Recent reviews by Tank

Yeah ok this game ♥♥♥♥♥. That's it, that's the review. Go buy it, it's worth it.

Without spoilers, this is a very well built card game meant to exercise your neurons with strategies and tactics that force you to think outside the box. Do you wanna doomstack a card? You can do that. Do you want to populate the board with spam? You can do that. The items are excellent battle aids without being so necessary you MUST have them. There are a LOT of ways to play a deck and the randomized nature of what you get makes it a new trip every time.

There's a story to this game. It's really good, kinda campy but in a really cute way that works super well. It's the kind of thing you can easily enjoy. The characters too, although I won't go too far into it.

There's also after-story content too. So I'd say the replayability is pretty good. So to reiterate, it's good. Buy it and enjoy it.

The short part up front (because I write long reviews), I do recommend this game but only with caveats. It's a truly brilliant game on a technical and design level. But the community makes it far less fun than it should be, and without friends, I doubt I'd play this. It's the most socially isolating multiplayer game I've ever played.

Accommodations and options:

Incredibly robust and varied. If you have a condition, you can probably find a tweak in the game to help you out. For general options, there's all the standard ones you'd want in a PC game. Audio also has plenty of options for all the people tired of one slider for everything. You can even mute other crews and/or your own crew if you dislike voip.

Bugs/Glitches/Stability:

Mostly comedic honestly. There are some weirder bugs that impact gameplay but chances are they'll be outdated by the time you read this. Otherwise it's usually goofy physics, and I love me some goofy physics in moderation. Overall the game is remarkably stable and well maintained.

Graphics, Audio, Music, Story

The graphics are amazing for a game this old, owing to the smart choice of a simple art style that isn't fully realistic nor fully cartoony. The music is well themed and pleasing to listen to. The audio is crisp and I rarely have issues identifying sounds, even with my general volume low and even in chaos. The tall tales are an excellent way to let people explore the world and its lore. Basically, it's all good and I have no complaints.

Gameplay:

Overall it's incredibly well thought out. The core gameplay loop is sailing around, getting loot, selling loot, celebrating, doing it again. There is actually a pretty decent rhythm and pacing to it all, with a low amount of "do things" pressure, and it does usually respect your time. It doesn't take long to prepare for a voyage either so you can just jump right to it usually.

There is an optional PvP mode as of the time I wrote this review (it's called the hourglass). I haven't played it, as tbh the game is more fun if you don't attack people. In fact, an alliance with other players gets you more value (you get what they got, but half, and same for them for what you get) and you don't even have to do the same content. You could attack them, but that makes you vulnerable and you might lose more than you gain anyways. Also you miss out on 10+ people getting wasted on grog. So in general you win more by being cooperative than antagonistic. Which leads me to the unfortunate part of the next section...

Multiplayer/Community:

I will be up front and say that there are a lot of nice people in this community, it's probably the majority of the community. Actually, the past few sessions I've had an unusually large number of people who were sociable, which is nice. I've traded loot, allied up, helped others, and been helped. I've been complimented and given compliments. When the community is good, it amplifies the joy of the experience massively.

And then there are the people who ruin it. Piracy is economics, and time is a resource. If you spend an hour fighting and chasing someone down for a paltry load of supplies and some random loot, you probably could've just gotten thrice that by playing normally. People are persistent in making self destructive choices and going to the grave with them. And then this increases frustrations, making people lash out.

I really don't get why so many people adamantly play this game when they try and jump someone they didn't need to, fail, and then descend into a storm of slurs and anger when they lose. It makes players avoid other players, and so everyone is operating on peak paranoia half the time. It's the largest detriment to this game, but having seen it early on and seen it now, I'd say it's a community issue that's gradually getting better with each release and over time.

Final thoughts:

Overall, I do genuinely recommend the game, I'm just gonna throw up the disclaimer that if you don't have friends to play it with, it's gonna be lonely. And that really sucks in a game as beautifully unique as this.

First off, this comes with a standard "works on my machine" seal as I know others have had problems. I haven't had any crashes or outstanding issues playing on my desktop. Your experience may differ, that's why Steam has refunds. I also haven't played any multiplayer yet as I had to go back to school.

Despite this I still recommend this game, especially on sale. The Imperium campaign by itself is worth the full price of the game. The soundtrack is worth grabbing as well, its amazing.

This is a game that will be enjoyed by people who like RTS games with grand strategy, as well as fans of Warhammer 40k. The campaign story is excellent, and the challenge is fully customizable if you just want to experience that story alone.

