Recent reviews by LucidJoe

“Highfleet by studio Microprose is A ‘Smart Person's’ game--and if you aren't, it'll at least make you feel smart while playing.”

The game lets you pull out a ruler and pencil to mark enemy positions that get pinged on radar. You can then go ahead and apply some math to figure out their heading and speed. This information is used to infer what kind of ship based on how fast it's going. E.g. Faster km/h means planes / scouts. Slower means it's a treasure ship--or most likely a strike group coming to turn your fleet into a combination of diesel/scrap/mulch.

What do you get for all this due diligence? The culmination of a unique gameplay loop that rewards the player with enemy scrap, treasure, and even the discovery of sprawling friendly cities hidden amongst the sand dunes.

Now does this sound like a good time to you? The answer to this will help you decide if Highfleet is worth the time/money investment. At least the manual has cool fluff and artwork.

Speaking of which, Highfleet is the first game in a while where I actually read the manual out of both interest and necessity. Is the game itself well executed? That's up for debate. But if you're willing to set aside time to learn how to play it, you'll get your money's worth back eventually from how engrossing and just plain different Highfleet can be.

Synchronicity from Highfleet’s status as this year’s sleeper hit strategy game, 2021’s successful film remake of Dune, the announcement of Dune: Spice Wars headed by Shiro Games, and of course the highly anticipated return of the universally celebrated Homeworld franchise (Blackbird Interactive’s Homeworld 3) has caused quite a stir in the hearts of old and new fans alike. It has whetted a long dormant appetite for games set in the “sandpunk” sci fi genre. I predict this sentiment will only grow as more and more similar titles return after a long hiatus since the 90’s boom of the space faring, fleet commander genre.

Highfleet by studio Microprose is A ‘Smart Person's’ game--and if you aren't, it'll at least make you feel smart while playing.

*Post v1.0 Review*
This is basically Hades with Guns.
It's hard to argue against the extreme value per dollar spent when talking about this game. Gunfire gets straight to the point with a focus on gameplay with little to no fluff. Each character is uniquely designed (not to mention cute AF) and there are currently enough heroes to suit most any playstyle. AFAIK Gunfire is a game that lets any build be OP.

While nerfs do occur, the devs seem to buff in equal amounts. Seems to be they just want to see how far players can take their builds. For instance, with a bit of luck and planning you can make a build that takes down a boss in seconds. That said the higher difficulties are very challenging and can be tackled viably either solo or with a team.

There are currently four acts and one of two potential bosses per level (Act 4 only has one so far). Bosses have their own attack patterns and are real threat if you make a mistake.

This game has a veritable arsenal of guns to choose from and unlocking them feels satisfying, even if you might not end up liking the way they work (looking at you talismans lol). The guns themselves are often wacky takes on standard FPS fare, such as grenade launchers or flamethrowers which are actually just you squeezing some smol lizards with your hands to shoot.

At this price point and with lightweight graphics requirements, Gunfire an easy game to drag your friends into, and meaty enough to get them to stay for the higher difficulties for more mayhem. The nature of it being a roguelite means each run is guaranteed to play out differently--from the cards you randomly get, to the guns and enemy challenge events you encounter. The post game upgrade system via talent trees for each character means each failure is just another excuse to start anew--slightly more powerful.

And even if you don't end up taking to it, it's only $15 (on sale for the next 2 weeks).

TLDR: Card system and the shooting itself are improvements over L4D. This game will kick your ass even on the “middle” difficulty setting. It runs well with or without DLSS. Don’t buy for singleplayer. No Campaign Vs. PVP planned. Great deal via Gamepass. Cosmetics/characters are earned in game for the most part. Seems TRS still feels the heat garnered from the infamous Evolve situation at launch. *Edited out p2p netcode*

In ye olden days of yore, I got my first taste of this genre playing grandpappy Left 4 Dead 1-2. From its first announcement to the open beta, I’ve been sitting on the fence to see whether or not this game would drown from its own hype as the “spiritual successor to L4D”.

Now having played dozens of hours, I have to say modern Turtle Rock Studios' Back 4 Blood gets an erect thumb from me, with some caveats.

Strong warning against buying if you wanna play solo. The bots suck.The singleplayer progression is literally non-existent. Seems TRS won't be spending any time making it better in the near future. Also know that the game's PVP system is NOT campaign Vs. and AFAIK TRS isn't making any moves to add it into the game, ever.

Best thing about B4B are the guns and shooting. The guns have just enough weight in handling and recoil to be compared with games like Killing Floor 2. Zombie heads pop with the same simple pleasure as headshotting the helmet’s off cops in Payday 2.

