Recent reviews by joemancool

So i have a few issues and i barely even played the game,

Issue 1. Online only. How do you mess up this simple of a feature in men of war. Seriously it's outrageous that we need a central server to connect to and validate when prior this was a non issue. This screams push back against modders in multiplayer.

Issue 2. REVISED game editor issues- So turns out they encrypted the paks. WHY IN GODS GREEN EARTH WOULD YOU ENCRYPT THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE? Seriously did you guys not hear of oh i don't know, using this handy thing called not uploading them to the steam build? Seriously that's got to be the worst idea in the history of anything.

Which still plays into point of the online only problem because the decryption is probably baked into their little central server that they give you when you play single player, because yo u can't load single player maps in game editor FOR SOME REASON >:(

Issue 3. UI has vanished. What the heck happened to the UI? It was perfectly fine and was great for every game and now you decide to take it and butcher it away? Truly horrendous

Edit Issue 4. "realism Mode" They added something called "realism mode" which was not even a thing in the past so i'm guessing they realized that them majorly changing core mechanics was not gonna fly easily and needed an easy punching bag. Anyways damage numbers after i used a mod to test damage numbers

A m1 bazooka. Light tank "arcade mode" 2 shots from a bazooka. Medium 3-4. Heavy 4
Keep in mind you can insta oof the crew in a single bazooka shot but not destroy the vehicle

A m1 bazooka in "realism mode" (aka the real way men of war was meant to be played) Light- 1 shot. Medium 1 shot. heavy 1 shot.

Final Issue 5, the campaign (story mode multiplayer) - So not all the singleplayer is multiplayer capable (kind of annoying but alright).

But what i can't forgive is the difficulty spiking in those missions. So what the Ai gets is HUGE swafts of infantry, AT and more. The worst offender for this is the western front germans and the eastern front russians. In the eastern front campaign the river crossing hold you need to stop a brigade of germans from getting through. Well that brigade is more like the entirety of german's southern sector compressed into one group

As well the western front germans get no reinforcements, little man power and of course, paper thin armor. As well the americans get a super pershing in not one but TWO MISSIONS, by the way the first apperance of a super pershing is also a mission with glitched mines that can't be detected so uhh. fun

Those Five are the big ones that basically said "Refund this right away it's not a men of war game it's a cash grab" Which depresses me to say because men of war has been a staple series for the WW2 RTS genre, but the creative libertys taken have made this go from "Tactical mindful ww2 RTS" to "Goofy mc goofers WW2 COH inspired RTS".

I removed the part about damage models. You did add them, and then put them in a little corner to water down the game experience and have those damage models in a portion called "realism", did you guys even understand why people liked the original men of war's anyways? or did the publishers force you guys to bend a knee and water this down so aggressively to meet an arbitrary sales quota.

1/10. Has the name of men of war but does not have anything else from men of war behind it, if you want a better experience and something more true to the men of war style of gameplay? Call to arms WW2 Expansion is where it's at.

A single line of code made this from unplayable, to good and enjoyable game

They did not in fact remove the blockage behind other countries. We stopped the surface level plans, but helldivers we only stopped a piece of their plans. Like the robots scouting force we merely only touched a small blip on the radar of their ideas and plans

They will attempt to re-add linking again.

Don't get me wrong, While i do like this game. I have a few critiques

1. Zombie constructables - As they are now. Way too op. The zombies in like two days time get about 20 of those turret shooters and turn their hives into nigh unstoppable monoliths with nothing short of 5 apcs with 125's slapping it to take the thing down. Even then i'm losing about 3 of those apcs. Forget sending infantry or helicopters because they get SHREDDED by those things. Instantly too with how fast the ai spams those things out.

2. Lack of certain options - I want the ability to tweak some things. For instance special zombies. What if i just want my movie standard zombies without anything special? can't because a handful of specials will always be able to spawn in. Same with the previously mentioned zombie placements they can't be turned off.

