Recent reviews by shadeline

It's a good game but certainly not the best in the series.
As far as the remaster goes, it's a really good graphical update from the original- one I've come to prefer since it fits the theme more.

Ever since it released from early access it feels as equally terrible as it is good.
It's just barely on the edge of me recommending it, but for the state it is in- I would wait to buy it.


I unironically feel like there were less bugs during early access than I do now, and I don't know how that happened given some maps, such as Thank You, Come Again play almost exactly the same way as they did during the EA phase.

- Framerate issues are now more abundant for me, regardless if I am playing on DX11 or DX12, and my drivers are updated. I will get roughly 90 ~ 120 frames for the entire map except for some hotspots where my frames will tank down to 10 and in some cases 0- and my game becomes literally unplayable. I have had to quit maps near completion because I will walk through some hallway, or get close to a door; where the game will then decide to basically stop working.


This game is arguably the most real and enhanced modern SWAT shooter that is currently on Steam right now. But there are some aspects that just kill the entire "realism" of it.

- Suspects reaction to action time is insanely fast. It is not 'human-like' whatsoever like they claim it to be. Someone in another review made a very solid point on this and said something like, while the RoN developers did take into account that the average human reaction time is 250 ms (which is what the suspects reaction time is) they did not take into account the amount of time it would take to acknowledge the type of threat, analyze it, raise your weapon, and then fire.

- Suspects are hardly ever pressured at all and have an psychopathic level of willingness to die over a few thousand dollars. On multiple occasions where I've had a suspect surrounded by SWAT, while they're getting ready to surrender- almost every time that has happened they immediately raise their weapon and start firing, even though they're surrounded by 5 SWAT officers and face certain death.

- Suspects seem to not be affected by the amount of lighting in an environment whatsoever. On maps where NVGs are a necessity by a SWAT team- the suspects will have no problem seeing you, aiming, and shooting with the same accuracy they would in regular lighting.

- Suspects are not ever antagonized by the fact that they are surrounded by a highly trained SWAT team, and will instead fire at will with almost no time to decide whether or not they want to die today. This is especially an issue on maps like 'Thank You, Come Again' where the suspects are clearly some random street thugs looking for a quick score.

- All suspects, regardless of their type, act like they were trained at some sort of hyper-military-terrorist facility. Whether it's literal terrorists, street thugs, hired security, or paranoid rednecks. Their training and level of difficulty doesn't seem to vary from one another. It feels like the only thing that makes certain levels harder is the type of weapons you're facing, the environment, and the amount of enemies- NOT their skill level.


The SWAT AI has been improved IMMENSELY from EA, but yet again- they are plagued by some terrible issues.

- When loading into some certain maps, all you will hear about 3 times in a row is "you're in my way" "move sir". On top of that, when you have your team fall in behind you, y'know following YOUR lead, they will often ask you to move out of the way several times in a row, as if you aren't the one leading.

- SWAT have almost no trigger discipline when it comes to civilians in a firefight. Although this game preaches about "bring order to chaos, you aren't here to make orphans or widows" they sure do a terrible job at doing it. Even after ordering one of your officers to mirror through a door where a civilian is present, they have almost no hesitation flinging bullets towards the bad guy that is clearly hiding behind some innocent woman.

- While being ordered to clear a room, before even ensuring that the room is entirely cleared- some members on the team (for whatever reason) are deadset on cuffing civilians and bagging evidence.


- Almost all levels are now plagued with an abysmal amount of suspects that supersede the expected skill level.

- Old scenarios from EA were thrown out the window to help support a "campaign" that almost nobody follows. It's as if the developers couldn't decide if they wanted to go for a campaign based game with a set pace, or a free-range simulator where players are invited to mess around and hone their skill. Either way, this game is now a good example of how to do neither of those things.

- Pretty much every map I've seen so far doesn't have a change in the rules of engagement. For something like Neon Tomb where you're expecting to fight literal terrorists, you have to yell for compliance in many cases or else you'll get penalized.


I would have put this under level design but it really deserves its own category.
Disclaimer: It looks really cool, but it absolutely sucks.

- The layout doesn't make sense at all, whether you're looking at it from a realism standpoint or overall good design and flow standpoint. Why is the shooting range like 20 yards from the Chief of Police's office? Why is there an outside portion that has literally no point of existing?

- When returning from some missions you will spawn outside of the headquarters, which means you have to walk all the way back to the briefing room to choose another mission. And if you know anything about the way this game's pace is, it feels like it takes forever.

