Recent reviews by Vilespring

I literally can't say much because even the slightest vague description can be a spoiler.

It's an amazing game. Get it. Play it. Love it. Have it live rent free in your head for months to come.

This is a very good 20 hour game, is the short of it.

Gameplay is incredibly crisp and I fell in love with it instantly. As many have pointed out, the free demo will very quickly let you will even like it. The demo allows like 2 hours of content, and the save is even loadable by the full game.

While playing this game you will feel very damn cool. You will also feel like a massive fool at times. It's amazing when those two feelings are mere seconds apart, because despite having just killed a mob of enemies and successfully reloaded every single weapon, you have face-planted into the ground. Only demerit here with gameplay is the boss fights are a bit... underwhelming? They're not bad, but they are not very hard nor mechanically intense. A bit of a blessing and a curse, as on one hand I wanted a bit more, but on the other I'm also terrible at boss fights in most games. The only boss I had trouble with I figured out was the easiest with a silly cheese strat that made me feel like I was morphing into a cheese wedge.

The music is beautiful. The only issue I have with the music is some locations use their own forced... not even soundtrack, but more like ambiance. Considering how long I was in some those areas, it can get kinda dull. However when in areas the cassette player is available, there's a total of like 1 hour of music when they're all unlocked. The music has found its way into my Spotify playlists, it's just beautiful.

Visually, game is quite lovely. The artstyle is very pretty, and I at no point thought that something didn't look great. (Note my experience with the demo did have a strange graphical bug, but the full game didn't have it.) The only gripe I have here is the camera. Some places the camera will move to give a specific view of a zone, which is great most the time. However when backtracking, it can result in enemies you can't see. The atmosphere of all the locations is amazing. Characters can also get quite expressive too.

Technically the game is quite sound. I got stuck in the ground only twice, and the second time was entirely my fault. I only encountered maybe a handful of bugs, with only one of them I could consistently cause. Besides the one I could cause every single time I wanted it, I encountered 5 gameplay bugs and a harmless UI bug. In total I got stuck in the ground twice, left the camera behind twice, and had the weird progression lock. (I did something very strange and I can easily see how that broke the game, exiting and loading fixed it.) The UI bug is sometimes a quest will be in the logbook twice, but it fixes itself and doesn't cause any instability nor loss of function.

Progression wise the game is decent. There are massive jumps in capability spread throughout the game, and they all feel great. Only thing I wish is the game either was like 2 hours longer after reaching peak capability, or gave the capability a bit earlier. A New Game+ might also help this, as I would love to replay the game with all the tools at my disposal to see how cracked it would be. I only went grinding for resources once, but that's because I wanted to do it all at once. Normal gameplay provides an adequate amount of resources, especially if you don't want to upgrade weapons you don't use.

Now the story. The story is terrible. No, not the quality, the content. The quality is immaculate, but this game is the only piece of media that's put me on the verge of crying. I will shamelessly admit that there was a point where I had to lie down because I couldn't see from teary eyes. It's a shame that the story will be such a small part of this review, because to me this was pretty big plus. It's terribly great, 10/10.

Quests. There's a lot of fetch quests and running around the world. There is a fast travel system, but it isn't convenient all the time. I didn't find that awful as I liked moving through the environment, but I can see how players won't like backtracking and going to places they have been before for simple fetch quests. The rewards are also not great, but eh. I mostly did them for the world building and it making me plan routes through the map.

Now, with being only a 20 hour game for doing most of the game's content (I am at time of writing missing just playing more blackjack and cooking more buffs... and dying a lot), the big question is replayability. The story isn't going to hit as hard, but the gameplay will still be crisp. I'm pretty sure runs could be done with a specific playstyle/weapon/goal in mind.

I doubt it would ever happen, but if the developers came back to this game I would buy a DLC without any hesitation. A New Game+ would be welcome as well, as I mentioned with being able to play the whole game again with all the bells and whistles. I don't see the need for a boss rush, since the bosses are more of a story telling element than a gameplay one, but I wouldn't be against it as it would probably have wicked speedruns.

It's a wonderful game of a coyote mom just trying her best. It's not a perfect game, but the things that make it wonderful easily outshine the bad.

Well, I guess it's time to give a review.

This is hands down one of the best games I've every played. I've been playing this game for almost a decade at this point, and I have loved it.

Digital Extremes is still pushing out content and updates for this game, and there is a lot to do already. There is also immense build freedom, meaning any warframe/weapon you like is (in some form) viable for a super majority of the game's content.

