Recent reviews by Ziggy

This is a really hard decision to make but ultimately I have chosen to leave a negative review out of disappointment rather than anything the game itself directly does, but rather what it does NOT do.
(Spoilers ahead.)

This game and all it is, if it could be summed up briefly would be "A Tease" or a sense of "Teasing".

It scratches all the perfect itches of wanting to "start from nothing" or "lower station", and build your character into a Tyrant or Humble Ruler of an empire but never really truly grants that opportunity.

You never get to really explore the possibility that it teases you the whole game and I can not recommend it because of that.

It would have been and easy 10/10 recommend if it let you actually command and rule and follow through with the powers you get, but it never truly does.

You get dropped off just before you get the ball rolling and it completely crushes all the value of the build up unto that point.

All the choices and consequences of the players actions are left effectively on a "cliff hanger" rather than actually being properly explored and traversed.

(It is like writing the prologue to a story that has yet been written or told, you get to play in the early parts, but never ride the wave to the end of it, only getting to about half way at best, before stopping.)

So much potential into being able to have such a lived through and flushed out back story and early main story you make for your character, and yet you can never truly experience that finality.

It is truly a let down and disappointment that we as the player get to lose out on that experience.

As the ending states it is "the heralding the end of one long campaign and the beginning of another."

This last line hurts far more than anything else for me.

Perhaps if we were to ever have a Tyranny 2 this could be fixed and I would change my review due to the nature of needing to continue the story progression in the next game, but because we only have the 1 Tyranny, I have to leave a negative as it only leave a sour taste of a high scope project that leave the player wanting more, but never granting that reward and experience.

This is why if I could summarize the game in a single word it would be "tease".

You learn about all these characters back story, lore, "language", ancient writings, glyps, and symbols, so much rich writing and history only to never be given answers to any of it.

The majority of it is "left to player interpretation".

I can appreciate wanting players to think and imagine for themselves but when you put this much work into the "hype" of reaching that peak only to say "use your imagination"" it leaves me dissatisfied and upset for the lack of a better description.


In all fairness the core game itself and all that it offers is very much a easy 8/10 experience and a strong recommend for any CRPG fan, but due to the nature of how progression is handled and the lack of a satisfying conclusion I have to leave it negative.

The build up is honestly unmatched in this genre space.
It is by no means perfect, but from what I believe it set out to do, it does that concept quite well.
It is just a shame that we will likely never see it laid out in full.

This game would be better off as a Arcade Cabinet Shooter rather than a PC release.
Having players insert coin, with a Sudo House of the Dead like story would probably have been the better play.


This game destroys everything that make the first game great.
There only a handful of positives this game adds to the series, and as a whole adds nothing to the series, and would be better off forgotten or regulated to fan fiction.

F.E.A.R. 2 was already pushing in that direction, but F.E.A.R. 3 takes that to a while another level.

I have a unhealthy obsession with this game.

They just don't make them like the used to.

For this review I am talking about the actual content and not the issues around said content.

That being said this class is pretty decent.

They are very much a glass cannon, and thus far is very very powerful in ranged damage as their main source, and then melee following, however that ranged damage is limited to a few weapon options that do said damage, not really the class as a whole.

Currently the Dual Smg's are very, very strong and are currenlty my favoirte gameplay around the class.

The custom stim mechanic is also a cool concept, however all things come together to offer a bit of a mixed bag.

Many aspect of this class are really fun, and then many others that bring it down.

First and foremost, the class is very squishy, more so than even a Psyker.

This makes their gameplay loop a Tight Rope walk.

You are either alive and well, or dead.

A similar class to this would be Vet as they get hit once or twice and they are on the floor, however Scum lack similar "passive" defence options and relies almost entirly on active effects and abilities to keep them alive.

This makes them have very high highs, and very low lows.

With that in mind, those highs are really really fun to enjoy.

As most people have mentioned it is not everyones cup of tea, but I think as the class gets explored a bit, some people will come around, but as of now the class just really adds nothing directly new to the game.

You have a few mechanics, but nothing that could not have been added to the other classes save the stim mechanic.

The Arb at least had a hound to change up the tradional gameplay, however here, it is just a stimmed up Zealot, and that hurts the class more than anything.

Gameplay is king, and when it suffers so does everything else.

