บทวิจารณ์ล่าสุดโดย Barricadas

I hate Ubisoft. I never considered the conglomerate good as a whole, not even when the acclaimed Ezio trilogy was the talk of the town. Even then, whenever I am playing a Ubisoft game, especially in games after “the formula” is established, I cannot stop thinking that there are some parts of this that are worth saving. I hate how playing a Ubisoft game makes me feel. I feel like a provincial schmuck who has been to a city whorehouse for the first time in their life and fell in love with the first ♥♥♥♥♥ who bothered to love them for fifteen minutes and immediately start dreaming about how they can save the ♥♥♥♥♥ from the whoring life. The Division games have felt like that, Assassin’s Creed games have felt like that, the first two Watch Dogs games felt like that and Legion is no different.

I love the work 3D modelers and texture artists did with the city, in most Ubisoft formula games actually. I love driving aimlessly in the rain, I love walking down narrow alleys and less developed parts of the city, I love visiting of the meticulously designed but mechanically useless parts, I love taking photos in this quite faithful recreation of London. I want to save the people who built this city from having to make Ubisoft games, because the rest of the game is, there are really no other words for it, quite ♥♥♥♥.

I am not even sure if this is a game, or just an elaborate tool to recruit drone operators to fight in Ukraine. There is so much of it that one might even think there is some obscure part of the code that uploads your efficiency rating with drones to some NATO servers. Because under all of the fluff of silenced weapons, stealth mechanics, various weapons, hacking abilities, the game is most efficiently played with by controlling drones. This also diminishes the work of the modelers and artists, as you will be flying or crawling past what they have built rather than having to push through its streets, fences, and houses meter by meter, unconsciously taking in the environment at every step.

I won’t deny that the existence of drones adds some enjoyable immersive sim characteristics to the game, but their use should have been severely limited to certain set pieces to create a certain contrast between the capabilities of the flesh and machine. It is not difficult to guess that in typical Ubisoft extravagancy a decision was made to make every type of mission able to be completed by a drone, because they already coded it and they need to showcase it for marketing and investor presentations. The same goes for the various recruitable characters. The idea itself sounds incredible, but in essence once you recruit one of the few who manages to be likeable and useful at the same time (mine was a cynical professional hitman from Eastern Europe) there is no further need to engage with the mechanic. The problem with making every NPC recruitable with their own schedules is that the compute cost causes what is supposed to be a bustling metropolis to turn into a ghost town, further degrading the city modelers and artists built. Any photos I took inevitably looked like Lego sets, architecturally and proportionally sound but there is no human touch, no significant number of humans.

The humans that exist, do not necessarily correspond to the diversity of London. I am not talking about ethnic diversity, the game has plenty of that. I am talking about the many subcultures that only few metropolises manage to gather. The cokeheaded finance bros, chavs, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ car modification lovers, corporate ladder zealots, disenfranchised black belligerents, betting addicts, people whose whole character is West Ham or Milwall, fake nail and hair extension enthusiasts, suspiciously hardcore Adele fans, none of those people exist or they exist so few and far between that they do not create a subculture but caricatures with only one-liners. This is what comes to my mind when I think about London, more than its landmarks and tourist traps.

Well, that and the rain and for a game that takes place in London, the rain is surprisingly subdued. When I was in London many years ago during August, there was just one day where it failed to rain but more than half the time you spend in Ubisoft’s London, you’ll be greeted by sunny skies, which is as alien to London as affordable housing. For a game that takes place in London, the rain should not just be for virtual photographers who will inevitably salivate over the wet asphalt, but it should be what sets the tone, the direction and dialogue. I would have loved to throw myself into a pub to escape torrential rain, and then discuss the next mission with my co-conspirators in a dark corner over a few pints, rather than having an AI in my ear, ordering me around and declaring the most efficient way of how to proceed.

This brings us to the fundamental problem of WD series, not just Legion, although this problem has been exacerbated in each iteration. The technology is far too advanced and accessible to everyone makes it difficult to have engaging gameplay or an engaging story. Even today in an open war between the forces of mass surveillance corporate dictatorship and rebels, the dictatorship will win every time due to their advantage in fire and compute power no matter the capabilities of individual rebels. The actual power struggle would need to happen in demilitarized zones, a clandestine war that goes on in between the masses waiting for the next train, slaving away in their cubicles, in council meetings to create actual tension. Instead, the player goes to a specific area marked as hostile zone, clears out enemies and this does not change or interact with the beautiful open world itself in anyway.

These demarcated hostile zones occupy any London landmark one would deem interesting, and it is obvious that extra care in world design went towards these areas. So, visiting the most intricately built parts of this requires you to either engage in gunfights, send in drones or move around stealthily, rather than taking in the view and interacting with the space itself. Thus, nailing the final nail on the beautiful open world’s coffin, rendering it completely and utterly useless.

Ubisoft open worlds are works of art that beg for someone to put in an enjoyable game and engaging story in them. This is why I keep dreaming about saving the artists and modelers from the Ubisoft whorehouse, but if you are familiar with the trope I opened this review with, you’ll also know that the ♥♥♥♥♥ is actually always happy with their circumstances because the work is easy, secure and pays well (this might have changed quite recently). They only feed the saviour fantasy to keep the customer coming, which is exactly what happens with every Ubisoft game I play.

Despite the scathing critique I, the unrepentant fantasist, would still recommend this game, but only because I immensely enjoy digital open worlds and I’m a beggar for even the most miniscule immersive sim characteristics.

Off to wash away the shame/10

P.S.: I’ve heard that 12 years after release, some modpacks managed to put in a good game in the first WD, it’s never too late for these worlds.

It is fitting that this is one bundled with The Thaumaturge, because both are my favourite games from the last two years that somehow flew under the radar. I love passionately crafted unique games that somehow manage to be a greater sum than their parts, and Eriksholm’s parts by themselves are nothing to off-handedly dismiss. This cute looking stealth puzzler taught me more about what “absolute cinema” is more than any social media meme could muster.

Beginning with the initial cinematic, which is one of the best cutscenes in gaming history, there is always locomotion in Eriksholm. I am always disappointed that recent indie cinema has confined itself to minimalism, meaning movement and sound always have purpose rather than being organic and indeliberate manifestation of human activity. I loved how Hanna is always moving, pacing back and forth, making sounds whether they have a purpose of moving the story itself or not. After the cutscene, the cops come looking for Hanna and her brother and the movement, the sense of locomotion never ends until the game is complete, which is quite impressive for an isometric stealth game.

