Recent reviews by X39

Game is good for one exception: PSN.
So if you are actually not caring about your data being protected, then spin up a PSN account, create a new password (!DO NOT REUSE!) and for whatever is holy to you; NEVER add your payment options. And possibly put a sticker in front of your camera.

Other then that, lets leave the following here:
April 2011: Hackers Access Personal Data of 77 Million Sony PlayStation Network Users
May 2011: Personal Details on 25 Million Sony Online Entertainment Customers Stolen
June 2011: Sony Pictures Website Hacked, Exposing One Million Accounts
November 2014: Hackers Steal 100 Terabytes of Data from Sony Pictures
August 2017: Hacker Group Accesses Sony Social Media Accounts
September 2023: Sony Investigates Alleged Hack
October 2023: Sony Notifies Employees of Data Breach

Prediction: September 2024, Sony PSN down, hackers steal data of 100 Million users.

Assuming you have mates to play with or, given the F2P launch works out in the long term, this is a clear win regarding the genre it plays in, being a fun game with rather brutal but honest mechanics

A Arma 3 Mission-Creator and Modders perspective
First things first:

• Yes, this is a real game
  
• Yes, this is a real game
  
• Yes, it is kinda lacking in content
  
• Yes, this is pretty much just a modders prepwork game to nail in the works for Arma 4
  
• Yes, you can have honest fun in this game, a lot actually.

So all in all, go ahead, get it at a sale, have loads of fun.

But lets take a look at the modding aspects of this game because ohh boy, ♥♥♥♥ looks dire here.
First things firstagain: The language change from SQF to Enscript in general is one that should be welcomed. However ... unless there is literally an all-hands-on-deck situation which gets the workforce to work on proper BIKI articles on how to get even remotely to something that could be called a "Start" in modding Reforger, Arma 4 will be a far ride prior to mil-sim communities dropping it.
But lets take a look at each of those aspects which endanger Arma 4 in my eyes individual:

Mission creation
Creating a mission in Arma 3 already is no easy task. It involves a general understanding of a bunch of systems, most of which are not really explained ingame or requiring at least basic scripting.
In Reforger however, things are even more complicated. The overall interface for this (The Enfusion Workbench) has more to do with an actual Game Development Kit then with a simplistic mission editor. This has to get one of the top priorities for Arma 4 because otherwise nobody without a general understanding of the game dev tools will even get close to creating a mission... which brings me to

The Enfusion Workbench
While certainly powerful, the workbench does not feel right at any point. The Resource browser is clunky in use (eg. searching things do not feel like it finds anything out of the box; It does, but you need to know how to navigate it), finding the things you want to place is even harder then in Arma 3 and even placing objects feels horrible in comparison to everything that came prior. While i understand that this is mostly a "Here are our tools, have fun" approach, the tools are not even close to being useful for the general public, requiring a steep learning curve to get even the slightest of advances.
But why is that?

The Script-Editor
The script editor feels horrible to use. Adding actions in the World-editor to eg. the world leaves one just with unexplained action that, thanks to weird line-lock-mechanics, are not fixable. Even worse, scripts automatically created by the World-Editor are nowhere to be found in the Workbench tree. In general, finding a spot to start with scripting is a tuff task because there no longer are things (or at least they are not documented in the biki -- which does the round-trip back to the all-hands-on-deck dangerously needed for documentation in the most commonly used channel) which have been a given in Arma 3 and prior. Init.sqf (or more: init.c here)? Gone.
The editor itself, while, again, a welcome addition to the tools, is not helpful either. Compared to Fully fledged IDEs it is highly lacking in everything from documentation to general understanding with even VSCode pulling, in my opinion at least, miles ahead. Together with the situation that it is unclear how to do anything in here for beginners, this is a task that is impossible to overcome without heavy interaction from community (or, given that they are at that point online and ready for helping, developers themself). This is a horrible place to be in for the most outstanding change for the biggest content driver of the arma series: Modders and Mission creators.
But lets talk about what i mentioned multiple times already:

The World-Editor
While it is great to have a very basic preview in a non-heavy-loaded game, getting things done in the world editor feels bad compared to 3DEN. Again, this most likely is a derivative of the "dev-tools" aspect of the workbench overall but again, people wanting to create missions or mod this game are not game developers (or at least the majority). The editor is overloaded with information which is relevant in the context of creating a world, but getting an understanding of where to even begin is a wild ride compared to the simplistic approach of how the previous series have done it.
Overall the editor makes me wonder if the aim for Arma 4 is to just abandon custom missions and the general moddability in favor of Hand-Crafted, specialized missions created by BI. If that would be the goal tho, the general leadership can be questioned here.

