Recent reviews by Fork_Q2

Battletech is a turn-based strategy game of two halves. One where you have to manage your mercenary company, which includes hiring/firing mechwarriors, buying/selling weapons and mechs, upgrading your ship, balancing financing with crew morale, choosing which skills your mechwarriors can have, and choosing which missions to undertake, which of the factions you side with. The other half of the game is the turn-based combat, you take up to four mechwarriors and their mechs into mission. Combat is a battle of attrition, it's about stripping away your enemy's armour, and deciding which of their weak-spots to best exploit. It is in your interest to prevent death or injury to your warriors, and damage to your mechs, while destroying the enemy without doing too much damage to their mechs, you'd want to salvage as much as possible. Game is most comparable to XCOM.

Never played the tabletop game, and only have a faint memory of playing the Mechwarrior games from the 90s, getting into this game was at first daunting, but tutorials and mechanics were easy to pick up and play. Some bits of details were never explained though, had to resort to user guides for this information. I understand they recently improved the tutorial however. There is a multiplayer mode, but never played it.

Big issues with the game: loading, it's slow. Used to be terrible, but could still be improved (I have the game installed on SSD). I'm not a fan of the UI, I feel it could explain more information, and better. There is a career and campaign (story) mode - the story in the campaign is utterly predictable and forgettable. But not without some very good voice acting and cutscenes. There is little reason to play the campaign at all, except for the tutorial for new players. Biggest negative for me would be the late game enemy heavy/assault mech spam, especially when you're limited to just four.

Overall, enjoying the game very much. It's very satisfying to take down larger mechs by slowing stripping away its weapons and defences. Could not imagine enjoying this game on a HDD. Would suggest looking up the many well-written community guides for anything not made clear in-game.

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is a top-down isometric RPG, in the style of the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale Infinity Engine games series. Originally shipped with only real-time-with-pause, game now offers turn-based mode to play with.

Your main character in the game is known as "The Watcher". Someone with an extremely rare gift that can interact with souls, and read their history. His or her choices from the first game can be carried over, if you so choose. As with the previous game, you can choose your race, sex, class, background and starting talents. Two big additions are multiclassing, and a choice of different subclasses. Both of which are chosen at the start, and cannot be altered as game goes on. Playing the first game isn't required, but I would say it's recommended.

Big improvements over the first game is loading is much faster, pacing of the main plot is improved, and lore/exposition now much easier to digest. In addition to the different difficulty modes, you can also pick optional challenges or a choice of unlockable buffs to make your game easier.

My least favourite aspect of the first game was the castle management mechanics. It felt half-baked, more busywork than any fun. You aren't given good reasons to care about it. This has been replaced with ship management in PoE2. An improvement in virtually every way, still would like an option to ignore this in future playthroughs, however.

200 hours in, nearly done with the main plot (bad habit of stopping, and starting a new character), and haven't seen any of the DLC content. I don't think the ending will surprise me, and unfortunately I don't think many of my choices will make much of an impact on the ending.

Overall, much improved from the first game. I can see myself trying different builds, the different challenges and so on. Whereas one playthrough of the first game was enough.

One common complaint about the first Vermintide, was that the game was little more than Left4Dead with a WFB makeover and RNG lottery when it comes to weapons. I feel that was a most unfair assessment, happy to say that claim absolutely cannot be levelled against Vermintide 2, it builds on what made the first game great (good feel of the melee weapons, interesting setting, and fast paced co-op action) and improves on it some more (better maps, character perks/skills, career options, and farier loot system). It's a much more confident bolder title than the first one.

Maps are consistently better than vanilla Vermintide, the dialogue is still top-notch, and so many more new enemy and boss types introduced into this game. Biggest new feature is the careers system, each of the five characters can have different options giving them different styles of play and options.