The locomotion is present in the most impressive voice acting of the year as well (sorry Clair Obscur). It is not forceful, not theatrical, but it is always at a state of ebb and flow. Hanna’s dynamic with Alva, who helps her throughout the levels benefits from this immensely. They let through subtle signs of frustration, care, passion and even when they are angry at each other you can feel that this is an exchange of feelings rather than one sided venting. I frankly did not think that this level of voice acting was possible in games apart from one or two outliers, and even the NPCs whose dialogue contribute to worldbuilding are impeccably well acted.

Speaking of worldbuilding, I quite enjoy the “suspend your disbelief, I’ll take care of the rest” school of worldbuilding. Eriksholm’s world is filled to the brim with little details and tidbits that fill the foundation of this beautiful world that River End Games created. NPC dialogues are one of them, advertisements hanging on top of rooftops of Eriksholm is another. In one of the levels there are two cops talking about a door, one of them cannot hide how excited he is to learn that the door is automated.

Levels look incredibly good. I love steampunk aesthetics but this application of steampunk to Scandinavian geography in its most extreme form specifically creates some of the most incredible vistas I’ve ever seen in gaming. I even liked the aesthetics of sewer and mine levels, which is an unfathomable achievement for the River End Games. Here my frustration is the same I had with The Thaumaturge. There is this incredible world you’ve built. It is not only realistic in terms of the amount of detailing that went into it, it looks stylistically astounding and cohesive. Let the player manipulate the camera to its full extent to see it then. Yes, some scenes may look worse than they actually are from some angles and levels of zoom, but here I think the benefits would have outweigh the cost.

Another reason why this fits so well with The Thaumaturge is because of the level of social discontent present in the story. The letters, complaints of NPCs about their socioeconomic circumstances, the workers’ arguments with foremen and cops about how the citywide search for our protagonist Hanna caused disruption of work and loss of wages made me think that this is a town ripe for a revolution. In my mind I kept playing “There’s Going to Be a Revolution”[open.spotify.com] by the steampunk rock band TMTWNBBFN and all through out the game, it became especially loud when I visited the rich neighbourhood and saw how well the rich were doing in comparison to us. I felt exactly like Hanna, still a child but toiling all her life, her big dream being working in the apple gardens and then seeing the white marbled buildings, balconies larger than her room and verdigris rooftiles.

The game handles mystery quite well. It does not feel forced, but it feels natural because the game starts with our protagonist in bed and the events already set in motion. There has been a plethora of games where we look for our missing son/daughter/father/mother etc. but the desire to know drives the story more than the desire to find. The game hands out pieces of the puzzle for knowing what our brother actually did but never gives the complete picture. It is refreshing how, Eriksholm feels quite respectful for the intelligence and perception of its player. Then, near the ending, this changes drastically. The repression and economic stifling of the people of Eriksholm turns out to be a ploy by another imperialist power. The class undertones incomprehensibly left their place to nationalist overtones, which was not the kind of impression the game had given until that point.

In terms of gameplay, Eriksholm is not complex, but it is quite tense. Hanna starts on her own and then gets two friends to accompany her in her quest. Each character has their own special skill and they use their abilities in combination to eliminate enemies or move to areas they could not on their own. Timing and determining the cops’ search patterns is crucial and it is quite thrilling to count seconds to know at which exact second Guard#2 will not hear or see the kidnapping of his companion Guard#1. The last time I felt this tense pressing the left click was back in 2009, chasing the 25th kill on Modern Warfare 2. I just wish that there were more environmental puzzles, because what little there is made me crave more.

Overall, I loved Eriksholm. It reminded me again that the games I love do not necessarily have to be mechanic-heavy and indie games can be much more spirited than their AAA counterparts, while looking more visually impressive. It is a must play and my personal GOTY. Hopefully with Eriksholm 2 bittersweet ending will turn out to be more bitter than sweet and we will finally get to see that this game’s antagonist is the symptom rather than the disease.

There’s Going to Be a Revolution/10

I’m an idiot. Up until the 50% completion mark, I kept thinking that this was some kind of Dark Souls of racing games and I was wondering why such a fun game had no cult following whatsoever. Without any embellishment, I truly thought that Crash Time II is an incredible love child of Flatout and Burnout. I was quite surprised when I saw the top reviews were negative and the game sat at a mixed score.

Following baddies across town in a miniaturized Germany that still looks on par with most recent indie and AA games, taking them down by some well-executed manoeuvres and ridiculous stunts, or using my map knowledge to halt them at exactly the right spot was thrilling. Having to end my pursuit because I got spun out by a high-speed train, or not being able to follow the AI because a bus inadvertently blocked the autobahn exit, the AI having a good degree of unpredictable behaviour created some great moments of emergent gameplay. Adding the ridiculous challenges to this gameplay formula where you need to jump on top of a skyscraper to take down a helicopter or skipping through some half sunk containers to get across a canal quickly, or using RC cars to blow up trucks made this the Flatout sequel I always wanted, even more than Wreckfest.

There is a sweet spot between tension and comfort. Comfort, in knowing your abilities and the limitations of the tool you have in your hand and tension in having to apply your abilities in difficult situations. Crash Time II hit that exact spot. I like being afraid of my own speed and having to manage my finger on the W button. Crash Time II’s car physics are pretty good and weighty, and busy streets and autobahns make pressing W a choice you have to make. Damage model is impressive too, even today. There is nothing more satisfying and infuriating than resetting progress because I’ve lost a wheel when I rammed into a bad guy without thinking about the consequences.

The voice acting sucked, story was boring at best, and those feeble attempts at humour fell flat on their face because of their innate Germanness. Still, even if I disregarded the gameplay, there was much to love here. Crash Time II perfectly encapsulates not only late 2000’s but also Germanness with its Euroslop soundtrack, missions where you have to stop beer carrying trucks because fermentation process went wrong, and environmentalists kidnapping a nuclear plant manager. Humour often missed its mark, but initial setup for most missions are “we have nothing to do, let’s go grab a coffee/get tickets for the circus/have a race for the fun of it/have a beer with a friend” and this drew a chuckle out of me every time by inadvertently showing how useless the pigs are. I even loved this game’s feeble attempts at humour.

