Recent reviews by Carr

I can't recommend this game. I played for four hours and requested a refund.

Why?

The game is bland. The story is boring. You start off as a miner, find a mcguffin, then get treated like the hero of the galaxy. There's no buildup. The combat is similar to Fallout 4 but without VATS. You have a jetpack this time, but there's no real use for it outside of traversing the outside world. Speaking of, the outside world is incredibly empty.

I was willing to accept the emptiness of the space setting if it meant we'd get "immersed" in the sci-fi setting, but that isn't here either. There is no living in your ship. Your ship is just a place to jump between loading screens and play out a simplified ship v ship encounter. I explored the first planet only to realize that all the points of interest are distanced 1000s of meters apart and, yes, you must walk between them on foot. Creatures have the AI intelligence of mudcrabs. Bethesda really wants to impress you with 1000s of explorable worlds, but this fascination with widespread Radiant-style content essentially eliminates any sort of depth you could have in an RPG.

Bethesda is not known for its story telling through its scripts, but its worlds. Here, the worlds are just bland, open sandboxes for you to walk between copy-paste points of interest. Sometimes those points of interest are literally just a tiny cave with bug dung in it. And yes, you just walked across a barren planet to find that.

I've seen from folks that the game "gets good 12 hours in" and, sorry, that's just unacceptable. Fallout 4 was engaging from the moment I started the game. Starfield? No. Nothing feels handcrafted other than the designated space ports like New Atlantis, but even these cities are unfortunately populated with hundreds of nameless NPCs and carved up instances so nothing feels seamless or interesting.

The game just isn't fun. I can go play Baldur's Gate 3 and feel like nearly every NPC has a story or a purpose. Here, they're just generic "space pirate X". There's no immersive sim here to compensate either. I just don't care for this and if you're on the fence for this game then you'll probably not care for it.

JA3 is nearly $50 and JA fans have been burned repeatedly by ♥♥♥♥♥♥ sequels for almost two decades. Is this game worth it?

Yes. Very much yes.

These are my initial impressions (finished the tutorial island) after playing on the hardest difficulty (Mission Impossible) and Ironman settings:

STORY/WORLD:

This game is a true successor to JA2. 40+ voice acted mercs return from IMP. Some may point out there was nearly double those mercs in JA2, but the mercs here are all fully fleshed out with hundreds of unique voicelines that also comment on environmental/story dialogues. For instance, I thought twice about disturbing a war memorial with Barry, the devout Hungarian Christian and bomb expert. The humor from JA2 is still present—so yes, it's campy—but not to the point of being obnoxious. You might tire of Grunty telling you how much his mother would love your gorey gun artistry, but he was like this in JA2. Mercs will also comment on each other. Igor, the Russian merc, has made it clear he will find a wife for Kalyna, my Ukrainian sniper, after every crackshot she pulls off. These interactions bring the spirit of JA2 back.

The world of Grand Chien is an amorphous post-French colonization Afro-Caribbean-esque world and the writing makes it believable. You'll meet village folk who give you your typical cRPG quests, but there's extensive work put into Grand Chien's unique characters (many of whom can become hirable mercs later). Still, this is where JA3 exceeds JA2. As much as Ira from Arulco was a fan favorite, she's comparably stiff to the honorable (but misguided) Pierre or the sleazy (and nefarious) Bastien. Decisions early in the game can drastically change future outcomes (especially with merc access) but JA3 will make it clear when your decisions have consequences. This isn't JA2 where the unwitting player gets Ira killed and then loses out on one of the more story-connected mercs in the game.

COMBAT

The combat is a massive improvement over JA2, but this isn't immediately apparent until you play on higher difficulties. First, all the basic mechanics such as burning more AP for a more accurate shot are here. jA3 wants you to believe the % to hit is gone, but I've still had my mercs caught missing point blank shots like an XCOM rookie. However, JA3 does make a huge leap with Overwatch and terrain obstruction.

The Overwatch mechanic is not XCOM2 where you will spend every turn trying to goad out enemies into a firing squad. JA3 uses cones of control whose range/width for Overwatch is determined by weapon type. Furthermore, placing the cone is IMPORTANT because your merc's line of sight MATTERS. Overwatch cones work best when placed in open areas to catch bad guys darting to and from cover. If you Overwatch cone an area with cover, it is very likely your merc will mag dump the cover instead. Still, Overwatch in this game is POWERFUL. It costs all of your AP to Overwatch, but any enemy activates Overwatch attacks both with movements and actions. Depending on ammo/weapon type, you may pull off multiple attacks un a single turn if your Overwatch is placed correctly.

