Recent reviews by SdwCdrGhost

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70 day focuses for rubbish gains. I think the worst 70 day focus in this DLC is in Paradox HQ titled "Fix Graveyard of Empires"

They need to buff the PP gain for the East India Company path. Am I supposed to be stuck with negative stability and creep towards low stability.

Now for the elephant in the DLC. Really guys? Those really fat super horses which are vulnerable to a machine gun. There's a difference between alt history and extremely wishful thinking. Elephants were used for noncombat purposes such as bridge building.

The DLC was also riddled with bugs when this slop came out and Paradox expects me to forget BBA plus this DLC ruined the game on release. Can we also talk about how much lag adding a bunch of new countries will put on the game? None of the new colonies have focuses or anything besides Syria and Lebanon getting a special event chain which was added the last patch. Yippe, I can play as one of the two most pointless nations in the game and declare independence after France falls.

The new DLC runs abysmally. I ran the game with my ironman compatible mods and fully naked. No matter what I did, the game would ceiling spike my RTX 3070 GPU to a point where I had to measure my performance in seconds per frame.

The game can't handle opening the load menu or selecting a country on the map before playing, yet everything else is perfectly fine.

This is one of the few free games I refuse to recommend. The game's grind is greedy and utterly terrible.

The only thing I like about the grind is how it reminds me of playing an Ubisoft game, but for free. Progression is locked behind excessive amounts of resetting. The game doesn't seem to have the formula of resetting balanced like it does for other games. You'll notice progress will plateau at a certain point and no matter what you do, the game will implement soft-caps until you return to the same boring gameplay loops.

This game also isn't an idle game. It requires significant attention. Some idle game do require some level of attention. Bitburner requires you to code to progress; better code means faster or more efficient progress and possibly automation of your entire game. Farmer's Against Potatoes requires you to manage your inventory and other mechanics, but otherwise leave basic gameplay to be gradually automated. Idle Slayer has basic automation so far such as coin magnets and little quality of life feature; but otherwise require constant micromanagement for the sake of progressing. If you don't feel like grinding a boring idle game, then you'll be operating at a fraction of the output.

I could go on and give a more detailed review, but I feel like a game this low effort deserves a review equally low effort.

Played this since it was just made and had early access codes. The game looked easy but was far harder to play. I saw many of the improvements over time. The quality is remarkable for one person. If you come to this game expecting something to contend with the current trend of gaming, you'll be disappointed.

The gameplay is reminiscent of Super Mario Bros and a few level designs are unique in their own concepts with a retro feel to it. The game is thankfully nonlinear, but the game doesn't follow a set story other than contextual areas of the map and level numbers. The best world so far has the Trump character you'll see at the top of the video player on the store page. I voiced the lines behind the scenes apart from the level furthest south. I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. My only complaint are the lines not being randomised.

The game has plenty of drawbacks as you would see from an older, retro game. Aside from the natural constraints of virtually every indie free game, it lacks quality of life features. Animations feel choppy, thankfully better than some older games, but they might still be choppy enough to cause some mistakes in aiming. The game has a lack of ability to set keybinds which can be a pain since I play with my left hand on a mouse. Checkpoints aren't present, but levels are short.

Replayability? I'd say until the game stops updating or until you get bored of stomping on heads. Overall experience is mid-positive - I did have some frustration with aiming, but have minimal experience with these type of games after I stopped playing Mario for the Wii.

Love the hacking systems, ability to manipulate the environment, and the game mechanics.

Game suffers from horrible sound. It's one of the few games where I put on subtitles because I genuinely couldn't hear the main character. Movement controls are also outdated and it's nearly impossible to remember how to break from cover, so I do hold the run button and try to wrestle the game until I get where I want.

Quite possibly one of worst stealth shooters I've seen. The premise of the game is meant to be a tactical shooter with the idea of being as covert as possible in an open world environment. Instead, we have GTA style stealth game with spicy diarrhoea DRM and Ubislop connect on a seven year old game to remind the people they don't own their games.

The AI is smoothie of frustrating and abysmal awareness. Enemies are omniscient enough to see the player through dense foliage whilst the player can't effectively track. AI teammates are too inaccurate and unreliable without heavy, unnecessary grinding. Rebels are so dense, they have a bone in their brain. They either give away your position or commit explosive suicide by grenading the road they'll drive over if there's an enemy in front of them. Unidad patrols are annoying. No matter how fast you kill them, it results in swarms of patrols, sometimes in sparse rural areas as if they wear trackers on them. The end result is a poorly designed swarm shooting gallery which typically ends when you find cover or die. There is no other possible outcome. The worst feature they put in is "on the spot revivals". This basically means where you die is where you are revived. It would be fine if my team cleared the zone, but what typically happens results in a near instant death from where you are revived with a maximum of being revived twice.

