Recent reviews by SabasNL

Given the negative reviews from others I was on the fence for a long time. I decided to try it out through a free trial of Microsoft Gamepass, which includes EA Play - including the EA discount which you can also use on Steam. Aside from some minor annoyances stemming from the PC port still not being well-optimised, it turns out that performance overall is actually more than good enough on my PC (yes, I've played until I completed the first part of the second world, which is where most negative reviewers run into performance issues). Subsequently, I bought it here on Steam and I'm enjoying it a lot. Though your mileage may vary and the game still demands a relatively beefy CPU and GPU, I would recommend you to try it out as well if you're interested.

It's everything Jedi: Fallen Order was but bigger, better, and more daring. Where J:FO was sometimes characterised as an "Uncharted meets Dark Souls for Star Wars fans" playing it relatively safe, Jedi Survivor has further developed the gameplay into its own, great formula. Combat has improved a lot and is much more varied now, and the addition of multiple open worlds - not always a good thing for most game series - has worked out great. The presentation is simply superb: from the beautiful, atmospheric music and sound effects, to the interesting plot twists (at times Star Wars-cliche - as it should be - yet sometimes also subverting its tropes), to the amazing graphics few games in 2024 can beat. Finally, even though the game is filled to the brink with lore, much more so than J:FO, I don't think you necessarily need to be a seasoned Star Wars fan to enjoy it. The technical issues some players sadly still encounter aside, I think this game is probably the best Star Wars game of the last 15 years - and I'm looking forward to the third Jedi game.

The sheer gameplay variety, atmospheric music, and the well-made visual and sound effects make this my favourite turn-based tactical strategy game. Playing the predecessor (XCOM: Enemy Unknown) isn't a must, getting the expansion (War of the Chosen) in my opinion is a must though you may want to disable the Chosen mini-bosses for your first playthrough. And speaking about playthroughs, the modding community is lively and there's a lot of high-quality mods that make you come back for more. If you want an even bigger challenge after you've completed 1 or 2 War of the Chosen playthroughs on at least regular difficulty, I can strongly recommend getting the mod Long War of the Chosen.

Honestly, I don't understand the more recent negative reviews. CoH3 isn't necessarily the best of the series, but it is still a good CoH, and as someone who played both CoH1 and CoH2 at their respective launches I think many of the somewhat unfavourable comparisons with the older entries are skewed by nostalgia and misguided expectations. In general, I think it shares more with CoH1 than CoH2. I'd say that right now it's an 7.5 out of 10.

Yes, at launch the game was clearly not ready. The beta ran horrible on my PC, and there were quite some graphical glitches and bugs in my few hours of playtime back then. But 1.5 year later, I think CoH3 is a good game. The game now runs butter smooth for me on the very same hardware, and I haven't come across any bugs or glitches so far. People tend to forget CoH2 was also in a very poor technical state with lacklustre content at launch.

Many reviewers complain about the lack of an Italian faction, the voice acting, and the tone and Total War-like metagame of the Italy singleplayer campaign but I think there is nuance to all of these complaints. During the late war campaign in Italy the Italian remnants were already under German occupation, so it wouldn't make sense to have them there. Instead, the partisans are well-represented. I would've liked to see the Afrikakorps being 50/50 German/Italian however, since the North Africa campaign was a very different story. The Southern hemisphere Commonwealth are (rightfully!) represented, which is a bit unfair to the Italians. I don't really understand the complaints about the voice acting, it's not the greatest of the series but not at all bad either. Sound effects are hands-down the best in the series, especially if you preferred CoH1's to CoH2's like me. As for the tone of the campaign, some people think it's too superficial or too Anglo-centric... but clearly those people have not played CoH1 and CoH2. CoH never painted a realistic picture of WW2 and didn't address moral dillemas; American and British have always been stereotypes, the Germans are the baddies, and the CoH2 Soviet campaign was like a ridiculous B-tier Hollywood film. If anything, CoH3 is more serious and respectful than its predecessors and closer to the historical campaigns it depicts. Finally, the Italian campaign's metagame is very much a matter of taste. I think it is an okay experiment, but one that needs improvement. An Order of Battle-like hex-grid map and more replayability would've made things a lot better I think.

As for comparing the gameplay of CoH3 to the older entries, there are a few changes I think are the most important and which you may or may not like coming from CoH1 and/or CoH2:

• Unit abilities have been expanded to the point where, in general, most infantry are more versatile than in previous entries and light vehicles remain more useful throughout a match. I think this is a good change since this essentially gives you more freedom of choice regarding what units you're using. For CoH2 players who loved spammings tanks this is bad news, but I think most players and especially those who played CoH1 will appreciate it. There is more micromanagement to infantry now, though.
  
• The largest changes are probably the new visual line of sight and elevation mechanics, which are not groundbreaking for the RTS genre (for example, the competing Men of War series) but are nevertheless great additions to the CoH formula. Recon units are actually very useful now, laying down ambushes with non-camouflaged (invisible) infantry and team weapons is more intuitive, direct fire through terrain is no longer possible, and snipers are more effective.
  
• Buildings have also been revised, with the breach mechanic making garrisons more vulnerable. Garrison camping was one of the major gameplay issues of CoH2 that was never fixed. Building ruins can now also provide infantry cover, meaning a destroyed building isn't useless like it was in CoH1 and CoH2. There are also 'high buildings' now, like church towers.
  
