Recent reviews by Svantevid

Isonzo is the latest project from developers M2H & Blackmill Games and I can wholeheartedly recommend Isonzo to new players and old, returning from their previous titles – Verdun and Tannenberg.

The first thing you see is the vast improvements in graphics, but Isonzo offers much more than just a nice exterior. Isonzo made huge improvements in gameplay, available classes, weapon progression and unlockables. Furthermore, the new alpine front is a much welcome addition to an ever-increasing roster of World War I games and the first time you will be able to engage in warfare between Austro-Hungary and Italy after Battlefield 1 (Monte Grappa & Empire's Edge). Where Isonzo shines above its competition is the level of research and detail present in every pixel of every map - all maps are a product of lengthy historical research often modelled on authentic historical sources, just like in previous games.

As a longtime fan of the WW1 period and of M2H & Blackmill Games projects, I would like to sincerely recommend this game to fans of historical shooters, FPS in general and generally speaking, to people who are tired of generic, prevalent run & gun multiplayer FPS games with insane levels of TTK. With that being said, I must also point out one significant detail - yes, you will die from a single shot, but here that not only makes sense, it is an essential part of the gameplay. If any of this sounds appealing to you, get Isonzo and join KuK.


Indivisibiliter ac inseparabiliter

You owe it to yourself to play this short, beautifully drawn, interactive childhood book that you didn't know you needed, but you do.

DICE and EA have decided to make Battlefield 2042 free during the weekend, and I'm happy to say that I support their decision. Mostly because a larger audience will be able to experience the absolute disaster that Battlefield 2042 is - from gameplay, design, story (to be precise, a lack thereof), UI design, lack of content and features and most importantly, how the game is overall unappealing on every level.

The Internet is full of better and more extensive lists than this one, but here are just a few things that I've noticed during my 2-hour playthrough.

- Hit detection is beyond terrible, you miss shots from a few meters away, literally unplayable
- Constant bugs and glitches
- The gunplay is abhorrent, every weapon has such recoil that you feel like you're shooting from a horse or a moving vehicle
- The UI is so ugly and intrusive that most of the time you can't focus on playing because the screen starts to shrink every time the game wants to relay information
- Revives have no point in this game as the maps are so big that you get picked off by snipers in the open and most of the time, a teammate who can revive you is at least 30-70 metres away from you
- No general chat, good one DICE, lucky hackers… now you finally have it easy. I thought DICE went full ♥♥♥♥♥♥ when they started censoring the chat in BFV, but this is beyond that, now you can't even chat with all players
- No squads, really, no squads LOL… self-explanatory
- No switching of teams, and moreover, no balance which is a staple since BFV
- When you press ESC, there are many features missing, but the one thing that sticks out is the Shop menu, nice one DICE, you soulless drones
- You can't choose on which server ie. on which map you want to play
- You can't just press a button to activate something, you have to hold it to activate it, which is really handy in a competitive multiplayer game, especially in elevators, you have to press and hold a button for a few seconds to make it work
- You can't just throw grenades, first you select them then you can throw them
- No classes, instead you have these „specialists“ who are as generic as any recent Call of Duty game which, I assume, was the whole point for DICE/EA
- You LITERALLY have classes, sorry… specialists who have wallhacking as a trait, you can't make this up
- The whole game is terribly laggy, the framerate was between 35-60 FPS, not to mention that the way the soldiers move is horrid, they feel like giant mechs or Spartans from Halo, not fast, agile soldiers, which is another thing which spoils the whole experience, due to map size and layout
- Maps – Whoever designed and/or signed off on this should really abandon video game design for good and pick a field where their idiocy is a plus. They are empty, flat, unimaginative, generic looking and most importantly, they are too big. There are no good infantry based maps, and to make matter worse, the maps are far too big in general, even for vehicles. Most of the time you are walking and walking, untill you get sniped from half a map away as the veteran players concentrate on high ground and they have all the perks. Moreover, the verticality is also lacking as the team that makes their base of operations on top of a tower can't be rooted out. They control those points and most of the time that is it. I honestly can't remember when I saw ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ map design in a video game. Not a single map has any appeal, they feel so random and make no sense, and that leads us to...
- No single player / No story – Not only has DICE decided to cut single-player content and charge a full price for this supposedly AAA title (which is a crime in itself), but by doing so they made the game even more generic as the „story“ of BF2042 makes no sense at all. Storytelling in BF3 and BF4 wasn't terribly good, but you had a grasp of who the players were, whereas in BF1 and BFV you knew the story and the stakeholders as that is common knowledge. When you design a future scenario or alternative history, you must put in the effort to convey a story, who the protagonists and antagonists are and what is the overall narrative. BF2042 feels like it was generated by a machine, you have all these bland, boring looking maps, scattered all over the world with no context or story. Nothing makes sense, least of all the specialists who feel like they're nothing more than guns for hire in an apocalyptic gig economy side-hustle. Pathetic on every level.
- The "specialists" look like caricatures, from their appearance to the sounds they produce. Every single thing about them is cringe-inducing and they feel like Fortnite reskins, not like stressed-out soldiers fighting for survival in an apocalyptic world. Whoever signed off on this should be sacked, just like the UI designer(s)
- I won't even mention Battlefield Portal as that is just a reskin of previous Battlefield elements that only goes to show how morally and creatively bankrupt DICE has become

All in all, this is another nail in the coffin of what DICE was. I am a life-long BF fan, since 2002 when Battlefield 1942 came out, so in a way, this was hard to write. There was no other multiplayer game like Battlefield. DICE had its peak with Battlefield 1 which is not just one of the best FPS games of all time, it's one of the best-designed video games of all time. Everything after that is a downward spiral for DICE – these days, they are trying to copy everyone else (remember Firestorm), probably whipped by their EA overlords and it shows. This feels like a Call of Duty/Fortnite wannabe, not a Battlefield game.

DO NOT buy this game!

Play it for free if you want, but you'd be doing yourself a disfavour as your time can and should be spent with far superior titles, even from DICE's catalogue.

Never give money to DICE, today's DICE, they don't deserve it and neither does EA.

Sadly, I can only give this travesty a single downvote.

You and Tim Sweeney can go ♥♥♥♥ yourselves... oh wait

The Children of the Horned Rat and the Hordes of Chaos, all in one game. What more could you want?

Do you remember the time when you thought The Witcher 3 on "Death March" was hard?

Survival of the Fittest Simulator - not for the faint-hearted

Damn shadows

The most original fantasy / sci-fi turn-based 4X you will find on Steam.

After playing Endless Space, I saw that Amplitude Studios were on to something big, especially in terms of design, atypical worldbuilding and originality (it's one of those rare games where every faction feels like a separate experience). Endless Legend represents an evolution of worldbuilding that started with Endless Space and continues to draw you deeper in the world crafted by Amplitude Studios. I strongly recommend this title to fans of fantasy and/or sci-fi and especially to people who love turn-based strategy titles.

Our planet is changing, we must change with it.

A decent game - unlike most reviewers I didn't mind the the graphics, it felt like the old CMR, however I must point out the game's biggest weakness - its lack of content. The car progression rate is satisfactory as you never lose the urge to complete more tournaments to unlock the next car, however the number of available tracks throughout the game is just too low. Previously completed tracks in reverse do present an additional challenge, but after a few tournaments, you'll be using the same old roads and by then, you'll know each turn.

All things considered, I do recommend it, just don't buy it at full price.