As for the negatives, there still isn't any dedicated servers. Something that was promised by FatShark, but now seemingly unlikely to happen now. With a map run lasting 30-40 minutes, it's rather painful to have a run drop because of the host's internet issues. Also come across issues relating to the dialogue fairly often. The wrong character will sometimes say an line intended for someone else, conversations without the correct partner will at times be initiated.

I play in the UK, and have little difficulties finding other players online. Your own mileage may vary.

I can absolutely reccomend for those who loved the first one, and for anyone else wanting a first-person co-up experince with an emphasis on melee rather than ranged weapons.

Stunning looking and sounding turn-based 4X game. The base game without the DLC includes eight very different factions, each with preferred ways of playing them. Not played too much yet, and haven't even touched any of the mods yet, but out of Age of Wonders III, Warlock, Fallen Enchantress, and Sorcerer King, this is my favourite 4X game with RPG elements.

Like the Civ games, the initial settings are highly customisable, from the randomised maps, types of victory condititions. You could even make your own factions by selecting any of the current ones, and playing around with the bonuses and drawbacks. Like the Civ games, there are multiple paths to victory: including eliminating the other factions, winning by score, diplomatic victory, scientific victory, building wonders or following your race specfic quest storyline.

When you start a game, it divides up the map into regions, each region can support one city, and may have a few minor factions that you can pacify (by buying them out, doing missions for them, or crushing them) or ignore. Pacified minor settlements can be assimilated, you get a small bonus and recruit their troop types into your army. Your own faction only has a handful of soldier types, but they are unique to your race, and very customisable. As is your special hero units that can lead them (or sit back and govern a city). After every X amount of turns, the seasons turn to winter, units move more slowly, and cities grow slower, and become are less productive. The more you progress through the game, the more frequent and longer lasting winter becomes. You have to plan for these events.

On the downsides, my subjective opinion, but combat isn't something to write home about. You issue orders to your army in between turns, and the units interpret your instructions after you hit next turn. While each race has their own quest line, I would have loved grand arching story campaigns, the same way Fallen Enchantress and AoWIII had. Performance-wise, can take an long time between turns, notably on larger maps.

Amazing and extremely reactive RPG. Many ways to discover new quests, and many more ways to solve them, rewards creativity and thinking outside the box. Immersive and interesting plot, world might be bright and colourful, but the plot and side-quest can be extremely dark, touching on topics like genocide and child murder. On the downside, there are some balancing issues, UI could be much improved, a fair bit of wrong or placeholder text and content showing up later in the game, and a few bugs. But otherwise a rewarding experience that I want to immidately return to again, after beating for the first time. And I rarely play the same game more than once.

tl;dr version: bigger, longer and more content than Shadowrun: Dragonfall. Unfortunatly not "better", feels less focused and more padded. Almost certainly easier than Dragonfall as well. If you had your fill with Dragonfall, you may wish to give this a pass until sale, or the inevitable inclusion in a Humble Bundle. I would also recommend Dragonfall over Hong Kong for newcomers. That said, it's still a fantastic CRPG with a great cyberpunk setting, good plot, and generally likeable characters.

Longer version: Shadowrun Hong Kong is a turn-based isometric RPG set in an alternative world where fantasy races, cyberpunk technology and magic co-exists. The game is set in 2056, world still recovering from the shock of elves, trolls, dragons and the like coming into existence only forty years prior. Character progression is done by completing quests, side quests and exploration, from which you acquire "karma" to spend on skills, and money ("nuyen" in the game) on weapons/gear/spells/cybernetic upgrades, etc. You can take up to three companions in most missions, you have some control over their progression and gear. Combat is turn-based with cover. Unlike the previous two Shadowrun games (neither of which are neccessary to play this game), you do not start as a Shadowrunner (basically a criminal mercenary for hire). Circumstances forces you at the start. Like the two previous Shadowrun games, the theme of "family" is thick, much more here since you are dealing with your literal family. Also the endings, including the best ending, is just as bittersweet as the previous games.

