Recent reviews by [N]oobert.

Normally, I do not write reviews but if I had to say one thing about this game it is simple: PLAY THIS GAME. If you ever had to play one game for 2023, this should be it.

Grounded is a game that you can play by yourself or with up to four friends and is built and played similar to
how Minecraft is in that the servers are hosted and saved for people to play and enjoy for hours on end.

However, the main reason I am writing this review is to show love to the Developers who have clearly gone above and beyond what many games are offering these days by creating a world so vast, full of life, and detail that it should be played by everyone at least once.

If you are looking for a world with endless adventure, challenges to overcome, secrets to unlock, and an incredible story to unfold, Grounded is the game for you. It may look like a small backyard at first glance, but every time you think you've seen it all, the Developers throw an entirely new environment or challenge at you to overcome.

If I was to share one word of advice, it would be to check every corner or pathway you come across as it always offers you a wonderful or terrifying surprise at the end. With that said..

Play this game. You won't regret it, I know I don't.

As a huge fan of The Banner Saga and Ash of Gods, I was honestly excited to see what the follow-up to the first game would be when I saw this. Upon seeing that it was a card and turn-based strategy game, I was a little less intrigued but after playing it, it is a great and enjoyable game.

Would I have preferred a continuation of the story from the first game? Absolutely. Does this scratch a bit of the first games itch? Definitely.

If you are into the story driven content, it still remains here within this game but the gameplay is just a bit different and less deep than what we would expect, but overall, a decent and refreshing game for my bored self. Buy it if you want, and if not, pick it up on sale as it would be a ton of fun for a weekend of gaming!

I will keep this as short as possible. Ash of Gods: Redemption is worth a purchase. It is worth a purchase because, much like the beginnings of Banner Saga, there is a potential for something incredible to bloom within this franchise and I am almost certain that anyone who purchases this product will enjoy it. I hope that they continue their journey and that we can see the fulfillment of that potential because this game is one of the most enjoyable turn-based games I've played since the Banner Saga series.

However, that said, there are clear issues within this game. For example, the enemy AI was hilarious. I managed to abuse the card system by throwing on heavy defense cards on a Spearman and putting them in the middle of the enemy with Retaliation. The enemy, regardless of the defense power, would attack the Spearman doing 0 damage only to be slapped in the face for much more in return. This would need a rework going forward. Also, the story with Lo Pheng felt a bit pointless to the grand scheme of things. I would recommend, if the developers read this, to perhaps revamp any future stories to make certain they fit into the bigger narrative because it just felt like a random addition of a character and a story that would somehow play a small part in the endgame.

Overall, I would rate this game a solid 8/10 and highly recommend purchasing it for the enjoyment it brings and to help the company create a second or even third game to close off the story. There are no major issues with this game that I can see and that is why it is rated so highly, so that said, I hope this helps anyone looking for an awesome game to pass the time with.

Disclaimer: Do not get attached to your characters. This game is like Game of Thrones. hahaha

** WARNING **
I will be going into spoilers near the end of my review, so please be warned about that.

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 is a video game that is an absolute pleasure to play. It has been a very long time since I have found a game that can keep my attention like this one has. I highly recommend purchasing this game for a few reasons:

#1 - The graphics and artwork are phenomenal. Just zooming in on the chaos after a pause as a Tyranid ship comes into contact into your largest cruiser is pleasurable to say the least.

#2 - The Campaign is one that is enjoyable to play. It is hours of enjoyment and offers multiple perspectives to the chaos that ensues within the galaxy at that time.

#3 - Supporting the Developers. They have clearly put in a lot of work towards creating these two games and I feel that they deserve the support to continue to create games such as this.

** SPOILERS AHEAD **

Now that said, I still feel that there is a large capacity for improvement both through lore or gameplay itself. During the campaign, I felt frustrated that I was not 'entirely' in control of my destiny and that I was just going through the motions of defending from invading fleets, upgrading planets, and invading planets each turn. There was no real "pressure" to do anything aside from that. I was not invested in defeating the Chaos invasion because it did not feel like there was one. They sat around on planets waiting for me to attack or sending a pitiful amount of troops to attack a heavily defended world. There was no "real" story line because after completing one main mission, you would have a large gap between the next important main mission or side mission.

