Recent reviews by ThreeDucksInAManSuit

Reminds me of Atlas Reactor a bit. Unique heroes in X-COM style grid combat.

Sound needs work, voice acting varies between acceptable and atrocious.

Gameplay is closer to puzzle than tactical; If that makes sense. You can see what range each enemy has and what threat they can bring to where next turn so it's less of a cover and tactical positioning and more of a puzzling out the right combo of abilities to let you get through the situation.

Winning standard matches has been somewhat easy so far, getting all the challenges makes it harder, which you are going to want to do since those challenges let you improve your heroes.

All up: Do recommend.

Game is great, strategic mix of RPG and RTS with no seams between the two.

Great story, average voice acting, dense world filled with lore...

Some of the bugs in this game felt like awakening dread Cthulhu. Ancient monsters from deep within the code, long aslumber, rising up to be a nuisance.

Also some of the times you will have to wait while your characters march across half the level are tedious.

Other than that, lot of fun to be had, do recommend.

You will notice the vaSt majoriTy of nEgAtive reviews are taLking about Ubisoft being garbage and the DRM and launcher policy beIng player hosTile.

They are absolutely correct, but the game is also great, find another way.

I ummed and ahhed about recommending or not because there is a lot to like here and those who enjoy the game are justified in doing so.

It's just such a step down from Bioshock 1 and 2 that I couldn't bring myself to recommend in the end.


The good:
Sense of atmosphere is immaculate. Whatever my critisisms, Columbia is wonderfully realised. Art direction is amazing and there is always something to look at.

Voice acting work is stellar across the board. The main villain can be a little hammy, but I'm just comparing him to the refined menace of Andrew Ryan and that's just not fair.

Most characters are very well done, with Elizabeth in particular being effortlessly likable. I was shaking in horror when I realised a good proportion of this game was going to be an escort quest until I read the words 'you do not need to protect Elizabeth, she can look after herself' phew...
She hands you items and goes through a pretty absorbing character arc.


The bad:
Far more linear than previous games, this was all direct paths and scripted arenas, very little room for organic exploration and encounters.

You can only hold two guns... just why? The variety of weird steampunk weapons you could carry in B1 and 2 was some of the biggest appeal. In Bioshock 2 I had a spear gun that could launch rocket propelled spears that would pick up human sized enemys and fly back with them until they hit a wall and exploded. Here you can get the most boring, rote series of sniper, shotgun, pistol yaaaaawn.

The resurrection system means you can get trapped in a deathloop. During the Lady Comstock fight I found myself without resources, respawning back into the fight to die again and again with no guns, ammo or salt. I still am not sure how I managed to get through it.

Enemies are bullet sponges. Elite enemies are just more spongy. Even on hard difficulty the big daddies in Bioshock 1 and 2 had surprisingly little health, they were threatening in other ways. I felt like a matador corralling a dangerous bull, the slightest slip up on his side or mine costing either greatly.
I fought a handyman and it felt like thawing an iceblock with a hairdryer.

The story is baby's first alternate timeline mind♥♥♥♥ with its head so far up its own ass it's sniffing its own large intestine. Riddled with plot holes it tries to hide by throwing more nonsensical twists and turns designed to catch you in its flow and get you to stop questioning, just assume something clever is happening. No, sometimes the reason you aren't understanding the story is because it really is just that stupid.


Final thoughts: This game is a theme park ride that's all shine and no substance. Still fun to be had, but the step down from previous entries is a massive disappointment.

It's the best one, fight me.

Ignore my playtime, I've played the non remastered version as well as on console when it came out.

B2 continues the unparalleled sense of atmosphere the original paved but improves the gameplay and adds new elements to Rapture. The story felt original and the father daughter relationship between your mute self and your distant psychic possibly messianic daughter are the best in the series, sorry Elizabeth, you deserved a better game.

I can talk about story and atmosphere and all that good stuff all day, and Bioshock 2 nails it all, but it's the gameplay that really makes the difference between a good and bad game. I've played good games that had poor story but good gameplay. I've never played a good game with bad gameplay.
Different guns, ammo types and plasmids make the variety of stuff you can do add up to an incredible package. By the mid game you feel like the love child of a space marine, the predator and rambo. All without sacrificing difficulty. It's a fantastic feeling.

The collection mechanic gives you a stage to lavish your environmental control on, setting traps, hacking machines and just generally making the city your web and you the deadly spider within it.

10/10

I played this with a friend for a while. Then we bought Civ VI and the added complexity and options of that game made me think I wouldn't be going back.

That was a while ago, I'm still playing Gladius, I don't have Civ installed any more.

There's something to a more tactical hex based game that appeals; no diplomacy, in the grim dark future of the 41st millennium, we exterminate the enemy or we die.

Turns go quick and there are quite a few options for how to play each faction, I never felt locked in.

You get to exterminate an entire space marine chapter's worth of marines and then cuck them out of their homeworld, which is a plus in my book. Kneel to the might of the necrons meatbags.

Negative points: Some animations are borked. Larger units can use a stomp ability which is literally just playing the running animation over an enemy hex and back again, it looks super goofy. The astra militarum basilisk fires its shots into orbit but somehow hits the ground, ect ect.

Sometime games can feel like they are won or lost in the first forty or so turns. Either the enemy finds you first and you are quickly overwhelmed or you find them and realise you will have no problems rolling over them. This is solvable with a bit of playing around in game settings until you find a good balance.

None of those are deal breakers and I very much recommend Gladius.

Cute and very absorbing gameplay loop.

Art and play is very simplistic, straightforward, but they have done a great deal with it.

The best part is that it's single player, which means you can go through the entire thing without having to hear anyone tell you about how much better New Vegas is.

Proceduraly generated levels which actually feel like they add something to the game instead of just being a gimick, creating an organic feel to every map.

Fantastic gameplay with difficulty levels for every skill level.

JOLLY CO-OPERATION

Awesome toolsets for every character no matter what you choose.

Multiple viable ways to play, no overwhelming meta bogging everything down.

Varied game types, always something new.

Reasonable price tag, no predatory microtransactions, fantastic devs, non toxic community.


This is it... guys, this one is the unicorn.

At some point, a dev said: "This game is gonna be about one thing, one thing only, and we're gonna do that one thing well".