Recent reviews by Rule.303

Do you like Minecraft? Check.

Do you like The Sims? Check.

Do you like Business Managers? Check.

You will love Rimworld. This indie game is phenomenal. So much content, such an awesome modding community, and so many subtle in depth details. Every DLC is absolutely worth the investment. The stories and scenarios are compelling and entertaining - each and every one of them. You will lose.

But you will love every second of it.

The game had some potential, but it is incredibly lacking. Just to summarise the key problems you will find into 10 points:

1) The simulation aspects are completely non existent.
2) The physics engine is nonsensical.
3) Key bugs that can literally be solved by turning a feature off that was accidentally left on has been allowed to plague the main branch and beta branch of the game for months, rendering many layouts and track segments completely unusable due to hit box collisions.
4) The development team turnover is insanely high, due to developers being unpaid (yes, unpaid!) and a toxic internal culture existing that proactively allows bullying of other staff members whilst the head developer plants his head in the sand. They completely purged and nuked their own Discord servers with the community (that you are referred to in the tutorial box as it's the only way to figure things out well in this game) not once, but twice, because they couldn't handle community criticism of their ♥♥♥♥♥♥ decisions. In the latter case, leaked messages between developers shows how rampant the bullying and lies were, and the head producer even changed his online alias from Joao to Hoppkins to pretend that the team had somehow gotten rid of him after he both broke his NDA and doxxed another team member to the public.
5) Arbitrary speed limitations put in place because the developers can't for the life of them figure out how to fix their splines or physics, meaning trains and gameplay is always super slow.
6) The map design is garbage, with no variation in foliage whatsoever and repeated textures everywhere making the game visually boring.
7) The UI is completely hands off and leaves you with nothing whatsoever to actually work with to build a half decent network.
8) You can completely cheat and game systems through economy exploits such as simply placing a firewood depot immediately adjacent to the Logging Camp to spam sales.
9) The sound effects are bland and completely awful - locomotives don't even chuff to the timing of the wheels.
10) There are no multiplayer supporting features in place whatsoever, despite the game supposedly being an, 'online game.' At best, you connect to an individual game session wherein you can't even render and see track/trains at distance properly and you have no means of communication such as VOIP, in game text or map feedback.

Do not get this game. It is never going to be completed because the leading developer is completely out of touch with the whims of the community and even his own team, the team are toxic to one another, and any competent developers have already left because they haven't been paid and have been treated by absolute dirt. Just look at the screenshots and videos leaked from the dev branch and you will quickly see how bad the state of the game actually is in - barely a tech demo.

Hell Let Loose looked promising at its outset, but having finally been able to afford the game on sale and racked up some good hours playing it, I cannot recommend this game in the slightest. Here's why:

(For context, I purchased this game at $42.95 AUD, or $32.78 USD, so I value the game's purchase on that amount.)

Hell Let Loose seems to market itself and play itself as a, 'bridging the gap,' type of game. It aims to fill the market niche that forms between arcade shooters that focus on mildly realistic aspects (such as Red Orchestra, Rising Storm and Insurgency) and grand strategic/tactical shooters that focus on complex engagements and unit tactics (such as Squad, Post Scriptum and Beyond The Wire.) Unfortunately, this filling the niche is more rather an identity crisis for the game, because the game and its player-base can't decide which they want to be and instead you have a bunch of headless chickens running around with little to no communication outside of maybe squad leaders and commanders, and but the arcadey shoot 'em up isn't there to compensate. It's a niche that's not filled for a reason.

The balance in the game is atrocious. Whilst asymmetric warfare is fine - as seen by games such as Rising Storm - the problem is that the different aspects of asymmetry DO NOT cause an overall balance for the two sides. The US Army HORRIBLY outguns the Wehrmacht. They have far more automatics than the Wehrmacht does on almost every level of the squad organisation. In a game with realism in mind with a lot of close quarters engagements, this is absolutely game breaking and devastating - especially for new players on the Wehrmacht who don't get access to many automatics and have to sit with the default KAR98K whilst the Americans dump all over you with their M1 Garands and Carbines. Yet, the Germans do not have anything to balance this firepower out - not even the legendary MG34s and MG42s are enough given that the American Browning works just fine anyway. The Germans get only ONE automatic rifleman whilst the Americans get THREE. What's even worse is nobody is even asking for these updates for more autos or anything - everybody wants less, yet the developers are completely tone death to their playerbase of testers and seem to keep trying to soften up a game that is clearly not designed to be casual nor marketed as such.

