Recent reviews by TerrorMango

A less frustrating Snowrunner with more focus on building bridges, roads and improving the maps and less emphasis on the driving (or more getting stuck on things and in mud).
After having played the demo a while back it's exactly what I expected and at 40€ it's a really good game.

If you're expected the next Mudrunner or Snowrunner, that's not it and it never claimed to be.

Graphically very appealing with big maps and lots going on and runs very well. Plus has all the usual Upscaling and FrameGen tech most games have these days.

TL;DR: Disappointing performance, both with RT enabled or disabled given the hardware I run it on. Not the worst ever but not worth it currently. Performance problems overshadow the gameplay experience.

In it's current state Spider-Man 2 simply doesn't run well enough.
For reference, I'm using a RTX 4080 Super, 5900X (not the newester and greates but it doesn't even tax a single core fully, so I'm not CPU bottlenecked, and 64GB RAM, game installed on an SSD)

With DLSS Quality, no Frame Generation and RayTracing enabled (all options maxed) the game sits at 45-60 FPS which isn't exactly amazing, considering something like Cyberpunk 2077 not only looks much better, shows many more RT effects at any given time and also runs better.
Turn all the RT off, the game climbs to 60+, sitting around ~70-80 FPS. So for some reason you only gain ~30 FPS with all RT effects off, while most games half your FPS or worse. Something seems wrong here.
A 4080 Super should have no problem with 60+ FPS with RT on or 100+ FPS with RT off in any game. With this title, that's impossible.

Frame Gen is of course a crutch available and it makes it playable, especially with the new DLSS4, input lag is not as noticeable any more and since the game can reach those 45 FPS as a baseline it's not so bad.

Still, I'm tired of games using DLSS and now Frame Gen as a crutch to achieve enjoyable performance.
First Stalker 2, now this.

I'd suggest waiting for patches, a sale or play the game through other means and not give Sony any money here. While PS ports to PC have always been hit-or-miss, Nixxes' ones were usually the better ones, not here though. Maybe they rushed it (or were rushed by Sony) or maybe it's because this is the first PS5 only game to come to PC, but this port isn't worth your money currently.
I will be refunding this one.

Space Marine 2 is the 40k game I've ever wanted.
After the disappointment of Darktide, it's great to see that Saber has really delivered here.

Graphically, the game looks phenomenal, even without Raytracing or stuff other games use these days.
And it runs well, something that most AAA (or AAAA lol) games nowadays do not.

The game is a ton of fun in solo or coop, haven't tried PvP just yet but not the biggest PvP enjoyer anyway. There's clear thought behind it with the coop player's characters talking and being a part of the story. Often coop modes feel tacked on, with clones of the main character or no-name, no voice characters for the other players, not here.

Both ranged and melee combat feel visceral and have weight behind them, from the chunks of your bolters firing their almost 20mm bolts to the impact of the thunder-hammer on the ground (or enemy faces). I do find melee combat a bit tricky at times, still have to figure it out a bit. Between dodging, parrying, blocking and getting attacked by multiple enemies at once it can be a bit much.
And those same enemies are no joke, difficulty even on normal is challenging without overdoing it.

The customization (not for campaign mode!) is awesome to see, feels like I'm virtually modelling and painting 40k models. Lots of options to unlock, both for armor parts and colours, emblems etc.
Progressions seems fair, without looking like a grind, with upgraded weapons being unlocked by using said weapons and then purchasing it with gained ingame currency while armor unlocks simply by winning PvP matches or PvE operations.
It is however a bit much at first, with several different unlock mechanics.

As of writing this review, there are no ways to straight-up buy any currency and from what I hear this not planned either. All future gameplay content will be free (check the first image on the store above), with only cosmetic stuff being locked behind the season pass. No idea if you will also be able to purchase either seasons or DLC separately though.

Hopefully the update to lock your PvE matches (private mode) will be released soon so I can play with whomever I want without other people, either in my friendslist or public joining my games.
The campaign however is invite-only already.

TL:DR One of the most fun coop games I've played and everything feels purpose built for it.

Helldivers 2 is incredibly fun and has some good initial variety, from its procedurally generated maps, changing weather and day/night cycles and varied mission objectives no mission feels like the one before.
Now of course you shoot bugs and robots in each mission, that doesn't change but the enemies themselves also vary.

You have 2 distinct ones, bugs (think Starship Troopers) that depend on the mission/map (sometimes you get exploding ones, sometimes acid spitters, sometimes really tanky guys) while the other faction are these mech-types that have guns and change the gameplay up quite a bit as you now have things shooting back at you.

Graphically it looks beautiful, textures are high-res, the lighting is well done and the art style and feel really works for the game.
Wassive explosions, fires, napalm drops and heaps of enemies getting annihilated all over the place the game maintains a really high frame rate on all sorts of PCs. I didn't expect bad performance on my machine, but a 2070 or 2080 Super in friends PCs all run the game on high settings at 60+ FPS consistently.
On my 5900X and 4080 Super I get 100+ at all times, usually 120-130 FPS.

