Recent reviews by Jetbird08

For one dollar, you get ducks. A lot of ducks.

You get even more ducks if you run the .exe multiple times.

This is worth a dollar.

Exactly what it says it is. Good, simple, clean fun. If you like the idea, don't be afraid to pick it up (same with the first game).

I'll need to write a more in-depth review, but in a nutshell: very pleasant game. Great OST and satisfying gameplay that's balanced towards fun rather than raw difficulty (feels easy enough to not be afraid to experiment with decks & deaths feel earned, but still just challenging enough to not be trivial. It's a great mix). Highly recommended.

The devs have addressed some of my complaints and the game is improving. I still want to caution that this game is best enjoyed with friends, and not to expect more than maybe 80-100 hours of content currently (which is not a bad thing, that's a ton! It's just not a game you play indefinitely).




Below review is from May 3rd
Quick Summary:
I recommend this game if:
-It's on sale
-You have 2-3 friends who also want it, or will actively play with you
-I do not recommend it otherwise due to punishing of solo/duo players and increasing client instability.

Full[er] Review:
I originally gave HD2 a positive recommendation, and for my past hundred of hours of gameplay or so, I have fully supported that. It's been one of my most fun non-indie gaming experiences not just of this year, but in a very long time. The live service elements are incorporated very well (being able to be part of a live, two-front war is awesome), and as somebody who doesn't typically play any live-service games, finally experiencing a good one was thrilling.

That being said, the game is currently plagued with a couple of issues that I think have been sapping the fun out of what is otherwise a very good game. The first is strictly related to gameplay: in an attempt to keep the difficulty of the game balanced towards the "difficult" side, the devs will modify weapons and enemy types to keep things moving. This is fine on the surface, but certain changes are abysmal, like a recent normalization of enemy spawn rates based on player count. Previously, the less players there were in a lobby, the less *relative* enemies would spawn (e.g. a four man lobby would see more than 4x the enemies a solo player lobby would). However, in the last major patch they changed it to be linear: now, solo players will see 1/4 of the enemies that a four player lobby will. Now I know that you're saying that doesn't sound too bad, but the issue is twofold: 1) one player is not 25% as effective as four players - they're much less effective due to the gameplay's reliance on teamwork, squadwide boosters (like spawning with full ammo, more health, or more stamina), as well as the crux of the gameplay relying on the four support/offensive fire support slots that a single person is limited to. It is also worse than it sounds because enemies that spawn are able to call in massive waves of enemy reinforcements, which means solo players are now less likely to be able to kill enemies before they call for help, and less likely to kill that help before the help calls for help, leading to a stressful downward spiral. What this means is that they have made the game far, far more difficult for solo and duo players (even on "easier" difficulties!) in the name of balance. Additionally, anecdotal reports suggest that possibly 3x as many enemies are spawning as should be. Is it a bug? Is it intentional? This leads me to my second big gripe with the game.

The devs' communication pipeline is awful. Insight into the game's mechanics (such as how the live-service war works, which is crucial information for choosing targets), updates on patches, details/explanations on patch notes or what was changed, messages from the GM that controls the narrative of the war - basically almost communication from the devs as a studio AND as individuals - is relagated to the official Discord. No website, no blog, no Steam announcements, no in-game announcements, nothing. Just a Discord server that is perpetually full. Too much of the game relies on you using 3rd party APIs to understand the game mechanics, or require you to play a game of telephone via Reddit or YouTube just to hear what the devs are saying about current operations or emergency game issues. It doesn't make sense, and it leads to a lot of unnecessary strife in the community.

My third issue, and possibly the most important in my factor to give this game a negative review, is that the client has grown more unstable with every single patch. The last patch (which greatly damaged single play) has also caused my PC (4080 and an i5-13600k) to start stuttering while in the non-mission ship and during loading screens, neither of which happened previously. I have heard anecdotally that it's much worse for less powerful PCs, and I have heard that matchmaking is quite literally broken for many people who are unable to connect to their friends. There are too many bugs, some of which seem quite basic and make you start questioning the game's QA process. Some examples:
-The anti-materiel rifle's scope was non-zeroed (this has since been improved)
-The game's javelin equivalent has an extremely buggy lock-on which can be very hard to get to work (not yet fixed)
-Only the network host does full fire and gas damage (not yet fixed)
-Console players do several times more damage than PC players (since fixed)
-Explosions pull you towards them instead of pushing you away (a bug introduced in a very recent patch, might have been fixed [seriously, how does this pass testing?])
-using electric weapons crashes the game for people in your lobby and eventually your own game (introduced in a patch and since fixed; due to the previously mentioned communication issues, the devs ONLY posted on Discord not to use the weapons while they worked on a fix).

