Recent reviews by Harbinger Ace

For in the grim darkness of our far future, there is only democracy!

Drop into arctic wastelands, hellish nightmares, and worse in the crusade to spread Managed Democracy™ across the galaxy. Too many worlds of fiction depict universes so dark and devoid of hope, but Helldivers II shines above them all. Scalping bugs and scrapping toasters is always a pleasure, but nothing imparts a sense of awe like cluster-bombing oil-blooded filth or dropping 500kg of liberty on those tin-skinned communists. Never before has mankind felt so glorious.

By far, I am not the first to see parallels with ODSTs from Halo. Personally, I feel Helldivers is what Halo should have become, not such a generic high-intensity shooter. Perhaps ". . . there is still time to stop the key from turning . . ."

For Super Earth! Let the tyrants burn!

Marked received for free since I was drafted received my service as a gift.

This portion of the review is now obsolete, and no longer relevant.
The freedom-hating rats at SONY Corp took my friends off the front lines and sentenced them to death. And, yet, I am expected to surrender my identification to these vermin? With how often our enemies hack their data stores, no! I will not put mankind at risk for the greed of one corporation. I'm returning home to take the fight to our real enemy.

Initially, I held off from buying this game. It had many issues, goofy mechanics, and could be headache-inducing to play.

Then an update dropped earlier this month (November 2023), and many reviewers started talking about how this game was "fixed." I can't say exactly how it used to be, since I didn't play myself, but this game feels amazing now.

For clarity, I play on an Oculus Rift CV1.

All the guns are straightforward, there's no progression system, guns are unlocked at the player's leisure, attachments are shared across guns, and the controls are mostly intuitive; took me far too long to realize the Steam button (small menu button on left controller) is used for opening the in-game menus. This game plays very similarly to Pavlov and Into the Radius, so players of those games will feel right at home.

The gun selection isn't the most diverse, but it's sufficient; unless you're die-hard into exotic weapons, Crossfire: Sierra Squad probably has what you're looking for. The shooting sounds are great, the recoil is generously low, and the guns have realistic firing modes. Snipers and other scoped weapons can be used like in any other VR game, but they also have an FPS-like scope mechanic which makes them very easy to use. Obviously, certain guns are better than others for certain situations, but overall, all the guns are viable; pick what you prefer. The angle the player holds each gun is adjustable horizontally, vertically, and even via vertical/horizontal offset in the settings.

Guns do have a few downsides. Less critical is the magazine capacities, which are mostly unrealistic. For example, the M4 and AK have 40-round magazines, but are modeled with 30-round mags. Also not very critical is that firing modes do not seem changeable; full-auto stays full-auto, semi stays semi, etc. Players who prefer realism may be bothered by this, but since the game is more arcade-y, it's not a huge deal. The only real problem is that pumping pump-action shotguns seems to have a small delay after firing; this makes pump-actions less desirable than the other shotguns. This isn't exclusive to Crossfire: Sierra Squad, but it's more noticeable. As a fun fact, the P90 can be mag-slapped. This makes no sense, but it's hilarious, and I hope it stays that way.

The main menu is a shooting range with all guns available for use. More games should do this.

This game is frequently reported to have random performance drops. These appear to affect players randomly, and inconsistently. I, myself, have not experienced any, and have had nothing but steady framerates thus far.

The singleplayer campaign is decent enough, but linear, and its replayability is low. It feels like a means to use each and every weapon in the game, and give the player an idea of their preferred playstyle. Besides a few random difficulty spikes, it plays fine. It is 13 missions long, and takes only ~3 hours to complete on hard, assuming the player dies a few times due to the difficulty spikes. Campaign has both arcade and realistic settings, and five difficulties. Earlier, I mentioned that guns have to be unlocked; that does not apply to the campaign, which always features preset loadouts.

What is not fine is the story, which is not only painfully generic, but does not give the player any real idea of what is actually going on. There are two organizations at war, there are bioweapons, and the guy the player works for is greedy. It's not interesting.

The coop content is where this game shines. The coop missions are more replayable, but it's hard to replay them because there are so many that there is little point in replaying until they're finished. Coop is where the loadout system is used, and each mission should be considered carefully. Most missions work with nearly any loadout, but a few are gimmicky missions which require special loadouts. Be advised, the coop content is balanced around having two active players; it can be played alone, but this tremendously increases the difficulty.

Horde mode also exists. I haven't tried it yet, but it's present.

All achievements in this game are fair and straightforward to unlock; there are no super-hard challenges, nor bizarre requirements for any of them.

