Recent reviews by Tilted

This game is awesome.
I just think that people go in expecting an easy, PvE experience. It's not.
It's a game about Pirates pirating other Pirates. There is only one rule; get you loot home and sold before someone else gets it.
The constant tension and threat of other players is what makes the game exciting. There is Proxy Chat as well as Team Chat. You can 'team up' with random boats in 'alliances', you can cautiously circle each other while measuring one another up, and waiting to see if either one will take the first shot; You can go in cannons blazing, you can poach other' players loot, especially if they are finishing an event because they're likely getting low on meds and ammo; You can just Hunt players on the high seas... until a Kraken catches you in it's maw. You can sneak on-board other ships, wait until they disembark, and either sink em or steal their ship (and their loot) - or you can hide in port and 'help' them sell their gear an hope no one notices an extra crewmate. You can load a rowboat up and sneak off the back with all their bounty. You can sword and swashbuckle and block and blunderbuss and sword-dash them to death. You can get in a sloop and run and hide every time you see a sail on the horizon. You can be a Gatherer, taking Merchant missions picking up and delivering goods, or you can hunt wildlife for a bounty; go fishing in some of the most diabolical waters, looking to fill out your fishing collection.

It's a perfectly piraty game with hidden and Cursed Treasure, Treasure Maps to buried treasure in the sands of the 40+ Islands on the game, caves, ghosts, traps, Special Events (like event crossovers), world events with the best loot, Athena's - which are Pirate Legend / end game story to explore.

I think my favourite thing about the game is that xp isn't gained; it's earned. it's earned in the scars, the skins, the cosmetics in the game. a day 1 player has all the same advantages of a day 10,000 player - except for the game knowledge and the Shiny cosmetics.


Oh I have about 2500h in game pre-Steam release.

Look; it's a really good game - it's close to "great" but it falls short because of a couple of silly things, which I'll go into.
But first, the good;

• Story seems a little weird at first, but as soon as I swapped to Russian it was WAY better. See below.
  
• The story line is great. You know something is off, but how it all unfolds is really well written.
  
• Make sure you talk to your Comrades at the end of the day, every day. There are some really cool interactions, and it helps to fill the world out quite a lot. Most of it is truth, covered by the KBG, with a little bit of story Lore mixed in and it works really, really well.
  
• Having to ADS seems a little weird at times, especially as you almost never actually use the knife; but it becomes fairly natural pretty fast... but it hurts if your ADS isn't sensitive enough and they get up close on you.

Even if you are English speaking, play on Russian with subtitles. The English Voice Actors are straight up British and it's disingenuous. Even one guy (speaks perfect Russian) we later find is Canadian, speaks with a British accent, not an Americanised one - but Tatyana - her accent is American. AND the acting is BAD. ALL OF IT. Just play on Russian.
I played on Medium; medium is WAY too easy. It felt too much like a "walking simulator" where you follow a marker, Shoot a dude, stealth a bit, follow more markers. By day 5 I had enough resources to not have to worry about them anymore, and by day 15 I had built every base item, every upgrade, every thing, with plenty of Comfort for the gang. Play on a harder difficulty. igor sounds smexy asf in Russian. he sounds 'off' as a Brit.

The game feels like it's meant to be a 'no save' system where you only save at the end of a successful mission, and that people complained so they added a save system and it DETRACTS from the game. I know it has one.
I RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO NOT SAVE_SCUM[/b] your play through. Disable saves altogether by never using them, ever. (OK except maybe to try out the branching endings) Death is part of the game loop and if you're save scumming you'll miss one of the main mechanics of the game.

Your choices matter, yet they are reversible, later in the game you can revisit choices and change outcomes of major story points. Many dialogues are 'flavour text' where your responses don't matter but you're allowed to respond with either compassion or anger, mostly; and occasionally this will affect the outcome of other events in the game. ANYTHING that affects other outcomes can be revisited, forgotten, or changed. So don't be afraid of making the wrong choices. Make your choices and see how it would play out - it's easy to change it back later.