• However, defensive fortifications have been decreased in number and strength again. Already less viable in CoH2 than it was in CoH1, occassional turtle players like me don't like this change. Maginot Lines are not a thing in CoH3 anymore, even if the real-life Italian campaign featured the most fortifications of any front (the singleplayer campaign even refers to that). As a result, the gameplay feels quicker, if only because all units are now more mobile so you need a quicker response time to respond to enemy attacks whereas in the prior entries your fortifications stalled or even nullified those attacks.
  
• Command Doctrines (CoH1) and Commanders (CoH2) have been revised once more as Battlegroups. I personally didn't like CoH2's system; too much choice and too little differentiation. This system is closer to CoH1's, but a bit more flexible and easier.
  
• Despite post-launch updates, unit colour decals (per player or per team) are still too prominent and in my opinion are detrimental to the graphical style of the game. Luckily you can turn them off in the settings. Unless you have specific accessibility requirements, I don't think they are necessary either; all units have info cards hovering above them anyway which give you the same information.
  
• Quite some people say the graphics aren't that good, but I disagree. The game looks much better than CoH2, especially the texture details, shadows, and building destruction effects are very well done. But I do agree that the graphics 'feel' a bit outdated. The lighting isn't the most realistic (though I can't think of any RTS that's better in this regard), and especially the visual style of the game screams 'Mediterranean WW2' but does so at the cost of looking less realistic.
  
• Like many RTS games, vehicle pathfinding is always an issue, but in my experience CoH3 does this very well. CoH3 even has cramped urban maps where large tanks effortlessly navigate narrow streets - an impossibility in 1 and very burdensome to do in 2.
  
• Finally, the game does have too many microtransactions / too much grind for unlocking customisation options and new battlegroups. I also liked CoH2's customisation better.

Great sequel to one of my favourite coop games. Arrowhead are great devs who delivered some of the best coop shooters to date, and Helldivers 2 is no exception. The live service is great and the way they involve the community on Discord is great fun. Sony may still be a bit of a scumbag, but at least they caved in after community outrage over their mandatory PSN account linking, which makes them better than Nintendo. All in all, the hype and the memes are fun and all, but beneath it all is a superb shooter. For managed democracy!

Whatever you do: at least try the demo! I already had lots of fun with that, not just with the deceptively simple yet rewarding combat but also the hilarious arena commentator bots. And once I bought the game, I was actually surprised that the campaign is genuinely entertaining, with lots of humour, and some great gameplay twists. The endless and challenge modes, which are similar to but expand upon the gameplay in the demo with some interesting mechanics, offering enough replayability (in addition to the Workshop content and free updates).

So go ahead and play the demo, then buy the game!

Abysmal performance, shouldn't have been released

A masterpiece of a TBS game. Feels like chess, but better

Seriously one of the best sci-fi indie games I've played since FTL.

The core game loop is superb, consisting of two elements: 1) an FTL-like star systems hopping with a very strong, grim atmosphere and plenty of visually, gameplay-wise, and story-wise interesting events, and 2) pausable RTS-light combat between duelling battleship-carriers on a hexagon 'chess board' with all kinds of interesting synergies, environmental hazards, and effects. And when you finally get to the final star systems after many, many deaths (it is a roguelite after all!), the dark, rich, and well-crafted story really got me.


Not to forget the great devs responded well to initial player feedback and have since released two major - and free! - updates that added lots of additional weapons, ships, story events, and even entire factions, which added significant replayability.

In conclusion, Crying Suns is an absolute gem for someone who's looking for a grim and well-crafted sci-fi story with RTS-light combat and roguelite progression. Well worth the full price!

Adds some welcome additions to the game and some meh ones, but those additions should have been either free or part of a larger expansion.

The way it is right now, it just paywalls the "best friend" and "nemesis" mechanics that should have been part of the base game. While great for gameplay, it's so simple to implement and fundamental to a character-driven strategy title that I just can't see why this should be a paid feature. It should have been in CK3 from the very start.

Then looking at the rest of Friends & Foes - because yes, there is more to it than friends and foes - it makes you feel quite disappointed with the little amount of content in the form of the feud mechanic and events. Feuds are great in theory but still broken in practice half a year later, needing both a rebalance and better information for the players to make sense. And while some of the events included are great, and some are nice to have (I actually like the childhood events unlike some reviewers), some are quite lacklustre or inconsistent. CK3 already had a number of events with text errors, bugged triggers, and roleplaying inconsistencies, and we now have some more. It seems like such an easy thing to fix.

Again, Friends & Foes could have been great. But as an event pack, it just isn't. It needed more content, more attention for polishing, and more added value to the game. Which is why I'm all the more concerned that Paradox has chosen to create more event packs rather than full-fledged expansions.

[No spoilers] One of the most fun co-op games I've ever played (I think it's the second-best after Portal 2), with surprisingly varied and incredibly fun gameplay, beautiful graphics, many easter eggs, and a very endearing story. Has good controls regardless of what you're using, though I think the game is best played on the couch with controllers (native support for PS4 controllers works flawlessly). I'd say the game is also very accessible to new or non-gamers, unlike most co-op games on PC.

The passion these developers have for this game is felt throughout, and I just couldn't stop smiling while playing this game (with lots of laughter and the occassional tear). I simply couldn't recommend it more. If you're interested at all, do get it. Don't watch any gameplay online - it's best to start the game with no expectations at all and be surprised by each of the marvelous chapters of the game.