Recent reviews by TheLightLOD

Play time at time of review: ~40h
> Campaign normal solo: 8h
> Campaign normal coop: 8h
> Operations coop: 8h
> Operations grinding: 16h
> PVP: 0h

If you're just looking at a story to play though, then there's about 16 hours of gameplay available for you. Your pick if the asking price makes that worth it for you. I recommend playing the game with 2 friends in voice chat, though 2 player is also possible as it'll simply add a bot.

This game is not single player friendly, the bots seem to be incapable of doing anything useful against level 3 (extremis) or 4 (terminus) opponents. This goes so far as to make it seem the bots are incapable of damaging a double spawn of Zoanthropes till the player has shot at those enemies, an issue not helped by the fact that often once attacking the bots will shoot the invulnerable shielded Zoanthrope of the 2 and still do pretty much no damage. Against bigger ground based enemies this means the player has to both keep the enemy agro AND do most of the damage, good luck with that.

The coop experience is significantly better, especially in voice chat. One player capable of tanking can distract a bigger enemy whilst the others unload their guns, this makes boss fights around 5 times faster than with bots. One note about coop campaign however is that the players are assigned a character (read ability) in the order they join the party, host plays titus.

The weapon roster is generally ok, bit disappointing some coop classes are stuck with limited weapon options though. Whilst the guns have the right sounds and visuals the problem lies in how tanky the enemies are, yes a headshot will kill a lvl 1 basic enemy but a lvl 3 can already take more than 2 lascannon hits to the face when you're playing the lowest difficulty. The really big enemies (carnifex etc) seem to take more than your entire ammo load on normal difficulty when playing with bots, massive damage sponges that just make the game not fun in single player.

I don't have opinions on PVP, since I don't play PVP as it just isn't my thing.

When it comes to customization I have two opinions. The first one is that locking even basic colors behind a grind wall is a terrible design decision. Warhammer is supposed to be all about "your dudes", the ability to make your models look like you want. That shouldn't include having to pay 10 bucks for a dlc just to get the privelege of grinding for in-game currency so you can unlock your desired color (purple) is just sad. Really devs, had to make customization a grind???

About the grinding, from what I have heard/read it takes around 200 hours to unlock everything. To put that into perspective there's only 8 hours worth of operations mode + a few PVP maps where you can unlock stuff, so you'll be replaying everything a LOT. Like 20 times or more on every single map. I do not buy a 60 buck game to be told to grind for 200 hours just so I can unlock the fun options and combinations of everything.

Grinding isn't always bad, until you realize what the gameplay loop is. For Space Marine 2 that gameplay loop basically comes down to "walk forward", "shoot enemy", "parry attack", "parry 10 more attacks", "execute 1 enemy", "parry more attacks", "dodge", then repeat. And whilst there obviously a bit more to the game, I do find it strange that on PC the most important button "parry" is configured to the "c" key. Not a practical key in the slightest, but oh no it couldn't have been set to a standard key like I don't know control or shift as other games do...

Obviously there is also anti cheat present that according to the steam page doesn't remove itself upon game uninstall.... Do we think that's normal, leaving trash like that around on people's PC's? And I would assume the game requires a constant internet connection, considering the game's bot system seems to have to join servers just like the coop system does. It can even fail doing so, like happened on my first playthrough of the campaign.

In the first 16 ish hours that I played (all you need to have seen all of the story once) in december 2024, 3 months after release, the game managed to crash twice and get completely stuck another 2 times. For a 60 buck release game 3 months after release, I find that unacceptable. For reference, the only games that normally crash on my PC are old 32 bit games that run out of memory due to high game resolutions or large/long matches.

Over the last week I've switched over to playing the game modded (Astartes 2.0) to grab some fun back (rebalanced missions, many customization options unlocked, more weapons for each class). I do not expect myself to play the unmodded game anymore, it doesn't give joy to play as much as it is just a grind. With my friend group we've decided to not grind the game together, so reaching campaign + operations complete is the end of the line for this game when it comes to coop for me.

With the singleplayer experience crap, the gameplay loop repetative and not really fun enough to grind + the other issues like stability... I just cannot recommend this game, not now.

Crashed on 4th skirmish.

You can't tell me that playing a skirmish battle against an easy AI 8 years after release should have any chance of crashing the game, at that point you just don't care about the game.

I was planning to try out all 4 factions, but getting rushed with an "epic" unit (most powerful unit type in the game that suddenly cloaks from a defensive 'easy' AI does highly suggest that the developers have clearly no idea of what 'balance' is supposed to be.

The unit play is not fun, you choose between 4 researches divided over 5 structures, for some reason your unit availability depends on how many 'upgrade' structures you can cram onto your production buildings. Building a base in the classical sense is limited depending on the faction chosen. Damage output is meh on most units, which I feel devolves into just spam something rather than making a unit composition.