The gunplay has not been improved since it came out. Far Cry 5/New Dawn, Ghost Recon Breakpoint (yes, I know it came later) are a few other examples of what the basic gunplay boils down to. It may be satisfying for many people, but it does not satisfy me. Most sniper scopes do not seem to work. The game offers no instruction how to aim with them other than to guess. I've used AI and manual search queries and found a brain drain of people who could have taught me but don't exist. You've reached peak laziness, Ubisoft; when will we be able to calibrate the sniper scope and get real laser rangefinders?

The map design makes me upset. Objectives are often intrusive such as one stealth mission spawning underneath me when I was flying a helicopter. The mission failed because everyone was on orange alert and I lost my helicopter, forcing me to walk. There's another set of missions where you have to find parachuted boxes all over the map. Mountain climbing doesn't work, meaning helicopters are required. The rest of the game is playing Christoper Columbus and walking to objectives you can't exactly fast travel to.

And for the other sources of frustration sync-shots take forever to coordinate and are unreliable. Invisible walls soak up bullets if you try to defilade in a firing position in some places. Tagging enemies in helicopters has become so unreliable, I often hide behind cover and use my drone to fly into the helicopter rotors instead of trying to shoot at it. Literally works with any drone.

What has this game accomplished? So far, it has a competent story, the environment is great, and the options to use rebel support is fairly innovative. Some of the best mechanics in this game are the attention to detail such as when Nomad calls out the number of targets or when your squad calls out the target location in relation to actual landmarks. It's a slightly better polished turd than Breakpoint with the Ubisoft stain still smeared onto this product.

Unfinished, inauthentic shovelware artificially pumped to the price of a triple A title. Zero quality of life features. Zero explanation on how to do anything beyond the first tutorial. Zero realism. Minimal engagement.

The game relies too much on micromanagement in only the areas designed to enrage me. Revolutions are designed to ruin player experience with cheats levied against the player to guarantee secession. Under no point in history did the US have a significant political movement for a state religion, yet realism has been subjugated without any explanation to the player whatsoever leading to my next point.

Paradox games are great for people who want to play the game independently. Unfortunately, every time something happens, I'm left with zero explanation as to what happened. It's congruent to playing a game with a child who build a Rube-Goldberg rule book and constantly berates you for attempting illegal moves and not understanding the base idea of "simple mechanics." I'm not playing this game to watch the trade window and click on green buttons all day and then wonder why I'm 5K in deficit only to find out the stupid French people slapped a tariff on my wood when I wasn't looking.

I'm sure some person who had time to play this on release, back when the game was previous a scam, will tell me get good and tell me to play the dysfunctional tutorial. I'm willing to bet this shiny new "Spheres of Influence" DLC is what'd ruining the tutorial and making my sessions absolute hell with constant illegitimate governments, revolutions, and debt without any regard to how an actual society in that time realistically functioned.

The cherry on top: wars. I like how they functioned compared to HOI4. Diplomatic plays give more attention to the diplomatic portion; but beyond that, it's a complete mess. If you want to suddenly lose wars because France built a portal to exile your armies across the continent.

This is the worst Paradox game and the worst paid game I've ever played in my entire existence in this corporeal dimension of financial torture. I wish used the money to kindle a fire because I'd get more entertainment watching the flames burn my wealth away rather than a session with the same emotional energy of watching my ageing dog slowly die.

Addendum: random events are not random. The events are predetermined when the event fires, not when you select the option. This means a selected outcome leans towards a specific modifier when you select an option even when save scumming. I tested this myself and after about 50+ tries gave up.

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I'm back with another rant. This time I'll be talking about how I wish I spent the 432 hours I spent playing this game instead spent strapped in front of an exercise bike powering a mechanism which kicks me in the balls. The total time spent adds up to over 18 days.

I forgot to mention the random events which are a thing as well in EU4. Government petitions will actually be the main focus. Can someone explain to me why there's a feature which actively punishes the player for not wanting to be forced to pass certain laws. I do not want to make my country racially segregated and break into a civil war. I'm not doing that or taking the -15 legitimacy. Why is there no game option to execute the petitioner, either? Paradox is out of touch for forcing me to save scum just to avoid the apocalypses they make when they butt vomit liquid crap onto my screen and call it a game.