Character development is highly flexible, normally a good idea to spread points across a number of different skills and stats, but not too thin. In terms of equipment choices, this game easily beats out Dragonfall (including items specific for arcane spellcasters and magical melee fighters), you might not be able to buy all the stuff you want for yourself and companions. Not that it matters, the game's difficulty does not catch up with your character progression. The intro and first few missions might provide some challenge, but then the game gets steadily eaiser from there.

The biggest change from Dragonfall & Shadowrun Returns has to be the new Matrix areas. The Matrix is a Tron-like Cyberspace where your decker (basically your hacker) avoids being caught by computer security, and fights off the system's defences. The new system includes a mini-game puzzle that depends on being solved in real-time. Most of these are purely optional, so don't feel forced to bring a decker along in every mission. The Matrix is an improvement from the original implementation, but prefer if they were shorter, or at least more split up across the game. They can feel like a chore at times.

Your companions include your half-brother orc policeman, a dwarf hacker, an orc shaman, a human rigger (a robotics expert that controls a powerful drone in combat), and an intelligent ghoul samurai. You're free in most missions not bring them along, or hire out other shadowrunners with different skillsets if you prefer. Personally liked the shaman and rigger, the former being cheery and sometimes quite amusing, the latter more interested in discussing his ideas and philosophy rather than dumping lore and backstory at you. The others are a mixed bag, same goes for the denizens of city you talk to in between missions. Dragonfall's writing and plot had a more consistent quality, and the writing made me feel highly immersed in a cyberpunk Berlin through its characters. Not that Hong Kong didn't have some of its fair share of entertaining pulpy writing ("concern clung to him like a cheap cologne"), I simply felt like skim reading much of the dialogue and flavour text in Hong Kong. Suspect that the same quality of writing being spread across a greater volume of text could have something to do with it.

This brings to one of my biggest problem with the game, the increase of scale seemingly just for the sake of it. Everything is "bigger" in this game (number of characters, places to visit, length, fights, and size of the maps), but focus gets lost along the way. The plot involves finding your foster father in a city unfamiliar to you. But that gets lost amongst the sub-plots, gangs, corporate politics and world building. Some of that urgency is lost. Take for example, the central hub - it's large and sprawling and mostly does not change between missions, lots of walking to-and-fro vendors across the map, it wouldn't hurt to make it a bit more compact instead. This is of course a subjective opinion, I'm sure some people felt Dragonfall was much too claustrophobic and closed.

The Extended Edition includes a chapter that takes place not long after the events of the main game. Your character, gear, and ending choice carried over. Wrapping up the unresolved Hong Kong Police plot point, plus providing a bit more challenge. This is worth completing, perhaps just the once and no more. The enemies are almost always waves of heavily armoured bullet sponges, the final fight is just a really tough cop with high HP. Anti-climatic compared to the final boss fought in the main game, and the writers know it. The forced (and IMO, illogical) choice at the end makes the ending feel more "bitter" than "sweet". In my head canon, the story ends with the conclusion of the main game, rather than the expanded portion added later.

My advice would be to play Dragonfall first. If you loved it and want more, get this. Still a great game, even if its running short on new ideas. If you didn't like it, or had your fill, this game really only provides more of the same.

Bladur's Gate II was one of the first RPG games I ever played. Introduced to it around 2004, probably no older than 12 or 13, picked up a battered copy along with Throne of Bhall in some bargin bin for old PC games. Remains one of my favourite gaming experinces ever. Until now, I have never actually played the first game in the series. I'm writing this review as someone who never played the non-Enchanced Edition version of this game, I can't say for sure what has been "enchanced", nor is it clear to me which quests/areas are from the original base game, and which are from the add-on pack (Tales of Sword Coast). I have now beaten the game from start to finish with my Cavalier in about ~40 hours, completed most of the sidequests. Single player only. Didn't find the Black Pits mode appealing enough to try beyond a few minutes.

