Recent reviews by Knightly

This is a solid DLC addition to the base Graviteam Tactics. I particularly like this dlc because it explores an extremely overlooked conflict in Angola that many probably haven't even heard about outside of the region. In fact, the DLCs made by these guys covering this conflict are probably some of the only content about this war you'll be able to find in a video game. It's nigh impossible to find pretty much any game that covers conflicts in Africa of the 20th century so definitely props to these guys for bringing this to us.

The DLC itself is a nice change from what we're used to in the base game, that is to say, WW2 combat. I'm a sucker for WW2 games just like the next man, however, there are already so many games that cover it, it's nice to have something new that the market isn't so saturated with. Naturally, the tanks and equipment you'll have access to in this timeframe -1987 for this dlc- pack a much more decisive punch than their WW2 counterparts. Things can go from bad to worse rather quickly now - ambushes and initial attacks can often give a large advantage, or be decisive altogether. Be strategic, lest your men and machines end up in smoldering wrecks! So, if you like the base game, there's a good chance you'll like this too, particularly if you like more modern equipment and oft-overlooked conflicts.

Hopefully we get more dlcs like this in the future, that's to say post-WW2 content. If I had to complain about anything about this game, it would be their DLC policy. Aside from the Iran-Iraq DLC, and the Angola ones, every dlc has been Eastern front WW2. There are loads of 20th century conflicts that would make great dlcs - Korean War, India & Pakistan's numerous confrontations, Arab-Israeli conflicts, more African Wars..., etc. That's just my opinion, but if these guys ever decide to tackle one of these conflicts I will eagerly purchase it and spend many hours with it. As we know, they're certainly capable of it.

Originally, while in my opinion not as bad as detractors made it out to be, Pharaoh fell short in certain ways. Now, with the Dynasties rebranding, the game truly shines like the electrum at the top of a pyramid, offering perhaps 'the' quintessential Bronze Age experience.



With Dynasties, the map and play area has increased dramatically. Where original Pharaoh was 40 some gbs, Dynasties is nearly 80, suggesting just how much was added. The Aegean and Mesopotamia are now here, as well as all of Anatolia. Want to conquer an empire spanning from Mycenae to Elam? That's possible now!


Faction variety is one of the most important aspects in any total war game. Between the dozens of playable factions now, including minor factions, we have access to such diverse cultures as Urartu, Assyria, Babylonia, Cimmerians, Elamites, Mycenaeans, Thracians, Sea Peoples, Egypt, Hatti... among others. Units are divided between faction specific and regional 'native' units. As your empire grows and you expand, you'll be able to recruit the sort of people that historically lived in the regions you're recruiting from. This creates many more opportunities for bolstering your armies with new units that aren't readily available to you at the start, so it keeps things fresh and offers another incentive to push your borders ever further. With some 150+ new units split across the newly added regions, you're constantly coming across new units, and its very satisfying.



One of my personal favorite additions to the game are the new battle mechanics. In many other TW titles battles can be over very quickly, often simply resulting in a frantic clickfest from the player. While battles in Dynasties can still conclude quickly depending on the units engaged, more often than not there is a balance here between decisive action and cinematic combat, encouraging the player to zoom in and watch the combat as it unfolds. Lethality is a new mechanic that gives landed hits the ability to be a deathblow, a critical hit that struck the enemy somewhere vital. Armor is taken into account, and different weapons have different lethality. An axe, for example, will have more lethality than a spear. Ranged units now have different trajectories you can have them use when firing. Arcing shot has a greater distance but don't have as much force behind it, a direct shot is shorter ranged but absolutely devastating when it lands, and mixed shot is somewhere in between these. These mechanics allow players new tactical flexibility, and the ability to more readily adapt to the changing situation on the battlefield.



The Dynasty system, the namesake of this update, offers interesting campaign strategic dilemmas, as well as opportunities for roleplay. Your main character will now age, and, eventually die, so naturally you'll need someone to take your place at the helm of your empire... otherwise there will be repercussions. In many faction starts you will not have an heir or 'scion', so it's usually a good idea to acquire a wife as quickly as possible to sort that out. Just make sure you pick a wife with good traits such as a higher chance of producing children! Once you start having sons and daughters, you can marry off the daughters to other factions when they come of age... for a large sum of gold or bronze in return. Then consider which son seems most apt to carry on your legacy once your time inevitably comes. Through diplomacy, you also have a forced inheritance option, which allows you to send someone from your faction to become the leader of another faction. This comes in handy when you need a reliable ally, or simply a faction that you can more easily absorb later on through diplomacy.



The Dynasties update turned Pharaoh into the game it was meant to be, a large and expansive representation of the Late Bronze Age World. There are more features that I didn't get to, but you'll surely discover those on your own as you play. Can you build a lasting Dynasty? Or will you be swept away like so many others and become just another footnote in history?

Have you ever wanted your presence on the battlefield to be worth 40,000 men?

When you hold your sword aloft do you want to hear your soldiers acclaiming you with shouts of "Vive L'Empereur!" ?

Do you want to pick up the crown of France with your sword and place it on your own head?

Or maybe you just want to marry a Hapsburg when you've grown tired of your wife?


If you answered yes to any of these questions then this is the dlc for you!

In an age when the WW2 game market is saturated with nonsense games with titles like Hitler's BDSM bunker, making a mockery of the scale and importance of this dramatic human event, then you have games like CTA:GOH that respect their source material, while having enjoyable gameplay. In my opinion this is the best WW2 rts game out right now, and certainly the one most worthy of praise to be released in recent memory. My review will be from the perspective of someone who is casual and does not play competitively. I play strictly against AI opponents, so keep that in mind.

