Recent reviews by Asphe

Command a squad of up to 5 Marines as you take on the Xenomorphs in their varied forms, the corporations in their infinite greed and your own leadership in their armored APC.

Essentially you equip and train up your marines then take them into locations with specific objectives. Do it with guns blazing or TRY to sneak around aliens, androids, cultists and mercenaries. You'll always outnumbered, outgun and frequently out-flanked. Plus not only do you have to look after the marines' gear and weapons but also their mental health. They'll go nuts and... underperform.

So the game tries and succeeds in bringing the theme & settings from the Aliens movie (the second in the franchise) and even a bit from the other movies, when it comes to the lore and 'special ability'. The gameplay revolves around you navigating your marines as you make your way from objective to objective, trying to keep the xenomorphs at bay while trying not to run out of ammo, med-packs and sanity.

You can cut short a mission by simply making your way back to your APC and extracting but that means using up time as you have a limited number of days to complete your mission(s) to get off the rock you've landed on or... 'face' the consequences. At higher difficulties, you're almost certainly do each map in multiple deployments.

The POV is an overhead view, and you command your marines as a unit (a shame that, Starship Troopers Terran Ascendancy allowed you to command individual troopers to specific points). You get to see FOVs, lines of fire and stealth / hiding is almost a required tactic (especially on higher difficulties).

Graphically, it's fine - it's very easy to see things and the aesthetics match the movies. The audio / voice action is very good.

All in all, this reminds me a lot of Aliens Fireteam Elite, except it's played in a Tactical-lite setting. If you can find and run it, Starship Trooper Terran Ascendancy / STTA is probably a better if dated game ( '2000)

No Invert Axis of any kind. Not even for controller. Even Genshin Impact had Invert Axis for Controller (but not for PC).

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Good graphics, great performance on most platforms (I used 2070, 3070 & 4070S) and voice acting is great (EN, KOR and JPN, EN is surprisingly good. The Steam version can link to your infold account so you don't lose any progress coming to Steam

The monetisation is your typical predatory gacha. Seems a bit much that a single 'major' item like a skin / set costs more than many good complete games but that's typical for this kind of game. It's just not very freeper friendly. Genshin Impact is quite a bit better in this regard. Regardless, you can take this game at your own pace, slowly grinding to whatever you want even as they try every trick in the book to encourage you to spend.

Oddly enough, support for KBM is very poor. Sensitivity settings, adjustable / invertible axes are just bad or non-existent. Not only do you have to jump through a hoop to make Steam Input invert your controller - you have to make the hoop itself by messing with Steam Input settings via command line. Mouse? Needs a 3rd party hack.

You lead a motley crew on your war-rig, roaming the badlands dishing out the pain, accompanied by a stunning (literally) soundtrack from your war drums.

From the folks behind Bomber Crew & Space Crew - very similar but this time around, you not only get to drive (no need to emplace manual waypoints like in BC or pick existing ones in SC) but also build what you drive. Research/unlock is via looting enemies and mission rewards giving you blueprints and the materials required to craft them

Manage your crews' skills and gear as they level up, as in the previous games. Some of the new skills also synergise with other crew skills and while your gunners auto-target, you can manually target not just specific enemies but weakpoints (and crew) on those vehicles, i.e. you can snipe the driver, blow the fuel tank or flatted all the tires on one side. Slow-mo time is now free and infinite to help you do all this - while your war-rig has an autopilot that you can set to chase certain vehicles or wander around in a specific area while you do the more important pew-pew stuff like putting heavy metals through brains AND eardrums. You can put a set of War Drums to... inspire your crew, demoralize your enemies (or just deafen them ^_^) Doof would be proud. And probably playing for the other side - you're not the only one with loud engines, louder crew and deafening drums.

The biggest draw however is your war-rig. From the cab / engine to the trailers (multiple should you want to go long), design the superstructure (give your gunners a birds-eye view or let them hunker down in the weeds), choose your weapons, flex your armor and don't forget extra fuel and water. A med-station, damage control gear and more, because travel in the Badlands means toxic hurricanes, trigger-happy scavengers and even giant sandworms.

