Recent reviews by DrDoyle

Great mix of complex weapon systems and more arcade like flying. Pretty easy to learn if you've played flight sims, but there's a lot of skill and style that you won't find in Wingman or Ace Combat. The DCS but simpler description fits very well

I wanted to wait to make this review but I can't. This game has serious issues, and it's not just because I'm bad at the game, which I totally admit that I am. The arenas added in the new update lag my machine, granted my computer isn't good, but I will lose fights because the RNG of the arenas tanks my performance and it becomes impossible to play. Some of the arenas I get a constant 40-50 fps, others I will stutter and hit 9-12 fps. It's very upsetting to spend time grinding or fighting a precarious duel, just to lose it because the game chose a random arena that my computer cannot run. The dev has obviously not updated the minimum performance requirements. Also, some arenas suffer from really poor visibility, no matter what your fps is. An option to toggle "basic" and "enhanced" arenas would be fantastic, something that will allow me to play the arenas that are stable for me.

Blocking is inconsistent, and I don't mean your character's automatic blocking, which is supposed to be inconsistent in order to make you dodge and move. You can swing a polearm into somebody's face and do zero damage if it touches their shield just a little bit, even through their head swings back and your weapon gets caught and you have to bring it back to neutral. However, sometimes you can get past somebody's block and damage them past, not through, their shield. Damage and momentum are also so really weird, sometimes small taps with nothing sharp and little momentum hit your arm and take half your health in red damage, other times it feels like your polehammer is actually a cheap Walmart Thor toy hammer and you will have to keep swinging and swinging, even when you land clean hits with the head of your hammer. This is obviously a bit of hyperbole, but damage doesn't always make sense. It often feels like AI naturally deal more damage, as their small swings will magically carry a lot of force. AI will suddenly "turn on" sometimes and do quick combos that not even the most experienced player can do with great speed and precision, but only in random and uncertain situations. I'm okay with losing and sometimes your opponent does just get lucky but its frustrating when an inept fighter or an ordinary undead suddenly realizes his ancestors were master swordsmen and, for a brief moment, channels their power and cuts you down before the synapses in his brain fail and he returns to his normal AI state. Sometimes the AI will barely swing and hardly dodge even as expert and master opponents, as if they had had no brain in the first place. Keep in mind, most of my playtime is in the Arena, story mode is too laggy for me to attempt to play very much. I explored most of the first level, but that's about it.

The game is lacking a resolution option, so I must manually go into my Exanima config and change it, and for some reason it leaves my screen in 1280x720 so I have to launch another game to fix it. I am trying my hardest to love this game, I've told so many of my friends about it, I'm a huge history nerd, and I've had some really amazing moments when the game works for me. There really isn't anything else like it, but I hate having to grit and grind my teeth so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard just to try and appreciate this game that's all about making you grit and grind your teeth. I disagree with some of the design decisions, but there is a fundamentally beautiful game here that I want to love.

I just feel like it's so difficult to air my frustrations when I've seen a lot of people completely disregard opinions of players who don't have 300 hours. Again, I understand a lot of people leave angry negative reviews because they couldn't figure the game out in the first hour or two, but I genuinely want to see this game get better. I really like this game, even if it frustrates me. I just wish the community was a bit more receptive to feedback and realized that not everybody has to or should put 100+ hours to have an opinion on it. If there's one thing I'd say about this game it's inconsistent but beautiful when it comes together.

I shut the game down before writing this review, so my monitor is stuck in a low resolution. Excuse me if this isn't a really well put together review and it's more just a stream of opinions, there's a lot I want to say about this game and only so much space to say it. Overall, this game certainly is one of a kind, but it suffers from some issues that will push a lot of people away. It's not meant to be a fair game, but games often allow you to learn from your mistakes with a bit of observation and practice. This game will just kick your teeth in until you suddenly just "get it". It doesn't even give you an actual tutorial to understand, just a long text wall and a rather simple practice mode.

It expects a lot from you, and can give you small moments of joy, relief, and amazement that are meaningful and satisfying. It's just so soul crushingly difficult when things are made deliberately tedious, just for the sake of being mean, on top of technical issues that I suffer with. I can't recommend the game in its current state for anyone besides masochists that love games that are deliberately unfair and people that can't afford/access real life HEMA. Thank you for reading my review you dirty dungeon denizen, I hope you found a new perspective or found my review interesting. I love this game and I'd dump hundreds of hours into it if I could, but I also love my cardiovascular system a bit too much for that.

