Recent reviews by Nomad

This is a great change of pace from the monotony of recent online FPS games. Most maps are pretty well designed, weapons can be tough to control and require more precision than standard, and teamwork is essential. Overall great experience.

I have an average game completion rate of 17% on Steam. That's actually quite embarrassing, but I mention it only because I just completed Assassin's Creed Origins. It's rare for me to really finish a single player game. For whatever reason, I tend to get into games like this early on, but when the mid-game grind starts rolling in I typically lose interest.

That wasn't so much the case with this game. I played about 37 hours before rolling the credits. That is uncharacteristic of me, which should speak to the quality of this game. Taking a year off in the development cycle seemed to pay dividends to Ubisoft here. I have not experienced such a vibrant open world in a game for some time. In fact, the world they have created here is easily in league with the likes of Skyrim and The Witcher 3, if not better. That's not to say the story or game mechanics are superior, rather it's just a comment on the quality of the open world. Ancient Egypt feels alive, atmospheric, and it begs to be explored. The Assassin's Creed style of traversal, with all its climbing and free running, lends itself well to the setting. Whether you love or hate the franchise, I don't think there is really any denying that the game environment here is a huge win.

As for the combat, I found it almost as satisfying as the exploration. I found myself being tempted to engage entire camps of enemies at times, rather than cautiously picking at the weak spots of an enemy outpost slowly and methodically, as the series namesake would suggest. Taking a stealthy approach was just as satisfying though, which I felt kept the game very fresh from a combat perspective. The combat itself is akin to a faster paced Dark Souls style, though not quite as deep. You'll face enemies with different capabilities and you'll need to be adaptable to succeed. At times, the game will force you to engage various groups of enemies or bosses in combat without a reasonable option of taking a stealthy approach. Other times, you may find yourself pouncing on a major enemy from the shadows, swiftly eliminating the threat while the only danger is being seen. The choice is really yours, and being able to play most of the encounters either way kept things interesting for me.

Then we come to the story. Here's where I have some mixed feelings. Because of the adoption of RPG elements, I found the urgency of some of the major story elements to be rather unbelievable. What I mean is that you'll be hot on the heels of an enemy who has done you an injustice, your character seething for revenge. A near miss, and he escapes. But there's a lead - he's gone to a town somewhere across the map and you'll need to go scout the area to try and find him. Thus one quest is complete, and you're issued the next quest in the chain. However, the next quest is above your suggested level, and suddenly all the baddies in his entourage are a few levels higher. They're firmly out of your reach now, as you can only effectively take out enemies about 2 levels above your current level. You may not even be able to assassinate enemies, rather you'll perform a "stealth attack," which takes a large portion of their health but they'll still react and potentially alert the rest of the camp. Granted, you may not want to rush through the story and perhaps you'll enjoy this pacing. I found myself wanting to know what would happen next, and felt disappointed when I had to open my map and search for adequately leveled quests to take on until I caught up enough in levels. This happened on numerous occasions. With that being said, many of the side quests lead to great rewards, and are great experiences in and of themselves. They tried to take some influence here from The Witcher 3, and it's made the overall experience much better. The stories still aren't nearly as good as The Witcher 3, but that's setting the bar extremely high. Let's just say you won't be bored out of your mind with side quests, and leave it at that.

Now, I purchased this game on the PC rather than console for a higher framerate and some better effects. I knew that the PC version was reported to have issues, and I experienced first hand that it does. It took me quite a while to figure out that the game is completely incompatible with surround sound options enabled on my Logitech G933 headset. By opening the Logitech Gaming Software application and setting it to stereo sound only, the problem was solved. It took me quite a while to find that solution though. I did experience some random bugs throughout my 37 hours, but nothing game breaking. I would expect Ubisoft to fix these issues eventually, but if given the choice again I would still stick with the PC version. I played it with both a Playstation 4 controller and an Xbox One controller, and found both these options to be superior to the keyboard and mouse. The combat was much more satisfying and movement felt more precise.