The Overwatch mechanic is intuitive too. Machine Guns give you wide, long cones (but take a while to set up). Rifles are narrow, but extremely long cones. Pistols, shotguns, SMGs are short/wide cones. Assault Rifles are a great medium between them all. This incentivizes a balanced merc squad to approach any situation and on the hardest difficulty YOU WILL NEED IT.

JA3 difficulty does not mess around. I didn't understand the "outpost strength" mechanic on my first playthrough and assault the first fortress with max defenses. Despite infiltrating stealthily, there were simply too many patrols. After being discovered, I was rushed down by 20+ heavily armed mercs including the personal posses of story characters who were present because I didn't complete the side quests. The AI does not sit back and let them shoot you. You will be flanked, rush, pipe bombed, bazooka'd, sniped, and machine gunned down by aggressive AI. They will still opt for cover where possible, but the AI isn't interested in holding back its numbers if they have the advantage. This encourages the player towards creative strategies like luring the Outpost's garrison to a blob near the only 'revealed' merc with your explosives expert in hiding just nearby. Speaking of hiding, let's talk stealth.

STEALTH:

I love JA3, but a Hitman simulator this is not. You'll see people complain that there's no pause for setting up stealth kills and while I'm inclined to agree, the simple truth is this game does not guarantee stealth kills. Yes, you can get silenced sniper rifles, and yes, you can stealthily pick off a garrison one by one. However, if you miss (and you WILL miss), the game activates a "surprised" turn-based mode. If you kill all surprised enemies within that same turn, the game reverts back to out-of-combat. As much as I rushed to build a stealthy ninja assassin character, it's important to recognize that stealth is meant to be a lagniappe ("a little something extra") to the core combat. Playing into stealth mechanics might allow you to reduce a garrison exponentially before true combat begins or allow you to obtain a secured firing position. Conversely, getting caught is easy because you can't pause out of combat—and guards often patrol randomly. One stealther is doable in real time, but a squad?

However, I'm okay with this. I love stealth mechanics, but any gamer knows that being able to fully stealth a zone subsequently trivializes it. I'd like to see the inclusion of possibly pulling off simultaneous stealth kills, but having the risk exponentially increase as a result is a fine tradeoff to me. Remember, however, that stealth is still incredibly useful on harder difficulties. You NEED good positioning or you're dead, so stay out of sight and make sure you're always taking the first shot.

Pro tip: If you're going to be a knife assassin man, you'll need high strength too to actually *hit* your target for a stealth kill, lmao. Rookie mistake I made.

GUNS:

JA2 takes the cake here, but the JA2 I played was the penultimate version which included a bunch of modded weapon kits. The gun variety/customization in JA2 was frankly overwhelming, but welcomed. JA3 does have a great weapon modification system that's simpler but more meaningful. I also like the "on the fly" crafting which allows you to dismantle useless weapons for useful parts to mod your own weapons without bugging off to the JA2 airfield. However, there is a part of me that's nostalgic for the XCOM-like equipment/outfitting that JA2 had. JA2 allowed for massive power spikes, importing in first world-weaponry to a war-torn third world backwater where only the elites had decent military hardware. JA3 is a more gradual incline. You'll start with pistols, WW2 weaponry, and AK-47s, but later in the game you'll see goons using more modern hardware. This could also just be a difficulty thing. My tutorial island outpost had a rampaging bazooka guy and I was already picking up rockets I couldn't shoot.

One pet peeve is you can't see your merc equip armor on their character. This wasn't a feature in JA2, but that was twenty years ago. The guns show up in all their modded glory, but as much as I'm fine with mercs dressing as their national stereotypes at first, it's goofy seeing them go into firefights with a t-shirt on.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

If you are worried that this is yet another cash grab under the JA franchise, then do not be afraid. There are weaker aspects to JA3 I was disappointed in, like the lack of expansion on the IMP (player-created) merc. It's a travesty seeing all these nicely voiced mercs, but our PC is silent and restricted to a single male or feminine voice. Even JA2 had more variety. 💀 But, my guess is this will be expanded on with a welcomed DLC later. However, this is a minor complaint and the game overall is very satisfactory.

