Recent reviews by Sasori Zero

I have really enjoyed my playthrough of the Kalasha Campaign and popped in Gehenna almost immediately afterward. All in all this has been an awesome DLC that added some neat content to the game:

Pros:
New Units come in the form of Mercs that have a versatile and interesting playstyle that is different from the Mobile Infantry. They are more Infantry focused with abilities that make them very dangerous against the bugs and introduce the first Melee mech of the game. The only slight disappointment here is that their Captain is virtually identical to the M.I. one though he has really funny new dialogue. It might have been cool to have the Captain do something different (defensive flare?), same for the use of the Combat Engineer and Comm Officer but it's okay.

Gehenna is well modeled and has a totally different vibe from Kalasha, it begs you to approach the maps slower than on Kalasha as bugs could be at any bend and, on one hand I really like it because it makes this campaign distinct from Kalasha and the same tactics won't work so you have to change your approach a little. I feel this approach was the DLCs way of trying to offset it's length...which is the only thing I don't like (see cons)

New Bugs are added in the Pyrobug, Stinger, and Immolator. They help convey the aesthetic of the bugs on Gehenna being different and evolving with the environment which was cool. None is too broken and add a fun challenge to the game. The missions are harder than Kalasha's but for a player like me that just means the Devs really put in the effort to make Gehenna stand on it's own, separate from Kalasha where the difficulty tended to go up and down, here it goes up as you complete missions.

The scenarios present you with different missions than Kalasha, yes you are clearing hives and capturing radio posts but there are also points of having to survive for a set time and take on hit and run tactics. As a fan of old-school RTS where these types of scenarios were bread-and-butter I really appreciate a RTS in 2024 having this sort of thing. I understand this makes the scenarios a bit harder as you must play to the mechanics of each individual unit but I felt it showed the strength of the mechanics way more than on Kalasha where, after a certain point, you *can* just steamroll the Bugs with enough Marauders and the Infantry kinda fall to the wayside. In this DLC by comparison what units you pick can and will make a dramatic and meaningful impact on combat.

The story is well written and true to the Starship Troopers universe; it could easily be a mini-series and the characters are just as good, though slightly different, than the cast we met on Kalasha. I really enjoy Zhao and Fraser's banter and the Director gives the all too familiar vibe of a Federation with opaque motives behind the scenes.

Cons:
The campaign is short compared to Kalasha's ~20 missions. It's very story heavy so you probably won't notice till nearly the end which is some respite. I easily would have paid for a $20 Gehenna DLC featuring atleast 14 missions, double the number that we get. Though the scope of the DLC's plot makes this hard to begin with. The DLC features 3 challenge missions so you get ~10 between the two.

It was a little disappointing to not see the fireworks after a certain mission where you setup explosives, missed opportunity!


All in all,
9/10

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is a squad based third person shooter with strong cover elements that can help provide backstory lore for your XCOM playthrough. You play as Agent William Carter, an XCOM Operative, in 1962 fighting against an alien threat known as "The Outsiders" that, while somewhat familiar, are a new alien threat never before met in the series. As an adaptation the game is a commendable attempt at adapting XCOM into a third person shooter; whenever I play this game I can just tell XCOM: Alliance was the inspiration but that both helps and hurts the game as an adaptation:

The Good:
*Nice story that seamlessly ties into XCOM: Enemy Unknown (and therefore XCOM2). Gives some nice lore to the XCOM demonstrating how they operated during the Cold War era.
*Memorable Characters with great Voice Acting, each had the degree of personality you would want of XCOM Base Staff
*Squad Management is more streamlined in the game, meaning you can focus more on missions and not micro-management
*Branching ending, which no other XCOM game offers.
*The Dev team went to lengths to condone an authentic feel for the era, the Skyranger design being among more than a few honorable mentions.

