Recent reviews by PapaKarlo

It's okay. If for some reason you don't want to play the Master Chief Collection, then it'll do.

Otherwise, there is no point. The original Halo is a pretty dated game and should be experienced with all its limitations and flaws. This one doesn't bring anything worthwhile to the title to warrant much attention. The flow is a bit better, I guess.

The graphics are hit or miss. Sometimes it's the most beautiful game in the world; other times, it's riddled with visual glitches and blur.

I'd say it's fun for the first few missions. Maybe check out the new content. Otherwise, it loses its appeal pretty fast.

It may be the worst AAA product I ever played.

This is a story-focused game and the story here is an utterly boring slog. It starts well enough but never gets anywhere interesting. Feels like characters just guessing their next steps all the time and story goes forward on random events and blatant coincidences. When it doesn't - it throughs another flashback that never gives you anything new, only what you already know.
Not a single characters duo here have any sort of chemistry to make it a little bit alive. Joel with Ellie in a flashback are a highlight but the game isn't about them.

The combat is what makes this game worthwhile. Against humans at least. It's meaty, responsive, varied enough so it was interesting whole game. Shooting is fun, stealthing is robust. Zombies are a bit bland but still okay.
After it you are in a world of sloggin through very samey locations, looting and reading generic-as-they-can-be notes about "apocalypse is bad" and how that skeleton failed to survive. And listening to a very bland banter.

At the same time this uncontrolled violence shows other very lacking part if the game - world building is for ♥♥♥♥. Humans here sooooo ready to kill each other and game completely fails to explain why. Resources aren't scarce, zombies are pretty contained, people can farm, play, procreate. But for some reason almost every faction in this world is in shoot-on-sight mode. There is literal Omaha-beach-style nautical assault from one delirious faction on another. Just because.

There is a message in this game. There are some themes. All of them executed poorly. Some - because it's hard to sell "violence is bad"-story while also making "violence is very fun!"-gameplay.
But mostly because behind all the quality and budget in cinematics (and there is a lot - top notch production) these characters are still a joke, their relationships aren't believable and it doesn't feel like a coherent story.
And every story bit is much longer than it should be. They clearly overestimate how much they have to tell you.
Even if you cut most of the time-wasters and focus on main characters - its still lacking.

A lot of talant in this game, great effort all around, has some moments. Lacks substance to gather it into good product.

Great mix of cinematic action gameplay and open rich levels. One moment you're running and gunning through the chase, the next you're blending and bluffing through some social event.
Very little handholding but meticulously placed hints and signals make you feel like you're following a pretty liniar path. Just to find there actually was a number of different paths that you just missed.

Was hooked all 20+ hours of it, planning to explore bonus missions and replay some story beats to find what I missed.
A great game. One of the best, if not the best.

I did enjoy it but damn its rough.

First of all it plays a bit clunky and does have some very noticable bugs. Like some heroes can just stuck in place without any objectives that I think can be remedied by loading savefile. Sometimes quests won't register and I even have completed mission without checking main objective for me.
Last drop was in the middle of campaign when side quest ressurected cursed hunters over and over despite me completing that quest already. I got portion of the map filled with respawning enemies so I just quit it.

Sadly I don't think its a good enough game even it they fixed bugs in the future. It feels much more "strategy" rather than "hero management". You need to build a lot. Recruit a lot. You won't be able (or have any reason to) to watch every hero and learn his qurks. Just spam building, buy all upgrades and gave orders. I have 30+ heroes running aroun in an average game, I don't care for any of them - it doesn't matter.
It is fun anyway, though, as I said I enjoyed it a bit.

I think my biggest gripe as heroes AI. It doesn't feel like they do anything with purpose. Just "go and fight, return and heal" on the loop. Even so that they can be overwhelmed by orders and forget to spend money on new equipment.
Thats... Thats just not what you want from this type of game. You want smart and/or memmorable units that can be influenced by you. Here is nothing like that. Much more mechanical.

I think it's the best realistic RTS on the market right now.
It keeps that sweet balance of simulation and approachability, thats was perfect in World In Conflict and kinda dripped away in Wargames or Steel Division.

Campaign is fun while a little tongue-in-cheek, I kinda laughed sometimes thinking its actually Red Alert 4, but missions themselves are brutal and interesting.
Multiplayer with it's 5v5 and 3-phases mode is great. Picking your deck is important, knowing your units and their roles is sometimes half the fun. Testing it and getting a feeling it works out in real situations is great,
I think in 100 hours a had no bad games. I lost a lot, yes. Sometimes completely one-sided, but it never felt completely desperate or boring.

Love this game. Absolutely adore it.

Very much enjoying this game!

Good writing, interesting twists on the genre. Really like personality system and how it affects dialogue.
Laughed many time in first hours just by the dialogue options that are unavailable for me due to my personality traits.
That's very fresh - I got much more roleplay through this blocked options that I ever hoped from a game. Even failed a quest (kinda) because of it.

"Quests" here are also neat. They feel like really personal descisions form my character and me both, not something an NPC gave to me.

Knew this game wil lbe interesting ride when tried a demo, surprised to see that it exceeds my expectations on release too.

Great support from Owlcat!

