Recent reviews by Kauffy

Up top, I will say this: THIS game is a *real* sequel to the original 1980's Carrier Command.

I spent hours in my youth playing the OG Carrier Command on the Amiga. (Greets to all in the Amiga Demoscene.)
That game was groundbreaking at the time, but obviously wouldn't hold up today (for many reasons). So, when Carrier Command (the remake of a few years ago) came out, I was pretty excited-- before I was really bored and disappointed. Somehow, they'd faithfully copied the OG CC but didn't really update it in any meaningful ways, so playing felt really dull and boring. It was almost exactly the same mechanics as the original, with very little added.
Enter Carrier Command 2:
I was really skeptical on this because of the remake, but I thought I'd pull the trigger (I could always refund-- plus VR could be cool). I hopped in really quick last night just to check my rough sense of it, and I was IMMEDIATELY hooked.
For people who played the original:
* This game is soooo beautiful, if you have the original Carrier Command in mind. It's some more-primitive polygon graphics, but with modern lighting, so it really looks like an awesome upgrade to the original.
* Regarding the ocean-- if you have thalassophobia, gooood luck. It rolls and plays with the carrier in a way that makes you feel really vulnerable. It's really incredible.
* You can multiplayer this-- it would be a LOT of fun to play with a couple of close friends. You can crew up on remote vehicles, so one player could drive, the other shoots, etc. Some vehicles have at least five stations.
* You can walk around everywhere on the ship in first person-- this REALLY expands the sense of the Carrier being a real vehicle. Additionally, the bridge is chock full of working displays and controls. It can be a little overwhelming having to physically move from station to station-- but the tradeoff is how freaking cool it is.
* Every element of the original has been split into up-to five variants-- like the Manta now has three other flying vehicles to go along with it. Same with the Walrus. Many more choices of load outs-- several kinds of missiles, bombs, and guns. Variations of ammo, ship defenses, etc.
* Flying vehicles feel almost exactly like the old Manta to fly. It's nostalgia triggering.
* I'm not far enough in to see how "tedious" the island-hopping can be, but it feels like it plays faster than the original.
* Ditto for the logistics-- it feels like the barge is significantly faster than the old one, though I've read some reviews to the contrary for people further into the game.
XXX * ~~I haven't even tried it in VR yet.~~

Scratch that. I went in, in VR, though I am using Virtual Desktop -> Steam VR -> Carrier Command. The one issue I have had, and still can't figure out, is why the controllers don't work all but one time I've tried them. As I have a similar issue with Subnautica, I don't believe it's the game, but perhaps Virtual Desktop, or even just something about my configuration.
If I had initially gone in in VR, I might have had a real problem with the ocean-- despite being deliberately polygonal, the ocean foam and wake of your ship make it feel like it's animated, and unlike the original (where the sea was just, literally, a flat blue square at the bottom of your view, with some sparkling dots in it), there is a big difference between the ocean near an island and out at great depths-- the rolling as the waves toy with the carrier in-between islands really can be frightening.

Quite a bit more polished than previous installments, Liberation builds upon the well-worn territory of the allies landing in Europe, but dodges the gaming cliches, so this part of the war feels fresh and new.

The US units are built out in much greater detail than the Russians or the Finns, so there are a lot more tools at your disposal. I play only single player, really, and there is a good amount of content (outside of Conquest) in the Single Player campaign missions, most of which being playable in a legitimate number of ways.

It's really a ton of fun and, as far as previous CtA:GoH DLCs go, this far overshadows them-- in fact, this is possibly bigger than the previous two DLCs combined.

If you like Gates of Hell ~at all~ it would be silly to pass this one up.

FYI: I have played a bit of the textual version of DF, but found it impenetrable. But huge admiration and kinship for the devs.
While I'm very into the genre, this almost feels like the revival of Arrested Development-- yes, you did it first, and you did it best at the time, but everyone that copied off of you has made you seem stale now.

If you've played the text version (and gotten into it), this might feel like an ideal upgrade. If you couldn't get into the textual version, you will probably have similar issues here.

