - would like to be revived again just to be used by my vampiric friend as blood supplies

Now this is a proper god & village simulator!

This game is like a combination between Black&White, the Settlers & Tower-Defense games. Just to name some examples here, but if you played these kind of games, you are at the right place. Nothing more to say, because you should let yourself get surprised on how good this game actually is. I hesitated to buy it when I first saw it some day, but then one day I got it in a sale. I haven't regret buying it so far.

Nonetheless, I will tell you some more things about certain aspects of this wonderful game. I mean it's just magical:
The soundtrack is awesome. I could listen to it all day and not get bored of it in-game. (Props to José Ramón "Bibiki" García for creating this soundtrack!)
The graphics may seem old for some folks, but when you get used to it, it creates its own charm which is very appealing.
The gameplay is smooth in a way that giving orders to villagers, like building houses or harvesting resources, is easy and it's fun to learn all the mechanics of the game. (Helpful tutorial, too!)
The difficulty can be changed to appeal to every single individual need and desire.

I don't even have much to say against this game. The only real problem I have right now (-> villager pathfinding issue) is getting fixed in the next update and besides that it's a small, but truely solid game.


Extra:
As I write this review this game is still in early access. However, it's not as many would think: This game is on a good way with regular updates and a passionate developer. Direct communication between dev and community is given and harmonic as far as I can tell. Looking forward to further updates!

Path of Exile ist das kostenlose und in einigen Punkten sichtbare bessere Diablo 3. Also holt es euch und testet es! Was falsch machen kann man da nicht :D

Episch, epischer, Chivalry Medieval Warfare. Holt euch dieses epische Spiel, denn es macht höllisch Spaß!!!