Recent reviews by Matyasz

This game is among the most played games in my library, although a lot of it is "idle playing" due to its slow-paced nature. It is still under development and has a lot room for improvement. However, as a simulator it is without a doubt a true gem. I highly recommend it to those who like this kind of simulators and / or are interested in astronomy / astrophysics.

THE GOOD
US2 is really beautiful and detailed visually. Many astrophysics features are quite realistically done. Function-wise there is a lot to do and experiment, at least if you know what and how to do. Moreover, it has an enormous database of real-life objects and hundreds of "scenarios" which teach you a lot of what can be found in real universe. Overall, it's an excellent studying / teaching tool for astronomy and physics.

THE BAD:
Although many features are very realistically done, a lot is still either erroneous, incomplete or lacking entirely. Stellar evolution and almost the entire creation process are good examples of that. However, it is extremely difficult to "convert" real-life physics into virtual reality. US2 demands A LOT from a computer, even a good one. Running more complex simulations take a huge toll on CPU, RAM and GPU. Perhaps there is a bit room for improvement in that front but given the complexity of calculations it's understandable.

I have dedicated quite a lot of passion into EUIV (and EUIII), so don't get me wrong - EUIV is an amazing game with myriads of potential... which I feel at the moment is flushed down the toilet by the wicked DLC spamming Paradox has developed. Thanks to that, this review will be negative. I will make it positive if the future shows any improvement to DLC.

Hey, seriously, the basegame costs 40€... and all DLC (11th March 2017) would top the sweet 232.65€ on top of it. that's ~270€ in total. Quite an iceberg, huh? That's not far from my monthly rent - let that sink in. Of course it's cut into smaller bits and of course there are the sales but the overall cost is impressive nevertheless. Moreover, it's worth pointing out that *many* of the DLC are quite stripped down and lacking compared to the price. Of course any feature requires a good amount of whacking code strings back and forth, but I wonder how much actual worth there really is behind the current codes? Finally, I feel that some DLC lacked creativity, as if the developers simply had to squeeze water out of a stone and eventually reduced their creativity down to tweaking already existing features back and forth - and not always in a pleasant way from a player's point of view. So yes, for Pete's sake, do something good about the DLC already!

As said initially, don't get me wrong. This game is amazing with its vast, VAST amount of features and things to do. It's far more allowing, flexible and creative than EUIII was. Quite often I am just amazed by the games abilities and possibilities, beautiful graphics and roleplaying aspects.

As said, there is a lot of potential that is still not well explored. I feel that continents beyond Europe are still lacking, often even boring to play as you know you will soon succumb into the quickly approaching England. Many nations are nerfed down to impossibly difficult to play (like Ryukyu which is kind of my favourite!)... Ironman mode needs some love, too. It's a challenging way to play but more often annoying than fun and unfortunately, the achievements are caged behind its iron bars. One of the most annoying bits would happen when things go very, very wrong. It's not really fun to begin all over again as Ryukyu when things went smoothly well into 1650's...

Finally, personally I love both the very historical and artificial ways of gameplay. On the other hand it's really interesting to see how things developed to various consequences our history faced... but it's also similarly interesting to kind of create my own history and see where things go in that path. For the latter, the game is still way too fixed and I often feel forced to follow certain strictly defined paths instead of having all my gameplay creativity unleashed. EUIV code is simple enough to allow plenty of room for a more free gameplay and I see that development is slowly embracing that direction - that's something I welcome wholeheartedly.

I... have spent quite a while playing this game (~300 hours so far). One game is never similar to another. All the intrigue, conspiracy, sudden unpleasanties, backstabbing, drama and so on. A small nation may claw its way into a superpower and a superpower may suddenly collapse. There is always something new to discover, experience and even laugh at.

The graphics are stunning, music beautiful, gameplay fun as mentioned above. The only downside is that CK2 may be quite overwhelming for a beginner. It really takes a while to master the basics of gameplay. However, at least in my opinion, it's part of the fun.

Definitely 10/10 although there should be always little room for improvement!