Recent reviews by Rhizzy

I actually enjoyed this DLC. I gave me slight hints of Blood Dragon. It brought enough to the table to make it an unique experience. Although you are still going for the 100% map completion, at least here you are given a completely different setting and some unique mechanics.

+ Mars environment that brings a desert biome. Even though it’s just sand and rocks, it’s not something seen in FC previously.
+ Different enemies to fight in the form of alien bugs (a la Helldivers).
+ 12 unique laser style guns to use, that are quite a departure from previous FC’s.
+ Jetpack and low gravity allow for some cool movement, verticality, and flying around.
+ Humorous story told through Henk’s severed head around your waist (a la God of War). Although admittedly it may be annoying to some.

Edit: The game has been shut down and removed from Steam. After initial intrigue around the unique game mode and fun combat, there just wasn't enough there to keep me (and everyone else) playing. Over time, the game mode itself revealed some core design flaws and the overall gameplay was lacking depth. My positive review remains based on my initial impression.


People already decided they were gonna sh!t on this game no matter what. Most of the initial reviews were under 1 hour of playtime. The only fair complaints are the performance and people not enjoying the game mode after giving it a fair chance. Everything else was just hating and review bombing.

Just like any other shooter, Highguard borrows from a lot of different games – Apex Legends DNA, Realm Royale with the mounts, reverse capture the flag with carrying the sword to the enemy base, Siege with base defense, and finally standard bomb plants. It is a unique blend of genres not seen executed in this way previously. I will always cheer on devs trying new things in the impossible-to-innovate, competitive FPS genre.

While the combat itself is fun and fast paced, there is something to be said about the 2 minute “gear-up” segments between base attacks. You are just running around opening chest, collecting crystals, with no engagement. It feels like an unnecessary element of the game that takes away from the action. This phase has been shortened but now there is an issue where you have a minute to loot, but you also gotta farm crystals to be equipped for the end game.

3v3, to me, is a better game mode. 5v5 was later introduced and I know a lot of people enjoy it, but I find this mode way more chaotic and uncontrollable. At least in 3's you can clutch and feel like you are making an impact, in 5's it's impossible. As it is currently, with fast respawns, I didn’t get the need for more people. The fights feel more manageable this way.

Maps being big is not really an issue. Besides the “gear-up” phase, there is never a point where you don’t know where the action is. You are always contesting the sword which is visible on the map. The mounts allow for fast traversal – you can get to the center of the map in about 20s. The map size allows a team to be able to intercept the sword on its way to their base after losing the initial contest.

Even though the game is soon to die, I enjoyed my time with it. Combat is decently fun but it didn't have the staying power to keep me (and everyone else) playing. To summarize:

+ Interesting game mode that plays well.
+ Fast paced, fun, action combat.
+ Decent, fluid, responsive movement.
+ Competitive aspect for sweat enjoyers.
~ Art direction is generic. It looks just okay and tried to appeal to all ages. A more serious theme and tone would’ve done the game wonders.
~ Gunplay is fine. Guns themselves are not great. Only a few are fun to use, the rest seem pretty bad currently.
~ No variables to keep the matches fresh. Stuff like events, modifiers, weather effects, anything to add some different elements to the game.
– Gear up phases with 2 minutes of dead time that takes away from the action.
– Performance is not great on older machines. It's been improved since launch and ok most of the time, but there are major drops when there's a lot happening on the screen.
– Possible issues with server registry and desync.
– Aim assist may be very strong on consoles (crossplay is on).

Wasn’t a fan of this DLC – too short, too simple, too uninteresting. Of course it plays just like the main game, nothing new or different was introduced. The DLC’s in Far Cry really need to bring something that is not present in the main game – whether it be a setting, idea, or a mechanic. This DLC brought none of those.

– The environment is just jungle, so it basically resembles foresty areas present in every other Far Cry. A few huts and ruins sprinkled throughout with no real interesting locations.
– The outposts were too small with only a handful of enemies guarding it, clearing them was not that engaging.
– The map is very small. You can just run to the end ignoring everything else, exploration is at your discretion. It can be completed in 1-2 hours.

If you are a fan of the Far Cry formula, this is yet another good installment in the franchise. But it is basically the same game as all the previous ones – same structure, same experience, same gameplay. Even the story follows the same format – help liberate locals against [insert] bad guy. There is nothing surprising, bold, or extraordinary about it. And yet, the game is still decently fun to play through – a slightly above average experience, 7/10 popcorn flick kinda game. I guess if it ain’t broke, no reason to fix it, since the games are still selling very well. Personally, I just wish they would try to do something fresh and different with the franchise.