Do not hesitate to purchase this game because of its steam rating. I'm genuinely surprised at the amount of hate this game is getting when the core gameplay, mechanics, and progression are all solid. Here are some of the complaints I've seen and will address as someone genuinely enjoying their experience:

"Darktide isn't a complete improvement over Vermintide 2, rather the same take but just in a different setting.

What? How is this a bad thing? Darktide offers nearly a dozen maps with multiple objectives/modes/etc. alongside L4D2-esque "modifiers" (like lights out) to offer variety while offering 4 player co-op gameplay that allows more of a focus on shooting. Keep in mind that VT2, in its current state, has had years of content updates and polish. It's asinine to expect that and more on Darktide's launch---which, if you were there for VT2's launch, you'd know that Darktide's launch was much smoother.


Where's the 70+ weapons promised???

This is the most annoying comment of them all. The truth is there IS ~65 weapons in Darktide on launch. However, this is when you factor in the variants of weapons. For instance, Veteran has multiple variants of the lasgun (per the lore) and those variants can have variants (Kantrael lasgun itself has 3 variants). People might feel misled over this, but the "variants of variants" DO play and feel differently, particularly in their rate-of-fire and damage. Do you like slower shots but being able to insta-kill a poxwalker no matter where you shoot them? Use the High DMG/High Cap Kantrael. Do you feel less confident in your aim and prefer less damage for a more forgiving ammo count? Use the Versatile/High Cap Kantrael. They are two different experiences even if your gun may not look completely different.

That said, there is a massive amount of variety: Autoguns, multiple lasguns, lasbore guns, laspistols, plasma guns, flamethrowers, auto pistols, revolver pistol, twin-linked machine guns, grenade gauntlet launchers, multiple psyker staffs with very different playstyles, daggers, assassin axes, combat axes, chainswords, two-hand chainswords, power swords, a chainsaw axe, shovels, clubs, swords, force swords---

There's a lot of stuff to play with here.


The game runs awful. I can't even play it until optimizations come out.

There are some issues with shaders, from what I've heard, but this game features hundreds of fully-animated models on screen at the same time with latest gen fidelity. It's CPU/GPU intensive. Simple as. I doubt most of the people with poor performance understand that Darktide requires a PC built in the 2020's.


There's no crafting, but yet there's a cash shop???

It sucks that crafting isn't available immediately on release, but this is such an apples and oranges argument. "Crafting" in itself isn't vital to your Darktide experience. All Darktide's "crafting" claims to be is for the player to have the ability to stack their end-game weapons with the traits they find most broken. As someone who clears Heresy difficult consistently with randoms, being without the "crafting" system for the foreseeable future doesn't ruin my experience at all.

However, what does this have to do with the cash shop??? The cash shop is a purely cosmetic feature system; there is no pay to play in Darktide at all.


It takes too long to grind your characters and your currency isn't accountwide!!

You gain about 0.8 levels per mission, IF you complete them. You can get to level 30 (max) within a week's worth of semi-casual play. I have a 30 (which I still play bc he's my favorite), an 11, and a 9 with 86 hours at the time of this review. If levelling up is very slow for you, chances are there's a skill issue and you need to bump the difficulty down.

Also, currency does not need to be accountwide in the slightest. I could care less if it was accountwide, but the best weapons in Darktide are currently obtained through the "consecration" feature in the crafting shop. You level your weapon up a tier and hope for the best you get traits/stats you like. You gain more than enough currency playing the character you like. You can get near level 500-ish gear in about 30-50 hours of play on a character. You only have 4 characters max to play. The currency system felt pretty reasonable to me as is.


There's poor balance.

My only comment here is that, unsurprisingly, the class that focuses heavily on shooting things (Veteran) in a game geared towards gunplay is the best class hands down. However, again, this is more of a skill issue outside of things like the Power Sword which shores up Veteran's biggest weakness. Ogryn, Psyker, and Zealot (outside of Zealot cheese knife builds) are very contextual classes. Ogryns can plant a shield down and become immovable, but invincible (outside of AoE fire grenades); Zealot has weapons designed to Crowd Clear (flamethrower, eviscerator) and release pressure on their team; Psykers can shut down elites with staffs that outright stun them (for the team to kill) or provide resourceless damage output.