Controlling your crew is so much easier than before, click on a crew icon (or press a keybind), MMB to send them to a weapon / sensor / damage control station or .. the drums or to repel boarders! Then another click to get them to return to their original station (or another should you desire). It's simple, fast and easy - IF... IF you actually went through the Options - Controls. If you see someone complain about this - they didn't read the non-existent manual. Make it easier on yourself and color-code your crew, change their names, colour their armored tutu so you can tell at a glance, who is doing what to whom at where and when.

Plus you get to change your rig any way you want, in between sorties if you have the required materials so if you don't have the skillz... BUILD your way out of it. Customize the pain you deal out. Getting hurt too much, too fast? Put a shield in harm's way. Bring a hospital ER along. Pretend it's the age of sail and have broadsides of carronades? Fire away. Build a sniper tower and snipe targets from 200' away? Shoot! Put a ram on the front (and sides)! Full speed ahead, turn on the NOX! A desert battleship or a sneaky sniper - you can build it. Then paint it. An all pink super battlerig crewed by neon fuschia tutu wearing, bearded hippies? It's fashion! And we don't judge, unless you're entering the Photo Competition

Still, there are a few glitches (a side-mission objective was missing - the vehicle with the rescue objective... fell off a cliff :) - patched within hours), driving can be a mixed-bag until you realise the driver is trying to pick the best path - i.e. think of yourself as the commander telling her to go in a direction... the driver will try. This can be both fun and frustrating. The Invert Y doesn't work in all modes and a few other, very minor things. Otherwise, the game shows the devs' commitment and passion to their craft.

Anymeow, hope to witness you ^_^

Playing this game reinforces the connections between your brain cells (some of them anyway), improving your ability to think spatially and also your short-term memory. Alas, it will also increase your adrenaline and cortisol levels until you finally, eventually achieve the maximum scores on each level.

It will tax your Intelligence (some more than others). It should improve your mind.

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Graphically a cute, vibrant 'board' where you place randomized Tetris-like tiles to achieve objectives in a way that maximises your score (tiles of a colour, are better together. The more bridges, the better... and so on). So you have to somehow fit your tiles onto the board (you can see the all available tiles in a 'deck' but what you get is random) in certain ways.

As the deck of tiles are random, you can replay a board as much as you like and get a different challenge each time. There is a leaderboard and challenges as well.

... remember when Monster Hunter World was a monster to run on your system? Then you upgraded your CPU/GPU and... now it's the same thing all over again...

The minimum requirements shown means the downright minimum to get the game to run. The worst graphical quality at barely slideshow speed frame rates. The recommended requirements SHOULD give you a playable experience. Whether it's enjoyable or not, is up to the player.

If you are the type that "must" have 120 fps at 2160p with all the bells and whistles... go buy a new system with component releasing in 2027, then buy this game. If you are ok with 30~45 fps at 1440p with medium-high settings and some bells silent...

I'd recommend a minimum of a 4060 (with at least 8GB of vRAM, nothing less and no mobile versions either), a FAST SSD (or dual SSDs if you are not on M2 connectors), 32gb of system RAM (64 is better, doesn't seem to benefit from 96 or 128) AND much lowered expectations as regards to performance.

I really don't see how much future optimisations can improve performance that much (look at how much changed with Dragon's Dogma 2) - it's not just your GPU here.

The main issue is the game loading (and unloading) assets, i.e. poly models & textures, the shapes of stuff and the 'paint' that goes onto those shapes. This allows the game to let the player into the game quickly (instead of staring at a loading screen). The game also loads in low-poly shapes & low-res textures first (smaller and therefore faster to load in) then load in the high-poly shapes & high-res textures later. This is why you'll see "ugly" pop in first, then change to "good" later. This process relies on your CPU, hard drive, system RAM and associated sub-systems. Having a 5090 won't help much with this.

Devs made the decision to have high-poly, high-res textures for everything. You can mitigate this by dropping the polycount and the lowest-res textures. The smaller those are, the faster the game loads it in (asynchronous asset streaming). The texture compression used requires higher CPU workload and is quite slow (mainly due to the large sizes involved).

Personally, I'd rather just stare at a long loading screen.

Meanwhile, what you as a player can do is to reduce the size of the files involved as much as possible. Low-res textures, low-poly geometry as well as playing at a lower resolution / lower frame rate.

