Recent reviews by Fer Fer

Pretty good game.

Runnin' through the Jungle. Sums it up pretty well.
You gon get shot at, you gon die, and you are going to burn horribly to death while your mates watch.

Vietman/10 would recommend getting napalmed again.

Allright.

This game. This game is testament that ♥♥♥♥♥♥ devs can ♥♥♥♥ up a very good game concept. I have played this game for a long time on and off. However, over the last few patches, the game really has taken a nosedive when it comes to enjoyability.
First, the Planes, which is the most mature and well developed part of the game. the Models look great, as does the scenery. It however, has a lot of problems, first up, the way players interact with AI ground targets is mindnumbingly dumb. On each map, the AI has a predetermined winner, meaning, that without player intereference, one side will always win, as their ground units cap the objective. This is problem number one as it promotes hiding and drawing out the game, given everybody knows who wins on which maps, which means that 90% of the time, you end up chasing some AFK ♥♥♥♥ that is lounging at 11k altitude without having done anything...
The Second major problem with planes is still, as it was in 1.25, Flight modelling. compared to the competition, its frankly terrible. Gaijin attempted to remedy this via "Tournament standard" flight models, but as a few tests indicate, even these are far from standard, with frankly mindboggling behavior such as a failure to stall, wonky control surfaces and odd use of superchargers. Compared to its next to competitors (IL-2 and Wargamings World of Warplanes) it falls miserably short compared to the first, while overall, not being that much better then the second, which advertises itself as a casual arcade type of sim.
Overall, if Planes were the only thing, i'd rate the game a 6.5/10, it can be decently enjoyable, if at times, mindnumbingly frustrating.

Now onto Tanks. Which is the middle brother of the modes, and involves 2 teams usually fighting over a cap point. My first issue, cap points, unlike with planes, are completely random, consisting of a circle somewhere in the middle of nowhere, usually in the center of the map. Whereas with Planes, you got an inkling of what your actual goal is, tanks is akin to being a gladiator in an arena, with only a simple, go kill the badguys to justify your actions. This is made worse by the terrible, claustrofobic map design which is to promote the use of 1 shot killing Howitzers (that in most modes, would suffer heavily of hte shelldrop, combined with the need to guesstimate the distance) over high velocity anti tank guns. This is made even worse by the pitful zoom that you get, making putting in accurate fire at ranges over 500meters nearly impossible.
The second major issue, is the basic game mechanics of shell behavior and armor. Both are incredibly borked, and have been so from the beginning. for a Game that presents itself as historical and realistic, its very much neither. For instance, whereas In Real life, calibers of 85mm or more would overmatch sloped armor, ingame that doesn't happen except for huge calibers like the Soviet 122mm, which, combined with the aforementioned mapdesign, makes it really frustrating for anybody that wants to drive anything else then Russians.
The Ingame T-34 needs to plant a single hit on his opponent to kill him. the British Cromwell, which frequently faces it (and for some reason, has no reverse gear) needs to plant shots into each individual crewman, because shell spalling is only a minor inconvienience, whereas explosives are teh wrath of God.
Finally, unlike WoT, the chance to bounce is not set, and is completely RNG to the point that HESH, which pancakes onto a surface, can actually bounce off an angled plate.
rating 3/10. Horrible, buggy and frustrating, not helped by devs that are more interested in pushing out content then in fixing the mode.

Now onto the devs themselves. They are bad, atleast their gamedesign is. Balance is a mess, with many over and underpowered machines sitting at ranks where they have no business to be. official response, "balancing is done through numbers." This has lead to the amusing situation where you had the A6M5 zero, an aircraft that has a top speed of 540kph was considered to be a balanced matchup for the P-80C shooting star, which went nearly twice as fast, had far better controls, and was supposed to go up to equivalent aircraft like the Meteor. While some of the more special ones have been removed, the point remains, there is no idea to balance it, and any suggestion about changing it is met with a resolute mocking and telling people that having biplanes facing off against B-17's is the only alternative.
In Tanks, its even worse, given that the spread is identical, which means that its not uncommon to find yourself in a position where you are outgunned and cannot do anything really, because of hte fact your gun cannot penetrate his armor from any angle. In Gaijin's view, this is considered a fair match.

The Dutch DLC. If you are looking for an 'unique' nationpack, this DLC is prolly not for you, get the Israel one instead, it has a lot of unique units and is really powerful.

Now the Dutch aren't Israel in terms of uniqueness, but rather are an interesting take on the idea that the West Germans use, combining good mechanized infantry with a very nice tank tab, again, much like West Germany. However where the West Germans get a rather poor Helo and Air tab, the Dutch get decent units in both, allowing them to field heavy attack helo's and a staggering 5 cards of F-16's (and you want those).

In short, its a nation that heavily focuses on fielding good Bread and Butter units in a very nice Bread and Butter coalition. Good because its well rounded, and not because it relies on superpowerful units over all else. Best flavors are standard unspec'ed Armored and Mechanized.