45
Products
reviewed
498
Products
in account

Recent reviews by ಠ_ಠ Exil

< 1  2  3  4  5 >
Showing 1-10 of 45 entries
4 people found this review helpful
1.3 hrs on record
Really great demo, we don't have enough Rebuild type games on the market and I'm glad with how the game is shaping out. A shame that the prologue is so short, it made me want to play more, can't begin to imagine how the full release will be.
Posted October 20, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
No one has rated this review as helpful yet
41.1 hrs on record (32.8 hrs at review time)
As a newcomer to the series I'm very please with this game. Fast paced, a lot of customization, difficult (sometimes a bit too much) and it comes with your own personal voice inside your head to make you think you've gone schizo. Extra point for allowing me to duel it.

I'm also glad the game allowed me to immortalize my mech builds (save them) after killing bosses that kept me company for at least an hour.
Posted August 28, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
22 people found this review helpful
29.5 hrs on record (26.7 hrs at review time)
At the end of the day this is Endless Space without the Space and its factions. I don't know how to feel about that but I will make a breakdown on it:

The Good
  • The map is very good looking
  • I really enjoy the culture mechanics, it brings a fresh new take on the 4x gameplay
  • The combat is really fun, it adds a whole new level of strategic layer and its much more interesting than Civ's blobs of units that whose animations you disable after a few games (or turns)
  • Starting without a city and building your nation from ancient era, scavenging for food is a really nice touch which again spices things up and makes replaying more interesting
  • Having territory sectors instead of your city expanding into hexes is also an interesting mechanic, on top of that building outwards with districts makes it all the more interesting. It's nice to not have builders for once and not having to micro / worry about them each turn
  • Having to buy the right to build a Wonder with influence and not allowed to buy the right to another wonder until you built the previous one is great. Rather than a race to who builds it first its a race to who can buy it first and I strangely like it more.
  • Strategic resources aren't held by constructing specific units. For example, a Cavalry unit requires 1 horse resources but by building that unit you won't lose that resource. You can build as many units as you want as long as their cost is 1 horse. That's much better than Civ honestly.

The not Good but not Bad
  • Map generation is strange, Strategic and Luxury resource placement is very strange. When using standard spawn settings (default) it feels like the game doesn't spawn enough of these resources and when it spawns them it congregates them at the poles rather than dispersing them evenly throughout the map. Like I said before, these resources aren't really needed to much, at most you need 2-3 of everything to build anything you want, but their spawns on the map is terrible.

The Bad
  • The game calendar is immersion breaking. Why am I in the modern era during the 1400's? Why am I in the medieval era when it should be the Classical era? It feels like the game is missing eras, the Contemporary era (last one) starts in mid to late 1600's, its really jarring but not game breaking. I marked it as a bad because it is for me.
  • The AI is strange. 4 out of 5 games I'd have 1 to 3 AI's that would just snowball out of control and advance way beyond player control. Civ6 has this, but not THIS bad. Because of this they will dictate the flow of the game mid to late game, units become obsolete really fast (which is both good and bad) and if the AI is way ahead of you in the era race its pretty much game over.
  • To explain the previous point more, despite liking the culture mechanic this is still and Endless game. That means that Industry is king. Early game if you don't get a culture that has industry or food stats its going to be a really harsh uphill battle from mid-game onwards. Military till Medieval age is useless, the AI won't go on the offensive that early, the worst you'll deal with is barbarians and you just ignore those, Science is only good as a 2nd or 3rd culture (not first), money is useless till late game. Like in all Endless games. But it somehow feels worse than Endless Space? Maybe its just me. And yes, the player can also snowball out of control if he picks the right cultures.

Do I recommend the game? If you've played the Endless series, yea. If you've never played Civ, yea. If you've played Civ, are tired of it and want a fresh take on the series, yea. But only on sale.

