Recent reviews by Tantric

I initially disliked the game, and just found it hard to get into at first, and it felt derivative. The game really hit its stride by the time I got past level 30, as builds and setups started emerging and the level of depth really became apparent. I switched a weapon (which controls the kinds of skills you'll get) and found myself really enjoying my character and the playstyle it had.

The game seems well balanced to the point that you can really pick the weapons and skills that match your playstyle,

I've never seen a game with so much potential so utterly do everything they could to trash their own game. Remember, Helldivers 2 was never supposed to be all that popular, even their own projections never put it in the top seller arena. Then it did.

Things were going great, and Helldivers 2 released the Eruptor update, and the game really couldn't have been better at the time, they set the perception new weapons and new packs were coming that were clearly going to keep the game interesting - and lots of people were using the weapon because hey it was A) good and B) new. Then they literally couldn't get out of their own way, "fun detecting" their way through a pile of often bizarre nerfs. The Eruptor might have made sense, but then they nerfed the slugger and crossbow with it, and rarely did anyone use those anyway. The railgun may be have been "too stronk" but they don't really know how to dial it back, it went from S-tier to C tier, and you rarely saw anyone use it after that. The list goes on, as weird nerfs hit the grenade launcher, quasar cannon, and anything else they thought someone might have been enjoying accidentally.

Then they came for the flamer, and it became obvious Helldivers 2 literally couldn't stand to take the W when their buggy game did something they didn't intend that actually made the weapon more useful and interesting than they planned for.

It's unclear if any game has ever snatched defeat from the jaws of victory as hard as Helldivers 2.

Granted I only had a chance to play a FPS mode game in single player, so maybe I'm only getting the tip of the iceberg, but the game very heavily feels more like alpha than an early access or beta version. If you want to get in on the ground floor, this is for you.

I was a huge fan of Command & Conquer Renegades as well as Nuclear Dawn, which are two rare examples of a FPS/RTS mash-up that really worked in those games. A good commander was so much fun and useful, either playing as one or being on the ground with one working behind the scenes with you. I really hope Silica can capture a lot of the same intense asymmetrical combat and RTS/FPS blend that Nuclear Dawn and Renegade really excelled at. This is such a fascinating genre mashup that gaming has only scratched the surface on, so a new entry is welcome for sure.

Look forward to more updates as Silica appears to still be quite early in development.

If you're reading this, you're probably wondering how this game got a 98% positive.

In short, it does what it sets outs to do, wild, destructible environments, but then combines it with a good campaign story, challenging objectives, and a fun gameplay loop. As each main level in the campaign progresses, you unlock new weapons and tools that allow you to do more and destroy more in the game.

I was on the fence for a long time whether to get this, not sure I'd really like it. But I'm glad I did, this is such a good example of a game that took a cool idea - a voxel world (think Minecraft), a destructible sandbox environment, and then managed to make something fun and interesting around it.

So far I've really enjoyed it. I haven't seen 1 queue no matter when I logged in, it seems like people are flocking to a couple of major streamer servers. That's driven up queue times on a couple of servers to ridiculous levels while 85% of them you can get online instantly even at peak times.

If you don't care about trying to stalk your favorite vidya game e-girl and just want to play the game, you can ignore virtually all the negative reviews complaining about queue times and just head to literally any other server and play whenever you want.

It's hard to describe how good Green Hell is, it's really, really good. This is the game that The Forest should have been. This has the story and exploration that reminded me of all the good parts of Subnautica. This is not yet-another-survival-game. It's an interesting and detailed adventure into the heart of the Amazon, and I learned a lot along the way.

I just finished beating the game on regular difficulty, which I felt was tuned to be a little forgiving, and I imagine harder difficulties will make for a more interestingly challenge. What I loved about the game is the way the regular difficulty was paced. When danger strikes in the game, it's DANGEROUS. Threats need to be dealt with immediately when they arise, and consequences can be swift. Not being well prepared before you venture out of the relative safety of your base or camp can go sour and in a hurry. At the same time, these kinds of "dangerous events" were paced to be far enough between that it didn't feel like you were constantly doing battle with the jungle, you had a lot of opportunity to explore and take in just how beautiful the game is.