My background and comparison to Programming Languages
My profession as a Software-Developer allows me some very different view on a lot of things regarding the scripting language. Working on a day-by-day basis on Clunky frameworks with documentations bloated by information not required nor leading to any goal is not an unknown to me... but with enscript, there is no documentation to begin with. What is there, is not even enough to change the position of a player. The boarding of this language (or more development studio overall) feels horrible with a general lack of guidance on where to start, a general lack of how to do things and a lack of how to create anything. My current Enscript skill is enough to print something out to the console or actually do change the position of a player but thats it. It would not even be remotely possible for me to do even the most basic task in this Framework because there is nothing written. While everything is kinda Open-Source, most things are just exports of the actual game, making (again) development convoluted and complicated. In general, progress is mere impossible without help.

The conclusion
The road to Arma 4 currently is looking great visually and dire in every other aspect. Unless a lot of things change, Arma 4 will be a "lets just skip this game" type of thing as the time requirements to get started with modding or mission creation are not justifyable for anyone with a limited time schedule. Yes, there are people who archived things already... but that requires dedication. Dedication i highly doubt people will be able to provide when talking about Arma 4.
So is Arma Reforger and with that presumably Arma 4 a good game? Yes.
But i fear that the golden times of arma modding are no longer moving forward.

NOTE: THIS TALKS ABOUT THE VANILA EXPERIENCE. CUSTOM SERVERS ARE OK AND MAYBE WORTH BUYING TO YOU

DayZ "Standalone" ... yeah ... where do we start here.

Maybe first onto the positive notes:

• Performance is solid
  
• Graphics look ok to beautiful (depending on models vs landscape)
  
• Survival aspect really is good
  
• Progression is there (more on this later ...)
  
• PVP is intense
  
• Zombies are more than an annoyance

With that out of the way, lets talk why this is saying you should not buy the game ...

The problems
DayZ is a solid game. It works, makes loads of fun usually and has intense PVP (as already said). But there is a lingering Problem you will face very quickly .... and no, it is not the fact that you get ill faster then you need to walk through a bigger town.

The issue i am talking about is tightly coupled to base building.
The long story short: It sucks.
Wanna know why? Well ...

• To break into a base, all you need is either max 4 hours of brute forcing keylocks
  
• Got no 4 hours? Try ~6 grenades/sledge hammers/...

Now ... why is this an issue?
The game is not balanced towards that fact. Stuff like getting a car, repairing it and (then) using it takes way to long for some random person to just grab it while youre at work/school/university or just buying groceries (and yes, this literally happened).
The weapons (and especially ammo) that spawns is also greatly aimed towards actually bunkering it, unless you want to always carry around a gun with like 3 shots in it (or one of the many "crap" guns)

But the loot sprial is not your worst enemy in DayZ ... Say hello to our good old friend bugs.
DayZ got plenty of them (especially after a release) and they will literally get you killed. Want a random and incomplete collection of what may occur to you during normal gameplay?

• Fall down stairways
  
• Get stuck under walls
  
• Get stuck building because a zombie just died there
  
• Drive a vehicle and die because of a short lag, causing the server to never stop your steering
  
• Drive a vehicle and die because "because" (yeah... just randomly exploding vehicles is a thing)
  
• Weapons (including melee) not "triggering" until you rejoin the server
  
• Get kicked because of short lag-burst (eg. your phone checking some status thing)
  
• Get kicked because "unstable connection" when the server actually has issues
  
• Loose connection to the server because (???) and join again with everyone else
  
• Getting "hit" by a car standing still
  
• Opening the car doors not possible inside tents
  
• Placing walls not possible because something is blocking (eg. the flat pavement)
  
• Placing walls not possible because of a 5cm bump in terrain
  
• Placing walls not possible because of a 2° slope

With this list just containing bugs that occured recently to me (or a friend) and especially the last 3 ones preventing a base to be placed somewhere outside of "public traffic" areas ... trust me in that you do not want to get this game.

It is good fun ... until a bug or a base raid runis your day entirely, making those hours you put in utterly worthless

Buy it, play it and if you still can refund it after your first play session, refund it.

Best timemachine ever

Steep Learning Curve with Satisfying Gameplay in the end.

Sadly, there are plenty of bugs and the Menus are horrible ... So grab it when it is on sale, but grab it :)

It is complicated... and the reason for that is clear: Motion sickness

There is something about the movement that literally made me want to throw up after 15 minutes and after roughtly 2 hours of playtime ... i had to stop and put down the headset, being the first game i ever had to do this.

So do i recommend it? No. Simply no. While the gameplay itself is way more engaging then say Arizona Sunshine, the whole game just makes me feel bad. Something is very, very, VERY wrong with the way one is just walking there!

If you have ever been motion sick, do not touch this game. AT ALL! You will throw up!
If you never have been motion sick ... well ... you may be lucky and not notice this.