Still, I’m an idiot. I was losing between 5 to 15 percent of my speed anytime during gear changes, even though I was playing with automatic transmission. I didn’t get the reasoning for this design decision, but it made the car fight against what I want to do. This was frustrating, because one wrong move could set my progress back ten minutes and make me replay the same case over and over again. I liked this decision though, because not only I had to conquer my enemies, but I also had to tame the car I was driving. I attributed the loss of speed to gear ratios being wonky and thought that this would be fixed when I unlocked better cars.

Better cars didn’t fix the issue and around 50% completion I came across a dirt race that required jumping over an obstacle at a certain speed. This was simply impossible, because right before the jump I was losing 20 kph and there was no space to gain more speed before the jump. So, I checked out Steam forums for a walkthrough and stumbled upon a thread talking about how unbinding shift up button will cause the game to think you’re shifting up any time you press A to turn left…

There has never been a harder facepalm in the history of men. This game wasn’t challenging at all, let alone being the Dark Souls of racing games. This game was easy as ♥♥♥♥. There was no challenge other than the one I idiotically set for myself. If there is no challenge there is no sweet spot, there is no tension, there is no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ comfort. The remaining 50% went by like a breeze, without excitement, without difficulty. I unbinded the shift up button again, but the magic was lost and it wasn’t coming back.

I hate Crash Time II for making me fall in love with it under false pretences.

Idiotic/10

Disclaimer: This is an essay on seemingly quite a number of things that should not be relevant to each other but somehow it ties up in the end. Do not expect a review from what you are about to read.

2008 Financial Crisis was one of the most significant transfers of wealth of recent times. The so-called middle class and their pathetic aspirations to financial security were crushed and ground to the bone in the jaws of the international finance capital. Thus began the reduction of a class of professionals to mere proletarians, a fact that they still have not come to terms with. There is one more significant consequence of the 2008 Crisis though, we, I am not quite sure how and why, finally stopped ascribing a certain level of lavishness and grandeur to the ultra-rich.

This lifting of the veil on the collective psyche did not necessarily bring the ultra-rich on a more equal level with the rest of the pack though. We gradually accepted that the hedonistic festivals, the displays of wealth, the secret societies are more likely to happen in nondescript business centres and corner offices rather than Paris catacombs or Ancient Roman ruins. There is something viscerally repulsive about the fact that a photo from a room of Epstein Island shows that these people, this secret cabal of wealthy child rapists, were doing their abominable deeds in what could be any 90s middle class person’s living room.

Thus, we arrive at the essence of the matter. The bourgeois is not capable of creating the aesthetics they propagate through their traditionalist and reactionary sock-puppets. They may repurpose whatever is left of eras bygone, where creation was occasionally for aesthetics’ sake. They may turn public forums into luxurious cafes, libraries into private event spaces, democratic institutions into gentlemen’s clubs, but ultimately the dictate of cost-benefit analysis forbids the bourgeois from creating for the aesthetics’ sake. The bourgeois can create a glass mono-block, or on the off-chance, if they have higher aspirations than making a glass mono-block, they might add a bit of wave and a bit of gap in the mono-block structure. The cost-benefit analysis dictates that glass mono-block is going to result in lower heating costs in the Winter and this is what actually matters. Eventually though, appearances also matter and thus the secret cabals are reduced to what they actually are in the eyes of the people, a highly transactional, incredibly psychopathic mere mortal men and women as uniformed as black or brown shirts.

Feels quite anti-climactic, doesn’t it? If we are stripped of our delusions and finally face the fact that we are living in a dystopia, one might still think that we were promised something better. After all, we are a dreaming species and what’s to stop us from dreaming from ultra-fast trains with company names inscribed in beautiful iron lettering taking us to our collective punishment chambers dressed in shirts with sharp collars and iron brooches indicating our personnel number. Where is our stately Victorian clock tower hunching over all the apartments in our designated living space to wake us up? What the ♥♥♥♥ is this plastic piece of ♥♥♥♥ that’s going to wake me up tomorrow? And how does all of this drivel tie up with your grandfather’s favourite stealth game, Hitman: Blood Money?

Just like Gossip Girl (2007), and Casino Royale (2006), Hitman: Blood Money (2006) is one of the last vestiges of an era where we still believed the rich conducted their orgies in dungeons where intricately and thematically ornamented stonework could distract you from the trickling blood, sweat and ♥♥♥, and shady business deals that would prop-up another US military-industrial complex backed dictator would be on the top floor in marble laden penthouses with various stolen artefacts from the East. My throbbing disappointment from this particular version of dystopia necessitates that I would find comfort in works that at least creates a distance between me and the ruling class of this world.

I love the fact that the ultra-rich are having their orgies and recording their sex tapes in a brutalist resort carved on the side of a glacier in Blood Money. I love that they don’t do arms deals in a regular conference room surrounded by middle managers but make a whole deal out of it and set-up two simultaneous thematic masked balls for it. I love that the paedophile American Ambassador to the Vatican is also an opera enthusiast in Paris. I love how unreachable and surreal the locations are. In comparison, the orgy in Succession (2018) takes place in an abandoned underground maintenance facility, the tech lord’s mansion is just an IoT enabled glass mono-block in Ex Machina (2015), and the Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016) shows that conspiracies that may cause a global genocide and civil war does not exclude the existence of cubicles. As the art concerning the ultra-rich becomes more founded in reality, the more apparent how mundanely, how transactionally, and how uncaringly our lives and our future is placed under a lien by that particular class.

In the dystopia that at least feeds the delusion and really puts the dys- into the topos, both the rich and the computer alike should not be aware of what pathetic things like physics, structural engineering or ground studies are. Speer type mega buildings and utilitarians’ psyche and body optimizing designs should feature both in real life and art with their most surrealistic forms. And they would do so, until 2008 we somehow collectively learned that our dystopia is not really special and deserving of Zaha Hadid designs, just like our ruling class. I am not very fond of the “not aged well” phrase, but cannot deny the fact that this lingering feeling of anachronism turned Blood Money into a much more depressing experience than intended.

There should be a bright spot in all of this. Theoretically, the closer the ultra-rich are to our everyday dwellings, closer they are to the wrong end of a barrel about the explode to set the locomotive of history in motion. And in this suffocating status quo of the 2020’s it is not abnormal to feel that our great tragedy lies in our inability to converge this theoretical possibility with practical reality. No matter Agent 47’s valorous attempts to provide us with some catharsis by how many paedophiles, arms dealers, sex slave traffickers he introduces to his Silver M1911, the locomotive never sets. That’s tragic.

