Recent reviews by TTV/Divuad

I don't usually sink hundreds of hours into a game unless it really grabs me—and 7 Days to Die grabbed me hard. At this point, with 689 hours played, I can safely say it's one of the most addictive and rewarding survival games out there.

What makes it stand out is the mix of survival, crafting, exploration, and base-building. When you first spawn in, the world feels brutal—you're scrounging for food, patching together a shelter, and praying the zombies don't find you before you're ready. But as you play, you start to feel yourself grow. You upgrade your tools, build better defenses, and unlock skills that make survival less about panic and more about strategy. That slow, satisfying progression is what keeps me coming back.

And then there's the Blood Moon. No matter how many times I prepare, that seventh night (or whatever it's set to if you're playing on a dedicated server) always makes my heart race. Watching the sky turn red, listening to the silence before the storm, and then fighting wave after wave of zombies crashing through your defenses—it's pure adrenaline. Sometimes you survive with flying colors, other times your whole base collapses and you're running for your life. Either way, it's always memorable.

What I love the most is the freedom. You can spend hours designing your dream fortress, dig an underground bunker, or just live in a small cabin in the woods—it's all up to you. I've had bases with elaborate traps, giant towers, and even simple dirt huts, and each one changed how I played the game. On days I don't feel like building, I'll go exploring instead, looting towns, scavenging supplies, and stumbling into terrifying encounters.

Playing with friends is another level entirely. Splitting up jobs—one person farming, another fortifying, another going on supply runs—makes the game feel like a real survival team effort. Some of my favorite gaming memories are from chaotic horde nights, with everyone yelling in voice chat on Discord, zombies tearing down walls, and us barely making it until morning. Win or lose, it's always hilarious and unforgettable.

Even after all these hours, I still find new ways to play. Every map feels different, every horde night plays out in its own way, never repeating itself, and the freedom to experiment with base designs or survival strategies means the game never gets stale. That's rare for any game, let alone one I've spent close to 700 hours in.

The devs also deserve credit for how far the game has come. It's constantly improving— better graphics, smoother mechanics, and new features that keep things fresh. Also, who can forget about the glorious thing called mod support! You can really tell it's a labor of love.

At the end of the day, 7 Days to Die is the perfect mix of creativity, tension, and fun. It's not just about surviving zombies—it's about building something that feels like your own, overcoming the odds, and laughing through the chaos with friends.

If you enjoy survival games, base-building, or just want a game that keeps you coming back night after night, I can't recommend 7 Days to Die enough. Worth every single one of my 689 hours.

10/1-0 — Would survive another Blood Moon.

Icarus Review: Survive the Storm, Reap the Planet
Few survival games dare to be as ambitious—or as punishing—as Icarus. Developed by RocketWerkz, a studio led by DayZ creator Dean Hall, Icarus is a unique session-based PvE survival experience that challenges players not only to endure a hostile alien planet but to do so under the ticking pressure of timed missions. Released in December 2021, and constantly updated since, Icarus continues to evolve with new biomes, features, and content. But what makes it stand out in a genre filled with familiar tropes? In a word: tension.

A Dangerous New World
Set in a future where humanity’s attempt to terraform the planet Icarus has gone catastrophically wrong, the game places players in the role of prospectors—mercenaries who drop from orbit to the planet’s surface to complete missions, gather rare materials called “exotics,” and return to space before time runs out. The planet’s biosphere is corrupted and unstable, and the environmental hazards are as deadly as the predators that roam its forests, deserts, tundras, and mountains.

The story is simple, but effective. It doesn’t distract from the gameplay and serves as a logical justification for the core mechanic: mission-based drops. Unlike traditional survival games where players build a base over many hours or days, Icarus resets the clock with each new session. You land with minimal gear, scavenge and craft tools, build shelters, complete your objective, and escape before your timer hits zero. It’s an elegant fusion of roguelike stakes with survival mechanics.