So, all in all, this is a very fun game in the short term. If it's on sale - or you have friends that want to play it - pick it up and try it out and you'll have a blast while you learn how it works. But it is currently not healthy enough to support good, long-term play. I hope that AH works out the issues soon and that with a bit more time in the oven I'll be able to switch this review back to positive.

Original Review (7.5 hours in-game):
I might write a more in-depth review later, but the gameplay is fun and the gunplay is satisfying; things can get tense FAST. Very rare to feel the simple joy of actually having FUN with a game nowadays, but HD2 achieves that and I've been itching to play it ever since I picked it up.

I have owned it for about a week and have not had any issue with servers or black screens - the only bug (not insects) I've seen is the rare floating static props that you find in many games.

update: it's fine. forgot to change my review.


original review:
I'll write a more in-depth review for this later, but for now it is NOT recommended until the matchmaking situation is fixed. Promising evolution of gameplay in the vein of PD:TH -> PD2, but it doesn't matter how great your game is if you're forced to queue into a solo match (with bots), and then are unable to find a single match, totally preventing you from playing the game. Not a total write-off, but check back later.

I'll write a more in-depth review later but so far...

I now realize it was a mistake to wait so long to play Ace Attorney. As of the third case for the first game, I do not regret my purchase whatsoever - the writing is sharp, funny, and perpetually surprising, and I can't help but find that the game constantly puts a smile on my face. I would highly recommend it to anybody who is vaguely interested in the series but has never played it yet (and presumably if you're a fan, it's worth it too).

No issues with the PC version so far. Graphics look great and clean at 1440p and the game runs at a stable 144 fps. (unsurprisingly).

This is more of a first impressions, as I only have about 3 hours clocked at time of writing.

First of all, this game is scuffed. It is very very rough around the edges, and it is feels very much like a Unity game (though I'm not sure that it's on Unity). The tutorial does a poor job at explaining everything you need to know (like how to switch between members of your squad), the English flips between decent and poorly written, and much of the graphics (both the game itself and the UI + menus) are pretty unimpressive or subpar: for example, it is hard to tell how close or how far away you are from winning or losing a match, which can happen abruptly if you don't pay close attention to certain numbers. Map designs are poor, with some buildings making zero logical sense which can make them difficult to traverse in the heat of the moment.

Ai isn't great either: I'd switch between squad members to discover that they'd somehow used ALL of their ammo, radio operator teammates wouldn't call in my fire requests, to the point that I thought this was intentional and was surprised when one did it right away, and the ai can place themselves in bad positions that open themselves up to enemy fire.

Voice lines are recorded in the native language of the faction (the English speak English, the Germans speak German, etc.), EXCEPT for numbers, which inexplicably switch between English and native language. The quality of these voicelines range from "sounds like a patreon reward" to "hey, that sounds like a voice actor from another game [good thing]."All of this compounds to make a game with a very much... small indie development feel; if you've ever played a cheap Unity game, you know what I mean.

Now with all of my petty complaining, you might be asking... why do I recommend the game? Well it's simple: it's [i[fun.[/i] I love the type of singleplayer gameplay that allows you to switch between units on a large battlefield, and taking part in large battles with a lot of ai brings a lot of enjoyment. The gunplay is interesting and keeps things challenging, as the more enemy fire you take the poorer your sway, and combined with almost no iron sight zoom (unless you hold shift) means you WON'T be the terminator and makes those 5 shots-4 kills moments satisfying. Think Arma mixed with Red Orchestra. You're also able to smoothly choose magazines, which means you can purposefully use magazines with low amounts of rounds left in them or safely use one that's full, something I have yet to see any other game do (even if they have persistent magazines). Additionally, calling in artillery is something I learned to love from Day of Infamy, and it's been spiced up here by having the radioman perform a small mini-game where he has to input the co-ordinates for the fire mission using 3 buttons - he calls these numbers out as he reads them, and if you click the wrong button, it leads to your artillery landing in the wrong place. It's a very nice touch and it makes the radio operator more than a static object to be kept on the officer's leash.

