Recent reviews by Duke

Company of Heroes solves a lot of the problems w RTS games. Big picture it slows things down and emphasizes micro instead of macro which is FUN. Even the economy of the game is focused on tactical control of the map. Further - COH3 is an asymmetric RTS game which is amazing. Do you get off work and want to feel powerful AF? Then go AXIS and have elite everything and finish the game by crushing everything under the treads of your tanks. Are you a sadist that sets every difficulty to EXTREME? Then go ALLIES and micro your @ss off using sub par troops with a combined arms mindset to EARN every inch of ground you liberate.

You want more? You sadist - should probably go Allies. There's RANDOM elements in the game. Sometimes your guns just miss or a shell BOUNCE off armor. Artillery sometimes misses sometimes hits wiping 5 squads. The game has a push your luck system - the longer your squads are in contact the more they level up - but the more risk you take to losing them. There's line of sight, cover, and fog of war.

Duke, I'm the kind of guy that quits at the first sign of adversity - should I buy the game and play online multiplayer? Good question. No, you shouldn't. Need you to get on a good workout/ nutrition plan until you'd rather die than hit the surrender button. There is no surrender button for you. For everyone else there's also no surrender button.

Highly recommend this game.

Notable - The first time you see 20+ colorful biplanes twisting and turning and looping and shooting at each other in a 'furball' over the trenches of wartorn France - it WILL take your breath away.

Goods - If you are new to flight sims this is such a great way to jump in. Unlike modern jets with complicated radars, missiles, and electronics, this era just has an open cockpit and a couple of machine guns pointed forward. It really lets you focus on just pure flying, formation(flying w/ friends), and dog fighting. Even on the most complicated engine settings planes can be controlled with stick, throttle, and usually just one other lever - like a radiator to keep the engine temps normal. I used an old joystick I found in my closet.

Bads - The price tag keeps people away. Flight sims aren't like regular games. A lot of the time you will pay for ONE aircraft and that module alone will have the price of a triple A title. Flying circus comes with 10 aircraft so that's the WHY. Not saying I agree with it. Put this one your wishlist and tell three of your buddies who will fly with you to put it on their wishlist and when the sale hits - pick it up.

Others - 1) No campaign. The community has already made two campaigns that I know of. Plus there is nothing like flying against a real human opponent. You can set up quick missions to start you in the air 1v1 or 8v8 vs AI any time of day to get some practice in. One online multiplayer server, Flugpark, keeps track of your 'virtual life' - every time you land, or crash land on your side of the trench your score keeps adding up. If your pilot is killed, bails out, or crash lands on the other side of the trench you are captured (or dead) and your score resets. Get 20 kills without dying against real human opponents and they give you the Blue Max just like the Red Baron. How cool is that? That's a legit campaign to me.
2) Only one map. There's no navigation systems in WW1 biplanes. I've enjoyed looking at the map then the ground - and thinking .. ok I follow the river to the road and that SHOULD lead back to my aerodrome... Hopefully they make some more.
3) Amazing VR experience. The planes really come to life. Not super plug and play though.. took me a lot of fiddling and will require a beast of a machine. Not required. Just cool.

Anyways that's my plug.
TLDR - Get a VR headset. Put on white scarf. Put box fan on your desk. Crank that fan to high and slam your throttle to MAX.

"There are no zombies" Yea right, just a ton of zombie wolves. If you are attacked by one of the endlessly spawning zombie wolves you have to - click as fast as you can. I've been following this game for a long time, and I check back in every update or so. Honestly, it just keeps getting worse. The core of the game is the survival aspect. People enjoy hunting, building fires, ice fishing, crafting rabbit skin mittens, trapping, dealing with the weather. That's the magic. That's being alone in the wilderness after your bush plane goes down. But instead its about slaying the undead wolves with awful controls and awful radial UI's they have changed over and over again. It's totally immersion breaking to climb over a hill, and have a bear and 8 wolves just walking on their AI patrols by themselves on a lake. I'm ok with bear and wolf encounters being quick and deadly. But make them special and dramatic. Maybe have ONE wolf pack that roams the map. This game comes to an icy fork in the road with every update and for me its UNINSTALL. Get back to your core game.