Recent reviews by Megsychan

I'm just here to ask for historical matchmaking back

This game is the reason I am banned from FIDE competitions.

I played a few rounds of this game, some multiplayer, some singleplayer. Overall, I really enjoyed this game for what it was worth. The game is charming, in a humorous way. I really enjoyed the ideology system, and how it influences and reshapes the race depending on candidates are in on the race. My friend and I made some custom candidates, did stupid matchups, and we had a lot of fun just pushing the ideologies to their limit. Some of the ideologies, like fascism or giant meteorism, just end up shooting you in the foot, and its amusing to see races devolve into stupid fights between two godawful candidates.

However, when you get to some of the more quote unquote "serious" candidates, I do have some criticisms of choices made by the developers.

1: Buttigieg being classified as a democratic socialist is just... wrong. Fundamentally wrong. I know it doesn't matter now since he dropped out, but Buttigieg's whole shtick while he was in the race was that he presented himself as the anti-socialist moderate He was explicitly against medicare for all, free college tuition, and only very begrugedly supported raising the minimum wage. Yet, in this game, he's given the same ideology as Sanders and Warren, who he consistently got into ideological spats with on the campaign trail. I feel like Buttigieg would have been served better as an establishment democrat, imo.

2. Republicans are really lacking this year in terms of content. I get that Trump's nomination is basically all but guaranteed, but there is *technically* a Republican primary going on, and the game could have drawn from some of those candidates instead of just copy and pasting past cycle's candidates. Bill Weld in particular comes to mind, since he could be given an ideology that is A) actually mainstream in American political thought and B) currently not represented in the game, that being libertarianism. Joe Walsh could theoretically have his own ideology too, although its not exactly too different from Trumpian Populism besides his hatred of Trump personally. Finally, Mark Sanford could just be thrown in as a generic establishment republican

3. This game could definitely just use more ideologies in general. It's by far the best part of the game, but there's a lot of ideologies, both serious and memey, that could be added in. On the serious end, dual DINO/RINO ideologies would be perfect for roleplaying (DINO could theoretically even be given to Bloomberg, as an aside), to roleplay conservative democrats and liberal republicans. They're a bit of a relic in today's political climate, but they would be incredibly useful for historic candidates, or for roleplaying a serious shift in party ideology. While Trump's ideology arguably covers it, a paleoconservative ideology could theoretically be differentiated by a stronger focus on faith-based issues (and given to Mike Pence?) I feel like democrats have enough "serious" ideologies already implemented due to their primary being actually competitive, but I would be remiss not to offer a joke communism ideology to play off of the fascism tree already in the game.

Beyond those three points, I think the game is in a playable state as-is, although I'm glad to hear that the devs are planning to update the game down the line, including adding to the character creator (which I feel is a bit threadbare atm). Overall, I do recommend this game, and I hope some of these suggestions make it to the final version.

This is really one of the most well designed games I have ever played. I have always thought a WW1 FPS would be amazing if it was done right, and here its, done completely right. The maps are conductive for slogfest trench warfare, the weapons feel accurate and deadly (A little too deadly for the Kar98AZ as of writing this; I think its ability to 1 hit bodyshot kill at any range is kind of OP. Even if its not accurate long ranges it gives Central Powers a large advantage in defence when all their riflemen are equipped with it), and everything visually looks fantastic. I don't think I've ever had as much fun in the first ten hours of a FPS like this one.

I have to say, this is one of my favorite premises for a visual novel ever.

I wasn't really into starcraft personally; I've played for a bit and I know the basics, but my RTS of choice was always Company of Heroes. As great as it is, is too beholden to an attempt to maintain historical accuracy to become an esport. But, I love the esports community; I'm engrossed specificlly in the Smash circuit, doing locals and following the exploits of legends like Mango, Hungrybox, and Mew2King. In those regards, I can easily relate to the culture of the scenerio, while also exposing differences in how certain comptitive circuits.

For a free game, this is actully pretty damn good. I love the art style, and the designs of the characters are really distinctive and good-looking (I especially like female Mach and Jett's designs). The characterization is a little one-dimensional, but then again the game is short and free; they only have so much time they can focus on. The music is ok; didn't really like the credits song to be perfectly honest, but the other songs combine electronic beats that mirror the Starcraft soundtrack almost perfectly.

