Recent reviews by Dapper

Most fun shortcut to 2AM I've found in a Roguelite Card Battle game.

One of the most well-crafted survival horror experiences of the last decade.

Keep Your Promise.

This is perhaps one of the most punishing survival games I've ever played, and the worst part is that it runs so well and plays so responsively that there's nothing I can say other than I am not very good at it.

I had a friend ask me whether or not one should buy this game, which prompted me to do something I rarely do which is give my recommendation on Steam (see, 700+ games, probably around 10 reviews at the time of posting this).

Squad is by all accounts a very well-made experience. Carefully designed gun models, painfully accurate vehicles and armoured transports, and a set of rules and gameplay features that tie together a wonderful symphony of gunfire and explosions. But that only really scratches the surface of what Squad really "is" underneath all of these systems which are assembled by some of the most talented developers in the milsim category on planet earth. This game is--without a doubt in my mind--the second-best Military Sandbox combat experience (next to Arma III which boasts options for both combat and creativity that even this game cannot compare to), and holistically the greatest milsim game ever released to date.

It's no surprise that I'm going to miss out on a lot of the details that would help to describe this to you in a text-based format without the accompaniment of pictures and video, but lend your eyes and your imagination for just a moment to the following amalgamation of different anecdotes about the game:
- During the beginning phases of the game, you'll be introduced to delightful conversation with your team. As I'm sure you already understand, this being a milsim game which has quite a competitive community, this generally devolves into nonsense about the previous game within your own squad, but when 50 players are in the same 100m, it transitions into anything from music-sharing to politics. Though rarely very memorable as individual moments, I'm sure I'm not the only one who looks forward to hanging around at the main base and chatting with people from all manner of different backgrounds--which I can imagine is not too dissimilar from the actual experience one might have when they are out on a military deployment.
- While you're out in the field, whether it's taking ground or holding it, your Squad (of up to 8 other players) are your best friends and your safety net. Sometimes they're full of holes, or uncooperative, or sometimes they aren't really much of a "squad" at all, but when you get a squad that works well together with one another you can bet your bottom-dollar that even in a game where you're getting pushed all the way back into your main base that you will at least do your best to try and clinch that victory. Even bad squads with vocal leaders can be good enough to pull together and execute tactics and strategies that can turn the tides of battle with as little as 4-5 well positioned players. For all those players who prefer to go-it alone, or have a good friend who they consider the only person they can work with effectively, why don't you try learning how to use Armoured vehicles, or become the next Logistics-running prodigy of the Middle Eastern Alliance?Feel the cheers (and the occasional jeers) of your teammates who parade at your arrival in key positions around the various theatres of war.
- Sometimes, when you're sitting around on a defence, putting up your best sandbag towers, and making sure to razor-wire the entry-points of your building with hasco-blocked windows, you'll sit and you'll listen... and you'll hear the pops and the booms and the bangs of distant-yet-approaching warfare and then suddenly--quiet. A moment in time that seems so impossible in a game of such scale but you'll hear it, the quiet chirping of nearby birds, the peaceful breeze blowing through the desert, the subtle ambience that has been delicately crafted by the developers which wraps the game up to be so utterly COMPLETE that when the action starts up again you will hardly remember why you were so caught up in just standing there. Bipod deployed, scoped in, and ready to rock, a flurry of bullets will begin landing outside your post and you'll be ripped back in as seamlessly as satin sheets.

Squad is not just a game, or a military simulation game, it's a dichotomy of experiences, wins, and losses. Immersive as any game could possibly be and boasting one of the strongest arguments for how to create infinite replayability, Squad is perfection. A golden ratio of point-and-shooting, 'nade-throwing, rocket launching, logi-riding, tank-shelling, A-10-brr'ing, and artillery-crushing wrapped up with an update (verison 2.0) which makes this game run SO MUCH BETTER than it ever has make the purchase of this game no longer a question of whether your PC could handle the game, but how far beyond 60, 120, 144, or 240fps you can push the game. In fact, before such an update I probably would not have wholeheartedly recommended the game in the same way I'm doing right now, but OWI have hit a home-run in terms of optimization passes on a game with maps that are several square kilometers it feels as smooth as a shooter of much smaller scale and scope. So my hats-off to the developers as well for this most recent 2.0 update as well, which puts this game at a very rare but very deserved perfect rating in my mind.

10/10 -- Was a 9/10 before the 2.0 update personally, so this is a must-buy for anyone who enjoys either military simluation games or large-scale multiplayer tactics games.

A fantastic, well-written, well-acted, and truly transcendent experience.

Disco Elysium puts you into the gum-shoes of a down-on-his-luck detective and pulls no punches in reminding you how dreadful that really can be. But as moody as the game is, it would be naive to say it struggled to put a smile on my face and shock me and excite me. It really amazed me just how methodical the whole experience was, teasing me, pulling me in, dragging me down into the depths of some unknown landscape with familiar architecture and people, and that was the most surprising part.

This game is full of people, people you want to help, because you're a detective. It gives them voices, and gives them just a touch of character, subtle animations and behaviours. It's all so cinematic in it's approach but suddenly you could just close your eyes and listen to the ambience in the bar, question the locals, and really get to know the atmosphere. Then, just when you think you're about to get to the bottom of things *snap* and you're on to asking another question, or taking another risk.

