Recent reviews by al Qamar

OBEY. PLAY. THIS. GAME.
Firstly I got impressed by the "overwhelming positive" reviews and the number of reviews in total.
Soon I got impressed by this game. 14 hours packed with tense and drama, unbelieveable amazing graphics, superb controls, given this a console port.

The storylines are twisted, not very linear and every decision counts (and timing).

just played 10 hours, 2 hours of benchmark, typical me.

I can absolutely recommend Pharao Dynasties, even though I have not made it to the mid game yet. And here are my reasons

technical:
+ epic performance and scalability. Users with high end computer will finally get rewarded with great FPS even in 2-4k and highest settings. Compared an i5 9600 2070 vs i5 13600k 3080ti at a lower Ultra-Wide Resolution it was absolutely clear that this game can handle multi-core and good GPU.
Reducing the GPU Temperature / Powerlimit with MSI Afterburner for Geforce cards works amazing instead of the missing FPS cap.
+ Auto-HDR works fine with Windows 11
+ 3 serious benchmarks included
o hidden features like Direct Storage are in the config file but cannot be enabled


Artwork:
+ Absolutely stunning artwork without the gore add-on, units, campaign map and music
+ do not miss to see the beauty when pressing "Ins" in a battle

Campaign:
+ love the campaign map and size now, many playable factions in this re-release
+ you can set a lot of things for campaign, even AI based multipliers to balance to your requirement


Battles:
+ Yes, that's finally a Total War.
- Ok collision system is not like Total War Rome 1 Remastered or Total War Medieval 2. The way how chariots horses glue and stop when touching the enemy is atrocious. You cannot ride them down. with Chariots Archers. Not sure if there will be Scythed onces


Sieges:
+ They are a lot of fun now with lot of siege equipment. Lesser stupid AI compared to Total War Rome II, in fact


Immersion:
+ Family tree
+ Quite some events and things to do aside building and fighting.
+ Music helps. Playing Total War Troy Soundtrack on top fits great.

Replayability:
o cannot rate yet

MP coop-campaign:
no serious hiccups (resync)

MP battles:
o have not tried yet

UI:
+ good scaling on high DPI resolutions
+ menus make sense for most of them
+ everything feels fluid
+ incremental savegames saving lots of space on local drive or optional cloud saves

Using PCMark and 3Dmark since 1999. If you need a bench of benchmark tools this one is the right for you. Wait for offers, bundled with older ones or PCMark.
Only issues are quite volatile results depending the Windows Version and drivers and even if you do several runs (no power management involved).
It helps you a lot to undervolt and verify the stability of your undervolting of GPU, easily done with MSI Afterburner, no matter what's your GPU vendor.

This game gets better over time. Everytime I read the update news and crawl through the verbose change logs, I am seeing progress all over the place. The only remaining plague, unrelated to hardware, are sudden and massive framedrops.

Ya Hya Chouhada!

I started with Humankind in the first alpha. It touched my aged Civilization 1-6 heart. (yes I started to play Civ when it just filled 3x 1,44 Mbyte 3,5 inch floppy disks)

It is important to say Humankind is NOT clone of Civ we already had, remembering Civilization: Call to Power 1 & 2, Humankind adds different aspects galore.

The abilitz to play different factions throughout one playthrough, combining and mixing their culture, special units and building gives plenty of options compared to Civ.

There are already manz factions included in the game for that purpose, so contrary to later Civ versions, do not expect a swamp of DLC for factions.

I like the graphics very much, music is nice too, albeit less powerful and variant as in Civ 5.

No doubt where there is light, there is shadow.

This game has still some issues. The Devs are working hard fixing them and are quite transparent in their communication towards the community likewise in the official forums and changlelogs. They don't just simply appreciating community feedback, but more importantly incorporate it.

The multiplayer mode has sync issues but there is a way to get these solved or at least reduced.
Mixed reviews on Humankind are mostly because of some issues with the game or disappointing moments waiting for next big patches in hope to catch their own most pressing issue.

This does not mean this game is broken - like Eador (aka masters of a broken game) or U-boat, you won't regret having and playing it.

I really like this remastered version kudos for Feral. But this is limited to some technical aspects such as good graphics, performance, modern engine (64bit), great audio and bringing all the the good from RTW to this century.