As Veteran, your job is to shoot everything that moves starting with the things that shoot back. You're pure damage. In the hands of a good player, Veteran tends to encroach on the other classes' roles because there's little point in running a stun Psyker when your Veteran is competently killing things before they become an active threat. Veterans' major weakness is they were terrible in melee and getting rushed by hordes, which arguably, I think should still exist to a degree (but unfortunately doesn't because of the power sword). Other classes are strong in their own right, but I always find myself coming back to Veteran so that I know I can carry my random PUG team without issue.

Difficulty in this game is well balanced. The hardest mode (tier 5) is truly one of the hardest experiences you'll have in co-op gaming. The middle difficulty (tier 3) can still trash you if you aren't paying attention. Modifiers exist to change these up. My hope is that Fatshark makes it easier for us to see what other randos in our group have before the mission starts so that you can shore up your weaknesses easier.


The maps aren't interesting/varied.

Simply put, there's a lot of rusty hallways. I'll agree to that. However, it's the best rendition of 40k I've seen. It's a Hive City falling apart. It's supposed to feel labyrinthine in nature, dark, and depressing. However, while I can't really keep track of environments like I could in Left 4 Dead's easy "this is the carnival level; this is the airport level" categories, Darktide does have a few stand out maps on the rotation that let you see the surface, weapon manufactories, and the "higher class" district. There is variety here in terms of game-design. Some maps are claustrophobic dorm-style hallways. Others are massive open spaces with good vertical and horizontal level design. I enjoy them all.


I can't freely select the map I want to do.

Personally, this never bothered me and I'm a L4D vet. There are times I wish I could pick a map I haven't done in a while (or rather, a new map that just released), but overall I'm content playing what's given to me. The reason why I'm content is anyone with a brain knows that the moment you're allowed to choose the map you want, people will game the system and try to find the quickest, easiest level 1 missions to "power level" with as they did in VT1/2. You might say this isn't an issue, but imagine being someone who queues into matches. Certain levels will become clear favorites because of their design and you, unfortunately, will be forced to play the same level again and again due to monkey brain humans wanting to take the path of least resistance.


Upgrade your PC. Stop playing on crappy Wi-Fi. Buy this game. Protect the lil 'uns. Most of the negative reviews on here are from "60-100 hours played" players posting trash that a cash shop exists. Cringe.

Unfortunately, Victoria 3 is not the game that I wanted. I'm a big Victoria 2 fan, partly because there is a major emphasis on the economy which this game touts, but also a significant emphasis on the geopolitical sphere of the Victorian era and the history that encompasses it. If you play paradox games for the historical flair, you are going to be disappointed by this game.

The nation I was drawn to first was Spain, an incredibly interesting underdog country in the Victorian era which, by 1836, just suffered the loss of its massive colonial empire and now faces rising Carlist sentiments in the mainland seeking to restore said empire. I spent a good 30 minutes trying to find the " decisions " panel for a country, which would be the national ideas equivalent to those who have played Victoria 2. In Victoria 3, these are called journals. Unfortunately, there is barely anything here for most countries which is incredibly disappointing because that alone kills replayability for this game. Of course, while most countries barely have anything but the generic decisions, paradox made sure that Greece can reform the Byzantine Empire for the memes. This is a theme you will find consistently throughout this game: no emphasis on historical events, no flavor events unless you're playing France or Great Britain or Germany, and most disappointing of all there is almost no emphasis on the numerous historically political parties that rose up during the Victorian era. There is no Carlist monarchist regime, only the standard/generic communist, fascist, etc parties. Consumers may argue that this is the realm for DLC, and I have no doubts that paradox will try to expand on this game via DLC, but there is so little substance in the foundation of this game that I question if paradox is even interested in focusing on historical aspects of the Victorian era. I know there are concerns about historical railroading, and I'm not advocating for players to be restricted to an incredibly linear path as they play, but it's very frustrating to see the incredible lack of detail when it comes to trying to reimagine a lot of the massive political ideas and geopolitical schemes that wholly shape the Victorian era. There is no great game between Great Britain and Russia. The Austrian and Prussian Brothers war is not even mentioned. The scramble for Africa is barely even recognized outside of the barebones colonial mechanic. No Golden Circle for the Confederacy. This really is more of an economic simulator than a historical one. It's a shame too, because I think Victoria 2 was the perfect blend between economic simulator and the paradox strategy game formula that many of its fans have come to know and love. There were problems in Victoria 2, like the AI incessantly trying to occupy every province of your country before picking a fight with your troops, but that AI behavior made sense in the later game when countries consisting of armies big enough to create world war 1 style fronts. However, and Victoria 3, I am simply told to select on my armies under a general and send them off to a front. Nothing really seems to matter here outside of making sure your army has better tech than the other army, and that you simply have a bigger army with a better general. There is no strategy outside of that, not to mention all the flaws with diplomacy and how relationships between countries hardly matter if at all when it comes to diplomatic plays.