I do not like the hotkey system as they have it, in particular repair should not deselect after clicking on 1 structure. Even then building a unit should be 2 hotkeys (select factory => queue unit to build), not the 3 it is sometimes in this game.

You'll hear me more often complain about bad "easy" AI's for the simple reason that 'learning' the game should be possible, even without a tutorial that tries to force you into re-learning the camera controls as so many RTS games do. Take the easy AI in CnC Generals Zero Hour, it sits there for 5 minutes before sending a few soldiers at you that can basically be stopped by a single base defense or vehicle. Compare that to a 15 minute 'Epic' unit rush in this game by the easy ai and there's quite the contrast. An easy AI should be easy, and feel manageable for a new player. It should not be a demigod.

All in all I did not enjoy learning the mechanics of this game as I did with many other RTS's, couple that with crashes to desktop and I'll look for my rts fun elsewhere.

Not a bad game, but currently they're doing a lot of updates and rebalances. I don't if that's done whilst people are playing, but 2 network disconnects in 1 hour whilst doing solo play (campaign) to me suggests they don't quite have stuff figured out.

Like if i'm doing solo campaign, why does the game need to maintain a constant network connection? And since solo campaign is what they're recommending to new players, then why does it reconnect and cancel the mission this often? This is not what I consider a good new player experience.

Also for info since only the videos give a hint of the game's graphics, expect older looking graphics.

Pay to win does not exist in this game (as of writing this review), as far as I can see the only unlockables are skins and even then I was not immediately presented with a plea to invest money so good job.

Match time depends on skill level, I'd expect something like 15 minutes or more to be a good starting point as expectation.

There is a good variation of units, I think divided in around 8 factions or so with each having about 6 units. Most units also have upgraded forms that might unlock alternative abilities.

My opinion on the price is as follows. Yes, for the graphics I'd expect a lower price point. However, considering the continued updates and the fact this games appears to use official servers and does not bother with shoving microtransactions in the players face I consider it OK priced.

My main gripe with the game is the reconnecting where you have to restart the campaign mission in combination with that mode being recommended for new players.

Unfortunately this game does not run out of the box.

From what I've looked up some edits to config files are necessary, followed by disabling the app's internet access and then waiting 30-40 minutes for it's first game start in the launcher window whilst it eats up a single CPU core at max capacity.

Considering that steam has a 2 hour limit on refunds and a part of hopefully getting the app to start is waiting for 30-40 minutes, I don't feel like needing 2 attempts at 40 minutes each and then finding a bad game after the timer expires.

Yes this game is just €1,49 at discount, but steam has such a vast library that you can better spend that money on another game that does work... Going to file for a refund. I don't pay companies for 12GB apps that don't even start properly. Shame on you Bethesda for dumping product in this state on steam.

The best way to describe Blender is that it's a very handy tool for people that know how to use it.

If you don't know how to use it you're easier off playing Dark Souls.

Let's start off with saying that this can be a very good game if you're fortunate enough not to be stuck with the game's bugs as i have, seeing from the other reviews i am apparently in the minority with my bad luck. Oh well, at least the story is good.

Anyway, these bugs i am talking about exist mostly in two forms.
-The i can't fly bug as i call it. Simply put, the game can't decide whether i'm pressing space bar to fly off a roof. So it alternates between flight stance and standing whilst slowly drifting to the ground.
-The can't counter this bug. Batman games are oriented around the unseen predator and massive melee brawler playstyles, for the latter one has the ability to either attack or counter an enemy attack. Now wouldn't it be usefull if that counter butten would actually work? Unfortunately it does not about 40% of the time, even more so the fix for this(putting the game into directx9 mode(yes, this really is a fix)) only worked for the directly upfollowing playsession for me.

As i see it, this means that already 2 of the game's core systems do not properly function for some users. The counter issue i think is the worst of these, as this bug has been around for at least 3 years now and was affecting numerous players.

Unlike it's predecessor i have not tried to play this game on my laptop, this is unfortunate as i with this I haven't found whether WB has once again ruined the performance of AMD videocard users.(Arkham city ran better on a GT650M(mid-high range laptop card), than on a Radeon HD 7950(2nd most powerfull desktop AMD card of the same year))

Well, as i'm being so negative anyway i might as well also complay about certain game mechanics.
-Firstly a small part of the game is set in 2.5d or better said a fixed camera angle on a 3d sideshot, normally i don't play such games so part of the issue may be my lack of experience. However, i find myself bothered regardless about having to look stuf up, only to find i was offset by a few pixels so it didn't work when i tried things.
-A certain mission get you to a locked door in a jammed area, and another door. This other door is locked until you try to hack the first locked door. For many people that walk around in detective vision it's already clear that they can't hack the door as there's jamming, this leaves them stuck without a way to process as logics don't give them any options.

update 21 June 2016:
I am now considering to not even want to finish the game, this would be a first. As i said before i like the story and characters, but the state of bugs in which it sits on my pc make it unplayable. As in some stuf that MUST BE DONE to continue the story simply bugs out often and PREVENTS me from continueing the storyline. The way that i see this is as an utter disgrace for a tripple A company, you cannot ship a game where the players are incapable of finishing it.