Luigi/10

This is a review for the Spain at War total conversion mod rather than the original game.
Official page for the mod: https://www.moddb.com/mods/spain-at-war
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The year is 1936, in the prelude to the overreach of fascist barbarism, Spain is the test ground for all the new technologies, social and mechanical. Often named Spanish Civil War in historical discourse, but more aptly called Spanish Revolution by others, is probably one of the most important events of the past century, with its ripples still being felt in 1991. I am not going to spend another review going on about how much of a personal and political impact learning about the Spanish Civil War had on me, but I just want to say having a game focusing on this particular war is not as out of the left field as it seems.

Of course, with the current state of AAA gaming, only people who would dare to create a game based on a war that is largely forgotten, something that is not a guaranteed success as dictated by market research, focus group testings and investor sensibilities are modders, small collectives and individual developers. And what an achievement this is, even though I feel slightly sad, knowing this mod will never reach the popularity it deserves.

This small team did not only create an original campaign, they modelled vehicles never seen in CoD series before like the T-26 or the L3/33 CC. They added animations from other CoD games coming before and after WaW to create a surprisingly well scripted campaign, which offers basic but impressive decision paths twice in its short length. The campaign is short, only three to four hours but it offers the chance to play both as the Republican side and the wrong side, doubling its playtime if you are a bastard with no qualms about playing as the fascists.

Even in the first mission after being recruited to fight for the Republican side, Spanish battle cries of our comrades, yelling No Pasaran while mowing down fascist hordes or how the Spain will lead the way for the international proletariat made sure I that I would fall in love with this mod. It demonstrated that this mod is not only well developed in terms of scripting and individual models but also the developers have good grasp of their history and the time period unlike a recent multimillion dollar CoD game Vanguard.

Speaking of fascist hordes, I finally understand why they are called hordes, because they really are never-ending. I usually find it very annoying to have enemies spawn endlessly until you make progress, but the interwar period weapon selection is so satisfying to use that I was happy with killing as much as possible. At the end of the campaign, I probably killed enough fascists to end the war on my own, but never thought to complain about it. On the contrary, I found myself breathless and my arm tense at one point while I was trying to defend an artillery crater against five fascists with only a Mauser at hand and felt as if I’m reenacting a scene from All Quiet on the Western Front.

The weapon selection that makes shooting fascists so much fun is amazing too. Multiple variant Mausers, (1898 and Brno editions are my favourites) two beautifully modelled Astra handguns, one of the most enjoyable SMG’s I have ever played with Erma EMP 35 are the first ones that come to my mind, but there are many other unique weapons that I had not seen in a shooter before. The ubiquity of bolt action rifles contributes to the difficulty of the campaign, as even at regular difficulty, two hits mean death. Ironically the game gets easier when the campaign progresses and the enemy gains more superior firepower in terms of SMG’s as you won’t be killed so easily.

I have played the original WaW campaign on an Xbox 360. I completed the Reichstag level on a controller on Veteran, so believe me when I say that this mod is hard, but never unfairly if you discount the grenade teleportation technology the Spanish imported from the Nazis. The level we attacked the town hall in Brihuega will always be as memorable as the Reichstag mission, partly due to how difficult it was.

The only part where the game feels amateurish, as it actually is, is the story. There is some banter among our comrades in arms, the first mission feels like each and every one of my comrades are political commissars in training and some incredible scripted moments, but the overall presentation of the story makes it hard to follow the course of the war. This is partly remedied by having incredibly detailed and authentic newspapers and letters strewn among the levels but I would have preferred better dialogue and some downtime reserved for dialogue. Even then, at one point two characters started to discuss if it is bourgeois to enjoy the rain while riding on a T-26, which was genuinely hilarious. The game could have done more of that to distinguish itself from other CoD mods I’ve played with no story whatsoever, and what little dialogue there is borderline idiotic, so even in this form Spain at War raises the bar quite significantly.

At least the attention to detail remedies this with other forms of storytelling. During my fight in the artillery crater I was shocked and delighted to see one of the enemies I bayonetted to death was a grey-haired man. Every corner is filled with period accurate propaganda and building models are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. At one point, after being attacked by Panzer I’s we got attacked by a T-26 in nationalist colours. In one of the missions we fight against the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie and in others various uniforms are mixed with Moroccan troops.

Of course, as it is a mod, there are some technical rough edges and I had to play one of the missions from the beginning and for some reason, if you save and quit you start at the mission start point rather than your last checkpoint. This is not as troublesome as it sounds, the campaign is short and most missions can be completed around 15-20 minutes.

I immensely enjoyed Spain at War. From time to time, I replay old CoD campaigns (CoD1, Finest Hour, CoD2, Big Red One, CoD4, WaW and MW2) this definitely entered my list of CoD campaigns to replay when I just want a cinematic shooter and it is no small feat. For example, no Battlefield campaign managed to do so. It is also especially charming to see how the devs came leaps and bounds from their original CoD2 mod. Give it a try even if you did not like WaW for some reason, I don’t think anyone will be disappointed.

A Las Barricadas/10

For installation and troubleshooting help, check out this guide I prepared: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3593879421

P.S.: Alza la bandera revolucionaria

A city is a marvellous thing. It is the organic culmination of persevering, inattentive marks left by millions of insignificant people throughout the years. It is the human psyche in its most concrete form. A city, despite its composition from non-natural materials, such as stone, rock and asphalt, is as natural as humans that inhabit it. There is a sense of comfort that can only be found between the walls and fences and utility poles, the spontaneous laughter that rises from seeing graffiti only saying Miley Cyrus, not even making a statement like “ftw” or “sucks”, in a neighbourhood where most walls are adorned by revolutionary slogans and calls to action, or the invocation of memories caused by revisiting the crevice where I hid the cool rocks I found and seeing its still there even though I left my hometown many years ago. Nevertheless, even if these were to last a lifetime, a city is organic and bound to change, and so do its inhabitants. Most significant changes happen when the human condition is in disarray and upheaval, manifesting directly on the cityscape, creating some of the most interesting events of our collective history.

