Recent reviews by Xavi123

HELLDIVERS 2 retains most of the same chaotic, co-op focused combat that the first game has. The rag-dolling, massive explosions, raining hell with stratagems, and friendly fire on at all times combine to create a truly comedic shooter game with a deep tactical layer underneath. Angled armor, bullet drop, penetration and ricochets being able to bounce and hit other entities is implemented in this otherwise arcadey game which allows for an appeal to both fast paced first person shooter players and more tactical shooter players.

With 9 difficulty levels to choose from, everyone is able to experience however many fiascos and pandemonia they want on a mission on a variety of planets, each with their own hazards and modifiers. With modern graphics, the performance requirements are relatively high, but very rewarding with beautiful particle effects, lighting and big booms. On top of all this even planetary phenomena is modeled, with mid-mission day and night cycles, planet orbits visible and moving, gas giants having swirling exteriors, as well as the occasional solar eclipse, add up to create a gorgeous and immersive environment in an otherwise war-torn landscape. Explosions deform terrain, trees get blasted over, structures get demolished, and massive enemies topple over or explode in their final steps.

Currently, 2 enemies are featured; a bug menace located on the right most side of the galaxy which are reminiscent of starship troopers arachnids and warhammer 40k's tyrannids, we have the Terminids which return from the first game and have evolved and are rich in an element called "E-710" which is coincidentally used to fuel Super Earth's Super destroyers. On the left side of the galaxy are the Automatons, which are absolutely and definitely in no way related to the cyborgs from the Great Galactic War and ruthlessly massacre and abduct citizens of Super Earth for their own wicked regime. Super Earth assures all citizens that there are no enemies which some call the "Illuminate" as they were exiled from the galaxy during the Great Galactic War and will surely NOT come back, anyone who spreads these rumors should be immediately reported to the ministry of truth.

Through the game's live service model, new content is periodically added in between every monthly "warbond" release which is the method in which you unlock new weaponry, armor, and other cosmetics or supports, which results in a steady stream of new content. Warbonds are basically never expiring battle passes which are progressed by gaining in game currency to unlock new warbonds and the items in them, which allows everyone to eventually unlock everything without spending any additional real life currency.

HELLDIVERS 2 is an unexpected but welcome hit to video games in 2024 and may be a strong contender for Game of The Year, though that is only my opinion. So, what are you waiting for? Why don't you make the most important decision of your life and join the Helldivers! Meet new people, travel the galaxy, and spread managed democracy throughout the galaxy in the name of Super Earth.

And just like in my review for the first game, FOR SUPER EARTH!

I'm doing my part!

Are you?

HELLDIVERS is a very enjoyable experience if you like chaos, friendly fire, and bombastic sounds and effects. Friendly fire is a major selling point, do not feel bad if you kill your teammates as you will very much one shot and be one shotted by many weapons including from your allies. The game also rewards skill and thinking under pressure, if you have played magicka you will know how Arrowhead Studios handles their coop combat games. Abilities called stratagems, are activated by inputting a series of inputs be it a D-pad on a controller or WASD, once the correct code is inputted, your character holds a beacon that you must throw to call it down wherever you wish. The fun part begins here, as you unlock deadlier stratagems, the danger for you and your allies increases as well. You can call down support weapons like anti-tank weapons and heavy machine guns, and end up being able to call down artillery barrages, missile strikes, napalm walls, heavy cannon strafing runs, and then a tactical nuke. Enemies are relentless and will not stop spawning throughout the entire mission, that is if you are spotted. The stealth in HELLDIVERS is all about blasting the patrols before they detect you instead of sneaking. Once you are detected, the enemies will spawn near the edges of your screen or sometimes on top of you and then things get intense. Those stratagems from earlier are very useful here and inputting the codes under fire and in the ensuing chaos is something that will save you, your team, and the mission, that is if you don't throw it at your feet.

HELLDIVERS does have a fair amount of references and easter eggs to many pop-culture and science-fiction works, like novels, films, or other video games. Admittedly, the game is lacking in lore and background, and there is no story, but it is meant as a couch coop twin-stick shooter and lack of story here is not a drawback.