Normally i am not quite a fighting game fan, but for this game i make an exception.

I have beaten the main campaign in the first 4.5 hours of play, which is most of what i want to do in a game. I can tell you that i'd have finished the campaign also when it'd have been much longer, the story is good. There are many playable characters and way more combo's and tricks than i can remember from the tutorial, the performance of the game is good. There's a good split between player interaction and cutscenes, though i must add that there are quicktime events.

Usually i'd start hating on any game with quicktime events. However, I:GAU has done it right. Failing quicktime events (partially at least) does give the player a disadvantage in the upfollowing battle, like having less starting health. Though it doesn't force you to redo any of it, unlike the dreadfull tombraider quicktime events.

All in all i don't really have anything to complain about with this game, note that I played with keyboard and not a controller and had a good time regardless.

Yes, i still occasionally play CoH 2.

Does that mean i'd recommend the game now?
Well no. I only play the game with mods, because vanilla is not recommendable. The reason is that a large portion of the content (i.e. units, buffs and commanders (that unlock units)) is hidden behind a play/paywall.

Technically it should be possible to unlock most stuff through sufficient play, in particular finishing matches. You unlock generally 1 item every 3 matches or so, assuming a game time of 30 minutes that's still a very large time investment. Especially if you're looking for a specific buff/commander.

Still, i don't get why there should be more than several hundred euro's worth of dlc/items available in the in-game store. Especially not special commanders that can have an actual impact on the game. If the in-game store would feature only cosmetics (i.e. camouflages) and at least every player would have access to the same stuff at all times, then i'd consider rating CoH 2 up.

But as it stands, no. No, i don't like a competative payed multiplayer RTS, where i then have to invest time or more money to unlock parts of the game that were installed when i bought/downloaded the game.

----Old review below this line----
The skirmish AI that's on your team is incapable of playing the game, they lose of lower difficulty enemy ai*.

I.e. Skirmish vs AI (=33% of an rts game) = broken.

*example:
Team 1 = me + 3x standard ai
Team 2 = 1x standard ai + 3x easy ai

Team 2 wins, as team 1 ai is too stupid to build vehicles

So far the game seems very nice:
+succesfull gameplay is rewarding
+very good feeling of immersion
+wide array of customisation possible
-performance issues (in my case the base has some lag issues, whilst my system is almost the recommended specs)

I finished XCOM enemy unknown the same day i started on xcom 2, and even though xcom eu is definately not a bad game i feel xcom 2 is a substantial improvement. That is, if they can fix some issues regarding performance and some other bugs i have had/seen. (Noteworthy bug: Totalbiscuits' WTF is XCOM 2 had a scene where a 100% hitchance shot managed to miss)

WARNING: this game has a quite steep learning curve!

Also one could call it a trial and error simulator.

Now with that out of the way, once one actually gets to grips with the mechanics the game is awesome. I'd describe it as a combination of Space Engineers, Supreme Commander and probably some Kerbal Space Program for the physics.

This allows you to wage an rts war on the scale of Supreme Commander with custom built units. These units are build like in Space Engineers, from many blocks. However, it is more complicated as something as simple as an engine already consists out of several different blocks placed together. The way these blocks are placed together also has an effect on the efficiency and power output of the engine, a similar system is in play with the weapon systems.

Then there is the physics system, which reminds of KSP as it takes placement of thrusters and weapon recoil into account. This in turn allows for some amazing builds and systems.

Example of things I have build so far:
-frigate
-submarine
-battleship
-propellor plane
-jetfighter
-balloon airship
-wooden satelite
-wooden rocket to get to space to build said satelite
-artillery cannon that can shoot beyond the borders of the battle map
-floating castle
-spectre gunship

Currently wheels are not yet fully implemented, so i haven't build any ground vehicles yet.

Pros:
-ability to build massive battleships AND use them against enemy forces
-semi RTS style gameplay with 100% custom build units
-very expansive list of possibilities, leaving new things to learn even after many hours of play
-devs listen to the community

Cons:
-steep learning curve (not really a con for me, but i'll list it as a con anyway as it can well be considered as such)
-massive battles on any pc will lag