All in all, it's an incredibly disappointing start for a game that I was excited for. The simple fact of the matter is this game shouldn't be called Victoria. Yes, it's in the Victorian era, yes it does have an economic system that might be considered in the realm of parity with its previous title. However, this isn't a Victoria game. It's an incredibly simplified line go up simulator. Which is fine, until you've already done it once or twice with a country and then realize the best and most efficient formula to make sure that your line goes up faster than the AI's. Sadly, even when you've balanced your economy and made your line go up the furthest, what else is there to this game? Nothing, as far as I can tell. I refunded this game after only 80 minutes of playing and I do not regret it.

The only positive I can say about this game is that the graphics are truly modernized. There is polish there, but I wish I could say the same for the game mechanics themselves and the historical context which put paradox games into the forefront of the strategy video game market to begin with.

I'm recommending this game with a massive disclaimer: The Realm of Chaos mode is NOT fun.

I was wondering why Realm of Chaos got the massive criticism it did and it wasn't until I finally finished (see: lost) my campaign did I finally realize why this campaign is truly awful. For reference, played 120+ turns as Kislev on Legendary/Very Hard.

Every twenty turns, the Realms of Chaos will open up. Depending on how much you've expanded, this will be a costly endeavor every single time that Ursun roars. If you ignore the rifts, you'll have hostile armies springing up all over your territory—YOU CANNOT IGNORE THEM. Combine this with the fact that the game relegates you into an Order Tide v. Chaos Tide metagame. There is no picking apart enemies bit by bit, there is only the endless attrition of grinding battle after battle as multiple factions descend upon you. In the beginning, this is an intense struggle for survival, but by the end it truly becomes a game of whack-a-mole as the campaign AI does its best to strike at your garrisoned cities and, despite your best efforts (or ambushes), will do its best to stay just ahead of your armies if they know they'll lose. The simple truth is you CANNOT AFFORD TO CHASE ARMIES DOWN. You WILL have to rely on your garrisons and go on the offensive while leaving your lands to their fate. There are only a precious 15-30 turns between Ursun Roars (and thus Realm of Chaos minigames) for you to make any progress on the main map. If you wish to win the narrative, you needn't necessarily expand your empire, but staying idle in a single province while the Chaos/Ogre/Order Tide overwhelm your surrounding position means it's only a matter of time before your capital is overrun. You WILL have to expand to a certain extent which further exposes yourself to the daemon portals and their numerous armies. Yes, you can use heroes to close these rifts, but they cost upkeep and the closure itself costs 1500. This adds up fast.

REALM OF CHAOS AND WHY IT SUCKS:

This is a race between you and the AI. You might think that it's possible to skip out a round or two and focus on your empire, but you'd be wrong. Want to pick Slaanesh's rewards early and give the AI a pass that RoC round? Big mistake. The issue for this is at the end when an AI has acquired 4 souls before you. Once you've hit this point, you'll get a notification that you need to intercept the enemy at the Forge of Souls. Simple enough, until you realize that you have to park your faction leader in front of the Forge of Souls until that AI faction decides to show up—IF THEY SHOW UP. Keep in mind also that when the AI shows up to contest Forge of Souls, you MUST defeat them the turn they enter the portal or they WILL win the campaign next turn. Even if you do defeat them, they currently only give you a 15 turn grace period on that SINGLE faction. In my case, I was juggling both Greasus and Ku'gath only to lose my campaign when there was an odd window where I felt safe to enter Nurgle's land. I was wrong, lost my campaign, and that was it. What a joke. The campaign DOES NOTHING to give you a heads up on WHERE your opponents are or if they're even at the Forge of Souls unless you're physically idling your faction leader for possibly 15 turns. Keep in mind that you cannot progress your own daemon soul meter while you're camping for enemy factions.

So, yeah, it's massive headache. Spent 120 hours on Realm of Chaos only to finally get a legendary campaign down where I had a decent chance at beating the game only to get gimmicked out at the end because the campaign makes it incredibly unclear how close you are to actually losing. With Legendary, there is no reloading your save either. I understand they're attempting to fix this in 1.1, but I feel this was too little, too late.

