Recent reviews by Festivo

Boring gameplay and an inexcusable amount of glitches.

80-90% of my time in Dayz has been spent just walking. Getting from one place to another and crossing ground consumes a depressingly large amount of time in-game. And rarely are the moments in between enjoyable or unique. Even on a full server you can run from the beach, loot every town along the way, reach the very northern part of Chernarus, and STILL not have seen a single person. Gunplay in most cases is clunky, with the exception of sniping which can be satisfying, if not boring.

Glitches are also unacceptably intolerable. I'm not a game dev, but for a game that has been officially released since 2018(and been in early access for years before then) it seems bewildering how so many basic ass glitches can still exist. Simple things like, joining a server and not being able to switch between items in your hotbar and just being stuck with whatever was in your hand when you last disconnected. Not being able to fire guns that aren't jammed and have plenty of ammo loaded. And items refusing to equip into your hands for no discernible reason. They aren't quite game-breaking issues, but they can be incredibly frustrating, especially after waiting in a queue to join that specific server.

War Thunder is very boring. It’s not satisfying, thrilling, or even unique, it’s just boring. It might be unique in the sense that there really isn’t another game out there as detailed and within the same scope of War thunder, but it’s also safe to say there are several games out there better at doing one of the various means of play War Thunder shares. War Thunder is boring because it is slow and unbalanced. It is both physically slow, in the sense that most early tanks for instance, can only crawl across most distances, and god forbid you encounter a small slope. This snail’s paced gameplay is also the result of imbalance because you don’t really have this problem with tanks on the Russian and German skill trees, so choosing to play as say the italians starting off is almost akin to intentionally gimping yourself. But of course the deeper down you work into a certain nation’s skill tree the more balanced tanks feel, however it can still take so astronomically long to get to that point it’s hard not to get focused on the pile of garbage standing between you and that sweet-spot of balance. This slow, mismanaged progression can also lead to very boring gameplay. When playing tanks, it is so much easier to perform well while sitting still in one very cheeky spot, racking up kills, than actually playing proactively and PTFOing. When playing in aircraft, it’s infuriating to pump what feels like hundreds of rounds into enemy planes only for them to squeeze a single burst in your direction and kill your pilot. It is agonizing to drive your tank up 90% of a hill only for your engine to give out right before you reach the peak and fall back down. Spawn camping is also an endemic problem on most maps for tanks. Not only because a lot of levels treat the spawn zones more like barrels full of fish to shoot from overlooking hills, but also because gaijin(and a lot of players too) seem to think of this as a non-issue. A simple byproduct of a fair vehicle-simulation shooter.

Day of Defeat Source is a weird one to criticise. I’m aware that this game’s age, combined with the charm most valve titles tend to carry, means that DOD is very nostalgic to a lot of people. Don't take it personally then when I admit I don't really think this game is all it's cracked up to be. I will however try my best to give day of defeat credit where it's due.

I think my main complaint with day of defeat is its pacing. The characters controlled by players can move very quickly, and gunplay is brutal with its damage and speed. Explosives are also extremely potent, with rockets and grenades dealing an immense amount of splash damage, capable of killing however many players happen to be in its range. However, the official maps for DOD all seem to be very small, claustrophobic nightmares that tend to punish those players who like playing in an aggressive, advancing manner. One grenade or rocket, even one poorly aimed or just used for the sake of it, has a very good chance of killing one, if not several players who themselves had little way of countering their explosive power.

The resulting consequence of these conflicting game mechanics takes form in the playstyles of those players trying to find a way around it. I see a lot of players who instantly hog the sniper and machine gun slots at the beginning of a game, and then just sit still in a safe part of the map, behind an objective that said player really doesn’t care about fighting for.

I get it though. Some, maybe even a lot of players, do enjoy the chaotic gameplay Day of defeat offers, and that’s fine. I also enjoyed playing on one of those 40 player office servers in CS source one time. And the fact that this game is a valve source game, means that the community has made a lot of their own fun, which I did enjoy for a little bit. But I still don’t feel like it’s the kind of ww2 fps I was hoping it was. And even if you don’t mind the problems I just complained about, the game still cost me 10 bucks, which I didn’t feel was worth it, wait for a sale or something. Or maybe valve just makes it free-to-play :)

I really like Over the Alps.