The Thaumaturge’s brilliant setting, Warsaw in 1905 is one of those times. Poland at the time was under Russian occupation and Warsaw’s various factions; Marxists, social democrats, Jews and anarchists were preparing for the inevitable showdown against the Russian state apparatus, the Okhrana and Polish collaborators, ultimately reshaping the cityscape in the image of social unrest. Fool’s Theory’s reconstruction of Warsaw is quite brilliant as unlike most open-worlds, it does not treat the urban space as a static behemoth that only acts as a set dressing, but recognizes that it is in constant state of flux. It is aware that the city was rapidly changing due to technological progress and simultaneous development of philosophical ideas and manages to convey this understanding without being unnecessarily educational or didactic. I loved how one side quest and one unmarked quest was directly related to the sewage system, and I am not talking about mind-numbingly boring sewer quests that seem to be all the fuss in gaming. Dealing with people’s reactionary response to the construction of sewers and resolving a strike of construction workers which left one of the largest avenues in Warsaw as a literal ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hits all the right spots for me.

As a sucker for urban spaces whether it is digital, fictional or real, the setting is not just intriguing but also looks amazing. I am not sure if this is the achievement of Fool’s Theory or the Unreal Engine 5, but Warsaw, even with its bleakness and impending sense of doom, looks incredibly beautiful. Facades, interiors, parks, ports and bazaars are all quite detailed and remarkable enough that I even started to learn the unintelligible Polish street names and quite comfortably found addresses that were given as part of urban discovery quests. If you enjoy the bleakness of The Witcher, you will find a tingling sense of familiarity while you are going through various districts of Warsaw. The resilience of the various, quite likeable comrades we find through our adventure, and their belief in the progress of history is the only counteract against this oppression caused by the space, creating an intriguing contrast between the city and its inhabitants.

While the game follows the story of a bourgeois thaumaturge in an alternate reality and is obviously not a completely faithful retelling of events which took place in 1905, the chaotic mental state of Warsaw at the time is quite fitting to this alternate reality, especially the game’s concept of thaumaturgy. In accordance with the rising positivism of the early 1900s, the human psyche was considered as the last unconquered island of knowledge and psychoanalysis was a new science that would conquer this new land, exciting almost all strata of society. In the game, psychoanalysts are a class of professionals called thaumaturges, who can expose and cure the personality flaws and diseases of the mind, especially if they are contagious as salutors, the game’s version of mischievous folklore creatures, attach themselves to a flaw and deteriorate the overall mental well-being of a community. Even though I would have loved further expansion of this idea, possibly even creating a conflict between traditional thaumaturges and scientific psychoanalysts or showing Wiktor doing more actual thaumaturge work akin to Witcher to show the full extent of what is possible through this alien science, what Fool’s Theory has here is an amazing proof of concept.

I will not go into details of what I did find lacking in The Thaumaturge, not only because I tend to favour unique and ambitious games even with their flaws, but I also like to highlight what is amazing rather than nitpicking their mistakes. But it will suffice to say that gameplay mechanics and the quality of voice-acting is hit and miss. Detective work is largely automated and combat, even though has a solid foundation, needed a balancing and variety pass to be actually challenging and engaging. Voice acting performances for the main cast is decent and Rasputin’s voice actor, Brian Dobson, did one of the best voice-acting performances I have ever heard in gaming, but I cannot say the same about minor characters. This is why I am inclined to say The Thaumaturge is an amazing proof of concept rather than an amazing game.

Overall, Fool’s Theory has some very interesting ideas and an incredible setting, fully realising their vision here and there, not quite so in other places but in the end The Thaumaturge is just a small slice of what is possible in this alternate reality. I completed the game devoting 43 hours in the span of just three days, enjoying every second of it but I could not stop thinking about what could be improved upon more. There is something poetic about the devs taking charge of the first Witcher remake, because the first Witcher was not a perfect game and very much open to improvement, but it was unique and ambitious enough to leave its mark and make people ask for more. Just like The Thaumaturge.

On the cusp of greatness/10

P.S.: How perplexing it is to not include the anthem of Polish Socialist Party, Warszawianka (1905) adapted after thirty workers were killed during May Day demonstrations in 1905, in Warsaw, in a game that takes place in Warsaw, 1905. Soundtrack is quite good on its own and there are records of the songs you can collect, but this should have been a must to include.

P.P.S.: Thinking about how urban spaces cause change on the human psyche, it is incredible how Warsaw, 1905 inadvertently influenced a person living in a completely different place more than hundred years later. I was quite in love with Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls when I was around 12 or 13 and read obsessively about the Spanish Civil War, and eventually discovered A las Barricadas, which I adapted as my nickname since then was an adaptation of Warszawianka by the anarchists.

Disclaimer: This is more of an essay about art, psychology, politics and Baldur’s Gate 3, rather than a full-on review. If you want to read about game mechanics and such, you won’t find them here.

How do we judge art, what makes us like or dislike any artistic piece has been a question that’s bothered me for a long while. The incomplete but serviceable conclusion I’ve reached, on surface level art critique, is that we like “what speaks to us” based on our personal experiences, upbringing, and social, political, economic, ethnic, religious and sexual composition of us. Once the intrinsic barrier of prejudice caused by novelty is broken and the flow of communication is established between art and its recipient, all communication happens on a subconscious level, and the act of like or enjoyment can be vehemently defended as liking becomes an instinctual, primal matter. Even if there were to be no justifiable and apparent reason to like the piece, even if the person’s ego is in direct conflict with the messages or themes of the piece, the subconscious connection would force a vague reason, thus reason would be the final product in the subconscious-personal experience-reason chain of conclusion, with personal experience serving as a binding translation layer between the two.

Assuming the opposite should be the natural conclusion. Hence, it can be argued that dislike or indifference is caused by inability of art to “speak” to its beholder. As there is no “speak”, no communication, dislike becomes much more difficult to analyse, even when the analysed subject is one’s self. Dislike usually assumes the form of indifference if there is no preconception that something is to be liked. But, in the case of a highly rated or canonical art, reason becomes all the more important to understand the dislike, as it becomes the only ward against the societal norm of liking. Yearning to belong but subconsciously repulsed, the mind actively searches for rationalisation. Thus, reaching the reason for dislike becomes an active process in the mind. Instead of the innate binding layer forcing out a natural reason, a methodical understanding becomes the binding layer between the subconscious and reason.