The striking art matched with a soundtrack that was expertly composed are a thing to behold on their own, and worth the price as well if you enjoy a good soundtrack to listen to casually. The character art itself gives an excellent insight into the state of a post-war nation, creating a great sense of a pseudo-european unified state on the brink of apocalypse, and that's not an exaggeration. A stillness permeates the surroundings, a lack of people notwithstanding, but a "something" that all of us try to forget about. The kind of feeling you get, then shake off, an intrusive thought, and then get back to it. This analogy also plays a lot into the player-character themselves. As you control the detective, you get to listen to a parade of mostly-lunatic neurons firing in your brain that you can't get rid of like those calls you get playing Grand Theft Auto Online. It's a little bit like you have 20 different Runescape NPCs standing in a line behind you waiting for their turn to interrupt you trying to get "Cook's Assistant" done, but they aren't *all* making puns so at least there's that. You also get to pick one to be a little bit more insistent on being heard, which definitely adds to the replayability aspect because I can't wait to see what Encyclopedia has to say about the world around me, even if I am tempted to just skip through his paragraphs already.

It goes without saying the game is utterly fantastic, technically it's well executed and best of all it's an RPG at heart. Which means there's definitely a reason to play it more than once and take a different approach. Maybe speedrun the game? Who knows.

I understand where the devs are going, I'm upset that this is what it's become, but I honestly can appreciate turning it into something bigger than it was before. BI is clearly trying to create platforms, not games, and Ylands started as a game.

I definitely enjoy the survival mode, and now it runs very well compared to when I played it half a year ago. In fact, the whole game runs a lot better! Sadly, like many games, I think the step to Free-to-Play was a risky yet necessary one. Hopefully at the end of the outrage BI can continue to develop Ylands into a creative interactive experience not unlike Roblox. It's certainly shaping up to be something just a little tiny bit like that. It's never going to be the most popular platform, just like Arma will never be the most popular Milsim. But, just like Arma, I hope that Ylands can become a staple in the creative genre as it very clearly has a lot of potential.

Saw the game for free on release, then immediately went to download it to try and play with my friends.

The servers were down for an unknown reason and no information was being shared by the Devs as to what had happened and no estimate could be provided regarding the timeline for the servers to come back online.

"absolutely side-splitting meta joke"/10. I would pay $60 dollars for this, and shell out even more when they release crates and keys.

The only thing missing from this game is more diverse quirks (or even some more passive ones describing the characters themselves).

I think of Rogue Legacy when I imagine quirks. I imagine some things that literally have no meaning gameplay wise. When I hear "quirks" I don't think of potential debuffs or anything else so I think the wording is a bit confusing in that regard.

Otherwise, great game and I would recomend it to anyone in need of a grinding-fest.

Not going to lie, when I initially had heard of this game, I wasn't very impressed. "Oh boy, another DayZ clone, whoppie." Yeah, that's what I thought, and you know what, I was comfortable with that. But then my friend and his friends started playing it, because they hadn't the hardware to handle the real DayZ experience. So one weekend, 4 of us (me and three friends), booted it up so that they could show me the progress that the three had made in the game. They let me do my own thing and figure out the game to get me started, and you know what, there's a level of depth to this game that a lot of other games lack nowadays. I was thoroughly impressed with the crafting system, the difficulty curve of zombie management, and the overall feel and look of the game being charming and minimalist.

This game certainly isn't breaking any barriers, but for a one man development team, I'll give the guy some due credit: he's made a Survival game that doesn't form it's basis in horror, or action, just survival -- which to me is something that's been rather lacking in titles from AAA developers. Here we have a game that's from bookend to bookend 100% about survival. And I've changed my mind completely, it's a great game.

It's certainly not breaking any boundaries, but the game is there, it's got less bugs than your average Early Access, and for free? Who can complain!

Pros:
- Solid Gameplay
- Entertaining graphics and sound
- Simple to host multiplayer

Cons:
- Lacks some keystone originality
- Quite simple and easy to master

Overall I'd give this game a 7/10, possibly reaching higher as the game's development progresses some more.

Oh yeeeeeeeah! That's what this game says and it's what you'll say after playing this game. This simple (and incredibly small) shooter is definitely worth a purchase. Here's why:
- Simple, in build and in gameplay: Take away all the complicated controls and randomized gameplay elements in favour of concrete gameplay and exceptional playability
- Small: This game is less than 100MB, even better than that it runs on next to nothing memory wise!
- Fun: There's plenty of secrets, items, upgrades and options for playing this game. If you'd rather be a fast gunslinger then all power to you! Invest in run speed and extra bullets. If you prefer a calmer approach then improve your bullet magnet and get some extra health!

There's very little I don't like about the game, just one thing is there's a extra anti-aliasing option that seems to draw very excesssively on performance and for some reason reduced the overall look by a considerable amount. I also think the proceduraly generated thing is a bit of a gimmick because it seems moreso that rooms are randomly selected and given small changes to the walls without much else being different.

Regardless, the challenge you face, along with an excellent soundtrack incline me to score this game quite highly, but small drawbacks are going to push my overall rating down to a humble 7.5/10

In conclusion, worth the $10, but still far from being "endlessly entertaining" as the concept sugggests. As the game gets updates though, I expect this game to easily reach above the score I gave it here.