The skill ceiling is high, and players who can input codes quickly, clutch a revive stratagem, or know what to do in different situations will help their team and finish missions. You will get killed A LOT, and you will kill your teammates, A LOT, but as long as one player is alive, they can call down a revive stratagem so all hope is not lost. The game rewards cooperation and performing under pressure, as the enemies and your weapons are very deadly. You are still just a human in the end, and the enemies will stop at nothing to use what is available to them to kill you, as you will use what you have to do the same to them.

Join the helldivers! Spread Managed Democracy throughout the galaxy! Become more than you are, become a Hero, Become, a Legend!

FOR SUPER EARTH!!!

A pretty cool naval space combat game, the gameplay allows for a good variety of fleets and strategies with the ship editing and modules available currently. There are 3 types of weapons, with Kinetic like cannons and railguns, Missiles which are also modular and allow for a few different types of seekers or having 2, and then Beams either in a spinal mount in destroyers or as a turret. These tools allow you to engage at the ranges you want and provide you with the playstyle you enjoy.

The maps are laid out in a way that allows flanking and ambushing with the use of stealth and hiding from enemy radars (or at least trying to, it is hard to pull off in gameplay). With the radar systems, there is also Electronic Warfare, with radar jamming as well as comms jamming (not for control but preventing fire control locks from being transmitted and such). Combat also includes a ship intelligence system, basically the longer you have an enemy detected, the more stats you will know like the overall condition of the ship and whether its in command or has no engine power.

It is a game that can be on the slower side as the ships are relatively slow, and do feel as though they have mass but once combat begins, it can start and end quite quickly or drag out for minutes. Pretty fun with the many fleet builds you can make and the odd and unexpected events that can happen in battle.

Rimworld is a phenomenal colony sim which remains simplistic and accessible while having some deep underlying systems. The core gameplay allows for a lot of replayability which can always be spiced up with self-imposed challenges or extreme hardcore playthrough's with permadeath. Combat is simple and are dice rolls for hit chances, but injuries sustained are a lot more variable with limb-specific damage affecting different aspects of your colonists (pawns) with bionic replacements and enhancements available later in the game. The map is seed-based and generates up to an entire planet with every tile on it differing in conditions, temperatures, and terrain that fall into biomes. The AI storyteller is a major selling point of the game, they evaluate the overall value of your colony and recent events whether good or bad to influence how large raids or punishing events will be so even if you take a big loss you may still have a chance to recover. There are 3 storytellers in the base game that attempt to dictate how your colony is built alongside parameters to change general difficulty and other factors.

That was only mentioning some important core game concepts and base game, if that wasn't enough then you can look towards mods. Rimworld is one of those games where you can find a mod for almost anything you would want (probably). Modders create QOL mods, overhauls, extensions, additions, and other mods that allow you to fine tune your experience all for free on the workshop.

There is a lot more to cover, but that would be for you to experience yourself as you make human leather cowboy hats and watch your colonists get one-tapped by a murderous robot, or your own super-soldier colonist that just went on a rampage.

My favorite game and one that I have known for a long time. It has amazing educational value with realistic physics and aerodynamics, as well as good portrayal of thrust, mass and forces. Add in funny green men, and that leads to the perfect blend of entertainment and simulation.

The amount of mods that KSP offers is vast, with some that allow you to flick switches and press buttons inside the pods, to complete overhauls of game systems. There are many mods that add new parts to the game, probably totaling to over a thousand of new parts collectively. There are many highly detailed graphical enhancement mods, changing atmosphere effects and exhaust plumes as well as improving object sight at further distances.

Vanilla KSP offers a complete star system, "Kerbol" that you can explore and travel to each planet and moon, as well as even going into a gas giant if you wish, though results may be interesting. Orbital mechanics are obviously a major factor in spaceflight, and are displayed pretty well in KSP although you are only affected by one bodies Sphere Of Influence at a time.

Kerbal Space Program is an amazing game, it presents a very complicated subject, and turns it into an entertaining but still mostly realistic experience.

P.S. Beware the Deep Space Kraken...