The Meh:
*The game feels very inconsistent, design-wise, at times. For example the weapons tree of the game is virtually lifted from XCOM: Enemy Unknown (they could have added more guns). For all the references to a Soviet threat there is no EXALT-like element in the game which I feel was just an outright missed opportunity.
*Squad management is streamlined but the depth of it is somewhat diminished. There are no penalties for using the same squaddies on all missions, them getting hurt, etc.
*You will probably end up having favorite classes in your squad and neglect other ones altogether unless you are regularly losing Squaddies in like every mission.
*The game has linear levels and a campaign of set length, there is no real RNG element to 'beat the game' unlike the main series campaigns and you can therefore beat this game in a much shorter span of time than any other game in the series.

The Bad:
*The majority of the human weapons are from WW2. The game was originally set during the 1950s in early builds but down the line in development they moved the setting to the 1960s. Some elements are still in game that indicate this and it feels a little sloppy.
*You only get two squad members per a mission with no extra squaddie slot making deployments somewhat repetitive
*The DLC for this game are horrible compared to Enemy Within and War of the Chosen. This game feels like it had a lot of potential for an expansion that could have added a custom campaign or mods but sadly it never happened. I can only suggest Hanger 6 if you enjoyed the game and want to enjoy it just a little more.

The game feels like it set out to make XCOM: Alliance real, for what it's worth, and it hits the mark of a fun third person shooter that isn't overly difficult. Could it have used more content? Sure but for what it's worth I don't regret any of the time I spent with this game and even still play it from time to time. If you're ever playing Enemy Unknown try naming one of your agents William Carter, you'll thank me later.

I adore this game: it's themes, it's aesthetics, the fact it's both a space sci-fi and cyberpunk world is just completely awesome to me; It's no wonder that the developer of this game went on to make Warhammer 40K titles after this and even the chain gun feels lovingly similar to a Terminator's Storm Bolter.

E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy is a fascinating title with an intricate plot that I will try to lay out rather than explain in sequence for simplicity's sake; you play as cyborg soldier in the Culter Dei, a sub-faction within the wider E.Y.E. This organization is divided into what I like to think of as 'tiers': The Secreta Sectorum (higher ups), Culter Dei & Jian Shang Di (Soldiers), and Agents (mostly Spies) who operate in theory to protect humanity from a threat known as the Metastrumonic Force after their messy original inception as the Supersoldiers in practice they operate across known and colonized human space (I will refer to as The Federation) more or less as super soldiers mercenaries for hire really trying to achieve esoteric and sometimes outright vague objectives for their Unit Leader's wider goals that often center around niche information control, and the collections of artifacts believe to be related to the MSF.

When the psychic Supersoldiers were disbanded after the Mars Incident the equally psychic E.Y.E took their place, however the E.Y.E unlike their predecessors were not really loyal to The Federation, seeking a separate industrial basis via The Consortium which basically fund all sides, and secretly wage war against them while the Feds deal with constant gang warfare, rioting, and assault from The Looters (a disorganized network of a myriad of criminal rackets, pirate cliques and hacker rings with various objectives not often coherent as ideas but extremely violet nonetheless) and incursions of the MSF in their territory. In this galaxy at galactic shadow war with itself there's you the Player, you choose your Class and Infusion (you mix and match 'genes' to determine your base stats and progression in a mechanic I find similar to Vampire: The Masqurade in a good way) after finalizing you character you wake up in a cave and rush to return to base having no memory of your life up to this point and knowing you have three people that are of principal note to you: Mentor, Dutch, and Cmdr Rimanah.

HQ serves as a kind of overworld that you can always return to in the interest of buying weapons for the armory, additional cybernetic enhancements, PSI Powers (various abilities that cost energy), train, or accept Side Missions which grant you massive XP for leveling up (the game is an FPS with lite-RPG mechanics) and Brouzoufs (money used to buy all the aforementioned things), talk to various NPCs and your Mentor, you can also accept Main quests from Rimanah. You also have access to an Armory where you can change your armor class freely at (Light, Medium, Heavy) and choose your weapons freely. It's also worth noting the game has a Research mechanic where various items you find in the world and MSF enemies you defeat can be researched giving you various bonuses