The Introductory Conclusion

I feel like I should get my general thoughts out of the way first. This is a very well made, well planned game with layers of strategy. Grand Strategy, Strategy, and Tactics, which will all be covered separately. The graphics and art design are fabulous, and you can even zoom in for appreciating the extra detail. This game can be performance intensive, especially in some fights, but overall was fairly stable for me. The soundscape deserves an award. I have never heard such excellent sound layering between music, voice, and battle. Every action the ships take carries appropriate weight and power, the music doesn't overpower anything, and the voices come through clear with almost every character. The voice actors deserve a mention for their work bringing these characters to life.

With that, it does have some flaws. The performance is one, sometimes the game stutters when triggering things like the hazard overlay. Allegedly Easy Anticheat is giving people problems in multiplayer. Crashes can happen even though I haven't experienced any myself.

As a note, you don't need to play the first game. You can, but you don't have to.

The Grand Strategy

The economics is key to all forms of gameplay. If you have 7 fleets, you have 7 fleets to maintain, which means upgrades come much slower. Larger and more ships take more of your income passively, and while there are ways to reduce this disadvantage, it is still something you have to manage. When invasions come, you have to consider if abandoning your current front is worth it to save a world from invasion now. Or maybe you have to scramble your fleets to stop the tyranids for munching on a critical system.

Its not the deepest part of the game, but that's why I'm covering it first. It doesn't need to be more complex than it is.

The Strategy

The game is all about fleets. You can't win on fleet composition alone, but you can increase your chances of success by bringing the right fleets. You can't build a death blob of 70 battleships to bully every enemy system to submission one turn at a time. You also can't bring all the ships you want and choose what of your massive armada to deploy. You can have at most 3 fleets in a system, and you can't deploy every ship in those fleets right from the get go. Each fleet is also limited in size, and has only one flagship (unless that dies). So the decisions for battle start way before the battle begins.

Ships also get damaged, and have to avoid combat for some amount of turns to repair and recrew. But they also repair and recrew faster in certain systems, so you have reason to cycle out your fleets and not just send 2-3 fleets to every engagement. Sometimes I found myself breaking large fleets by sending some fleets to "raid", focusing on destruction before retreating before I bring in the main fleets. Retreat is an option for damaged ships, but retreat is never free and you run the risk of crippling a retreating ship even further (potentially even losing it if it retreated with too little hull health).

All of this makes a very challenging and rewarding experience. The imperium can engage in combined arms, multi faction fighting using their mechanicus and astartes allies. Even within a faction, there is still lots of decisions to be made as to which ships you should be buying and bringing to battle. So there is no lack of variety in strategy.

As a note, when "upgrading" ships, you can move ships to other fleets so that your most experienced commanders have space for the big ships. This is a much better option than breaking them up for very little resources, but it spends actions and the fleets have to be of the same sub faction. Again, the game gives you a lot of options for what you do.

The Tactics

This is the most in depth part of the game. It plays similarly to Empire at War, but is overall more in-depth due to the nature of the setting. Despite this, there is a lot less micro than most RTS games. I never found myself clicking frantically and only rarely found myself trying to position ships perfectly, usually just to use an ability for a few seconds then return them to automatic fighting control.

There are multiple factions, which all play differently, and have separate ship types and "doctrines". Ship fights take place at multiple ranges, with some battleships engaging in the same melee ranges that the escort ships do. You should play to your ship's ideal ranges. Some have abilities (like torpedoes) that are manually aimed and thus more likely to hit at closer ranges. The slow down battle feature is very much appreciated here.

Speaking of melee, that's an option in this game. Ramming is a fully viable way to close the distance and for some factions, is an excellent way to reverse a bad fight by using a large ship like a cudgel then maneuvering in for a lethal broadside with boarders and gunfire. High tier gameplay isn't all sniper fights, there is lots of room for a good ole brawl.

Ships also feel like ships, there isn't just one way to take them out. You can use fighters to strip them of their defensive guns then blast them with bombers and torpedoes. You can send repeated boarding strikes to sabotage components of the ship, force them into a disadvantaged state to fight boarders, or fully decrew a ship and blast it to pieces from afar. Or you can blast them with gunfire in honorable line battles, carefully maneuvering your fleet and controlling the range. Or you can do all of these. The choices are there.

And if all this seems too complicated, worry not, the slowdown battle feature is one helpful tool but it isn't the only one. You can set target priorities on enemy ships, module damage priorities, and order your own ships to automatically engage at specific ranges, and to automatically engage if you haven't given a new order. All of this can be enabled or disabled right there on the hotbar.

Well, I can't not recommend this game. A truly free game, there is practically no risk in getting it. The gameplay is amazingly fun for anyone who likes Old West era weapons. The weapons operate pretty closely to Counter Strikes's weapons (this is not a bad thing, it's done very well). The graphics are dated (HL2 level), but the aesthetics are pretty good.

