Recent reviews by Leo

Brings me right back to playing Adventure 2 on my GameCube, good ♥♥♥♥!

Swords of Legends Online is exactly the kind of MMO I've been looking for.

We live in age of P2W and pay for convience when it comes to new MMOs. So much so that there is little excitement to be had for a new one coming out. As an avid FFXIV player (4 years playtime), I have always looked for a casual MMO I can play on the side when things are slow in XIV without needing to open my wallet for convience and this is it.

Pros:

- Classes/Combat: This game features fun classes that feel unique from one another. Each one having it's own weakness' and strengths. The combat is fluid and fun to master which is supported by it's solid character movement. Each class features 2 specs which can be tank, healer, dps and dps support. Switching between these can be done anytime out of combat and you can make blueprints for builds.

- Graphics: While it's certainly not BDO in terms of it's graphical fidelity, this game truly looks stunning. Each zone has it's own little feeling to it and it made me stop in my tracks to appreciate the scenery. Couple this with the great physics (hair, outfits, grass, trees) this game features and it really makes the game look great.

- Music: The OST for this game is absolutely spectacular. From town/city music to open world and combat music, the sound track in this MMO is a breath of fresh air.

- PvE Content: The dungeons in this game can be really fun with some interesting boss mechanics. Featuring 4 different difficulty levels for each dungeon which rewards better and better loot the higher you go. Additionally you can play these with AI if you do not wish to go through the instance recruitment. There is also a bounty system you can unlock where you go out in the open world and find really strong bosses which you can kill for rewards.

- No P2W: Being a game developed in China, a market where P2W is almost expected by the industry it self, this game actually lives up to it's word by having no P2W. Even the Chinese/Taiwan client which has been out for 3 years, still does not feature any P2W. The shop only offers outfits, mounts, character accessories and housing items. The devs are against it and are proud of the fact that they can survive without it.

- Housing: Easily the best housing system I've ever seen in an MMO. You get your own island in the sky which you can completely terraform to look exactly the way you want to. You can even change the seasons at your homestead to fit whatever climate you are in IRL.

- No gender locks: This is a big one for me. I'm so tired of gender locking classes. None of it here tho.

Cons:

Now this game has some flaws and I'll go over them the best I can.

- Localization: Is not complete. There are some areas in the game where the game still uses Chinese VAs and I've found some odd spots still featuring Chinese text. Some of the translations can also be confusing as some things seems to have been lost in translation. English VA quality also varies a lot. Some are good and some sound fan made.

- Story: Lackluster at best. They focus heavily on "fully voice acted story cutscenes" but the story did little to captivate me or even have me interested in whats going on. While this is fine with me, this might not be fine with others so keep this in mind.

- QoL is lacking: This game is in dire need of some QoL love by the devs. From not being able to turn off tutorial tips to having to do the intro on every new character, some things can feel annoying at best. I do hope these things will be ironed out over time.

- Character customization: Not this game's strong suit. It might look very advanced once you get into it the first time, you'll quickly realize that it's actually very basic.

Is this game for you? 40$ is a lot to put down on a MMO you won't know if you'll enjoy or not. I will say this to, if you enjoy WoW style grinding and a eastern setting, you will enjoy this game. If you seek FFXIV or GW2's approach to questing and story, this game will not be one for you. Me personally have found my new casual MMO and I'm excited to see what the devs will bring us going forward.

Ever since DayZ ArmA 2, I've been looking for a proper zombie survival game and I honestly think Miscreated is the closest I've come to that.

Pros:

- Beautiful graphics, CryEngine always look stunning
- Great map with big enough towns and cities to explore
- Gun play is fun, but far from something like PUBG
- Mutants can be scary and deadly
- Amazing weather system with diverse (and deadly) weather patterns
- Tense and exciting moments when you encounter or hear a player nearby
- Repairable cars all around the map, ranging from tractors to military troop trucks.
- Great sound system, you need to always hear around you as you explore, even the slightest movement in grass or bushes can give away yours or someone else's position
- Caves, sewers, bunkers and more are all out there for you to explore and maybe find rare loot
- Weapons range from melee weapons like a fireaxe to an M4A1 that can be modified with scopes, laser sights, flashlights and more


Cons:

- Horrible crafting mechanic, it's clunky and requires you to go through so many menu's just to craft a wall or floor
- The UI needs alot of work, it's very clunky. Especially the player interaction scroll wheel menu. (Have we not learned from ArmA to not use scroll wheel menu's yet?)
- Lack luster damage system. It's either bleed one, bleed two or bleed three. I'd love to see the introduction to broken bones, body part specific damage and more.
- Fall damage is completely and utterly stupid right now. Falling from a porch less than 1 meter above ground can either nearly kill you or kill you. (Thus we need a broken bones system instead)
- Mutant AI is all over the place, they teleport and can still hit you even if they are attacking away from you
- As a server admin, we need ALOT more control over our servers. It's very hard to moderate your server if you have set any rules on it. Considering the price we pay as well, you'd expect more controls than change weather and time.
- Lack of character creation or random character generation means everyone looks the same.