The story (which I'm giving a synopsis, be warned it may have lite spoilers) goes something like this:

The player operates as an Agent of the Culter Dei, Commander Rimanah leads them on a quest to destroy the Jian Shang Di whom Rimanah believes are actually traitors whilst acknowledging they cannot be outright purged as it would ruin the E.Y.E war effort against the Federation therefore Rimanah intends to implicate your Mentor in a vast conspiracy to usurp the Secreta Sectorum and destroy the Jian as a consequence in the process. Your Mentor by contrast believes that the Culter Dei are too dogmatic under Rimanah's leadership and instead should foster closer ties to fellow E.Y.E forces as well as friendly humans similar to Jian Shang Di beliefs.

Rimanah frames Mentor for treason during operations against the Federation with the full intention of intensifying the Riots and helping the Looters. In the confusion the MSF is shown to appear during the fighting contributing to the mass death cycle, Cycles are very important to this game, as the player begins to be confronted with the nature of what is happening and how 'reliable of a narrator' they are to the situation
as they don't even remember their life. Rimanah is whispered to very much have something wrong with him and the player is tasked with retrieving a Relic on Mars that opens pandora's box...

The game has a NG+ mechanic related to the actual state of the player and a lot is left to interpretation at times in a dark fantasy kind of sense. I will easily put 1000 hours in this game and if you love cyberpunk shooters with RPG mechanics this is the game for you!

I really want to give this game a thumbs up (can we get a neutral thumb?) but I just cannot, I enjoy the game but it gets just as equally frustrating after a certain point even on normal difficulty; the game has great voice acting, a compelling narrative, nice graphics, memorable characters, and even fun stealth missions but without saying too much I feel like the game loses something of a grip on what the focus is in later missions and can't decide if it's a Stealth Game, something more in the vein of Commandos, or an Isometric combat game (which it does not do well frankly there are better titles for that kind of combat).

You gain a lot of combat oriented skills but its an incredibly tedious time when trying to use them as they will basically all lead to an instant alert status, individual guards looking for you, versus a platoon knowing, versus the base knowing is very poorly distinguished and lead me to reloading often when playing simply because I'd have a single guard look for me and out of nowhere killing them lead to the entire level going on alert

early game there are places to place guards corpses which you (the player) are expected to remember; it's very rewarding to use these places, these are more or less replaced with bushes but it leads to another gripe in which enemies that are in a caution like state will randomly start walking through these bushes and sometimes they will really wander into a bush that could be at the literal corner of the map leading to an alert status that ends your game mind you this could happen while you're doing an objective nowhere near said corner, the enemy could be on alert for storyline reasons, it destroys the stealth by late game and gives the impression you are supposed to fight more but....

Well the combat is very ambush oriented, rather, it will really benefit you to ambush every last Wehrmacht, SS, Polizei, and Axis Power Solider you encounter if you don't want to suffer from injuries or have to risk the dreaded revival task whilst still fighting seeing as the death of even one partisan will lead to a game over. This is actually something that is impossible to criticize on it's own merits because it is logical seeing as you are leading a squad of Partisans and not a Red Army Battalion with regular logistics, fire support, or reinforcements and it's outright enjoyable to execute said ambushes against enemies especially if you take out, say, an entire platoon of enemy soldiers

however this is not Men Of War where you can take direct control and instead can only rely on setups; it is impossible to execute ambushes against unending reinforcements with an utterly tiny window to retreat and end the mission where you will be seen while trying to run to it, it is impossible to run in such a scenario, someone in squad who doesn't have the ability to be hard to hit WILL GET INCAPACITATED and you can't end the mission, it's like what are you supposed to do in such a situation? it feels like an intense spike in difficulty that defies all the logic that came before such moments and they do appear in this game because of that I can't suggest this game to friends but I will pour endless hours into it and suggest to anyone interested in buying this game to give it a shot for sure but be warned the later levels can become excruciatingly difficult