3. AI has too much ramp up - I can understand if the zombie virus spreads quickly but by day 2 if i don't somehow have shredder rounds my tactics are already useless because of how quickly one side of the map gets utterly swamped with infected. Maybe slow down progress a little. I get that zombies can spread slightly fast but your mixing world war z the movie with i am legend here in terms of re-animation.

4. Zombie bases - This is a different beast from the first issue. The infected bases pop up way too quickly (Probably an issue thanks to point 3 and their speed of infection). i remember the infection taking at least a week to ramp up to maximum mobility in terms of sector hopping. Now it takes at most 2 in game hours for three sectors to have major infected sightings

Good points

1. Niche - That's right it's a good thing this is a niche because it tickles that right itch when i want to blast some zeds and blast some tunes at the same time with my troops.
2. Replayability - I feel like this will be even better in the future when we have more map to play with but for now it's pretty alright to come back and get rid of some zeds.

3. Music modding - This is already a step in the right direction and while i understand this game is under development what this game needs to add more to the replay-ability section is MODS. I can't help but proclaim how modding makes an already good game into a legendary game. If this game allowed me to have custom maps, custom units and maybe even custom zombies/zombie rules. I don't think i'd be able to put this down for long if this game had a more diverse modding section.

Anyways that's all my points. Good game to kill some time, i'd wait for it to start to enter the final phases of early access prior to buying but it's already on the way to a highly satisfying release, if it can get some of the issues ironed out and balancing down pat.

So this game has the potential to be fun but sadly falls flat in alot of regards.

Issue 1-AI
The ai seem to have this omnipresent view that if you are in it they can see you even if you are not in line of sight they have this radius that can see you,
This radius also applies through terrain and buildings meaning getting suppressed through a wall is a more then likely occurrence

The ai also has issues with basic nav sometimes and will not move to retake lost objectives when presented the chance and purely remains defensive requiring players to move and retake objectives.

Issue 2-Rearming
This issue is a big one. Vehicles get the rare resupply crane if they are lucky. EMPLACEMENTS GET JACK DIDDLY. Why do the emplacements lack a replenish option dev? This makes some maps a chore (All of the russian campaign) to a slog. Also the inconsistent vehicle spawns on some maps, Some maps get a good stream of aircraft or tanks for the first bit then once you progress enough YOU COMPLETELY LOSE THEM. Encirclement for the russians is the worse case of this as the germans keep getting aircraft while you have utterly nothing to counter them if you lose your aircraft to the 90 thousand aa emplacements the dev added to the german side. Seriously balance some of these campaigns out with some aa for both sides or add aa trucks and stuff for both sides to keep the playing field fun and enjoyable and not a chore.

Issue 3 - Enemy players
You might not think this is a bad thing but playing multiplayer and one of your friends join the other team and it goes from the chore and or slog prior to an absolute nightmare of a task pushing. This is because a single player is enough for a whole ai squad to push into an objective and recap it thus setting you back substantialy. Pray to god that you don't get the previously mentioned issue where they get into a one sided map (Encirclement) and are constantly using planes while you can do absolutely nothing to counter this because for some reason all the aa guns are empty and they get to play an easy game for them.


I cannot recommend this game at this point because of these three flaws. I doubt the dev will care about these flaws and will say "they are intentional" well they are a pain in the arse to play against and make a fun game into an absolute chore/.nightmare to even play with friends or alone.

MWZ is the only somewhat fun part of this game, everything else is just a sweat central.

I know i bought a cod game and wanted to enjoy the campaign and the new co-op mode sue me. Too many battle royales/warzone games out in the storefront and it's just stale and done to death.
MWZ feels neat at first with friends but you quickly learn the gimicks used to cover up the hasty dev cycle.

