Recent reviews by Carnage

Despite a clean and beautiful presentation, unfortunately SF6 (mechanically) is just a huge step back for fighting games. I can definitely respect wanting to introduce more casual and new players to the genre but I also believe there is a way to do that, that still allows you to make the genre fun and rewarding to play.

Rewarding is the key difference here, as SF6 follows the ideals of a casino more than a traditional fighting game. On the surface all of the things you expect to be there exist, like movement and spacing and some traditional fighting game techniques are applicable. But only once you realize that this game is quite precision engineered to introduce (frankly excessive and unnecessary) levels of risk and explosiveness to every interaction (even those that don't make much sense) you start to realize that SF6 isn't trying to be a good fighting game, but is trying to give you an experience that's a bit of a facade for "what being good at a fighting game might be like"

To this end, interactions are built with a lot of the more ill-advised modern fighting game philosophy in mind. Don't be patient, don't reward fundamentals and deeper understanding, and don't make players develop a novel game plan to express their version of a character. Always be gambling and pressing something, never allow the game to slow down, remove nuance from systems and mechanics so that players don't have friction that might stop them from mashing buttons, and only allow players to play characters the way they are designed, with the built in rock paper scissors they are packaged with.

This is the core philosophy of SF6 and while it's a fine game in many ways, it's not a good fighting game. It lacks sauce and nuance, grime and tech, strategy and deliberate play. It is a Pavlovian machine that doles out seemingly random explosive hits of dopamine for those with not enough time or interest in diving deep into something meaningful. What seems at first like several layers of offense and defense, circles back to really only a handful of limited, curated interactions, by virtue of system mechanics so strong that playing on a layer below 2 is simply less effective and leaving things up to cosmic chance rather than skill or technique. This is what I mean by rewarding. I've grown to love fighting games because the lessons I took away from learning to play them have stuck with me and benefited me in nearly every aspect of my life. That journey and experience of self-improvement was so rewarding to me that I've always valued fighting games over any other type of hobby let alone genre of video game. So to deliberately design a game that removes the rewarding parts of the genre, practically defeats the entire purpose. I can probably recommend SF6 to someone who has never played a fighting game as an introduction to the genre, but I cannot recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning lifelong skills through a rewarding hobby. Because if you really want to get into playing a fighting game for that purpose it is inherently a long-term commitment. And for that, there are just so many other, better, fighting games that you can play - where you will have so much more fun throughout that journey.

It's like Caves of Qud mixed with single player Runescape if it were based on the construction stat and it was good.

A great example of a solid AA mid game, certainly not worth $90 asking price for the other editions but for fans of SM1 picking this up at 49 is a solid deal, for anyone not a 40k or SM fan, I would suggest waiting for the game to hit $20.

More of the same arcadey simple action that made SM1 a fun spectacle to turn brain off for a few hours. Much in the same way, this is a game that is entirely set pieces and a few hours of cinematic spectacle. Saber has tried to make the formula a bit more evergreen by designing around 3 player co-op, however this has pretty much only slightly degraded the design of the first game. The games balance has the co-op shooter stank on it, where being balanced and challenging, letting everyone have their moments is more important than any one player having fun. Because of that, expect to feel very weak for a space marine, with a quite a few damage spongey enemies. Some fight mechanics are uninspired, and there's definitely a bit of missed opportunities for fleshing out gameplay, but it's not enough to take away from the spectacle, just don't expect a deep experience on any level. Solid 6/10

EDIT: I wanted to put a disclaimer after I played some more, but still leave my first impressions. This game is actually quite a bit different from SC2, it's just not apparent at first. The factions are very unique in terms of mechanics and function, though I feel like there's not enough for me to do with my units aside from attack move, and I think units without casts in this game can do with a pass for active skills beyond what's present on dedicated caster units. Many traditionally active skills like stimpack are now turned into passives behind buildings and tech, and it feels a little overly simplified to the detriment of some engagements, A nice thing to have would be something not critically important to micro in mid to late game, but with clever use can swing early game. Think Reapers and the like. Other than that, my outlook on this game is very positive having played it a bit more.

It's weird that this game is competing with a 14 year old game and is more like a variation of it that feels like it could have launched around the same era, rather than an improvement of it.

I am a huge fan of high skill ceiling games and competitive RTS, this game is a good RTS and is shaping up to be on par with SC2 somewhere down the line, but the gameplay changes here feel relatively uninspired and often times feel as if they were designed with the intention to quite literally 'BE' SC2 but with obligatory changes to make it different. Not dissimilar to a total conversion mod for SC2.

Because of that, I feel like I should just be playing SC2 instead considering it's the same game but better. It's a really weird situation where I don't want to give this game a negative review because it's perfectly fine and competent, but the game is setting out with its primary purpose being to emulate another game and, if that's your mission statement, then once the gameplay is emulated the most important thing to do is polish and present it with good execution, and while mechanically the game is great, the presentation and execution feels too derivative without improvement. If SC2 released on Steam right now with battlenet removed I think this game would probably die, and that's not a great spot to be in.

So do I recommend this game? Well I would recommend SC2 so I guess? But would I recommend this game to someone who casually played SC2 and would expect it to be a generational improvement on the formula 14 years later? I don't think anyone would honestly believe that, fans of this game surely understand this is a game built on the circumstances the genre finds itself in as a necessary stopgap, rather than a game that would have been made if the genre was in a healthy state. I sure hope it does well because I love this genre and game, but it's very much making the best of a bad situation, these games don't improve because the funding isn't there to justify it, because the lack of mass casual appeal doesn't provide the funding.

There's a future where we are still playing SC2 20 years later because it's the last great RTS a studio was willing to make. This game is also the only real attempt at continuing that legacy, and being in such an early state, it could very well replace SC2 in that role sometime in the next few years. It's not there yet, not right now though.

Get it if you're interested in RTS and enjoy the genre or SC2 in particular. But for new, younger, and casual players, I don't think this is going to be a good impression without that context, they probably won't enjoy it, but in an ideal world I hope they give it a chance.

Had some issues at the start and refunded, patch came out and fixed them. Changing my review because it's a pretty good game

New update nerfed fun strats, but most unfortunately removed and limited build diversity

I was so confused why a video poker game had such overwhelmingly positive reviews. I now understand why.

I hope someone figures out how to actually make a game out of this game one day

At one time this was a pretty compelling take on the auto-battler genre, and really targeted the issues I have with the genre (reliance on RNG) and made for a solid competitive and thoughtful experience.

Overnight the developers have shifted gears and implemented changes to inject RNG into the formula to make the game more "exciting" showering you with tons of free units, unit unlocks etc mid-match that completely negates the benefits of strong economy and unit countering. This update has completely shifted what is enjoyable about the game to target a different audience and I can no longer really enjoy it, when other more RNG-focused auto-battlers are just better to play if that's what you're into. Another game dies to a misguided attempt at abandoning their core playerbase for a different audience, rather than focusing on the things that made the initial idea different.

Unfortunately buffing simplified inputs has come at the expense of neglecting QoL issues and the implementation of technical inputs. Combined with very questionable and dated design of offensive and defensive interactions results in a very shallow and frustrating to play game. A higher volume of lower quality content than the original, while not being a straight downgrade is a very disappointing example of missed potential.