Gameplay: Brutal but Rewarding
The survival loop in Icarus is deep and engaging. You start each mission with nothing but your suit and a knife (if you brought one from orbit), and must immediately begin collecting resources: wood for tools, stone for weapons, and food to keep your stamina up. Experience is earned from everything—cutting trees, mining rocks, hunting animals—and with each level, you unlock new crafting recipes and skills.

The tech tree is divided into three tiers: primitive (stone, bone), intermediate (iron, steel), and advanced (electronics, fabricators, oxygenators). Progression feels meaningful, especially when building your own path through the many available upgrades. Will you focus on combat gear to deal with wolves and bears? Or will you specialize in architecture and build hurricane-proof bunkers?

And you’ll need them. Weather in Icarus is more than a backdrop—it’s a force of nature. Lightning storms, snow squalls, sandstorms, acid rain, and other phenomena can wreck your structures, obscure your vision, and even kill you outright if you’re unprepared. Each biome has its own dangers, and each mission its own risks. This environmental hostility forces players to take planning seriously and builds a tension that permeates every prospect.

Combat in Icarus is impactful and deadly. Animals are fast and aggressive. Some missions introduce mutated or corrupted beasts with greater speed, durability, and aggression. Whether you’re using a bow, spear, or gun, victory often depends on preparation and positioning rather than brute force.

Session-Based Structure: A Fresh Take
The game’s defining feature is its session-based mission system. Each mission drops players into a new area (or a familiar one with different parameters) with a clear goal and a time limit. These objectives vary widely—some are simple (mine a rare ore), others are complex (escort a robot, survive in a hostile zone, or build and protect an outpost). Successfully completing a mission rewards you with in-game currency and exotics, which can be spent in the orbital workshop to buy gear for future missions.

This meta-progression system gives long-term meaning to short-term missions. You might fail a mission, but the knowledge you gain, and the blueprints you unlock, persist. There’s always a sense of forward momentum—even if that momentum comes with hard-earned lessons.

Multiplayer vs. Solo Play
Icarus supports up to 8 players per session, and co-op play is where the game truly shines. Specializing into roles—builders, hunters, miners, medics—allows teams to thrive in ways solo players often can’t. That said, the game has dedicated solo talent trees that grant bonuses to lone wolves, and with enough skill, playing alone is not only viable—it can be exhilarating.

The shared pressure of storm clouds gathering overhead, a timer ticking down, and predators lurking in the dark creates genuine moments of camaraderie and tension. It’s survival in the truest sense—together or alone.

Presentation and Performance
Visually, Icarus is stunning. It runs on Unreal Engine 4 and delivers lush biomes filled with swaying trees, dynamic weather effects, and realistic lighting. From glowing cave fungi to thundering blizzards, the atmosphere is consistently immersive. However, it’s worth noting that the game launched with significant performance issues, including crashes and stuttering. Many of these have been addressed through regular updates, but players with lower-end systems may still struggle to hit stable frame rates on high settings.

The audio design deserves special praise. The environmental soundscape is rich with rustling wind, distant animal cries, and the ominous rumble of approaching storms. Music is sparse, letting the planet speak for itself—except during mission milestones, when dramatic orchestration punctuates your progress.

Replayability and Longevity
With new missions, biomes, and enemies being added regularly, Icarus is a living game. RocketWerkz has expanded beyond its original vision, introducing Open World mode (where players can explore and build without mission time limits), Outposts (build-friendly zones), and new exotic extraction mechanics. These additions significantly improve replayability for players who want more sandbox elements alongside the session structure.

Still, Icarus may not appeal to everyone. The grind-heavy progression and time-based pressure can feel repetitive or exhausting for some. It also lacks PvP, which may turn away fans of games like Rust or ARK who crave player-driven conflict. But for players who enjoy focused, goal-oriented PvE survival with high stakes and environmental realism, Icarus hits a sweet spot few games can match.

