Recent reviews by Abaddon2488

Rome II's launch was plagued with issues and received quite harsh criticism and rightfully so considering how much Creative Assembly had hyped it up all the while being fully aware of the issues with the game. We do have to give them credit though as they continued to fix and support the game for years to come and I personally think it has aged like a fine wine and is arguably one of the best Total War games.

There are so many factions to play as that there are massive amounts of replayablility and that's before you even get to the stand alone DLC campaigns. There is a wide breadth of factions from the Romans, Carthaginians, and Greeks to the Celts, and Macedonian Successor states and many more! Each faction has units, buildings, and technologies generally specific to their actual history.

The gameplay itself is quite simple. As is expected it plays in the style of rank and flank. You have your formations of infantry, ranged slingers, javelins, and bowmen, your cavalry, and heavy crew served weapons. Its fun as hell to see your cavalry crash into formations of infantry or to see your ranged units whiddle down infantry and cavalry from afar. The scale is also quite impressive as it usually is in Total War games. We are talking anywhere from hundreds to thousands of troops in these battles at a time.

Honestly for the most part I actually play Total Wars like a Civilization game where I mostly pay attention to the larger strategic map where I create troops/armies, enact diplomacy, upgrade towns and cities, and move your troops and agents around the map. You dont even have to fight the battles in real-time if you dont want though once you become good enough you can actually defeat much larger armies or deal serious damage to enemy armies with much smaller forces.

Overall there are hundreds of hours worth of content here with just the officially released content but the Mod scene for Rome 2 is extremely strong as well and that brings even more to the table. I love this game and I would say its biggest issue is that it was never upgraded from 32 bit to 64 bit meaning it doesn't take advantage of the increase in memory and video memory. In fact I noticed while running benchmarks with several different graphics cards that the game can only use 3gigs maximum of video memory which really limits the capability of modern graphics cards.

Besides that I don't really have any complaints with Rome 2. It's still the best rts/strategy hybrid of it's type that is based on the Classical period of history. You really can't go wrong if that's the period of history you are looking to play a game in.

Played through Aliens: DD once on Story difficulty and it was a joy. I'm a huge fan of the Aliens movie and the game does an excellent job mimicking the style and atmosphere of the movie and Alien setting in general while the story adds depth to the Alien universe.

The story follows Maeko Hayes the Deputy Administrator of the Weyland-Yutani ship Pioneer Station which is overseeing a mining colony on the planet Lethe. Xenomorphs are intentionally brought onto Pioneer Station by individuals with mysterious motives and the wild ride kicks off with you enacting a planetary quarantine to present a ship with Xenomorphs on it from escaping. In the process several ships including the USS Otago, a United Systems Colonial Marines ship, are destroyed or damaged. I really enjoyed the story and about 60% of the way through the campaign a sense of urgency is introduced that really ratchet up the already high sense of intensity in the story. Tindalos Interactive didn't try to take the "safe" route either as the Marines behave and speak in the same crude fashion as they did in the movie. In fact Dark Descent's story was written so well and touches on some other plot points in the wider Alien universe and incorporates them impressively enough that the plot feels like it either could have been written as a movie or series. The characters from the civilian(s) to the Marines are well written and if/when they are lost it really feels like a shame.

In the gameplay department Dark Descent plays like a real-time version of a squad turn-based strategy game. You are given a roster of Marines to use from mission to mission and as you complete missions with them you can upgrade them with certain skills and unlock new weapons and technologies to equip them with to increase their defense and offense. Be careful though because if/when a Marine dies during a mission they are gone forever. This makes the loss of any of your troops very meaningful and the ability to rename or give your Marines nicknames adds that extra touch of uniqueness that makes it painful when they are lost. There is even a memorial section at the main base where you can see the troops you have lost. At a certain level you can choose from a specialty for your individual Marines. You can make a Marine a Sergeant, Recon Marine, Gunner, Tech Marine (who can be upgraded to have a nifty drone), and Medic. Each class has class specific abilities both passive and active that are specific to them that can be chosen as upgrades so you want a few of each type of class as you will soon have Marines either out for a mission or two due to injuries that take time to heal or the trauma mechanic. That brings us to one of the main mechanics used in the game which is essentially fear. As your troops are exposed to combat with Xenomorphs you have to manage their fear whether by welding the doors to a room shut and Resting, or via the use of medications which can lower their fear. While Resting drops them back to 0 fear it comes at the cost of using up the Tool resource which is limited. At times you may have no Tools and be forced to use medkits to lower the Marines' Fear but it comes at the cost of using the medkits which are the main source of healing them during missions. If your troops become too fearful during a mission and you complete the mission with them surviving they may develop a Trauma. Traumas are debuffs that will stick with a Marine until they are healed at the psychological treatment section of the med bay. After a certain period of time receiving treatment at the shrink's office the Marines will lose their trauma.

Another sub-point is the repair of a ship to hopefully get your off the planet and safely out of reach from the Xenomorphs. As you complete missions the % of repair increases and I definitely kept an eye on that in between each mission. Each mission has several main objectives but secondary objectives are quite plentiful and along with the personal data pads you can pick up and read reveals more of the story and the downfall of Lethe's colonies. You also collect certain resources that go towards researching or unlocking weapons and technology as well as giving your Marines Tools, Medkits, and Sentry guns that are used on missions.

The sound is exquisite in the game. Aliens, weapons, vehicles, and world sounds all sound correct for the Alien universe. The weapons themselves sound like they did in Aliens and have the right amount of punch like all weapons should have in games (looking at you Call of Duty). Similarly the voice acting is done well also. Main characters all have professional sounding voice acting and while the voices for your Marines (which can be changed just like much of their appearance and camo) are well done they suffer a bit from the fact that there are only a few different voice actors used for the male and female Marines and possibly worse is that there are times doesn't feel like enough dialogue was recorded for your troops. When you order the Marines to move, shoot, or take a certain action like collecting resources from boxes you will hear many of the same lines which may get on some people's nerves and understandably so. While I'm sure recording lines for video games just like movies can be expensive it is very worth it for the player to not get sick of hearing the same few lines in a game.

That being said there are very few negatives I can think of for the game. There are a couple of bugs I bumped into but nothing game breaking that I noticed. Aliens: Dark Descent is a must play for fans of the Alien franchise, and squad based strategy games. If you happen to be both like me then you HAVE to play this game. There wasn't much room in the story left for a sequel and I don't really know how well the game sold but my hope is that Tindalos gets a chance to make a second game as they have shown with Dark Descent that they can create an entertaining and engaging game/story while respecting the Alien(s) lore we love.

Excellent game with plenty of replay value especially with the War Paths game mode included in the Winds of Change DLC. Plays like an entry level Wargame/Warno type of game that even seasoned players can enjoy. Regiments gets away from the deck of cards style of the Eugen games and instead goes with you selecting a regiment that includes certain units with a couple of chances a game to select task forces from your same faction or other allied factions allowing you to call in more units. Overall a very fun experience I can see myself playing for some time into the future especially if Bird's Eye Games continues to release more content.

Easily a must buy at full price much less if you can get it on sale. I was able to put in over 100 hours in They Are Billions in one go of the single player Campaign which even on its easiest setting can be difficult at times. Those looking for a challenge will have met their match here!