I am allowing that this is still kind of early, but at this point, for me, the game isn't unplayable; it's just hardly enjoyable. My major issue, at first, is that it "moves too fast"-- this turns out to be a function of the maximum framerate you cap the game at. By default, mine was something like 100fps, so all the game units were flying everywhere, impossible to discern. Even slowed way down to a comprehensible speed, there are two very large visual problems that you think would have been solved purely in making a graphical version of the game, instead of saying "How do we replicate this problem, so the graphical game feels just as bewildering?!" These large visual problems are 1) units "pop" from tile to tile; the do not glide; so it can be very tough to tell who's moving where, which is compounded by 2) units can stack on a tile, with seemingly no visual indication what's stacked there, or why.

Having played Rimworld prior to this, this feels like a let-down. While it's ridiculously detailed, the modeling doesn't feel even (e.g., one of your people can get a specific kind of injury to their left pinky; movement is no more articulate than what x,y tile the unit occupies). It didn't ever occur to me to appreciate some of the little things about Rimworld until I saw them blown in this version of Dwarf Fortress.

I'm biased, because I've played a zillion hours on Vermintide, but this somehow delivers all the great mechanics of that game, and then some. It's fun. You'll like it. Even if you don't have friends.

Sounds dumb; incredible fun.

I love roadtrips and I've crossed the US like 8 times, and this game hits a lot of the nostalgia notes of driving through the Southwest.

I've never been an actual truck driver, so I can't really speak to the faithfulness of the simulation, but it seems pretty accurate-- so many details in each of the trucks.

Obviously, this isn't a 1:1 recreation of the US, but the important parts (most of the stuff you see from the highway) is there-- and it definitely doesn't feel like recycled scenery.

This is also a bit of an empire-builder, as you are doing the trucking yourself initially, but then you can buy additional trucks and hire other drivers, acquire new garages in different cities, and watch the cash roll in while you go sightseeing.

This is definitely my go-to when I want to relax and feel like I'm getting away from it all.

Having played about 700+ hours of the base game, it's refreshing to have some new content. For what it's worth, I am almost exclusively a single-player player, so keep that in mind. I can only speak a little bit to the Talvisota multiplayer experience, so I'll focus on the single-player parts. It's also a little bit confusing, because Gates of Hell just released Content Update 3, so there are some things that I'm not even sure whether they come from CU3 or Talvisota!

In any case, there is a single-player campaign that is, I think, six missions, with the ones I've played so far (the first three) leaning more heavily toward guerrilla tactics than out-and-out armor brawls. Also, since this is in the early part of the war, these conflicts emphasize infantry a bit more than equipment. Speaking of which, despite historically Finland using a ton of stolen (or borrowed) equipment that might already be in the game for the Soviets, the units in Talvisota for Finland are more than just re-skins; they're completely new assets consistent with historical records-- new models, new skins, new sound effects, new voice lines.

If you've liked Ostfront for single-player, then there's probably nothing here you won't like. The devs are definitely establishing a good track record and pattern for releasing quality content.

I really want to love this game, as I really liked the first, and prior Deus Ex games, but wtf?
This one has a lot of the elements that are trademarks of the series, but here's my problem: the game is almost impossible to get into because there's a cut scene every 30 seconds. Like, you can only actually "play" the game for a minute or two at a time before it goes to another GD cut scene! It's insane!
Additionally, even with whatever patches they've released since the game dropped, I get CTD sometimes.
If you can get it on sale, and you're a Deus Ex fan, then I'd say to get it, but for the general public, start with Human Revolution.

If you're looking for a simulator for sinking ships that's not too complicated for the average ship-sinker, look no further.

This is definitely more of a toy/activity than a game, so it doesn't have a point except to mess with ships until they sink. There's a variety of sea-going vessels that range from pointless to gratifying, but they all pretty much behave in the same way. To me, the only really gratifying things to sink are the ships that have a proper cutaway view with interior layouts (e.g., the Titantic)-- then you can individually flood areas and watch how the water comes and flows over bulkheads and down staircases and junk.

The water-flow modeling is pretty cool and feels very accurate-- the physics somewhat less-so, but the thing does use actual material stresses and behaviors to model, e.g., how the tail of a ship, if it rises too high out of the water, will rip the ship in half.