During the campaign, it will force you to pick sides without showing a clear gain or loss. This is made worse when you know the Lore behind certain activities is a real kick in the nuts. For example, choosing an Inquisitor or Yvraine, the Aeldari who helped save Roboute Guilliman. Is there even a choice?

And as for Roboute Guilliman, who wrote his lines? I want to slap you. Hearing the Primarch utter the words "I will defer to you in this matter as you have more experience" (or something close to it) made me go "Whaaaaat?" Whoever wrote those lines clearly has no idea who Roboute Guilliman is or what he is capable of. I'm not a fan of the Smurfs, but even I am aware of his tactical genius and prowess, and to dumb his ability down to that was a massive slap in the face to any fans of lore. This trend of disrespect towards the lore continues until the final mission where you defeat Abaddon in a recycled battle. You didn't just defeat him, Abaddon was said to have been killed in the final battle. I wasn't happy about that. The Primarch, who I took on the mission, said nothing about this old foe or the past wrongs righted. Nothing.

Now all of that said and done, I still highly recommend purchasing this game. It was enjoyable from start to finish, but I will never forgive whoever decided to dumb down a Primarch's role in the grim dark future, nor will I accept the pitiful death of Abaddon the Despoiler.

I've been a fan of Warhammer for a very long time. Time and time again, many of the loyal fans of this franchise have been extremely disappointed. This game is not one of those disappointments, in fact, it was a very pleasant surprise! I will admit that there are some issues that bothered me, such as a minor lack of gameplay depth, lack of autopause, or even a lack of windowed borderless, but even all of that was cast aside by the enjoyable and great game.

Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus is a game that reminds me of XCOM, but set in the grim dark future of WH40K. The enemy you face is the Necrons, and as you go through missions, you grow your Techpriests and army alongside them, but so does the Necron. They reveal more and more terrifying arrays of weaponry and enemies to throw at you. I enjoyed most of my time playing the game and I highly recommend that anyone who enjoys turn-based strategy, as well as WH40K, to pick up this game!

There is great potential for this game and the people who created it. It has the ability to evolve into a wide array of factions, weaponry, tactics, units, and abilities that could be potentially added, not to mention hero units! I really hope there will be a future for this franchise and I hope that it can develop into something more refined, diverse, and in-depth with a seriously longer campaign that isn't as repetitive as it was, but all around, I give this a serious thumbs up!

Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

TL;DR - 6.5/10 - Buy on sale for the campaign if you can overlook a few blatant issues. Multiplayer is garbage and dead.

There are so many things that are done right and wrong in Dawn of War III that it really makes this game a massive disappointment to the loyal fans of the Warhammer 40K and Dawn of War series. There is so much information related to the Warhammer 40K universe that it wouldn't be hard to develop a solid Campaign plot that isn't riddled with errors to the lore and the previous titles but somehow they managed to do just that.

The campaign was enjoyable to play because of how it made me remember the original Dawn of War title all those years ago but it fell short in many areas due to the constant oversights. A prime example is how near the ending of the game, after playing through the entire story, the Eldar come to this planet covered in ice and snow only to find a MASSIVE Daemon buried beneath the surface. If you played Dawn of War 2 and finished the Campaign, think Azriah Kyras (who was a Daemon Prince by the way) but four times larger. This thing was massive and looked amazing. After you stumble your way through two or three more missions, you have a final battle against this Daemon! Cool right?! Nope. The Daemon has now shrunk in size to be about the same size as the Super Heavy Units when in fact the Daemon was, again, portrayed to be multiple sizes bigger than those units. This is just one example but it is definitely a defining example of a horrible oversight from the developers of this game. Oversights such as this translate through the entire game, straight from Single Player down to the Multiplayer.