Like a frustrating matryoshka, the need to rationalise dislike presents another question: How does highly rated art become highly rated art? Highly rated art is usually the art that is universal, meaning its themes, messages or characters can “speak” to a wide variety of people on a personal level. Qualitative features of the piece do not play an important role in being highly rated, and anyone would be hard-pressed to find a person willing to admit they like Repin’s Ivan the Terrible more than they like Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring because the former is busier and more imposing in terms of canvas size. It is quite incredible that the first Matrix movie is cherished in so many communities that are in open conflict with each other. The Matrix is cherished equally between gun nuts, LGBTQs, and Christians, technophobes and technophiles, and so many other communities. Technophobes can perceive the movie as a cautionary tale and technophiles can revel in the advanced technology that’s shown to be possible with human advancement. All are able to enjoy The Matrix as they can find a reflection of their identity in the movie, and different interpretations that result from said identity validates their perception of their surroundings. Thus, The Matrix becomes a highly rated, canonical piece.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is undeniably such highly rated art. It is the second highest rated game of all time on Metacritic, it is listed as the best game of all time on PC Gamer’s top 100 list, it has 96% overall rating on Steam. It, nevertheless, did not “speak” to me. Based on hundreds of professional and reviews I have read and my experience playing the game the universality of Baldur’s Gate 3 stems from the fact that it allows being an adventurer. Not every piece of art needs to communicate with different communities with its various aspects, sometimes the piece can capture the dominant emotion of the time. Adventuring, with all the escapism it allows has always been one of the most common themes of literature, from The Odyssey to early medieval Sagas, from Don Quixote to The Hobbit, and the theme has always enjoyed periods in which they managed to capture the zeitgeist. The one striking distinguishing factor here, is that distillation of adventuring to its purest form in Baldur’s Gate 3. By its strong opposition to pass any moral judgement of the choices the adventurer makes, it is an unabashedly apolitical game that not only refrains from saying anything, but prides itself on it.

Considering all the existential threats such as rapidly escalating geopolitical tensions, climate crisis, cost of living, low birth rates, the recent pandemic that siege the universal psyche today, it is quite understandable why an escape to a place where actions are not judged is a preferrable option. In Baldur’s Gate there is no Kreia filled with nihilism encasing her deep misanthropy, there is no Kim Kitsuragi to serve as a beacon of sense in a senseless world, there is no Morte that can impose shame beyond the screen. The game leaves the adventurer to be in dialogue only with themselves and only themselves as judges, while it affirms every choice even though the basic and well-trodden spectrum of morality implemented in the game does not allow those self-conversations to reach any meaningful depth. If epilogue is discarded as an afterthought (as the changes mentioned in the epilogue are only told and not shown), there is a massive disconnect between what can be discerned as positive or progressive actions of the player and the conclusion to those actions. These actions never serve to create better times, but merely serve as a return to mediocre times. Especially in the land of Faerûn, where history reaches only a generation before, this return feels inconsequential.

Much like Faerûn, the game itself resides on an island where there is no history, nor interconnectedness. As a throwback to so-called simpler times where “being an adventurer, doing adventuring things” was the idealized norm of CRPG story-telling with all the comfort inducing nostalgia it brings to many, it also creates the unwanted and uncanny effect of being out of place and time. What Mark Fisher says about capitalist realism and its reconciliation with modernism, in allowing it to return “only as a frozen aesthetic style, never as an ideal for living” can be applied here. As an example, Shire in Middle-Earth presented an ideal for living in Tolkien’s mind, but such an ideal is not present in Baldur’s Gate. The frozen aesthetic appears not only thematically but also visually. Baldur’s Gate 3 offers no deviation from the accepted form of DnD conventions. In Act I there is a generic creche that can be Rivendell, or any other fantasy structure. In Act II there is a generic castle that can be a castle from Age of Empires, or any other castle. In Act III there is a lair of cultists that can be any metal album cover from the 80’s. Even the ultimate enemy is a generic Leviathan that can be the Elder Brain, or any other Leviathan from its multiple depictions throughout the last hundred years of Leviathan drawings.

Continued in comments, it just started to get good:

I find the notion of Americana, especially the period of rapid development of that vast geography after WWI, quite fascinating. The pain and suffering this exploitation brought, and how it led to unprecedented levels of economic superiority and its massive impact on art, architecture and generational psychology is undeniably a nerdish subject, but not a boring one. If one wants to understand the human condition better, what better time there is than one filled with struggle, conflict and progress. Nevertheless, the culture and psyche of people who built this colossal hegemonic power is quite an underdeveloped subject in gaming when compared to other artistic mediums.

Wasteland 3 is an exception. It is a love letter to Americana, unlike so many proponents of it, Brian Fargo and his team knows that love of Americana can exist without romanticizing it. They know that their mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun and yet, their love is rare. Wasteland 3 doesn’t engage in masturbatory nostalgia, alluding back to a cultural greatness that never existed, but faithfully portrays people hardened and brutalized by immeasurable hardships. Traditionalist falsification of the common American of this period, deeply religious, stilted, and enduring has no place here. Most people you will meet in this game are people no civilized person by today’s standards will want to associate with. But in this world the spectrum of morality is so far distorted by common acts of cruelty, out of necessity or reaction, even a tyrant will start to look reasonable. This is what Americana is, and crossing it with a post-apocalyptic setting makes it shine.

While the subject matter is depressingly oppressive, the brilliant humour of inXile, dark and even bitter at times, is in a delicate balance with it. I assume the fans of Beastality’s Gate 3 Baldur’s Gate 3 will be delighted to know that you can ♥♥♥♥ a goat or participate in a terribly written erotic show, and the fans of The Witcher 3 will laugh at pettiness and inefficiency of human cruelty. What really lightens this sombre setting though, is the fact that the whole purpose of our agency in the game is not a mere return to status-quo. Unlike the usual CRPG conceptualization, history in reality is not an inertial happenstance that jumps through certain periods like a warp drive. It is a wheel made to turn and in Wasteland 3 there are stronger forces for progress or regress than there are for returning to status quo. Allowing the player to have agency in creating change whichever path you take, introduces a semblance of hope to the cold, snow-laden Colorado.

Agency, in typical CRPG fashion, comes in the form of pure, unadulterated violence. What distinguishes Wasteland 3 from others is the fluidity of violence that it almost feels like a tactics game when in combat. UI and UX is a level above from any other CRPG I’ve played and combat animations are visceral and responsive. Skills of various builds in your party of six are all designed with consideration how they can complement each other well. Rushing the cluster of enemies with your shotgun wielding Ranger, draining their HP pools, finishing the job with your sniper that gets extra action whenever they finish off an enemy never gets old. Once the dust settles and you’re dutifully looting the battlefield, an inventory tab opens that shows all lootable objects in one tab, and individual boxes and corpses in other tabs. This simple addition immensely reduces the time you spend with busy work, and lets you focus on more important matters, like dancing on the grave of your annihilated enemies.