No framedrops, stutters etc. experienced yet.
No raytracing or DLSS/FSR support, which is a bit of a shame, but not required. The game already looks and runs well, but it would be the icing on the graphical cake for it to have these.

Audio and soundtrack are phenomenal.
The gunfire and explosions sound bombastic and as you'd expect them and are straight up there with the best of games. Each weapon sounds punchy and nukes going off in the distance blow you away (pun intended).
Soundtrack wise, the tracks have no business being this good, 10/10 on that front alone. Absolutely epic music playing at all times, whether it's calm on the ship or high adrenaline epic music during intense extracts or flying back to the ship after successful extraction.

So far I have only encountered mild issues, which these days is more than most AAA games at 70$ can claim.
One issue is that the Anti-cheat (some of the "opinions" on it are funny to read, same crowd that harps on about Denuvo I suppose) detects a software called Netlimiter 4 as a "hack" (it's used to monitor and limit bandwith on a per application level and no other anti-cheat has issues with it) so I had to shut it down (not uninstall, simply not running it is enough)

The second one is occasional network issues, very likely down to the overwhelming player count on launch day.
Once in our initial 5h session we got disconnected and had to rejoin the game (the host was still in the mission and you can rejoin in progress) and towards the end of our session we had some disconnects.
These issues will likely calm down as servers get upgraded/more of them and the initial launch play count calms down.

The last point I want to bring up and many people apparently dislike the game for is monetisation.
"Life-Service-Games" are a scourge on the gaming world, for sure. But they are likely around to stay, at least until the gaming giants find the next cash-cow.
So with this in mind, Helldiver 2's microtransactions are more than bearable, especially since
a) the game is 40$ at base price
b) all content like new missions, enemy factions and new gameplay will be free as stated by the devs on their discord. Of course always take these comments with 2 grains of sand.

The game sells Warbonds, which are essentially Battle Passes but they do not expire (so no missing out).
In these you spend ingame currency which you gain by completing missions and finding them while playing to unlock cosmetics, new weapons etc.

Then they sell Premium Warbonds which at the time of writing are 1000 premium currency, or roughly 10$ worth it. This includes extra cosmetics and weapons that also require unlocking with ingame currency.

Right now there's no way to skip the grind in the first regular warbond. Not sure if there's any plans to allow unlocking directly without progressing through this "battle pass" using premium currency at a later date.

All in all, an amazing game, provided you play in coop, best played with friends.
I whole-heatedly recommend you buy this game and support this studio that clearly put a lot of love into this project.

The game itself is fun, offers 4 distinct game modes and keeps you entertained for a while.
Read some of the other reviews for more gameplay related stuff, this is about performance.

HOWEVER, they recently switched from Unreal Engine 4 to 5 and seemed to have forgotten optimization entirely.
In the larger game modes (3 of 4) that take place on larger open maps and feature multiple dozens (maybe even hundred) of bugs as well as smoke and toxic clouds, explosions and bug parts flying about the performance absolutely tanks.

During the rounds I get ~ 100-120 fps on max settings (RTX 3080, 5900X, 64GB RAM), during the rounds it drops to first 60 in the early rounds, then 40, 30 and then into the 20s in the final phases of the match.
All the while GPU Utilization sits at 25-40%, no wonder there's no FPS, there's no utilization.

I also noticed that the less bugs there are on screen, the MORE utilization there is, wtf? But even then it sits at like 50-60%.
Also, changing settings does nothing, same thing at LOW or ELITE settings.
As it currently stands I cannot recommend this game until they fix the performance issues.

As it's still in development and the engine update was only recently I have hopes and will check back in in a few months and ready future patchnotes, hoping to be able to play again soon, with playable frames.

The devs being so salty about negative reviews on Steam is pretty funny.

But seriously, higher tiers are whack, ridiculous grind, enticing you to buy premium days, currency etc. at every step.

Absolutely amazing game!
While I did not expect too much and was initially put off by the idea of the game and the artstyle, I now cannot stop playing it.
Hours fly by and before I know it, I look at the stage timer at 1h+ while it felt like maybe 15 minutes passed.

It's chill and relaxing, especially in the early stages and gets incredibly intense the further you go.
Prepare to die, like a lot but it's part of the game. Everytime you grasp more of the gameplay, the challenges and the mechanics behind it all and with each run you get further, get better, closer to beating the game.

There's also 3 sets of difficulties, with an "easier" mode that gives less enemy skaling and more HP regen as well as normal and a "super mega hard" (Monsoon) difficulty that basically reverses what the easy one does.
Meanwhile, the further you go and the longer you play a run, the harder the game gets too. More enemies, with more health and abilities leading to downright ludicrous amounts of earlier boss-level enemies as regular mobs.

There is really only 2 ways to end a run, either you die early on or when fighting the main boss, or you loop (essentially deciding not to fight the boss yet and go through a few more levels before) and get to boss-level status where you singlehandedly nuke enemies and bosses from existance mere seconds after spawning.

