Recent reviews by Captain Butthurt

A soulslike experience condensed to 1-hour runs, sprinkled with roguelike elements (mostly represented by random equipment drops throughout your run).

No cryptic lore that even veterans of the series still struggle to fully decipher even a decade after release (looking at you, Dark Souls).

No complex stat and\or perk systems, so no crazy theorycrafting and basically no way to truly brick your "build". Some will find this simplicity lacking, but as much as I LOVE good and complex RPGs\ARPGs with clever builds, this complexity would not suit this game's "1 hour run" philosophy.

Graphics are stylish and look great on 2k\4k resolutions. The "high res, low poly" approach is reminiscent of Valheim, and the lightning is simply gorgeous in some locations (Tyrant's castle). Oh, and the classic lightning bolt-shaped crack in the wall indicating a secret room really takes me back to simpler times.

Basic ragdoll physics are implemented. but sadly they very rarely serve any real purpose, because upon receiving a fatal hit most enemies just sag like a sack of potatoes right where they stood - even if struck with heavy two-handed weapons. While realistic, I'd prefer having a little more "oomph" - which sometimes is demonstrated by executions, that send bodies flying on a regular basis.
And while physics also extend to the scene's clutter objects and their debris, this behavior is also implemented for coins (which you're collecting to spend at the merchant between areas), sometimes leading to the frustrating necessity to chase coins around the room, like a pathetic penny pincher.

Gameplay-wise it's pretty solid, I didn't have any major frustrations. The only 2 problems that really bothered me was really inconsistent parry window (to the point that I completely ignored that mechanic and focused on the blocking and dodging instead) and EXTREMELY wonky targeting if you're not using the target selection system.

All in all, it's a good game for the asking price, pretty well suited to be played while you're listening to a podcast or an audiobook.

Yes, the game is pretty entertaining and has the opportunity to become much, much better with some (extensive) balancing - and even better with further content DLCs. But currently it's basically an ongoing open beta-test.

Right now, it's pretty whacky in multiple aspects:

- Achievements misfire almost constantly (got an achievement for never declaring a war in a playthrough despite declaring a new war every 10 minutes)

- Diplomatic badges are a nice concept, but are hilariously poorly implemented (you get a Pacifist badge when you propose a White Peace during a war that you're currently winning (even if it is a war that you yourself declared) - AI never accepts such offers. You can become a tier 3 pacifist while you genocide everyone on the continent).
I suppose it's somewhat historically accurate - Hitler supposedly was a candidate for a Nobel's peace prize after all.

- The decisions on your Civics (laws and regulations) are supposed to be triggered by certain events (like fielding a big army for the first time), but in reality feel completely RNG-based: I was still randomly asked to decide about some tribal stuff in contemporary era.

- Era and technology progression are not synchronized: in my Normal speed game (Metropolis difficulty) everyone pretty much indefinitely sticked to Line Infantry until the last turn - despite actively building airports and performing nuclear weapon tests. The only tank I've ever seen (apart from my own) belonged to a Free city.
Additionally, AI never researched Gunner garrison units - so all I had to do to capture ANY city is park 3 modern units by the city walls and watch their primitive melee garrison units suicide into my muskets\machine guns (listen to Sabaton - Rorke's Drift for extra immersion)

- UI is not particularly clear: chances are, you'll be getting notifications about cultural\religious shift in your territories and have exactly 0 idea where you can look it up to understand what's wrong.

- Prizes and penalties from events are hilariously unbalanced - in the last 10 turns of my game, I got an event, requiring me to pay 900 gold for maintaining my nuclear plant. Event's text is written in such a way to make you think that 900 gold is VERY expensive and is a real setback - except it wasn't. I was making 5000 gold per turn and had like 100k in my treasury. I'm sure I've collected more than 900 gold from curiosities in the Ancient era, lmao. I also often was getting an "Osmosis event", which gave me 15 (fifteen) science. At that point I was raking in 12k science per turn. 15 science wasn't even worth 2 clicks.
Additionally, pillaging yields fall off a cliff too. While getting 120 gold for pillaging a farmer district (a bunch of mudhuts) was respectable in the Ancient era, getting the same amount (and sometimes even LESS) from pillaging a bustling commercial neighborhood with skyscrapers and stuff in the contemporary era is laughable.