This game is extremely relaxing and yet, it does a superb job involving the player into its interesting and unique story. Historically, Over the Alps is special for it’s the first game I’ve ever played that established world war two as its backdrop, yet decided to focus its physical location in switzerland(a persistently neutral nation). But come to find out,(and this might disappoint some), world war two is exactly that in this game, a backdrop. The conflict actually has little to do with the storyline, other than giving the conflicting spy agencies a reason to exist in the first place.Of course that’s not a bad thing, all it does is cement the fact that this game is very much a spy thriller, but not in the same way hitman is. Instead the entire game plays out like a series of letters you write to “Aubrey”. And the choices you make are disguised as individual pieces of the letter. I really think this storyteller's way of playing a choices matter game is interesting and the fact that there is no timer on how quickly you must make choices helps let the player decide the impact of certain decisions.

I can’t say much more without spoiling the game’s story, but I think you should definitely try it out.

Bomber crew is a very enjoyable game.

I’ll start off by talking about this game's striking aesthetic. I know that many might be put off by bomber crew's whacky, cartoonish approach to WW2, but I honestly appreciate it. Considering the vast majority of recent WW2 games have been shooters that ranged from casual to realistic, it’s refreshing to play a management simulator based during ww2 that doesn’t take itself very seriously while managing to remain respectful to history.

Bomber crew also has some very solid gameplay. Don’t let the game’s artstyle lead you to believe the game’s core mechanics are simple and bland, it’s actually quite the contrary. While it’s not as complex as other management games, there are just enough unique features to provide interesting gameplay scenarios without overwhelming the player. For example, your planes’ navigator has the ability to unlock a skill known as custom navigation, which simply allows you to manually plot the course of your aircraft during its mission, which while basic, can completely change the way you execute certain missions, as you can manually avoid radar posts that the normal AI plotting system would run you right through.

As for the content and its price, I was able to purchase the base game, the USAAF dlc, and the secret weapons dlc for all under 10 dollars total(during a sale obviously). I personally think this is a steal, as the main campaign and USAAF campaign are really fun and I’ve barely touched the secret weapons campaign, yet I’ve already poured 40 hours into Bomber crew.

My feelings for Day of Infamy are to say the least, mixed.

On one hand, I enjoy and appreciate the game’s immersive ww2 atmosphere, which seems to have been achieved through some excellent sound design and attention to detail when it comes to authentic weaponry, uniforms, and locations. Thanks to this, Day of Infamy FEELS like a ww2 game, which is great.

On the other hand, Day of infamy suffers from the same sort of problems several other realistic shooters suffer from: boring realism. In this game, I feel like I just...DIE, and that’s that. In other games when I die, I feel disappointed at most, but there’s also a chance to reflect on the mistakes which I might have made to lead to my death, so I improve in the end and become a better player who dies less. In this game though, I could be sitting prone, behind cover, watching the only entrance to the room I’m in with my gun, and still just die to something I can’t deduce. Even a game I don’t really like such as heroes and generals has the common decency of giving dead players a killcam and providing a constant killfeed.

However, I find that most of the problems I just listed are usually less noticeable if you’re playing on a good map. Maps like reichwald, cortana, and Sicily are mostly fun, but the few servers that I can usually find that have players on them are running dunkirk, flak tower, dog red, and crete, all maps that I find to be very claustrophobic and tight, and being nightmares for anyone trying to make progress over open ground.

I don’t know, maybe this kind of realistic shooter just isn’t for me. Maybe I’ve been conditioned by all the fast paced shooters I've played in the past. But what I am certain of is that this game is not worth 15 dollars. Especially when you consider the abysmal player count.