Theatre of War 2: Kursk 1943 is the eastern front exclusive, more refined, "other half" of Theatre of War 2 set during the fighting on the Kursk salient shortly after Stalingrad; Players take on the role of either a Red Army commander wishing to thwart Operation Citadel and push towards Berlin or a loyal Wehrmact Panzer Ace hoping to see victory for Germany in light of the loss at Stalingrad and Baku. Compared to Africa, Kursk's two campaigns are longer than any campaign in A:1943 (at 10 missions each) and more fleshed out from simply attacking, holding, or defending objectives with the use of event triggers to signal retreats, purposeful use of ambushing, the addition of crew morale/cohesion, and tank defenses becoming imperative to survival. Kursk clarifies the foundation put down by A:1943 and improves upon it creating an addictive wargame simulation.

Kursk cuts the experimentation of Africa and places it in a more concise package: combat is still asymmetrical to an end, the Wehrmact and Red Army have many tanks that can go toe to toe with each other making tank battles(honestly a series highlight) even more fluid, unpredictable and interesting to watch compared to the deserts of Tunisia, the use of combat support is more even handed here between both sides and a timer is introduced meaning players can simply have a cooldown for getting more airstrikes, mortars, howitzer strikes, or reinforcements rather than a limited cap defined from the beginning of a mission.

The game does away with the "tactical pause" mechanic unless player desired, features blood and gorey elements, and ups the immersion, this game really sounds like a battlefield on the Eastern Front, any silence is deafening and I still remember the Red army Missions to this day.

The Red Army and Wehrmacht feature huge arsenals with some returning vehicles from ToW2(M3 Stuarts, Shermans, and Grants in Soviet flavor) and new ones (including a new roster of USSR vehicles like the T-34/72 and infantry like the NKVD, and late war Werhmacht tanks like the Panther and Jagdtiger). With the addition of units which can effect morale on a sector wide scale unlike anything seen before in the franchise, landmines, flamethrowers and and barbed wire for area control; Kursk still pushes the envelope while acknowledging what Africa got right and wrong.


Battle for Caen seems to largely acknowledge this as well by taking another crack at the Western Allies with a fresh prospective: set during the Normandy Landings of 1944, BfC focuses on British vs Waffen-SS forces around Operation Epsom, the UK no longer relies on American tanks, equipment, or Artillery and have a matured arsenal (featuring the M10 Wolverine, Achilles, Churchill/AA, 17-pdr, and many more, over 40 additional units for both sides), that create a pronounced difference in tactics without sacrificing the playability or viability of either faction and missions are presented in a cut and dry fashion with clearly defined objectives. Eight maps set in and around Normandy, France are available in multiplayer with this DLC and they are some that I have great memories with.


Players are given more flexibility when building their divisions and reinforcements where they have full freedom to decide what is given at the cost of the RPG-lite level mechanics from Africa (for infantry and crews) being curbed. This creates less situations of tankers firing over and over at a target with unbreakable morale and more realistic scenarios of tankers leaving a tank under sufficient bombardment and immobile. Combat in this game is more fluid than it's been previously in the series and it really shines in this game, carefully plan your attacks and watch as your units execute the enemy with extreme prejudice for the motherland or fatherland. This game is faster than predecessors but still slow, yet with the focus of this game compared to the somewhat lack of focus seen in Africa makes it a pleasure to play; I largely played this game when it wasn't on steam and therefore my time with it compared to other ToW will seem less so but that's anything but the case.

Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 is a sequel to the original Theatre of War; set during the later stages of the war in North Africa, particularly in Tunisia, Players engage in tough desert, canyon, and suburban battles either in one of three campaigns or in multiplayer against other players accomplishing objectives to achieve victory.

Being a Real-Time Tactics game, ToW2 features the management of divisions, regiments, and an army via pre-battle preparation, mission interludes, and post-battle debriefs in which players can assign stats to surviving veteran units and manage their deployment. If doing particularly well players may receive reinforcements from high command and then assign these new units to their army.