Devs... I appreciate you trying to reduce the install size - but I'd rather you use a FASTER texture compression method at the expense of larger file sizes on disk. Also you should tune each biome and KEEP certain assets loaded instead of constantly loading/unloading assets. I realise you intended to let the game fit on lesser hardware (i.e. consoles) but now, every player has to deal with stuttering and ugly pop-ins. WIlds DESERVES a 'Mixed' Steam review score because the performance issues are caused by your decision to forcefully fit your game towards an outdated hardware model while pushing graphical detail. At least, give players the choice to decompress textures on disk, let the game keep assets in memory or just load as much as possible at the beginning.

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Otherwise, yes it's a Monster Hunter game, it is as deep and rich an experience as MH Worlds. Probably a bit less challenging (if it follows MH Worlds, more challenging monster will be added later) and certainly not as challenging as Dauntless' behemoths (RIP May 2025). Graphics are as good or better (IF your system can handle it), audio is as good as always, the movement and combat mechanics are there but things are both a bit more simplified and less deep. The control / combat mechanics are easier to pickup / relearn and somewhat easier to master. This is the probably the easiest MH game to introduce newbies too. The learning curve is much more gradual and a lot less challenging at first.

Unfortunately, this means the weapons tend to be more similar to each other. e.g. unlike Worlds where a player would benefit from choosing the right weapon (and armor) for each monster... the gear in Wilds is a bit more generic. Pretty much every weapon is somewhat similar except for the element. Within the same rarity, weapons are not very different.

Story-wise... it's a Capcom story. It's there. You're not here for that, are you?

Probably the biggest change is the multiplayer system. It's a lot easier to meet up with strangers. Instead of a public, smol lobbies... you have much larger lobbies and can form pre-made lobbies and be a member of multiple mini-clans/guilds. The changes in combat mechanics also play into this, it's a bit more fun doing co-op and a LOT easier to get into a public instance. Unless your team (or you) just carts all the time. But... wouldn't it be easier to just make Wilds a MMO/MO? Just have something like the relay hubs in DE's Warframe.

This all boils down to the game just letting you get to the action constantly. You get to the 'fun' faster and more easily than any other game in the franchise. Unfortunately, this kinda means you end up with just the one or two armor sets and similar playstyles. Build variety should expand with upcoming DLC/expansions but this is on a PER weapon basis - there are over a dozen weapons. Simply put, this game is pretty much all main course, Capcom cut out almost all the chaff, greatly streamlined the experience even over Monster Hunter World to the point it feels significantly easier to veterans of the franchise. But it's still fun. It's more fun. This is the game you should use to introduce newbies to the franchise

A last note about the graphics, devs went whole hog on details. Again, IF your rig can support it, the graphical details far eclipse previous entries in the franchise. IF you can run it.

*Also if any ex-PHX Lab / Riot sees this - This game knows how to do Invert Axis. Perhaps the % of players who like this feature is smol... but it includes the nerds who are willing (and can afford) to buy flightsticks and pedals, 3rd party controllers and stuff like VR and eye trackers... the kind of players that are the most valuable to a free-to-play game. Just sayin'

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Mods.

You can alter the config.ini file outside the game enabling GPU configurations that let you hit 60fps @ 1440p with a 1070Ti. There should be mods for this in the usual places. It makes Wilds look as "bad" as World but more importantly... plays as fast. Or just do everything you can do lower texture resolution, polygons of any geometry in-game, rending distance and so on. You want to turn off certain bells and whistles but the biggest bottlenecks are texture resolution, polygon counts and frame rate. Lower any or all three and things are better.

Use something like ISLC (Intelligent Standby List Cleaner) - this isn't so much as increasing 'free RAM' as helping reduce memory fragmentation (Ubisoft's The Division series is great at causing crashes due to poor memory management) - you could cause Wilds to crash simply by paging apps in memory (including just repeatedly alt-tabbing or using a lot of tabs in a chromium browser with lots of videos running). YMMV but this does seem to help.

Change the CPU priority so Wilds has the highest priority (not really needed if your CPU is < 7 years old but seems to improve stability...)

