Recent reviews by Cpl. Burden R 3294

Absolutely terrible. The tutorials teach you nothing other than UI. Campaigns are impossible, even the very first missions. AI just kerbstomps you. Got this as part of a Humble Bundle if I recall. Still wouldn't recommend it to anyone at any price.

Difficult to get into, as are all Paradox Grand Strategies, but worth it when you do. Surprisingly RAM and CPU heavy so, be aware of that.

Difficult to pin down exactly what is wrong with this game. The concept is fantastic, the execution is baffling.

- Tutorials which you can fail simply due to ridiculous time constraints (literally, first tutorial, ship doesn't move or fire back. You can still lose because you didn't destroy it quick enough for the arbitrary time limit gods)

- Ridiculous expectations in said tutorials. For example, stop the raiders. Fine, they're bigger, faster, stronger, better armoured (because the devs decided that was fair), but I sink two and the third one runs. Nope, also a loss because again, arbitrary sodding time limit and in this case I could NEVER catch up to them.

- AI blatantly cheats, always landing hits more often than you, with more damage, in critical areas etc.

And of course all you get from the ever helpful community is "git gud". So, yeah, don't bother. They keep breaking it more and more with ever increasing patches. Apparently the devs are like this with their other games too, arbitrary time limits and never accepting anything is wrong. Maybe pick it up for £5, £10 when it inevitably plummets.

A worthy successor to Theme Hospital. The only complaint/suggestion I could give would be the ability to assign doctors with diagnosis abilities to diagnosis rooms, and those with treatment abilities to treatment rooms (where those rooms can be set for either, for example the DNA Clinic). It's a minor quibble really. (really steam, you censored that word? ffs)

This needs to be a "Yes...but" kind of recommendation.

Stellaris is fun. I can't deny it. It's got that addictive little "one more turn" thing (although, no turns of course) of Civilisation, and it feels big and epic and there's so much to sink your teeth into. You start off struggling to even get around your domain, and by the end you're gene modding your people and building megastructures.

The "But" and it's a Kardashian sized but, is that by the time you get to the end of game, it's become 3 maybe 4 way battle with two equally massive empires. That's fine, I guess, but, it means there can be no "small wars". Everything is an apocalyptic showdown. This doesn't seem to happen to me in say, again, Civilisation or GalCiv. The bigger issue is by the time you get there, it's running so appallingly slowly and likely has crashed several times. Stellaris is really badly optimised for the end game. It clogs itself up and just grinds to a halt.

So, take that how you will. Great game, but the execution is a tad flawed.

Right, how do we start this?

First things to admit. Not touched the aerial or naval side. Well besides a very brief excursion in a Fury Mk.II. No doubt this will be a clue as to where the rest of this is going. Not got far enough to mess about with Helicopters.

I knew the British were somewhat "hard mode", if only from my knowledge of the period. Early on, weak armour, and even when it gets better, saddled with the 2Pdr for ages, (which had no effective shell, only solid shot, for most of it's life).

Still I thought, how bad could it be?

Oh boy.

I struggled though, with the massive assistance of my far more experienced friend, to BR 3.3. Now, complaint No.1. The BR ratings are utterly barmy. They are in no way balanced, which I admit is difficult with historical vehicles (funnily enough, history doesn't give a hoot about balance) and in no way historical either (unlocking vehicles in weird orders). This second point is minor really, only confusing to those of us with any knowledge of history. (Why am I unlocking a Mk.V Cromwell before the Mk.I ? etc). The first though, you get some wildly unbalanced tanks going against each other and it's supposed to be "fair", particularly when the Soviets get involved.

Essentially any side that gets HEAT or APHE turns the game into a point-and-click adventure game, albeit the only option is "use shell on tank". They don't need to worry about distance or angle. Just poof, dead tank. The rest of us, doesn't really matter what we do, it's entirely random. Oh I can perforate that T-34 with my 3 Inch Gun, but will I actually *damage* it let alone knock it out? No. And that's *when* I can actually get through the armour, as often they just throw you against things you can only penetrate at a precise distance with a precise round in a very precise area, when they can do the aforementioned point and click and, kill you at any range, any where, any time.

So, fine fine, lets all put that down to "get gud, skill issue" or whatever. So you accept the above and still give it the old college try. You spawn...and immediately get killed by someone who is sat in your spawn point. There is no punishment for this, only "oh the enemy can see you on the map". That doesn't really help if you can't penetrate them except in a tiny tiny vision slit, or with a tank you no longer have access to, or you spawn in said tank and they instantly wipe you out. I've seen Level 100 players doing this. People who should know better, who should be better than this.

So, fine, even if you put up with THAT ignominy and keep trying. You get out of the spawn point, finally. You somehow kill something, more by luck than judgement, you find a spot to take a quick breather, get your bearings. A shell flies through the terrain from half way across the map, fired from a tank destroyer manned by a Russian or Chinese named player, because the game is RIFE with hackers, and as long as they keep paying for ridiculous vehicles, Gajin don't care.

