Recent reviews by DemoSomething

Imagine letting people buy a product and then deciding that alot of them shan't be allowed to use it as only few countries are actually allowed to make an account you try to enforce for whatever random reason. Nice scam tactic pioneering there, Sony.

Update May 6th 2024: Guess actually pressuring big publishers to stop messing around adding or enforcing the most useless things actually does things, people just got to do it.

Democracy prevails once more, Helldiver

Not really the type of person to write reviews but here we go I guess. I will change my review if Gaijin does actually listen to the community.

-Also it is a long review and I do not know how to TL:TR it, also any inputs are appreciated-

First off yes, I do have a lot of hours in this game and I used to enjoy this game throughout most of its time, as it is still currently a one-of-it's-kind game that has combined vehicle combat along compartmentalized damage models for all Air,Ground and Naval vehicles. By itself gameplay is really good for a F2P and especially aircraft are still one of the best in terms of accessibility without sacrificing way too much realism from them.

Obviously there are and always will be flaws with balancing, either certain aircraft or tanks being bit too weak or very dominant/curbstomping people (KV-1E tanks against newer players especially as a good example for the latter), constant issues with Close Air Support being too strong and so on. But that is not the reason why I do a negative review - Here is the reason why:


Absurd monetization (system), ingame economic crisis and a resulting gameplay feedback loop due to that.


What do I mean by this actually ? As one might have noticed the game has alot of premium vehicles and premium time you can buy for real money (There is also Gaijin Coin you can use and the Marketplace and its features but I keep that aside for now for simplicity's sake). Fundamentally there is nothing wrong with the premium vehicles and premium time, as the game is F2P and needs to be funded somehow.
Now the problem is if F2P player progress is practically impossible without either of those, without you having to be essentially a god at the game and knowing pretty damn well what maneuver to use against enemy planes or what weakspots an enemy tank has or predicting shots overall, destroying many enemies constantly, efficiently and without you dying.

Repair costs for plenty vehicles, especially at higher ranks or very certain vehicles are still very high and in those cases you need to kill 2 or more to break even if you die without any premium thing whatsoever as rewards will be very low and poor. Henceforth, end rewards after each game seem and do tend to be really poor, especially for tanks as even with a very good game you end up not really progressing that much. Overall this causes severe frustration for players as they want to get more and further into the tech tree and eventually get their own Abrams, Leopard, Type 10 MBTs or Mirage, Mig-29 or F-14 jet fighters, as it just seems to be out of grasp due to being simply a F2P.

Now you would think:"Just get the most modern jet or tank for 60-70 bucks right away as they are permament, you skip the boring parts and everything is good, you even get premium account on that !" - Well yes but also no here, to speak bluntly, especially for newer players. Some players even do not want to play the WW2 aspect of the game and want to be directly be in the modern times of things and I cannot blame them for that.

It just creates very massive problems here: One-death leavers for tanks and especially for planes that those players are cannon fodder and in both cases causing a disadvantage for their team as they are simply inexperienced with the quite extensive game mechanics, various map spots and technicalities of their own and enemy vehicle, while also not having any lineup to support further gameplay (specifically applies to tanks here).

To put it in a pseudo-poetical thing : 'In pursuit to lessen their own misery, they just spread it unknowingly onto others.'
And as this is a team game, if many people in a team have only one vehicle and they leave after death, that team does tend to lose and therefore also get less rewards. Hence those players are also severely looked-down upon, either in a justified way or not, depending on how you view it.
To explain it in a other way: Due to the terrible in-game economy, (new) players try to buy a high-rank premium vehicle that seems to solve that issue, only to (unknowingly) ruin the game for fellow teammates, causing gameplay disruption and even toxicity within the community.
That also causes at least a few way more experienced players to go back to WW2 Era games, where less "Level 1 Premium Tank/Plane newcomers" will be and having also the resources and knowledge to destroy their enemies with ease, to the dismay of F2P players trying to reach their modern time vehicle of choice, as some already really struggle to keep themselves afloat with repair costs and acquiring new vehicles.

