Recent reviews by Brentor

It's sad that it's missing some of the newer content from another edition (I think the GBA one), but it's the beautiful game that I grew up with.

The modern weaponry and realistic vehicle play drew me to the game, but the learning curve for vehicles is pretty deep. Don't bother with normal servers in the beginning... Stick to servers meant for learning / new players at least for a few days, and find some more patient people there who will train you up on fun stuff like APC and heli gunning. Otherwise, playing a medic is probably the easiest way to get started while being generally useful to your squad.

You can say it's an open world RPG, but there are a lot of limits on what is profitable and how progress is made. For example, it often surprises me that after a fun naval battle that my victory is diminished by not being able to afford repairs and restocking supplies, basically forcing me to reload to before the battle. Captured ships don't sell for much... Another example is that crew payments can easily bankrupt you, or the crew can mutiny when it seemed like things were going well. It can feel like there is no reward for fun, and every bit of progress is a moment of relief. You'll probably be save-spamming to avoid losing your gains. Unfortunately, the most reliable way to make money is just get a Purser officer with the 3 trade skills so you can do boring, grindy trades from town to town.
In some ways its the best pirate RPG ever made. The naval combat simulation is great... But in many ways this game is a frustrating experience. The UI is clunky and doesn't support all screen resolutions well. FPS combat can also feel pretty arcade-y on the ships (not very "open world"). It's a strange game that some people will uninstall after 5 minutes, some will be patient and love it for years, and barely anyone but the Russian devs will ever master.

The new world looks good, and there is no comparable full-loot, sandboxy MMOFPS. The hardcore gamers who are into this type of game are all trying it out. I'm an ex-Darkfall player in a PVP-oriented guild with MO vets. Guild name is AXIS. Check out our recruitment posts in the MO2 forums if you're interested!

It's Oregon Trail 2.0 and it's one of the most entertaining games I've ever played! :D
I think it needs some performance & UI enhancements. The vast array of QoL mods is great feedback on UI and underlying engine bottlenecks. For example, it's very tedious in vanilla RimWorld to perform actions beyond equipping & hauling on individual items (i.e. crafting, smelting, destroying), and the only modded solution I found for this hits a major bottleneck because it checks for what crafting stations you have available every time you select an item.

Stellaris is a great and original RTS. It's not for everyone since the games can last many days. My main complaint is that the performance gets bad somewhere in the mid-game when you have a bunch of AI players. There are also some technologies like auto exploration that really should be researched by default if you're only playing vs AI. I always find myself cheating to set-up satisfying compstomps and defy the slow growth rates that game makers force on certain types of empires.

The game currently lacks serious territory control and other immersive experiences for endgame players. A team can capture a substation, but this seems pretty superficial. There is no real basis for competition. Everyone basically just grinds to get better ships and equipment until they've found the best stuff. It has more of an arcade feel than an MMO feel, and it doesn't seem very replayable. It is beautiful and well-done in many ways, but I can't recommend it to serious gamers.