Recent reviews by AMERICAN JEFF

You still don't need The Show. You might want The Show, but SMB4 is the game you need. It is better in every metric, just like SMB3 was. Do not write it off if you aren't a fan of the aesthetic. I'm telling you, it does not matter. Either it will grow on you and you will accept it's charm, or you will deal with it. It is the best baseball game on the market and it's not even close.

It will not scratch the realism itch right away. It, however, WILL be genuinely funnier, happier, cooler, and you will have a better time. And in terms of raw simulation (stats, numbers, etc), you will see that it actually does do this just as good.

The game is for everyone. The difficulty is highly customizable. It ranges from 0 Ego (trivially easy, young kids can enjoy) to 100 Ego (you have to be a computer), and these are able to be tuned for individual aspects. I find my sweet spot at 50-55 Ego (Hard). It was designed so that anybody can enjoy it at whatever challenge level they like.

If you like to create things, then this is the game for you. Forget just creating players, you can create entire leagues of custom teams complete with custom designed logos and uniforms down to the appearances and stats of every player.

It is also worth mentioning that in SMB4, they've added a league comprised of real veteran players from the past and recent history. It is truly awesome to play with these teams that have so many of my favorite players from when I was growing up. If you want to put more in there, there's nothing stopping you from creating them.

TLDR: If you like baseball in any capacity, you'll love this game.

This game is all game, no nonsense. What you're getting is co-op fun at it's purest. It's not bogged down by superfluous story and labyrinthine menus. There's not a deluge of DLC you have to buy to get the full experience. There are no characters talking your ear off with neverending dialogue. There's a war between Super Earth and the aliens. It gives you a minimal tutorial that introduces you to the controls, then says okay, now go fight. This tells me that the player is respected.

About the gameplay, there's not much I can say that hasn't been said or that you can't see for yourself in gameplay videos. You're a Helldiver, you get in there and you get the job done. If you do this, you become a better Helldiver. Not just in terms of equipment and stratagems you're unlocking, but you, as a player, are also becoming better. If you die, it's not frustrating. It is often laugh out loud hilarious to die in this game. You're not wasting time. You're contributing to a collaborative effort in a star system-wide war.

I write this as a person that usually doesn't enjoy multiplayer games. I don't enjoy chatting with people I don't know. I don't own a mic and I probably never will. If you can round up your guys or don't mind playing with random players (some people even argue that this is the best part), this is an awesome experience.

I don't normally like multiplayer games, but I find this one is actually really awesome. How come nobody talks about it? I have never even heard of it until February 2024. It's free to play but it didn't take me long to buy the ultimate edition.

The first thing that will hit you is that Rogue Company is dripping with style. Every character has unique strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and cool designs with interesting backstories. The soundtrack is off the charts sweet. I can't think of any other games that have this kind of cool factor. But most importantly, the gameplay is fun, fast, and exciting. Despite what alot of fans are hinting at, the game is not dead, I have no trouble finding matches. I just really hope all the talk of the game being abandoned by the devs isn't true, because this game is too good to die.

Every mission has some dumb wildcard gimmick that turns an otherwise fun and cool arcade flight sim into a tedious puzzle to contend with. The tight time limits in timed missions change it into a desperate race of mental logistics and time management. You're not playing the game. The game's playing you. The whole experience is expressly anti-fun, which is sad, because it could have been so much fun.

I didn't count or write it down, but there were too many missions that took me more than five tries on normal difficulty because of time limits or bogus gimmick junk (inclement weather like thunder/sand/wind, escort BS). Mission 12, a "protect this thing" mission, was the final straw for me. I'm not crashing, I'm not getting shot down, I'm not even running out of time and I'm still failing. Trying over and over again was just not fun. I really wanted to like it, I really do love the premise, but it did it's best to kill the fun every single step of the way. Huge waste of time. Maybe I will try it again someday but not anytime soon.

XCOM 2 is best tactical strategy game of all time. It's accessible to new players whist providing infamous levels of challenge for long-time players. If you play smart, your soldiers will live and become tougher, more skilled and survivable. If you make mistakes, you'll learn what you're doing wrong quickly. People like to say "easy to learn, hard to master" but with XCOM 2 it's more like "easy to learn, fun to master". It isn't artificial trial and error BS difficulty, it's "that went bad, I need to try a different approach, I need to learn how to deal with this type of enemy, I need to use this mechanic more, I need to position my soldiers better", etc, until you find yourself handling hard situations calmly with ease.

When things go wrong in this game, the potential impact is huge. But you can always dig yourself out of a bad situation and come back from a seemingly devastating failed mission. It's hard to put down, so it won't be long before you get good enough to mitigate the challenge. And if you ever find yourself getting wrecked, there's no shame in dialing the difficulty down, evacuating so you can live to fight another day, or pushing your rookies up to replace your soldiers that died. Anything I can write here is only the tip of the iceberg.

Regarding modding, the vanilla experience out of the box is great the way it is. Mods expand on this to make it about a hundred times better. The modding community offers unparalleled customization in a game of this type and it's as easy as clicking once on whatever you want to add. Often times I will sit down to play and find that I'm having just as much fun meticulously customizing my soldiers. I've played vanilla alot, lightly modded, and heavily modded with big overhauls, and never had a problem.

Just go get the Alternate Mod Launcher (AML) even if you don't plan on using mods, because you shouldn't have to deal with 2K's barely operable launcher. It takes about 30 seconds to set up and you're good to go.

I could probably play this game for 12 hours straight and not even notice.

First off, I want to address the reviews that mention technical issues. That's really unfortunate and hopefully those problems can be ironed out soon because I'd hate for that to put off new players. That being said, it must be exclusively hardware-related because I'm coming up on 50 hours with not one bug, technical issue or optimization shortfall.

As far as the game itself, the gameplay is where the game shines the best, just like a good game should. The rest of it (the friendship building and MK11 Krypt-style Abbey) took a while for me to warm up to, but I can say I've come to enjoy it. Basically, you already know what you're getting into if you're a fan of turn-based tactical strategy, and you will love it. Take five or ten minutes to watch some gameplay footage and it'll show you exactly what you need to see. This is a fresh take that really catches lightning in a bottle with it's card mechanics. Simple enough to pick it up, complex enough to keep you on your toes and keep you thinking. The RPG elements outside of the gameplay really benefit from having a brand new, blank slate customizable main character that fits right into the universe, who is actually a hero worth reading comics about. I can't stress enough that this formula should be expanded upon in the future with other original or existing less-prominent Marvel teams, because Firaxis has straight up nailed it with this one.

Great game. You're not allowed to play it online though. With anyone. For any reason. Thanks Ubisoft!

This game only appears to be a turn-based tactical strategy game, but you as the player are the only entity in the game that has to adhere to turns. Enemies can and will one-shot your characters for free, during your turn, from some arbitrary distance and angle that is never explained, and your characters do not have the power to do the same. What is the point of having a turn-based tactical strategy game if the enemies don't have to wait their turn to shoot you? Why do they get to shoot when it isn't their turn? Why do I have to wait for my turn to shoot but they can one-shot my characters instantly, whilst moving, with 100% accuracy, DURING MY TURN? I'm going to give it one more try just to be fair and because I really want to like this game, but the free overwatch enemies get out of nowhere is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and has really killed the fun.

"Your game failed to launch. An error on our end caused your launch to fail. Try again a little later."

♥♥♥♥♥♥ pathetic. Worthless company. Have a terrible day.