If one of your companions gets captured, you have to go and 'die' to one of the NAS soldiers so taht you can get in and break your buddy out. The game doesn't explain this. If no one needs saving, and you die... you can go back and change some actions. The game doesn't explain this, either.

I kinda want to do another play through on the Hardest difficulty, but at the same time I realise what a commitment that's going to mean.

The maps do feel small, but they also feel under-utiliised, and don't really 'stand out' - POI's don't really feel like they 'pop' or make maps memorable.

Maps feel disconnected from each other (unlike STALKER where you 'felt' the connection by travelling to the roadway that joined them)

"Crash on Exfil: Click Play" - The Simulator
But there is this cool little minigame on the loading screen where you get to shoot and explode bugs with fun guns and OP BOOM FROM THE SKY.

I don't even mind that it takes hours to load, then crashes before you even get in the game

:)

When i see a fresh wipe, I write myself a goal.
Here's a few I've had. I've even managed to do a couple of em :)

• Build a weed farm in a cave
  
• Rat out of bushes and stashes for a month
  
• Build a horse farm
  
• Build a hotel
  
• Build a floating island base and live off fish.
  
• Live in a tugboat and terrorise coastal bases
  
• build a wall that spans the entire map
  or permanently wall off a monument and charge people a tax for use
  
• build a disco hall
  
• Build trap bases and laff your ass off when people discover that they aren't getting out alive (you'll get raided in no time but it still a hoot)
  
• get upset at your neighbours for stealing your horse
  
• create an entire revenge arc and spend an entire month grinding while trying to find that a-hole's base so that you can burn him to the ground and wipe him off the server
  guerilla/harass a large clan so they want to wipe you off the map; and just keep poacing their kits.
  
• Create a clan and become a huge unstoppable forse that can wipe the entire lobby off the map
  
• live in the oil rig (outdated)
  
• live out of a car
  
• build an underwater base near a fishing village
  
• become a highwayman and murder anyone that dares to use 'your' road
  
• gamble your earnings away at bandit camp or outpost, on the wheel, or playing blackjack.
  
• grab a loudspeaker and run around naked screaming obscenities at people hiding inside their bases at night.
  
• make 100 fake bases, all identical, to hide your 'real one', or better yet, have non of them as yoru real one.
  
• Wipe a duo, force them to strip naked and fistfight to the death; the winner gets his gear back (minus ammo)
  
• give a naked some kit, then laugh as he tries to instantly betray you; because he didn't notice that you gave him ammo but also a broken gun that does no damage.
  
• get murdered by some dude with a rock because you weren't looking
  
• crash and die in a fire
  
• play arcade games
  
• use an arcade machine to trap people
  
• build a shop
  
• build a trap that looks like a shop
  
• offer a fairly legitimate taxi service; at the risk of some jerk murdering you and stealing your car (which you wired with an anti-theft device that explodes when you get back to base).
  
• build a fully automated base with automatic doors, turrets, alarm systems, water, lighting and heating control.
  
• build an 'abandoned' looking base with a back door in. come back later, see if it's been hijacked, steal all the new occupants' loot.

Great little game that I picked up for the Rust DLC.
Definitely a skill based bullet hell, but by the third boss it got too hellish for me.

You get mocked, IN GAME, if you use this DLC.
What an awesome little tribute.

I've played 1981 hours at the time Steam suggested that I write a review.
I was born in 1981.
A cooincidence? I think not.

part stealth, part gun-ho shoot out. This is a Tarkov-style game where the objectives draw players together, and it's more about those fights than the Bounty (Tarkov 'raids' ). Matches are shorter, too. It's cowboys amongst zombies where the zombies can give a way your position, and if you ignore, just one, it will kill you.

Sound is a key in this game. There are sound 'traps' - flocks of birds, injured horses, gangs of hounds - tree branches, and they will give your position away on the server. So will shooting, as your weapons can be heard across the entire map telling enemies what direction, how far you are, and what weapons you're carrying. Shooting a zombie you should have smcked in the face will get you ganked, ambushed, or hunted by another team.