This game is not good.

problems:
-The game is very clunky, each close quarter firefight is slow and almost cringe-worthy. If you play the game you know what i mean.
-It's a grind, to get any new weapons or equipment without spending real money takes forever.
-Unbalanced games. While most matches of Heroes and generals have both teams loaded with the same amount of players, it isn't unlikely that one team will have significantly more planes or tanks than the other team. Playing paratrooper on a team with no planes against a team with 3 fighters is the worst experience i have ever had in this game.
-inconvenience. If you grind for hours on a certain soldier for a certain nation, and a friend of yours who wants to play with you has done the same on a different soldier/nation, one of you is going to have to make the sacrifice of playing with a soldier you have nothing with, making all that grinding feel pointless sometimes.
-Just boring. You'll be doing a whole lot of nothing in this game. If you play as a tanker, you have to spawn your slow-moving tank at the farthest objective and slowly crawl your way to the action, all for you to potentially be killed by a tank that has been sitting in a bush for the past half hour.
-Poor map design. heroes and generals loves reusing props over and over on it's maps. Most objectives are one of three things:A house(which commonly always has the same layout) A church, or a bridge. To me atleast, this makes every map in the game feel the exact same. While you try capturing different objectives, you'll be fighting in the same house over and over.

Ubisoft is completely incapable of creating a balanced and enjoyable multiplayer competitive video game

The Phantom Sight update for siege has pushed me to a point where I can no longer ignore the absolutely garbage practices ubisoft employs to give the illusion they’re performing meaningful work to change siege for the better.

One-shot headshot mechanic: In rainbow six siege, there is a feature so ingrained in the meta that I doubt complaining will ever change it, but just in case you are a hardened player reading this, think to yourself: Does it make sense that in siege, a game where operators are balanced around “armor levels” that one shot to the head with any weapon, at any distance, to any operator with any armor level, through any number of walls kills instantly. That’s right, a 9mm pistol has the same headshot-killing potential to a 3 armor operator 100m away that a 50. cal rifle has to a one armor operator 1 meter away. Oh, just in case you thought this is a skill based feature, it’s not. Most players get headshot kills by spraying towards the chest and letting the recoil carry the bullet to the face. Even if it was skill based, not like it’d matter much anyway, as hitboxes are so broken in this game, getting headshots that make physical sense are rare.

Ubisoft pays too much attention to pro-league: It’s safe to say that Ubisoft “balances” siege around pro-league, which while it might be an effective practice in other games, not in siege. You see, when Ubisoft only listens to pros, they not only miss out on 99% of community input, but siege misses out on being fun. Ya see, pros don’t care about having fun, they care about winning, they know that tachanka, castle, and montagne are generally subpar operators, so they’re not going to push to make them fun and viable to play, they’re only going to use what’s good and see if they can make it better. Most players I think are tired of having a very small pool of operators to choose from if they actually want to win.

Ubisoft “updating” siege for the sake of updating: When it comes to sieges content updates, Ubisoft has had a strange tendency to insert content into the game that no one wanted or asked for. Such changes include:
-Running animations for certain weapons changed inexplicably every update
-Rooks armor indicator changing design-wise multiple times
-Blitz’s eyes in the selection screen changing multiple times
-Hereford’s rework
-Kafe’s rework
-Pointless UI changes in the menu
I get this feeling that when Ubisoft doesn’t know what to add in for their next season update they have a list of things that they turn to. I imagine this list provides advice telling devs to simply remake a map, add an elite skin, reuse old guns for new operators, or change what color a camera emits.


Glitches: Siege has had some rather egregious glitches in the past. But I believe Phantom Sight has exposed how truly incapable Ubisoft is when it comes to fixing them. In Burnt Horizon, a defending operator named clash was banned till Phantom Sight because there was a glitch where she could deploy her protective shield while also being able to shoot. She was unbanned upon phantom sight’s release because Ubisoft had “fixed” the issue...3 days later, a guy uploads a video of him doing the glitch again in phantom sight.

What issues I haven’t mentioned don’t even deserve their own paragraph imo, so here’s just a list of them.
-poor hitboxes
-running out defenders
-bad balancing
-Joining games
-UPLAY

Undoubtedly the greatest video game I have ever played. The movement, shooting, art style, and community of team fortress 2 are unique to only this one game.

However, it should be noted that this game was made by, and is still being "maintained" by Valve. A company which has really fallen from grace in my opinion, and it shows in the fact that this game rarely receives updates and blog posts. This lack of concern from the tf2 team shows as the game is currently plagued with hackers and bugs.

Please come back Valve. It seems you've not a clue in the world how much this game means to so many people. And you also seem ignorant as to how much this game can do for you profit wise, if you just gave it a god forsaken chance.