Recent reviews by MidLman

Played through the tutorial. Was intrigued. Entered the open world and tried to group with friends, only to discover we were on the same server but different instances. Headed towards a tower beceause i'm told that's how you switch instances, but as I was [CRASH]. Reboot [Crash]. Verify files in steam [CRASH]. Repair Client [CRASH]. Well I guess that's the end of my re-[CRASH].

Coming from Vermintide 2, the core gameplay loops is great and about what you'd expect. The game looks amazing, and has all that gritty 40k flavour I love. |

That said, as noted in many other reviews:
- it's an absolute resource hog. I'm running a i7-10700k processor and a 3080 GPU and I still have to reduce the settings to 2K resolution to get a solid 60 FPS. Or to put it another way: it's more demanding that Cyberpunk 2077, which seems a little embarrassing. :(
- it's buggy as heck. Frequent crashes, frame skips, units spawning directly in your view, etc.
- some of the UI / features are a bit lacking.

I think it's worth spending some time with and I'm hopeful it will hit that high quality bar that Vermintide 2 had. But I'd wait 6+ months until the team has had more time to put into optimizing and improving the content.

I've put a few hours into this game. Enough to know that I've no interest in continuing with it. The art style is appealing in the strange grim Lovecraftian horror sort of way that I love.

Unfortunately, that's where my interest ended. Source of Madness feels to me like a mishmash of ideas drawn from other places without understanding what made the key components it's borrowing successful. Side-scrolling gameplay, a world heavily inspired by Dark Souls, Diablo-style loot drops and equipment builds, and some roguelike mechanics.

It's an interesting experiment, but I just don't think it works very well. I'm also not inspired by the AI-generated content. The enemies are strange looking but mostly nonsensical jumbles of bodies and limbs and they don't seem to exhibit any sort of compelling behaviours or encourage any particular strategy.

If, like me, you were drawn to the idea of a side-scroller that feels a little like Dark Souls: my recommendation would be leave this one on the shelf. The are better options out there.

Bored of your carb-free sugar-free joy-free keto diet? Go on, have a cookie. Not sated? Have another cookie. You know what? Just go ahead and eat the whole bag, it's a cheat day. Every day is a cheat day. Time is meaningless here. There are only cookies. Devour the cookies as they slowly devour you. Grandmother demands. You wouldn't want to disappoint Grandmother, would you?

If you've ever been curious about Gloomhaven, the board game, but are afraid of the hefty price tag, heavy box, and hours of potential setup/teardown, this is the game for you! It's a really solid strategic dungeon crawl backed by a decent campaign structure to keep you coming back.

Did you like Left 4 Dead? Back 4 Blood is is basically a newer shinier Left 4 Dead with randomized difficulty modifiers and a character progression system presented through a table-top-like card deck system. Add a system for unlocking additional cards for your deck via repeated playthroughs and you've go the idea.

If you liked L4D you'll have a bloody good time with B4B. (It's a pun. See what I did there?)

Storm Ground is a turned-based tactical battle skirmish game that clearly draws inspiration from similar tabletop games, and injects a few roguelike elements for good measure. Despite the limited faction roster, I've been impressed with the variety of units and how different combinations in my Warband can change how a scenario plays out. Even in the early game I've found it quite challenging, which I appreciate. (I even lost the first mission during the tutorial!) I especially like that the skirmishes aren't too long, making it a perfect game to drop in and out of casually if you don't have a lot of spare time for gaming.

I've spent the entirety of 5 hours so far only playing the campaign, so I can't comment on the multiplayer; Look to other reviews for info about that.

However, be warned that I have encountered a number of gameplay bugs; Mainly certain ability interactions not working as expected, a unit that went unresponsive, and a showstopper that required me to force-quit the game. If you don't have the patience for that sort of thing I'd suggest waiting until a patch or two have been released, but I'm confident it will improve over time.

Divinity 2 is a fantastic RPG that looks absolutely gorgeous. Good story interactions, an interesting mix of characters, a fun setting with plenty of nooks and crannies to explore. Combat is tactical and at times extremely deadly. The ability to blend magic and environmental effects is icing on a delicious RPG cake.

It's not the D&D system, but if you're a fan of the old infinity engine games (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter, et. al.) you'll feel right at home here.