- Some people may find it disorienting\annoying that cultures are constantly changing - both your own AND everyone around you. For me - it was more of a habit thing. As soon as I dropped my "Civilization" psychology and expectations and began treating "Nations" as "Colors" (or "Other tabletop players"), everything clicked back together. Those are not Huns\Zulus on your western border. Those are Orange player. What's that bastard up to?
It's a certain downgrade in terms of immersion\roleplay, but it's one I personally am willing to tolerate in exchange for the "Culture evolution" mechanic. Treating this game as a cool boardgame instead of deep immersive RPG-strategy experience (like Crusader Kings 3 \ Europa Universalis 4 - and, to a lesser extent, Civilization franchise) really helps.
Just contain your inner nerd rage and don't think too much about ancient mesoamericans turning into soviets.

- Pollution feels like it was added in the last 2 weeks of development - just to have something that would compete with Civ6 climate change. It's super basic and barely noticeable. -100 stability in all cities is easily counted by 2-3 common quarters.
It's hard to breathe you say? Don't think about it, go visit a pub like a good pleb you really are.
Hmm...Now that I think about it, it's somewhat realistic after all...

Other than those negative aspects (which hopefully will be fixed\rebalanced\expanded upon in the future patches and DLCs), I really do like the game. It's a breath of fresh air when compared to the Civilization 6:

+ New War support and forceful surrender (upon losing all war support) + warscore systems provide some much needed diplomatic depth - while nowhere near something like Europa Universalis 4 from Paradox, it's much better than "wars of extermination" from Civ6 - where (especially in multiplayer) wars last for millenia and are fought to the last city.

+ The combat system is an absolute treat and is LEAGUES better than Civ6's. Everything clicks together - bigger army sizes, limited battlefields, multiple elevation levels and impassable terrain, the ability to bring in additional reinforcements into an ongoing battle.
You absolutely have to try it, fighting against an technologically equal and competent enemy is a blast.

+ I like the nuclear weapons in this game much better than in Civ6. In Civ6, you are pretty much encouraged to unleash a stream of nuclear bukakke on your opponents to secure a win, if they are comparable to you in terms of research and nuclear power. The first one to act is usually the one who wins.
In Humankind arming nuclear weapons takes 1 turn, guaranteeing your opponent a chance to do the same. Mutual assured destruction really is ASSURED, which adds tension to the MP games. Bots though... Bots don't really care.

+ I like the dispersion of resources in this game. In Civ6, you are pretty much guaranteed a source of every strategic resource if you pick the "balanced resources" setting during the game setup. And if you pick "random resources" setting, a total amount of resources will be roughly the same - with some of the players having none in their territory, while others having plenty. This usually leads to frustration in our MP lobbies, so we tend to keep resource setting at bland "balanced".
In Humankind, some resources are intrinsically rare - sometimes there are only 2 Oil deposits on the entire map. Sometimes only 3 Uranium. This leads to a more meaningful diplomacy (especially in MP) and cool situations of deficit that mirror those of RL: you can be Britain, enjoying its premium access to Coal, but then suffering when it's time to switch to Oil. Or you can be the UAE with a monopoly on oil and enjoy flourishing trade - or suffer multiple invasion attempts (which is kinda realistic, isn't it?).

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All in all, it is a solid purchase if you are willing to trade the immersion\roleplay value of "Leading your specific civilization through time" for a more boardgame-y approach with cool fresh features, AND you are willing to stomach some inbalances until they are fixed.

If you are willing to look past the somewhat unpolished visual presentation (mediocre character and world models, VERY basic and sometimes clunky animations; it feels VERY budget, and I personally sometimes even experience that unique asset-flip vibe you get when you bite into your average non-curated Steam EA turd; sometimes it feels like it began development as a mobile game that decided to go for PC market), you will be rewarded with an astonishing amount of pretty good content:

- Most of the text is voice acted. While not astonishing (not that it should be in this type of game), you can feel that this is not a last-minute afterthought like what you get in some other B tier games. Voice actors are actually... acting.
- The sheer amount of content (cards, classes, runes, etc) is monstrous and should consistently provide significant replay value.
- Enemy design is pretty cool - no two enemies are alike neither visually, nor skillset-wise.
- Combat, while being pretty straightforward, can get pretty strategic (as you tailor your equipment and consumables to your build between battles) AND tactical (thanks to aforementioned amount of enemy types, cards and randomness).
- Music, while being somewhat average for the most part, has some surprise bangers (like in the stone golem fight)
- The story is actually not neglected, as is traditional for these types of games. While it is somewhat cliche, it is set in an interesting setting and preserves its mystery pretty well.

All in all, it's a B-tier game done right. It's not really a "indie game puts AAA giants to shame and spanks their cheeks" story, like it was with Hades from Supergiant Games, and is IMO not really a GOTY contestant, but it doesn't have to be in order to gain my respect and money.