DISCLAIMER This only applies to you if you use the Valve Index Controllers (Knuckles)

Normal Fallout 4 ... just in VR

it is as good as one would expect but ... no real Valve Index controller support

aka: If you just have the knuckles (Valve index controllers), skip this game.

It is not, i repeat: IT IS NOT worth your money, time or anything else!
The whole "experience" feels clunky thanks to missing index controller bindings ...
Community Shared bindings fix things to the degree they can ... but it still feels extremly uncomfortable to play it

Stop asking questions and just get it.

Hunt: Showdown
And what a showdown it is.

For the TL;DR people:



Pro

• Good Graphics
  
• Unspent Setting
  
• Gorgeous Sound-Design
  
• Engaging Gameplay
  
• High Skill-Ceiling, Low Skill-Floor
  
• Winning in PvP literally burns into memory
  
• Loosing a character feels bad

Cons

• No Gunrange to test guns proper
  
• Gameplay can be frustrating at the begining when PvP is involved
  
• Progression system that unlocks stronger weapons (even though at higher cost)
  
• Bugs (meh)
  
• Bosses are easy to kill without any risk once you know how to defeat them
  
• Boss-Kill reward is too powerfull

Ohh and bring a friend with you, as you may be able to play solo (either in full solo or in solo with a random) but playing with friends always makes more fun. And in this game, it does by a long shot!

Shouild you buy? Yes.
Should you buy at full price? Kinda, it is worth the money but ... thats for you to decide.


Now to the more in-depth review part.


Good Graphics
Well, look at the images already on the storefront. They are not the eyecandy-shots the devs made but the whole game looks that good!

Unspent Setting
While pretty much everywhere you have 20 AKs and 5mio M4s, this is different!
The time we are in allows for some pretty much never seen guns from the wild west, with the maps set in the same timeline somewhere in arizona.

Gorgeous Sound-Design
Cannot really say a lot here, you need to hear it to understand it.

High Skill-Ceiling, Low Skill-Floor
To play Hunt: Showdown, you just really need to be able to play any shooter.
The mechanics are simple, try not to die and kill whatever tries to kill you.
However, the way the gunplay is designed means that every weapon feels (and shoots) slightly different and allows for mastering guns to the point where one is capable of killing other players miles away using some precise shot on their head.
Another thing is understanding stuff like that you can shoot barrels, lamps or burn players you just killed to bait their partner into attack. Stuff like that allows that the simple gameplay gets way more tactical for engagements on other players or the objectives.

Winning in PvP literally burns into memory
You ever had those intense firefights in a game? Those where you told your friends "ohh that round of GameXYZ was great! I killed X by doing Y"?
Well, prepare to do this a lot more often! In Hunt: Showdown pretty much every firefight feels way more critical because you know one thing: If you loose, your hunter (and his precious gear) is lost forever. If you win however, it feels earned. Not like "meh ... next round maybe" but rather like "**** YES! WE DID IT!"

Loosing a character feels bad
How is this on the Pro side you may think. Let me explain:
Due to the fact that hunters CAN BE LOST, they do not feel like some throwaway character you use but rather something you build up. You embrace the moment you have been able to extract and finally can get that nice perk you always want plus you try to be carefull with engaging other players, simply because loosing would mean you loose those time you invested in that character. It automatically makes the whole gameplay more tense as everwhere around you, another player or team may wait to kill you.

No Gunrange to test guns proper
Want to know what gun suits you best? Want to practice some gun?
Well ... you better are ready to spend some coins, as you will not be able to test guns outside of the actual gameplay.
A much whished feature, sadly still not ingame. Though ... you can extract early, testing still means you may loose a gun that costs a fortune.

Gameplay can be frustrating at the begining when PvP is involved
Loosing is never fun. However, due to being new means that placing shots is difficult, you will die. A lot. A hell of a lot.
In the beginning, deaths will always feel unfair, like the enemy cheated. However, as you start playing longer something will change. At some point, you are the one placing the shots which you deemed impossible.
Though ... this does not changes that in the begining, you only die. Always.

Progression system that unlocks stronger weapons (even though at higher cost)
This is something that kinda is required and kinda is not.
Some will love progression, some will never. I personally hate it that gear is gated behind some grind-wall!

Bugs (meh)
yup ... some of theese even prevent loading of some objects properly which means: the enemy you thought had a wallhack? well ... maybe on his side, just some barrier did not spawned in properly meaning he was fully capable of seeing you while on your end, that barrier was in place.

Bosses are easy to kill without any risk once you know how to defeat them
Most bosses can be killed by baiting them towards some entrance where you can fight them in a safe distance as they will not chase you. Meaning you just stand outside, throwing burning stuff at the spider without it ever attacking you.

Boss-Kill reward is too powerfull
The reward currently is a 10 second semi-wallhack with the timer only ticking down, when you use it.
Correctly used, this allows to kill literally everything on the map without any problems (you know where the enemy is pretty much always)