Overall I find the game highly enjoyable. I'm excited to see where the game goes and hopefully they keep going the right way. I'd recommend this game to anyone who enjoyed the atmosphere of DayZ or similar zombie survival games!

This will be a long and detailed review, read if you'd like. I'd like to make it every clear to everyone reading this that this is an MMO still in Alpha, which means the game is far from complete so keep that in mind! Bugs and lack of content is included. On to the review..

Having played Pirates of the Burning Sea for a couple of years, this game was pretty much a given for me. It felt like an updated version of that, just with more simulation aspects brought into it.

Combat;

Literally the best part of this game. The mechanics, the sound design, the visual effects, the challenges of sailing a ship, all of these makes the combat in Naval Action brilliant. Even NPCs can push your captain skills to the limit which is a nice take on PvE without making it super easy and utterly boring, all in all PvE is a great way to train before going into PvP.

A battle at sea can also take quiet a bit of time. Even in my HMS Surprise, fighting two Snow's can take a good 20-30+ min. It's not a World of Warships game with fast in and out combat. Keep this in mind.

Open World Sailing;

This is where it will all depend on you, the player. The West Indies which goes all the way from South America to North Charleston and beyond is truly big. You will spend most of your time in-game sailing to wherever you need to go, as the map is scaled very big, going to somewhere that looks close on the map is not that close after all and will take a while. You could always stick with missions close to your port but after a while, you will eventually want to branch out to the unknown.

Navigating;

When I mentioned simulation aspects, I really meant it. You are only given a map with coordinates and a compass to aid your way. Zooming in on the map gives you a grid view which shows you the different degrees for each grid as well as your own potision in terms of degrees. From there, you have to look where your mission is and use the compass plus the grid to find your way to the mission. No map markers, no waypoints. Just you, the compass and a map. Some will hate this, some will enjoy it.

PvE;

The only form of PvE is very bareboned at the current moment in the game's state. You have Combat Orders which can be accepted from any port of your own nation. These combat orders are randomly created sea fights where you pick the level of difficulty and the county you want thr battle to be in, rewards are decent and enough and very enjoyable. Supply Deliveries are just that, an assignment to deliver certain types of good to a port for good profit, very time consuming and the goods you need to deliver you have to pay for. PvE Challenges are also there for those who want to test their skills tho can be hard to tackle at the beginning stages.

I haven't touched PvP and RvR as of yet, but once I do this review will be updated to include my general impressions from that aswell. My general impressions are overall positive. The game sure lacks alot in it's current state but it's important to remember it's still in Alpha and it has alot to come for the future. With my 35 in-game hours as of writing this review, I've met nothing but good and friendly people willing to help out newcomers to the game, both on the PvP servers and PvE server.

Is it for you? Depends if you enjoy games where you are supposed to spend alot of time grinding and sailing. Being stuck with one ship for a long time is a given for this game, being able to pilot the bigger ships do indeed take alot of time. If you have the time for a game like this and enjoy naval warfare from this era, do indeed pick it up. If you are looking for a game where you can hop in quick, get alot of kills and xp this is not the game for you.

The hate this MMO gets is totally not deserved. Of course it's not Skyrim, it's impossible to create an enviroment like Skyrim and make it an MMO, if you want Skyrim, play Skyrim.

I heard the game got better since Beta and holy damn it has, it's one of the best MMOs out there right now in my opinion. Want something fresh? Want an MMO set in TES univers? This is the MMO for you.

PROS:

- Awesome and responsive combat
- Addon support for stuff like; Minimap, DPS/Heal bars, enhanced chat and etc.
- First person mode if you wish
- 3 factions all with their own story
- Freedom of character building (you can literally mix & be anything)
- ESO Plus is not pushed in your face like other MMOs. (the only gain is 5% more XP and free DLC.)
- Fun but time consuming crafting
- Very well optimized for PC, where lowest settings are truly LOW for those who need it.
- Werewolves
- Vampires
- Dungeons can be done solo, all tho require more concentration
- Pretty graphics that sometimes make me stop and view the pretty scenery
- Stealing
- Murder NPCs like civilians and guards
- Be in 5 guilds at once

It's not perfect tho.