Pretty biffy DLC that integrated in main story - its pretty cool.

Good tactical game with almost-RPG-like campaign. Not without it quirks but a pleasant addition for a strategy fan.

First tutorial missions are a bit slow and mostly about defense. Controls are fine and pretty responsive. If you played RTSs before you'll feel at home.
Units have different sets of weapons and ammo types, that they competently enough use against correct targets asking little micro from the player. Your job mostly in positioning analyzing covers and assessing lines of sights (that should've come with some kind of visibility tool, but I had no issues).
Fights are pretty and intense with that bit of modern combat realism to ground SciFi a bit.

After big base defense you'll start the actual campaign. Big overworld map is in fact a resource management game with mission selector. You need supplies to travel between locations and you need to get to locations to play a mission and get more supplies. You should (and game gives you time to do it) to scavenge as much vehicles (mostly) and stuff to sell it in the overworld to rearm and upgrade your units of choice with new weapons, skills and modifications like additional armor and HMG-nests.
Surprisingly there is some factions between humans and from the start you will mix your sci-fi-army with post-apoc survivors units. It's an interesting worldbuilding but wrapping your head around different MadMax-cars and a lot of similar infantry squads is a bit confusing at start.

The whole scavenging aspect is fun enough but time consuming and can feel like a chore. At first I spend almost an hour trying to figure what I want to sell and what I want to keep ans supply just to understand that I screwed up a little and it will be wiser to reload a save and do it again,

That's actually what you should do a lot. Savescumming is your friend, especially if you are new to this. Setting aside confusing you math in supply screen or losing bunch of your vehicles due poor decisions in combat, you should save a lot just to be ready for some story twists mid missions.
First "real" mission asks you to visit a bunch of NPCs on a big map to make some moral choices before big robot attack. And it's not entirely clear what means what until you see it. So its smart to save a lot, see what game has for you (and where you should place your units beforehand).
And yeah, losing units suck, so F5 is your friend in any case. Don't overdo it, though, you can afford some losses. Maybe even more than you and I think.

I do have some reservations about complexity of the mission structures. I'm two "real" missions in and it feels like they both were "end-game" level of complexity. Multiple primary and secondary objectives, time pressure, hidden events, attacks from multiple directions and "gifting" me new units mid-combat that I don't know what to do in the heat of the fight. And non-stop radio-chatter with new mission info.
I do despise tactical pauses in RTS-games but here I can't play without it - assessing map, commanding new units, checking on old units, checking side objectives, reading new dialogues etc.

It is a lot. So take it easy and save a lot, play a bit more careful. It will click.
I've finished second "real" mission with only one restart after my units mistakenly drove into territory on a neutral faction and failed to leave in time, provoking them.

Surprisingly bad game. Somewhat interesting premise executed without any fresh ideas or new gameplay tools to make time-loop engaging. It is a point-and-click adventure with a lot of grindy restarts wile you trying to brute-force new item interactions.
Story makes a turn into banally "shocking" pulp-fiction narrative that will surprise you only if that's the very first story of that kind you ever encountered.

Game also is very linear. There is no paths or side stories to discover, no alternative ways to reach the ending. In the end you repeat the same actions just to "try something" in the very end. And this "something" is often as boring as "do I need to have this item in my pocket or can I leave it in place?".

Thank god it's cheap. It also looks cheap and plays cheap. Plot twists are cheap too. Endings are cheap as well.

It will be a strange review...

Game is not very good. A lot of flaws, big and small.

In every mission tactic boils down to keeping infantry in front of tanks to provide them vision, and than simply move this blob of units from point to point. I've completed German campaign and wasn't compelled to try anything else.
Unit controls are messy, especially with infantry. You can control each individual soldier, but you don't have any reason to. They are fairly useless alone and still greatly fragile in numbers. Game even pre-binds them in a control group at the start of the mission, which looks like developers understood how meaningless individual control is.
Also you need to manually order your infantry to go prone and scatter otherwise they die extremely fast, which dooms your tanks. That's a lot of control for the least interesting and expandable units.

Also game got very strange relationship with realism. Units have health-points, tank's are almost comically blind and the whole experience is mostly spectacle. But then you have to refuel and rearm every tank with extremely tedious supply vehicles, which are automated a little, but not enough. Most missions will force you to spend 5-10 minutes just watching this slow process.

I was too stupid when first Sudden Strikes came along, so I've missed the whole experience. Maybe some things are just paying homage to the series, but I don't see anything special or unique in this game i nit's own way. If you want bombastic WWII RTS - go play Company of Heroes 2. If you want more tactical game on bigger scale without basebuilding - there is an astonishingly good Steel Division.

Despite that I had fun. Some raw and basic fun, which I love RTSs for. You command your forces, order airstrikes, capture enemy vehicles. On very special occasions you flank enemy tanks with your faster units. Soldiers die, tanks blow up, buildings crumble, command sends you new soldiers and tanks to crumble more buildings. It's hard enough so you have to use some tactics here, check you ammo there, quicksave a lot, quickload a little less and generally enjoy yourself in the process.
It's nice and pretty. It's not good nor smart, but can be a nice addition for your RTS experience.