Recent reviews by Mousse

If you've come to War Thunder for its tanks, it has exactly one thing going for it: Feelings. It conveys a feeling of tank combat that is unmatched by any other game. Sounds, landscapes, tank models: Everything looks gorgeous and inspires awe in its bombastic beauty. However, looks and feelings is all the game can offer, as its gameplay core is rotten and is extremely far from fair or competitive for most of its user base. Its only saving grace is that there is absolutely no mature competition.

From a game design perspective, Gaijin are fighting a battle they cannot win. There are just very few ways to make tanks battles with this diverse of a ground/air cast fun and in their awkward pursuit to make the game work OK on a technical level, they have abandoned all efforts of making the pvp experience even slightly balanced. Their Maps are gorgeous and feel authentic, but end up playing extremely poorly, and result in matches that are rarely competitive. Usually, the victor can be accurately predicted about 3 minutes into a 15-30 minute match.

It all flows out of the fact that virtual tank battles are 99% positioning: Generally, firing on the move and peeking corners comes at a massive disadvantage. So, if your first life (and inital position from driving for about 1 or 2 minutes) is wasted, chances are you will not find your way back into the game unless your team is winning one side overwhelmingly since most likely either team will win a flank and then lock down a spawn point within 5 minutes. The game punishes early failures immediately and mercilessly, providing no comeback mechanics except if the opposing team decides to suicide drive into your spawn that provides a brief period of invulnerability if you stay put.

Consequently, the game can be *very* fun if you know how to exploit maps, meta battle rating setups and matchmaking to face desired opponents. Getting a cheeky flank and racking up tons of kills feels exhilarating. However, in turn there is no fun to be found if you are facing someone who knows how to do it too or you are facing an unfamiliar matchup/map. Dying again and again because spawns are exposed and hard to push from is not an experience any pvp game should feature.

Lastly, and the elephant in the room: Monetisation. Grinding vehicles until they are remotely competitive takes an egregious amount of time on any battle rating above 4.0. Burning up because you haven't unlocked fire prevention equipment (edit: After several years, stock tanks finally get a whopping one free charge of fire extinguishers and basic repair) is par for the course. Have fun shooting inaccurate, slow guns until that adjustment of fire upgrade is in. Creeping in the back of your mind, there is always this temptation of spending real money to just unlock it right away...
Then, tucked away in a not super obvious menu is the true pay-to-win mechanic: Crew experience, which can also be bought with premium currency. Unless you shell out ridiculous amounts of money, you will face a months, if not years long, excruciating grind of getting to an even playing field with the old guard. Until then, enjoy facing people who reload up to 25% faster than you, turn cannons quicker and more accurately, can fire longer salvos, drop bombs more accurately, repair at a lightning pace and crew that survive damage that would've long knocked out your puny 0 vitality conscript.
Try fighting that on top of having more actual gameplay experience than you. That is, if you even spot them through their premium bought (or previously more easily acquirable) bushes that obscure their tank chassis and weak points.

If you are gullible enough, you could subscribe to their premium service, buy premium vehicles or talismans, and it does help, but the pricing is horrendous and exploitatively aimed at whales. It hardly ever feels like you are even remotely getting your money's worth but feel incentivised to do so at every turn, frustration always in the back of your mind.

All in all, it's not really a game anyone should recommend. If there were any other games that offered a comparable experience, I would jump ship immediately and never look back. Until then we will have to cope with the breadcrumbs of fun War Thunder provides, a game that could have been great if it was governed by a different business model and a more ambitious studio.

**Edit**
Coming back in 2025, map design has only gotten worse, featuring open spawns that can be locked down from range. Gaijin have not re-evaluated their game design or made fundamental changes, opting for a business-as-usual approach or, in some regards, getting worse: Offering paid premium variants of some normal tanks with slightly better stats and camouflage, providing even more advantages for money.

Beat Saber is probably one of the most intuitive and fun experience available for VR today as it presents an entirely new way to appreciate your music. As you make your way through the standard songs, you'll pick up on rhythm patterns and hone your intuition for incoming blocks and with a little practice, you'll blaze through expert levels while having the time of your life pulling up crazy moves. Surprisingly, the game itself requires (comparatively) little resources so that even a GTX1050TI (even QMax) can run it at decent framerates, while still providing a gorgeous environment.
The game also comes with a level editor and a lot of "moddability", enabling you to tailor the experience to your liking and turn your own music library into an exension fo the game.
All in all, Beat Saber provides a unique VR experience at a more than generous price point. This one should be part of every decen VR collection.

Stick fight stupid. Really stupid.In fact, stupidly fun .
Easily worth the asking price, this game will be there whenever you've got a friend over. Or when you are really pissed off at that buggy, unbalanced shooter you've been playing. It's not a game to play for hours on end, but a quick and refreshing blast in between. And that's all it needs to be.
The controls are responsive, intuitive and plain fun as you wiggle your stick person across the screen picking up snake launchers and black hole guns, or hurl swords across the level while it's breaking down around you. It's going to make you wheeze when you land that ridiculous throw on someone's head or you stupidly fall to your death because you forgot it's that level with the two towers on each side and you dove for the gun drop in the middle.

All in all, what you get with Stick Fight: The Game is a fun-sized package of comical carnage for the hours in-between. It's the polished version of your early 2000s dream flash game.