Then again, I thought the Vortex campaign was garbage too. Hopefully Immortal Empires will be worth the wait, thus I recommend buying it for that alone. As for Realm of Chaos? Enjoy it casually. Don't take it seriously. This campaign was poorly designed even if its narrative/aesthetic is quite good.

I'm a History nerd, so I played this for funsies. Wasn't disappointed. The game mechanics can be a bit RNG/unforgiving when you don't understand them, but after 3-5 attempts you'll be a survivor in no time.

And damn, if I don't love hearing The Planets - Mars.

I reviewed this game back in 2017 when it was in early access and played it for about 40-60 hours. I noticed it finally had a release on Steam just recently, and I've now spent 100 hours playing this game in the past week alone. I think it's time for a new review.

Let's get the negatives out of the way:

-You will probably crash at some point (I've had 5-10 in the 100 hours I've played thus far), especially if you decide to up the modifiers for squad sizes/enemy limits/etc. due to single thread processing. Having auto-saves on every 5 to 10 minutes is crucial and makes these occasional crashes bearable.

And that's pretty much it, lmao. If you think the graphics are a turn off, just go outside and get the high fidelity you apparently crave. Mods have you covered on any minor gameplay annoyances.

Positives:

-If you like Rimworld, Mount & Blade, X-COM, and minimalist sandbox RPGs with the mod-support of Skyrim, you need to buy and play this game.

-You have complete freedom to roleplay. No linear questing. The world reacts to your decisions. Tired of the Holy Nation sending their umpteenth Prayer Day to your front door? Slap that proselytizer in the face and attack all Holy Nation paladins on sight. Just don't be surprised when they send an assault against your encampment.

-Discovering the world of Kenshi. Who is this "Bug-Master" everyone keeps talking about in taverns? Why is everyone afraid of the Ashlands? Who or what are the "Fogmen"? What happened to the Ancient Empire and what do the Skeletons have to do with it? The Wikia for this game is still pretty barren, so these are answers you're going to have to learn on your own.

-50 Max Companions. FIFTY. Not enough? Become a madman and max out your recruit limit to 256 with mods.

-Prefer a warzone instead of a barren wasteland? You can jack up the AI squads (and the amount of units those squads have) to 3x or more. Don't be surprised if you end up in a scene right out of Starship Troopers though as Skimmers try to overrun your base in the Great Desert.

-Crafting in this game is extensive. Find blueprints and then arm your mounting army with your personally forged equipment. Figuring out how to make the best stuff requires you to explore.

-Factions are living and breathing in this world. If you kill a shopkeeper? He doesn't come back. If you murder a faction leader? Neither will he, though you might find that you're a kill on sight threat now to half of the map. Did you think you could walk around the United Cities while being poor? Think again, slave.

-The endgame is what you make of it. Set your own goals and fulfill them. There is no end-game cutscene — you are the story-teller.

-Build your own base. I've mentioned bases a lot by now, haven't I? Uh, yeah. Make multiple base if you want to. Make an empire if you're ambitious enough. Just expect to be attacked. A LOT. What? Are you telling me you don't try to raid and loot every settlement you come across? Why'd you expect Kenshi's NPCs to be any different?

-Character customization is superb. Saturation & Color sliders alongside significant choices that borders The Sims in terms of character creation. Don't like how your character turns out? Visit a plastic surgeon in-game. They'll even let you change your companion's name most of the time. Download mods if you aren't satisfied with the vanilla toolset.

I could honestly go on with this game. Kenshi's been in development for nearly 10 years and it really shows.

I know it's sacrilege to say this but, this is actually an early access game done right.

The soundtrack of this game alone is worth the price of purchase.

Gameplay is solid too. Manage a team of gladiators and WATCH. THEM. FIGHT!

Or invest everything into just one gladiator and turn him into a godless killing machine.

Naval Action presents one of the most unique and revolutionary attempts at melding an MMORPG with a "World of Warships" style gameplay. As someone with 600+ hours and on a hiatus since this game's Early Access Steam launch, I can truly say that this is one of the more ambitious games on the market which will unfortunately be both its strength and weakness. It goes without saying that Naval Action will be in early access for the indefinite future, with many massive features such as whether there will be an "over world" section of the game or not still on the chopping block. This and many other important "MMORPG" aspects such as trading, PvP, PvE, in my eyes are still yet to be finalized by the developers' vision, which I confirmed after observing discussions of this game's future with developers on their Naval Action forums.