Do you recall how Blizzard blatantly favors the Horde? The Eldar are the Horde of Dawn of War III. The Space Marines and Orks both extremely fun to play and feel very balanced, however, if you ever play against an Eldar you just suffer frustration and a slow death. An example of what I am talking about is how the Eldar come armed with a "shield" that prevents from taking any losses early game while both other factions can be endlessly harassed from range and slowly bled dry of resources from reinforcing their troops. Tactical Marines (SM) cost 400 and require you to equip a Doctrine to use Fragmentation Grenades while the Dire Avengers (Eldar) cost 330 resources and come equipped with a shield as well as Plasma Grenades that can also be upgraded through the use of a Doctrine to inflict more damage. Balanced right? Now all of this would be a problem for any player if they could find a game which at the moment is unlikely most of the time because of how drasticly the playerbase has dropped since the games release.

Maps are just endless killing fields and choke points that usually ends with the perrson who engages first losing causing massive lulls in the action. Whoever wins the first engagement will more than likely bully their way to victory through a slow and frustrating suffocation because of how resource penalities for fielding a large army are almost non-existant.

The Cover System is horrible and beyond stupid. You have to have melee orientated infantry to gain access to an opponent's shield because ranged units or mechanical units are not allowed inside, not even by walking inside themselves. The Deff Dreads or Dreadnoughts are not allowed inside and instead sit outside beating the shield like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ even though they are melee orientated. Guess who gets to go inside? The Wraithknights! Hahahaha.

I miss The Last Stand from Dawn of War 2 and I suspect it will be a paid DLC in the future along with the future races that are going to be released.

After all of this is said and done, I enjoyed the campaign and played through it three times because of how much I love Warhammer 40K and how much I desperately want a good game so if you are a Warhammer 40K fan and can suck up some lore issues, I say buy it when it goes on sale for the Campaign only. It won't be perfect but you "might" just enjoy it.

I rate this game a 6.5/10. Purchase at your own risk.

Remember what it was like play Rollercoaster Tycoon? This game is the very embodiment of Rollercoaster Tycoon but updated with more cool stuff. I highly recommend this game to anyone who loves building and maintaing parks like I did growign up as a kid. The best part though? The developers actually care about the game and are constantly adding new and cool things.

10/10 - Buy and lose yourself in countless hours of enjoyment.

I would normally never write a review but I think people getting into this game need to understand that the downsides to this game. I am very conflicted on this review as it has good merits but I am going to give it a thumbs down for a few reasons I will cover now. I will include some of the things I enjoyed as well for those that want both sides of the coin.

- Prices on items are obscenely high and gives uneven advantages to people who pay (essentially Pay 2 Win)
- The current match making system is extremely flawed after you hit level 5 - I hit level 5 and was immediately thrown into repeated games with people that were almost max rank with Machine Guns, Tanks, Paratroopers, etc. while I was only using a small rifle
- You can be team killed or team kill by a bicycle bumping you
- You can run over a rock with a bicycle and commit suicide
- Players can suicide while driving a vehicle with you in it, causing you to commit suicide and have a long death timer (read below for inconsistency)
- Players can run into the grenades you throw and in return, give you warning points as well as lost experience/money
- Vehicles with mounted weapons kill you extremely fast and most of the time from extremely far distances
- Length from base to objective points will require a vehicle to be of use as a player (bicycle, truck, jeep, etc.)
- Grenades almost always one shot people even when a decent distance away
- Disliked the water physics and how it would screw any vehicle that entered water, even if the vehicle was above the waterline
- Lower graphics than most standard FPS
- Extremely disliked the repair cost, again trying to force you into paying money

This is all I can think of currently. Now for the positive aspects.

- Enjoyable as a casual FPS game
- I found nostalgia in this game, making me miss the old Medal of Honor
- Good fluid motion and gameplay
- I loved the effort put into players exiting vehicles, you basically roll out of the car and come up shooting
- Loved the indicator on the grenade to show where it would go
- Loved the iron sights and swaying, as well as how the stamina effected the stability
- I loved the creative addition of the bicycle, it made me laugh to tears when somebody team killed me accidentally while ringing the bike
- Loved the maps and the creativity put behind it
- I liked the physics behind vehicles

Due to the demanding aspect of the game that really tries to force you into paying, the poor match making system and (cannot fault the game for this) the lack of players for higher ranked games forcing me into constant red ping, I am going to give this a thumbs down. If it wasn't for these three aspects, I would love this game and tolerate the other minor aspects.

Sorry.