Recent reviews by Alertcriminal

Thought this was a great game, but with this bait and switch with the PSN accounts and locking the post that talked about it, the devs have dropped the facade and are showing their true colours.

This game is a massive step down from Victoria 2.

WAR

The war system has been gutted and is just a point-and-click deal, left up to the military brilliance of the ai, which of course paradox ai is known for. The brilliance of Victoria 2 was moving your armies to outmanoeuvre your opponent and use actual battle strategy to choose where to fight to defeat a bigger opponent. It's just a slugfest, no flanking, You just have to defend and you will win.

Every war now is a crisis due to the removal of tension points so any nation can stick their nose in, for example, the East India Company joining Mexico when the Us declared war on them for Western states.

They said wars or "Diplomatic plays" were not a big part of the 19th century, a simple wiki search of all the wars in that time frame will disprove that. everybody remembers The great diplomatic play of 1914-1918.

Peace deals are broken, if you conquer the enemy 100% they won't agree to peace out if you push your goals or white peace, so you have to sit and wait for the notification that they give up.

ECONOMY

The economy, the poster child of this new game is a shadow of the economic model in vic2. The RGO system is gone so provinces hold no value anymore. There is an endless amount of resources as you can build anything nearly anywhere so market crashes can't happen which may be easier for the player but remove the sense of realism. In multiplayer at least threatening to crash the market was a fun "diplomatic play".

Capitalists and economic policies serve no purpose. Capitalists could build their projects and sell their wares to other countries and put the money into building more. This has to be done manually for everything now, which I suspect has been done to give the player more to do. Since you can build anything under any government now economic laws and government types serve no purpose other than modifiers.

People say that this is more realistic as a politician wouldn't be commanding armies, this may be true but a politician (In a democracy at least) wouldn't be microing every factory in the country deciding what they can do and how many there are

TECHNOLOGY

No westernisation, The lack of this is a real problem if they were going for a realistic "Society builder". in Victoria 2 one of the challenges playing Japan for example was to go through the reforms to westernise quickly to get access to better technology, and an army while keeping traditionalists at bay. Now no matter what country you play they all start on the same footing and technology wise which a lot of countries shouldn't have in this period, such as countries in Africa having access to steelworks, democracy

MULTIPLAYER

Multiplayer, play one game or watch a stream, this makes Vic 2 multiplayer look stable.


Overall it's a very shallow game, will they fix it, I have no idea.

I understand that it's early access but they went into early access way to early, Would rather of had an expansion for Wargame RD. Refunded.

Wargame Red Dragon is actually cheaper than this!


Bare Bones.

Unbalanced.

Didn't spell check parts of the menus.

The ui in some aspects are terrible, for example the post battle screen. Poor ui placement and wasted space.

Somehow broke the Wargame and Steel Division Global chats upon release.

Only 2 divisions, 1 for each side to choose when building your deck so, play one battle on each side you've played them all.

Map size shrunk dramatically from SD2

Devs made their money and abandoned this game. They were blabbing on about how they're only focusing on Space Engineers yet they've trademarked Roman engineers so they're just gonna copy and paste this in a roman setting this so they can gather even more money from the gullible people who are defending this game.

After my first review mysteriously vanished I'm writing this again.

When this originally released I avoided all gameplay untill it's release on Steam, I went into this blind thinking it would be Fallout NV in space, I quickly realised I was wrong.

Pros

Great Skyboxes: Hands down the best Skybox I've seen in a game for a while.

Space:
I like Space.

Cons
Useless Perk System:
Now this is just in my playthrough maybe it's different for others but i've only found 4ish perks in the entire list that are actually helpful to me. The flaw system is baffeling to me it's like addictions in Fallout NV but you can choose if you want to accept it or not and it debuffs you, only giving you 1 perk point for your trouble.

Map Size:
Now pretty sure most of us expected massive map sizes on the planets and seeing the actual size was a disapointment, though there are multiple maps per planet these are way too small and this leads into the next point.

Lack of things to do in the environment:
As in most games Farcry, Elderscrolls, Fallout there would be things to do in the environment such as gather plants, mine, meet random NPC's on the road or find random stuff, none of these are present in the game. the environment is just full of bandits and creatures outside the city walls.

NPC'S dont move:
Maybe this is just a bug or my playthrough but I haven't seen any NPC's walk around settlements outside a mission, they just stand in there same position all day everyday. This maybe a small thing to sum but it adds a massive bit of realism to the game. It's not a deal breaker but games like Kingdom come, fallout, etc have spoiled us with this and it really should be in a open world game. This also makes it hard if you need to steal something from an NPC office when they are sat there because they don't move.