The game looks to remain free, maybe have a (reasonable) skin or hat system similar to TF2 or CSGO. Most (if not all) of the servers are community run and well maintained.

I would (and do) recommend this game to most of my friends when they get Steam, it is that good.

Note: The game developers are no longer Sony Online Entertainment, and are now a new entity owned by Columbus Nova under the name Daybreak Games Company (DGC).

On the surface, it is fairly obvious that Planetside 2 (PS2) is a very unique game by being a MMOFPS. Its core FPS mechanics heavily resemble a Battlefield (BF) game with some differences. There are 3, relatively well balanced factions with different weapons. PS2 is set on 4 massive 64km^2 warzones where the lines in the sand are frequently redrawn, and rarely owned for a long time. The maps are persistent, with the only exception being when they are "locked" by one faction conquering the map during an alert (2 hour special event triggered by territory capture).

In my personal opinion, Planetside 2 is one of the most unique games on the market and it provides an experience replicated nowhere else, at least until Warhammer 40K: Eternal Crusade is released. I would highly recommend it for those who are seasoned shooter veterans and BF players who wouldn't mind a bigger playground to be in. If you read nothing other than this, I would highly recommend the game.

Like many games, PS2 has some upsides and some downsides.

Pros:
-The experiences you will have in this game are like none other in any game on the market. This makes gameplay relatively fresh compared to many other games, with many differences from other conventional shooters.

-The core gunplay will be familiar (for the most part) if you have ever layed hands on any of the BF series of games.

-There are many various playstyles to choose from, meaning you will likely never run out of things to try unless you pigeon hole yourself to a specific role.

-This game does F2P right, with most money being spent towards cosmetics or unlocking sidegrades faster. Even with the addition of implants, PS2 is still very fair to free players. The grind is noticable, but often your stock weapons may be the ones you use the most.

-If you have ever wanted more community in a game, PS2 is full of Outfits (clans/guilds) of varying types, specializations, and skill levels. Organized gameplay is the most rewarding (both xp-wise and gameplay-wise), making squading up and joining an outfit the best way to play the game.

-Speaking of community, the game's community isn't extremely toxic like many other FPS communities. Newb questions are often answered on the official forums or on the Planetside subreddit. Even more complex questions or technical issues are answered, so don't be afraid to ask.

-Whatever Anti-Cheat DGC uses, it is incredibly effective. Almost all of their games have little to no issue with hackers, usually driving the hacking scene for these games to extinction.

EDIT: As of the release of H1Z1, people have noticed an increase in hackers on the European servers. There have also been some changes in the Anti-Cheat, so take the above "pro" with a grain of salt.

-The developers (and ex-developers) are relatively active on social media such as twitter and reddit. They'll often post stuff about WIP or changes they may be experimenting with on the test server or their own private servers.

Now, the game does not come without its downsides, and they can be fairly hefty.

Cons:
-The game is very buggy and it is not uncommon for patches to break parts of the game (hence the joke name for the company, dey break games), or exploits to appear. This is due to the complexity of an FPS and an MMO, which are polar opposites as far as game stability goes. Patches and hotfixes appear fairly quickly though, and DGC has gotten much better about build management and bug fixing. Some bugs are more persistent than others, including crazy legs.

EDIT: rip crazy legs, flail on in bug heaven

-Balance is relatively good, and DGC has been getting better, but weapons are often overnerfed and then slowly rebuffed back to usable levels. Some weapons, like HE rounds for tanks, often get nerfed repeatedly or changed. The game is the most balanced it has been since its release.

-The game is a monster of a CPU hog. Like many MMOs, PS2 requires heavy amounts of CPU power and doesn't use the GPU as much as it should. The game also leaks memory like bad plumbing, which is a problem with all Forgelight games. Its hard to get your performance optimal, but it is still possible to get 60+ FPS on 1080p if your CPU is good and you optimize your settings (just keep in mind lower isn't always better, its hard to explain).

-This game will lag, especially in the massive fights it is famous for. If you have a Comcast monopoly in your area, you probably won't be able to experience the game as you might want to. However, clientside hit detection does make up for this, but it will lead to some pretty BS deaths against laggier opponents.

-The game has probably the steepest learning curve I have seen in any FPS. Expect to die, a lot. Eventually you will improve and you will enjoy the game more and more. new player experience has improved though, and the community has a multitude of videos for new players.

-With the recent aqusition by Columbus Nova, it is hard to see where the game is going. Some say the game is setting, while others say the game will liven up and improve. It is hard to tell, so the uncertainty of the game is a definite downside at the moment.

Overall, I feel the pros outweigh the cons. The game is still being supported, it is likely that it will still have servers up for coming years. However the game's population is slowly going down, and I feel that getting very invested in the game will lead to heartbreak. I would still recommend at least trying the game, as it is free to play.