For every step back this game takes compared to Ace Combat, it makes up for it with unique ideas and things the fans have been begging to get for years. A talking WSO that people acknowledge and speak to, pylons that allow usage of multiple weapons, PSM that is actually useful, Allies will cause damage to enemies and actually get kills, (nothing better than seeing an enemy jet get hit with 6 missiles from Strider on Anchorhead) and much more. What the game lacks in polish, it makes up for in heart and soul. There's an amazing soundtrack that's as iconic as any AC game, and some great visuals. Plus some *BOMBSHELL* missions that'll really catch you off guard. It's not perfect however, the plane count is pretty low and a lot of the liveries for them are kinda boring. You can hear people's mic's pop a few times, conquest mode can spawn some enemies out of bounds or in glitched spots. Chatter is often repeated, and can get pretty repetitive, especially in conquest mode when it's the same handful of lines being repeated. There's really not that many special weapons, you'll be using MLAA and MLAG a whole lot until you get a few of the higher tier aircraft, but really they're just slight variations of that. But when you look back and remember that this is a small indie team with a love for the franchise, it's truly astonishing. Plus, if you really end up hating it, it's only $25. It's difficult, but it's a great game to get into the arcade flight sim franchise, and a wet dream for any Ace Combat fan.

After playing this game a bit more, I've honestly changed my mind on it. The game still has issues, like unstable frame rates and disappearing items/models and plenty of other bugs. You must have team mates that pick specific stats so you can make repairs and lockpick etc. Crafting feels pretty pointless. There's no controls or guides for scopes in the menus as far as I'm aware, which is absolutely unacceptable for something that uses as many buttons as it does. Not to mention the fame system being as broken at it is, if you get unlucky and die once in official servers you might as well just leave and try another one unless you've spent hours on the server, and killing the strangely hard to find puppets. Character creation WILL crash you no matter how good your machine is after you finish and try to spawn. I was lucky enough to have teammates, and I'm not sure what happened but one day after serious stuttering and having to constantly relog the game just decided to work and I've been having a mostly great time since. While I still do get some extremely frustrating stutters during firefights, when this game works it really brings back those old school memories about not knowing nothing and being scared of every firefight like the old Day Z times. While the core survival gameplay loop is a bit short, the sweetest and most interesting part of this game is the pvp. Keep in mind, I usually play on community servers so that does alter the gameplay loop, but what keeps games like this alive is pvp and events, so I don't feel shame in skipping to the goodstuffs. Official servers progress at such a slow rate that it really isn't going to keep your interest unless you're hardcore into survival and roleplaying. If you've got an up to date machine or a little bit of patience, this game really does stand out from the sloppy dime a dozen survival games. I don't think it's quite good enough to justify $30, so grab it while it's on sale. Just be sure to bring team mates, find yourself a decent community server (The Jungle and Not Your Brew are my favs) and don't shoot while driving cars, it will never end well.

One of the greatest E-Sports of all time.
But there's barely any singleplayer content, and what is there is lackluster. The netcode is beyond ♥♥♥♥, you'll spend 10 minutes waiting at a loading screen just for the game to tell you there's a communication issue. Even if you get into a match, there's always lag. It's not just my internet, every single other game I play has none of these issues. Harada lied about there never being paid characters or stages. There's such a high learning curve, and there's so much cheese, that it's nearly impossible to get into the game without pouring over hours worth of guides. This game has so much potential, and the core itself is fantastic, but there's so much garbage you have to tread through, it really doesn't make it worth it unless you've got wired internet and plenty of time to slam your head into a desk/wall.

jank, dumb, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid and broke and no good. I'll play it again tomorrow tho

I wanted to like this game so much but it's so poorly optimized, this game came out in 2013 and some 2019 computers STILL have issues running it. The DLC is beyond overpriced for how much you're getting. It's a good game and there's some really cool moments to be had but it's so hard to grit your teeth past the in game ads (in a game you've already paid for), the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ frame rates, the horrible server browser, and the god awful ping. Winning isn't about skill and tact, it's about having a better frame rate especially in CQC. That's not even addressing the actual issues with balancing and the game in general. This should've been one of the greatest milsims ever but I can't recommend it. Forcing yourself to enjoy an obviously broken game is beyond draining, even if you love it

nice

The game is not as toxic as people will tell you, at least not on the US servers. Fun post apocalyptic mmo with lots of walking.

uhhh i hope you like grinding and afk farming a lot.