As an aside, I feel the need to mention the micro-transactions. I am upset to see the gaming industry gravitate so heavily towards liberal use of micro-transactions in fully pay to play titles, especially at the premium price point. I will say that in this particular case, it seems to be a very fair system. The real temptation would be to purchase crafting materials in order to avoid the mindless grinding of "hunting animals" in the game. To max out your gear, you'll spend a considerable amount of time fighting wildlife. It's not the most exciting thing in the world, and the temptation to skip some of that is great. Otherwise, the thing you should know is that there is no actual armor in the game. You'll use crafting materials to give yourself a flat increase to various stats, such as ranged damage, melee damage, health, carrying capacity for arrows, etc. None of these "items" shown on the inventory menu have any in-game appearance. Your weapon will have its own appearance, but your "armor" provides stats and your "outfit" provides an appearance. You don't really earn many outfits through simply questing, and you may get very bored of the way you look when your appearance doesn't change throughout the entire game. There's another temptation to succumb to the micro-transactions. The game balances this somewhat with a daily quest system which has the chance of rewarding random legendary items, though they're usually swords. Other high level quests give you certain outfits which are pretty cool as well, but while you're going through the main story of the game just be aware that you won't be able to access these yet. Just something to think about.

For my final thoughts, I will say that I do highly recommend this game. It's not "the complete package" in the way that games like The Witcher 3 or Breath of the Wild were. By this, I mean this game isn't really changing the industry and it doesn't hit the nail on the head in every category. It has an extremely rich and vibrant open world that feels alive and worth exploring. It has combat and stealth elements that entertain throughout. It has a story that is worth playing through and side quests which are usually pretty enjoyable. The game lacks character development for most characters aside from the main protagonist, who also isn't terribly interesting. I didn't really mind though, because I wasn't expecting this to be truly epic when it came to the story. With all this being considered, I would say it's worth paying full price and you should experience it. Be warned, it gets off to a somewhat slow start. Push through it, give it an honest 6 hours or so to start, and I believe the vast majority of you will find some enjoyment in it.

That's my two cents, I hope it helps someone make the decision. Thanks for reading.

I just... can't. 4/10 on the campaign. 5/10 for multiplayer. The series just took such a hard nose dive over the years, and we've all seen it. I'm not even going to bother explaining all the problems with this game on both ends, because it's mostly been said before. Just do yourself a favor and skip this. If you're 14-17 years old, you may like it. For adults and young adults, seriously don't bother. I can't even stomach it enough to play any more than the few hours I gave it.

I've been playing War Thunder on and off for years. Here's what I would say to anyone considering playing this game, in as brief a format as I can create:

1. Free to Play... is it fair? Mostly yes. You can purchase premium vehicles which will earn currency and XP faster, which will help you progress through the ranks faster. The premium vehicles, for the most part, are not overpowered compared to regular vehicles. However, progress is REALLY slow without a premium account and/or premium vehicles. The actual gameplay is not affected though.

2. This game has three main difficulty modes: arcade, realistic, and simulator. You can jump into arcade and have a blast without being too slow or tactical, nor will you feel like you need to really know much. Upgrade to realistic (the best balance, IMO) to play more tactically and have a challenge. Simulator mode is kind of niche, locking you into first person mode and using more realistic flight models etc. I would recommend trying both arcade and realistic.

3. Tanks, Aircraft, and Ships. These play so differently. Aviation was the bread and butter, and it's still great. Tanks is fantastic as well, and they really blew it out of the water. Naval is still very early on and needs more development. If you're into it for tanks or planes, it's really solid. If you're playing realistic mode in particular, this blows the World of XXX out of the water (both planes and tanks). The primary reason is the more realistic flight/damage models. It's not based on hit points. For example, if a round goes through your radiator, you will start to overheat and your engine might die. If you take rounds in one of your wings, it creates an aerodynamic imbalance and your plane is harder to turn that way. If your elevators get taken out, you might as well bail out. As for tanks, it's more than just getting tracked. This adds a lot more complexity to the game, while still being simple and easy to understand. It's more rewarding to cripple enemy vehicles in combat this way.

Honestly this is one of the more fleshed out games on the market, and I recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in historical vehicle combat. Check out youtube videos for higher level play and see what it has to offer.

Community can be a little toxic at times, but the vast majority of experiences are pretty positive.