+ World and environment design is the highest point as always. Exploring Montana was a great experience. Even though 2 of the regions are just more mountains and forests without much variety, the farmland region was very nice.
+ Graphics – game looks fantastic of course.
+ Story is serviceable. The cult theme is decent, and the main villain is a sinister and menacing character.
+ Some interesting side missions and characters to break the monotony of the rest of the game.
+ Arcade is a good mode if you want even more Far Cry in the form of user created content. When sorting by top rated, there are some pretty cool levels and even some Ubisoft originals.

– Crafting and looting felt like unnecessary mechanics. The only things to craft are various grenades and you are basically always topped up on everything due to looting all the chests and bodies that are everywhere. I still instinctively go to pick up everything, but none of it felt like needed.
– Repetitive gameplay – your standard Ubisoft open world formula: visit various locations, kill bad guys everywhere, liberate outposts and regions, until you can face the bosses.
– Dumb AI – just mostly clueless in most engagements. It felt like there were not enough enemies at outposts. And on the other hand, way too many random spawns when driving or patrols when walking around.
– Not a whole lot of weapon variety. A couple of viable options of each type. Attachments didn’t really change much.

Edit: Unfortunately the game has been shut down and as such, it is unplayable. The positive review remains for the game that was.

It’s always nice to see top down MOBA-like combat in a non-MOBA format. The fast-paced combat here is the star of the show, as it’s not really present in this style in other games. Everyone having a dash allows you to always have a way out or to just rush in aggressively. It also allows for some pretty unique movement tech, especially with certain heroes and while skating above the abyss. The game has a very high skill ceiling and skill gap. While it is quite team oriented, you are also able to carry if skilled enough.

Combat is also very unforgiving. Get out of position, fail your dash, get pulled or stunned, and you can get insta wiped. Some heroes are pretty busted in the right hands and there is a very strong meta. There is also a steep learning curve having to learn all the heroes (but that is standard in any hero-based game). Still the game is very fun and satisfying if you enjoy the combat loop.

The Armory was a main point of complaints the way it was originally implemented. A change was made for it to provide all the items (eventually through leveling your account) without the need for loot boxes or seasonal wipes. A very welcome change that needed to happen due to the lower playerbase.

Unfortunately the player count has reached the same pre-1.0 levels, peaking at under 800 players. The game is still fun combat wise, but it is unlikely to recover any reasonable numbers. You will still be able to find some matches, and there are bots in regular games and early ranked. It is what it is at this point, enjoy it while you still can.

Negative reviews are justified, but mostly for the wrong reasons. My negative review is based on the features of the current Steam Edition and can change to positive in the future.

1) I guess people are surprised by the fact that this is a subscription based game. Devs could have definitely done a better job communicating that fact by showing a yearly purchase option under the free version. Steam allows pages to show a “membership” purchase, so I don’t know why this is not displayed as an option.

2) The fact that you can ONLY purchase a yearly sub and NOT a monthly one is a very dumb move, especially since you can do this on the web. More people would be ok with paying a smaller monthly fee than a large yearly one.

3) Why not make at least single player modes free? There are plenty of game modes that can be locked behind a paywall, and this should be more than enough to cover the cost of Google’s API. Campaign and single country maps would be nice to have for new players to explore and may help convert them to subscribers in the future.

4) The biggest problem here is that ONLY Duels are available, nothing else. What is not included: single player campaign, classic maps, community maps and modes, battle royale modes, custom lobbies, shop, quiz, account statistics and settings. It is literally just a Duals page to click play. I’m sure they will add the rest of the features over time, but why release this in this state.

5) Subscription through Steam does not give you access on the web. No reason to get it here when you can get all the other features on the web, for a few bucks more (while also getting Steam access).

I don’t have a problem with the subscription model. At the end of the day, it’s a good product. There are fixed costs with accessing Google’s API, dev salaries, and even putting on World Championships. One-time purchase would not be able to keep the lights on forever. I don’t even have a problem with the $48 CAD yearly cost – $4 cup of coffee per month is not that big a deal. If you play enough, it ends up being worth it. However, I do wish the month-to-month sub was slightly cheaper, as that would be my preferred method of payment. I don’t play all the time and would rather pay $5 a month here and there instead of the current $7.