As a final note, I recommend playing the singleplayer campaign before beginning any coop content. There are whispers that playing coop, then singleplayer, then coop again will wipe all coop progress. No clue how common it is, nor if it's even still a thing. I would still recommend singleplayer first even if this bug doesn't exist just to be used to the guns, and because it's free experience, and free currency to buy guns for coop.

What is this game? Because, as far as I can tell, VR Kanojo nothing more than a mоlestation simulator. While the animation and art style are great, those are the only positives I can really note.

Let me just start with gameplay:

There's next to nothing. This appears to be because all the NSFW features were limited to a patch from ILLUSION's website, but that patch no longer exists; the devs no longer support this game, and are even terminating its existence on 2023-08-18.

For what is there, it's also next to nothing:

• Movement is awful, with both locomotion and turning being limited to small jerking movements.
  
  • Smooth turning or bust!
• Almost nothing can be interacted with. The only real interactions, besides picking up 3 objects and clusters of books that will just reappear at their origins upon being dropped, are nodding for yes, shaking head for no, and mоlesting the woman during a white-screen-flash scene where she's doing something specific.
  
  • Admittedly, nodding and shaking are nice features more VR games should use. The only other game I know off-hand that uses such a system is Dominatrix Simulator: Threshold, another NSFW game. That said, however, I only had two of these interactions, and neither of them seemed to produce any major change in the gameplay.
    
  • The mоlesting is not only creepy, it's extremely awkward. The player basically puts their hands up to glowing blue spots on the woman's body, and that's it. The first such scene is when she is trying to grab the green book off the shelf; the player can tickle and harass her. Maybe I'm not degenerate enough to understand the appeal of this, but if someone tickled or groped me while trying to reach up, I'd give them a bent nose. Now, I'm a man, so I asked my mother what she would do, and she basically gave the same answer.
    
  • EDIT: Many other reviewers are talking about killing a cockroach. I never did this, and I'm not sure what I did to not get that scene.
• There are post-game "scenes" after the woman gets half-naked from soaking herself with a small cup of water, complaining the room is too hot, then falling in love with the player for... did she really fall in love with the player because he touched her in uncomfortable ways?
  
  • The kissing scene is up first. It's basically the same as kissing the woman while she's half-naked, except she has all her clothes on, and it can happen at either day or night. The scene is otherwise the same. Credit where credit is due, this is about as good as VR kissing gets at this current time. It's a little disorienting when my vision places one of her eyes where her nose should be, but I think that's because of VR, not the game.
    
  • I would have reviewed the others if they were unlocked, but players need the now non-existent patch to unlock them, as well as the other half of the game.

What bothers me most about this game is how uncomfortable it makes me feel. I understand that this is a hentai game, but there's just something off about her appearing to express discomfort (taking a guess; I don't speak Japanese, and those moments aren't captioned), but then proceeding to not only ignore it, but later getting the player to kiss her, then expressing love towards them. The message the devs are sending is concerning; since this game is targeting a Japanese audience, it is reinforcing extremely problematic relationship expectations present in that country. This is not just a fetish simulator; Breeders of the Nephelym is a fetish simulator; Dominatrix Simulator: Threshold is a fetish simulator. There's a bigger issue at hand with VR Kanojo.

Even if that is ignored entirely, there's just no game here, and the USD$50 price point for a game that is half-present, discontinued, and going to be removed in less than one month from this review is ridiculous! So, no, I do not recommend this game; it is terrible, incomplete, creepy, disturbing, overpriced, and genuinely an unpleasant experience. I had to take a shower after playing it, and I pray to His Noodliness that any who actually enjoy this game have taken a shower in the last two days.

I bought this game after losing a bet, and I am never touching this again. I hope to hell Steam honors my refund request.

p.s. Want to play an amazing VR game? Go buy yourself Into the Radius. It won't make you rock hard, but it will bring our your true American™ self.
p.p.s. No I will not stop SIMPing for Into the Radius it's an amazing game and I have 150 hours in it for good reason. Go play it!

Replaced the pictures of Addie and Blue with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, then blew the biggest load of my life.

Thanks for spotlighting this gem, Act Man!

"When I first stepped into the Pechorsk Exclusion Zone, it was abundantly clear that I did not belong there. The land is torn asunder, as if a photo was taken at the moment of disaster; trains, automobiles, and pieces of hundreds of structures are tossed into the air, almost suspended in time. Scattered everywhere are bizarre artifacts, otherworldly dangers, and hostile... things? All I can say is that something does not want us here.