I can't recommend this game enough.

Counter to what seems to be popular opinion, DoW3 is an excellent addition to the series that brings the best elements of both DoW 1 and 2 while stripping away a lot of the cruft to create a more streamlined experience. The core gameplay shifts back towards the classic RTS base-building and point-control mechanics of DoW1, while keeping powerful elite units we saw in DoW2 to lend a unique DoW flavour that help set it apart from other games in the genre.

The campaign is well written while also serving as a tutorial to ease players into the multiplayer mode. The RPG-like elements of the DoW2 campaign mode are gone in favour of a pure RTS formula with a more-or-less linear story. While this does limit the campaign replayability, it shows me that the development team is steering towards one unified RTS vision, rather than trying to mash 2 drastically different play styles and genres together the way DoW2 tried to do.

The multiplayer is where the game really shines. My experience has been that it takes at least a dozen matches to get a feel for the multiplayer and begin to realize the strategic depth, which is not readily obvious in the first few matches. However, the play style is faster and more aggressize than DoW2. There is a heavier emphasis on unit control and combat tactics and there is no retreat button to use as a crutch. I think this is a service to the darker, more violent tone of the game as it forces the players into conflicts. But fans of the largely defensive strategies of DoW2 may find DoW3 multiplayer difficult.

The elite units are bigger and bolder here and can impact gameplay heavily. Mixing and matching different elites and CoH-style doctrines allows players to unlock new and varied strategies and tactics within a single faction, letting players find styles of play that suit their own tendencies rather than locking individual units into a single role or purpose.

The unit models and textures look great, and the super-units look fantastic. Effects look amazing, without overwhelming the screen and obscuring the action; Over-use of FX spam was something DoW2 suffered from, and this game feels much cleaner. The map and environment fidelity has been greatly improved over those found in the past 2 games. The world has a much better sense of scale here that never quite came through in the previous games.

My only major criticisms:
1) That the front-end menus and UI feel poorly optimized and laid out.
2) The requirement to grind games to earn skulls to unlock more elite units is disappointing. Most modern games are guilty of using an unlockable system to artificially achieve longevity, but it's a disappointment nonetheless.

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I've read a lot of negative reviews and it seems to me that fans of the previous games need to remove their rose-coloured nostalgia-tainted glasses. I'd like to address a few common complaints I've seen in most of the negative reviews.

1) It's too much of a MOBA.
No, it's not. DoW3 is an RTS focused on tactical control of strategic map locations. DoW1 and DoW2 both emphasized map zone and point control. So does the W40K tabletop game. It's true that DoW3 has moba-style elite units, but that was also true of DoW2. DoW1 also had powerful elite units, albeit more difficult to access (e.g. the bloodthirster). My point is: Elites and point control aren't something new to the series, they're key components. I'm sure if they went away the community would just as quickly turn around and complain that they're missing.

2) There are no sync kills, no cover, no retreat button, etc.
Many of those things, while they added to the "wow" factor of the first 2 games, actually presented serious design and balance issues that made the multiplayer worse and even unfair, especially at high levels of play. While it may not be readily apparent, the removal of many of those features actually helps streamline and improve the multiplayer experience.

3) Why isn't there any last stand?
The Last Stand was a post-release DLC that was added long after DoW2 launched, not as part of the original content. Given time I'm confident Relic has plans to add more modes, so Last Stand - or something like it - isn't out of the question yet. Be patient. Also note that for those decrying DoW3 as being too much of a moba: Last Stand was literally a Moba-inspired mode. The mode you're asking for is literally the thing you were just complaining about.

4) DoW1/DoW2 had more maps, more modes, more factions, more whatever-it-is-you-think-is-missing:
Sure, if you bought the game-of-the-year editions of either game or purchased DoW2 Retribution years after the initial release this is true. But at initial launch both of the previous titles also had limited content. I'm confident we will see more maps and modes in time. In the meantime, I'm perfectly happy to accept quality over quantity.

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I've really enjoyed my time with DoW3 and look forward to future release content. I won't say the game is perfect, but there's a solid foundation here that I'm confident will only get better as more content is released. For my money it's got all the W40K: Dawn of War flavour I'd expect from a new entry in the series.

Waaagh!