Recent reviews by side-fish

It's the spiritual successor to World in Conflict, with some elements of Wargame/WARNO. Very large unit customization leads to a lot of variety. The campaign is good. It's also really hard, especially if you do it the first time. I think the thing it lacks is that the campaign doesn't have motion-capture cutscenes of the main characters like World in Conflict did.

The custom scenarios, I haven't tried it yet, but I did in the public beta. It's just as hard as the campaign, even with two people. I think you'd need the full 3 people recommended to finish a scenario. If you're not in to multiplayer that much, the Singleplayer/PvE will keep you occupied for a while.

Multiplayer, though I haven't tried yet, I've tried in the beta and I had a lot of fun. Perhaps things have changed a bit, but the core should still be the same. It's just World in Conflict but larger and with controllable planes. I think my favorite mechanic in the game is the laser/precision targeting. It's very unique and just something I've never seen in a game. It's hard to master but if you get the hang of it or have a buddy or a cooperative teammate to help you out, it's really satisfying. The downside I think is obviously that even if things are larger, some units suffer in terms of realism. These are the ballistic, artillery, and cruise missiles. The ranges are incredibly short. It looks wacky, but I understand why they made it the way it is. Honestly, maybe I don't mind if the nuke or ballistic missiles fly from out of map like WIC. Anyway, it is what it is. And honestly, I don't mind.

The game lives up to its expectations as the successor to Microsoft FSX. Having tried the game for a while now, I can definitely say that the immersion here is beyond any flight simulators I've tried. This is thanks to the technology put into the game such as streaming the world, realistic physics and the like.

There is also multiplayer, which can be quite fun flying with friends, but considering that you're also playing with other people, the immersion may break for you. MFS is at its best when tried as a solo experience.

Personally, what I think this game lacks are some missions and aircraft references for the default aircraft. But that doesn't take away that there are other activities aside from free flight. There is a tutorial and some landing challenges that you can try out to get started. You can also fly and look for animals as well. There are a handful of them and I hope Microsoft adds more.

I started out playing Tropico back in its third installment. Back then, it seemed like a whole new kind of game that future Tropico's could not match. Tropico 6 is essentially a hybrid of Tropico 3 and 5. It may look like Tropico 5, but looks are not everything. The feel of this game is very different and very much its own.

Tropico 6 doubles down on what made the game addictive in the first place: its management and city-building aspects. As these are what you tend to focus most of the time in a Tropico game, it's only natural to improve upon this. During the beta, I've actually occasions where I was computing if I had enough income to balance my expenses in the almanac. And it is kinda exciting. In terms of city-building, there's a lot more buildings to choose from and I find it enjoyable expanding my island naturally without making it look repeated. I've made some really good island cities in the beta. It's a shame you can't bring them to the actual game.

So what's new in Tropico, they advertised buses, teleferrics, tunnels, bridges, islands, raiding, and of course the infamous stealing a landmark. So buses are cool, but limited in the sense that you can only place a start and end station. If you want to make a comprehensive bus network, be prepared to make lots of bus depots, which are kinda large for the amount of stations they can service. And I'll speak for myself that it doesn't bother me as much as I like the challenge. Of course, other people may find this annoying. Teleferrics are also the other new mode of transportation. In terms of usage, it shines on places where there is verticality, inaccessibility, or between two nearby islands. Tunnels and bridges are the new ways to traverse the map such as an inaccessible place in an island or a point of connection between two islands. As Tropico is an archipelago now, bridges and ferry services are critical for moving people and cargo between islands. I will say that I wish that the pathing of the boats should be less angled and more curvy. It looks like they're following waypoints, which kinda feels a bit unrealistic. From a far however, when you've made your intertwining sea networks, it can look rather intricate. I like the raiding mechanic with the pirate cove. It's essentially a good lifeline for when your raw materials aren't being produced fast enough for your factories. The pirate cove is a good supplement. And as for the stealing of landmarks, I honestly wish they didn't do it. Granted that it's here now though, I wish they could've offered us more exotic landmarks. One time, I suggested the Peachoid that was popularized from House of Cards. Now I'd steal that.

Swiss dollars have always been a vanity thing for me in Tropico series. There's essentially no point in accumulating them. In Tropico 5, you get to use Swiss dollars to upgrade your presidente and his dynasty. But after you've maxed them out, they're essentially no point accumulating them. Tropico 6 would be the first game to actually give Swiss dollars a utilitarian purpose. Through the broker, you can buy things with your Swiss dollars that you would normally use to pay with Treasury dollars, research points or raid points. Balance was an issue in the beta as the broker was kinda OP, but I've played a little more of the retail version and it seems that the broker is at its most balanced yet. Nothing is too cheap nor too expensive. Speaking of research points, once you've fully upgraded, you can choose to spend your research points on the Space program, meaning that all those accumulated research points won't go to waste.

