Recent reviews by Dowly

It's always nice to get more WH40k, but the extremely clunky combat in SM2 makes this title infuriating to play. Simply being able to cancel your attack to dodge/parry would at the very least make the combat bearable.

A surprisingly well-written story for an adult visual novel. The humour was quite witty at times, making me laugh on more than one occasion and when the story needed to be serious, it was able to shift gears in that direction without a problem.

Bonus points for the fully voice-acted cutscenes sprinkled throughout the story.

Yes.

What can I say? It's a very, very fun shooter with loads of weapons and randomized maps. Seems to be pretty long too; I'm 12 hours in and it's still going on.

The only two negatives, and these are not huge, are the repetitive (but good) music and the lack of actually 'good' weapons that you want to use. In my 12hrs of playing I think I've used three or four different weapons from the dozens available (you have to choose to keep one weapon at the end of a level).

Simply amazing! The visuals and music perfectly convey the tread and hopelessness of the situation you're thrown in.

After a slow start, it gets great.

Incredibly fun!

Solid strategy. Not the most in-depth one, but I've always liked how fluid the gameplay is for the most part in Close Combat. The new effects and sounds are a welcome addition, really brings the battles alive and the sound of a MG42 opening up is as terrifying as ever. The AI in combat is OK. I find it really depends of the scenario and difficulty. I stalled the Allied advance almost instantly in the Grand Campaign playing as Germans, but after playing 5 turn of operation "Digging in" as Allies, the AI is putting up a good fight. I also see improvement in the driving AI, it's still not perfect and tanks often swirl around like idiots, but once I ordered a Tiger tank to drive down a road just barely big enough for it, it did follow it flawlessly.

Some might say the graphics are dated, but I would disagree. This is a top-down strategy game. Graphics rarely matter in this genre, and I must say, it does look rather good compared to the older games in the series.

The only gripes I really have are the new mortars introduced in PitF. Basically, when you order your mortar to shoot at a target, it takes 20-25 seconds to aim the first round, 5-6 seconds to aim the second and after that it starts to hit very accurately. This is devastating if you are not inside a multistory building. Also, the MG42 is a bit too accurate in my opinion. Most german infantry squads carry one and they fire 8 rounds per burst, making the extremely effective against the Allied infantry.

But all in all, it's a very good game. Of all the CCs I've played (CC2 through PitF), I rank it among the best in the series.

8½/10