Random events may be less annoying than the dreaded petition, but if you take a closer look, it all starts to unravel. Someone explain to me how free trade disproportionately impacts minorities.

The only good thing about the disaster of 1.8.3 is still being allowed to earn achievements with mods I load to fix some of the issues which still have been around since launch. Everything else about it is a laugh. The Sepoy mutiny doesn't annex all rebelling tags, resulting in independent countries all over with a ten year truce.

Ace Attorney - Is it worth it? If you love good mysteries, sure. If you want to battle in a realistic court, no.
This specific title is very dated; and I'd recommend only playing this if you, the player, wish to support the franchise as a whole. The game has certain elements limiting the enjoyment such as dated music from the original games. I have no complaints, but the music gets old quick apart from some of the classic bangers. There is also a notable absence of numerous quality of life features such as the trial system and how picky the game can be with where you need to point or what you need to present. Note: I have only played the trilogy and watched the anime.

The game contains all three of the original games each with five chapter (Except the second game, which has four) with increasingly insane mysteries. I recommend playing chronologically. Each case is pretty amazing aside from the clicking hell I have to go through to finish the investigation segments. My complaints are the lack of case variety, limiting myself to just murder cases in an all or nothing battle. I did enjoy certain segments, such as the instances where I had to investigate and in one case do a trial from another character's perspective. I will not forget how fun that was and would love to see more plots like that.

Each case starts with meeting the defendant and Segways into investigating on their behalf. These segments are horrible. In the early cases, I remember getting lost many times unsure of what to do or where to go. Each location has a certain way of accessing them. You can't just move from the detention centre to let's say a shack located near a lake. First you need to go to the entrance; then a path; then the outside of the building; and only then, you can enter the building. A simple map mode for fast travel would have been nice. The only benefit was the immersion of being interrupted en route to another location, although this could have easily been implemented on the system if fast travel was a fast way to chain travel through the locations similar to skipping through tracks on a music playlist. In the last game chapter, the game at least hinted enough to what I must do such as presenting evidence or profiles to characters on the scene as I would have never guessed otherwise. The second and third series of cases introduces a new mechanic to gather evidence similar to the trial section of the game. My only complaints are those already present in the trial mechanics, and worse, the loss of "health."

The trials are what I really come for. I had my fair share of fun moments in the court but the fun ends with some of the rigid logic the game provides. You can press a statement and often that is required. More often than not, the main character says something stupid for entertainment value; but I do with a more professional question would be asked in place. The game also has a bad habit of being picky with where evidence should be presented and the conditions it needs to be presented. This habit gets worse when you need to present a picture and need to point to a spot to prove something. Often you need to click a certain area and I had a few instances even late game where the game was picky with where I had to point. This led to a penalty where the game would chunk off 10-20% of health for a simple mistake. Health doesn't recharge except after successfully using that new interrogation mechanic from the second game; and possibly, you regain health after the trial.

With that being said, how do the character hold up? Most characters you see as witnesses are pretty great I have no complaints with any of them and find most of the amusing (Especially the guy who I can only describe as gay Chef Boyardee).
Main characters aren't as great. Some traits, I find rather annoying. Phoenix doesn't seem to grow intellectually at all and much worse is his inability to gain a reputation despite overcoming insurmountable odds.
Not long into the game, you will meet another character who's the sister of the tutorial lady. She doesn't seem to grow character-wise at all throughout the entire game and behaves like your typical gluttonous American. This remains true even after certain events.
The main detective is always broke and his running gag is overplayed.
The prosecutors are fine. Winston is fairly respectable and I find him a decent character. He is overshadowed by Edgeworth, who I have to say is one of the best characters in this entire game. The last two prosecutors in the first game are pretty mixed. One is a shallow, arrogant old man who had his personality somewhat expanded in the anime. The other is nearly the same, but I imagine her as a terrible dommy mommy. I consider her to be quite possibly the most shallow person in the entire franchise. The final prosecutor is hands down another honourable mention. I think he's one of the more well written characters.

Final notes: Ace Attorney is a relatively influential game. If you want to experience the story even with the rigid mechanic and the severe absence of quality of life features, then I do recommend buying the game on sale if possible.