As of writing I think I would reccomend it with the note to get it on sale unless you play difficulties Damnation or lower for your adverage player skill level.

If you have high skill I would say go ahead and pick them but, but just know that you will need to be more "locked in" than on any other class, however you will usually out preform your piers in gameplay, when you do so, more than any other class is capable of doing.

I for your adverage gamer I would say get on sale like $5 or $10, but for more veteran or skilled players this is a very decent class all things considered.

Personally I wish this class was pretty much anything other than Scum, it is just such a boring place to explore in the 40k world when so many other options are ripe for un-packing in the universe.

Overall i would give it a 7.5/10 leaning towards a 8/10.

The class has issues, but I think overall Arb was better, because not only was their more lore and content surrounding the Arb, but the class brought something new to the table, Scum really does not do that outside of the custom stim and to many that may not be enough.

Scum does have more cosmetic options than Arb did on launch, so if you like dress up, they have that covered.

Thus far as a new player the game is quite good, it has some indie charm to it, but also AA studio quality.

There is a lot to discuss about all the elements of the game, but the short in sweet is that it is a pleasant surprise.

It has very good open world exploration, player freedom, and is very fair in how it conducts itself.

The story is odd, but builds itself rather nicely, but is a bit confusing in it's presentation.
The characters are really well crafted, with limited classical sterotypes.

There are character that you would expect to be present, but none go out of there way too impose.
The english VA work is decent, but not all are created equal.

The combat once you get going is quite hack & slash, but has open ended freedom in how you want to craft your own character and team.

There appears to be limited character creation or cosmetics, so your character is already pre-defined.

You are on a roller-coaster and enjoying the ride in that aspect.

The echos offer some decent player freedom, but are limited by the elemental type of the character you attach them to, so it is almost always better to go with the prefered type rather than off set.

Which is a bit of ashame, while the defined elemental status offers more defined characters, it does limit your gameplay to the character than than any weapon, echo, or otherwise.

Meaning that characters gameplay is pretty much set in the stone the moment you collect them.
Which is a bit of a bummer.
Meaning that you as a player really do not have a lot of say in how the character preforms, but only improve there current capabilities.

It is a gatcha game due to that, so expect certain things to be unaccesable to free players, but they do offer quite the fair share of rewards so that you never feel the need to invest.

Which is ashame, because the game over all is good like a 7/10.
But could be better if it was a paid game with some minor dlc, but still offered the gatcha for in game earnable rewards, as you progress and so forth.

The gatcha holds it back personally, as the foundation is already quite nice, but it feels like something that is in the way rather than something that adds to the overall experience.

To conclude for a F2P game it is quite nice, and very likely top of the list when it comes to these types of games, it may not be the best overall, but it does do a lot right, which is hard to fault it for, given that it is free.

All you need to do, is
: Removed auto-aim all of it, you do not need it.

- (This includes the "perfect hit" mechanic/stat, so it treats it like a "normal hit" meaning no "initial attack animation" and instead acts like a m1, into the "drinking blood" animation.
This means the survivor can move right after the hit (Into deep wound) instead of being animation locked.
Ken is however animation locked to the animation until blood drinking is over.)

: Allow him to Down after the initial deep wound while in enraged (I.E. Must be Enraged to get the down, if outside of "Stage 2", the down is not possible, however he can repeat the "deep wound attack" from stage 1 to re-enter stage 2, but it will NOT cause a down. ), if he uses 2 leaps to then down on the 3rd.
: Fix Add-ons to facilitate this play-style.

This will give him much more fluidity, while giving the survivors mind games and counters to his power.
He can not down unless it is the 3rd attack, meaning he needs to know map terrain and how far he can go to best land that hit.
And if he misses, his power goes on CD.

With the New Ghost of Yotei on the ridge line, I thought I would go ahead and just reccomend Ghost of Tsushimia.

This game is beautiful in every single aspect.

The visuals, the story, the discovery.

The gameplay is bit hit or miss, but once you master the flow, it really starts to shine.

I do have my fears for it's sequal however.

They appear to be using the same engine as Tsushimia, to which I have no direct issue with.
It is a beautiful engine.
it is just my looming sense of dread that I can not shake, that makes me think it's sequal will be a glorified DLC for Tsushima.