Issues with MWZ
One-Over reliance on spawning zombies right infront of or right behind the player. This really got me going because i could be walking and suddenly a horde of like 30 zombies that made no noise come barreling right at my buttocks

Two-Over reliance of armored zombies in higher tiers. I get it higher tiers means more difficulty but instead of more armored zombies just have more zombies in general that DO NOT SCALE AS AGGRESSIVELY. Armored zombies just feel like a cop out for difficulty

Three- Loot is practically useless. Unless your crafting the loot system is basically worthless now and most of it is worthless as popping one energy mine near a horde of 40+ gives you the same amount of points that 4 100 dollar comics would give you.

Four - Mercenaries have a fairly aggressive aim bot. I get it they are basically the brass bar. The casual filter if you will, but what i won't forgive is them being able to see through smoke grenades (What?) and also having picture perfect able to snipe your armor plates in as little as three shots.

Five - The disciples, They are way too common of an enemy and the fact they buff zombies adds to the annoyance. It feels like your throwing this "special" way too often and makes it basically another casual filter as you either learn to pack a punch super early and get good gear from the mystery box / Good weapons in general or you die to the life leech / Endless buffed zombies if you cant get him fast enough.

Six - Point costs are all over the place. I get it a pack a punch is 5000 initially like most cod zombies. But then IT JUMPS TO 10K FOR LEVEL 2 and i have not dared go into the tier 3 area as i know what activition/infinity ward would do to add as a casual filter yet again. Probably every zombie has so much armor it's easier to kill a merc jug than those zombies and a boss zombie becomes such a common sighting in tier 3 you basically walk three feet and a new boss zombie is waiting to say hi like you owe it money or something

Seven - Story system - It's way tooo grindy and RNG dependent. Like the cryo mod one is just uber dependant on you getting those odds to favor you and you get that mythical cryogenics mod to do some work on it.

Eight - Hydrophobia zombies- They are scared of water so when an evac site is near so much as a small puiddle that you can wade in chest deep you are basically immune to zombies and can farm to your hearts content.

Nine - Evac system is super easy to cheese - It's not uncommon to see players just grinding the evac point due to it being near water and those players then camp the zombies and gather up that free xp and lvls

Ten - Weapons lose their rarity upon extract - This is actually a cardinal sin in my book. If i use a tool to upgrade it IT SHOULD STAY UPGRADED at least for awhile, maybe after a run or two it loses a grade or two to compensate for it getting "wear and tear". I do agree wonder weapons should not be extractable.

Eleven - War tracks DO NOT WORK. like what the heck guys the war track systems you paraded around in mw2 you suddenly mess up and kill it IN THE ONE MODE WHERE IT WOULD BE COOL TO ROLL AROUND BLASTING BEATS TO KILL ZOMBIES TO.

Twelve - Inconsistent extractables - If i locate a keycard I SHOULD KEEP THAT KEYCARD REGARDLESS OF WHAT IT IS. I got a legacy keycard right? Well guess what if i start running out of time IT'S NOT EXTRACTABLE so i'm forced to sell it for xp and not save it for another run where i may need it for something.

Thirteen - Juggernaut has a time limit - I feel like this is self explanitory the jug should not be on a time limit. He should be either an armor break or a run out of ammo system. NOT A GIMICK TO FORCE DIFFICULTY FOR NO OTHER REASON THEN TO ADD DIFFICUILTY.

FOURTEEN - Multiplayer balance changes somehow made it here. I mention this due to seeing a chunk of the guns suffer from bad performance when only in the "balanced" multiplayer they should be this bad. I'm in a co-op PVE setting let me have my unbalanced guns and have fun with it.

Pros

I can unlock attachments by doing dailys. That's cool i guess.


Anyways that's my ted talk have a good day all

Alright so it finished the dev hell that was it's release window and all i can say is.

Not that good.

It tries to play off that it's the new battlefield/cod but not made by those stingy triple a devs that don't have our feeling at heart (Amen to that sentiment). But then it looks at what they did to keep player retention up and said you know what? Lets do that.

Let me start off with the pro's of this game

Large battles- They can be fun and hectic but i can often lose myself in them and lose the front line but i will address that later, for this point the big battles are fun.