Longer version: Baldur's Gate is a party-based RPG, you create your own character (race, class, alignment, etc) and recruit up to five other followers. The rules are based off the AD&D 2nd Edition, which compared to later editions used in games like Neverwinter Nights or Icewind Dale II, is quite restrictive (non-human races are much more limited to what classes they can pick, and less freedom in multi or dual classing) and perhaps not as intuitive. Combat is real-time with pause, you can leave your party whacking away at low level mobs to clear them faster, or pause the game to issue orders and manage combat for the harder fights. 13 base classes to pick from, Paladins, Fighters, Mages, Clerics, etc. All but a few will offer you different "spins" to try out, these are called "Class Kits". For example, Bards have more melee orientated counterparts called Blades and Skalds. Blades sacrifices pickpocketing, lore and songs for greater proficiency in two-weapon fighting styles. Skalds improve their companions ability to hit with their singing, but at the expense of pickpocketing.

The main plot itself is extremely easy to follow: for a RPG there are relatively few characters central to the plot, you are given clear instructions on where to go next, and the storyline generally follows itself quite logically. I have been playing this game inbetween other games, and have taken breaks from playing it. I never felt lost or had to reorientate myself when coming back to the game, unlike most other RPGs. The sidequests, of which there are many, do however require you to pay attention to dialogue, clues, and journal entries. Keeping information on paper, pins on maps or going through your quest log really does help. The lack of handholding is quite refreshing, particularly true with the sidequests in the city of Baldur's Gate itself, many of them requires actually exploring the city and keeping notes on the many taverns and houses with important NPCs. Clues can also be found by talking to NPCs, drinking in pubs, and breaking in on some seemingly unimportant houses. Such as the time I murdered a priestess for an evil sea Goddess, simply because she pissed me off with her haughty talk, finding that she was carrying the body of a dead child on her. Spent a good hour finding the dead kid's parents. Plenty of quests can be discovered in many ways, unique objects you find in the game you won't realise the importance until much later.

Worth noting for new players is that most non-magical metal weapons will break often. This is due to the iron crisis that you have to investigate. It makes sense for melee characters to invest and drop a proficiency point into weapons like clubs or staves, until you finally get your mitts on a decent +1 weapon. Your endgame character level should be around 7 or 8, you will spend an lot of time in the lower character levels. Fighting early on, especially if you choose weapons your character isn't proficiencent in, will involve both you and your enemies just facing off each other and missing nearly every attack. Combat gets more exciting around level 3 onwards, when spellcasters have access to more spells, and your attacks will connect with your enemies more.

One thing I absolutely loved about BGII, which is unfortunatly an little lacking here, is the variety of areas you can visit. Many of the areas in this game are variations of outdoor woodlands - some with hills, some with mountains, some with a coast, but most of are generally similar. There are also many taverns, inns and houses which seem the same and most don't serve a purpose in the plot or any sidemissions. But, on the otherhand, they do add a sense of scale and size to the game, an actual sense of adventure. And it does feel good to accidentally stumble onto an intresting sidequest or story: I had my rogue unlock a generic looking house by the docks in the city, only to find it's occupied by a sea-nymph who escaped from the sea, captured by a fisherman who took her to his home, she seduced and murdered her capturers, and attempted to do the same to me.

There are many, many characters that can join you in this game. Unlike in more modern RPGs, lots of them will leave the game for good if you reject their offer to join. I will have to say, that compared to BGII, and with Bioware's games since then, this is to me Baldur's Gate biggest weakness lies. With that many companions, it does feel like they're spread very thin. There isn't an lot of intercompany banter, you will hear the same lines over and over, and there is generally very little interaction with them. I had Imoen in my party almost all the way through, I don't recall any more new lines after her consolation for Gorion's death at the start. I don't recall Xzar and Montaron having more to say after you solved the issue of the poor quality iron from the Nashkel mines. I understand the reason for this may be perhaps due how dangerous the world is, a follower can die and you may not be able to resurrect them. That said, I still prefer Baldur's Gate II's approach to NPCs, fewer and more detailed, with interesting and involving personal missions.