There are plenty of free alternatives out there if a subscription is a dealbreaker for you, the best 2 being OpenGuessr and Geotastic (notice how this site is barely making a profit with donations only). Some other ones are: GeoUltimate, Where Am I?, WorldGuessr, GeoGuess, FreeGuessr, GeoHub, and many more.

The game is a smaller “bite-sized” side project, which should be evident from the name “Expeditions” and its price tag. Not as strong as the previous games due to only having 3 puzzles, it’s rather short. Slightly different setup where there isn’t really a story or traversal, just straight to the puzzles and aiming for the highest gold score (why would you go for anything lower). The second stage was the highlight for me, as it really brought something different not seen before, and it took time to make it work. The other 2 were fine, but nothing we hadn’t seen before.

Overall, the game is still good for the fans of the series, or for people who are looking to get a taste of what these games have to offer. The price is fair but could also wait for a sale.

One of the all time great party games. Proper blend of teamwork, chaos, and lost friendships. Very simple mechanics that don’t get too complicated, with only a handful of recipes. What evolves the stages is the map design itself, which keeps you on your toes and forces you to adapt. 30 levels and about 6 hours to beat them all, with a very cool final boss level. Friends required, but everything is 3-starable with just 1 additional player and Remote Play works great.

Ultimately, Overcooked has that classic game status. Even though it is rather short, and it may not be as feature packed as the sequel, it is still very much enjoyable. Definitely worth it, but only on sale since full price is a bit high for the amount of content offered.

Note: Since “All You Can Eat” edition is available, which includes everything Overcooked 1 and 2 has to offer, it may not be worth getting this, depending on what you own and what you’re looking for.

Unfortunately the game has been shut down and as such, it is unplayable. It just didn’t resonate with people – the playerbase was in a steady decline and Season 1 didn’t really make a difference. People like to put all the blame on Shroud, and although justified, the game definitely didn’t fail just because of one person. If the game had something, the people would have simply stuck around.

The problem was that the game didn’t really bring enough to the table to differentiate itself from other competitive shooters. The clones were actually a very cool mechanic, and they did open up another layer of gameplay that was not present in other games (except Valorant has an agent that does the same thing) – but that was about it. Everything else just felt like a more casual Valorant.

– The game was going for that tactical competitive vibe, but it ended up feeling more casual. The aim-down-sights shooting style didn’t attract those who like to master recoil patterns. There wasn’t enough depth to gameplay past playing around your clone (that most of the time ended up being just a second life anyway).
– Maps were not great. I’m all for interesting maps but they ended up being a bit too large and unnecessarily complex – had to clear a lot of different angles, 50/50 corners, taking a long time to rotate sites. This was somewhat addressed with the Season 1 update, but a little too late.
– Art style was not my favorite. I liked the art direction used for map design, but the cell shaded characters and guns looked very ugly to me. It did not make me want to spend money on skins.
– Store launched very overpriced, which put a lot of people off. This was quickly fixed but the damage has already been done. In the 2 weeks that I played, the skin designs available in the store were really bad.
– No meaningful updates for half a year – Season 1 launched 6 MONTHS after release. This should have happened within the first month, while the game was still fresh and had players.
– The shooter market is already so well established, for a game to get any players, it has to do something truly different (look at The Finals and FragPunk). Good luck competing with CS and Valorant.
– Shroud being the face of your game and openly criticizing it on launch day and barely playing it – couldn’t have helped.
– Lack of advertising. Maybe Shroud did cost too much and there was no money left for regular advertising. Point is – people didn’t really know about the game.

Still though, it’s a shame they couldn’t turn it around as I did enjoy the clone gameplay. It just sucked having to wait 10 minutes for games, and I didn’t find myself wanting to come back to it with all the other shooters available.

It’s all you really need from a pool game – all the necessary controls are there and it looks decent enough. Perfect for playing a few games here and there or playing with a buddy when there is nothing else to do. Also very easy to just find random people to play with. Since it’s free, you really can’t complain about anything. There is a premium tier that gives some perks, most important of which is the ability to play different pool games, but it is not necessary.

One thing I am not a fan of is how the cue power controls in 3D pool – it’s done by a forward mouse momentum instead of something like a power bar or pull back and release method like in 2D pool. This makes it hard to be consistent, the ball is often hit with unpredictable power, which further makes it difficult to set up the following shots. The camera angles are also not the best in 3D. This is why I preferred the 2D pool more – it plays basically the same as 8 Ball Pool on mobile. Still nice to have both modes though, especially in a free package