Senaste recensioner av RaNdOmKiLs666

It's an alright game, kind of like an auto battler version of the old HOMM games. But it does have some issues that'd I'd like to see fixed.


PROS:

- Many different factions, thus allowing different ways to play.

- Lots of different units, that have different abilities.

- Retro graphics mostly looks nice, but some sprites seem much higher quality then others, which can look a bit odd and inconsistent.

- Music is ok, sounds like HOMM music. However, it can get a bit boring after a while, so maybe add some more sound tracks.


CONS


- Bad/Cheating AI. This is the biggest issue the game has. I will say that the cheating/braindead AI needs a rework, they're far too stupid and cheat way too much, like we're talking Creative Assembly levels of cheating AI here. AI Summoning armies out of thin air and getting free resources. Just make a competent AI and you won't have to resort to giving it cheats. Like if it really must cheat only give it those cheats on the max difficulty.

- Bugs. There's some bugs in the game. I have had a couple of crashes. So Hopefully that continues to get ironed out.

- Frame Rate has a meltdown sometimes. Hopefully some more performance optimisation can be done to improve this. I did see it got better in a recent update, but I think there's probably still room for improvement.

- Some balance issues. Nothing too crazy, but some factions seem straight up better then others. I have played them all a few games each to gauge how they play.

- Releasing a DLC when the base game is missing content is not smart. I read that there was meant to be a campaign in the base game, but it's not there? So I'm not sure what happened with that. The dev should probably finish the base game before releasing a DLC.


VERDICT:

Now, should you buy the game? Well that depends.

I'd say if you played the old Heroes of Might & Magic games, yes. Buy it. It's worth it for the nostalgia alone, even if the game is a bit rough around the edges and suffers from dumb AI.

As for those who have not played the old heroes games, I'll leave it up to you to make your own decision. I mostly bought it because of it reminding me of the old HOMM games and while it's not perfect, it's not bad either.

If steam had a neutral rating, that's what I'd give it.

Pretty fun game to play. You can smash in lots of 'eads and slice off limbs, it's very chaotic at times as well, especially in 64 player servers.


PROS:

- The melee combat feels meaty and good.

- Decent amount of maps and game modes

- Nice Variety of weapons (could always use more)

- 4 classes (with 3 sub classes for each class) that play a bit differently from each other.

- Players can pick up quite a fair few random items from the enviroment and use them as a weapon, which is pretty funny. See that candle holder? You can pick it up and bash someones skull with it. There's quite a few stranger ones, like using a fish or chicken as a weapon.


NEUTRALS:

- Premium Currency. This is a gaming sin by default imo and usually would go into the cons section for merely existing. Luckily in Chiv 2's case it pretty much doesn't matter in this game. Premium currency is only for super lazy people that couldn't be bothered to earn and unlock cosmetic stuff with the in-game gold currency. So it gets away with a neutral in this case.

- Content trickle seems a bit slow going off of what some other people have said

- Archers are annoying to get shot by and kind of feel weak to play as at the same time, not sure what to make of them to be honest.


CONS:

- Some minor bugs, like hit detection issues or physics bugs.

- Some balancing issues.

- Lacks a dedicated Player vs AI co-op mode.


Overall I'd say this game is worth the money, but I'd try and get it on sale, (like it is at the time of this review) as the base price is a bit steep imo. It's great if you want some hectic and chaotic medieval fun, there is a decent amount of tactics involved, but the skill floor is relatively low, so even beginners should be able to have a good time while they are learning the game. As for the skill ceiling, it is decently high, so you'll have plenty of room to get better and improve at the game.

Lastly regarding the Special Edition, It is only really useful if you want the armour skins that come with it, the other items like the premium currency and gold are not needed, gold can be earned fairly fast in-game and can be used to unlock all of the cosmetics except for what's in the special edition. So in other words get the normal edition if you don't want the Special Edition cosmetics.

Short review, It's a pretty good government sim and you should get it if running a government interests you.

A bit longer review

You can run countries in quite a few different ways, like making super-capitalist states, where everything can be bought for a price or do the opposite and make a socialist haven where the government helps its citizens where ever it can. These are just a couple of examples of how you can run a nation, there's plenty of other styles of government that are possible in the game. There's no way to play a full-on autocratic government, but there are some autocratic policies.