On the technical side, in my ~40 hour playthrough from start to end, I've encountered at least two or three crash to desktop bugs. There is one very annoying bug with the map - you can place "pins" on the map as notes for areas and NPCs you might need to come back to at an later date. For example, a woman in Nashkel wants you to find out what happened to her miner husband Jospeh. You might want to "pin" her house so you know which one it is when you return. Unfortunatly the pin and the name you gave it will sometimes appear in maps other than Nashkel. FPS is limited to 30, I understand that you can increase the limit in the .ini file. I understand some people have encountered bugs that prevented the completion of certain sidequests, I personally have not run into any of these. I played the game with the Core Rules on, aside from two or three unavoidable fights, I never felt particularly challenged by the combat, nor had to reload a fight that went south. That said, there are harder game modes to try, as well as the Solo challenge.

In conclusion: Loved the sense of adventure, the variety of classes/kits on offer, and the game respects your ability to pay attention and not required to be guided throughout the experince. I personally found Baldur's Gate II epic size and variety closer to my liking, but I still appreciated Baldur's Gate's more down to earth approach to high fantasy. I would reccomend this game even for those who have cut their teeth on more modern RPGs (such as Dragon Age, The Witcher or Pillars of Eternity), and won't mind overlooking some dated graphics for a rewarding RPG experince.

The Good: simple but effective story, sense of scale and adventure.
The Bad: combat, especially early in the game, is a bit dull. Even core-difficulty might be an the easy side for some.
The Ugly: aside from the very few instances in my 100 hours playing crashed to desktop, none really.

TL;DR: The ambitious and messy sequel to Knights of the Old Republic. Darker than the first game, some very good writing, expect to encounter uneven pacing and bugs. Lots of bugs.

Long Version: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 is role-playing game where you take on the role of one of the few Jedi left alive after an event that takes place after the end of the first game. Your main character has a choice between three starting classes, Guardian (strong combat class), Consular (strong force-user) and Sentinel (balance between combat and use of the force, emphasis on skills). You have an option to take up a secondary class later on in the game. Throughout the game, you acquire companions, you can have up to two assisting you, while the rest remain at base. Manage your character and follower's levelling up and inventory. Combat is real-time with pause, which means you can pause in the middle of a fight to issue orders. If you unfamiliar with the first game, Dragon Age: Origins would be the closest game to compare this to. Also includes a very basic crafting system, and two optional minigames (a cardgame and a racing game). Familiarity with the plot of the previous game is not required, but in my opinion, highly reccomended as the lore dump might be overwhelming.

The game does a very good job at establishing for the first few hours that your ex-Jedi is being hunted by an unknown enemy, vulnerable without your lightsaber and cut off from the rest of the Order. Your connection to the Force weakend, and you are slowing re-establishing connection to it. The starting area is an apparently abandoned mining facility called Peragus. You will pick up the basics of the game in this area. Players already who have already beaten the first game, or replaying KOTOR 2, will find the starting area slow and annoying. It does not need to take more than 30-45 minutes to complete, but it does feel much longer and drawn out. Fortunatly there is a mod that allows you to skip this part.

The game picks up the pace when you visit the next area, where you finally get to make interesting plot choices. I would say your choices are more meaningful than in KOTOR. You are railroaded for a bit longer, after which you are presented with a choice of four hubs on four seperate planets to complete in any order you choose. The pacing and content of the four planets vary an lot. Two of the planets (Onderon and Nar Shaddaa) feel much more fully fleshed out and with a great deal of content, with the other two feeling there was content cut from the game (Dantoonie and Korriban). The same could be said for your companions, some being more fleshed out than others.