Conclusion: A Rough Gem for the Prepared
Icarus is a game that rewards patience, strategy, and resilience. It’s not about power fantasy—it’s about learning from your mistakes, respecting the environment, and preparing for the worst. It combines the thrill of exploration with the tension of survival, all wrapped in a high-fidelity, sci-fi aesthetic that feels both familiar and alien.

While not perfect, and occasionally overwhelming, Icarus stands as a bold experiment in survival game design. It carves its own path with session-based structure, brutal weather systems, and an ever-evolving world. For players willing to invest the time and effort, there are few survival games more intense or satisfying.

My personal rating of Icarus when I first played it: 8.5/10
My personal rating of Icarus now, with almost 600 hours invested in it: 9.5/10
Would you recommend this product to others: I would definitely recommend Icarus to a friend.
It's definitely worth every penny.
I liked every aspect about Icarus except that there was no actual "pause game" feature until recently.
Implementing the ability to fully pause the game if you had to go AFK is a HUGE game changer.
Now, I can pause and go take care of any IRL issues that may arise and not have to worry about
coming back to my desk and find that my character died from lack of food and water.

I have really enjoyed playing Conan Exiles. I was skeptical at first but, the more I played the game, the more I've come to love this game. The content of the game is great. You can do so much in this game, it's crazy. The combat aspect is great. You can tame creatures to be your companions and you can convert NPC Humans to be your companions as well.

The aspect of the game that I truly enjoy the most is the building. You can literally build anything you want in the game. The only thing that limits you is your imagination. You can build a castle if you wanted to, or a giant fortress. The crafting is really in-depth as well. The mod selection for this game is over the top. Overall, I'd give this game a 9.7/10. Really great game, overall.

I have 47 hours into this game and I bought it just a few days ago. I'm barely at 30% completion and there's still SO MUCH more content that this game has to offer. I highly recommend this game to both Harry Potter fans and non Harry Potter fans alike. If you love Fantasy-Science Fiction and Open-World, then you'll absolutely love this game. It's the Harry Potter game that we've all been waiting for.

This game literally offers EVERYTHING that would be a MUST-HAVE in the perfect Harry Potter game: open-world exploration, immersive game-world environment, beautiful and highly detailed game graphics, gripping and immersive story, flawless combat mechanics, crafting, gathering, in-depth dialogue system, interactive NPCs, dynamic game-world environment, dungeon diving, and of course BROOM FLYING!

One of the main things I absolutely LOVE about this game is that every piece of gear can be trans-mogged. So for example, if you want a cloak with better stats to look like a cloak that you really like, you can do that. You can do the same to every piece of gear except for Wand Handles. Also, if you sell a piece of gear, it's design is permanently saved in the game's transmog memory.

The game definitely takes a lot of inspiration from the Dark Souls Games and The Witcher III: The Wild Hunt as far as control mechanics and combat mechanics go. It also takes a little bit of inspiration from Monster Hunter as well. I would personally rate this game 10.5/10. This game is absolutely amazing!

I've played many MMO's over the course of my life, from Old School Runescape to World of Warcraft. Final Fantasy XIV is by far THE best MMO that I have ever played. I first started on the free trial version, which allows you to enjoy the awesomeness of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn and the first expansion, Heavensward up until level 60. I enjoyed the game so much, that I actually bought the Starter Edition on Steam even before I hit level cap.

There's so much in-game content to explore and with the free trial, you can take your time and play the game at your liesure and set your own pace. Unlike other MMO free trials like WoW, only allow you to play up until level 20. Square Enix wants new players to take their time to get into the game, enjoy it and play it at no given set pace.

I've found the FFXIV Game Community very wholesome and supportive. Almost everyone is supportive and kind. Every game has their bad apples but, there's not as many as one might think.