Arma 3 is a great game in the milsim genre, and has amazing replayability with the level of customization in mods, I love games that are realistic and Arma 3 is one that shines in the category. The game features basic ballistics and armor penetration for vehicles and objects, you can zero your weapon to make aiming at long distances easier. Your character has stamina which is proportional to the amount of scope sway you experience and how long you can sprint for, with weight being the limiter on what determines your maximum stamina.

There are many stances available to utilize and master to position yourself to make the most out of your cover. When you are standing, you can lean to the left or right by pressing and holding q and e as well as holding left Ctrl and then pressing "w" "a" "s" or "d" which are default controls to step left, step right, look higher or get a bit lower. While crouching you can also step left or right, and get lower and higher. When you are prone the actions switch up; instead of stepping left or right you lie on your side and when you press the leaning keys, you perform a roll instead from the prone position. going to the absolute lowest stance makes your character attempt to present the smallest profile of themselves in front of you.

Different calibers do different damage and bullet trajectory differs. Shooting different limbs cause related effects, being injured in the arm increases your scope sway, being injured in the legs causes reduced speed, a headshot that doesn't hit your helmet will instantly kill you. There is an armor system where damage will vary depending on where you have been hit, the level of your armor, and if the projectile even hit your armor in the first place.

The AI is smart but can also be very lacking as well as sometimes just annoying. Their aiming is too random which will lead to you sometimes avoiding 30 shots from them or getting instantly killed by 1 shot to the head. They have good squad tactics when on foot as they perform flanking maneuvers sometimes and have different formations.

Barotrauma is an in-depth game and is very fun with friends but is alright in single player with the help of bots, the game is set under the crust of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. You traverse an ocean inside of various submarines that can be chosen from a list of vanilla or workshop subs you can download.

Barotrauma is a game of many features:

Weapon variety and Combat, you can kill enemies and your friends in many ways which can vary from guns mounted on subs, to handheld firearms, harpoon guns, melee weapons, and an assortment of grenades types. Harpoons guns can have their harpoons recovered after firing. Revolvers are a good backup weapon and can be used with one hand. Assault rifles take up a backpack/toolbelt slot but are all rounders and do good damage. The HMG is the ultimate handheld weapon with a massive DPS but has expensive ammo, but the cost shouldn't be an issue at the point you acquire it. For melee, you can use knives, two handed boarding axes, stun batons, and even using your tools in an emergency.

Traitors can be enabled in multiplayer servers in which a player will be selected at random and must complete a separate objective that is either to sabotage or kill the crew, the normal crew can choose to either kill or restrain the traitor to prevent another appearing, as if the current traitor dies, someone else is selected as traitor.

The health system is in-depth, there are many healing items, poisons, buffing drugs and chemicals in that can be good, bad, or cause side effects, there are many poisons that will kill you or do other things, there are items that will speed you up or make you stronger. The health system is limb based which will affect your performance relating to the location. Once you lose your health, you go into an unconscious state where you stop breathing and lose control of your character, players will have to perform CPR to revive you from oxygen loss or use medical items to heal you to sufficient health for you to regain consciousness.

Classes, there are different roles and sub-roles. The Captain sails the ship and commands it, engineers operate the reactor and repair electrical items, mechanics repairs mechanical items and fix hull breaches, security officer are effective at attacking hostiles in the sub and aiming turrets, medics which heal people and an assistants which are not very good but are decent at all skills.

Alien Creatures, there is a good amount of creatures that inhabit the ocean with some having variations. They vary from small monsters that can enter your sub and kill your crew from the inside, to massive behemoths that can destroy hull segments in one hit.

i dont play this game much but its a pretty good game it would be cool if they add 2v2 battles

Space engineers is a game that has some realistic physics aspects and deformation of blocks and you can build lots of different ships and bases. When you crash ships, all the parts that were hit have dents that can create holes you can go through. There is also terrain deformation when you mine. There a quite a bit of bugs which are really annoying and still haven't been fixed even some that have been in the game for very long times. The jetpack rotation assist has never really helped me and usually impairs me more and it can't be disabled either.

Update: I no longer like the developers and game as much as I used to since they are now only putting out updates that restrict half of the content with DLC although mostly just cosmetic some still do have functioning blocks that don't have a non-paid counterpart in the base game. It's a good game but the developers have flooded it with paid DLC.