Now I feel that where Tropico 6 is at its weakest are the military and the work modes. The military aspect of previous Tropicos were good, peaking its best at Tropico 5. You could get some really good chaos and battles in Tropico 5. Tropico 6 seems to have dialed down on the military aspect. I feel that Tropicans are more well-behaved in this game that they don't rebel as much as previous games. And on the chanced encounter that I did, I feel that this implementation isn't correct. They just set a building on fire and disappear before a military unit can intercept them. Certainly makes them annoying, but not threatening. Of course, I didn't set the political difficulty to be at its hardest, but I guess I expected more. Some of the work modes are kinda generic and lacks a bit of the creativity. There are literally some buildings whose work modes are either basic settings or supply local market (although supply local market is actually very useful). Media buildings have the basic setting, a income-generating mode, and modes that are pro-faction for every faction. Regardless, this is a rather small complaint.

One of the things that made Tropico alluring was the farming and that you could farm all these different produce. I feel that despite having farm types in this game, I feel like there should be more. This is the sixth game, afterall, fourth with respect to Tropico 3, shouldn't there be more farm produce by now? I mean there was papaya in the previous games, but they removed it here. There's a lot of stuff that can be developed here aside from plantations like tree orchards, etc. Perhaps something they can look at for future content.

Speaking of future content, I'm not sure how future content is to be distributed, although I wouldn't be surprised if they implement the 5$ DLC model of 4 and 5. When there was an issue earlier in the game, they made the first DLC free for people who pre-ordered at a certain date. To me, this implies the old DLC model. At the same time, Limbic released an open letter saying that they will continue to expand gameplay mechanic such as a more comprehensive bus system. This, to me, suggests an expansion type model. It could be both. Honestly, I'm not fond of the 5$ DLC model and a departure for this model is welcome.

The last thing I would like to talk about is modding. From what I know, modding has been limited in the past games. Perhaps the most interesting mod that I've seen is the drug mod in Tropico 5 where the farm's agriculture is modeled to look like plants that produce drugs. I don't usually play much mods for Tropico, but the kind of modding that I like is the ability to change the model of something in game, particularly for residential buildings (especially Tropico 5). Tropico has been very lacking in terms of variety of residential units. That said, Tropico 6 may become the most open in terms of modding. I would like to imagine that Limbic is looking at other games like Cities Skylines and their success because of the modding. Modding is just one of those things that can extend the life of a game and it's important for the player base to take advantage of this.

So there's a lot to look forward to this game, and I see a bright future. Of course, I can only judge a game for what it is now. It's not perfect, but from what I've played, I can say that I'm really enjoying myself. If I were to give it a score, I'd give it two scores. At its current state, this game an 8/10. If modding takes-off for Tropico 6, I'd give this game an 8.5 or even a 9/10. Again, this depends on how the community takes advantage of this. But with Limbic's openness to modding, I think it is achievable and when they do, they may quite possibly have a shot at creating the greatest Tropico to date.

I like the game. Can't find many games with skirmish these days. Plenty of game modes to choose from as well. You can customize the kind of battle you want. No opinion on multiplayer.

The downside is, as of the moment, the AI seems to favor the GRM side. The US AI seems kinda dumb for some reason. If you let them play 3 vs 3, GRM almost always wins and that's being generous. Reality is the US AI always loses on any game mode and setting. Nothing a patch can't fix.

That said, I recommend.

This game is surprisingly very addicting.

I bought it two weeks ago on the search of something different.

So it kinda plays like Tropico, but with immigration set to off. Building a small community that relies only on its own people is very challenging. If you want positions to be filled quickly, you need to have an active population, otherwise you need immigration. With immigration not an option, your growth is much much slower and you have to plan your moves carefully if you don't want to waste labor. It can really be the choice between life and death.

Some tips, you have to attend to the basic needs of your people very quickly. At the start, you have the basic needs: food, clothing, tools, building materials. When all that is expended, that's when the game becomes increasingly challenging. If you don't satisfy at least one of them, you're going to have a problem that leads to another until you have a problem. An example would be having a shortage of tools would lead to a slowdown of production, slowing down production of food, firewood, tools, construction, etc. You're citizens will die from starvation or freeze in their homes as a result. So you need to keep supplies healthy.

Another challenge is trade. For starters, the game doesn't start with the most interesting of crops. I mean chestnuts, wheat and pepper doesn't sound exciting and you obviously want variety. You also don't have livestock to begin with. That's were the trading dock becomes handy. You exchange goods to buy seeds or livestock. The thing is, they're very pricey at 2500 units for 1 seed variety or 600-800 units for one live stock.

Technical-wise, the game is graphically above average. Nothing fancy here. What's impressive though is the file size. The game is only under 300MB. It's also one of those rare games where the game actually runs better in V-sync. But if you must know, my GTX 660Ti can run it above 240FPS and the screen-tearing is strong here. It's not something you see for a game released in 2014.

