Recent reviews by Hammer_Man

It's crazy how many people I know went from 'this may be my favorite game for a while' to 'I may never play this game again'. I feel bad for Arrowhead as this has nothing to do with the great game they have made and everything to do with Sony being terrible for gaming in general. If the psn requirement is removed I be changing my review.

Edit: PSN requirement has been removed. Gratz to the community for affecting change! Well done Sony you made the right move here.

Coming from Conan Exiles, this game has a lot going for it. combat is straightforward but feels good. exploration is engaging. The leveling grind feels about right, and unlocks arrive at a decent pace. Building/Crafting/Farming has all of the QoL that I would want but is till sufficiently challenging not to feel like they game is just giving it away.

Dont expect this to be the next BOTW, but do expect to have fun with friends, and get a kick out of playing it solo too!

Great game play variety where none of the elements are poor and they all interplay well with one another.

Yes, with a lot of trepidation

1. If you are expecting a good hack-and-slash aRPG, look elsewhere. Controls are clunky, upgrades are too small to notice, and the whole game has a too easy/too hard feel.

2. If you are looking for a good w40k story, this is your guy. It has the feel of w40k, both the good and the bad.

I will probably return to this game now and again to get my w40k kill-em-all fix, but I do not expect this to be something that keeps me awake into the wee hours of the night. If interested, buy at a deep sale price

Clunky controls, confusing pathing, and an awkward perspective leaves much to be desired. compared to other games in the genre this could use use a lot more polish. Overall, not what I was hoping for.

Too often an early acess game has a great idea and a poor execution of that idea. This is not the case for PUBG. The basic concept (hide and go seek but with bullets) is very well realized. When in the game you feel like the hunter/hunted, digging through the abandoned houses and towns looking for something, anything, that will give you the edge in the next inevitable encounter.

Dispite this excelent execution of consept, the game is cursed with endless problems. It is a resource hog, and you will see significant frame drops and lag even if you have a substancial computer and good internet service, not to mention a littanly of hackers and strange player behavior on the Third Person Perspective servers. My advice is to stick to the first person servers, especially if you are comming from other FPS based games.

This game is definatly benefitted by having friends to play it with. Over 90% of my game time has been with at least one friend, and usually two. That said I had the exact same, if not a more intence experience in solo mode as I had in duo/trio/squad modes.

Overall, if you are on the fence about this game, and have a good computer, I would reccomend. Without a doubt it is flawed, but the gameplay is amazingly great, especially with a friend or friends. If you are not a fan fps's with large, open maps, I would not reccomend. If you cannot stand buggy games, check back in further down the raod.

Excelent gameplay, excelent music. A great single player experience that will leave you very satisfied.

Pros-
Well built, novel game mechanics
great music and overall atmosphere
Gripping story that kept me interested til the end

Cons-
No replayability
Can sometimes leave you high and dry on what you are supposed to do next

Nuclear Dawn is one of the best mash ups of FPS and RST currently available on Steam. It is my impression that the only contender in thei genre on steam is Natural Selection 2, so i will do a little compare/contrast at the end of this.

The good:

-Excelent RTS gameplay. UI is basic, and at times a little clunky, but in general it gets the job done for both macro and micro management of building, upgrades, and resources. The biggest problem is relying on your soldiers to defend your structures and get you resources.

-Decent FPS class based combat. Each class has thier strengths, and thier weaknesses. Weapons are well balanced across classes and teams. Certian mechanics can be difficult if you are used to more FPS centric games, and getting used to having to rely on someone to get you better weapons and spawn points can be tough, but in gerneral the FPS gameplay is rewarding.

-A Great community. The people who play this game LOVE it. They set up events on popular severs, help out new people, and are very communicative.

The bad:

-Small base of players. Time has taken its toll on the number of active players. At peak times there is often a server of 30 players or so, but other than that there are very few people playing.

-Small selection of maps. Although the community has done thier best to make a wider selection of maps, there are still a very limited amount compared to FPS centeric and RTS centeric games.

***Natural Selection 2 vs. Nuclear Dawn***

Natural Selection 2 has 2 radically different sides. Although this creates some more variety, thier strengths are appearant at different points throughout a match, which makes the game much more difficult to balance. At this point in time I would say that for balancing reasons alone Nuclear Dawn is the better game.

Nuclear Dawn has considerably larger maps than Natural Selection 2. This allows for more strategy for each commander, expecially when compared to Natural Selection's closed corridors and small rooms.

Both games have equivilent FPS gameplay, with the exception that NS2 is only class based for one of the teams. The other team can custimize thier loadouts (shotguns midgame, grenade launchers/flamethrowers late game, exo suits end game), but thier overall stats are the same.

Nuclear Dawn blows the pants off NS2 when it comes to RTS UI. Because the 2 sides have very similar buildings, the developers were able to keep the key bindings for each side's buildings the same, so it is very easy to play as commander for either side. This is not the case for NS2.


Overall, if you like FPS, or RTS this game is worth a try. Make sure to sign up with the community groups so you know when everyone else is playing.

A final note: This game, like many team based FPS, really requires a mic. You can still be an effective team member if you don't (there are in-game voice commands), but I can assure you that at least once every game you will wish you had it to call out enemy locations accuratly, or request supplies in a very specivic spot. For the RTS element a mic is a must.