Yeah the game has premium currency, it has to monetize somehow. However, there's trading and a big 3rd party website to facilitate trading and making it an absolute breeze. This means entirely free to play someone can earn premium currency, at a decent rate too. It's also worth noting that premium currency, besides being used for trading, is used for cosmetics and rushing things. There is no PvP (we don't talk about conclave) so P2W isn't a thing to worry about. The AI doesn't suffer from getting clowned on.

Now, I must put the brakes on a bit. If you, the reader, are reading this you are probably looking into playing this game. The new player experience isn't great. DE has worked slowly on improving it, but it's still a bit lacking. This game will take give or take 100 hours before it begins to pick up. If you read that and went "100 hours? That's insane!" and you would be right. I've introduced many friends to the game, and that's about my observation to how long it takes before they get really hooked.

So if you managed to sink your teeth into it, Warframe is a fantastic game. It's just a hard fruit.

This is one of the best games I've played in my life.

Yes, the art style is quite interesting and potentially of putting, but it's probably the best art style for the game. I found it charming after a minute of getting used to it.

This game has lived rent free in my head since I played it. I can't say that about other games that I've played for infinitely more hours.

If you love a good mystery, do not have second thoughts on buying this game.

I bought this game as I loved the idea of a very in depth car game with a world I could drive it in.

However over time the game I bought stopped being what I bought and became... hell. The developer seems to have this development philosophy of "if the player is having fun, it needs to be patched."

Examples of this? Well I have many actually.

First one is the tachometer, as knowing your RPMs is nice yes? Well one update it was removed from the garage and put... behind a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bush by the drag strip. I can't think of any reason besides "♥♥♥♥ the player."

The player character has a grandmother that'll occasionally call the player to get groceries. Cool right? Except sometimes she might just randomly slip and die because... ♥♥♥♥ the player I guess.

At one in point in time, the steel rims with ♥♥♥♥♥♥ rubber spawned in the garage. That meant you can get the satsuma at least going but would have to pay to replace the tires to pass inspection. However one update they were just moved. They now spawn in the attic of an abandoned building that also has a wasp nest! Oh the player character is deathly allergic to them, so double ♥♥♥♥ you.

Oh, the PC has an uncle. They have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ van and a massive septic tank truck the player can eventually own. Which is interesting because the player used to actually own them from the start. So you know those tires that have been moved randomly? Good luck getting them anywhere when the only vehicle you can use is a dirtbike. Oh, and the septic truck was a decent, but intensive, way of making money. So now the player doesn't have a very important logistics vehicle and a decent source of income because... ♥♥♥♥ the player I guess. Oh good luck getting those tires I just mentioned without the van.

I remember when the community decided that removal of the windshield was an optimal move as it's dirty as hell and hard to see through. How did Amistech respond? Cleaning up the texture? Adding some cleaning mechanic to make maintaining cleanliness important? Nope he added the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ wasp mechanic. Driving without a windshield adds a chance for the player to get stung and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ die. Talk about the game design equivalent of leading with the stick and not the carrot...

And many years later the game still lacks important quality of life features like holding more than 1 item at a time and 3 axis rotation of items the player is holding. Instead of adding basic QOL apparently patching fun from the game had to be done.

The game is also tragically optimized, and it's not Unity's fault. I know blaming Unity is cool and all, but most the flak Unity gets is a user issue. I've seen some god awful Unreal games but I digress. For example all the scripts for the store are running even if you're on the other side of the map. By sleeping things the game could run so much better.

On the more small things I dislike, the people in this game look awful. Compared to how decently realistic everything else in the game looks, it's comically bad. It's so bad it it's closer to being an art style than realistic, but sadly its pretty far from the former.

So in the end I bought a car game with a world around it. It's now a world of masochism with a car on the side that the player doesn't have the mechanisms to complete.

If steam offered to refund me something no questions asked, I would refund this game before I refund the $40 Destiny 2 DLC that got removed from the game before I could play it.

Well, I've played this game for 1.4k hours, and it's one of my most played games on my steam account.

Why don't I recommend it? The game wants so much of your time while also being one of the most genuinely infuriating addictive things in my life.