- Walking from one room of the HQ to the other feels like it takes forever, they should have kept the old map or at least bumped the movement speed up for this.


- The suspect an officer is cuffing will end up behind a door or wall.

- Some loadout selections will save sometimes, and other times they won't. This can be frustrating in a mission where you wanted to go in with JHP ammo, but instead all of your ammo is AP.

- You cannot close some doors, I ran into this issue a lot on 'The Spider' where I could not get some of the exterior doors to close, so I had to order my team to do it.

- Especially on Brisa Cove, I've had my FPS tank into the abyss to the point where I couldn't play the game anymore. I'm not talking about 20 FPS, I mean literally 0-1 FPS, there were some points where my Steam FPS counter couldn't register the framerate so it disappeared.

- After killing an armed suspect, there are occasions where their weapon will be over 8 feet away from where they were killed.

- Dead bodies glitch out incredibly often.

- The Middle Mouse Button prompt will not appear on some occasions, so you have to find a sweet spot if you want to order your team to stack at certain doors.


The fact that they removed over half of the mission content from this game to support a light narrative that very few of us care about is probably the worst part of this update.
Yes, they added some new maps. But the different rules of engagement options for different levels was removed entirely, and that seriously removed a lot of the replayability for me.

Taking that into account with the terrible framerate and overall optimization, you should really wait before buying this game.

18 FPS on low settings..

what a joke.

Oh, I can write a refreshed review?
Now that you guys made a terrible attempt to hide the initial reviews?

Yeah this game sucks.
$70 for less content than Call of Dutys' that released a decade ago.
$70 for the developers to prioritize warzone yet again.
$70 just for them to have us pay ANOTHER $70 even though we were initially told the game would be supported throughout 2024.
$70 for less maps than we have seen upon release in the last decade of Call of Duty history.
$20 for the average DLC even though CoD Ghosts' DLC (2013) was an average of $2 - $5.
(I'll expand on that one, believe me)
$70 for a story that had the most cringe ending I've ever seen in a Call of Duty game. He circles you in a tank and sh** talks you. It's like a loony tunes cartoon.
$20 to participate in a system that puts you against lesser-skilled players.

Ill expand on the Ghosts thing.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare II bundles cost (on average) $20 for two skins (most times one skin), two weapon specific skins (yes you can only use them on two weapons), and some weapon charms and other stuff people don't care about.

Call of Duty Ghosts had universal weapon camos for roughly $2 to $5 dollars. (Yes, can you believe it? They were applied to ALL WEAPONS). Call of Duty Ghosts had announcer packs that changed the way the entire game sounded, you could literally have R. Lee Ermey screaming into your ear for only $2.99.

What I'm getting at is.
This game isn't Call of Duty anymore. It's a skinned cash-grab for a failing company who preaches "equality and togetherness!" while they scramble to cover up their sexual harassment, and unsafe workplace lawsuits.

If you get fixations and want to control something (such as sending innocent medieval citizens to their death) then this is the game for you.

Had over 500 hours on Xbox, 300+ some on Epic Games, and working toward 200 on Steam.
It's a worth while game.

I would wait until it's on discount (like it as at the time of me writing this) because Ark II is due to release later this year anyways.

But for those who can't wait and just want to play an Ark game, I'll say this.

This game has been the most fun and engaging thing I've ever played. I've played it before early access and all that.
It's addicting, fun, and draws people of all interests. If you like to PvP, there's PVP servers. If you just like to build and explore, there's certain servers for that. Official and private servers.. etc with their own custom rules.

It's a worthwhile game with thousands upon thousands of unique features to discover.
Buy it, try it for a few hours, you'll love it. (It's a bit difficult to get the hang of it at first so don't stress if it doesn't click at first) but nothing beats that first tame.

actually garbage

I am a 69 year old mother.
Whom isn't used to playing television games.

I have a 16 year old son whom mostly spends his days locked in his bedroom probably watching adult films.
For so long of my life, my connections with my children has grown duller and duller.
I had asked my son about GTAV and his face lit up like a christmas tree.
This was my sign, my chance.

I meandered over to the nearest bestbuy and bought the most expensive desktop computing system they had.
After looking up several tutorials on how to install Steam (by valve) and GTAV, I finally opened the video game and played.
My son had come walking in on me topless and enjoying myself in Vanilla Unicorn when after 16 years of his life he had asked to spend time with me.
I was so excited, to finally spend time with my son who has been so distant from me.

This game has truly changed my life and I could not be happier,
finally getting to spend time with my son.

Thank you rockstar

Leave children alone.