Focusing on realism above all else, this is not an RTS like Command & Conquer or Company of Heros, this is very different from Steel Division or Wargame, you will carefully place your military assets; moving them sparingly in the interest of a proper defense as not to interfere with ingame RNG/stats and attack at precise moments to inflict massive damage on the enemy for a smug Bernard Montgomery or ungrateful German High Command

ToW2 features three campaigns in the vanilla game(with the Centauro DLC adding a new campaign and faction: the Italian Army) centering around the exploits of US, UK, and Wehrmact Army forces; each campaign varies in length, some missions have decisions for the player to make, and each has a distinctly different play style making for good singleplayer replay value. US Army missions focus largely on the quick and active use of light and medium tanks during and surrounding the events of Battle of Kasserine Pass, UK/Desert Rats missions comparatively demonstrates the use of ambush tactics and anti-tank guns to make for 'swift and precise' battle also around the Kasserine Pass, lastly the Wehrmacht focuses on combined arms warfare in which the player will frequently use their Panzers in conjunction with Stukas and FW190s to overwhelm the Allies during the final offensive into Algeria. It's worth mentioning that Centauro has the longest campaign compared to the others or "Commander of a Stuart" which serves as a side-story to the US campaign. Italian Army missions take on a wide variety of objectives not to mention roles giving the Italians their own unique play style and I highly suggest getting it with the base game at the extra ~$2 it costs.

Compared to ToW; one will ask what the biggest differences are: for one the game's interface has been made more friendly and useful, there is less of an emphasis on keyboard strokes and more an emphasis on placing units and overlooking the battle play out, when units die the game will pause and allow players to quickly asses the overall situation and if a change in tactics is needed. The field of view has been augmented to better account for range and the addition of smoke rounds and more clearly defined classes make the game easier to pick up than it's predecessor.

At the same time ToW2 has an awkward status compared to the first in that it is more or less a game that after being cut up ended up as two games, which try to focus on their specific 'theatres' to greater degree than simply World War II as a whole. Despite this ToW2 simply does not compare to the degree of content found in ToW and have a clear feeling of dissonance between them when it came to the effort put forward to make Africa: 1943 vs Kursk: 1943. ToW featured campaigns from five armies(Polish, French, British/America, USSR, German) across multiple fronts and at the heights of WW2, each army featured full arsenals of units to throw at each other, with it coming down to how they were used rather than playing to the strengths and weaknesses of unit types and introduce a kind of 'meta' into the game as ToW2 tries to do and sometimes succeeds at but also sometimes fails at.

A:1943 lacks many units one would expect to find on the battlefields of Tunisia and this is not exceptional to any one side in the game. This seems to be in the interest of forcing players to play differently with each side and learn them but your personal mileage on this design decision may vary greatly for this game compared to ToW, ToW3, or even Kursk: 1943. For the record here is a list of units missing (by type) for the vanilla sides(not including things added in Centauro):

US - Any Anti-Tank Guns, Mortars(M7 Priest), Scout Vehicles (Centauro Adds: Assault Guns, Heavy Tanks).
UK - Churchill, Matilda II, Howitzers(25-pdr), Assault Guns (Bishop SPG), Static AA, PIATs, Boys AT (Centauro Adds: Crusader Tank, Daimler)
GR - Panzerfausts, StuG (Centauro Adds: Pz.II, Howitzers, Sdkfw variants)
Italy: Mortars, Air Forces, Howitzers

The move to put a meta in the game works very much in the games favor when wanting to learn the game(which even then can be described to have a steep learning curve) but on other hand it can make battles unnecessarily hard, particularly for the British, gameplay can feel very static owing to their lack of tanks and reliance on M3 Stuarts, if available , having only one real tank in the base game: the Valentine Tank, which does nothing to the Tiger I and will struggle against any model Panzer II+. This issue is also true for the Americans, who can only really play to limited aggressive styles due to a lack of unit variety(without the DLC they only really use M3 Grants and M3 Stuarts with the rare sight of an M4 Sherman being just that), and the Germans that can have their weaknesses exploited consistently to the point of defeat (the Italians are no different and can have the same problem in it's own flavor for their faction).

