SlickNick

This game is rock solid. It has a high learning curve for map exploration and party management, and the turn-based battle strategy is fun and well-balanced. The battles were all fairly unique and didn't feel repetitive. The RPG aspect including dialogue, choices, consequences and party members' interactions are reminiscent of old school RPGs like Baldur's Gate. It's a good combination of strategy and RPG. However, every time your party runs out of movement points on the map, you have to manage your party as you put them to sleep (make sure someone hunts for food, make sure someone creates healing herbs, make sure someone guards the loot, make sure someone xxx). While this aspect of the game is captivating for the first 5-10 hours, it quickly becomes tedious. Other than this one drawback, however, the game is quite fun.

The game as it stands is unplayable for the following reasons: 1. UI 2. UI 3. UI 4. UI 5. UI 6. Camera 7. AI 8. Lag Back to europa barbarium. Sigh.

A fun and addicting game on normal. Bugs and bad-AI-so-cheat-compensation kill classic or impossible modes. Because the developers didn't develop any worthwhile AI for the enemy in this game, they cheat for the computer on classic and impossible difficulties. You don't notice it in normal because you can actually go blow-for-blow and win. All you have to do is advance, stay in cover, and shoot, and you'll win on normal. What you don't notice (because there aren't that many patrolling alien squads in normal) is that alien packs don't walk around the map, they randomly teleport anywhere on it and then aggro when they see you. In the higher difficulties you can't go blow-for-blow, but instead have to use flanking and/or luring tactics. Except that enemies can teleport anywhere if they're not in your Line-of-Sight and attempting to perform any remotely tactical movement will result in another pack of aliens spawning in your LoS. This results in only one tactic that works, which is also extremely boring: creep forward with one scout, trigger a single alien group, run back to the rest of the squad sitting in cover and overwatch, and hope aliens follow you. Nothing as exciting as sitting in overwatch for 50 turns, right? The base-management is trivial as well. There are no research dead-ends, you can research everything fairly quickly so there isn't any strategy in researching. Satellite and panic management is the only remotely strategic part of the base-management.

You get a zero for: It requires a Games For Windows Live profile. I try to create a windows live account with my email. Nope, my email is already in use. Weird, pretty sure I never created a windows live account with it. Initiate Microsoft's password recovery process. Doesn't work. Spend 4 hours trying to troubleshoot. Realize that windows live password recovery process **** monkey balls. Finally go through some windows non-live site to create account with email. Go back to live site and login. It works. Go back into game to log into windows live within the game. It finally logs in. But wait! My steam key is invalid. Go to steam forums. See 15 different trouble shooting techniques already suggested to fix the invalid key issue and Games For Windows Live problems that thousands of other people are having as well. Try them. Nothing works. Go into game and play without profile. Game doesn't auto-save when not logged into profile. Realize that games that don't let the users choose when and what to save/load completely ****. (insert zero punctuation rant) Screw around in the game a bit and realize it's just another shiatty console port to PC.

Oh dear god. The last baseball game I played was MVP 2005. It's a little dated on graphics, so decided to finally try a MLB 2k game. MVP runs circles around this game. And graphics are.... ok, and about the only thing going for this game. It's a terrible console port, for one. It took me about a week to get comfortable with controls even using a gamepad on my PC. The absolute worst part of this game, however, is the physics. The baseball is too heavy. Not just a little heavy, where you notice it flies a little slow on fly outs, and doesn't pop off the bat. I'm talking ridiculously heavy. Line shot over the shortstops head into left field for a base hit.... the ball stops rolling 20 feet in front of my outfielder? Hahaha, what? Ground balls seem to just... barely... make... it... through the infield. It ruins the entire game.

I'm an avid fan of the Silent Hunter series. So much so that even with all the negative reviews I decided to get 5. Oh boy. Where to begin.... Basically they removed all the good features from SH3 and SH4, added a "meh" UI, sort of improved crew management, improved graphics (yay, but duh), and floundered around with everything else. Tutorial is non existent. Auto TDC **** (you aim where my periscope/uzo is looking? WTF? that's completely and utterly stupid. Who the heck is going to look 30 degrees in front of the boat they're aiming at? Meaning you pretty much have to learn how to manual TDC. Saving/loading is still bugged to F***, which is awesome because there's nothing more fun than simulating driving across the atlantic for an hour. Take simple stuff like "wanting to skip the tutorial" (because it's useles), no option for that until you've already beat the tutorial but if you accidentally restart the tutorial, the option to skip the tutorial is removed (Think about that one). You still haven't added an in-game clock to the UI. Bugs galore. A few small steps forward in some areas, and giant leaps backwards in others. Sigh.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I like to describe this game as "Multiplayer Grand Theft Auto". You're in a large scale city environment with traffic, NPCs, and other characters, and its third person shooter style. The storyline behind the game makes it somewhat believable: the city has deteriorated and crime is rampant, in a last ditch effort to save the city the mayor deputizes anyone who wants to help enforce laws, thus the creation the two major factions enforcers and criminals. Characters are grouped (typically groups of 2-4 or up to 8 if you call in backup) to help each other with missions that are assigned by a dispatcher depending on their faction. You can create your own groups with friends or be auto grouped. There will usually be around 80-100 people running around on any particular server, and dozens of servers, so you get to find a wide range of different people and skills. The missions fit well with the back story (eg, enforcers have to raid doors and crims have to stop raids, etc; criminals have to spray graffiti and enforcers have to stop graffiti, etc) but do lack some depth and can be repetitive. However, the missions are just a pretext to battle against another group. When on a mission you may be matchmaked against a group of the opposing faction that is generally equal skill. The matchmaking is generally pretty good with matching players of like skill level. The best part about this game, in my opinion, is the squad based tactics and both weapon and tactics variety. The different weapons complement one another and generally create a balanced and exciting firefight. For example, a character equipped with a SMG will be very deadly at close range, but useless at far range. So he either needs to use cover of buildings/cars to race into the enemies face, or have a teammate cover him with a long-range rifle for his approach. Since it is an fairly open city environment, maneuvering and flanking opponents becomes viable strategy. Another good aspect of the game is the visual customization for clothing and vehicles. With an in-game mini graphics designer, its possible to create almost any design for your vehicle or clothing. I've played this both in beta and after its release on steam. The biggest change at official release is the introduction of punkbuster and the elimination of cheaters running aimbots, etc. Two big thumbs up in this area, almost all cheaters are out of the game and banned now. The game can be very addictive and has lots of continual play value as you constantly unlock weapons, vehicles, and perks.