The saddening,maddening and also baffling part of all that is that this still keeps on happening. Honestly I do want Gaijin to change their mind and to help players to actually enjoy the game, as on its own it is a very good game but the aforementioned parts really give it a really bitter note. Remember, happy players are more inclined to spend money on a fair and fun game, as they deem it to be good and can recommend it to further people, which can also spend money on it

On a final note as a epilogue/rant on Gaijin's reaction on review bombing though, their use of "statistics" (which I still have not seen yet) and me being rather bashful as it might sound:

In this case review bombing has been done as Gaijin was once again not listening to the playerbase and community, despite multiple warnings indicating the "powder keg" would explode (the tension between playerbase and Gaijin was constantly increasing due to multiple changes not being in favor for the player, which are far too many to list here; or some simple quality of life changes not being done despite the community asking them for very long time already,which are also too many to list here). They then tried to proceed with the economy changes anyway only to later retract them entirely as expectedly many players being severely unhappy with them.

So here we are with Gaijin's response, which you can just read up in the latests announcements.

"Morale of the story is": If a person is not listening you will have to pinch them really hard so they change their mind on some things, at this case with the potential loss of income and revenue, as it has been shown to cause at least some type of response. Even if review bombing is one of the more dirty tactics available Gaijin would have not listened in any extent as they did right now, would it not have been review bombed.
Also Gaijin should have shown people the statistics they do keep talking about (not annoucement specific but for the game in general), so people can point out where a problem might be and then together figure out in a cooperative way on how to fix problems.

Congrats, you got through the review which did not cover everything and did end in a rant which is rather poor manners but personally had to be done, as stuff like this has been going on for quite a while.
Anyhow have a good one and a nice day.

10/10 : Harvesters still suicide charging at enemy base and half of my units getting stuck somewhere due to funky pathfinding, perfectly capturing the essence of the original games. All at all a very good remaster.

Addon. - I really can't wait for Tiberium Sun/Firestorm and Red Alert 2/Yuri's Revenge getting a remaster though and I hope they will get it someday.

From the Depths is first of all such game that could be put into the "Hard to play, even harder to master" catagory, if seen from a general viewpoint (Even though many tutorials exist, that are very helpful e.g. in how to make your weaponry more space efficient and such). That fact gets compensated by the sheer unlimited possibilites to make a vehicle that fits your style (After you found out how everything is actually even working). From Patrol Boats to Giantic Battleships and whatever you like as armor, weaponry and propulsion, you can just build it, even if Giantic Battleships were limited to the specs of your computer since it will start to lag out at some point if you made your ship giantic, but the issue is little less now due to the new performance patch.

TLTR: If you like unlimited customization, but also got lots of time to spare to understand how things work - this game is pretty much perfect for you.

Basicly abandonware as the current "release" state feels very unfinished. A game that tries to copy Warzone 2100s modular units system with somewhat fancier graphics and rather fast to pickup gameplay but has not much content to offer and has way worse campaign, which might offer a challange but its basicly skirmish with some objectives, flavor text and some "boss" vehicles, which basicly have more HP and special variants of the players weapony, added to it.

This game also has, in my opinion, questionable balance as you can just spam rocket tanks and you will do just fine, as they are effective against everything, are cheaper than other weapon systems and allow for hit-and-run tactics due its high damage but slightly longer reload times compared to other weapon systems

TL;TR: Simply get Warzone 2100, sure its more complex and a game from 1999, so its graphics dont look all too nice nowadays, but you also get true artillery units, many more interesting weapon choices, a for my opinion interesting campaign and its also for free.

Team Fortress 2 is a fun game but it was better before Meet your Match Update. Everytime I see the Casual competitve, i think about the good old times in pubs where you simply have fun destroying everyone on the other team.Those times where you could go (or get forced) to the other team to make it balanced.

That were good old times : Now we have Waiting Simulator 2016 and Tryhards and 90% of the community servers are worse or simply are empty. Also don't want to be reminded of the REAL competitive : yet more tryhard , less players
(6v6 pls) , no fun.

Long story short : Bring bloody pubs back !

P.S TF2 is still the best Hat Simulator out there

Update 07.08.2016:
Mannpower is somewhat littered with aimbotters.Play Mannpower on your own risk! (It might be not every match though)