Despite the game's low budget, it is also ambitious: there are Americans, Germans, Italians, the English, and the Japanese, with the game advertising that the Russians are on the way. Each have, from what I've read and seen, accurate uniforms and all speak in their native language (except SOMETIMES during fire mission requests, as mentioned before. I've had Germans speak English or German numbers depending on their VA). Combine this with unusual historical maps (Germans v. Italians), and you get interesting gameplay and a solid singleplayer experience, especially if you're the type that likes to do minor roleplaying or you have a large interest in WW2 from a military perspective. The only "unrealistic" thing I've caught so far is that American soldiers have a chance of being black. This isn't a problem, but to my knowledge is somewhat inaccurate due to the racial segregation of the US military at the time. I imagine this is a design choice however, and is only brought up for the apparent attention to detail all other materiel seems to have.

Easy Red 2 is therefore cautiously recommended. You have to understand what you're getting yourself into, and understand that the experience will be nowhere near polished. That being said, I recognize that many of the problems listed are endemic of a very small development team, and I think that it can especially use the resources from sales to improve the game, which is why I recommend it if you like the concept. It may be janky, but there is fun to be had and I only see the game as improving from here.

I have some basic suggestions that I think will help the experience.

-Smoother writing. I'm sure a proficient English-speaking volunteer could be found to clean up some of the easier mistakes in the tutorials and UI.
-Subtitles. Due to its low volume and ability to speak a foreign language, I think radios would really benefit from having subtitles translated to the player's language. Day of Infamy had this, and being able to read that a German artillery request had failed because the position was invalid made things much, much smoother.
-More informative UI. It would be really helpful if the game made it apparent how far away you were from defeat. Additionally, it would help a lot if the roles of your squadmates were clearly listed - I initially had difficulty figuring out how to switch between my officer and radioman because their class was not clearly listed and their names were not always visible.
-Easier difficulty. This might just be a skill issue, but even on Easy, I could not win a single attacking mission, and the game would end abruptly near the end as I ran out of tickets, baybe it's just an issue with setting the amount of AI to maximum. I didn't include it in the cons though because it's not a huge deal, I just think it'd be nice.

One day I will come back and write a proper review for this game. Even as a jaded gamer bored of everything else, playing through Deus Ex for the first time gave me a sense of joy and curiosity that I struggle to find in games anymore. Needs at least one mod to work correctly (Kentie's Launcher), but I also used Transcended and Confix. If you're allergic to mods like me, no fret - it was very very easy.

btw gas prices in 2052 are cheaper than california today

Easily worth more than the $0.97 it goes for on sale.

I forgot to ever write a review for this game.

Simply put, it's worth the asking price (and ESPECIALLY if it's on sale), but you also have to understand what it is going into it. It's a fun little shooter where you get new weapons every level until you die or beat the game; it REALLY shines when you manage to absolutely break the game, be it upgrading a health gun to give you practically infinite health, or by getting something that lets you get everything in the shop for free until you're so OP that it's ridiculous. There's a lot of good, pure fun to be had here underneath its disarming Unity charm, and if you're willing to give it some time to mess with it I think it's worth it.

tk;dr - fun but at times frustrating, don't know if it's a good game if you really love strategy games but for the casual fan it's recommended (especially on sale).


As a disclaimer, I don't play these types of games very often - I got it as part of Humble Choice and it looked interesting.

As other reviews have noted, the AI can be frustrating as they'll appear to not play by the rules you have to follow, avoiding many of your traps and at times choosing to cower in a place that they know is safe forcing you to go find them. Near the end of the game I realized they DO follow the fog of war to some extent, as enemy artillery would only fire on my units that they could see. Being that the game is partly an exploration of American military doctrine, levels can become very drawn out with a constant back and forth match of cat and mouse, taking much longer than you'd expect to finish many levels - you can and will lose tanks in one shot, and other times your tank won't do any damage to the enemy tank (and vice versa). Despite this though, I found the theme to be fun and it was very satisfying when you managed to break a superior assault by the AI, allowing you to mop up, and you also (usually but not always) have some advantages over the enemy in terms of your units. Or the sheer glee at nuking enemy tanks with the precision air support you get during some missions. You eventually learn how to manage against the AI and how to draw them into your traps on your own terms. While there's some bad, I think that it doesn't outweigh the good and the game is ultimately more fun than it is frustrating. Story is interesting, though not anything crazy deep. It's good and fun in an action-flick sort of way, which I think was the point.

I have no clue if it's something that'd be engaging for strategy nerds, but if you're a casual fan of the genre and you like the cold war aesthetic, I'd say pick it up if it's on sale. And apologies for the meandering review - it's 2:47 AM but I figured the game was fun enough to warrant a positive review.