I can not directly prove my suspecions, but that is what my gut is telling me.
Nothing wrong with the DLC to a great game, however it is selling as a brand new game, and I hope the trailers have just done it an injustice.

My main concerns lie in gameplay refinement of the first.
Tsushima had its fair share of gameplay mechanics that were weird, flow breaking, or unreliable.
And from the trailers it does not appear they have great added to it's core design, leveling the feeling of "more of the same", rather than "the same but more".

Like I can understand the struggles to add new mechanics when your limited with your games settings and history, however it is a video game, not a movie, so some minor liberation is required to prevent losing a more casual audience.

From the trailers it looks and feels the same, or at least very similar, but I am concerned that not much was really done with this new entry into the series.

For example the story in Tsushima was about the struggles of honor vs dishonor.
But in Yotei were introduced into a brand new character whom we have never met in the same engine.

Furthermore with the only seemingly major plot point being a revenge hit list.
rather than anything more Philosphical like the first game.

This leads me to believe that Yotei, will very likely be reminicant to Ubisoft AC type games rather than stick to what made Tsushima so great.

Similar to the way Arcane Season 2 was treated over Season 1.

It was most likely a product of it's time with the right people at the right time.

However this is all just personal feelings over anything concrete or substainiated.

I could be completely wrong about Yotei, and the trailers are just holding back, showing the more weaker parts of the game.

But I have yet seen anything that would indicate otherwise, so either way I will hold my reservations until it comes out.

Just wanted to share my ongoing thoughts about Tsushima.

It is a really great game, and would be best experienced with no knowledge about the game or it's mechanics at all if you have been so fortunate as to not have looked into it.

It is just simply a breathtaking experience that sometimes overstays it welcome, but satisfies non the less.

I can NOT in good faith recommended KF3 for the following reasons.

1. At the forefront. This game is NOT a Killing Floor game. Not in the expected sense.
It is at best a soft "reboot" of the franchise.
(Similar to COD MW (2019).
It has too many Different Mechanics, Systems, characters, tone, weapons, feel, and just overall as a whole.
Completely different design to previous Killing Floor games.
The ONLY similarities are the Perks, Trader, Horzine, & Waves.
Everything else is foundationally different from previous titles.

2. UE5. Ever since UE4, unreal has just not been built for games without a LOT of heavy lifting to fine tune all the important aspect of what makes a game feel good to play.
Things like player movement, player speed, animations, etc.
All the major things important to ANY game are just super weak base kit in any UE project.
And all of that is almost completly missing here.
It is all bare bones, with very little adjustments or really any at all from the base UE5 kits.

3. Tone. This is arguably one of the major pillars that made up Killing Floor as a series.
In KF1 you had a grunge, grime, funny British jokes & slang people mucking about, sexy trader, and heavy metal music.
In KF2 you had si-fi tech zeds, with bio-science & robots, fancy tech, and more explosions that a Michel Bay movie.
In KF3 all of those things are gone in favor of even more "serious" evil tech, and writing that would make Wolfenstine : The Young-blood jealous.
It just has no rhyme or reason to be in the game but it is here and it is here to take your humor & good times away.

KF as a series was never this serious, grey, or "bland".
Even in KF1 where it was the Grimyest had great moments of light heartedness, to act as contrast to the blood and violence.
But here all you get is very, very, very, very bland one liners that really do not make sense, or even follow the characters.
Mr. Foster (From the UK) is speaking Spanish and German on the ocassion ffs.
Like his character can barely speak British english let alone another languange, especially when he is half drunk.
It makes no sense to his previously known character, and this is why I say it is a soft "reboot", rather than a true sucessor to KF2.

4. Audio, or more specifically sound.
ALL, and I mean ALL the audio in this game is terrible, from metal sounds, to shooting bullets and fire, everything sounds fundimentally terrible.
Guns act like plastic toys, VA paired with the writing make it seem like every line was a first take.
Music is generic for a game renouned for it hit metal music, and soundtracks.

5. Crafting. I mentioned this before and I will be a bit more in depth here.
Crafting on it's own is not bad.
The problems lies in how the rarity system ties back into it.
Each Perk has 4 weapons and it goes from White (Common), Green (Uncommon), Blue (Rare), and Purple (Epic).
However each tier requires more dosh to obtain.
This means that even if you max out your White (Common) Ar, that you spawn into the game with, you are just gonna sell it in the pod, for a better rarity weapon.
And sense you can not upgrade rarity at all, as all the weapon are flat rarity, it means that Higher is ALWAYS better, and there is no point to maxing out an early weapon, as by round 3 you already have the highest rarity weapon, making most dosh pointless, and only used for resupplying your healing stims & armor.

