Последние обзоры Sharpe

Where to start with this one? I've asked myself this question for a couple of hours before starting to type.

I suppose the easiest way to start is at the beginning. Notruf 112 (or emergency call 112 as the english version will be called) is a firefighting simulator made in cooperation with the professional Fire department of the German town of Mulheim an der Ruhr. It means you start a firestation and are assigned to an engine, a pumper or a laddertruck. Next door, but still within the building, are the paramedics with their ambulances. But these are currently just set dressing and not a subject of this review.

Unfortunately there isn't really much to do at the fire station. There's a small area where you can train in knocking down a small fire, connecting a hose and working with some of the rescue tools. You can also go to the engine bay and check out the usable gear on the available engines. Unfortunately not all the gear is apparently ready to be used yet nor are there call outs available where said gear, like the motor saw or the chain saw, can be used.

On the other hand, it still is kind of interesting to check out the ingame fire station. The posters that show the fire engines of the Mulheim Fire Brigade through the ages are a nice touch. And, the equipment containers at the back of the station perhaps also hold promise of bigger things to come. If so interested you can always try to load a container on the back of the carrier vehicle and unload it somewhere else. The containers and the gear installed on them however do not work.

In the meantime whilst you were busy checking out the gear on the fire engines or exploring the station, perhaps you might have had a call out.This could be anything, ranging from a traffic accident with persons trapped to an appartment fire and yes, even a false alarm or two.

Remember how i said that you can check out the gear on the engines? Well, now you can go up to your assigned engine or pumper, open the hatch(es) and take out hoses to fight that appartment fire. You can also help and build a supply line to the engine and prepare extra hose lines for an interior attack on that appartment fire. It's here however that you run into one of the games major shortcomings.

The ai

The ai is such that it can actually do a lot of tasks for you and thereby take a lot of work of your hands. This in itsself is a boon as it prevents you from having to do a lot of work yourself. HOWEVER, the ai is also still a bit finicky with regards to its pathfinding and the chores it has to do. I've experienced more then one case where I as a player had apparently done something the ai was supposed to do. This in turn caused the ai to lock up and literally do nothing.

I would say that in a game about firefighting you'd also wonder about the modeling of the fire and the way it would spread. Unfortunately, I can't really comment on this as I haven't really seen fire spread yet.It's another shortcoming and I suppose that the devs are working on it, as they have by releasing 5 patches (so far) on to the separate BETA branch.

There is still a lot of work to be done on this game and yes, the developers are aware of it. All in all however, despite the developmental shortcomings, Notruf 112 is an enjoyable game which has definetly raised the bar for firefighting games (if you compare it to games like the ff2014 game) but it's not quite there yet. Time will tell if it will get there, or not.

Wheter you want to buy it or not, the choice is entirely up to you.

EDIT: I feel not much is going to happen in this game in the future. A 2.0 version of this game is apparently in production but other then the announcement of this, there isnt much out there news wise. Due to the 2.0 version now being in production, i believe it is no longer in any way prudent to recommend this game.

An Age Of Sail game, that is what Naval Action is.

Much like some of the other age of sail games out there, you start out on the lower end of the totem pole with a rather basic cutter that will give you a little trouble with regards to the competition when you start out, but fortunately repairs are free. The higher up in rank (and the bigger the ship you command) you get though, the more expensive the repairs get though. (It would almost make you afraid of the cost of repairing a 1st rate after a battle.)

The ships that are in game look magnificent. From cutter to frigate to ship of the line. All of them look fantastic, but beware though. You're not getting any kind of damage modeling that would remind you of anything that Hollywood produces. Oh sure, you can dismast a ship, but once that mast is over the side it's gone. You can also a set a ship on fire, but you don't want to be anywhere near that ship when that fire reaches the powder storage!

Like a few other sailing games (Sid Meiers Pirates comes to mind) Naval Action takes place on a map of the Caribbean. And it is a huge map. As far as I can tell it would take several hours to sail from the top of the map to the bottom. Also present, the usual nations that had something to say in that area during the 18th century. The Spanish, the British, the Dutch, the French. There a few minor nations as well and for some odd reason the USA is in the game too. Each fraction (that's what the devs call them) has a number of ports that they control. These ports give out resources which can be traded and can also be used for crafting. And yes, you guessed correctly, these fraction ports can be captured, and thus the resources end up in the hands of your fraction.

Right now, you can only craft ship parts and if you have enough of those parts, complete ships. It takes a fair bit of time though. You have to find the resources, some of which can be found in a port, while others have to be obtained by capturing enemy trading vessels which can be found anywhere on the map.