My actual game time is on my mobile device (please consider buying a mobile version too - an excellent time killer, especially if you didn't burn yourself out on the Steam version).

The only thing that I can say about the game is that it features

THE MOST EXPENSIVE HEAD SCRATCHES IN HISTORY

Daym, do game devs really scratch their heads literally FOR WEEKS and get paid a 6-figure salary? How do I enter this industry?

I've hesitated to write this review for quite a long time. Despite having a mostly negative opinion about it since its release in 2017, I just couldn't get myself to form it into a review, because... this game actually has A LOT of things going for it:

1) The visuals are rather unique - well-drawn dark fantasy with clearly recognizable classic references and tropes. Actors have multiple layers for wounds, degraded equipment, and gore. World map is clean, clutterless, and strikes a great balance between simultaneously being realistically dull on your mundane trips and exciting when you explore the unmapped corners of the world.

2) The raw amount of content (mercenary backgrounds, equipment, enemies, skills and perks, quests, cataclysms, etc) is very respectable, especially with content DLCs.

3) The overall concept of the game (mercenary band sandbox) is mostly unexplored by the industry - I struggle to name similar games without heavy generalizations (like Mount and Blade, XCOM, Xenonauts, etc).

4) The writing, while being a rather small part of the game, was not neglected, and it really shows.

On paper, this game has everything to grab you by the neck and pull you into its world, robbing you of dozens of hours of free time. And it does so for some players (as is shown by 86% of positive reviews at the time of this review). At first and second look, it is a very good game. And it is.

It just doesn't click with me (and with a bunch of other strategy lovers, as can be seen in other detailed negative reviews). And since this game is not in dire need of positive reviews, I will leave a negative one as a cautionary tale to other strategy enthusiasts, seeking to scratch the “xcomy” itch. Here it goes.

1) A tale of “BAD RNG”
While a majority of short and less detailed negative reviews cite “bad RNG” as a reason for their negative attitude towards the game, I respectfully disagree. True, unadulterated RNG is… neutral. 40% accuracy swing (a rough baseline for most untrained troops in this game) is more likely to miss than hit. Such is math. And missing 3 times in a row, while feeling bad and unfair, has a roughly 22% chance of happening – which is a lot.

What makes this RNG “bad” is the lack of instruments to counter bad outcomes.

What happens in XCOM, when enemy crits your soldier, leaving him panicked and on low health? Well, you usually have a lot of options to deal with this situation, depending on what you brought to the table – suppressive fire, flashbangs, smoke screens, taunts, destroying enemy’s cover in a gamble to kill him in 1 turn, healing your wounded soldier up to give him a chance to survive another hit. And while not all those tools guarantee you a happy ending, you at least have some say on how the situation proceeds to unfold.

What happens in Battle Brothers, when enemy crits your soldier, leaving him panicked and on low health? Well, he probably dies, unless you have the capacity to wrap up the whole engagement in one turn. There is very little you can actually do, once your line is engaged with the enemy. Even if you kill the enemy who caused this, there are usually others next to him, who will either take his place and finish the job or can already attack diagonally from their current position. Roughly speaking, you can:

a) clear the whole flank so that nobody can come over and finish off your soldier in one turn, giving him time to retreat – this requires a lot of DPS output which is often either unavailable on low levels or is also necessary elsewhere.
b) Use the push\pull actions of some weapons and shields – unreliable (subject to RNG), hinders your damage output and rarely helps - it just postpones the inevitable.
c) Use the “swap positions” ability which requires a perk point, spends time and is not available on low levels.

It’s not the RNG itself that is or feels bad. It’s the brutal and deterministic helplessness that makes engagements feel bad and unfair. This problem is further exacerbated by:

2) Lack of tactical depth and overwhelming power of meta builds.
It’s that simple. 80% of your fights happen in tactically neutral environments (grasslands with small 1-2 tile “hills”), where all you can really do is form a line, exchange ranged attacks and lock in melee combat – while fun for a few fights, this gets old fast and will not change until you start encountering special types of enemies or get Lone Wolf supercombatants in your party.

a) Height advantage is nice to have but rarely can be utilized in a meaningful and truly impactful manner unless you fight in the mountains.
b) Flanking is usually out of the question – at least in the early game, when you are usually at least matched in numbers with your enemy (and almost never actually outnumber them). This is less true in the late game, when you rock a bigger party and have juiced up dedicated Lone Wolfs that seek isolation on the flanks.
c) Other types of terrain don’t bring anything to the table – the average challenge to your tactical genius usually comes down to recognizing an opportunity to force your enemy to fight in shallow water by standing on the neighboring dry tile or finding a way to use a tree and a bush to shorten your frontline. Not terribly exciting.