And that is it for the pros, short list i know but i have good reason for not liking the rest of what this game offers.
Cons time, i know that it may seem hypocritical to place a pro and a con in that is the same but

Cons
Large player count- This has fostered some of the worse indifference to battle i have ever seen. Due to the sheer quantity of people i see most players insta gibbing themselves for a quicker respawn leading to the front line resembling a wet spaghetti noodle then a front line.
Battlefield has better front-lines in most regards. BFV you can see them all around basically and the movement options made it so once the front was established you need co-ordination to push through it.

COD though has some pretty bad front-lines in terms of movement. It's too hard to grasp what point is safe and what is teeming with enemy life. Either way both games have their ups and downs for that but i give cod some slack because 32v32 is actually pretty new for COD and with the gameplay they have, it makes sense that ground war isn't really ironed out

The problem with this game and the front lines is that the MOVEMENT is the biggest issue. We have too much speed. Heck the vehicles feel even worse. Why does a soldier in like 60-70 pounds of kit (More or less depending on class) run like usane bolt if he took a hit of meth and cocaine. Just insanity with that speed

With that speed everything is way too fast. Like Extremely too fast. Which brings me to my next CON

META guns- They exist everywhere but oh dear god do they exist here. If you thought this game could escape the inevitable of developing the "META" you were wrong as all heck and then some. Because the meta in this game appears to be a mix of "SMG,RPG,Some flavor of bolt action"

I say flavor of bolt action because they are all pretty much the same. SMG's your going to see either a p90 or kriss vector, and rpg's just because destruction mechanics are a thing so it's extremely common to see players just volley fire rockets into a structure to get enemies out of it because that is the effective strat.

Teamwork-The teamwork is non existent that is a problem due to both the movement speed and player counts. The player count contributes due to 127 v 127 who cares about one person in a push of 30 people. that is one small speck of dust basically compared to the bigger group.

Players rarely if ever talk tactically only in a casual sense. Nothing wrong with that it's just that i would like to hear about the enemy pushing my right and not how your mom just got her new sugar daddy and you got to eat pizza tonight

Lack of vehicle usability-So basically this stems from the "META" as it were. Due to so many players have AT enemy vehicles are basically cannon fodder waiting to die a painful death. The use of them being relegated to either, Anti air (helicopters can be annoying) or AP (Anti personnel) But in terms of AP your just sitting in a corner sniping hoping to get a kill or two. Nothing more nothing less. But if you try to support a push you can expect about 67 rockets flying right at you ready to detonate your tender rear.

Anyways thems my gripes don't know why everyone is praising this game like it's the second coming of battlefield 1. But you know what they say. Everything ends and i don't see enough good in this game to warrant most people coming back once they you know. Beat it.

It lacks much in cosmetic fun (I know right but maybe i want to unlock some funky gun skins or something) The maps are kinda bland and generic and lack anything to help defenders or anything like that. The game pawns that off on us by using a terrible building system that uses Sandbags made out of plastic iv bags and hesco barriers made instead of sand wood and string. It's now made out of Sand Termite infested wood and a piece of rope that was hit by a sword for 30 minutes.

All the defense structures are so incredibly weak that they might as well just be used as decorations instead of defenses.

Anyways game is not that great in terms of trying to match triple a dev games. but you know, they wanted to look good to the people so they got some youtubers and did an ad campaign after a near death launch of them doing "playtests" (no joke it was getting pretty bad with those play test times) and what we got was a game that feels soulless, has nothing that truly defines it (block game is taken by like three things can't define it self by that). All in all if i am being honest. It doesn't play like any of the three games it takes stuff from.

Okay rant over TLDR
4/10 Nothing to define itself by and what it does have is too fast and aggressive for any meaningful gameplay. Oh and also you can bandage things that you reasonably shouldn't be able to but oh well "Arcade".

Edit 1: As the gods fortold. This game fell off man. Maybe pick an identity and stick with it don't try to be every tactical game at once.