This system is foundationally broken, because it takes the KF2's sytems and Completly removed player freedom, over having a high powered "end game" mission weapon.

This in reguards to just common sense game balance makes no sense.
It means that the ONLY player goal aside from just beating the mission is getting that high cost weapon.
NOTHING ELSE matters, That cool green shotgun? Forget it, damage is garabge, and the ammo burns to fast?
What about the starting pistol?
Surily I can make it better right?
Sure but it will cost you an arm and a leg, and it is just better to run two Main hand weapons instead.

Things like this are why the system is flawed, and means the ONLY weapon worth crafting into are the late game weapons, as the waves progress way too fast, and the cost for the weapons to great to really consiider anything else.

Even if it were a balanced system, it just means that I have a White (Common) for two waves and then im forced to sell it in 2.
Forcing me to switch to a wepaon i dislike over better stats.

COD COLD WAR did it better, and that game had a very similar flawed system.

6. Enemy Design.
Grey, grey, grey, light grey, dark grey, red grey (Is that even a color?), black, some dark green and Yellow, tan, more grey, and red, red, some more red, and a hint of slight yellow, but more very very dark orange.

That sums up the design of the enemies,
Forget the Iconic yellow and orange Husk, now he is dark grey and red.
Forget the Iconic tall white and brown apron Skrake, now his kind of tall, black & grey, and nearly completely metal.
Forget the mostly flesh siren who's iconic scream still rings in my head to this day.
Now you have a very freaky Egyptian lady neck thing that sounds worse than the best sounding X-Box live kid from 2013.
Forget the bloat who waddles around and stood out from the crowd as a large fat zed, that is now a average walmart shopper who lost their scooter in favor for ranged acid damage.
Forget the iconic bosses of the Killing Floor series, such as the Patriarch who had been a staple boss since the first game, the brutal and unforgiving Matriarch, whose plasma and eletric attacks are still seared into my memory. Forget this disgusting Abombination. . .on second thought it was probably fine it did not return.
Dr. Hanz Volter. The mad scientist that was a push over, but was still funny to see ragdoll during his phases.

All of it is just gone.
Over half the base roster is also gone.
No clot types such as the slasher, or the alpha clot, only the cyst remains.
No more Elite Crawlers, instead we get tiny more anyoying ones.
No more rioter, who boosted nearby zeds.
No more stalkers, who iconic invisibility gave to the rise and purpose of the commando perk,
No more Funny anything, skin replacements, or silly events, just pure "surious" that the in game cast does not treat as a reality.
(Think Back 4 Blood, and it will make crystal clear sense).

7. Maps.
KF2 and evne KF1 maps were by no means revolutionalry, but more to KF2 who had iconic maps such as Airship with map specific mechanics and interations like the purple side objectives, or how the airship had unique "traps" next to the engine bay that could trap zed and players alike.
Or such a the map Kraumps lair who had a Small map to start, but as the waves progress you got to explore the map more as the game went on.
All the maps in KF3 Lack any real charm and are just used for set dressing.
KF2 was guilty of this at times, but KF3 takes it to the next level of pointless.
ONLY thing saving them are the new "gadgets" like the zipline.

IN ALL of the aspects that make Killing Floor, Killing Floor, are either completely changed, re-worked, removed, altered, or outright destroyed that this can no longer be called a Killing Floor game.

It would be like if Star Wars removed Lightsabers, the Force, or the concept of "Jedi & Sith".
It would be like if Halo removed the Warthog, Scorpion Tank, or Magnum.
It would be like of COD removed Warzone, Captain Price, Create a Class, or riot shield.
It would be like if COD Zombies removed Perk-A-Cola's, Wall buys, Mystery Box.

That is is what makes up Killing Floor 3 and it feels like just a let down.
That is to say the game as is, is not "bad", but it is no where even remotely close to a Killing Floor game.

If Battlefield had BF2042
Killing Floor has KF3.