It was fun, at one point. But even with me doing all that playing I've done, I never got past rank 6, with that vehicle being the T95E1. There is so much content in the game that requires thousands of hours of gameplay to get... or a rather hefty stack of cash. All those ads about flying helicopters back when *that* happened left a sour taste in my mouth. People would see the ads, download the monster sized game, and see these dinky planes and early war tanks. They would see all the way down the tech tree are helicopters.... or premium helicopters. Then if they bought said helo they would be getting shredded continuously and also be continuously flamed by incredibly toxic teammates as toxicity is just normal.

The game design hasn't evolved in the slightest to keep up with the player vehicles getting more modern. Ground forces hasn't had a game design change since the D point was removed in ground forces beta in like 2014, which was almost a decade ago at this point.

So I've played this game, and when I sat in my hangar looking at my brand new EBR FL10 I realized I didn't enjoy a single minute of that grind. I uninstalled the game without even playing a single game in it and I haven't had the desire to play the game since. Reasons I liked Warthunder were not growing, possibly even shrinking, while the reasons I didn't like the game grew longer and longer. This hasn't changed since I quit either. I ghosted news and forums for a bit over a year before I gave up hope. This game just isn't getting better and exists solely to milk their playerbase with toxic game design and predatory marketing.

TL:DR game was fun, game has become bigger in scale without badly needed game design changes and on the side wants a lot more money.

I really wanted to like this DLC. I really did. I love the vanilla game but... this is not good.

What made the vanilla game so great was how lethal combat was, and how elite enemies were durable, but still killable.

Pacific takes what made RWR so good and just discards it, and this amplifies some of the not great parts of the game.

So, as you guys probably know RWR works on kill probabilities, and body armor gives you the ability to survive one or two lethal hits and keep going. This is big, but also doesn't change a huge amount considering that most guns in RWR are automatic. So if an enemy with good armor is caught out in the open, they will be decimated.

Now, in Pacific, the M1 Garand has an 85% kill probability, which is pretty good, and it has 8 rounds. But then consider that an annoying amount of enemies in Pacific have a "body armor" that not only can take not only something like 5 lethal hits, but also lowers the probability of lethal hits. So now you have an enemy that you have to damage a lot, but also deal with how your punchy rifle with only 8 rounds has a lower kill probability. If you have an M1903, you will need all 5 rounds to kill them. Thankfully it has a very high kill probability at 1.125, but you cannot miss. And god forbid if it's more than one and/or a whole squad of normal soldiers. (Semi related, I think friendly squad AI is worse in Pacific, but this is just speculations.)

And on top of all this, the player is still probably a one shot, or has to go out of their way to get armor that gives them only one extra hit. During the last base of some maps, this problem amplifies, as all the elite enemies will just sit next to a radio jammer, swarming anyone foolish enough to come eating every single bullet.

For the final base on one mission I had to cheat so much rp spamming reinforcements and tanks just to destroy the jammer. The snappy combat that made the game feel so good just goes away when an enemy can just charge up to your cover and stuff their barrel down your throat killing you, despite shooting them the whole way up.

The advantage the enemy in Pacific should have compared to a player should be numbers. Not armor. And certainly not both like it is now.

tl;dr: RWR vanilla is great because of how lethal combat is. Many enemies in Pacific need multiple lethal kills because they are wearing body armor that doesn't slow them down and when you have a rifle with 5 or 8 rounds this really sucks.

https://twitter.com/RammJaeger/status/1434245886670901250

The leadership of Tripwire Interactive. Do I need to say anymore? This is, to put it gently, unacceptable.

Tripwire Interactive? More like Coathanger Interactive.

UPDATE: So while John Gibson has stepped down as CEO, he is still a co-owner of the company. My stance has not changed: If he gets a cent from the company, do not buy a thing from them.

So, this is only a recommend because my previous review had become quite unfair.

Basically the game had been abandoned twice, each for about a year. But now the game has been updated (quite a bit ago), and it's actually decently playable as well. Only real problem is the content is not very deep, but that's honestly expected at this stage of development.

I have put quite a few hours in just driving through the desert. It's unsurprisingly very repetitive at the moment but hey, it's being developed again. Good enough for me.

While this game is quite entertaining and I have logged quite a few hours into it, I cannot recommend it to others.

Bugs run rampant in this game, and while quite a few are avoidable, some are not and are rather frustrating.

While trying to get the German to Turkey and back achievement, the bugs become more noticed and a lot more serious.

The achievement requires the whole trip to be done in the same session, and with the sheer number of soft-lock bugs there are, it's basically impossible to do.

I really want to recommend this game, but it's just too much of a buggy mess. It's enjoyable, but buy at your own risk. Give the game a few more years I guess.