Recent reviews by Liondrome

War Thunder. It has so, so much potential but the game is destroyed and the player base drained dry by the greedy, out-of touch developers.

Currently the grind is horribly long. It will take you hundreds of hours to get to one of the "cool" vehicles they showcase in the trailers/artwork. You will start in very bad inter-war (Tanks after WW1 but before WW2) and the fun (sarcasm) doesn't stop there. The developers currently want to make the grind even longer and less rewarding.

If you plan to play Free-to-Play then you're either in for a very, very unfun grind (Play this with friends, don't play alone as its much, like 5x more enjoyable with friends) since the developers and I quote here "Free to play vehicles are not meant to make money, we balance them with premium vehicles". I'm paraphrasing a little (changing the words) but the point of their longer text is in the quote. You're supposed to pay money if you want to progress. So do not play this at least in its current iteration. Check back in 2-3 years and see how the reviews are, also do some googling "War Thunder economy" and "War Thunder grind" and add your current year.

If I had to describe STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order™ with words. They would be. "Cool" "Annoying" "Infuriating" "Dark Souls but Star Wars"

What you get is a linear game that does not hold your hand at all, and I mean that in the way that "You will die to this gauntlet of enemies a dozen times and have to restart from a static save point (no checkpoints or manual saving) ten minutes ago. Same goes for the boss fights."

If you're looking for a challenge, this game delivers. It has platforming, puzzles (Don't worry, nothing too complicated for the most part) and dodging/parrying that's almost like pulled from Dark Souls directly.

With Fallen Order. You get a game in the Star Wars universe that plays like Dark Souls without equipment or inventory management. This means you will not grow stronger either, you gain more powers but usage of said powers is very limited and occasinally difficult.

Its not all bad. Occasionally this game hits the Star Wars Jedi Adventure soft spot soooo well its almost unreal, like glimmers of a diamond in a pile of ash. Unfortunately though, most of the game is the pile of ash, dirty, slow to get trough and filled with trash (tons of wildlife, hope you'll enjoy beating them a lot)

Buy the game if you will, but I just hope you know what you're getting. Its a very interesting adventure in the star wars universe but its held back by an abhorrent saving system, respawning enemies, lack of any growth power wise (enemies at the start of the game will be just as difficult at the end) and some bugs which are present in 2021.

What you get for your 20 €

You get a two games old games with pretty great remastered graphics and stellar soundtracks. If you want to relieve some moments from 20 years ago, then this game has it covered for you.

What you don't get are all the little things we've gained over those 20 years like improvements made to AI (Think how simplistic AI in 90's was compared to 2019 for example in games). However, it is "only" 20 euros. So honestly for a 20-30 hours to get trough the campaigns (These old games were hard as nuts now that I played them again!) and make stuff explode, its a pretty good €/Fun ratio.

Solid 8/10 Would recommend.

To give Stellaris a short description, it is a fun game, with incredibly many mechanics, yet each one are shallow and to get deep content you'll have to pay most likely 60-100$ ontop of the base game to get the real experience.

Now that its out of the way. Stellaris can be incredibly fascinating, and on my first few runs I loved every second, it was fresh, new, exciting. Yet after a while it does get incredibly same and without the paid DLC, which each have very little content in the end (but as a whole make a decent experience, so you're basically encouraged to get every last one) your experience may be very short in the end, that pricy, expensive DLC is hanging off in the distance. You can either pay the price and enjoy the game, or despise the company for price couging on old content.

But. About the mechanics and aspects of the games themselves.

Combat: Combat is imagine, a snowball. Each part of said snowball consists of ships which you can modify, tiered technologies so T1 laser, T2 etc, or rockets and so forth. From small frigates to large battleship and ever bigger (Last feature DLC locked). The gist of the combat is of you building the best you can with resources you wish to put towards it (Most likely you'll be spread on several areas so making one big deathstack is not very viable, as traveling takes time) and simply going (throwing your snowball) at the enemy's horde fleet and waiting for the pretty lights and explosions stopping, with your victory preferably. You have no actual interaction on the combat itself. If you wish for interactive Space Fleet Combat. I'd recommend either Homeworld: Remastered Collection or say Star Wars: Empire At War. There is also ground combat in the game but it literally consists of your ship shooting at a planet and/or a window where your icons "fight" (no visual combat, so stat screen only) against the enemy.

Space exploration: This is one of the strong suites of the game until a point. Naturally there is only a finite amount of content but even with the base game there is a lot to explore, and sometimes you won't even get the same ones you got on the previous run (notable ones that is). However after a while you start seeing the same things. It basically consists of either your science vessel sitting next to a planet until a timer is up and you get a popup. Simply a message "You received goodies" (to keep it simple) or a choice. For example a sudden boost to something or a longer term boost, or at worst your science ship being destroyed but you receiving something great if you succeed. I'd rate it 5/10.