This imbalance is quintessentially demonstrated with how the game handles Anti-Tanks in which, besides tanks, only the British have AT that can destroy tanks from an exceptional distance and all other AT weapons in the game are largely infantry based and usually result in infantry death with the slightest miscalculation.

Partially I chalk this issue up to the fact the game took this brand new approach, the team lacking experience with the approach, and applied said approach to *four* different factions without a clear guiding idea of what 1C was going for; it results in nothing short of a storm at it's worst.

Yet I come back time and time again to this game due to its commitment to the setting, the sheer attention to detail, and the mechanics that while initially seem difficult have their own built in rewards and give me a consistent feeling of satisfaction when having pulled off a victory or even just opening the turning point, this game is the beginning of ToW being more accessible and playable to a wider audience. It's still a niche war simulation but it's one you won't regret playing if you give it an honest chance and games set after it (Kursk, BfC, ToW3) only improve further on the solid foundation laid by this game's interpretation of series mechanics.

NOTE: While I hold this game close to my heart I compare it often to Kursk. If you are curious how they are similar, and how Battle for Caen weathers with the "meta problem" as a DLC, I suggest checking out my review of ToW Kursk: 1943 and ToW2: BfC.

Centauro is a DLC for Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 which adds a formal Italian Army campaign to the game and the battlefields of Tunisia! From here I'll talk about the good and bad the dlc/game has to offer (spoilers beware! I will not be comparing this to Kursk 1943, it's DLC Battle for Caen, or ToW3 and have separate reviews for them):

The Good:

Centauro is the longest campaign available compared to every campaign that comes in the base game (8 Missions, twice as long as the UK and US campaigns; even longer than the German campaign) detailing the service and exploits of the eponymous 131st Armoured Division Centauro in Libya, and Tunisia. In addition the campaign has a more historical feel to it with High Command often checking in on unit (rather than officer) progress, emphasis on the relativlely smaller size of Italian Army units at this point, and the need to employ Tanks and SPGs against (almost exclusively) American tanks' flanks rather than the historical realism of Col. Roger Waters, Maj. Richard Stephens, or Col. Erich Gerhard.

Fundamental gameplay and tactics feel easier to grasp and learn compared to the base game as this dlc campaign takes some time to teach, then has a steady spike in difficulty rather than an uneven test of what real life tactics to emulate as happens with the allies or a sisyphean trial by fire as with the german campaign; This isn't to say the base game's campaigns are bad but to say that this campaign feels like it had a greater deal of thought put into it by comparison.

New units are added: enough Italian Units to (sort of, see The Bad) fully realize it as a faction and not just the M14/40, deadlier, beefier variety of Allied Units (seemingly to address criticisms with the German and UK campaigns) like the M10 Wolverine, M4A1 Sherman,
Mk. VI Cusader, M3A1 Stuart (which you can now get in the UK campaign), and Wehrmacht Howitzers (leFH). Missions are fair about giving you reinforcements so even messing up one mission and later winning it isn't as punishing as in the base game, I lost all my SPGs by mission 3 and gained twice as many as I lost by mission 5, it also felt a bit easier to capture allied tanks and vehicles if not encouraged to enjoy greater firepower.

In addition because the Italian Army is in a poor state at this point in the war there is a far greater feeling of reward when taking surviving veteran units between missions, there is nothing more satisfying than filling extra slots for units in a mission that just you have and it making a massive difference on the mission outcome; It often made me feel as though there was a reason to be tactical with compelling reward but for that reason be sure to keep your save files or you're better off starting the campaign from the beginning (in El Aghlia) rather than starting it in the midst of a scenario.