Seriously, unless you enjoy pain (and hey I don't judge but there are better, far less frustrating ways to get your masochistic rocks off than a messed up "war simulator" ha what a joke that is) do not play this.

Final point is the kind of jerk this game creates. One of my hobbies is making strategy games. One of them is a WWII (well, 1930s to 1950s) tactical game, based on the old CDV game Blitzkrieg. I was unaware of War Thunder until recently, except for the "oh some chump leaked military secrets. Again." memes. I was recently repeatedly harassed by a small group of miscreants who apparently took offence to, well, reality and maths (and the rather simplistic armour penetration calculations in the Enigma engine) and railed against all the "OP" units in my mod, endlessly citing War Thunder as if it was reality. Could not accept that this game, IS A GAME, and a laughably inaccurate one at that. Weren't even aware of certain models of the KV-1 they were criticising for example, because War Thunder doesn't have it (KV-1 Mod.42) so to them, it does not exist.

I mean what else is there to say? It's a broken game to start with. It has massive bias towards certain sides, especially the USSR, which sure I could just play that side but, then why do the rest even exist? You make what equates to an arena shooter, Gajin, you choose to set all sides against each other even ones that historically never did and then throw in prototypes and just plain fictional vehicles to boot, its your job to make it balanced even if that is a fools errand. Weird how it HAPPENS to be biased in favour of the country the devs favour, isn't it? Then you have people who ruin the game with spawnkilling, something other games solved decades ago, (even Day of Defeat ffs, just have spawns the enemy can't shoot into or drive into) and then a virtual acceptance of hackers because "eh they pay us so we let them keep playing", and finally it breeds a community of twerps who think it's a 1 to 1 representation of reality and cannot accept anything but.

Avoid at all costs. If I can find a way of expunging the time played from my Steam I will.

It's important to remember this for what it is; a Remaster, not a Remake. We got a number of quality of life improvements (changes to unit ordering in battle allowing waypoints, addition of merchants, more factions being playable without mods including emergent factions in BI, night battles in the base game and Alexander etc). More upgrades are "promised" but, your judgement on whether to buy or not should never be based on what might be, only on what is.

I certainly enjoy it. Its stable (only had one crash). Loads quickly on my SSD, runs smoothly. I can't complain basically. Does exactly what it says on the tin. Takes the original and makes it look nicer, with some QoL upgrades. Exactly as a Remaster should.

It's been oooh, well over a decade since I first played this, and I needed a break from some research recently, and it still holds up. I greatly prefer it to the second game (never did like the "level hubs" of that game, or the vehicle sections) and well, it just works. It's challenging without being infuriating, it has enough unlocks without feeling like a grind, and it packages it all in a fun, child-friendly way that is still enjoyable for adults. Still works with no issues on Windows 10 systems (just make sure to have V Sync on to avoid issues jumping from platforms)

I mean, there isn't much that can be said really. Decided I had to review this as, I've reviewed TFTD and Apoc (and even Interceptor)

I still think this is an amazing game, even after all these years, but a few "quality of life" improvements are a necessity. OpenXCOM is a must (as it is for TFTD), and genuinely with that upgrade it makes it a really playable, stable and fun game.

Outside of the technical stuff, there is just an enigmatic something that just makes this...special, even compared to TFTD (which is essentially this with a lick of paint on it). No attempts to remake it (XCOM 2012) or reimagine it (UFO Aftermath or Xenonauts) have ever quite come close. They're great in their own way, but, they miss that...something. There is just a blend of something that makes this work.

Alrighty, so, first disclaimer. I've had this game for quite some time, but every time I tried to get my head around it I just couldn't. I really wanted to like it, and I knew it was great, the problem was me, not it.

Finally gave it another go, read some guides, watched some videos and downloaded a few tools to give me better control over roads, railways etc.

It's BRILLIANT. Yes, out of the box it needs a bit of tweaking but, stick with it, get used to the control, get used to the way it handles things (I was thinking of things far too much like old SC4) and you'll love it. I only had the Deluxe Edition, so base game plus After Dark I think it was, but its still amazing. Just bought Parklife, Mass Transit, Industries and Snowfall today (last one mainly for the trams) so, can't wait to play with those new additions.

Mod wise, I'd say get Move It, which allows you to tweak roads, railways and just about anything after you've built it. I find it invaluable for highway ramps for example, and i'd also suggest the Metro Overhaul Mod to bring back the old elevated and ground level metro for fans of the NAM Mod for SC4. I couldn't get Network Connections 2 to work properly. Kept killing my bus lines which was annoying, and I've not really found a situation where the extra roads it added would be useful yet. Hopefully it will be updated and work properly soon though.