3) Frontloaded challenge.
Issues I described above are, unfortunately, especially painful and obvious at the start of the game. The lack of meaningful instruments to deal with unfavorable RNG outcomes becomes less acute once you get the beefy gear and are less punished by incoming hits.
The lack of tactical depth somewhat dissipates once you specialize your soldiers – but the problem of some builds being objectively better then others arises, still somewhat diluting the depth of the game.

Problem is – not a lot of players have the stomach to carry on through the hardships to see the game slightly improving down the line. First impressions matter. And I’m pretty sure that there are a lot of players who will never touch this game again because they were brutally burned in the first few hours of gameplay – even if they would otherwise enjoy it at the later stages and would play it for hundreds of hours. And every time I’m trying to get back to this game, I instantly get a harsh reminder of why I stopped playing last time.

This is a shame, because the game is otherwise pretty solid. The only other game I have similar feelings about is Darkest Dungeon – which also suffers from the same issues despite being a superb game.
All that said, I’m still glad that this game exists and I hope that the next project of this devteam will be a banger. They have all the tools and talent to pull it off, hopefully they got enough experience with BB.

An absolute steal on any sale. Consider purchasing at full price to support developers.

There is no way to describe the story (which is amazing) without somewhat spoiling the experience - so I won't. Just know that it's definitely game's strongest side and will carry you through 12-14 hr playthrough without stalling. It is a very well-paced psychological horror (some people say it's a survival horror, but that is not the case for...many reasons) that touches deep and troubling topics. Not the usual pseudointellectual fluff that games try to sell as "deep thoughts" - but those topics that keep you awake at night.

Graphics and sound design are serviceable.

Technical state is pretty polished - the only bug I encountered was falling under the map - simply because I love to meticulously explore game worlds and climbed some stuffs devs didn't expect any reasonable player to climb.

Voice acting is very good.

Enemy AI is serviceable, but hosts a single noticeable drawback of this game - enemies seem to "know" where you are at all times and slowly follow you around in their unaggroed state - even if you're completely silent and are actively trying to distract them in the opposite direction.
Obviously the AI KNOWS where you are, but in similar games it is usually well programmed to pretend that it doesn't. It is especially obvious when compared to titles like Alien: Isolation, where Alien investigates completely irrelevant and distant corners of locations you share with it. But in SOMA even if you completely silently sneak around an enemy through multiple doorways into the opposite corner of the location, while simultaneously throwing stuff in the opposite direction for distraction (or without doing that - I tested multiple approaches) he will "randomly" stumble into the same area with you in like 30 seconds.
While this AI behavior doesn't DRASTICALLY inflate game's difficulty, it sometimes puts excessive pressure on you for no good reason which can lead to leaving certain locations before you want to. I'm sure that I missed some collectible lore pieces simply because I was basically forced through certain locations against my will.

Verdict:
A must-have, even if you're not interested in stealth-based horrors. This game reminded me why videogames are a form of art, and not merely a form of brainless entertainment.

While this game is usually praised for its "deep" story, it will only have an impact on very young and impressionable people (or infantile adults). The only value the story provides is shock value of brutality and gore, and how main characters start breaking down from that. Basically, "I'm 14 and this is deep" stuff.

The setting of devastated Dubai is not utilized - apart from a few scenes with famous Dubai skyscrapers. Other than those scenes this is your typical middle eastern setting, with US soldiers, insurgents and civilians.

The apocalyptic events that led Dubai to its sorry state are barely explained - you're just dumped in this strange world of devastating sandstorms. Maybe this game is a part of a wider universe that I'm not aware of, but even after watching every cutscene and finding 2\3 of all lore collectibles I still have no idea what lead to this situation.

The motives of your opponents are not explored as well - one US troop unit was completing a certain mission, but then went rogue for very vague reasons and that's it. You're slaughtering the insane amount of baddies basically for no reason, with murky prospect of delivering justice in the end, which falls flat on its face and is telegraphed WAY before you reach the end.

I was disappointed with this story. Maybe if I played it in 2012 when I was 21 (and very impressionable) I would have appreciated it a little more. But really, it's pretty basic. Now with the meaty part out of the way, the sped-up review of gameplay:

-Gameplay is your typical cover-based shooter from 2010s, with the added bonus of being pretty clunky at that - sprinting is stiff, obvious pieces of cover sometimes are very hard to enter.

-Graphics are serviceable.