Which goes to the next point, things are freaking beautiful. The buildings and huts blend nicely into the landscape, and don't feel out of place. Neither do your tools and weapons and survival gear. It all belongs here. There are scenic rivers and waterfalls and hills and valleys and cliffs that all look like they belong. The map is well designed and memorable enough that eventually you learn your way around.

All in all, this game really beat my expectations, and it's a great take into the open world genre. Even after beating the game, I feel like I really want to go back and try again on higher difficulty levels or try different challenge modes, or even multiplayer. If you like open world survival games, if you looked at the screenshots and felt like you were on the fence, all I have to say is you won't be disappointed getting this game.

I'm not sure why the rating are as high as they are. The game isn't bad but it's far too short, and lacks any kind of scene/gallary option for "replayability." Right now there's 1 adult scene with each of the girls, but they're rushed and have few images/animations. If this is version 0.8 I think it'll still be disappointing at 1.0, it could afford to be about twice as long and fleshed out many of the scenes and development with the characters.

The price isn't bad, but there are better quality adult games for free.

Overall a thumbs up. Game starts with a female protagonist who is smoking hot. Lots of gratuitous sex scenes, this is definitely a sex game with a story, not a story game with sex.

There are several story branches which arc into different scenes, and cater to different tastes. The real winner is the gallery/roadmap options which allow you to replay from the beginning of a specific scene instead of replaying the entire story. The roadmap also shows what you've discovered so you know if there are scenes you haven't unlocked.

The only downside to the game is that there's absolutely no animation, the story is just a series of still images. There are a lot of images, as the story boasts almost 700 renderings. The sex scenes are then quite lengthy, 20-30 images or more, rather than being 2-3 like some games.

All in all this is worth the price tag. If it had animations I don't think I'd be able to find anything bad to say about it.

Note: Updated review as of 4-18 after having over a week to play. Still thrilled about it. Just want to give a shoutout to Taleworlds as they are putting out DAILY patches and have fixed a lot of big issues very quickly. They seem hugely committed to making this title successful, and it absolutely will be.

I've been a huge M&B fan since the beginning, and frankly, one of the weirdo's who puts Fire and Sword ahead of Warband mostly because I really liked the early era firearms. That said, I've been super thrilled with Bannerlord, it takes a lot of what M&B did well and kept it the same, but enhanced areas the game needed work on (namely diplomacy/politics, trading, towns, relationships, companions, etc.). Core combat and other components of the game were kept very similar to the tried and true gameplay style M&B fans already know and appreciate, while dialogue options, town navigation, questing, caravans, etc. have been fleshed out more than before. There are also additional RPG elements with skills training that helps build skills more organically (as you use those skills), your perk points only increase the learning rate of the skills. There are also perk bonuses that are meaningful and noticable, like starting a battle with extra arrows in your quiver, instead of just something boring like 10% to damage.

I've now gotten into seiges, large armies, and the like, and have been thrilled. Commanding armies in battles is useful and can be as involved as you want it to be, I like to micromanage and am pleasantly rewarded for doing so with a lot of skilled tactical battles, especially when outnumbered and every skirmish and engagement on the field counts. Likewise, sieges are great and you can include a large number of siege equipment that really add to it. For now, the siege AI needs some work, but that's to be expected for an early access game.

For now, I definitely think this is a worthwhile and long overdue addition to one of my favorite series of games out there, and by all accounts it's expanded on the originals in all the right ways while still keeping the core gameplay the same that made the games so good in the first place.

This may be one of the most interesting games I've played in a while. I heard nothing but awful things about the launch, and frankly, it was probably well deserved at the time. Hello Games has since stuck with this game and continued to develop on it. Many of the promised features ended up making it into the game, and not only that, they've listened to the community and added features that players have asked for.

What they've ended up with is a very polished game that's well worth the price. I'm 40 hours in and the depth is incredible, I still discover new things and places to explore that I've never seen before.