(19th March) Don't pay 60+ Euro on a game like this. I have the best internet package available in a developed urban area. Ubislop wants me to have internet access every time before and during the time I launch their game thanks to their anti-consumer greed. I understand the existence of online co-op; I will still believe developers who mandate singleplayer games to include always online DRM live-play sludge are the same people who bend bananas. I couldn't play this game for an entire mission without random disconnects where this game would refuse to let me play offline.

Other than that, Ubislop are champions of terrible company practices like online DRMs where you must have access to internet to launch your games. They implemented a policy requiring users to log in at least once every so often or risk losing your entire library - basically legalised theft, except they're a company, so crimes committed by them are legal.

The guidance in this game is horrible. If you have not played many games like this, chances are the UI for a lot of menus and tabs will utterly blast you. If you want to know what ADHD feels like, take a look at the menu. You will have so many notifications, you will not have an idea on what you should do.

Customisation is the only saving grace so far apart from the core mechanics such as gunplay. Customising weapons, characters of yourself and AI squadmates is great, but that's where my praise ends. Base customisation still lags behind what I want. There aren't enough options for longer hair. This is probably an immersion feature, but there's nothing immersive about my firefight getting interrupted by a disconnect notice.

That's my rant, I'll be back when I'm able to finish a mission without interruption.

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Guess who's back. It's 18th of August 2024. Not a full year later. Still can't play with friends. I managed to get further, but was in for a shock at how horrible some of the combat is.

I still haven't figured out how to find an anti-tank weapon. Maybe that weapon in the weapons wheel is it, but I like to play games completely on my own. there's also no squad mate who can help me, which I find utterly unrealistic and ridiculous. I found a spot with some rolling war crimes tank with chemical weapons and miniguns. No matter how much ammo I wasted into the weak points, I couldn't kill it. I used everything and that vehicle seemed to have regen. I used every explosive and it dealt no damage. Completely unrealistic and fantasy driven game mechanics right here. I spent a total of three, maybe four hours trying to hurt it and got trapped into a death cycle.

Injuries in this game are appalling. I ended up with one and ran out of kits. Had to fast travel just to buy some. You only get five kits and once you're out, you have to traverse via limping which gets old quick. Give us a medic, Mr Krabs.

You will spent the amount of time it takes you to traverse from your home to Edeka on foot trying to get somewhere. There's excessively minimalistic fast travel until you fight your way from your current location all the way to whatever you perceive to be a fast travel spot. If you're lucky, you can steal a civilian vehicle. The amount of times you're stuck hiding from UAVs, helicopters, drones, people, etc is painstakingly excessive. I could easily spent a day in real time getting from one side of the island to the other side even if I started with a car, and if you want some vehicle, you better wring your wallet for a hefty sum even for a measly land vehicle. I haven't found out how to spawn one from the bivouac - that's just sad.

With the amount of time it takes to travel somewhere and how annoying combat can be when using a sniper to fight drones, this game still isn't good. The only benefit this has over the army are not dying when you die and not dealing with the antics of your country's military - such as hazing rituals.

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24th of August 2024. Nearly 100 hours of gameplay:

The game still doesn't do it for me. I discovered how broken the G28 is as well as your AI teammates. Give them and DMR with a high fire rate or snipers and clear hot. The results are allies with the aim of Tarkov bots. In other words, guaranteed kills from a moving helicopter which I use liberally to grind this gear treadmill. Gameplay still feels like any Ubisoft title such as the Far Cry series with more emphasis on team play.

Glitches are still painful. I've seen random explosion alert enemies which I theorise were AI enemies dying to their own mines. The worst glitch I seen was in a faction mission early on where you convoy escort a guy near a farm to his house to deliver something - the obligated escort mission of the game. Well, this legally blind synthoid got stuck on a vehicle I sniped with the turret and he got stuck as a result of shoddy path finding, so I hopped off to drive the vehicle off the road. Then he ran me over, downing me and failing the mission which is realistic because it replicates how awful Americans are at driving.. allegedly.

One of the worst oversights I've seen in game regards gender - an already touchy subject. There's an option to change your character to female cosmetically; but this is a skin, not a function. Ubisoft did not play test the game enough to realise other NPCs will refer to you as male which is not only lazy, but a disrespect for any female fans of the series who want to immerse themselves in the title.

It's painfully obvious the devs just gave themselves a complete default character and ran through the game once with little diligence. I'm skipping the next title and I suggest you should too. Whilst you're at it, go ahead and write them a strongly worded condemnation and list everything you hate about their company & games.