In my prior days, I just sat at a desk and pushed papers, but now I scavenge ammo and weapons to kill whatever that black void brought to our world. I don't even know what to think of them; are they what happened to the Pechorsk's inhabitants, or are they some cruel mockery of humanity? I guess it doesn't really matter, since a bullet kills them all just fine. I'd like to head back stateside, but the UN won't let me leave, and they won't tell me why. At least the pay is decent, and supplies are easy enough to find, especially since that, er, Tide keeps bringing in things every few days. Don't think I want to get caught in it, though.

Gotta say, I'm not used to sticking bullets in my magazines one at a time. Then again, I'm also not used to shooting spiders with twelve legs, so maybe that's not the worst thing to worry about. Coming back to base and cleaning my weapons used to feel like a chore, but after dealing with armed... things a few times, I find getting my gear back into shape to be a relaxing change of tone. Just wish the UNPSC would offer me some proper cleaning supplies; I'm pretty sure guns need more love than an oil shower and a toilet-paper scrub. I can't even begin to count how many times my guns have broken on me.

Gotta say, I wouldn't recommend this job if you can afford to avoid it. But, if you're reading this, then you're probably stuck in Pechorsk, too. So, go ahead and pick it up. UN ain't the sympathetic types, but they pay what they say, and they let you shoot high-caliber automatics in the field! They've got a shooting range, and some basic training, if you need it. Can't promise you'll meet any co-workers, though; I haven't met many, myself.

This is Explorer #307, signing off.

p.s. I ran into a couple explorers when out in the village. They weren't too talkative, but mentioned "something driving" around the Zarya. Always thought no one was buying Soviet cars, but maybe those not-people figured out how to start one.

p.p.s Does anyone have extra pants? UN doesn't sell any."

Space Engineers' DLC is pay-to-win. Don't listen to the white-knights; in PvP, the DLC gives gameplay advantages via functional blocks. For example, freight blocks offered in Decorative Pack 2 give inventory space, but are untargetable by turrets. This is in contrast to cargo containers, which are targeted. By far the worst offender is the Industrial Cockpit in Decorative Pack 1; besides offering superior view for a pilot, the cockpit has greater integrity than the vanilla cockpits. More integrity = lasts longer in combat. If you really want to buy a DLC, buy the Style Pack. It's the only DLC without any possible gameplay advantages. Given how most of the active playerbase appears to be on official servers, this is a genuine concern.

As the developer of Assault Weapons Pack and Armored Hangar Doors, I genuinely care about the wellbeing of Space Engineers. Unfortunately, KeenSWH has shown very little support to its playerbase over the last few years. Space Engineers may have been "officially released" some time ago, but the quality of performance, gameplay, and overall support make SE feel like an early alpha. For a comparison, Starship EVO literally just came out, but it runs better, loads faster, and has more frequent updates than Space Engineers. The real kick in the teeth is that Starship EVO is made by a single person, whereas KeenSWH is a small development team.

Space Engineers had lots of promise, and although what has been done with this horribly-obsolete game engine is remarkable, this game is dying. Much of the potential has been squandered by incompetent upper-level decisions, but the biggest insult has been the DLC. Were skins, emotes, and scenarios the sole focus of DLC, I would openly defend the practice. However, including blocks behind DLC is embarrassing, and has split the playerbase no matter what anyone dares spout from their blabber-hole. Out of seven DLCs, only Style Pack can really be considered reasonable (Deluxe Edition is arguable, I suppose). This isn't about the cost; the principle of locking blocks behind paywalls that mandate an online connection to use is completely shameful. DLC blocks are a sham, and it is my hope no other sandbox game will ever begin this practice.

After the release of 1.197, I received a "Missing File Privileges" error. Space Engineers is the only game with this error, and it is on the developers' end; the files are in the Bin64 folder, and no permissions can be given to fix this error. The only solution which worked for me was installing SE on a secondary drive. Be aware this issue exists.

Decorative Pack 2: Electric Boogaloo.

I'm not even going to waste my time talking about this one. If you want to know my exact thoughts, here's my review of the first Decorative Pack.

S.S.D.D.

When Kerbal Space Program started putting functional systems behind paid DLC, I was bothered, but didn't really comment. Even though those DLCs are $15, versus SE's for $4 ($2.79 right now), why am I only mad about this one in Space Engineers?

Simple: Kerbal Space Program is a singleplayer game, meaning its DLC only adds extra functions to a game already fleshed out and fun to play. This is in sharp contrast to Space Engineers, a multiplayer game where PvP is a large part of many players' experiences, and where the DLC blocks can freely be used by any purchasing players. In simpler words, Decorative Pack adds blatant gameplay advantages to players who purchase the pack, and actively screws over players who do not.

