Recent reviews by Rusty Shacky

Best autobattler

Updated for Necrolyte Release - Better QoL than SC2, 1v1 and the editor are great, campaign and co-op need polish.

I've enjoyed Stormgate since before Early Access, but it was understandably super rough during EA, so a lot of people dismissed it and it was hard to recommend people switch to it from their own favorite RTS.

Each patch has been a major improvement and so far all of these major issues that turned people off are overhauled:

-Graphics: The models, lighting, shaders, textures now look way better. The engine is more capable than probably any other RTS, so it's good to see it being shown off more.

-Controls: Controls can be customized even more so than SC2 now. There are also some huge QoL improvements that I wish SC2 had for its controls, like automatic control groups and an improved version of the "select all army" system. We also have some features from BAR and saved camera locations. I'm able to ladder comfortably using a Steamdeck using just the gamepad controls.

-Feel: Pathing improvements, unit collisions, movement speed of everything have been improved. Frame rates are much better as well. Units feel more responsive and the netcode has been improved. The game plays much faster, but because of the Quality of Life improvements, it's still very manageable than say SC2, for a newer player. Still some units need work here, but it seems like it's just adjusting numbers like turn rates, inner/outer radius, etc.

-Campaign: Campaign is completely redone and actually worth playing now. It is the main paid part of the game, but you can play the first few missions to free and see if you want to play the rest. Personally I'm not interested in stories and dialogue but the missions were fun. The second half especially had some challenging moments.

-Faction design: Infernals were redesigned and are a lot cooler. Arguably the best feeling race now. Vanguard is mostly complete and I main them. Celestials are being overhauled soon. All factions could use another unit or two added to their rosters in my opinion. It sounds like this is on the roadmap.

-Balance: No more mass-dog meta. Balance is a lot closer to 50% win rates for the matchups now and there's a lot more creativity going on. New maps have been added and old ones had some changes as well that have improved the competitive scene a lot. Custom user made maps are amazing compared to the ones made by Frostgiant, so hopefully we can see those added to the official ladder pool soon.

-Co-op: A re-launch of co-op, like what was done with campaign, is still pending, but it's already improved with more heroes and mutators to change the missions up. I don't think this has as much replayability as SC2 co-op yet but it still offers a lot of hours of fun to level up your heroes with your teammates.

Very good game.

Edit: The developer decided to move the game from Steam to the official Bombdog Studios website. Make sure you are getting it there, as the Steam version is no longer updated and the game has come a very long way since.

Find recent gameplay on https://www.twitch.tv/rustyshacky/
or
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClDieGe8gI9ucaNF-8kvezA



(Outdated) Beta build review:

Overall the game feels a lot more presentable than the alpha. Graphics, sounds, single/multiplayer improvements and even experience rewards make the whole game a lot more satisfying to play.

Visually, the game has gone from having a somewhat poor appearance to actually looking impressive in many ways. Shooting individual parts off or seeing an entire MAV explode into a shower of weapons and modules is always satisfying. Shaders, lighting, and models have improved so that the everything fits into the environment more naturally.

Sounds have been added or changed for almost everything. This is probably my favorite improvement since it used to feel like you're fighting in a vacuum. Some tweaking can still be done, but it's already a little haunting to hear a teammate being lit up by an enemy.

Multiplayer is essentially the same as in the alpha but given some major lag and desync improvements. More changes need to be made still, as you still have an occasional player that is highly desynced and at a certain point servers do slow down, but for the most part it's fine.

Progression has been added and it's not the miserable grind that Free-to-Play games have made into the norm. You own the game already, so content isn't going to be witheld from you for an unreasonable amount of time.

Not a lot of obvious changes were done with the maps. The notoriously laggy ones do run a lot better now and they do look better. The old alpha maps are still in the game and you're not going to impress any artists with them.

I forgot to mention that the singleplayer is improved drastically. Still no story or campaign modes, but you have a full singleplayer settings menu and way better AI than before to make singleplayer skirmishes a lot more fun.


Original Alpha build review:

Excellent for those who are creative enough to come up with your own mech concepts. Things like the UI, sound, and graphics are still in alpha, but the developer keeps the community updated every few days with live streams and blog posts on what improvements are upcoming. The multiplayer community is small but they all get together at scheduled times during the week.

If you can put up with something being in alpha development I recommend it. For others you may want to wait for another major update or two before trying it out.

Very good.

Edit: No longer very good.

The worst game out of the already weak series of Borderlands games.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel adds to the series a unique campaign experience that forces players to back-track constantly and almost every mission includes a few lazily designed "Oh no the door is locked! Go find a way to open it!" sequences in order to chew up as much time as possible.

I don't like a lot of things about the Borderlands games already, but I'm sure this game would be considered bad even by fans of the series.

Worth like $5 for being a game you can play with a few friends.

I forgot to not recommend this game. It gets bad after like 15 minutes in.

This game is really scary and hard for me to play but it's good.

I recommend this game because it doesn't suck and is actually pretty good.

Pretty good if you like western stuff. Could use more variety in guns, but overall it's a good experience.

Gunslinger is not very good, don't get that one.