Recent reviews by GhostOps

Simply put, a fun little incremental excursion by Caiys. Is this their magnum opus? No, but it is a solid enjoyable couple of hours at the very least.

I personally recommend the Grinder difficulty as normal felt like breezing through without much reading or looking at what you're upgrading.

Just a great game overall! Well-tuned and balanced with each character having unique playstyles and a multitude of possible builds. Smooth movement and controls, and just is overall a joy to play. I wouldn't hesitate to buy at full price let alone on sale. 9.5/10

Alright it's bout time to review this gem. Bought it in early February from a youtuber suggestion figuring that $3 would at worst be a minor loss. Dang was it worth that and more! Great game to challenge yourself with crazy builds or relax with a podcast/video on the second monitor with OP builds. A tremendous update and support schedule every week or two for months and months that continues to this day (albeit at a slower pace, but there's hardly any bugs left I imagine), when poncle could've easily just cashed in and left.

Easily one of the best purchases in gaming I've ever made. 10/10

First and foremost. ROCK AND STONE TO THE BONE!

2024: Still amazing. Have some minor gripes here and there with GSG, but still good overall.

A 2022 update. Hundreds of hours later, it's still an outstanding gem. Still has a great community that wildly overshadows the toxic people. Still a wonderful Dev that continues their battlepass/season system that is the best in the business. A truly 10/10, no questions. Best $15 I've probably spent in gaming in my life. I find myself sometimes in other games hitting "V" by instinct to cheer, only leaving myself disappointed. R&S!

Original 2021:
What an awesome game. A truly outstanding community. I can count on one hand the amount of toxic players I have encountered, but uncountable the great and friendly ones. I was unsure of this game when I first tried it on a free-to-play weekend. Bought it for ~$15 on Humble store on a whim to try it again a year later, and I fell in love the second time. It gives me that co-op fix that I used to get from Left4Dead 2. Easy to learn but harder to master, but you eventually get the feel and flow of each class and how they mesh together.

And now with the "season/battle pass", GSG continues to deliver to this gem, for no cost. All micro-transactions are purely cosmetic and affect nothing gameplay wise. And I usually prefer the in-game stuff anyways. 10/10 Blackout Stouts for everyone!

I'll preface this first by saying, if you did not play these games in your youth, you'll probably not enjoy these nearly as much as if you did. They are old games and were pioneers of RTS games and as such do not have nearly the amount of QoL changes as you'd want if you're a newer gamer. Some of the workshop mods do help, but only so much.

That out of the way, let's get started.
First: The soundtrack. Frank Klepacki is back and better than ever. The music sounds incredible and is a huge selling point for myself over say openRA (which is still awesome). The remastered tracks are great and the teasers (those RA2/YR tracks!!!) and other songs by Klepacki and the Tiberium Sons are fantastic! Sound design overall is well done as well. 10/10 easily
Second: Gameplay. Clunky but fun. It's old and absolutely frustrating at higher difficulties, especially if you're used to newer RTS'. But it still nice overall. This part is the least changed, and only some of the QoL mods on the workshop help alleviate some of them, ie. rally points, better wall building, little better harvester ai, etc. Old players, 8/10, new players probably 5-6/10
Third: Graphics Overhaul/UI A very welcome and well done overhaul. Units look much nicer and easier to identify, great menus, easier build queue, etc. Solid but nothing groundbreaking. The use of AI to improve the FMV videos was admirable and better than old stuff, but you can tell it was limited due to the resolution the team was able to get. Still props to Jim and the team. 7.5/10

Overall, it's a great 8-9/10 for us older gamers, and a 6-7/10 for newer. This remaster has obviously had some soul poured into it and I'm glad EA actually let the old Westwood/Petroglyph guys work on this. But it's still fundamentally an old game.
KANE LIVES! PEACE THROUGH POWER! (And hopefully one day a great Tiberian Sun, Red Alert 2/Yuri's Revenge remaster in due time.)

This game will go down as one of my favorite games of all time. The story-writing and detail in the world is just simply incredible. So many different little variations and details that you won't always notice, but if they didn't put them in, it would've been so much less authentic and immersive. The combat is probably the weakest part in my view, but some mods can help change that. Combine with a nice HD Texture overhaul and you have a game that looks stunning and better than some game releases this year. 95/100

Simply a masterpiece that survives on especially due to modding. Coop and versus are still fun after all these years, still a large community of people playing on all difficulty levels. 10/10 GOTY 2009.

This game is like crack. I'll just play as Germany or as the Soviets one time. Suddenly you're hundreds of hours in playing as the man himself, Huey "Every Man A King" Long in 1940's Kaiserreich invading the French Republic in north Africa. 10/10 Absolutely amazing modding scene that keeps you coming back for more, in a good game overall.

2020 Update:
So after having played on and off for the past few years, Holdfast still holds up, plays and runs better. Devs have continued to add content and groups still run awesome private linebattles and public linebattles, which is where this game still shines. Pubs are pubs, but the teamwork and strategy that is found in the linebattles matches nothing else.Pick it up on sale and enjoy! I certainly got my money's worth out of it.


To start this out, I have played probably 100-150 hours of M&B Warband Napoleonic Wars dlc. Probably equal into Empire: Total War. I love flintlock and line warfare simply put.

And this game continues that great legacy put forth by NW. It graphically looks great (a huge improvement over NW no doubt). The sounds of gunfire and ambiance are again outstanding. Optimization has come through a few patches to where it runs reasonably well without making my GPU/CPU run too hot even when maxed. There is also ingame VOIP, which can be constrained as either a plus or minus, but personally I don't mind the people that play music, and when you don't you can just mute them.

Gameplay has two distinct flavors. Public servers are generally dominated by heavy skirmishing with occasional line formations forming up. Private events much like NW are much more disciplined line battling. If you're willing to invest a little time into a group, you can have some extraordinary fun. Or just romp around in the public battle, which can have its own appeal as well. The game also has naval battles, which I haven't played too much, but what I have played was still fun.

Community wise, personally, has been mostly positive for me. People are willing to help new people in matches and are generally civil. The developers are very active on discord and the forums and it shows in the following this game has built up pretty rapidly for such a niche game.

Overall I wasn't really sure at first if I'd enjoy it or be worth it, but it just has some very nice improvements and polish over that NW that I like and prefer. The low price tag ($20) is great and more content has been coming out a reasonable rate. I'd recommend it if you don't mind slower warfare and want to satisfy that itch of flintlock weaponry.