The game was the last true "Call of Duty" game.
Marking the end of an Era, and moving on to the next. (BO1-MW3).
In the essence it was true to war, it's effects, and the interactions between a regular grunt solider fighting for the "Duty" of their country.

We would and will likely never see this side of COD ever again.
It is just a simply fact that this level of care and mastery of game design is pretty much lost to the ages.
Same with Quake 1 & 2, Doom 1 & 2, HL 1 & 2, Halo 1-3, Etc.

To that end, this will forever be my favorite COD next only to BO1.
MW2 was great, but the feeling I got from the others could not be replicated.

They were and still are to this day pure Masterpieces.
people have tried and failed to replicate the magic that was crafted between these two games, and it has yet to be redone.

WAW was my first introduction into zombies, and the core of that game-mode.
it created THE most iconic identity for COD to this day, aside from perhaps MW2 and BO2 Multiplayer.

WAW is still to this day the best FPS WW2 shooter on the market, that still holds up today.
Granted it is not perfect, nothing ever is.
But what is misses it lands 10 more.

If you have not played WAW, your missing out on a good time, great sound track, horrors of war, and Vicktor\ Resnov.

10/10 game, a bit sad age has not been super kind to it (Engine Limitations, requiring a bit of modern day elbow grease to get working favorably), but as a whole it is best in class.

7/10 : Rank High B Tier

Current Listing Price : $59.99
Personal Listing Price : $30.00

Recommended Listing Price : $40.00
Listing Price Value as a Complete Package : (Campaign, Multiplayer, Zombies) : $45.00

Personal Value Lost In : Pacing, replay ability, memorability.
Main Value Lost In : Limited game scope and commitment, story execution, and poor game-play design mechanics.

End Verdict : At best Get on Sale for half off. At worst, not really worth your time and is best to be skipped.
Selling points : Visuals, Effects, Animations, VA (Mostly), Minor Game-play Mechanics, Cinematography, Art Direction.
Reasoning : Game-Play is King, Story is Queen, Everything else follows.


Ending Thoughts :
Sucks to say in all honesty, but it is a fact that must be said.
This COD (Like a lot of the others) while has the bones of potentially being an S tier game, just leaves the player wishing they would have done more with the main concepts.

All of it generally falls short of the mark.
Especially the main antagonist.
COD for the most part of it's history has done fairly well with it's antagonists for the tone of the game they make.
(Makarov, Shepard ((Kinda)), BO1, Menendez, Nazi Germany, Even Rorke from Ghosts was better).
However here it is by far the worst out of every COD ever.
The writing, the VA, the direction and even the interactions with them are all horrendous.
Like the end to a bad joke. The only other Villain in COD history that comes as close to this level of bad is the Main antagonist in Vanguard, yet that has it's own unique problems.
Here it is just THE most bland and uninteresting villain in I would say near all of media.
At least others get my blood boiling or let me understand their POV.
Here it is just (-_- "Mars Aeternum").

The only differences between him are a piece of cardboard is that he has a name, and is willing to die for Mars.
Aside from that, it would be better for the game as a whole if he did not exist and we were just fighting the "SDF", however even then they would be extremely uninteresting.
Nothing is done with their commitment to Mars let alone expanded upon.
A single background character in your main ships crew have more personality than the entire identity of the SDF.
The only thing saving them from being the worst villains in history is their art design. Even then is just colored Red (SDF) instead of Blue (UNSA).
Very little difference than Team 1 and Team 2.

The best way I can explain it, is that despite their game-play differences, this is what you could have gotten IF Titan-fall 2 was created to be a B tier game it would be THIS.
Like Titan-Fall 2's younger brother who looks up to his older brother trying to reach that same level of "charm/quality".

Mind you it is a really great B tier game, but a B tier game non-the less.
Probably THE best B tier game that has and will ever be created by mortal men's hands.

For example Ghosts was overall below average, but at least it had its charm & personality, this set out to achieve S tier levels of quality, but landed at the finish line in B, and feels sorry that it achieved that wishing it did better, asking for pity with it's teary eyes. Not quite reaching pathetic, but definitely desperate.
Not even wanting to stand proud that it made it to the end.

COD:IW summed up in one word it would be : Lacking.

Personal Conclusion : Vanguard is worse, AW is worse, a little better than Ghosts, slightly better than WW2, but Pass none the less.