Planet management: This is, difficult to give a full picture of. I'll spread it to few segments.

Early game: Very fun and strategic. Your resources are very limited by your expansion, of both your colonies (as they require initial support resources) and your fleet growing stronger for both security and offensive power. Each world can be unique with its own pros and cons. Pretty fun.

Middle game: By now your empire gets spread to "sectors" and in this part the game would wish for you to let the AI manage the planets for you, as managing anywhere up from 15 planets is a micromanagers nightmare. The sad thing is the AI is unfortunately lackluster in this so, well I won't say its not helpful, but compared to you taking control yourself. Its not even anywhere near it.

Late game: If you're still playing. AI is doing your thing for you. You might choose to control few planets/sectors but your days of making meaningful change to the planets is far gone. However, you'll most likely meet some of the toughest challenges in the game. War in the Heavens, basically a war between long dormant, tiny yet incredibly powerful technologically advanced empires and you're required to choose a side, or be taken down by them as well. Other endgame crisises can also be something like basically the Tyranids from Warhammer 40K, space clouds coming to exterminate all life of nanobot swarm being released from a gate to a tiny pocket of space right next to the galaxy for example.

The late game also lets you construct some of the largest megastructures like a ring world from Halo, a Dyson Sphere or literal doomsday devices such as planet crackers. Fun stuff.

Overall. Stellaris is an overpriced fun, yet shallow game. Be it space combat, exploration or how the game advances. This is on par for other Paradox Grand Strategy Games but its weaknesses really are showcased the strongest in Stellaris. Worst thing is the DLC prices are never dropped permanently, so year after year you see the same "discounts" which in practice are the actual prices you might agree to pay for them. Much as I'd want to say otherwise, do not buy Stellaris and support Paradox at the time of writing this review.

Witcher 3 is an amazing singleplayer game with hundreds of hours of content for those who like to do sidequests and explore. Worry not, its not mindless sidquesting but infact the sidequests are some of the most interesting parts with the main game. The graphics are brilliant and the expansions are a very fine addition into the base game. With mods this already great game becomes an even greater one. Definitely one of my favorite games thus far. Bullet point review below

Pros
+ Story: Main & sidequests can each take hours. For an absolutely breathtaking experience don't use the map or fast travel system. The characters too are excellently written and each are memorable.
+ Gameplay: Combat, spells, potions. All refined and improved from Witcher 2
+ Graphics: Character faces, detail in the world and even small things such as leaves, hair, cloth moving with the wind)
+ Music: Absolutely brilliant. Immerses you absolutely to the world.
+ Expansions: Well priced and packed with content. No loot boxes or hordes of micro-dlc
+ The price: Game of the Year Edition is well worth the 50€ (Don't say that easily) but on sale for 19.99€ it's an absolute steal. My heartiest recomendation
+ Replayability: With varying choices you can have very different experiences in the game. Won't spoil but definitely worth a second playtrough.

Cons:
- Controls: Can take a bit of get used to on foot. Horse controls are absolutely atrocious though (Horse stops by itself a lot from smallest obstacles and goes to directions you don't want it going)
- Music: I said its great but its more as one track. Without spoilers a song you'll hear a lot chewed on my nerves a fair bit.
- Graphics: E3 Demo War graphicly more impressive then the finished product. But the ingame graphics are still great.
- Faces: Side characters, villagers, city guards and such use a very small variety of faces. For fun make it a drinking game, take a shot each time you see same face on a villager/guard/merchant.
- Future: No word of Witcher 4.

Your regular start in DayZ

Spawn on the shore. Run to the nearest village, loot everything that is not nailed down and go to the city. With luck you've found food, something to drink and a knife. When you're at the city you run into the supermarket and get shot by 3 bandits who loot your body and you've just wasted 2 hours of your day

Today I had something different happen. Spawned at the shore, ran to the nearest building, found a tire changer (looked like it?) and heard someone nearby. Went outside and saw him being harassed by a newly spawned player and three zombies. Being a good guy I attacked the player, she running to the shore and promply being shot by the person she was attacking. I distracted the zombies while he used a bandaid to stop his bleeding. He said thanks and we parted ways.

Three minutes later he ran up to me. Told me to come inside a building.. I smelled a trap but considering that I was a new player, I had nothing to lose. He kneeled down. Gave me his helmet and told me to take all his stuff. Before I time to respond he shot himself, and I was left with a large bag full of loot, a shotgun with several dozen rounds in the backback and basicly everything you need to survive a zombie apocalypse except a bike.

Minuses:

Lack of vehicles, mainly bikes for new players.

No roaming bands of players in helicopters yet shooting everything from above and having everyone in Cherno shoot at them