Recent reviews by Timmystwin

This is one of those games where the less said the better. Just dive in, and be immersed. But:

Story: Solid, but predictable to a degree if you try to. So don't.
Characters: Great. Some in depth history, audio logs, and also some good voice acting.
Graphics: Looks great. Has a great aesthetic, sort of a cross between art deco and 90's anime sci fi. So not futuristic space, but gritty space.
Music: Can't say I noticed it, but that's not to say its bad. The sound design is great overall, and the music kicks in to amplify the vibe - it doesn't stand out as it doesn't try to.
Gamplay: Can get a bit annoying and janky at times, but you can save when you want etc. Plus, there's a lot of duplicate ways around things. Can't get in a door? Break the window and shoot the manual override from the other side etc. The upgrade system is logical, and simple, but expansive. So for instance moving larger heavier things out of doorways is the simple route - but what if you can then jump on it and get on the roof of another area?

Overall, I bought this on launch, forgot about it, and played it in 2022. And I'd honestly say it's worth what I paid for it. So get it on sale and enjoy even more.

There's a lot of promise here but:

It's unoptimised as hell.

The AI gets insane bonuses on harder difficulties, and its troops often just won't flee until annihilated.

Everything being a little siege battle is fun at first, until the auto resolve decides a 5 unit garrison can wipe out half your well trained 20 stack, so you have to fight it...

But then janky line of sight and AI buffs means they still wipe out 1/4 of your army anyway in what should be an absolute steamroller.

Give the game some time to be polished, and balanced a little better, because the various improvements that are here from the last game are well worth it. There's an awful lot of good here. But give it a month or so.

If you've not played it, play it.

Soundtrack? Excellent. Graphics? Beautiful aesthetic. Gameplay? Exploration is fun, challenging, and interesting, and you can build so much stuff it's insane.

Plus it's dirt cheap.

What's not to like.

Only complaint is you'll need the wiki at points, and it can get a little grindy feeling.

Pros:
Graphics are great
Sound/music is great. Really helps the overall atmosphere.
Voice acting/animations are great, for the most part.
Some pretty decent story overall, nothing mindblowing, but there's bits that are nice. And the cutscenes, such as the first time at Sarah's, are really good.

There's a barely noticeable air of quality that you can really just feel in this game. It's hard to put my finger on, but for instance they have characters doing their jobs in the background of cutscenes, they don't just appear. Even minor jobs. Certain voice lines are delivered really well, and really don't feel like they're read off a script. If you steal a cop car, then drive back to the location, the cop recognises it. Little things like that, that are minor on their own, but overall really add to the game.

Cons:
Fair play is still in the game.
Sam and Paulie sound so similar it's really frustrating.
Tommy, Sam, and Paulie all have Coronavirus because they have to take really deep breaths before/after/while they're saying something.

Overall, 9/10. Maybe 9.5. Very solid remaster, I know it's supposedly dumbed things down from the original, but it's still bloody good.

(Oh and if you have borderless windowed problems, launch it in fullscreen, tab out, tab back in, then set it to borderless windowed.)

Quick review:

Pros:
- Beautiful
- Decent soundtrack
- Good art style
- Some pretty neat RPG elements such as reputation, and skill checks. Not too complex but good to see.
- Some complex decisions.
- Unlike what is said elsewhere, companions do interact with you, and the world around you, and each other. It's just rare. (For instance Kurt will comment on what Siora says when you go speak to the Bridge alliance.)
- Music is solid.
- Doesn't lore dump you, and has quite tight world building. (Such as the sailor's faction having a slight accent as they spend so much time together.)

Cons:
- Facial animation is inexcusably bad
- World building does feel a little generic at first as nothing is explained. Does mean you avoid being lore dumped, and you can ask about more if you want, but can mean it feels a bit meh.
- Combat is a bit boring and repetitive, and also quite difficult sometimes.
- Some bugs and issues that are annoying, but not gamebreaking. There's a million invisible walls you get sort of caught on, and if an enemy wanders too far from its spawn it's instantly passive and back to full health etc.
- While the nauts and different factions having their own accent is cool, the native one is really weird. Also, several voice lines only have male options. As does some flavour text.

I'll update on story whenever I actually finish it. But it's pretty decent so far, if slightly generic and repetitive. 8/10. Probably a 7 if gameplay mattered more to me, but it's passable.

I've loved racing games my whole life.

I bought Forza 7. Couldn't get in to it. I bought various Dirt games, couldn't get in to it. The combination of frat dude bro narrators, and tracks that weren't designed for the cars, meant they just weren't fun. (Forza has a championship where you take terribly handling cars in to fun winding circuits... why.)

This I've played for like 7 hours straight.

The graphics are good. The gameplay is good. The soundtrack is good. And the experience is wonderfully unique and interesting.

Well worth the price, although I have no idea how long the game takes to finish. But I got it on sale, and it was certainly worth that.

tl;dr I only played Single player, because I heard pretty terrible things about online.

This game is an easy 10/10. It does get a bit slow in areas, and it suffers a bit from forcing you to do exactly what it wants too, to get the film-esque moments, but other than that no real issues. (apart from Rockstar social club/launcher but just launch in offline mode to dodge that.)