Also, for a game that clearly markets itself with realism, it provides very little beyond the penetration physics (which is one of the plus points for the game.) There does not appear to be any bullet drop for any of the firearms, even out to 200m and beyond where it should be noticeable given a lot of firearms in WW2 don't have the velocity of modern small-bore rounds. However, the Bazookas and Panzerschrecks appear to have some - which then also appears to be exaggerated and more than the weapons actually have. You cannot use any of the fire selectors which the firearms have - something which the Automatic Riflemen in particular really would have appreciated with an STG44 being able to switch to semi automatic andthe BAR being able to switch between fast and slow fire instead of just the default which appears to be slow fire. The reloading also is way too fast for many of the weapons.

I get this game isn't Post Scriptum or Squad but the squad organisation sucks for infantry squads. Infantry squads consist of only 6 people, yet you have many more roles available than you are able to select. This means every infantry squad lacks a critical aspect to a combined arms force and its firepower - which this game clearly wants to depict - and you see everybody hoarding around with automatics and a lack of riflemen who do not have them. It also significantly reduces the squad communication because everybody just does the same thing rather than calling up the critical firepower for who has it at what time. There are 9 roles in the game - so 9 man squads at the very least should be a thing. Add to this that standard infantry squads of WW2 were usually about 9-12 soldiers then the realism and historical accuracy aspect would be awesome - but Hell Let Loose falls short.

One thing Hell Let Loose does deliver on well is the map design. The maps are very well put together and are meticulously researched and usually 1:1 scale, and it shows. This game is pretty, and the maps also cover a lot of battles that are less talked about in video games such as Utah Beach, Foy and Hurtgen Forest (which is sad because Hurtgen Forest was one of the bloodiest battles of the Western Front and the longest single battle the US military has ever fought in.) There is cover everywhere, and plenty of ways for a sneaky conniving player to outmanoeuvre a foe. But looking nice doesn't make a game, and this does not make up for the poor gameplay experience and balance sadly.

Finally, the game's progression system is extremely taxing, and imo completely unnecessary anyway. If I play a realistic squad driven WW2 game, it's not about the weapons you unlock - it should be about whatever you get and is handed over and issued to you. Having to grind your way to semi automatic rifles as a German soldier is extremely tiring whilst your American counterparts run around with 3 BARs to the squad and everybody else having M1s. There's no prestige associated with grinding or ranking up either - no leaderboards, no visible ranks over your name tag or role in game etc. It seems to solely exist to punish the player and has no place in a realistic shooter.

All in all, a solid attempt at a game but this game sadly does not deliver on what it aims to deliver, and with every passing update it is becoming apparent that this game is just a Mid-Life crisis packaged as a Steam purchase, unsure of where it wants to actually go or achieve.

Baldur's Gate 3 is hands down an amazing game. The sheer degree of content in this game is absolutely massive. The game world feels real and responds to your actions. Consequences are real. The homage to D&D 5E is proudly worn on the game's sleeve unlike the previous games in the franchise yet modified just enough to be playable and fun in a video game context. The storyline is amazing and gorgeous. The game is insanely replayable. There's no micro transactions. There's no post purchase add-ons to worry about. It's a full and complete game from the get go.

This is hands down the best CRPG I have ever played, and Larian Studios far exceeded my expectations between my initial negative review during the early access stages of the game and the full release. If there is one negative point I can find, it's simply just the audio quality in dialogue can vary, but that's just the nature of partially recording the early access in proper game studios only to then have a lot of the work on Baldur's Gate 3 be done from home due to the impacts of the COVID pandemic and the relocation of one of the dev studios due to the outbreak of war in Russia and Ukraine. It's such a minor issue that you won't notice unless you have a keen ear for these things such as a musician like myself will have, and even then the voice acting and dialogue is so phenomenal with its interactivity and sheer level of content and believability that it just does not matter from a gameplay perspective.

Yes, absolutely get Baldur's Gate 3, there's a reason it is tied with Disco Elysium for the best rated PC game of all time from Metacritic.