Second best is the card system which might be a bit confusing for the first go around but eventually it'll click for you. It's a lot of fun designing decks around the many characters to fill your niche within the team. I say second best because--as with many games of this genre lately (e.g. Vermintide 2) it’s a system that is highly susceptible to “power gaming”. Which can quickly drain all the fun out of the game once the “puzzle” of what’s best and top tier is solved. On a positive note, I've seen that team play and map experience (knowing where to hold and when to leg it) is for the most part-- more conducive to completing maps.

I’ve seen a lot of the early reviews talking about how Recruit mode is too easy and Veteran is way too hard. Having played both, I think this is largely true to a certain extent. The later acts in the game can give you a run for your money even on Recruit. Veteran I concede requires some advance tinkering of your deck loadout, without which you’re just wasting your teammates time.

This issue of difficulty I think will iron itself out over time as player knowledge of the game increases from launch. Heres to hoping that TRS won’t bring down the hammer too hard on Veteran, and tweak it to be similar to how it was during the open beta.

Regarding the content itself, I think this game has just enough meat and potatoes for the player to feel satisfied at the end of each act. Would I want for there to be more variety and less backtracking in the maps? Absolutely. But even L4D was lean on content in comparison.

Apart from the A.I director, replayability comes from how guns (which come with an RPG white - purple rating system) and items are randomly placed in each map. The shop’s inventory also changes from level to level. It’s awesome to find a legendary mod being sold every now and then.

The corruption cards (think map affixes in PoE or heist modifiers in Payday’s Crime Spree mode) do a lot to change the way you run each map. This is especially true in Veteran and above.

As with any multiplayer co-op game, your experience with B4B will largely come down to your teammates. Randos in this game--in my experience--run the gamut between being more toxic than the Ridden hordes themselves to fantastic guides and ambassador's to the game. YMMV.

To ameliorate this somewhat, either join their discord server to form groups instead of quickplay or--better yet--play with like-minded friends.

Regarding the ping situation, I can only speak from my hours in the beta and post-release, that the server netcode seems to get the job done. I've been in games (NA) with people as far away as Indonesia and the netcode holds up within reason. I will mention that Fort Hope's lobby ping is always horrendous but this clears up by the time your team is actually loaded into a map.

All in all I think we can all agree, Back 4 Blood is starting off stronger than Evolve.

“While it falls short of the title ‘Magnum Opus’, Amplitude Studios’s Humankind serves as a convincing milestone for a capable and competent company with Indy roots.”

Amplitude has achieved with Humankind something that has eluded many a video game developer: execution of a myriad of interconnected and complicated game systems in a way that doesn’t immediately go Reactor no. 4. That is not to say that Humankind does not fall short in other areas, mainly game balance, and role playing feel and customization. Needless to say, between Humankind and Mohawk Game's Old World, Firaxis' now has a fire under their butts for their next Civilization game.

TLDR: Good skeleton laid out, needs more fleshy bits (Religion and Civics) to become truly great. I think this game is mechanically sound and largely bug free enough right now to warrant the $50 price tag. Amplitude has a track record of supporting their titles. Don’t come in expecting Endless Legend levels of role playing, or even replayability. If you are fence sitting, use Xbox Game Pass to play for cheap.

All in all your ability to enjoy HK will largely depend on your affinity with its marquee features, such as culture swapping, Might and Magic style turn based hex combat, and a predominantly score based victory condition (there are others, but you have to go out of your way to win without Fame). If you hate these, then you'll really hate it in Humankind.

Also, if you're looking for Civ--but with Crusader Kings roleplaying--then take a look at Old World, also released this year. You may play as your own avatar in Humankind, but it’s rather shallow at the moment, which serves as a pain point for fans anticipating a robust leader editor.

I see a lot of other reviews saying if you liked Endless Legend, then you'll like this game, but I'm not so sure that's actually the case. To this day, I have EL up there as my favorite 4X game, but that's mainly because of 4 fundamental role-play systems that are NOT found in Humankind: Heroes / Governors, Unit customization, Resource Bartering, and a well executed overarching main questline. So keep that in mind before you go into HK expecting EL features. I have a feeling they might be saving these for EL 2? *fingers crossed*

While it falls short of the title ‘Magnum Opus’, Amplitude Studios’s Humankind serves as a convincing milestone for a capable and competent company with Indy roots.

If you played the original, you're probably going to like Dead Age 2 as well (when it releases).

However, if you are of the type that HATES game mechanic ultimatums (I.E You have until X amount of time, or you lose!) this game is definitely not for you.

The game is currently very buggy with numerous crashes, but the dev team seems to be responsive on the forums. I logged many hours per dollar spent so I must leave a positive review. If you're on the fence, definitely keep what I said above in mind before buying.

P.S Many small hounds will die ;) RIP.