Recent reviews by CaoLex

Игра про боль. Наверно лучший аналог Fortress Mode в Dwarf Fortress, потому что также, как и он, "честный". За счет каких-никаких анимаций, выглядит попонятнее, чем просто спрайты или раскрашенные символы, но различить где глина, а где местный житель обосрался - так же сложно и приходится читать описание клетки.

Интерфейс примерно такой же проблемный. Z уровня нет, глобалка - есть. Перфоманс весьма достойный даже на поздних стадиях игры.

Начинать - сложнее всего. Потом уже идешь катком. Если повезет. И если не сделаешь слишком много ошибок.
По сути игру можно разделить на 4 фазы:
0) Выбираешь место на глобалке и генерируешь локальную карту до тех пор пока все хоть для одной расы не будет более-менее доступно.
1) Пришел и пытаешься выжить, создаешь добычу базовых ресурсов для рас, за которые будешь играть, дома, туалеты, инструменты, баню, библиотеку, торговый пост, еще кузни для оружейки и доспехов, склады по мере необходимости. Надешься что никакие бандиты не придут и не наваляют.
2) Бандиты уже не особо страшны, популяция с несколько сотен, ополченцы тренированы и более менее вооружены (зачем-то каждому нужно по несколько мечей или луков, что та еще подстава). Желательно еще и бронированы. Сидишь, не вылупаешься, пытаешься сделать так, что бы не случился социальный коллапс (один из самых популярных методов - геноцид неугодных, но, имхо, лучше сначала сразу решить, кого принимать будешь, и брать только их, правда по началу не знаешь сильные и слабые стороны рас и их потребности, ничего, рестартов через пять будет понятно), торгуешь, если необходимо, на соседей не вылупаешься. Иногда приходят работорговцы, покупаешь у них немножко народа своих любимых рас, и освобождаешь.
3) Населения уже достаточно, что бы вылупаться на соседей. Солдаты хорошо оснащены и вооружены, к снабжению готов, осадное оружие наличествует. Идешь вылупаться на соседей, делаешь их данниками, а значит теперь есть ресурсы на поддержку большего количества населения. Жители постоянно чего-то хотят или отчебушевуют, назначаешь дворянство, что бы полегче было кормить эту орду и строишь самую большую библиотеку в мире. Никогда не покупаешь много рабов сразу.
4) Красишь карту в свой цвет, или не расчитываешь свои силы и огребаешь. Нового с этого момента уже нет. И, по сути, становится только легче.

Моды поинтереснее, чем у Dwarf Fortress.

В общем, нужно знать, на что идешь, если собираешься играть в эту игру.
Часов через десять, начинаешь наслаждаться своим мазохизмом.

This is absolutely "pay to win" lol, since the stuff massively helpfull for whole early game. Enabling the pack also does not affect difficulty score (which not that important since sane people will end up with Peacefull anyway).

The "Four unique original generals, each with exclusive portraits, story appearances, battle models, and unique ultimate skills." are lame thought, since it's pretty much just "created characters" with unique models and the most generic names either (like "Swordman") half of which have their Englsih names not matching their sex (male witch, really?). I thought it will be historical generals, but apparently not.

You can take it on sale, but it's not worth a full price.

Okay, after looking at the cast I expected same woke ♥♥♥♥ as some of Telltale games (an approach that lead them to financial crash because you can't afford to increase budgetes while losing 80% of fan base at the same time) but this actually, so far, seems quite good and much closer to the Tales from the Borderlands and Wolf Among Us than anything else. Fun insanity of the first, and actual legit care of narrative continuity and variations of second (at least so far as I can say).
Now, there is still a bit of issues here and there.
Never was a fun of "expiring" dialogue options, especially since you are screwed if you play without subtitles (at least it's not as bad as in Alpha Protocol, but you still have barely any time to read options), which is even worse if English isn't your mother language so i'll appreciate if there going to be added some kind of pause with option to be silent when the time expires.
The dispatch system itself is also rather primitive if we compare to actual giants of the genre like 112 Operator. Even comparing this part to This is The Police, another narrative driving game, not going to end favourable to this game, but then again we only have one day in the demo, maybe there is going to be extra mechanics like equipment that adds to the stats.
Hacking minigame... Okay, this will scratch all that newly acquired skills of Helldivers community who trained themselves to summon support while I got the same skills from hentai games, primitive but serviceable but who got a 'bright" idea of requiring mouse dragging in the end? Why? We will take a mouse in the hand then we return to the map anyway, no need to manipulate us like this.

