Recent reviews by GoblinEngineer

Rimworld is a warcrime colony simulator and storytelling game. Crash land your party of three off-worlders(or 5 neolithic villagers) and try to help them survive as long as you can. You may gain or lose some organ donors people over time, but even if you lose them all, it's not game-over; the story will continue so long as you are willing to continue it. The True God Randy giveth, but he also taketh away.
Random herds of insane animals will kill your organ donor settlers/colonists, meteors will crush them, and a stray bullet will be a headshot killing your favorite pawn. You will build a wooden base only to have a pyromaniac join you and burn it all down. When you try to use fire as a weapon, it will rain and foil your plans. That meteor from earlier? It crushed your biggest, meanest dog's bonded master driving it to a murderous bloodlust, causing an inevitable chain reaction with your other bonded animals and their masters, only to trigger your incendiary IED. With no pawns remaining, the fire will consume all you have built.

Feeling defeated, you stop playing for a couple days, only to feel the insatiable Call of The Rim and be pulled back in. This time you carve your home from the mountain to protect from the dangers of fire. You build a large workshop, but before you are aware of what's going on, a large swarm of insects burrow up from the Underdark, destroying all of your advanced machinery and killing your crafters and causing the inevitable collapse of the colony.
No pawns remain, but your automated defenses managed to kill the invading insects and you decide to hold out to see what happens. A lone wanderer, the mysterious Man In Black, stumbles upon the ruins of your colony. He's a psychopath and cannibal, can't plant crops or field dress a wound to save his own life, but is excellent with a gun. He holds up in the ruins, eating the remains of the provisions you had stockpiled. Scavengers come by to salvage what they can from the ruins, but are killed by Man In black and cooked into delicious meals for his consumption.
Another wandering psychopath stumbles upon the ruins, negotiates with the Man In Black and convinces him to let the new wanderer stay. This woman is quite skilled with a knife, and while she could save the continuous waves of scavengers with her medical knowledge, instead decides to harvest their kidneys, hearts and livers to replace damaged organs of herself and the Man In Black. The change in the story was abrupt and uncomfortable at first, but you've gotten used to your new role: helping to keep the psychopathic organ harvesting operation alive and in play.

Oh look, more colonists organ donors.

This game is a perfect 5/7, would buy again.

Having played this game for a little over 3300 hours, I feel it's time to finally write a review for the game. Please bear in mind I really don't write reviews often.

The TL;DR for Stellaris is that it is fantastic with a large variety of play styles that almost never get dull. Along side mods and the DLC I fully expect this game to keep me entertained for another couple thousand hours.

Now for the long form. Stellaris can seem complicated at first glance, and if you've only recently returned after having initially played near release, confusion will ensue. Stellaris is a game of frequent high quality updates and over the course of the last year or so, much of the game has changed fairly drastically(and for the better IMO).

If you've ever wanted to create a world where proletariat overthrow the bourgeois, you can do that. Want to try out being Hitler for a while? Crank out a Fanatical Purifier and you're good to go. Tired of all of the individuality and think people would be better as little more than limbs for your great mind? Get Utopia and play as a Hive Mind(or Synthetic Dawn and play a Machine Empire). No matter your perfect empire, it can be done here(even if it requires a slight amount of tweaking using mods).

Now, this is not to say the game is perfect, as Stellaris has its flaws. Logically speaking, if I have the resources to be working on a Dyson Sphere, I should be able to build as many as I can afford, not just one; the same can be said for Ring Worlds, but this problem, along with every one I've ever encountered can be easily countered with a mod.

Bear in mind that there are many reviews from 2016-17 that have some complaints that are simply not relevant anymore, the mechanics having either been changed or removed entirely. Many things in the game are still in the works, and the dedicated community around this game anticipate them eagerly. The diplomacy in Stellaris is one complaint that is still relevant from older reviews, as it is extremely shallow. The devs have said they're working on this, but we have no ETA on an update regarding this.

Along with the many free updates, this game has a number of DLCs, and while none of them are essential for the game to feel "complete," they do drastically expand your options on how you can play the game.

With Utopia a number of options open up to empires in Stellaris. So called "normal" empires can choose some advanced enslaving techniques or start with chimps(or whatever else you may want) as a second sapient species on your home world. If you'd prefer to play as a Hive Mind, you can try to be something akin to the Zerg and absorb useful species you come across, or be a ravenous swarm the galaxy fears. This DLC also opens up a number of mega structures that can be built in space itself to feed your resource needs with a Dyson Sphere or expand your living area with a Ring World or Habitats.

With Synthetic Dawn you can pursue the process of mechanically enhancing your species, first through cybernetic enhancements and later through replacing your weak flesh with the strength of cold metal. Conversely, start out by embracing cold steel. Reach out in peace, assume the mantle of the Borg, or be Skynet itself and seek to exterminate all organic life in the galaxy.

With Apocalypse you can unlock the massive titans, capable of destroying most ships in a single shot, or build one of the three superweapons in the game called colossae. you could either wield what amounts to the Death Star, be more practical with the Neutron Sweep which will leave the planet's infrastructure intact for your later use, or, if you're the religious type, convert the population of an entire planet to spiritualism(but let's be honest here, we're always going to build the Death Star, right?). Additionally there are some other features that you get as well should you also have Utopia.

Then there's the Storypacks and Species packs. I'll be frank with you, I have them all, though I rarely use the Plantoid species pack for much of anything. With all of the various story packs, however, you will learn more about the lore of the Stallaris galaxy and get a boatload of new event quests and event chains. Ancient Relics completely changes some event chains, and adds some new ones besides, and makes archaeology feel more like an active event, rather than just pushing a button.

All of the different systems in the game can be a little overwhelming if you aren't familiar with this genre of game, but I assure you that it's worth getting into. For those already familiar with the genre, Stellaris is a wonderful addition to your collection. If ever there's a mechanic you have trouble with, just look for Aspec's tutorials, he'll sort you straight.

I do not typically write reviews, so my apologies if this seems a little rough.
This is one of the single best platformers I've played in years. While I have yet to actually finish the game, I am nearly there.

Pros:
Abilities are spread out across the came so you don't get bogged down.
The game is fair. If you die, it's usually your fault.
Most of the maps are easily navigable simply using landmarks.
Bosses have tells* indicating what they will do making it so you can learn the fight, given enough attempts.

Cons:
Being as this is a game in a similar vein of Metroid or Castlevania, you will go through the same area multiple times with certain parts you can't access until later due to not having the abilities to do so, the actual con here is remembering where the spots are that you couldn't access, as some of them are quite subtle. Not a big con, just a little pet-peve of mine since I didn't get a method of marking these until later in the game.

Those tells I was talking about? They're there on most if not every boss, but some of them are very subtle and happen very quickly. In some fights there's so much going on you will miss them, at least you will if your vision is as bad as mine is.

Summery:
Buy this game. I mean it, buy this game. I had to be poked and prodded for a month to get the game buy a friend and then another 2 weeks to start playing it and I just keep thinking about how much time I have wasted not playing it. Sure, there's a couple annoying things, but that's nothing compared to just how fun this game is and how much satisfaction you get from beating a boss you've been struggling with.