Together these aspects created a stronger narrative rather than fictional characters and is something that often brings me back to this game/DLC besides the Multiplayer which Centauro adds new maps to and can revitalize; especially with the Balance Mod (see conclusion)

The Bad(Starting with least imo to worst imo):
The Centauro don't have one single unit to rely on (compared to, say, Gerhard's mythical Tiger I) and each unit type feels critical to succeeding, this into itself is something I enjoy about this particular ToW title(DISCLAIMER: I own the whole series and consider myself a fan) at the same token this can make certain missions feel needlessly tedious especially if you lost the only Anti-Tank units you have in the later missions(7, 8).

The Italian Army isn't like the Wehrmacht where they will keep updating their arsenal and unit selection will quickly feel somewhat limited after Mission (5), this issue is only compounded by not having veteran carryovers. The Italian Army has the following:
Infantry(Rifleman, SMG, Anti-Tank, Grenadier)
Tanks(3, One Anti-Infantry and Two "proper" tanks)
SPGs(Really just one, Semovente 75/18)
Armored Cars (Two)

Therefore, they lack proper transport, howitzer, and anti-air units unless being reinforced by the Germans and you never get to keep such units between missions; infantry will have to walk and this can take a very long time, you will live at the mercy of any Allied aircraft encountered, and there will be no such thing as "softening up" the enemy with indirect fire.

No Italian Air Force units are present in the campaign, in a running trend with vanilla ToW2:A1943's most glaring problem of lacking units contemporary to the North Africa Front and a particularly limited roster of units (esp. compared to the original ToW) for a game set in Tunisia or 1943, yet this adds to the grueling nature of later missions where you will never get Air Support as though the Luftwaffe only have enough Stukas for Gerhard's antics. You won't get much in the way of combat support, I understand this is for the sake of realism, but still.. one air superiority or mortar support wouldn't have hurt.

In conclusion Centauro is a worthwhile addition to a game that otherwise seems defined at times by what it lacks: the DLC campaign is long, a new faction is added (Italian Army), it rounds out the roster of both Axis and Allied forces, adds new MP maps (mostly focused on Libya and Algeria) and is a great addition for two dollars, it may up your own review by a star or two and is definitely a good DLC in my book and I would definitely suggest to my friends.

NOTE ON BALANCE MOD: I mentioned before that the game lacks units and this is to an almost comical degree at times; attempting a kind of asymmetry gameplay that can be unnecessary(especially glaring when playing as the UK) and limiting SPG/Assault Gun use to the US and Italians (with only Americans wielding true Bazookas, the Italians exclusively use Anti-Tank Rifles). If this is a huge problem for you I suggest this DLC with the Balance Mod. The Balance mod adds even more units than this DLC(Panzerfausts, PIATs, StuG III, SPG Bishop, Matilda II tank to name just a few) and rebalances a lot of the units to make the asymmetry more natural.

This game is a classic for the ages, I highly suggest any TRPG(XCOM/X-COM, Fire Emblem, etc) fans give this a look especially if it's on sale. The mix of completely destructible environments, wide arsenal, and character classes give these games hours of gameplay; Silent Storm puts players in an alternate history scenario during World War II in which they investigate a conspiracy amongst the Nazi government to produce occult and technologically advanced weapons via an alliance with the mysterious group Thor's Hammer. Sentinels continues the story and introduces the ODEZZA like organization The Sentinels which the player organizes a team to thwart and finally end the war.

I hope Steam one day adds Hammer & Sickle to the roster as it wraps up the plot elements of Silent Storm and makes it a sort of trilogy. tl;dr get this game the first chance you get!