This game while great is about as half baked as the pedestrian i encountered that wanted me to start a fire for him. There's plot points that are just suddenly dropped on you. Friday's plot point just literally comes out of nowhere is never explained anywhere and you just have to be a kleptomaniac to even get the super duper secret ending to friday's fight.

What i can say in all fairness is that this game just feels like it exited early access a tad too early. The key problems for me were a few things

1. Monday Tuesday and Wednesday are all perfectly fine and function as intended no problems there. The problems start occurring on Thursday and Friday. Thursday takes you to the mall as it's finally open properly now for your chore (you can visit it the day prior but you have no incentive to) The problem is how empty it feels. The game does not spawn any normal peds in the mall save for the workers and Thursday chore peds. The thursday peds do not count as they are supposed to be there. But the day prior it makes the mall feel so empty and lifeless like one of those abandoned mall exploration videos.

2. Friday emulates what p2 did on friday. Sadly the main issue against p4 is that firefights are extremely costly and need to be played carefully. Now have every ped armed to the teeth and hostile and you basically got a design meant to kill you. you will not get through friday without going through at least 30 "health" pipe stashes. Keep in mind that fighting on friday after you trigger the event is suicide you also have to duck and weave between buildings avoiding every fight you can and conserving as much ammo as possible in case you are spotted and need to fight as the second you let your pistol rip that's the ped's feeding bell and your on the menu

To keep this review short im just going to say wait till the devs finish adding what they want and ironing out bugs. It's a good game don't get me wrong but after Wed it just feels like the game becomes the chore and you don't get to enjoy it.

My scores
Graphics 6/10 "I kept getting ghosting on the scooter no clue why or how and sometimes things would not have proper lighting"
Gameplay 8/10 "Sometimes during the new postal mechanic which are challenges i would basically hit a wall and be forced to admit total defeat to that challenge like the scooter one. 12 people and a terrible scooter that barely kills? great"
Gunplay 10/10 "The gunshots feel meaty and my bullets hurt just as much as their bullets hurt"
Overall enjoyment 5/10 "I kept encountering random bugs like the new phone mechanic not working after death or random geometry not working. What makes things worse is that in some missions you got captain pissant who wont shut the hell up over the radio screeching orders at me like i'm deaf or just can't do anything and i have no way of telling who ever to shut up and let me do what i'm hired to do."

My rating 6/10 "Needs work but give it awhile and it might be a gem like postal 2 but postal 2 had awhile to polish it's flaws so i'm going to wait and probably review this again after a significant amount of updates come out to improve quality of life"

Alright so this is my review on this early access game

When they say early access they mean EARLY.

Issues so far?
Bullet pen
AI will always pen anything and everything regardless of surface (Got shot through a concrete barrier with a tec 9)
Players can not pen anything anymore for no reason
Gernades have a cone of randomness (IRL we train so this effect is heavily reduced but this game makes gernade throws about as random as dice throws)
Lack of gernades (You can't have as many gernades anymore) thus limiting tactical ability. Also no way to resupply your self/ Get squaddies back in the back game (On some missions this would be really helpful like the dock raid which is a joint task force why is it just the swat team?)
Ai get their weapon to ready stance way too fast (It's about 0.3-0.5 seconds for an enemy to be weapon ready)
Players are unable to run. (What?)

Pro's
Friendly ai are okay.
The maps are kinda fun (the ai are too good right now they make the gangsters seem like ex special forces instead of random gangsters)
Goodish graphics

Neutral points
Lack of weapons.
AI makes no sense. (Civi's see swat members and instead of surrendering to them they literally run like a suspect? Like what)
ROE is too strict. (I can understand that a strict roe is important but if i tell a civi to get down i am unable to force them down without appearntly killing them)
Beanbags can kill. (I shot a dude thrice in the knee and he died. Physically impossible but okay.)

The devs really need to clean alot of this up but otherwise it's an okay game. I'd hold off on buying this till it exits early access just because of the ai issues.