Anyway, it's still does it's main job of being interractive story very good and promises of the trailer when you end the demo look pretty good.

Симулятор "патриарха" клана в Древнем Китае. Этакий локальный Crusader Kings (правда без инцеста, ну почти) с управлением сразу множеством персонажей. Имеет элементы градостроительного симулятора, экономической стратегии и идлера, но в первую очередь это политическая и евгеническая песочница.
Перевод на английский довольно хороший, и школьного уровня (если он честный) вполне хватит, тут не так уж много текста вне интерфейса.
Что бы полноценно наслаждаться игрой желательно немножко страдать ОКР, потому что придется совершать немало однообразных действий и необходимости строить здания по одному, но судя по популярности игр вроде Minecraft, это распространенное явление.

Также, должен заметить, что большинство отрицательных отзывов было написано когда игра только вышла, меня тогда тоже много в игре раздражало, но к текущему моменту абсолютное большинство проблем было исправлено.

Finished twice, once on the phone, once in Steam. Once as an emperor of two continents, once a god.
And I must say, this gamebook is very very impressive.

The first phases of the game seems rather familiar and generic... But it truth, everything that happens before Coming of Rage ritual is just extended character creation. This is where game suddenly pick ups. Let's call it's a "young warrior" phase. There you have several questlines, which are somethat time-limited (and that's probably the only considerable minus of the game for me, sections of the game are time-limited, and while you can pursue and finish several minor questchains during one sections, you will be forced to replay multiple times to see everything, and then replay again to make more informed choices and no, self system of limited help there) and depending on what you do and in which order, will change MANY things and consequences of many of them will be far-reaching (unlike most of Telltale games, lol). So they not only change your stats like way too many CoG/HG do, but what exactly you did can be a reason to regret half a hour later.
Yet, you also allowed a margin of error for situation where solution isn't oblivious.
And depending on what you did during this phase and several major decisions that are allowed to you the game can transform into horde/empire-building game or city building game. Or, I dunno, you can continue to shovel ♥♥♥♥, I yet to try everything. The interface in managment sections can require you to go into stats page to check things, but at least doesn't require you to make thousands clicks to do anything (look at you The Great Tournament 2).

This game allows more freedom than "of Infinity" series, the differences ar more widespread than in the Tin Star, yet the quality of the writing is a bit... simpler? I will call it "weaker" in another situation, but it's really fit the setting. We are shown the world throught the eyes of orc, after all. And you can actually see a progress in his thought processes the older and more experienced he becomes. Even if we keep choosing "ORC RAGE, ORC SMASH" options. But still, descriptions are somethat short and generic (so long as it is not about how great the Orc God Kroggy is). As result I hasn't found myself as immersed as in some other games on the same engine.

The game also have some Easter Eggs (is there any Fantasy game without Daenerys and her dragons nowadays?) and couple sudden 4th wall breaking moments (one can be seen as a esquise for blocking save feature for a final section, but encounter in the mountains?) but there is not many of them considering the overall size of the text you will read throught one playthrought. So it's fine. In fact the whole game fluctuates between "great" and "fine".

Also, orcs here don't push LGTB propaganda, which is also a plus. They are Warhammer style asexual beings (and so your only romance is toward good battle, shinies and food). There is no all-pervading wokeness we got used to associate with CoG. At this point, it's a pleasant surprise even with Hosted Games (CoG games made by independent authors are published as Hosted Games).

It is a decent game. Not a "great" game, not that much content there and some clear design errors, that are made in attempt to become "unique", especially regarding "meta" progression, but something like average PS2 mecha game. Only with no famous IP, less content, but much sleaker control. I wish Encounters in Space had it.

And since it is almost impossible to find anyone to play with, I judge the game as solely single-player experience.

Allied AI also suprisingl competent. Not at the level of Leagues of Legend hardest ai, it can't use "gates" to summon minions, it's a bit too agressive, but it's actually pretty good at pushing. On first two difficulties AI will easily push the lines with basically zero gathered "skills", and minimal mid-mission upgrades.

Game have kinda a bad rep, but most of the problems that are mentioned in other reviews actually has been adressed. For example, you can actually boost dodge, and I not sure if it was the same before, but there is not many skills that giving you temporal vulnerability. One suit have a skill that does it, and ultimates of, I think 3 suits (not counting variations) have it during "cutscene" (but I was killed during use of ultimates, after the cutscene ends several times.)

