Recent reviews by ((((Semyon The Great))))

The learning curve is for most likely to be like being born a sickly spartan toddler and thrown off a cliff - it's great. But on other hand it can or even should be played lazily.

It's not that programming is any hard, it is lots of logic, dynamics and required self improvement in bitburner that are hardest, other games are a joke.

The downside seems to be that normally it is super slow simulation, which keeps working in simpler terms offline as well. You start with a worse than 2010 tier alcoholic's PC in 2077. Then you might make billions per second, but preferably at least 1 trillion per second with it. Finding the best route to that is quite a galaxy brain efficiency task, you can theoretically buy 1 exabyte of RAM, but running thousands of scripts is not gonna end well. Overall there are options for different journeys (even harder) and worlds to beat, which could be called massive game content, which may possibly take forever.

i'll be real. it's not even a strategic game, because it is completely one-sided and biased, it only simulates roman tincans steamrolling everyone else. other people mysteriously forgot to wear their exclusively invented armor.

since there's only one type of viable unit, it is not even tactical, also insanely slow and that's why i'd prefer attila TW at least, or older quality editions; just like "napoleon TW" is ~nothing about napoleonic warfare - so R2TW seems about nothing real or serious (NTW has nice multiplayer tho)

it skips the important era when everyone else was beating poor romans, probably at their own tricks, and this is hard to call fun or a full experience, besides the deranged pricing on all / any dlcs; they are even currently hidden, because current thing is important to devs with attention span of a pet rock

systems as always are silly, not enjoyable and only try to hinder you pointlessly while it can be bypassed with tedium, that again makes it slower for no reason; it was already hardly historical, so why bother - it all leads to effortless winning, except it's not even convenient

now this sounds worse than Imperator Rome

♥♥♥ is not the prettiest of games

but your thirst is mine and my water is yours

this would be impossible without my federal reserve of lava and moisture farmers

pathologic games are nothing about disempowerment compared to this ungame, spoilers won't affect your doom

might be the saddest story ever, in most horrible way, it is like pure horror (dystopia would be only disgusting - here you cannot do anything as well); maybe for hopelessly depressed it'd look fine instead; it does what it says - it is unpleasant, it is for utter masochists

it is not real (so it was told), but too real; they even admit they are selfish bastards, that makes it worse; limited actors may still have more personality than many humans, very ironic for cliche

fun fact: author has nearly 0 talents and skills, it can be felt, but this is what can be made, though mostly by hands of others, but he still couldn't talk to a girl

this isn't some game where i can reset and try something different. screw the literature club. screw the festival. i just... lost my best friend. someone i grew up with. she's gone forever now. nothing i do can bring her back.
never.
never.

but a poem is never actually finished.
it just stops moving.

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand history. The politics is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical religion most of the ideas will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Nietzsche's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into history's characterization- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The history buffs understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these topics, to realize that they're not just important- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who watch Extra Credits: History truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Friedrich's existential catchphrase "God is dead," which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those Extra Credit fans scratching their heads in confusion as...

P2 is a FAR better remake, hardly feel confused with such a great introduction, the "familiarly alien setting" suddenly makes sense, actually too much sense in everything there

there is quite realistic sense of presence and town feels alive (no easy cheesy winning too), i'm not sure what other game ever made to that level - of not having pointless npcs that are even unrealistically ugly

the 1st old game was ironically praised by some, yet 2nd does everything better, what does that mean? that it didn't try hard enough, or seems as if they messed up even the little bits, which they realized years later; p1 intended mode feels like an overdrawn tutorial that is also a wild goose chase (p2 would be freeform, but otherwise hardened and definitely got me interested)

p1 had the town feel hostile, while it is COMPLETE opposite, it's almost some utopia, where people are innocent and naive... at least until disaster hits; NPCs are often silly beating bags that bore, but not here

the old 1 - doesn't even feel dreamy, just lame, unfinished - first thing your own character wants is to "leave this hole" (impossible); in 2nd - who would mind taking a walk? who would hate locals? it is remade as intended and you probably wouldn't ask yourself why are you doing it, why are you helping? it is all around natural, immersive if you will