Gunplay is really satisfying - generall every gun is a 1 shot headshot and usually a 2 shot body, making gun fights highly tactical, and can be peek/heal affairs. There are a myriad of ammo types - short, long, poison, fire, bleed - adding status effects and forcing your enemies to deal with them so you can move in for the kill...

In normal lobbies, very, very, very rare to find cheaters - maybe 5-6 times in 2000h. In high tier lobbies (don't worry that's not you) the cheaters complain about the cheaters, and it's great. they can stay there. (to report a cheater you have to screen grab the game play, and most cheaters use ESP, so they can't screengrab eachother without exposing themselves, it's wonderful!)

Thought.
Survival is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying because basic things like running to juke enemy attacks is wonky. Sometimes you dont run, you just walk and get donked.

Killing the most fully kitted enemies in game and they drop less than the undead. no gear, no weapons, no armour plates, not even a can of tuna.

Enemies are quieter than you are. So you get ganked a lot.

OK>
I've tried to play this game thru a few times and each time I quit. a few years later I'm like "why did i quit???" and I replay it, only to quit again.

Here's why;
save points are far and few between, with long LONG cut scenes before and during each one. UNSKIPPABLE cut scenes.
health, abilities, all the good stuff in an RPG are tied not to side quests, as per se - but COLLECTIBLES. and there are so many ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ collectibles. just doing the minimum is a special kind of cruelty.


You need to edit the PC hosts file, or play in offline mode to play this game without it locking up (it constantly looks for the AC servers in the background and freezes when it can't find them - they are offline, BTW). this check happens every minute or two.

LONG LONG Unskippable cut scenes.

iT GETS WORSE.
The assassination targets are always mega heavily guarded, and they know you're there and they RUN. or they do a loop inside a room full of guards so killing them is never stealthy.

OK>

I see why it's 'overwhelmingly positive, but I don't feel like the game deserves that rating. It's good, yes - for $15-$20. Let me explain.

The reason it's 'overwhelmingly positive' is because it's hard to dislike the game, it does everything just right enough' that you can't say it's bad, but i don't feel like it's GOTY must have must buy must play yada yada. its a so-so game where everything is done well enough to be good, but it still feels lacking somewhere.

I ThINK it's because the game is so short. My first stalker, I checked the CODEX and it was a 'normal' not and 'elite'. and I'm like "O ♥♥♥♥ I'm in for a ride". then the game was over in an hour and I'm left feeling like it wasn't enough. more environments, more enemy types, more weapons... I just wanted more. AND the story goes on about 'now you have to face off heaven' and I'm like 'oh good maybe it's not finished'.... but it finished "maybe one day' you'll get there. Maybe". dammit.

the campaign (on "easy" AKA "LAMB") takes about 2h to complete if you don't do the 'trials' that you unlock as you progress. Trials are secondary arena challenges that unlock perks, from faster Ultimate gain to 'not breaking killstreaks' when you miss a shot, etc. They are not required to beat the game.

The music is good, and loops perfectly, but the loop is pretty short - on a hard difficulty, It may get tedious. Importantly, occasionally the 'beat' of the music can change and this obscures the tempo making shooting on the beat... harder.

The music is layered - a bassline, a drum, a screaming guitar, and a screaming human, and as your kill multiplyer adds up, if you keep the streak running, these layers are added to the score making it more intense. it's a cool premise, actually.

BUT> There are like 5 enemies, all pretty clearly 'inspired' from other games
There are
Grunts (Zombie things that dance to the beat) funny I'm not sure where these are borrowed from;
There are Quazimotos that shoot you
There are shielded Quazimotos that look like the annoying asf shielded guys from the original halo
There are behemoths which are literally bile trolls from Vermintide2
There are Stalkers - which are straight outta L4D2
The Seraphim - somewhere between Archviles (DOOM16) and Spirit/Maykers from DOOM Eternal
And bosses are generic bat looking things I'm sure they're from something
Oh, final boss is a watered down Icon Of Sin from DOOM ETERNAL

Sound is good, music is good, movement is good. I'm looking for the 'in depth layered fighting mechanics' but so far it's kinda just 'button input on the beat to win'