I also loved the Day9 cameo and how Jett was basiclly a genderswapped IdrA (definitly my favorite character in the story by far). I knew enough about starcraft to appreciate those. The extra scene also shows how much love the developers have for the series, pointing out many other nuances that completely went over my head.

My biggest problem, is that the game feels, and I quote what I told a friend, "more railroaded than transport tycoon". There's no branching paths, no romance, nothing that really involves meaningful player interaction in the visual novel. Even the starcraft playing segments is a binary "win-fail" choice, leaving the player to have very little agency in the story as a whole. Yes, I know this a debut, free game, but it really kills any interest in replaying in the game. There's so little choices, there's only two bad ends that I even know of, near the beggining of the game!

In all, this is a solid effort and I think most elements of what makes a good visual novel is there. Before playing, I probably wouldn't have bought it if I had to pay for it, but afterwards I'd be more than glad to have the option of supporting the developers. If the hinted at sequel happens, I really hope that the game becomes more interactive. Let the player specialize in strategies, make matches actually engaging, manage relationships, or even offer a zerg/protoss route if all things fail, SOMETHING which allows the player to influence the game.

If you're on the fence, I reccomend giving this a shot. It's free after all!

This game is amazing. Really, really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing. Most other co-op games feature zombies or otherwise melee-focused enemies, meaning that actual FPS skills do not translate well into them. Since the main enemy in Payday are cops, they will (relentlessly) shoot at you; it feels a lot more like a traditional FPS in this aspect. DLC exists, but you don't need it to be successful in this game (you can play the paid heists even if you don't own the DLC, in some ways the best guns are still the vanilla/community ones, etc, etc). In all, a highly reccomended purchase.

This game is amazing for what it's worth. It's a rougelike with permadeath, so the campaigns are quick and brutal, but it's very replayable. It's good when you want to play a game but can't invest much time into the session. The game is very tactical, with the hard decisions you have to make stopping at planets and the combat. The latter in particular is ingenious, because there are so many different ways you can take down ships. You can simply try to blow up their hull, or board them for extra resources. Or, if you particularly evil, you can bomb their oxygen supply and just suffocate the enemy crew to death. Targeting substations like the weapons, shield, and previously mentioned oxygen supply will prevent the enemy from ultilizing them, but the foe can wipe out your substations as well. Also, it's all real time, so you have to be quick thinking to pull out. The best thing is that end game content is just as balanced as early game, so death's sythce is as present on the first world as it is on the last, and it is very present. One wrong move and your ship will go kaput.

However, unlocking new ships is a ♥♥♥♥♥, so don't expect to get new ships until multiple playthroughs in. How tediously long and random it is to get new ships is very artifical in difficulty and not dependent on skill. It's really my only major complaint for this game. The game can also generate some unfair situations. I've had boarding actions during solar flares (a random room catches on fire every so often until you leave the "planet" you're on), which depending on where the flares strike and who's boarding (one species of aliens are immune to fire), can kill you quickly.

Also, the soundtrack kicks major ass. Fits the mood of the game perfectly and is just good tunes in itself. Half the reason to play this game is for the music. If you're into buying game soundtracks, definitly do it for this game.

This game's mere existince shows that video games can be classified as art. This game may apear to be just a Call of Duty ripoff in third person, but I can assure you that, if you stick through the admittly slow start, the game will challenge your conceptions of how a game interacts with the player. I can't give away too much because spoilers, but if you got money burning your pocket and you want to see a beautifully, well crafted plot that makes you think and debate on its intended meaning; this game is definitly for you.

Seriously, guys. It's free. Just try it.

Tales of Valor is the third, and most likely final, part of the complete CoH experience. ToV, unlike Oppossing Fronts, does not add any new factions compared to the base game. Instead, it adds three new campaigns (Really only two campaigns; Tiger Ace is a three mission mini-campaign) and a plethora of multiplayer features to enhance playing online. Namely, it introduces new units, such as the Kangaroo Carrier or the Swhimmwagen 166. Also, there is three new game types for online play: Assault, Panzerkrieg, and Stonewall. Assault is much like CoH's Defence of the Ancients, with players being hero units fighting to destroy the enemy's base. Panzerkieg is similar to Assault, but with tanks and control points. Stonewall, however, has the player and teammates fighting together to hold back the enemy from capturing the city you are located in. In all, if you are debating to get base over ToV, I'd get ToV. The one campaign you'd miss is nothing compared to the online modes you'd miss out on.