Overall I recommend this game to those who have always wanted to run a country in their own way, weather that be from their own political/moral beliefs or just want to see what would happen if you ran a country in a certain way.

If you've played Holdfast, this game is pretty much that game, but better in a lot of ways. I will compare it to that game quite a bit since they're so similar.

PROS:

- Overall fun to play

- Graphics are ok, bit better then Holdfasts.

- Nice map variety.

- Many different game modes.

- Good bullet physics simulation.

- Some structures and objects are destructible.

- Content Road map looks good.


NEUTRALS:

- Music is fitting, but can get a bit repetitive after a while.

- Needs more Siege maps (personally the Siege mode is my favourite)


CONS

- The weapons are not as accurate as they should be right now, so hopefully that gets changed. Rifles, shotguns, revolvers etc can miss targets that are standing like 10 meters away.

- Melee is just as clunky and janky as Holdfasts.

- There's some bugs.

- Optimization could be better, when there's big battles and lots of smoke and other effects going on the frame rate nosedives.

It's a pretty good roguelite for 4 bucks. Simple, but fun.

The skeleton for a great game is there, it just needs more content and refinement. As for right now, it's an alright experience, didn't encounter any major bugs or glitches so far. The ai needs some work, they just seem to run away a lot, even when they have a clear advantage in numbers or types of ships.

Would I recommend it in its current state?: Sure, it's worth a buy, especially for those who are into naval games. Just be aware that the game is only like 50% complete and it'll probably take a year or two to be finished.


EDIT: 26, Jan, 2023

Well it seems like the clown excutives have deemed the game finished and released it from early access almost a year earlier then what was planned. The game is still in a buggy and unfinished state. What a disgrace, changing my review to negative to reflect this so-called "finished product".

EDIT2: 22, Nov, 2023:

So the devs are still working on the game and they didn't just abandon it for another project, so that's definitely a good thing. I will commend them for that, however the clown executives remain just that.

The game has improved quite a lot since the forced release back in January, many content additions, gameplay improvements, bug fixes, performance fixes etc have been done since then, which has turned the game into a much better product overall, I hope they can keep updating the game for a while longer. One big problem does need fixing and that's the load time when starting up a new campaign, it can take over 20 minutes to start up in the later years.

Anyway, I guess I'll change my review back to positive since they did keep working on it and not abandon it.

I'll keep this review short and simple.

It reminds me of the old army men games on the PS1/PS2. So it has nostalgia factor to it.

The game is pretty rough (not super buggy, but kind of janky in some areas) in its current state, but pretty fun too and I'm sure it'll improve and get better over time.

Map variety in conquest mode and skirmish is pretty limited right now, but there's a decent amount of invasion (wave defence) maps.

There's also Workshop support for custom maps, but the editor is really janky and annoying to use right now.

Not much more to say really, get it for some arcadey fun.

PROS:

- Pretty unique game concept.

- Each Overlord offers a different playstyle. Ravager is direct, Puppetmaster is about control and getting the villagers to kill each other, Lich can do a bit of both and specializes in raising the dead and plagues.

- Simple but decent soundtrack (although could use more variety depending on what's happening, like if you raid a village or get attack by angels etc)


NEUTRALS:

- Graphics and sound design are basic, but get the job done.


CONS:

- Difficulty feels a bit easy and there's no way to change that currently, i.e no difficulty levels sliders.


VERDICT: 8/10
Overall it's a good "god" simulator game where you play as the bad guys and terrorize NPC villages.

**PROS**


- Good tactical gameplay, lots of different tactics can be used. There's always more then one way to tackle different scenarios.

- Nice soundtrack.

- Performance is great. Simple 3D graphics mean pretty much any potato can run it.

- Lots of missions made by the devs and thousands more made by the community.

- Very well designed map creator. You can make pretty much any sort of map you can think up.

- AI is decent

- Devs are friendly and good at what they do.


**CONS:**

- Soundtrack can be a bit repetitive

- Placeholder voicelines


VERDICT: I highly recommend this game for both fans of casual and hardcore tactical games.

Despite Sprockets early state in development, it's easily one of the best vehicle crafting games I've ever played and that's saying a lot since the game isn't anywhere near finished, there's 2 years worth of stuff on the roadmap planned.

I've always wanted a dedicated tank builder type game and so I'd definitely recommend this game to people who enjoy vehicle crafting games or are just interested in tanks and armoured vehicles in general.