What’s disappointing is, agency in Wasteland 3 rarely comes in the form of environmental puzzles or dialogue. As an example, there is a newspaper in the town that publishes slanderous headlines about our actions throughout the game. I wanted to visit their offices and have a chat with their chief editor to convince or coerce him to support the Ranger takeover I was planning to accomplish as all coups need to manufacture consent to be successful. This is simply not an option because almost all the quests are designed around combat, even though some outcomes can be influenced by non-combat skill checks.

Of course, it would be unfair to expect a crowdfunded game to be the ultimate CRPG experience. But while playing Wasteland 3, all I could think was I wanted more of this heartless and treacherous world. I wanted more pre-defined companions, I wanted more side quests, I wanted more easter eggs, I wanted a larger city, I wanted more NPCs, I wanted more choices. I created my character with the background “disciple of the metal” expecting it to have at least some bearing to gameplay other than its 15% fire damage bonus. As in, short guitar solo every time I land a crit hit or meeting other disciples of my tribe. Most importantly I wanted more of that hauntingly beautiful soundtrack that reimagines classic, biblical and patriotic hymns of Americana in the context of this post-apocalyptic universe. As of writing this review I’m still listening to the soundtrack album and I desperately crave more of it. Despite my desire for more, Wasteland 3 is obviously a finished article. This is of course a personal preference but I’d rather play a game that leaves me wanting more, than one that overstays its welcome.

I usually write in-depth reviews within a week of completing a game, while its memory is still fresh in my mind. If it passes that threshold, there is almost no chance I’ll write a review. Wasteland 3 is an exception. It has been more than a month and I keep thinking to myself, what a great game and homage to Americana it was. As far as I can see, it flew under the radar mostly due to bugs at launch, but my experience was almost flawless other than FPS drops here and there, which were solved by loading a save. If you want a unique CRPG with a soul, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Love letter/10

I really enjoy Philip K. ♥♥♥♥ novels. Not because of his beautiful prose, but because they are a breeze to read even though they take place in settings that the reader is alien to. Take Ubik for example, even on the first page there are colloquialisms like teep, precogs, psis, inertials and Ubiks. PKD obviously doesn't expect you to understand all of them, but puts you in a situation where you can extrapolate the meanings and roles of various actors in that universe without needing an information dump that so many writers and especially RPG games are guilty of. In that sense Shadowrun: Dragonfall is narratively very close to a PKD novel that gives you just enough information to extrapolate from and trusts you to interpret events and actors based on your own experience with the story and not through the creator's intended lens.

This works really well in conjunction with your role in the universe. Assuming the role of a shadowrunner, a wet works operative, your character is just a pawn on the chessboard of corporations, small and large political entities, dragons and deities. All actors in the game make moves towards their intrinsic goals, simulating a real life intricacy of clashing ideals, and economic realities rather than the usual (and tired) RPG convention of most powerful actors also being forces that reinforce the status quo. This creates a dynamism in the game’s world, making every manner of things move in Berlin. And even though you’re just a pawn, the game is already in play and you can shape it just by being on the board.

This is where Dragonfall really shines, the setting. Cyberpunk Berlin, controlled by an anarchist organisation called the Flux State does wonders in putting the punk back in cyberpunk. I really loved Cyberpunk 2077, but at the same time, I lamented how the diminished sense of community that is present in Night City makes it a much more depressing experience than it needs to be. We might be really heading towards that hopeless, individualistic future that Cyberpunk predicts but I like the antithetic utopianism of Dragonfall's Berlin as something fresh. Having a hub world Kreuzbasar, filled with outcasts and non-caricaturized anarchists that of course ♥♥♥♥ the state but are also self-sacrificing people that care about the people around them is a great change of pace, and shows a surprisingly better understanding of anarchist politics than I usually observe in gaming space. I also loved that being a leader in this space is not derived from forceful hegemony over other many miniscule power struggles, but being a person that people look up to due to your actions and selflessness.

Dealing with the newest corporate ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on missions then coming back to Kreuzbasar to help or just chat with its
various inhabitants creates great pacing within the game, just like reading the Shadowland forums with wild theories about the missions you participated in. It makes the world feel more lived in. I really liked the fact that I didn't need to know each of Kreuzbasar's inhabitants' backstories. There are tens of regular people that we interact with daily but we don't need to know the details of their lives. Just because they exist, this existence creates a solid anchor that ties us to our immediate surroundings, to our community and to reality. In the streets of Kreuzbasar, there is an exotic dancer on the streets that you drop five nuyens every once in a while. You don't need to know her back story and you don't need to get in a romantic relationship with her. The fact that she exists and can dance on the streets is an anchor that tells you everything is alright. In the same manner, if something were to happen to her, you would lose that anchor and know that there is something wrong with your neighbourhood.

It's not only your neighbourhood, every kiez in Berlin got its share from being the battleground of various corporations and political entities. Racist gang with questionable funding moves into the kiez next to you, another kiez are filled with lumpens that think stealing from an anarchist commune makes them Robin Hoods, in one kiez a gang ruled by a Rote Armee Fraktion sympathiser troll is in conflict with ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mages. This weaves an intricate, beautiful network of Berlin districts where every location is filled to the brim with intrigue and conflict, not arising because the developers wanted some chaos in the setting, but because the actors in these kiezes have legitimate political and economic concerns that require a solution by force.

Intervention by you is what usually becomes this "solution by force". I would love to see how other districts play things out between each other, but being a positive influence in how Berlin and Flux State is run is equally satisfying (of course you can be an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and help neo-nazis, corporations and deranged mages but then you're wrong and we don't need to discuss this any further). What's also equally satisfying is being a drugged-up dwarf that wields a shotgun that's her size, controlling two other drones and blasting every enemy that spawns in just one turn. But of course, this is in late-game. Builds in Shadowrun can be divided into two, simple builds that focus on gunplay that can be very efficient at the start of the game but fall off near the end game, and complex builds that focus on drones or magic that suffer in early game but turn into terminator in late game. My only gripe here is the one that has been present in RPGs for a long time, you need charisma for more dialogue options and etiquettes, so if you're not a magic user but want to experience every possible dialogue option, you're hampering yourself as the skill points have a set amount.