The game really does let you go crazy if you make it far enough, with each run feeling different, due to the loot and enemies being entirely random. Maps are not procedurally generated as in other rouge-like games, but handmade and feeling immediately familiar while still providing new things to find and new challenges each time.
Items you find give you various stat boosts, from abilities to passive stat boosts like attack speed etc. and you can stack them...a lot!
The game has no problem with you stacking +1000% attack speed or 100% crit chance items letting you experience god-like powers, provided you last long enough to find them.

At last, the lore and exposition is sparse, kinda like the Souls games, with almost everything being cryptic, requiring your imagination and giving you information mostly through what happens (or doesn't) ingame. Stages have secret paths, bosses, puzzles to unknown teleporters and the game has several endings for each run.

Graphically, it's got a sorta unique art-style. I wouldn't call it amazing or realistic but it doesn't want to be that. It's simplistic in nature but works damn well and has its own charme.
Performance is mostly stellar but be warned, if you go crazy and keep the run going long enough there will be so many effects and mobs on screen that it will tank. That's to be expected though with what's going on.

Sound wise, each character has their own movement, ability and weapon sounds that fit them. The music meanwhile is an absolute masterpiece, all handcrafted for the game, ranging from intense rock to downright relaxing tracks, which each stage playing a different song.

As with any rogue-like, when you die, you loose every item and the progression in the levels you had. The one thing you keep is a permanent currency you can use in a sorta hub-world that you can access by opening a portal there. While there, time stands still (aka. the game doesn't progress in difficulty), you can relax and trade items in for others as well as unlock permanent ones that you can then acquire in the runs. There's something more too it but I won't spoil it.

To sum it all up, I really didn't expect to like this but damn, it is such a charming game to play solo or in coop, unlocking new characters and abilities and finding what works for you and trying to "build" your character as much as you can with the random loot. If you have any interest in rogue-likes, do yourself a favour and grab this game!
I cannot wait to play more.

I have been following this game for like years now but never felt like I wanted to spend 120€ on a game in Alpha and was holding out for Beta/Steam EA release.

Having now played it for just about 2 hours in coop I can safely say that this is the spiritual successor to SWAT 4.
In it's current state it certainly not finished, bug-free or polished but it's in a playable state where you can go through it's levels and have fun.

Unlike other recent Indie EA games in the genre, Ready or Not has the full thrilling SWAT-like experience like the games of old. You always have to worry about civilians, where your bullets are going (bullets can penetrate walls, doors and even bodies, you can shoot somebody standing behind a suspect)

Currently there are a handful of levels, each with several modes like Barricaded Suspects, Bomb Threat, Active Shooter etc. to choose from. Between rounds you go the HQ where you can customize yourself (very limited atm, only preset characters and 1 uniform if you purchase the supported edition as well as choose guns and customize them too.

Haven't tried it in singleplayer yet but coop as fun. Quietly going through rooms, looking and listening for anything to then suddenly all hell breaking loose, bad guys shooting (they can shoot through walls and doors if they know you're there, terrifying).

Graphically the game looks good, but nothing special. It's a good state, but the player characters look a bit plain.

The sound-design is damn good, guns sound beefy, a flashbang going off sounds realistic, the only thing is that the player voice is quite low (in SWAT 4 you'd burst into a room and you and all officers properly shouted for everyone to get down, in RoN it's kinda quiet, not very commanding.

All in all, the game is definitely worth its asking price atm and well underway of becoming THE tactical shooter. Can't wait to play more.

ME1 was remade well, 2 and 3 mostly didn't change much.

You can finally play the games on PC without buying most DLC through Bioware's overpriced and outdated online store.

For the price of 1 AAA game you get 3 masterpieces.

To sum up, it's honestly much better than I expected.

There are quite a few police sims on Steam, but having looked at or tried most of them it seems they are all usually either garbage or have good concepts but get abandoned by the devs quickly.
This seems promising, the devs are active and base that is there is decent too.

It looks similar to another game also called Police Simulator, that's because the Publishers fired the Devs and got a new team working on this.

As it stands, you essentially start the game for roughly 2h on foot patrol (maybe not the best way to gain player interest, but it's alright) where you issue parking tickets, run radar, respond to minor accidents. Then, the game starts opening up, finally giving you a CVPI (without trademarks) and letting you patrol the entire district you're in.
Then you can pace cars, pull cars over, respond to major accidents, robberies, and assaults.
There's quite some detail to the events, giving you various different things to give tickets for, arrest somebody, investigate accidents etc.

It has issues, sure. The traffic AI is kinda wonky sometimes, people/cars walk/drive through each other at times and some of the signage isn't properly implemented (e.g. I ticketed and towed a car in a handicap zone without permit and got penalized)
Driving is also not very enjoyable just yet, the car has incredibly slow acceleration initially and then pulls too hard and the handling is a bit odd.

To me, this game is off to good start, an extensive roadmap is already out and the devs are active and at the very least seem to give a damn about their game. Whether that is true or not, I guess we'll find out in the future.