Recent reviews by Gaulwa

Bought the game to play co-op with my friends. Sadly the co-op suffers numerous bugs, and the progression is not saved for people joining the host. This is a dealbreaker for me.

WARNING THIS GAME CONTROLS ARE UNUSUAL AND DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND.
The game is visually very impressive, the whole Space Marine experience is excellent if you're a fan of that universe.
You can finish the campaign and the operations in less than 20 hours, but that's absolutely worth it. It's 20 hours of very high quality game. It's just not meant to be played forever.

But gosh the controls on PC are poorly designed and absolutely not intuitive. Highly recommend to play with a gamepad if you can... or suffer for many hours to learn.
The game isn't hard, it's the controls that are.

More of the same as EDF 4 and 5, with a few improvements. This is the best in the series so far.
Still silly, still janky, still a load of fun with friends!

This whole Epic Game Store review bombing is undeserved. Yes they should have warned you on the store page. You have 2 hours to refund and test. Does that really deserve to review bomb and kill the sales of a game?
SANDLOT is a small developer, the integration of Epic API to allowed them to add cross platform. This is something that should be praised.
You only need to connect to EGS for online multiplayer. It isn't required for offline or split screen.

https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/news/in-less-than-a-month-how-earth-defense-force-6-added-crossplay-by-adopting-epic-online-services

It's difficult to say YES or NO on recommending such a game.
It's not a bad game, but the monetization choices ultimately ruined the gameplay so ultimately, I'm gonna have to say NO.

Let's go from good to bad:

The gameplay is great and reactive.
There are tons of weapons to choose from.
The campaign story is a bit generic, but it's still visually impressive and full of action. It will take about 30-40 hours to complete the entire story.
There is ... about 3-5 different playable character you can achieve during the story... after that you enter the atrocious grind territory.
Ultimate character are locked behind a tedious grind of 20+ hours, or you could pay $60-100 per character.
Cosmetics are also $3 per character for some basic ones, and up to $50 for the fancy ones.

But the worst part is the End Game.
Once the story is done, you need to start chasing low chance of drop specific items, to get a low chance component from transforming the first item at a boss or a reactor. If it's at a reactor, you also need the correct crystals that are farmed on the correct void crystal which you only receive if your character is of the correct element. Once you get all 4 parts you need to research them which takes hours, then you can research the weapon or character. Which also takes hours.
Are you confused? Me too.
Somehow, they took the system from Warframe and made it worse. It is tedious to try and keep track of all the pieces you want and how to obtain them. It's so fragmented that it's painful to keep track of what you want, and what's useless to farm right now.

Trying to level up weapon for the Mastery is slow and painful. Sadly, blue&purple weapons aren't listed in the journal so it's difficult to track them unless you fill your limited inventory with that stuff.

Reactors are annoying to farm because you need one of the correct element for each of your character, that only work with a specific type of skills, and only a single weapon type.
If you're not sure which character to main, or which weapon is your favorite from the start you'll get tons of choice paralysis... and cannot keep it all as the inventory is very limited.

Sub component are the same, and can only be farmed every second week.

Difficulty balancing... is just bad.
Once you have finished the game on Normal, everything in normal is too easy and low level. You get little XP and gold so it's not really worth it.
But in Hard, even with a good defense build, you're gonna get killed in a couple hits. You can only survive in Hard with the proper equipment, Catalysts and Energy converters. Except that catalyst and converters are a long grind to obtain.
This limit you to focus all your effort on a single character, limiting the gameplay & fun if you want to be in Hard mode. Sadly Normal mode is boring and not rewarding.

the game struggle to stay in a decent fun and balanced experience. Especially if you want to play with friends.

The shop does not offer a good value propositions.
They sell extra character slots and inventory... an annoying limitation to Quality of Life that I thought died 10 years ago.
The battle pass is mediocre, it's $10 for one weapon, and a bunch of accessories sprays and a few weapon skins. It does not contain characters, haircuts or fun effects.
You get some colors for free, but you cannot use them unless you purchase a premium skin. And they are single use.

I would have enjoyed spending 20-40$ to support the game if it meant getting something like ultimate version of the 3 starting characters. But at a 300$ price point for the characters I'll pass.

My advice is to treat this game like a 40 hours free game, play the story, and it will be okay... a good 6/10. Then quit.

I had a better experience on Remnant 2 / Outriders / Darktide / Vermintide 2 / Earth Defense Force 4.1 & 5 / Alien Fireteam.
If you like co-op shooters, you should try one of those if you also felt the First Descendant was a bit lacking.

I'm going to keep an eye on the game since the devs are fairly reactive but I have little hope.

Great game, absolutely worth the price.

The game is "simple" in itself. You are a team of 1-4 space dudes, and you must accomplish mission, kill some aliens and scavenge some abandoned stations for upgrades.

While it appears simple in itself, the experience of being in the ship feels so unique. They have a number of elegant design that lets you push your ship to the limit and encourage cooperation and communication.

If you don't speak fluently English, or if you don't want to use a microphone, or if you don't have anyone to play with... this game isn't for you. It's a great team game not intended to be played solo.

Myself... I can't wait to see more of this game as it develop!

Such an amazing co-op game.
The graphics, the story, the world building. All are excellent.

I especially enjoy how rewarding the exploration is. There are plenty weapons, mods and equipment to make various builds.
It's amazing how the designers managed to create so many useful choices.
Abilities aren't just the boring old +1 damage or +1 rate of fire. Here, your dodge turns you to smoke, reloading explode your ammo, gain life leech on bleeding targets... etc.

It's more than just a "Dark soul with guns".

One of my favorite game series.

It's ugly, it's clunky, and it's insanely fun in co-op.

You play as a random soldier during an alien invasion. There are a few different classes and dozens different weapons to try. What really differentiate this game from the rest is that everyone can enjoy it. You don't need to aim good as the targets are both giant and numerous.

there's nothing like being chased by 200 giants ants while your friends drops a napalm bombardment on your face.

Great game to play with a Friend in Co-op!

Kingdom Eighties is a game in the same veins as every other Kingdom game.
It's a good game, and I particularly enjoyed the attempt at adding some story elements, and the economy rework compared to the rest of the series.

Kingdom is an amazing chill game to play with a casual co-op partner, but can be tedious and frustrating in solo. Sadly, unlike previous games, this one does not include Co-op.
I would absolutely recommend to get Kingdom Two Crown before this one.

An excellent co-op shooter to play with friends.
There are 4 different classes to play with very different gameplay.
Plenty of missions to play.
The melee combat is just perfect, and the shooting is great too.

If you have one or a couple friends to play with, you will most certainly enjoy this game for 60+ hours.

On the downsides; the game can be frustrating at times when playing solo, as the game demands a certain level of communication between players.
Without friends, you will often be restricted to the easier difficulties, which mean a long and slow grind to level up and gets some of the fun abilities and weapons.
The fact that failing a mission rewards very little doesn't encourage to push higher difficulties unless you are already at max level and chasing a challenge or some achievements.
Inventories and weapons are separated for each characters, which feels like an unnecessary grind and forces you to stay on the same class. At the very least, relics should be shared.
Theses downsides combined often means that the first 20 hours of playing each class can turn into a boring slow grind to unlock the weapons and skills you want.


I wish the game included some more cosmetics. The basic ones are bland, and the ones in the shop are overpriced. This game is already $40-60, there should be more cosmetics included in the base cost.