If only there was more than single map. I mean, it's a bit randomized every run but it always still the same map with too much red on the screen (barriers are red, towers are red, enemies are red, skybox is redish too), you will quickly feed up of it.

So, it's pretty much a game that is fun for several evenings, and not many will continue to play after but it also pretty cheap. So, if in doubt, just buy it.

And keep in mind that the ingame currency is reset every run, so "hire" an AI's (CPU's) to fill the slots, don't turn the game into solo slog, Don't repeat the mistake of the other reviewers "miser's instinct", ingrained by playing mobile games.

The game currently is, for the most part, consist of this:
Starting matchmaking.
After 20 seconds matchmaking kicking you out because it sucks.
You try two more times. Result is the same.
You starting to hate the phrase that meets you after every matchmaking failure. It's becomes a meme, if a sad one.
Eventually you manage to join the searching for players. For couple minutes you look as a player count in the room increase but then decreasing. Ever people tired of waiting or matchmaking pull the formed team in another room.
Eventually you end up waiting at 11/12 players gathered until it's time for map rotation and everyone kicked out of the matchmaking.
The meme greets you.
You join matchmaking again. Uhu, you are lucky. It's 12/12 and team started to form almost instantly... But wait... Someone decided to leave right that moment or matchmaking failed and someone has been kicked over. You are at 11/12 again. You have a good chance that someone joins instantly and teams are reformed, but if not then you are here for a while. Eventually you manage to start the match but see that one guy on your team is failed to connect. Whatever.
Somehow you are lucky and not against team of most hardcore vets from the PS who stuck at low ranks because rating system is a garbage too. You managed to pull a win.
And then there is not a small chance that you are stucking on Time Out because server failed to synchronize after battle ended. If you are leaving at this moment you will get 5 days ban from rating and quick mode. So you wait for 10 minutes until server understand that it's hopeless and end the match with an error. You got no reward for this match (but I guess not being banned is already kind of reward in this game). So you just wasted around of hour to play 15 minute match that gives you nothing. Hopefully you didn't wasted "Encouragement" for this battle. By the way, you need to finish at least 3 more for your daily missions.

You are tired of this stuff and going to Custom mode. You decided to join some small scale duel or something like this just to finish your daily missions. You feel disguested that there are Mix Up "Team A wins" rooms that basically require "Team B" to stay still to be destroyed so the match ends quickly. You quickly realise that host always have massive advantage in melee and not as massive, but substantional in ranged fights due to how hit's registering late for everyone else.

For 23 days it's same story over and over again, until that "Team A wins" aren't as disguisting anymore and you participate in them to finish your daily missions when you are out of time to do it normally. Meanwhile the only presence from the Devs is on Twitter which you likely to not follow, and even then it's pretty minor. Oh, and maintance noticed that barely change anything. Server issues are you constant companion and are way worse than on PS4 where same stuff happens pretty often too.

Why didn't they released Gundam Battle Operations 2 Code Fairy instead? Because allmost they problems lie in the netcode.

Start is a bit jumbled but it's quickly becomes better. Something of a minor genre variation for different approaches and I only seen this in one other CoG game.

Game also allowed to not only name your character but even his titile so naturally my character's name was Darth Vader of the Sith dynasty. Naturally I directly went into enemy camp and kicked everyone's asses when game allowed me such opportunity

My only real complain so far is that Wyrm and Rescue Prisoners storyline are mutually exclusive for no real reason.

Minnor annoyance is small relationship reduction with the character you choose to meet last after winning. I mean, isn't it special privilege too?

While it's is quite far from the best CoG/HG stories, it's still among the upper echelons. Will be nice to see continuation of the story in another game but it's probably very unlikely due to amount of variations of the ending the game suggest to have.

По политическим причинам. Участвует в распространение ложной информации о действиях Российской армии на Украине.
Ну этот еще относительно нормальный, просто поверил лживой пропаганде.
Но все-равно палец вниз.

А игра, сама по себе, средненькая, лучше чем другие современные аналоги, и в техническом плане выполнена весьма годно, но вопросы в плане гейм-дизайна к этой системе фишек, и стилистика местами намеренно игрушечная.

Игра прекрасная, но авторы - те еще гандоны, как оказалось, не только поддерживают преступную власть в одной стране, так еще и призывают к восстанию в России.

В общем, финансирую этого разработчика, мы финансируем врагов нашей страны,
ДЛС покупать явно не буду, как и играть больше. К счастью Китайские товарищи давно уже сделали примерный аналог этой игры, и даже лучше.