Sailing on the map (officially called Open World) itself is pretty straight forward. If you press w, your ship goes forward. If you press s, your ship comes to a stop with the sails furled. Sailing in a battle instance is an entirely different game altogether. I could write a lot on that subject here, but that would make it one of those reviews which you can find on nearly all websites that are dedicated to gaming. The thing to remember I suppose is manage your sails (because unlike in World of warships, you do not have anything remotely resembling engines or turbines available to you.) in such a fashion that you A:keep the wind (keep your speed and keep moving) and B: create a stable as possible gun platform. Everything else is a learning experience, and that includes navigation as well.

I'm not gonna beat around the bush here. Navigation in the open world is pretty damn hard. There are 2 navigational tools available to you. Those are the map and the compass. Nothing more. You're dependent on navigating by landmarks and memory.I'm also pretty sure that as time progresses we will see more navigational tools added.

In its current Early Access state I would call this game a diamond in the rough. It needs work on multiple fronts including the user interface, which is something of an eye sore. But if the developer communication and tempo of updating is to be believed it will be interesting to see where this game is going to be at the end of the year.

One final word; this game is NOT for everybody. It takes a lot of patience to learn this game and even more to master it. The lack of tutorials can seem a bit daunting and add somewhat to the rather steep learning curve. However, if you liked series like the Hornblower series and the Master and Commander movie you'll probably find this to be a game you'll want to play.

update: It's 3 years since I wrote this review. The game left early access earlier this year.

If you start with the base game of Payday 2, you find a very good concept for a PVE COOP game. You and 3 of your friends form a crew of heisters that conduct raids/heists on several kinds of objects like banks, art gallerys and the like. In some cases you are doing this as a favor to other criminals.

Heists can also run over several days and can take you to such varied locations as a bank, a concert arena, a warehouse and yes, even FBI headquarters. Fortunately you can plan and run most heists your way. To quote Bain, the mysterious leader of the PayDay gang " Sneak in, or unleash Ragnarok." to help with that 'sneaking' or the 'unleashing' of ragnarok, a player can choose which class he or she wants to play and use the gained skill points from a succesful heist to develop his or her own 'heister' skills even further, allowing for even more 'sneaking' or, more 'ragnarok'. Can you imagine what happens when you have a balanced and well skilled team? That, is what makes this game fun, and sell more then well.

I suppose you could call the stuff I've written down so far, the reasons I considered PayDay 2 fun. But, there are also reasons why PAYDAY 2 isn't a fun game.

The thing that comes up first, is the volume of released DLC. The total collection of released DLC has something of a retail value that is five tot six times that of the base game. It adds a lot of content like heists and weapons, some of which are fun to play with, while others are only useful if you want to host heists or collect perk decks and masks. If you do want to get the extra stuff that comes with the DLC, wait for sales and pick up what you want or like.

The second reason why Payday 2 isn't a fun game anymore has something to do with the recent free content release during the crimefest event that celebrates the game being around. In a manner of speaking, crimefest 2015 began with an event known as 'road to crimefest 2015' During this event, all completed heists and associated goals would be tallied up and unlock rewards that would be released during crimefest 2015. Then the first day of Crimefest 2015 came around, and one of the first gifts the community got for free were safes, that would have to be opened by buying (with real money) a drill from the Steam market. And in the safes were weapon skins that, in some cases, would add a little something to the weapon statistics (which apparently had been reset as well)There were other rewards as well, the community machinegun was considered to be okay, along with bipods that could be used by the other LMGs but these, along with the assorted masks and release of 2 classic heists, did little to stem the community anger about these micro transactions.

Although the community as a whole unlocked them, they did not agree with these rewards at all. The developer (and through him the lead producer) remained silent until after the end of Crimefest 2015 when an AMA session took place at Reddit. The news that came via there was that the changes were there to stay. Needless to say this didn't go down well, and a lot of payday 2 community members have stated their discontent by leaving bad reviews over on the Steam page for the game and at the Metacritic website. Where and how this community backlash will end, nobody really knows yet.

To sum it all up; Payday 2 started off as a great game with ideas that were well executed and implemented.Unfortunately as time progressed it slid down the hill, with the introduction of too much DLC that sometimes would not have looked out of place at the start of the game. The recent update that included the microtransactions (the safes and drills) actually put an end to the fun I had with the game. That is why, i will not recommend this game in its current state. It's just not worth (and fun) it anymore.

As an update: A few changes have been made since the time I wrote this. The pay for drills have gone. As has the humongous amount of pay for DLC. A new ultimate edition of the game is now available. This includes all released DLC so far, for something close to a very reasonable price. Still, due to Payday 2s age, its still worth waiting for sale.

Probably the best looking snooker and pool game out there since the old virtual Pool and virtual snooker games. The interface is pretty straight forward and you'll be up and playing in no time at all. The ai is pretty challenging but not without faults (as in deliberately fouling during the two matches I've played so far. I'll admit this was only at the first 2 levels so it could change the higher you play)