The game also comes DRM free from that other place ;).

I've held on to Flight Simulator X. I love this simulator to death. Of course, the simulator itself has been showing it's cracks and it's not as shiny as X-Plane or DCS, but make no mistake. There is a reason why a majority of the people play FSX over other Flight Simulator platforms. That said, I was quite surprised to see FSX live its legacy with a Steam Edition.

To be honest, I'm quite mixed about seeing the game on Steam. FSX is my little niche thing and it would be quite annoying (or amusing) to see some nine-year old flying like... a nine-year old, but with this release, the simulator receives a new lease of life as support is finally restored to a game that has long been thought abandoned by the publishers (We all know MS Flight sucked).

That said, I've tried and tested the simulator. For starters, the simulator runs quite well 'out of the box'. I then tested the simulator with add-ons as well. I had too. I've heard that this game has 'improvements'. So I've installed and tested ORBX YBBN Airport scenery with FTX Australia SP4. When I test for performance, I always test this particular airport. FTX is an amazing developer of add-on sceneries, but the Brisbane Airport (IATA:YBBN) is poorly optimized. No matter what setting I do, it just falls flat of expectation (Some settings are smooth, but it's below their recommended graphics settings). And I'm running an i7 3770k clocked at 4.2 GHz. I'm also using a GTX 660Ti. Just a note, the GPU is not necessarily the depending factor here. Usually, a better CPU leads to significant performance gains. CPUs needs to be overclocked (usually above 4.0 GHz) for optimum performance.

Unfortunately, it was no surprise that FSX:SE performed poorly in this scenery. Who was I to expect something short of a miracle? Unfortunately, this confirms what I've feared. The Steam Edition provides improvements (I will explain later), but you still need to tweak the fsx.cfg file located at the AppData\Microsoft\FSX folder. Some tweaks that I had to adjust were the Texture Bandwith Multiplier = 40 (It was set to 160), Set Affinity Mask = 15, Fiberframetimefraction=0.50 (default is 0.33), WideViewAspect = True, Regardless, it still performed like pizza in this scenery (I actually regret having this scenery), Just a note, while I've actually copypasta the entire fsx.cfg installed in my other hard drive, take caution in doing so. I noticed that the cfg file of the standalone and the steam edition are arranged differently. The [MULTIPLAYER] section of the cfg file is most definitely different.

Now I've noticed that some people in youtube have uploaded themselves playing the Steam Edition. I noticed one video where the person was using DX10. It's quite easy to spot when one is using DX10 even if they don't mention it. I found it quite odd. Everyone in to flightsim should know, unless you have Steve's DX10 scenery fixer, It is usually common knowledge to always use DX9. The reason for this is because while performance gains are realized in DX10, DX10 mode is inherently broken. That's why the ticker box is 'DX10 Preview'. Development was never finished. That said, I gave it a shot.

Here is where I was impressed.

Steam Edition performed phenomenally well in DX10. It's still not the homerun, but I was pleased with the performance. By this time, I had installed the ORBX Cairns Airport Scenery and compared it with DX9 and DX10. Brisbane performance was still kinda bad, but better. In both the Brisbane and Cairns scenery, I flew in the 3D cockpit of the default F/A-18 aircraft.

But you said DX10 performs well in FSX in the first place?

I did, but I was quite shocked with what I saw while running the simulator in DX10. Some of the broken things about DX10 have been fixed. One of the most annoying DX10 blunders is the opaque gray texture replacing the livery texture of commercial AI aircraft. That's been fixed. You could fly in the day with no problem. Flying at Dawn/Dusk, or night time can still be a problem though. The runway/taxiway still becomes opaque at dawn/dusk and the lights still disappear at these times. Cockpit shadows are still blunt. So while some DX10 blunders have been fixed, you may still require Steve's DX10 Scenery Fixer.

So do I recommend this game?
Considering that multiplayer is restored in the Steam Edition and DX10 performance is quite well, I'd definitely recommend this game, especially for the price. However, unless you're not into playing with add-ons free or paid, be prepared to modify the fsx.cfg, which I can say from experience, is a frustrating activity. Also, if you're in to add-ons, make sure you do have a Core-i7 desktop and a GTX 660Ti equivalent or higher. Always overclock your CPU above 4.0 GHz. Memory with low timings also helps (although some will dispute that this is not necessary). It also helps to have an SSD if you plan to install FSX on a separate drive (FSX can take a long time time to load).

That pretty much wraps up my review, so Good luck and Happy flying to you all!

EDIT: So apparently, I had forgotten that my CPU is 4 cores, 8 threads. I was using the wrong value for the affinity mask. I changed the value from 15 to 85. Both DX9 and DX10 run better now. Brisbane is much better, but still gets some hiccups.