-Gunplay is horrible - a mishmash of automatic, semiautomatic and burst-fire weapons with added "features" like scopes, silencers and UGL. 2\3 of all guns feel the same. And the sounds of guns and explosions are pretty bad.

-AI is barely alive - enemies and your allies use pre-defined pathways and sometimes engage in hilarious "indian trail" formations, lining up for you to get headshotted.

-Your ally AI is somehow even worse and is basically useless - they rarely kill anybody on their own, and it's almost always way faster and easier to shoot baddies yourself than to use a "squad command" feature.

- Single player campaign is very short (thankfully) - I beat it in 6 hours on third difficulty, with fourth being unavailable for the first playthrough. The replayability is questionable - while you get several choices (always a fork between 2 choices) during your playthrough and so there is a potential for a different ending, I didn't bother to go through this slog one more time to watch a different cutscene.

- Multiplayer is dead. Maybe there are enthusiasts that cooperate over Discord to scrape some players for a single match, but considering how poor the gameplay is I didn't bother looking for that.


So, while it's definitely not the most awful mess from the depths of Early Access, I sincerely think that this is not a good buy. Unless you're some weird collector of basic cover - based shooters from 2010s.

An amazing puzzle game with outstanding artstyle and chill gameplay. When you're staring at your library of 900 games, procrastinate and don't know what to play, play this gem.

A simplified "To-do" list of an average Dota:Underlords reviewer:

- Get over 200 Hours of entertainment FOR FREE.
- Leave a negative review.
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Please don't listen to these reviewers, not without a HUGE pinch of salt (and boy there is a lot of it).
They're either salty because they can't figure out a pretty simple game of chance (MUH STRATAGI VS RNG, RNG BAD!!!111), or borderline oligophrenic with no concept of price\value relation of a product.

This game is clearly crafted with love, and it's obvious to everyone capable of controlling their primal nerd rage - the graphics are slick, the animations are well suited for each hero and help you bond with their personalities, the voice acting is superb (bruh, have you heard the Queen of Pain?) and even the soundtrack (something that I literally almost always never care for) is great. The patch notes are humorous and you can literally feel the dwv team's warmth, pride and love for this product seeping through the lines, and the patches themselves are rather frequent and substantial.

The game is easy to learn but hard to master. If you are planning to play ranked and sweat, you better educate yourself on many intricate mechanics that may not be obvious to an average ♥♥♥♥ Erectus, who instead of trying to learn a thing or two about this game are busy tanking this game's reviews to Mixed just because tHe nEw UI iS BaD. Guys, it's been out for one day. Every piece of relevant info is either outright displayed on your main screen, or is accessible within two clicks. The UI is better than ever. It may not be equally appealing to everyone from aesthetic point of view, but screeching how it's literally unusable and that game is unplayable is just childish reaction of accomodation to new circumstances. Grow the F up.

If you're happy to play casual and chill - just download it already. In my humble opinion, this currently is THE best autobattler on the market, and it only gets better.

If you have some questions regarding game's mechanics or sources of relevant info about them, feel free to add me.

I'll check this to positive as soon as forceful conscription into 2 vs 10 gamemode ends every Sunday.

This game is very good in its vanilla 1vs5 mode. It's a nice change of pace compared to DbD, while introducing more elements like resource management, more meaningful situational awareness and more proactive teamplay. I would strongly recommend if it was 1vs5 all the time.

But devs just announced that they will be having a 2vs10 events every Sunday with no guaranteed way to avoid it (at least for survivors - you still get in a 1vs5 game as a solo Hunter).

Excuse me, but WTF?
Sunday evening is a prime gaming time for a lot of gamers with actual jobs.
This game is marketed as a 1 vs 5 experience. All of the vids on youtube showcase great 1 vs 5 gameplay (up until today, obviously). I BOUGHT A GAME WITH A SINGLE 1vs5 MODE. Why I can't just enjoy that?

If it was an opt-in feature and would allow me to avoid this mess (and 2vs10 plays as a mess with no survival-horror suspension), I'd have exactly 0 problems.

But being forced into a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ 2vs10 mode on Sunday night against my will just doesn't fly. Especially in a game with a pricetag on it.

EDIT
I see a lot of other negative reviews mention long queue time for hunters. It is generally believed that it's caused by the influx of all the free weekend players most of whom actively play hunters, and it heavily distorted the usual 1vs5 ecosystem.
In my personal experience it usually takes around 4 minutes to find a match as a hunter (despite timer saying mad stuff like 20 minutes). But that's in EU. Your experience may differ. And times are expected to go down after free weekend ends.