I hope the devs iterate on this if they ever release a sequel, improve the culture's so that they are all viable and do something about the Industry meta of their series. It worked in Endless Space, but it's not that great here. It kills replay value if every game I need to stack up industry to do something.
Posted July 18, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
No one has rated this review as helpful yet
26.9 hrs on record
Good game, story was interesting and kept my attention till the end. For a survival city builder it does what it's supposed to do quite nicely, though it doesn't have an endless mode and I'm not sure how one would work as by the end of the campaign I was swimming in resources (played on medium difficulty) and having unlocked all sectors with food being nicely distributed between all of them the only problem I could have were alloys eventually running out.

Some elements in the tech tree don't really seem to have a point (never researched them as they seemed useless, especially the last tech line, I grabbed only the power plant), the stability items of the tech tree seem to only be useful at the start when you don't really know what you're doing and they take up way too much space to make them worthwhile. I don't understand why we need to receive -1 to stability if we stay in a system too long, would make sense if the system was dangerous but even if I could manage through it I still would have liked the game to be without that gimmick. Some exploration events force you to save scum because they aren't really clear in hinting if they will kill your explorers or not, would be nice if they gave a clearer hint.

I never felt like the game was rushing me, even with the -1 stability by staying in a system too long I never really felt like I was rushed. The only time I did rush through a system / chapter was because of my bad management that left me with no metals for repair and had to leave for a new system to get more.

It has small flaws, they don't detract from the overall experience and because of that I recommend the game, especially if its on sale. Curious to see if they will add an endless mode or not and if they do how it will work.
Posted July 6, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
No one has rated this review as helpful yet
30.2 hrs on record (16.5 hrs at review time)
Update: Great game with terrible ending mission / ending in general. I still recommend playing the game, its worth going from start to finish. But man, that ending is garbage. Devs, you could have done so much better, did you run out of time?

Original: I'm almost half-way through the game, trying my best to complete every map and not losing a single marine. I love this game. As a fan of the Aliens franchise I never through that a blend of Aliens + XCOM could work so well.

The game is positively atmospheric, it oozes atmosphere and keeps you tense despite having a (somewhat) top-down view of the battlefield. Because of the motion tracker you feel encouraged to try and skirt around the aliens and avoid their patrols but eventually one of them will spot you or you will mess up in your command. And then, the combat starts. It's so fun to try and move your marines and keep them firing so that they don't get swarmed, using abilities to put distance or dropping a sentry and praying they deploy it fast enough, before that Praetorian reaches you. Its so fun.

There are some bugs sadly, like a marine getting stuck somewhere or his pathfinding breaking down. This happened to me only twice and luckily it didn't ruin the run. I've had the UI for a marine break down at one point and it just fixed itself by changing the map, nothing game breaking so far but the devs are working to fix them and I'm confident they will iron them out eventually.
Posted June 22, 2023. Last edited June 26, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
1 person found this review helpful
20.8 hrs on record
I've never played the original System Shock so I cannot say how faithful the remake is to the original, but based on what others are saying on the forums its extremely faithful. With that being said, I love this game, I went in blind (doubly so not having played the original) and got lost a few times, backtracked and then got back on track.

From start to finish I enjoyed it, had just 1 crash in my 20 hours of game time and a few FPS drops during 1 (very short) section. The gunplay is fun, the puzzles are challenging but fun, the atmosphere is amazing and the story is top notch. As someone that loves System Shock 2 I love this Remake just as much.

I'm glad Nightdive made this remake. I fully recommend it.
Posted June 1, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
1 person found this review helpful
314.8 hrs on record
Make no mistake, this game has turned into a pay 2 progress type of deal, which is even worse than your typical pay 2 win stuff.
Posted May 22, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
No one has rated this review as helpful yet
190.6 hrs on record (36.6 hrs at review time)
I will most likely redo my review in a few months when more content comes out, but as of now (3 chapters released and completed) I do feel like its worth leaving my opinions on this game.