The tools to play with are, unfortunately, really scant and underwhelming-- there's a cutting tool that makes holes, then there's a flooding tool that adds water, and a "dry" tool that removes water. The problem with the cutting tool is that it makes holes all the way through the ship, instead of (as you may intend) just breaking an interior wall or bulkhead. This creates a new location for seawater to flow in, as opposed to allowing water already in the ship to flow.

Also, the default settings (changes to which are not saved from playthrough to playthrough) are somewhat annoying: 1) the game has a somewhat pointless day-night cycle-- it has no bearing on any behavior, except if the ship has lights on it (e.g., the Titanic cutaway doesn't), you will see them, but when it's dark, you can't see anything, 2) the default sea color makes it difficult to see water that is inside the ship versus the water it's floating in, 3) the game plays quite grating midi music by default (this is the only sound the thing makes at all), so you have to turn it off every time if you don't like it, 4) the depth of the ocean is oddly shallow by default, meaning you can easily have the bow of the ship hit the sea floor while its stern is still above water.

For best results: use the graphics tab to turn the seawater color transparent (slide the alpha slider down), use the physics tab to increase the depth of the ocean, then (I forget the tabs), set the ocean darkness so the "bottom" of the sea is just a bit visible, turn off the checkbox that says "Cycle" (that's day night) and then set the time of day manually using the slider for time of day (which uses a decimal number rather than a clock).

If you ever played with model boats as a kid and thought about sinking them in a cool way, you might actually enjoying playing with this for a while, and then again, every so often. I showed this to a friend that's built a number of model ships (including the Lego Titanic) and he thought it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen.

I think it's been abandoned by its creator, but as it is, there's still enough to play with that's worth a few bucks.

I had expected this game to really suck, based on what I'd vaguely heard-- like it having the same mechanics as a Batman game, the controversy around making Max be American, for some reason (thankfully, they abandoned that-- but it shows really dumb instincts), and the fact that I didn't know anyone who'd played it.

When it was on sale recently, I decided to pick it up. In short, it's mechanically something like a GTA clone, but with vehicle-vehicle combat. I'm 30 hours in and only about 40% complete with the game, and it so far doesn't feel overly repetitive and is still introducing new elements and opening new areas.

A lot of the mechanics will feel familiar and it commits some of the most-basic UI sins (like, in a WASD-game, space is always jump and CTRL or C is always the equivalent of crouch. Also, never, ever, ever, ever in a WASD game require me to hit the Enter key for anything, even if it's in the menus-- and don't make the mouse only work SOMEtimes for clicking those same options.

If you're actually a fan of the Mad Max series (which makes sense), lore-wise, this takes place after Fury Road, but Max is about the same age as Fury Road, and Max is also, still, not Mel Gibson. So far, the enemies and enemy vehicles are a mix of Road Warrior through Fury Road-- so far, there seems to be a lack of specific elements I (were I designing this game) would definitely include in the game (a lot of stuff from Road Warrior, for example), but I have an open mind that they could show up in the next major section (which I've just opened).

The out-of-vehicle combat is almost entirely melee, and even the little bit of gunplay (with Max's shotgun) is really incidental to the melee combat-- there are no long-ranged hand-held weapons outside the car. I'm not big on fighting games, but I felt like the way they introduced the fighting mechanics made it feel really, really straightforward to me. There are a decent number of moves, but you won't be scratching your head trying to remember button sequences-- this is a UX godsend. It plays visually gratifying, even if it is "movie tough" (that is, you can take down ten or more enemies in one scrap).

OH: MULTIPLAYER-- apparently this doesn't work anymore, as any of the multiplayer features want to contact WB, which it says it can't do. So, no idea if that's fun or not with the vanilla game (there may be mods that address this-- no idea).

It is as described, except-- this really, really feels like a game from the mid-to-late 90's. It reminds me of games from that time that were just excited to have a GPU to run on, so particles and effects galore!

The basic gameplay is pretty final-project-for-my-gamedev-class. There's nothing gratifying in the vehicle crashes or weapon hits. It just feels like.. almost like the simplicity of a Flash game.

I don't even think it would be more entertaining if you were playing with a bunch of your friends. It feels like you have dozens of other similar choices available that are a lot more satisfying.

And, yes, even on sale for like $5.