The mood of the game is dark, very dark for a Star Wars game. The Jedi Order destroyed, Republic recovering from a series of devestating conflicts, shades of grey in decisions you are forced to make, and your companions include some very unsavory characters (including a former torturer for the Sith, bounty hunter, and an insane mass murdering Wookie). The Sith are given an lot more dimension in this game, they have their say in this game, and aren't neccessarily cartoon villians as portrayed in other SW games. Playing as a Jedi going down the Dark Side need not have force you to play an unsympathetic psychopath totally lacking in subtlety. Plot may be harder to follow than in the previous game, you may feel slightly at loss around the 75% mark, but I personally felt it was very rewarding to pay attention to it.

The version of this game on Steam includes Workshop modding support, some graphical enchancements, support for higher resolutions, controllers and wide-screen. As of now, these enchancements haven't made their way to the first Knights of the Old Republic game. The game is still very much buggy however: enemies shooting through walls, characters getting stuck in areas, and dialogue sometimes automatically skipped. Smart players will keep multiple saves, incase a bug prevents the completion of certain missions. Game engine still runs like ♥♥♥♥, even on modern hardware, I have a GTX 680 and game sometimes drops to the low 20 FPS.

Note there is a mod in the Steam Workshop called "The Sith Lords Restored Content", which does what it says on the tin, restores much of the missing content. It adds two larger areas missing from the base game, plus a few lines and missions. It is worth trying out, just the once however. You will quickly notice what parts of the game ended up on the cutting room floor, and realise why they were cut. M4-78, a droid planet, involves an lot of back-tracking and couriering messages between NPCs. Buggy, does not add anything to the story, unnecessarily large areas, and introduces some questionable fan voice acting to fill in the lines that were never recorded for the game. The other, a manufacturing plant for assassin droids, is tighter and contains lots of funny dark humour. But like M4-78, it did not add anything to the plot, and it gets tedious very quickly with the many health-sponge enemies.

My completed save took me around 45 hours to complete all the sidemissions, the restored content, and Light Side ending. The ending, by the way, also felt rushed and much less satisfying than the previous game. If you are used to RPGs like Dragon Age or Bauldurs Gate, this game may be on the too easy side for you. Turn up the difficulty and don't pick Jedi Guardian as your character class.

In conclusion: The game feels very much like the "Empire Strikes Back" to KOTOR's "A New Hope". Darker, more intriguing, and complicated. Unfortunatly the vision the developers had for this game was never fully realised, absolutely brilliant in some places, felt like a missed opportunity in others. Very much a diamond in the rough.

The Good: plot, characters, interesting choices to be made, a fleshed out and realised universe. The recent enchancements added to the game.

The Bad: the ending, uneven pacing. Perhaps too easy for most RPG fans.

The Ugly: bugs and poor performance.

Thank you for reading, please let me know in the comments if there's anything I should do to improve my reviews in the future!

Pillars of Eternity is a top-down isometric party-based RPG in an original High Fantasy setting. Combat is in real-time but with optional pauses to sort out strategy. The influence of the D&D Infinity Engine games are strong, many of the developers had previously worked on those titles.

I would compare this game mostly to Baldurs Gate II, as Pillars of Eternity has incorporated elements of the cancelled sequel (The Black Hound) to this game.

Much like the Baldurs Gate games, you create your main character by selecting the sex, race, attributes, skills, class, portrait and physical appearance. Different from Baldurs Gate, you can now select a background history. This will not influence too much in the game, but they can open up new dialogue options, a few characters will treat you differently, and you'll have different skill points to use.

My character I played through to beat the game and both the expansion packs was a rapier wielding Paladin with a smart mouth. For the rest of the team, I alternated between the in-game companions and ones I created from scratch. Pretty much any playstyle is supported (you can roll with a party of only rangers, or only spell-casters, or just go solo and murder almost anyone) at least up to Hard mode. And each class offers a far more flexible play, Wizards don't have to be weak glass-cannons to be useful, and Barbarians don't have to be stupid either. Paladins have some of the strongest defensive play options, but that didn't mean my own character had to feel particularly gimped by going for a more offensive set-up.