All the good? No. A small village in Gaul is still resisting the might of Rome Total War Remastered.

I am with these people. A minority. There was / is a competitive and casual multiplayer fanbase. Some of them still play Rome Total War 1 despite the aged visuals.

For this Remastered version I have few hopes that this minority is strong enough to justify developer ressources to fix some crucial aspects of the game

- there is no more a global chat lobby
I have no clue if this is a legal thing or what but in fact this development is something that begun with Empire and never reverted. We need no admins or mods for a global chat but I can understand if this raises some legal concerns of being an unmanaged space.
Makes community and clan building impossible. You cannot see who is online or get in touch with people outside the hosted game. Not to anyone outside your Steam's friendlist. Check Rome 1 for the differences. I helped with a global survey to bring it back for Rome 2. No help.

- the multiplayer has (known) stability issues
just as the original this game today and back in the time of GameSpy, even worse at the moment has stability and sync issues that prevent any fun of playing it in multiplayer*

SimoneCA: "The team is aware of the current issues in multiplayer battles and they will be investigated."
*raised an official support ticket with all the trumpets but no feedback from Devs after 1 week.

- Choose a side. Army or hosted game chat
You cannot have two things at a time. Either pick your army or use the chat - only with joined people

- Start a Battle OR Chat
Either you can choose to be ready up for the multiplayer battle while waiting for the others or choose to chat. You cannot have both anymore.
There is plenty of wasted screen space on the left as the main menu cannot be used anyway. It is bad UX.
GL HF

It is really sad that multiplayer needs - apart from a not existing multiplayer campaign, which is for complete different audience, is put low on the list. Once again. There is no hope. I will return it.

This game is made for modders and people that can sink their time into a singleplayer (or perhaps anytime a coop campaign)

Uservoices from Discord:
PM29C - "when someone lags do not put the "QUIT GAME" in the middle of the screen because when you are moving units you actually click on it and quit the game.

Pike - "Might want to investigate some instability for the multiplayer as the desyncs are bit out of control."

AdmiralDouchebag - "the absence of a multiplayer public lobby chat is damaging to the ability to set up games"

Paglia - "Hotkeys are ruined, lobby is off"

Hellowenisti - "where in the name of Mars is Chat Lobby for Multiplayer outside of battles? Removing Chat Lobby from games like Total War is the same - it kills all the prerequisites for multiplayer community. And I've never seen any devolper to be there and moderate at MMO games"

Kat - "Everyone's excited for campaign i'm excited for a non dead multiplayer lobby"

Sir Lando - most important thing in the remastered is a proper multiplayer lobby, as we had it on Rome 1

As Trine 1 this a wonderful worthwhile game to play. Some challenging parts and aside worlds with acid mostly not too frustrating. Ineviteably you will die more than once.
Music is really nice but repeating. Graphics and visual effects clearly show improvements over the first title.
And when you think the game has seen the end, be surprised.
Tip: play in windowed mode because, same as Trine 1 if you tab out you cannot easily go back into the game and will loose progress (levels only save consistent in main menu).

If you like Civ then this game is for you. It is not a copycat of the mighty Civ series but rather introduces a lot of own concepts and thrilling variance in terms of how to advance to the next eras, or even staying in an era as long as you like.

It is frankly amazing. Very few issues for the open Dev. I am fiery for the release! 🔥

I was a bit cautious about the preorder because we know SEGA and their love for DLC SPAM see Total War and even premature releases like Rome 2.

wonderful older game. First part of four.

+ great story
+ great music without wanting you to turn off after a while
+ great graphics when maxed out (enhanced edition "mod")
+ nice voices (english)
+ near zero bugs / few glitches
+ support indie games, greetings to Finland

#platformer
negative things to rate:
zero

Ghost of a Tale

such a cute and detailed #indy game.
Challenging quests, nice music and
Just (carefully) played through in 25 hours.
It was a lot of fun. Thanks to the #indigogo backers and the #Devs

misc stats:
13 of 20 achievements unlocked without hunting for them
1 game less bought and unplayed in the Steam library
uncounted deaths
lots of #awww
2 crashes
2 minor bugs and one major bug found, great QA!

tl:dr: it is worth it!