CONS:

- Clunky UI that forces you stop movement or run straight to do simple things like checking the guild rooster.

- Expensive mounts, 10k for the cheapest horse which is alot until you reach level 15 where it becomes more affordable, so expect to be running alot the first 20+ hours. (once bought it counts for all toons)

- Character customization is very similar to Skyrim, so it is limited to a certain degree.

- Imperials as a race require either the Imperial Edition or a digital upgrade in the ESO Shop for real cash.

- 3 races per faction unless you buy the adventurer pack where you can be any race, any faction.

- Downloading through Steam is a bit buggy, had to re-download the whole game over again with the ESO launcher after Steam install

I'd give it 7/10, it's an MMO so features can be added and or changed, which they have since Beta. They do listen to their community.

ArmA 3.. Been with you since Alpha and now Apex is coming. It's a great game, really isn't much more to say. If you want a challenging, time consuming and at the same time fun tactical shooter, this is the game for you. If you expect CoD or BF, go away, right now.

Pros:

- Great mechanics
- Huuuge detailed maps with so many towns, cities and etc
- Enjoyable vehicular combat and mechanics
- Great (but cliche) single player campaign for a first person shooter
- Fun multiplayer with unlimited gamemodes to download as mods
- Eden Editor makes it fun to set up your own missions for training/fun
- Great modding community

Cons:

- The engine should be replaced for the next title, very unoptimized with huge frame drops even on good PCs.
- The action menu needs to go, seriously.
- A bit of a pain to set up a joystick for fixed-wings/helicopters
- Rain/storms could still look better, happens you see patches of blue sky right above your head

For any tactical shooter fan out there, this is a must have. But try to go into the game without comparing it to other FPS games. Just because it can be hard and has complex mechanics, doesn't mean the game sucks

- Gets in first match, thinking I will kick some ass

- Minutes pass, still haven't scored

- Last 30 seconds I see my oppertunity, boosts then jumps and finally scores.

- Notice I just hit the ball into my own teams goal


10/10 "Would fail my team again"

Disclaimer: I have alot more hours on PS4 and the launcher-only version for PC and I will only review the plane aspect of the game as thats what the game started as.

Here is the thing, the game CAN be fun, it truly can. Bring a couple of lads, do some matches and have fun. But, in a "flight mmo" perspective.. The grind is horrible. They make tier 1-3 seem like really fast, research goes fast, but once past tier 3 it slows down faster than a fainting goat. The research are basically planes you can eventually buy, you pick a plane and branch (you can pick more than one) and you research your way down.

For every match you gain convertable RP (Research Points) which can be used to speed up research progress BUT HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, only if you wish to pay for golden eagles which is basically the game's premium currency. The more RP you wish to convert, the more golden eagles you need. If you wish to play this and not pay a penny, expect to be stuck with some planes for days until research is complete like Tier 4 and below.

Now that we got the P2W aspect out of the way, the actual gameplay is solid. The better you are, the better you will do in each match (unless you are unlucky enough to meet hackers). You might experience some rage as it's easy to get mad when you get shot down alot.

Want to play with a joystick? I'd suggest that only for realistic mode. Arcade battles are best played with keyboard and mouse or a controller as thats what most people do. You can seriously pull off some totally not realstic manouvers with the keyboard and mouse unlike with a joystick which then in return makes it unfair for joystick users.

When it comes to servers, stayyyy awayyyy from Russian servers. Your own team crashes into you, rage at you, hackers and alot more. I'd suggest either EU or US servers for the best experience when it comes to other players.

Mafia II is such a great game. Sure it lacks the open world feeling as the only way to really get open world is with a mod you can download. But the story it self is great, really captures the 1930s - 40s Mafia feeling. Old fashioned cars, fancy suits, tommy guns, you name it. The shooting is fun, not the most complex shooting system ever but still fun. A cover & shoot mechanic where you pick up your tommy gun and go nuts.

Having been a fan of the old Godfather on the PS2 (and the movies) as a kid, I was standing in line on day one to get my hands on Mafia 2 on the 360. It's not GTA for sure, Empire Bay can feel dull and boring with little to no side activities, but yet, it's worth the money.

If you are as pumped for Mafia III as I am and haven't tried the past 2 Mafia games, now is the time. With Vito also being a part of Mafia III, it will be very cool to see him as a "veteran" of sorts when it comes to organized crime.

With the pros and cons out of the way, you can excuse the lack of a true open world with the amazing story they built the game around. Oh and looking for those PlayBoy magazines are always fun.. Wink wink.