It is important to list this project's current faults to anyone considering purchase in the forseeable future (months or so from writing this review at the least):

-Player population is dismal. Will spike when major content releases like most MMORPGs experience player traffic, however Naval Action is considerably more niche in the genre and sees maybe 1000~ players on generous days. When Naval Action releases on Steam fully, it must truly be impressive to maintain a truly enjoyable playerbase for a game of this scope.

-Most population/interest is focused in the European zone. If you want a truly "massive" experience, you will learn to accept European latency.

-Development is slow and often times due not just to a small dev team, but rather their circular decisions on some core aspects of the game. For instance, in the short few weeks I was active the dev team consistently patched varying versions of the "PvP tag circle" mechanic which would initiate battles. While a rather divisive issue in the community, the developers' responses/patches were usually delayed and they ultimately went back and forth on their decision to this mechanic multiple times. I wonder how much developer time was wasted on this indecisiveness, when they could have been improving other aspects of this game so desperately lacking? (PvE, Exploring, Tracking, Economy, Quests, UI, etc.)

-Bare bones. The combat simulator portion of this game is enjoyable, but so far Naval Action fails to sell the idea that you are a Naval Captain in a truly massive conflict where players pull the strings. Expect dull trade runs, "fishing" by pressing a button, zero quests, and very boring PvE battles to farm up ranks to use better ships. Casual players beware.

Now let's discuss the positive aspects of Naval Action:

-If you're a fan of historical naval tactics, engagements, naval vessels, etc. from about 1600-1820, you will be greatly impressed at this game's attention to detail. Battles lack the "arcade" feel, while not being completely boring, especially if two players finally commit to a sea battle. Expect 30+ minutes of fighting where every shot counts, de-masts are devastating, and managing your crew/repairs both on the open sea and in battles are crucial to your career and survival. Digital ships are modelled straight from primary historical sources with amazing graphical fidelity.

-Developers are active and intertwined with their community. While they are subject to criticism, apathy on the forums is not one of them. Funding does not seem to be an issue either, so do not expect development to stall purely because of money.

-Scope. Macro-management. Immersion. While nowhere near its final implementation, I feel the developers' vision of nations full of players fighting/politicking/backstabbing/and monopolizing the Caribbean in a purely player-driven experience all with an 18th century flair can be fully realized. EVE Online is often used as inspiration in Naval Action's development, but it's clear the devs here are interested in striking their own path. Even lacking in its physical form, I feel this is still a pro in my eyes as so few games these days have this kind of ambition.

So down to the final question: Should you buy it?

My answer is: No. Until this game releases, I would not spend your money unless you're truly interested in shaping this game's future. Currently, it is still in VERY early development and ultimately boring once you've gotten your fill of the naval combat simulator Naval Action truly is at this point. Not an MMORPG. I eagerly await Naval Action's launch and to see if the developers' vision truly holds to their promises.

-Carr

SPOILERS AHEAD: I'm a fan of Stanley Parable and this game bothered me considerably. Once you do some research into the game, you realize that the "Coda" character Davey keeps narrating about is a stand-in for himself. I even went as far as to read Davey's personal blogs after the game since he leaves the idea about Coda being an actual person relatively ambigious, only to have my suspicions more or less confirmed.

I really enjoyed the unique, fresh breath of air that Stanley Parable was in the gaming industry with thousands of hours logged across many games. This game, however, perplexes me because of its allegory for the developer suffering such anxiety and stress over having achieved much more success with Stanley Parable than he originally anticipated. This is odd in itself, but let's say The Beginner's Guide is actually Davey's way of coping with the stress: Why am I paying him 5 dollars for it? That sounds like an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing to say, but hear me out.

Ultimately, this game made me feel like Davey tore himself apart after making Stanley Parable. If he wants to make games to help himself feel better or communicate that to his audience, that's cool and whatever, but it's a bit immoral to ask for cash while presenting a veil of artistic integrity for what is essentially a self-destructive sob story in my eyes. If anything, the cash compensation's only purpose would be to affirm that Davey's negative feelings are appropriate, especially with the acclaim this game got. That may sound harsh, but it's really because the dev that made Stanley Parable has some amazing talent, and I feel like I wanted him back after playing this game. If anything, The Beginner's Guide shows you still have the skill to write a good story, but I would want to see it used for less self-destructive things if the success of Stanley Parable was so heart-wrenching for you.

-Carr