Two original classes included in the game is a spin on bards, called Chanters (in combat, their singing buffs or debuffs anyone near them, they are also the primary summoners of this game) and Ciphers. Ciphers are the “spellswords” of this game, instead of relying on an inventory of memorised spells, they build up physic energy by attacking enemy targets, and can use this energy to cast devastating spells onto the enemy. Whereas Priests and Wizards deplete their spells through usage, Chanters and Ciphers get stronger as the fighting goes on longer.

Although I did enjoy the world the game was set in, the story and lore in the main-game does get a bit muddy around the third and fourth acts, the expansion packs feel much more tighter. Much like what Baldurs Gate III was supposed to be, souls and past lives are extremely central to the plot.

My two biggest gripes with this game is the performance of the game, particularly in the more busier areas like cities. I have a GTX 680, and most of the more populated areas have a very noticeable drop in frame-rate, down to low 20s in some areas. The second is that going for the more grounded approach to fantasy means that there are far less interesting locales to visit. BGII had you visit a city under the sea, travel to different dimensions/planes, visit the Underdark, and much larger locations and maps. PoE might be more detailed, but it does feels much, much smaller, even with the expansion packs.

That said, there are some nice QOL features that never existed in the old Baldurs Gate titles I wish they had now, for example: an option to speed up walking in some areas, a timer based stealth mode, plenty of easily accessibly information on how certain mechanics work, spell and ability radius circles, perma-death mode, and so on.

As for the extras in the upgraded editions: map is nice to look at to give you context of where you are in that world, even just the once. The ringtones are bad, the wallpapers are meh, the documentary is fine, so is the almanac an enjoyable read. Soundtrack is awesome. My edition didn't include the novella.

tl;dr: great if you loved top-down RPGs of old, there's plenty of this game to keep you engrossed. Not as epic as BGII, which is up to you if prefer the tone.

A spaceship simulator where human inhabited space is a bit like the wild west, and you're just out to make an living out of it. I'm coming to this game as someone who never played any of the previous Elite games, and I play this game with a cheap HOTAS joystick, and I don't personally wing up with other players online.

You start off in a very basic "Jack of all trades" ship, you work your way up by doing missions, carrying cargo, couriering, exploring, combat, bounty hunting, mining, assassinations, smuggling, and finding buyers for your goods. Buy new ships, attain upgrades, and rank up with the various factions. No central "story", but there is an evolving political environment that responds to player community actions.

Right now there are 29 ships in the main universe that you could pilot, each one handles differently, most of them can serve different roles better than others. Plenty of different loadout customisations for your ships, including many different weapon, utilities and internal compartments.

The good for this game includes the sheer size and scope of the universe: travel faster than the speed of light from Mercury to Saturn and watch as the surface detail of the rings slowly come into focus. A scientifically accurate modelling of the playable galaxy based on the real world Milky Way. Customisable and flexible ships to suit your playstyle. Exciting dogfighting combat. Easy to drop whatever task you're doing and do something else in game. Graphics can be stunning, sounds are amazing, runs fantastic with my GTX 680 (2560x1080 ultrawide, comfortably over 60FPS). I would also say that my experince has been positive when it comes to bugs, they are generally quite rare. Developers are always adding new content to both the base game (Elite: Dangerous) and the Horizons DLC.

The neutral for this game would be that the Close Quarter Combat game-within-a-game feature can be difficult to find other players (if you care about this mode), huge size of the game means it can be rare to find other players in game. If an true offline mode is required for you, you might want to give the game a miss, as the solo mode still requires internet access to update the in-game markets, community goals and exploration data.

The biggest negative for this game for me would be that without the Horizons DLC, the exploration aspect of this game would be extremely bare bones (you jump to locations, and point your ship at intesting planetary bodies to gain information about them, and sell this information).

At the time of writing this review, I wouldn't say that the DLC is required for enjoyment, but that may change before the end of the year, with the introduction of the ability to launch your own mini-fighter ships from larger ships.

tl;dr: it's Eurotruck Simulator, but in space and in a spaceship. And you can blow up the traffic instead if you want.