I've played and beat the entire Souls saga(Demon's Souls, DS1, DS2, DS3, Bloodbourne) and watched this game from it's early development to release. Without a doubt I really enjoyed it's Sci-Fi twist on a genre of games I enjoy. Here's where I thought The Surge worked and didn't work:


Worked:
- Limb targeting makes deciding to kill enemies for souls or items easy and quick
- Executions look cool
- Game has a cool design and atmosphere which often reminded me of Alien and Souls.
- Weapon Patterns are easy to learn
- Implants add for vast and cool effects
- Characters and Story were interesting, Quests were engaging
- Exploration and world was very fun to explore, interwoven

What I'm Iffy About:
- Weapon Proficency was strange in this game. I often would grind because I enjoyed the combat but found the need for proficiency with weapon types to be tedious.
- I wish the Weapons had more, for lack of a better term, variety. The weapons you initially game are awesome, once getting to the security weapons and armor there's again a lot of suprise but I was disappointed to see two weapon models which are virtual reskins
- The game has five bosses which actually shocked me once I beat the game. Coming from DS tradition (Not so much DeS but more DS1 & 2) I expected the CREO facility to have more bosses in it. I know this was abused in Dark Souls 2, but I felt there could be a nice balance struck. Big Sister was my favorite boss of this game for being a mix of a puzzle and a fight
and I thought it could be interesting to meet many other bosses with their own quirks. While, certainly, I don't want the game's bosses to come at the player in a structured and formulaic fashion ala Demon's Souls I wish the game had atleast 10 rather than 5 bosses.

What Didn't Work:
- While I praise the story I disliked how the game implements the alternate ending this is because of me feeling fooled, which I will go into. Dark Souls (imo the most plot heavy game of the series) gives the player a forked path; the literal followers of Gwyn's words, or the reading between the lines of their words and some leads. Getting the Lord of Hollows ending in DS1 can be figured out with some guessing work. By comparison The Surge has mulitple parts which imply an ending path. For example I thought the player, in a nod to DS1, could follow the Project Utopia doctor or the Project Resolve and was sorely mistaken. This is how I initially got the vanilla ending of the game but may beat in and a NG+ cycle. However this is where I want to point something out: my expectation of vastness was defeated by the fact the story is very isoteric, you have to piece it together and even though it's not DS it's still extremely vague and dystopian even if in a different manner.
- This game also has a bit of a learning curve to it's systems that initially seems jarring to souls vets, this is far more so than Bloodbourne. The game lacks or reworks several defense mechanics to be very different from DS and (I hear) LOTF but it becomes a mess to learn and will take excessive trial and error before grasping. Here's the issue however: the game lacks both real Parrying and Blocking (like with a shield and movement) and implements a type of "counter-poise" which replaces armor and most defense stats. These are two stats: You weapon and your Stability stat. in The Surge you can block but will be static. If your counter-poise is high enough you can immediately counter attack or dodge (ill advised to tank hits, you will quickly lose stamina).

-I realized that to even utilize defense stats minus implants your stability needs to be high to utilize defense. If a CERBERUS or RHINO set this meant I could block the attacks of most enemies besides end game security and any mech enemies but still do a counter attack (which replaces parrying but is far less effective). I disliked how much bs I had to go through to learn this system

-The game maintains backstabs but they are less rewarding for guaranteeing you receive no item but instantly kill most exosuit enemies, however they are far less practical to do in situations with multiple enemies and less helpful.

- The Surge implements a Jump/Duck mechanic that other reviewers touch on, though I suggest this game I want to honestly say these two things bothered me the most for the reason of being mostly unuseable. Most enemies in the game can not be ducked under with the exception of about two Jumping is similar and take a lot of practice to get good at though I think you can use it against a boss. The two techniques are like a parry for mechanical enemies but most mech enemies are far too strong and aggressive (specifically the mech hounds) that you will never want to try these defensive maneuvers first against such enemies. The stun is rewarding but the risk is often too great to try unlike parrying in DS which just takes a small degree of practice

- Last but not least this game is allergic to i-frames. I have no idea why but it makes fighting multiple enemies a complete pain especially in NG+ so far. Dodging depends entirely on if you physically moved away from an enemy attack rather than an i-frame cushion to account for multiple enemies. It also makes certain moves extremely risky like prolonged combos with 2h or similar weapons that will only result in stagger unless blocked and even then transitioning to block doesn't break a combo.


tl;dr fun twist on the souls formula which, while short, feels original and posseses enough potential to be a series of it's own. Get the game on sale for maximum enjoyment