Recent reviews by Gonaho

Following Fatshark's Vermintide games, Darktide is their entry into the WH40K setting. The gameplay loop is solid, the soundtrack is fire, and they've nailed the grimdark hive city aesthetic.
On the flipside the game is poorer on the overall narrative, and the maps and missions don't feel as varied as in Vermintide.
But if you've an appetite for co-op shoot'n'smash, and are a 40k fan, then Darktide will hit all the right notes.

Sonybronies raise the white flag

Mark Wahlberg's favourite game.

If i had to describe Interstellar Marines in short, i would say that it's a "stellar" example of wasted potential. Perhaps even outright vaporware. The game certainly has the roots and makings to be a good game, but if and when it is ever going to reach that point is anybody's guess. I bought in early on, periodically checking if maybe the game had finally come to something resembling a playable product, but now as three years of EA are closing up (with several before that outside of Steam) and no tangible developments made i'm starting to give up.
As one looks at the description, videos and screenshots, you might think that "this looks awesome, fighting aliens in dark corridors? oh hells yeah, this is the Aliens game i've wanted." Except, there are no aliens. The gunplay is good, the design is in the right direction.. but there is nothing to do. There are a few of short missions where you fight incredibly boring robot AI opponents, and then a handful of PvP maps. That's it. If you're hungry for a co-op experience, it isn't here. The PvP is not bad, but nothing truly special or something you haven't seen before. Certainly not worth the price alone. There are plenty of actually finished games with the deadly low-hit-threshold gameplay angle.
In sum, even with the affordable price there is no value in any direction. And we're now well past the point where one could buy in with the early access "this has future potential" -creed. The future came and went, the speed of development is simply not there. And it is truly a damned shame, because personally i'm always willing to give small teams with a vision a fair shot, but at some point you just have to accept that nothing is ever going to come of it.

The Good
+ Gameplay is as good as ever
+ Interesting new tactical choices
+ Great mod support

The Bad
- Optimization is terrible
- The overall story is a bit of a wash

XCOM2 is the sequel to XCOM: Enemy Unknown. The main gist of the game is that you lost during the first game, and now instead of commanding a global defence you are instead leading a resistance movement. The basics are still the same; command a squad of up to six soldiers with different abilities, fill your ant-farm with rooms back at the base, and do decisions on the geoscape.

Mission gameplay is familiar, but has been expanded somewhat. Two actions per soldier, different skills, full and half cover and overwatch are all there. There are of course improvements into how certain skills behave, but the completely new additions are the Concealment and Turn Timer aspects. Certain missions (and skills that can influence) start with the squad concealed. What this means is that the aliens are none the wiser, and you can move around un-detected as long as you don't run into the aliens (or civilian collaborators) line-of-sight. This is a nice change of pace and opens up some nice tactical possiblities. A well laid-out ambush is the most obvious, but how about doing a mission with a single soldier and not firing a single shot? Yeah, it's pretty great and can be done.
The turn timers are another (apparently somewhat controversial among.. not so skilled individuals?) new feature. Certain mission types have you either completing an objective or the whole mission within a set amount of turns. This was apparently done to discourage the "turtling overwatch" approach to gameplay, and comes as a no surprise after the Meld Canister mechanic from Enemy Within. The limits are generous, but enough to make you keep a steady if not brisk pace through said missions.

Outside of missions the familiar "ant-farm" base awaits. However, there is only half the amount of building slots available compared to the previous installment, and throughout the course of the game you will tend to only build a single (with a duplicate of some) of each type of structure. Compared to the amount of room and buildings in Enemy Within, this is a step backwards.
But with that said, there is at the same time more leverage in how you go about building your base. There is no strict "must do" build order (Like in EU/EW, especially regarding the satellite relays) this time around. You can rush certain building types early to gain their benefits, or opt not to and use the resources elsewehere without any "meta" penalties. This is of course a great thing, and to me slightly outweighs the loss of space.

The Geoscape is much improved. Where aspreviously you had very little actual interaction on the globe, this time around there is a whole lot of it. There are the missions to go to, naturally, but there are also side objectives, opening up new areas, building relays, visiting the black market and HQ. All of this, even flying from one point to another, costs time. And time is not a luxury you have in XCOM2. The interactions and planning involed with the Geoscape are excellent.

Not everything is rosey, of course. The optimization as of launch has been universally terrible. Frames are low and loading times long with some freezing in-between. Some inspecting and .ini tweaking fixed much of it for me personally (and as such said problems can be alleviated), but it's still something that shouldn't be present.
On the gameplay side of things, the overarching campaign story did not hit the same high notes as the previous installment did. However, addons are on the horizon so perhaps this is something that will wrap itself better once we experience the "full" story. As such, the basegame ended somewhat apbrupt and left me unsatisfied. I was also not that pleased with you, the player, being characterized to the degree that the game did. I feel like it's not something that should be done in this genre, unless you get to actually make yourself in the game (like in Jagged Alliance 2).

But with all that said and done, XCOM2 flies with colours blazing. To the fan it is just what we asked, more of that XCOM goodness with a new and fresh twist. To the connosseur of the genre, it is an excellent turn-based squad tactical game. On a final note i must also praise the excellent modding support showed by Firaxis, which should give birth to an excellent modding scene in the not-too-distant future.

"Hey.. hey team, you know what would be cool?"
"What?"
"How about we introduce microtransactions.. while the game isn't even finished!"
"Brilliant! I am sure the community will like this, it worked so well for Overkill"