A few other things too (ignoring all the cheats/nudes) - the game can run quite well if you lower the right settings and... your expections of high frame rates

I've played this from the start, then when Dauntless launched on Epic Games Store. The game has players meet up in a hub then go out and hunt monsters in instances. Think Monster Hunter World but with an emphasis on online co-op. Free to play but all u-transactions are cosmetic only. No pay to win. Yes really. When they had battlepasses, you had a premium-paid 'lane' but you could earn those premium currency in-game.

The monsters are both more varied and more challenging, and more over the top then in MHW but you have fewer weapon types.

If you were playing this game while it was on Epic, you had a good time... maybe some great moments. Then this game launched on Steam. Essentially player progress was reset and while there was some compensation... and the u-transactions were now predatory. Basically around 2021 until the Steam launch, the devs were basically let go.

So is this worth playing? It's worth a try. Think of it as a free-to-play version of Monster Hunter World, with a Fortnite style aesthetics. The monsters are still a bit more varied and challenging in comparison to MHW but be prepared for the worse aspects of free-to-play to shake it's fists in your face.

But it was a good game. Great even. Now it's just a game.

It's a little bit of everything that comes together purrfectly. Just do it quickly before we all get eaten up by those Whales.

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Build settlements in different biomes, allowing things like settlements specialising in food(s), certain elements and minerals or just manufacture. Connect them all via pre-determined routes using transports. Produce pollution then clean it up with new technologies while fighting off monsters from a distant path.

The hex-based maps are comprised of smol planets with smoller islands (each potentially of a different biome / resources) and you also connect the planets via trade routes. The visual aesthetics are of a slightly cutesy approach while the music complements.

If you like somewhat chill settlement builders with unusual twists (several) and a certain amount of time-pressure (the population never revolts but they can get very unhappy... and the space whales can just ruin everything), this and the upcoming sequel is for you

The sky's the limit for this city. But beware, if you build it, pirates will come!

Essentially a much improved and expanded continuation of Airborne Kingdom with combat (air to air and air to ground, featuring big guns and your own carrier attack wings) added in. If you liked the first, you'll love the sequel. Now your flying city can be a flying carrier as well

The city-building aspect is pretty much the same but things like -ve effects have been removed or simplified and much more streamlined. Making it easier and faster to build whatever you want, this allows you to expend some effort towards combat. This includes elements of tower defence plus actively using new buildings to target and destroy adversaries.

Elements taken from AK have been buffed as well, letting you build bigger and better, and faster. Giving each new building a greater impact on your aerial city.

The aesthetics are almost identical to Airborne Kingdom, namely the game looks like a flying city built with lego-type bricks flying over a large cloth-like tapestry, accompanied by the same great rustic music from AK.

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CPU, GPU & RAM requirements have also increased greatly compared to AK or you can play at reduced speeds (plus you can pause the game at any time) with the option to dial down the graphical settings to make the frame rate butter smooth while still looking as good as the predecessor.

At this early access point, not all planned content are in and a 'completionist' run will take ~10 hours for veterans of Airborne Kingdom, maybe twice that for others new to the game.

Some elements are not covered in the tutoral... yet - but for the most part, it's very intuitive. Especially for city builder and/or RTS fans.

Combat is simplistic. This isn't DCS or ARMA but it has a charm all it's own and can be very challenging. Instead, combat isn't just a matter of things like range, travel times and probability of kills but also overlapping fields of fire. You can fight like an agile sniper picking off high value targets at range, or a big bruiser bomber pummeling enemies into ruin after enduring waves of attacks. Fortunately, you can just pawse at any time, letting you choose your tactics calmly, if not wisely.

Devs have mentioned that the difficulty will change (upwards) and there is more to come but for an EA title, it's very polished and bug-free and clearly shows what the future for the game is.

200+ hr review

Got WWZ free from Epic and played it for a bit there and the game now supports cross-platform/save*

Essentially the game takes the L4D formula, adds in the 'fast zombie' + 'massive horde' mechanics from the movie (AND book, yes the movie is EXTREMELY loosely based on the book, think Starship Troopers level of 'based on the book').

At the higher/highest difficulties, you have to make every bullet count & use the environment terrain and consumables to your advantage. This game and Aliens Fireteam Elite probably have the best challenge for games of this sort (outside of L4D2 that is) and can be extremely fun with friends (who are skilled) otherwise Hard mode is... actually hard. I recommend starting on Hard if you are new to the game (also like AFE, friendly fire matters). It's basically L4D2 with fast zombies moving in vast hordes plus persistent class progression.