Long take:

Graphics: Amazing. Truly amazing, the volumetric clouds and lighting are some of the most impressive I've ever seen.

Audio: Brilliant, with music overlaying key points in the campaign and often fitting perfectly. Quite memorable music in some places too. Voice acting is absolutely top notch.

Story: Just... wow. They did it again, made me love the characters and made yet another game that'd work fantastically as a film or TV series. Brilliantly done.

Characters: Stuck remarkably close to what we see in the first game surprisingly, down to Dutch having plans. Great character design and writing for them, you really feel for them when anything happens.

Gameplay: What you'd expect, so very solid. Pretty streamlined but buying things is a little slow. Main annoyance is your horse takes weapons off your back when you're holstered, and I have no idea who decided that was a good idea.

Again, this is singleplayer only, but the world is so varied and rich... why ruin it by having some random kid hogtie you constantly online.

tl;dr

UI isn't intuitive, can make it feel like a chore to learn.
Certain minor options/features are missing from previous games like zooming to a faction when in diplomacy.

But looks good, gets good FPS, sound is good, battles are standard, maps are good, UI is at least pretty if poor functionally, and the army mechanic is a vast improvement.

8/10


Cons:

UI is cluttered and has too much aesthetic. You have to hover over everything to work out what it does, and it's all over the place, in order to maintain aesthetic. (No easy bars for health and morale like in TW:WH2, no obvious diplomacy treaty options, garrison units are just icons, not names etc.) It all adds up to feel like you're learning how to play, instead of playing to learn. Feels kind of like a chore, and that may not mesh with some.

To add to that, nearly every flag is identical, and the names (to me) are almost all meaningless. So working out who is who is hard, but to add to that, the AI will treaty spam you. However, when the AI asks for a treaty, it doesn't hover over who they are. It doesn't show where they are at all. So I mostly just auto reject and hope for the best as I've forgotten which of the 14 minors bordering me has offered it.

Game is reasonably unstable which kind of sucks, but I haven't had too many issues myself.

Pros:

Graphically stunning. Runs well FPS wise. Battle maps are great. Far better than warhammer, Sieges are a step back from Brittania though. Sound is great. Details are great.

The main large change is army recruitment, where you can have 3 generals per army, so if you need to send a small force out to snipe a village you can. This is DRASTICALLY better than the "Well I may as well have a 20 unit death stack." of later games.

Meh:

Reforms replace tech, you're guaranteed one every 5 turns and they do... things. But, as above, the layout is odd. It has the exact same structure as, for instance, Elves in Total War Warhammer. You start on the Blue (trade) one, then work up the branches. Or Military etc. But they're swirling and whirling and all pretty, but that just means it's kind of annoying to spot your next route. Functionally similar however.


Overall, would recommend, but personally I'm struggling to get past the terrible UI. I can kind of see what they were going with, it looks pretty, problem is it's not intuitive. Very much form over function. It feels very much like a re-invigorated Total war, but it's got the rather dull but pretty shell of China over the top.

Can't wait to see them do Medieval 3 with this engine/set of mechanics.

Far better than the previous game, turn timers are fixed, got some awesome mechanics and DLC... if you want a Total war with actual variety, and replayability, look no further. The warhammer lore is just an added extra that makes it even nicer for warhammer fans.

(Review for those who haven't played TF1 at the bottom)

This isn't a reskin, despite what other comments are saying.

Terrain and coast modification is better. (As in, you can actually modify coast). There's a map editor. More varieties of map. Extra props etc. There's also a terrain painter by default.

There's been some UI improvements, and the station customisation is far better. (No bendy stations yet though, which is a shame. But that was a mod.)

There's a greater variety of vehicles, far greater, by default.

The graphics in general are radically improved, although I can see the arguments for reskin here as some of the improvements are rather subtle.

The Music and sound is also better/less repetitive.

City growth is far simpler, and easier to understand and manipulate.

There's no more annoying triangles, and glitches. Things are working a lot smoother snapping wise, which is hard to notice without going back and playing TF1 and realising how prevalent that was.

The big, negative change, is cargo distribution. Cities now only accept 2 goods, as opposed to all 6 like TF1. This means that if there are no industries that supply a town near it, you end up making massive huge truck chains in order to even break even, as Trains are very expensive and can no longer supply multiple towns.

This also means that once you're done with those, you're done. No towns want more items. So you can hit the point where it's not worth making any more things, due to distance, and you're making money hand over fist so can't be bothered.

There has been some balancing, between consumption and production, but overall that is the one resounding negative change. The UI being nonsensical is sort of the same as the last game.

Overall, so far, I would recommend this. But bare in mind it does *feel* like TF2, even if under the hood there's a lot of subtle improvements.

For those who haven't played TF1:

This is OTTD but for the modern age. It has a slight difference of forcing things along lines, but that's kind of it. Cities need supplies and passengers, you send those supplies and passengers. You build the rails, more roads, the trams, the trucks, you create intricate transport networks, and by the time you finally fully connect a city it's 2am and you have work in the morning.

However, if you're debating it, buy Transport fever 1. It's cheaper, and you'll see if you like this kind of game.