Recent reviews by Free.Oscar

most fun I've had gaming in years, and it runs on a toaster

This is definitely the best RTS available at the moment. Ranked matchmaking with worldwide dedicated servers, regular updates, modding support, and a massive amount of single player content. Kudos to the dev team who seem to be actively involved and listening to the community.

The game does have a learning curve, but the developers are actively introducing features that make the game more approachable, and the ranked matchmaking ensures you'll eventually be facing players at your skill level.

If you're looking for a high quality game to sink some time into whilst avoiding the pandemic outdoors, AOE II Definitive Edition gets a big thumbs up from me.

good ♥♥♥♥, very replayable, stronk recommend

TL;DR: It's Call of Duty gun-play with a couple of GiTS perks.

"Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - First Assault Online" (oh man, that's a mouthful) was a game that I really, really, had my hopes up for. Like, my hopes were way too high. The Ghost in the Shell (GiTS) IP has so much potential, and so little of it has been utilised. Despite this, the game actually isn't bad, but it could've been so much more.

Let's start with the good stuff;

• It look's pretty. It's not exactly the GiTS look, but it is clean and stylised, especially the user interface. It's sleek, it gets a thumbs up from me. Maybe a little too gray.
  
• The guns are satisfying. They sound good, people aren't bullet sponges, and once you kill someone, they break apart into beautiful gory pieces. Another thumbs up. It hasn't got the of a AAA game, but it's good enough.
  
• A lot of the perks are pretty good. There's a holographic barrier that hides people that stand behind it. There's active camoflage. One of the perks lets you see people through walls (thermoptic sight or something). On top of these, theres a "skillsync" mechanic that let's you share other player's perks as they activate them.
  
• It's free. There's no reason not to check it out, unless you have other ways to spend your time. There's some issues because it's free, I'll get to those in a second.

All of the good stuff there makes for a slightly unoriginal but solid game. You've almost definitely played a similar first person shooter before, and you probably enjoyed it.

Now for the bad stuff, the reasons why this game has mixed reviews;

• It's made by Nexon. It's very clearly pay-2-win/play-for-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥-ages-2-win. There's quite a few weapons, and at first glance, they appear to have different advantages and drawbacks. But after a while, you'll be consistently beaten by people that are a higher level than you. And it's not because they're better than you, it's because they've sunk enough time into the game to get a fully upgraded weapon. The free2play currency, is spent to upgrade many minor parts of your guns. Every upgrade has it's downside, eg, you increase your accuracy at the cost of mobility, but the benefit outweighs the drawback, you can quite easily have the same gun as someone else, but yours is better in every way. On top of that, the currency you spend to upgrade your weapons, is also needed to buy other characters to play, so while you try to improve your weapon to match up against other people, you have to play the same character pretty much every time. I'd advise new players to get in the habit of picking up weapons.
  
• The game doesn't feel polished. It's sorta buggy and crashes every now and again. The hitboxes have issues. There's server lag. This is actually a fairly minor complaint, it's not a problem too often.
  
• It's doesn't draw enough on the GiTS setting. The anime is deep and developed, but this game is very shallow. The game feels way more like a run-and-gun shooter than a dystopian, cyberpunk, mega-corporation, espionage setting with advanced philosophical elements. In fact there's no philosophy at all, the anime addresses the existential nature of the self, the soul and the mind, as well as a few moral and ethical questions. Don't even bother looking for any of that in this game. Even if you don't care about philosophy at all, there's so many other assets that belong in the GiTS universe that could have been capitalised on. There isn't really any hacking. The show/movie has much more verticality than the game, helicopters, absailing, breaking in through glass skylights. The only vehicle in the game is the occasional think tank, and it's in only one of the gamemodes.

Does the bad stuff outweight the good stuff? Probably? Maybe not? I mean, I've got the review set as recommended. I whole-heartedly recommend the game for anyone that didn't watch the show. I also recommend it to anyone who did watch GiTS, and doesn't mind being dissapointed by the game.

Just don't get your hopes up like I did. :(

This game consistently impressed me the entire time I played it. It kept suprising me with more features, and more depth as we continued into the game. The music and atmosphere is 10/10.

I bought the game and have played it for an entire evening at the time of writing this review, all of it with a friend. This game is definetly intended to be played couch co-op. We played with one controller, the other player on keyboard. I'd definetly recommend two controllers, keyboard controls are a little clunky.

The game is really fun, definetly consider if you are looking 2 player fun ^-^

I love this game. A combination of the fast pace, the twitch kills and the leaderboards make this game so rewarding to play. The gunfights are great, they are normally long enough to reward skilled movement and consistent aiming, but can be decided quickly so you'll need to stay very aware. While there are few maps (at the moment), they are all great, they have a lot of elevation, a mixture of fighting distances to suit your playstyle, and a good variety of themes.

The game is constantly being updated, too, balancing, fixing bugs, as well as adding new maps and gamemodes. It runs amazingly on my cruddy old laptop.

And the craziest thing about this game, is that it's free. Like seriously just stop reading reviews and download it.

I really, really, really want to thumbs up this game, but I can't. The game feels good, the atmosphere is there, but the game feels like its in early alpha. There is no ranom dungeon generation, seriously limiting replayability. This is partially made up for by the map editor, but it's just not enough. The character progression is too limited for a long playthrough and there is no inventory. I am open to the idea of innovation, an RPG without these elements, but it leaves the game bland. I wouldn't buy this game unless it's at least 75% off or there are some serious updates.

EDIT: I have finished this game; I played through it using the DRM free version from Humble Bundle.

v1.3 came out, it's time for a re-review, I'll check it out sometime this week.