(probably) unique: it's a 3D adventurous random "open" world with some terraforming (+lidl dark souls); building system is decent, your homebase gets attacked, but don't see it used for beauty / combat / utility, tis fortified camps

compared to some terraria - world is incredibly massive, but thus rather monotonous with few biomes; and it is one of most poorly tedious games to progress in, so that is not really fun, the "challenge" is mostly this tedium - try mine superheavy ores in a hostile black forest and then somehow painfully haul them to safety, that is the first steps

fps is easily awful, while graphics are laughable (also 20-30 fps is not really noticeable, maybe because animations are low effort? not a problem, but not nice) and draw distance is silly compared to how massive world is, i cannot even see my house from a nearby beach; many problems must have stemmed from being "coop" / mp game and thus getting "balanced" in horrible ways (maybe it could be fun coop, but that just multiplies problems, and content is limited anyway)

i was told devs basically didn't add anything of note in years; yet again i see decently popular developer buy a ferrari and leave

7/11, this game felt like it's telling me that it has no potential or future interest

you get 2 orbs in front of your face, game design which deeply resonates with my world view

usually i find a million flaws, but not in this one, not today, PoE's design is quite genius

it is simply fun / varied / long game to play, if you compare to D2(R) it's hopelessly outdated, while all the problems are fixed here

what were dumb class limits is made free for creativeness here - this is fine for casuals and a massive playground for total tryhards as well (though yes it is super complex eventually, and silly choices can be made)

apparently people play forever and often anew in even brief challenge leagues - which means it is fun to restart your progress, which can hardly be said elsewhere

it is an ACTION rpg and that means you have to dodge stuff, even as a mage - boss fights are intense - if played too dumb, you may die in literal tutorial start map, it stays freshly challenging

while it may have mmo-tier features - it is mostly played solo anyway (played some of ancient early access and seen a 2018 review - they'd note server lags, but now i haven't seen them and ping is better than in shooters)

the sole flaw to think of is fundamental - PoE must be the best time killer of all, even the greatest games could be barely capable of that, especially over years; i was amazed 10+ years ago and it still is amazing

i was deceived that this is finally some actual commander-state simulator whatever, it is not at all! just like in some "battle brothers" "tactics" - you cannot even tell your hyperkorean division to "finish this runaway hobo and pls stop revolters from taking your paycheck", which is instantly tedious from start to finish and there's actually no finish; it is a kind of state simulator - and it is kind of unplayable, especially starting with how much it throws at you; even after reading manual the esoteric mechanics were misleading and confusing

the brainless military has 0 independence or automatization like just about everything there and "characters / governors" actively sabotage you by randomly picking dumbest options in events and decisions you will wish you didn't have to guess to have a slim chance of some useful govt direction instead of total chaos and idiotocracy (maybe that's realistic though)

"Stratagems are complete plans and series of actions that allow you to complete vast swathes of micromanagement tasks simply and easily. This system can also help you respond quickly to a crisis or unforeseen situation."

that's like saying portrayed abstract spy points numbers will solve any problems and actually be relevant to playing the wargame; being realistic - your situation is near completely based on chance and your position could be losing one from the start, especially when there are barely any resources at all - this would be much nicer to see play out by AI as well

otherwise it is kind of interesting generator, but not very playable with all the micromanagement and random stuff that happens, hindering even the wargame aspect a plenty (and there's no "easy mode" or any stable mode to play, there is always a bunch of traitors you keep in a government as supreme commander for some reason, in a small scale scenario or early game - they can literally only betray you and backstab from middle of nowhere AND they're not even commanders); it is a self proclaimed complicated game, so there is no friendly modding or anything much possible from the looks of it; in the end it suffers from all the typical problems and poor efforts, usability, and tedium that is hard to enjoy

it feels like old classic resident evil, but first person and kinda realistic, but beware - it is EXTREMELY hard for small crews, with 8p max meaning 2 people is almost as bad as 1... otherwise it will be still a weird seemingly slow flow, yet being not fast enough and reactive can kill you near instantly, besides just infect fatally, it IS dangerous and that is cool among most games

the lighting and graphics are incredibly well done, so that you will hardly notice it is source engine from hl2, to which i normally feel allergic for some reason

it is generally enjoyable, guns are great, but some maps (maybe most of em?) appear to be supermassive with insane tasks and most likely tedious; but there are also simple maps like chinatown, which are somewhat straightforward and even solo beatable, which you should still count a miracle