Weapon/armor modification is bare bones:
It just basically boils dowen to you chucking money and parts and the weapon increasing the damage by a number everytime. Putting weapon attachments are okish you can get a silencer etc.

Lackluster story:
Maybe its just me but I feel that the story is very underwhelming and none of the choices you make matter it's just like " oh noes you did this" then 2 seconds later everybody has forgotten it. The characters themselves have a lack luster development and fail to make the player care about them, in there companion quests they try to tug at the old hearts string but fall short massively.

Persuasion check:
I just had to put this in but when you get caught stealing you can just get out of it with persuasion "Ok, I was just leaving" seriously!?! Thts just game breaking no crime has any meaning.

!SPOILER ALERT!
Companions:
You can get all the companions by the 2nd area, maybe not a problem for some but it feels like we should have worked for them more like in Fallout NV, that took some legwork.


Overall
It's an ok game but don't go in expecting Fallout, expect Borderlands or Rage 1 instead

When I heard that this game was coming to Steam I thought "great the dev is in a better mind space now and the game will be updated". However from what has happened so far I'm sensing that this is a cash grab to harvest any goodwill left by the community.

The game itself seems to be a downgrade of the original gameplay wise, with strange limitations in regards to items when traveling to different regions. After scouring social media and there website, the developer has gone dark since release and not a single update has been made.

The fact that there are die hard blinded fans who will constantly defend this "game" and ignore all warning signs almost as much as Yandere simulator fans as they openly tell you that "You can still recommend a game if mods make it better, take xcom for example" and "Just because something isn't perfect doesn't stop it from being fun in the right context." is concerning. If you recommend a game because of the mods, what does that say about the game?

Alot of people seem to be rating this on what it could be and what mods are available, but with Wollay that's all it could be, a dream. Who knows, maybe Wollay will pull a No Mans Sky but as this is the second time he's gone dark like this, Fool me once.... BUY AT OWN RISK!!

Leeeeennnnnyyyy!

Writing a review for this was a difficult thing for me, I wanted so much to like this game 100% but and I am still torn if i like it or hate it. To me this game feels unfinished like it should be an Early access game as numerous parts of the game feel unfinished.

Pros

- Travel
I'm not sure whether to put this in pros or cons. The world is split up into sections and to move between them you require travel rations so you don't starve, adding a deeper level of planning so you don't get stranded. I think this is a nice touch of realism however the world would probably be better if it was 100% openworld, Like Oblivion/Skyrim. There is also no fast travel which is good for making sure you plan ahead and not zip around the map, though I imagine most players won't like that feature.

- Different kind of game play from classic rpg's,
I love the mechanics of this game, the backpack, tents and managing your character is a breath of fresh air from other rpgs which seem to all have the similar mechanics. The fact that you can drop your backpack when in a fight and that a light is attached to it makes it seem real cool, also just pitching up a tent and fire in the middle of nowhere is also a cool mechanic.

- Co-op,
Though its still a bit janky but its nice to see an rpg developer put co-op in, a rarity in this genre, allowing us to explore the world with a friend.

Cons

- Can't swim,
Though this should be expected in these old style rpg games, in a game where dev strive for realism however swimming should be present.

- No leveling system,
The lack of a leveling system on its own wouldn't be to bad but combined with the other cons of this it makes the game extremely grindy and needlessly hard. The only way to level up is by purchasing skills from trainers which requires you to grind relentlessly to raise the cash.

- Little to no sidequests
This in a open world rpg is a no no, in all the time playing this game I have not found a single sidequest outside the main questline, however searching on Google’s says there are only 8 side quests throughout the entire game. This also makes getting cash hard especially for the previous con above.

- The world feels empty
Outside of the main cities in each province everything is hostile, from bandits to the creatures everything is hostile, this along with lack of content in the world itself make it feel barren and unfinished. No little hubs or villages outside the cities and most of the buildings and npc's in the cities serve no purpose but to just look good. It really feels that the developers launched this before they finished it.

I was hesitant to buy this game when I had mount and blade napoleonic wars as many others have said in there reviews, however for me it was a worthwhile purchase. Though m&b outdoes it in some ways Holdfast destroys it in other ways.
Pros
Voice chat!! Something which makes Holdfast better than M&B by far
Good quality sounds
Good big Community (a mix of roleplayers and the players who play pirates of the Caribbean music while in naval combat increase the overall enjoyment)
150 players in one sever creates some memorable matches
Naval combat! That says it all

Cons
Orverall janky first person animations (similar to the old doom, holding the gun by his hip which explains why many YouTubers play in 3rd person, but it’s [EARLY ACCESS] so I can’t be too critical like others here)

5 minutes in i was told i need to follow de whei by a gang of small ugandan knucles's, now i see that it is the only whei. XD