First, if you're only after the main story campaign it would take you around 20 or so hours to do. Give or take around 6 depending on how fast you learn the game mechanics and how well you understand them.

Second, apart from the final boss I've finished everything before their respective nerfs, so like a lot of reviews I am inclined to say (more so now than then) that you do not need to spend a single dime to beat the story. All it takes is a bit of patience and knowledge of game mechanics and you'll be good. Should you still have issues you can also send a friend request to anyone in the game and use 1 of their characters in your battles (as a support character).

With that out of the way - the short of it is this: the game is good.

It's an interesting take on turn-based tactics that reminded me at first of Darkest Dungeon but instead of fighting eldrich horrors (at certain points) you're fighting this universe's equivalent of an SCP. It's fun and its free, well worth a shot if you have nothing to do, it might hook you or it might not.

The story is interesting, you don't really need to have played the previous games in the series as Limbus Company will explain a lot of stuff so you're never in the dark. It is good to have previous knowledge as you'll understand tidbits here and there and make the experience even greater but it is not a requirement.

The combat and mechanics can be a bit hard to understand for newcomers at first (who have not played Library of Ruina) but after going from one combat encounter to another you will get to understand the mechanics one by one. Whenever you fail a fight and retry you will get to understand why you failed and how to do better.

It is important to remember that this is, at the end of the day, a gacha game. I will say however that while playing it I never felt that it was one. Although there is a stamina system, from the moment I started the game until the final boss, I've not ran out of stamina and could play without having to be forced to wait for it to regenerate. Whether this changes in the future or not remains to be seen, but so far, it is not a problem.

The same goes for the cash shop (gacha pulls). You'd think that you would hit a wall at some point that requires you to spend money to be able to progress, but like I said at the start, I've not encountered a wall that made me spend money. The company is also relatively generous with handing out free currency to use, thus giving you the opportunity to roll for new identities (characters) if you so desire. Just remember that the game can be completed with what it gives you from the beginning, do not fall into the gacha pit.

I honestly recommend playing the game (especially because its free) regardless of what preconceived notions you might have of gacha's. The story is good, the combat is fun and I can already see that whatever else they add in the game later down the line will just elevate the experience.
Posted April 5, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
No one has rated this review as helpful yet
72.3 hrs on record (54.2 hrs at review time)
Into the Radius is one of the two games that made me want to buy a VR Kit just so I can play them and I do not regret this decision. The game delivers what I had hoped for and even more on top of that.

The atmosphere is top notch, the gun play is fun and the enemies can be creepy to fight against (more so in the dark than in the light), though they lose some of their charm after several hours of gameplay with some of them becoming an annoyance (spawns) and others becoming your nightmare in tight corridors (armored mimics with shotguns).

Now that I've completed the story (non-ironman) I felt like it was a good time to leave a review.

I've not played a lot of VR games but after playing ITR with their inventory system I don't know if I'll ever be satisfied with any other type of inventory system. Its more interactive than anything I could have imagined and although it could be a bit tedious to sift through it after a long haul I wouldn't want it done in any other way.

The maps are also very well done and interesting although I would have preferred if there were more maps to play through. Their size is alright, not too small nor too big, some could have been larger in my opinion but I would prefer more maps rather than a resize of the current ones. There devs have put so much lore into their world, its a shame to not expand the radius with more zones for players to explore.

And this brings me to the second point, the enemies (again). Although their variety is ok-ish for the current maps it still feels like they could have added more types. They already had some strange looking entities like the Spawn or Slider, why not go a step beyond that and create other entities that are unnatural and creepy? And the Slider, to have only 1 constrained to a single map (well, 2 if you count the last map) is a shame. Something about it is more unsettling than the Spawn, more enemies like that would do wonders for this game.