The classes are varied and quite fun. From the usual 'soldier', 'medic' and 'engineer' to more melee focus ones or ones that like to burn or blow things up. The classes can synergize very well (above Hard mode, certain classes are a must) and while the progression is VERY grindey... welp you're playing the game aren't you?

There is no pay-2-win mechanics at all but the 'shop' and customisations are very obviously meant to induce players to grind (and play the game, honestly you think this was a free-to-play game with this sort of grind-gate mechanics)

The characters / settings are original with good animation and voice acting. Some customisations are available and there are a few novel mechanics with elaborate set piece battles.

The 'battlefield' can varies quite a bit, from narrow claustrophobic corridors with sudden drops and pitfalls to wide open fields. Lighting can be oppresively gloomy or blindingly sunny. The world looks good and appropriate but the zombies kinda leave something to be desired - probably because the devs prefer a higher frame rate to super-detailed zombies

It's worth a buy and is a steal when it's on sale. Years after it launched on Steam - there are a LOT of players still playing. Especially since it's now cross-platform/save.

*unofficially supported but you can just transfer your save file from Epic to Steam (just needs to be renamed) but it can cause some funny things in Steam Achievements, i.e. you get half a dozen high level ones instantly, the rest are still zeroed /etc. - assuming you even care about Steam Achievement. The game also supports Pros for cross-save

100hr+ review

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Once Human is a survival (you need to eat/drink/rest), building (you build your own home away from home and make/cook/grow sruff), harvesting and looting shooter (mostly 3rd person with some 1st person ADS) set in a post-apocalyptic (of course) world (More MO than MMO as the # of player per server is limited) boasting very good graphics, very good audio, very good game mechanics and fantastic aesthetics (art design/etc) - but it can feel rather 'samey' to certain MMOs.

Imagine Destiny style gun-play, The Division 2 mobility (and cover) with Remnant style lore/art. Yeah, it's a blast that you can solo or play with a few friends. You have 'easy', 'hard' PvE servers and PvP servers but... more on that later.

Survival portion of the game is rather small, it's something you do periodically than forget about it (something like The Forest). The gathering & crafting is a bit more involved but is still easy to get into and doesn't take much to master. Combat is essentially a matter of putting rounds down range using guns. No plasma rifles or railguns here and is fairly realistic vis a vis games like ARMA (but MUCH, MUCH more casualized - no need to save mags, movement effects are heavily toned down) and is actually more fun than Destiny's mechanics. There are still fantastical elements here and there with the usual casual MMO mechanics, like every 5th round causes an explosion or your fire rate increases if you do X action/etc - but you're fighting the kind of bosses you see in Remnant. Except bigger. Like the size of a large tree big... because it is a tree. Or a bus. Or a house or the size of a cloud or city block.

What takes the cake is the aesthetics and art design. You can fight a bus. That has hands. For legs. You will face a very, very bad dog. And helping you are 'deviants' (no, not people like you but pets) that look like a blob of pus, or a floating jelly or a black kitteh and many, many more. Most actually help with more mundane stuff like giving you more electricity or helping you gather wood and other resources. One likes to help you cook. Another makes your crops grow weird.

You can also build your house. Where you can rest on your own, self-crafted bed, snuggling down with your... kitteh. Your house can be your castle (with automatic turrets... because...) or your pyramid, or ziggurat or that office block or mall. Build using wood or other materials.

You can get craft (and repair) your own gear after finding the blueprints scatter all over the world.

There are also world events featuring monstrous beasts and unfriendly NPCs. NPCs also trade and sell things to you besides giving you quests.

All that in one big, seamless open world (fast travel = loading screens and all dungeons are instanced) than you can traverse with your bird-glider, x-cross bike, truck or semi-rig. Upgradeable of course.

Great fun with friends!

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Server lag. Since before the betas last year until today, while you can pick servers close to you to minimise net lag... server lag is a killer. Especially in PvPs, more often than not, it's deadlier than the AI or human opponents. Any time you have more than a half a dozen players in the region... you'll lag. If you play competitive FPS, it's blaringly obvious