There is also the issue that this is a turn based tactical game. Meaning that you're prone to breaking PC peripherals when you miss three shots in a row with 98%, stay far away from this game. It wasn't an issue for me, as on normal difficulty, you're not severely punished for missing shots but I can understand some people can be very frustrated by it. Although the soundtrack is beautiful, gun sounds lack the necessary punch, reducing the enjoyment I got from Shadowrun’s combat.

All in all, Dragonfall is my favourite PKD novel. It even goes a step further than a standard PKD novel and ties inconceivably massive power struggles to a small, self-contained narrative. While playing it I kept thinking which one is the better "cyberpunk" game (not the better game overall) Cyberpunk 2077, or Shadowrun: Dragonfall and considering how much I loved Cyberpunk 2077, this is a very high praise for Dragonfall.

Puts punk back in cyberpunk/10

P.S. There are a few points that the Steam word limit didn’t allow me to add in this review, you check out the comments for them.

I tried to play one mission of Hidden & Dangerous 2 at a friend's house back in 2003 and even though I couldn't even get past its first set of enemies, it infrequently kept creeping back to my mind after all those years, and I didn't even remember what the game's name was. I found H&D2 on an altogether random browsing of Steam's top 250 hidden gems list on steam250, and I thought to myself hmm, it's tactical and it's WW2, this should be interesting.

And damn it was interesting. If immersive sim labelling was around back in 2003, this game would be definitely labelled as an immersive sim rather than a shooter. Missions usually drop you on a large level, allowing you to choose your own approach to accomplish your primary and secondary objectives. You can usually take the stealth or fire at will option, unless the game says stealth is a must. The levels themselves offer so many different ways to play them out that even though I played each level a couple of times, I'm not sure I've found them all. For example, in one of the African missions, I first made use of the uniform I got from a surrendering officer on the previous level and approached it with a silenced De Lisle carbine. On my second try, I rushed the two unaware Tiger tanks with my lightest guy, bazooka in hand, killed one, hopped in the empty Tiger in the motor pool, took out the second one and went back to pick up my squad to wreak havoc on the level.

Variety of approaches you can take is not only limited to sneaky or bold and daring but also tactical. In one of the levels, I silently and carefully moved my sniper to the highest point of the glacier, overlooking the small German encampment. I saw one possible gap enemies could approach my sniper, and on that gap created a little triangle where approaching enemies would get annihilated by fire in all directions. While I was gleefully killing the entire encampment with my sniper, giddily proud of my tactical genius, the ice sheet under my machine gunner collapsed and drowned him.

I can go on and on about little stories this game allowed me to create on each level. Even the most linear levels of Hidden & Dangerous offer a great variety of approaches you can take. But the thing that immersed me the most in the game was the small details. Wearing a scuba suit changes your walking animation and limits your move speed. You cannot stop the iconic Opel truck downhill only by using its brakes, you have to pull the handbrake as well and even then it will take a while until it comes to a full stop. Some enemies will surrender if you catch them unaware, if they don't seem to be surrendering, you can try to force them by shooting close to their heads. Even if you’re in German uniform, you’ll get detected immediately if you’re carrying Allied equipment on you (weapons, explosives and backpack) In the Sable Squadron DLC there is a cutscene that features props and animations (like a tea drinking animation) designed only for that cutscene that don't see use in any other part of the game.

It's not an entirely painless experience though. First order of business once you start the game (after getting the widescreen fix from PC Gaming Wiki of course) you should remap every single button to your convenience. Default layout was outdated even back in 2003, and considering that you can control and issue various commands to your four squad members all together or separately in first person mode, in third person mode, in an extremely powerful tactical overlay mode, and if you don't want to feel like Liszt going nuts all over the piano to play La Campanella for "just a shooter", you have to ensure that you're comfortable with every key location because believe me, you'll definitely need all those keys.

Starting off the campaign, you are greeted with a roster of best SAS operatives that you'll choose four from. Little details like soldier backgrounds where the game provides a brief backstory for the operatives you can pick, some even with a small note "for the ladies" saying that "he is single" directly makes you attached to your squad. Eventually though, their backstory doesn't matter as you'll want to look out for shooting, stealth, first aid, and lockpicking skills and carrying capacity and movement speed stats. Lockpicking is relatively useless in the main game but it can be very useful on Sabre Squadron. Usually the good composition is to have one dedicated sniper with high shooting, one stealth operative with high stealth (as you'll be using a silenced Sten for the most part high shooting skill is optional), one rifleman equipped with AT capabilities and explosives, and a machine gunner/medic. They will develop their skills and earn medals and rank based on their performance. If the game allowed me to keep the levelled soldiers for new runs, the first thing I'd do after completing the campaign would be starting a new one.

The campaign starts in Norway before visiting an impressive list of locations such as Tunisia, Burma, Austrian Alps, Normandy, Czechia in the main game and Libya, Sicily and Burgundy in Sabre Squadron. Once you're dropped into that large Norwegian woods, looking at the beautiful skybox, light sources barely illuminating the soft mist, listening to ambient music of the level, you'll feel that all your pain during keyboard mapping and training level definitely pays off. The engine used for Hidden & Dangerous 2 (also the engine for Mafia, the better known Illusion Softworks game) still looks impressive if you have no issues with low resolution textures. Open-ended levels feel massive, forests feel alive and treacherous, and deserts really feel desolate and desperate instead of being a set dressing (looking at you Sniper Elite 3). Sounds are lovely, guns pack a decent punch, your movement speed and terrain will impact what sound you produce. I've enjoyed most of the soundtrack but once you complete the main game and move on to Sabre Squadron, you'll probably be tired of hearing "enemies alerted" music that comes in even when there are no enemies are alerted.

If you expect a flawless experience, you should keep in mind that Hidden & Dangerous 2 is an ambitious Eastern European game from the early 2000's. Pathfinding sometimes will suck and kill your beloved soldiers by putting them in awful positions, enemy AI will be inconsistent and the game will occasionally crash to desktop. If you can live with the idea of a burly Slavic dude looking deep into your eyes, candidly telling you "baby, I am going to abuse the ♥♥♥♥ out of you, but when it inevitably ends, we'll both know we shared something special" you'll learn to love the jank and enjoy Hidden & Dangerous 2.

Even though I've played countless WW2 shooters over the years, from extremely low budget ones to AAA, Hidden & Dangerous 2 immediately became one of my favourites. Thoroughly recommended.

Something Special/10