Sure there are som drawbacks to the free trial. Such as, you can't trade items with players, access the market board, join Free Companies (clans or guilds), send mail or create parties. I actually didn't mind this at all. It's a very small price to pay for being able to explore the full base game AND the first expansion for absolutely free! If you do end up enjoying the game enough to get it, the monthly subscription is $15 every month or you can do a non-recurring subscription and only pay for when you want to play.

The Starter Edition on Steam is $20 and includes the full base game (A Realm Reborn) and the first expansion (Heavensward). I personally rate this game 20/10. There's tons of sidequests to do, crafting jobs, dungeons, raids and many different classes to choose from AND you can do EVERYTHING all on one single character. Unlike MMOs like World of Warcraft, where you can only have 1 specific class per character (Warrior, Rogue, Paladin.) On Final Fantasy XIV you can be: Base Classes: Maruader, Warrior, Lancer, Dragoon, Conjurer, White Mage, Archer, Bard, Pugilist, Monk, Rogue, Ninja, Gladiator, Paladin, Arcanist, Scholar, Summoner, Thaumaturge, and Black Mage ALL ON ONE SINGLE CHARACTER! Other classes that unlock at level 50 and after completing the level 50 Main Story Quest "Before The Dawn" are: Dark Knight, Gunbreaker, Astrologian, Sage, Samurai, Reaper, Machinist, Dancer, Red Mage and Blue Mage.

In conclusion, there's SO much that Final Fantasy XIV has to offer. Don't just take my word for it. However, it should be taken into consideration that I've put over 400+ hours into Final Fantasy XIV and I'm not even level 60 yet and that's WITH leveling and avidly playing almost every single day. Go and check it out for yourself.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this lengthy longer than I wanted it to be Game Review of Final Fantasy XIV.

p.s. If you would as to be so kind, you can use my recruit-a-friend code 5CW9SQS7 and get a bunch of really cool bonus items in-game! It will also give me a bunch of cool in-game items as well. Win-win.

I've played other sandbox RTS games like this in the past, like Tropico and SimCity. I've never come across a game like this before or played a game like this before in my entire life.

The element of realism that the developer put into this game is absolutely amazing. The level of immersion in this game is outstanding. It honestly makes you feel like that you're actually the leader of your colony. I honestly love this game so much.

With that being said, there are somethings that someone new to this game, should know.
The game gets VERY realistic. Let's just talk about housing for example. You start off with Wood Houses. Your villagers or townsfolk will use firewood to keep warm during the Winter season. They will end up using more firewood overtime if their houses aren't upgraded to a Stone House. Other things like, you will need to build a Woodcutters Shop in order to get more firewood and you will need to build a Blacksmith Forge to get more tools. There's a lot of realistic detail in the game that I hated at first but later on, came to appreciate.

As a one last quick bit, play through all of the tutorial scenarios. They teach you EVERYTHING that you'll need to having a successful colony/village that will last the test of time!

I've played this game in both the Closed Beta and Open Beta phases, so I've personally seen the game when in it was in it's most buggiest state to where it is now. It's definitely come a long way.

I would personally recommend this game. New World's developers, Amazon Game Studios really paid attention to key factors that made other well known MMO's successful and what key flaws caused major issues.

New World has a few things that need some slight tweaking done but they are not game breaking or major issues. The jump mechanic as an example needs some slight tweaking to make it perfect. There are some other game play mechanics that need to implemented, like a swimming mechanic for example.

Overall, I'd personally give New World a 8.7/10. I give it this score because out of all the MMO's that i've played over the years, it's not the greatest but it's also not the worst and i've played some HORRIBLE MMO's.
Thank you for taking the time to read my review of New World and have a wonderful day!

Most sincerely and respectfully,
Divuad

If you're into the paranormal or like spooky shows like Ghost Adventures and The Holzer Files, then you'll love this game! You can channel your inner Zak Baggins without even leaving the comfort of your own home! Word of warning though, don't anger the Oni!!

It's awesome

I like this expansion to WH40K than any of the others. It's great and amazing at the same time. It's worth every single penny.