However, what bothers me more is one of the main reasons I stopped playing Stellaris: These paid-for blocks, which only adds insult-to-injury from the restrictive vanilla block selection, are trickled out in numerous DLC packs. I said this would happen when this pack released, but everyone disagreed. Yet here I am, proven CORRECT

The most egregious offense is that KeenSWH does not even need the DLC to survive. In fact, they don't even need it to grow their business. Marek Rosa, Keen's CEO, recently admitted to this on a Twitch stream[clips.twitch.tv]. I see countless white-knights claiming that Keen requires the revenue to survive. Rosa, himself, debunks this.

tl;dr
FUNCTIONAL BLOCKS.
FUNCTIONAL BLOCKS WHICH ADD PLAYER ADVANTAGES.
IN A MULTIPLAYER

SANDBOX GAME!!

20 free pr0nz in 20 minutes.

GF likes it, too.

I am tired of being scammed. I am tired of being lied to in vein attempts to steal my money. I am tired of oversensitive developers who suddenly beg for forgiveness when they viciously attack their playerbase and ban users for issuing simple criticisms of their dishonest conduct and scummy business practices.

Every major update in the last four years has launched utterly broken, and it often takes months to fix, all while DE begs for money and complains that they don't have the time to make the game better. Regal Aya is the last straw. I'm done.

New War better be different, because the game will die if it's broken, too.


This game is... well, remarkable.

For a looter-shooter/MMO-lite, there is quite a bit of engaging content. Sure, grinding is sometimes required to progress in the game (one or two instances are painful), but most of the game's grind is pretty fair. That, of course, takes into account the fact this game is completely free-to-play, with no monthly subscription.

Most looter-shooters and MMO-lites have a noticeable level of pay-to-win. Warframe does see some level, but not where the game actually matters; most weapons and all warframes ((save one, from a quest) ("playable characters") are built using blueprints found on the market, within relics (primes only), or in various missions across the game. Sure, nearly all of these (except primes) can be purchased outright with the premium currency, platinum, but this is not required; the only items which require platinum are most of the personal decorations, warframe attachments, and color palettes (certain event items use in-game currency). None of these items affect gameplay, and none are hidden behind any paid RNG system. However, some items cannot be purchased with platinum at all. These are gifted to the player after completing events or quests as blueprints (e.g. Heat Sword), pre-built blueprints (e.g. Kuva Lich weapons), or the actual item itself (e.g. Opticor Vandal). Platinum, itself, can be received for free from other players, meaning that a skilled or lucky player does not have to spend any money on this game at all.

Since Warframe is an active MMO-lite, it obviously has a community; MMO communities can become quite toxic (see: League of Legends). Warframe, for the most part, manages to evade this issue. There will always be that one prick in a defense mission who sits away in a corner and screams at everyone who doesn't revive them (I'm tempted to name-drop), but most players are friendly and competent. On a side note, unless you enjoy serious cringe, stay out of Region Chat. Also, don't say "Nezha" and "trap" in the same message while in Region Chat, even if it's helpful advice.

Also, the game's moderators are awful. Check out this video and its sequel, both by content partner Rahetalius, to see what I'm talking about. On a good note, unless you happen to run across one in-game, the mods should cause you no issues. Having played in the North-America Pacific region for over six years, I have never run into one.

Certain items can be traded between players. These include platinum, prime weapon and warframe blueprints, prime weapon parts, unranked syndicate weapons, and a few others. Trading is straightforward and easy, with most players being incredibly friendly. However, the in-game trade system is awful. If you are going to trade any items, use the website warframe.market[warframe.market]. Warframe.market is a large 3rd party community dedicated solely to trading in Warframe, and costs nothing to use (no download, either!). Plus, any scammers on the website can be reported.

(Another piece of trading advice: The item you see is the item you receive. If you are seeing something which is not the item you are trading for (e.g. wrong prime part), SAY SOMETHING!)

On the topic of gameplay, this game is incredibly fun. Mission types do get repetitive over time, but the actual gameplay is solid and feels amazing. The gameplay is so great, I used to call Warframe "the game that needs no story." After the cinematic quests started rolling in, though, I can no longer do so. No spoilers, but this game's story is pretty damn good, even being incomplete as of this review.

At present, this game is easily a 7/10. The Emperean update is being rolled out in stages (we can finally build our railjacks!), and demonstrates DE's commitment to Warframe's development. It'll keep kicking for the long haul, so pick it up and try it out! Like it, stick around! Don't, then no worries; it costs no money to master.