And finally, the story. (if you are looking to play the game don't look over the text tagged with spoiler, this one is more for the devs than potential buyers)

The story drew me in more than the initial look and feel of the game. Just like STALKER I was hooked on what could be at the end. The small bits of story you'd get after every main mission had me guessing so much. Was I rewriting the past? Was I interfering with a parallel dimension? Was I creating the radius over and over again in different realities? After a certain point I even decided to slow down my main story progress so I wouldn't finish the game that fast, despite wanting more story I refrained from powering through.

To say that I was a bit disappointed at the end is an understatement. Its not a bad conclusion to the story but each piece of story you got after every main mission seemed to direct the conclusion towards a different kind of direction, not what we got here. The last zone with the scattered papers drilling into you the ending nullified everything up until that point and when the ending came, although a let down, by that point it was expected.

I'm not sure if the devs would ever plan to rewrite the ending but judging by other reviewers I do believe that if they'd ever decide to release a story dlc with more maps and enemies people would gladly pay for it. I know I would. I'd gladly fork over more cash for more content.

The game is worth the asking price, for the amount of hours I spent I can't believe I paid so little. A lot of non-VR games at this price end up being finished and forgotten after a few days, but not ITR, I will remember this game for years to come and will judge all survival VR games based on ITR.
Posted October 13, 2022. Last edited October 13, 2022.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
2 people found this review helpful
261.1 hrs on record (6.9 hrs at review time)
Early Access Review
This game is pretty much a part of what I always wanted from 4x games, though having that said its not newcomer friendly and I say this even as someone that's played a lot of older 4x games that were not as streamlined and user friendly as current ones such as Crusader Kings 3, Stellaris or Hearts of Iron 4.

For the point above I'd only recommend the game (at this point in time during EA) to a) hardcore 4x fans, b) people that have the time and patience to learn the mechanics and c) people that played the demo, enjoyed it and want to support the devs.

In these few hours of gameplay I'm only 3 years into the game with 1 station in low orbit of Earth and Moon and 1 moon base. Nowhere near early-mid game, it still feels early game, but despite that I feel like I need to bring some criticism for the devs / bad points of the game for potential buyers.

1. The Tutorial needs an overhaul. The current tutorial tries its best to explain things but its still severely lackluster and I found it easier to just experiment and learn as I go than read what the devs have put in. This game needs to hold your hand whenever you do something new for the first time. And I don't mean a text pop up explaining things, the game needs to guide you visually on what you must do each step of the way (again, for the first time).

Alternatively you can also give the choice to the player on how hand-holdy your tutorial is, for example like Total War Warhammer does it (nothing, minimal, medium or what I like to call "this is my first rodeo, walk me through each step").

2. The UI needs a rework. This works hand in hand with the tutorial I mentioned above, there is a lot of mouse hovering over things to get tooltips to understand what you need to do but this is where it fails. Take Nation Priorities, there's a massive list of priorities you can choose from and each influence a certain aspect of the nation. The only way to see what each priority influences what is by selecting each and every one of them and then choosing. This becomes tedious when you forget (and you will) what they do later down the line.

There is a Codex in the game and there is an entry for Priorities (and Economy) but why the devs haven't added each priority in the codex to let us know what they influence is a mystery to me. At the same time, this is why the UI needs an overhaul, why not have the changes appear as you mouse over each priority rather than selecting it?

Other than that in these few hours I've played I've not ran into any bugs or crashes and being still early in the game I've not noticed any performance issues, so I cannot comment on that yet.

But, like I said in the beginning this is the type of game I always wanted from the 4x genre (so my end opinion is rather biased), its innovative and I applaud the devs for undertaking this. The sheer scale of things happening at the same time once you get a foothold and start unlocking tech just gives you that "one more round" feel you get from Civilization games (even though this game is not turn based).

And to top it off, the solar system is massive (if you chose it to be massive) and I've yet to even scratch the surface of it, just zooming out and seeing the potential targets I can exploit gives me great joy.
Posted September 27, 2022. Last edited September 27, 2022.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
< 1  2  3  4  5 >
Showing 1-10 of 45 entries