One of my favorite things about this game is the heightened realism when you compare it with other WW2 rts games. This isn't the gimmicky, arcadey gameplay of Company of Heroes or even Steel Division. There is no base-building and are no bullet sponge soldiers here. The combat is more visceral, things feel like they have more 'weight' behind them, and the scenery is nicer to look at. Many parts of the environment can be destroyed and knocked over, such as trees and buildings. The wreckage, death and destruction lend themselves to the feeling that an actual battle took place. I feel like this can still be improved further, though. I would love to see fires lasting longer, and more instances of buildings, debris and soldiers catching on fire, as well as charred remains and so on. This is there to some degree, but I hope they'll build on it further.

The micromanaging aspect of the game may scare some players, but it isn't as bad as you might think. The difficulty parameters can be changed to give you more or less of a challenge, and when you're playing against AI you usually don't need to play optimally anyway. A good idea to get acquainted with the game a bit is to fire up a skirmish match with an AI and yourself against another AI. Your AI ally can keep the enemy busy while you practice, test out equipment, and so on. The AI itself can cheat, as well as do dumb things at times, but it isn't a huge issue, and the developers continue to improve upon them in subsequent updates. As far as mircomanaging, you can control a individual soldier, or group of soldiers at once. You can toggle first person or third person mode while controlling a soldier. Controlling everything at once isn't completely necessary, you can get your guys into strategic positions and start advancing slowly, or you can be more aggressive and micro-heavy. I prefer the more methodical, casual approach. I mention this mainly so people know that you don't have to be super competitive to play the game. Currently the game has the Soviet Union, Germany and (with DLC) Finland as playable nations. The DLCs are recommended, albeit overpriced in my opinion.

Let me talk about some suggestions for future updates/DLCs that I think would improve the game. Some of this stuff has been implemented to some extent, but could be increased a great deal. A proper dlc focused strictly on Operation Barbarossa. A lot would need to be done to do proper justice to this largest invasion in history. It would need to include Axis soldiers from not only Germany, but their puppets and satellites that took part in the invasion, namely: Finland, Romania, Italy, Croatia, Slovakia, and Hungary. A way of doing this without making all of those countries as separate factions (which obviously would take A LOT of work) would be to give them as auxillary and complementary troops within the greater German roster. The variety of units, the massive amount of troops involved, and the speed and encircling maneuvers could make this very interesting gameplay. The 1939 invasion of Poland is another frontrunner for new content that could be added. These are all just ideas, but I can't wait to see what comes next with this game.

The game already has quite a few mods and there seem to be more noteworthy ones arriving each week. Mods are highly recommended. Not only can they change up aspects of the game that you might find need tweaking, some also change the game completely, such as the Vietnam mod or the Russian Civil War mod. Take a look at the workshop and see what interests you.

And there you go, my jumbled thoughts about Call to Arms - Gates of Hell Ostfront! It's already a great game, one that can be and still does get improved and updated. In an era where most WW2 games are oversaturated, weird, and lackluster I can easily recommend Gates of Hell to those interested in a rts game with a WW2 setting.

*In progress review. Will update as I play more and learn more!*

Graviteam Tactics: Mius-Front is a one of a kind game. My friend introduced me to the Graviteam games as I wasn't familiar with them before. I will be sinking many many hours into this game over the coming weeks and months, and I want to tell you what I find so great about this game.

My favorite thing about Mius-Front that I think the game nails and gets so right is the tank and armored combat. Maybe it's just me, but many other games that portray tank combat are extremely arcadey or outright gimmicky. The combat just doesn't feel real. That is not the case with Mius-Front. Let me give an example: the Tiger Tank was an incredible piece of German engineering that had an impressive 100mm of frontal armor. Other tanks such as T-34s or Shermans just don't have the kind of penetrating power to get through that armor, they could hit the Tiger many many times and it would essentially bounce off of that armor.. just as it does in this game. However, if these other tanks get hit directly by the Tiger's 8.8cm cannon, they're almost always left a smoldering ruin.

Another small detail but one I appreciate very much is the sound of the tanks tracks as they traverse the terrain. I have to (again) use the Tiger as an example. These tanks are hulks and the tracks leave a very distinct sound, one that I've heard on historical documentaries about the tanks. I'd say the developers got the sound of the tracks as close as you could hope for. All of the other equipment of an army can be used too; artillery, close air support, motorized infantry, and so on. But the tanks are the most satisfying in my opinion.

The battlefields are another important element of the game. Based on where you're battling, you may find plenty of places to lay an ambush or get ambushed yourself. The battlefield will change as the battle progresses. Things that are destroyed will stay on the battlefield for the whole battle. None of that disappearing after a minute or two nonsense. Tanks and other vehicles may blow up and catch on fire based on how they're hit. They might get stuck or malfunction and be out of action. All sorts of these things can happen, and it gives you the real visceral feeling of a battlefield. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing the destruction and burned out husks of vehicles littering the landscape after the battle's conclusion.

So far in-game most of my time has been spent in Skirmish and the Battle Editor. These are very fun modes to play around with to try out different strategies, units, equipment, etc. I haven't even gotten into the main meat of the game which is the Operations. Operations are basically a turn-based operational part (moving your units around on the map) followed by battles that actually take place once your and the enemy army engage. Definitely looking forward to those once I learn the game a bit better!

I think the aspect about the game that would be the most difficult to adjust or make sense of for most people would be the UI. There are a lot of buttons, each with their various functions and uses. But don't panic! That's what the battle editor and skirmish are for. A place for you to test everything out and see what works, and what doesn't. Honestly, you won't even be using all these buttons all the time. So don't sweat it. If you make mistakes, simply try a new tactic or do something differently until you figure it out. That's part of the fun! Don't give up on the UI and you'll be in for a real treat.

I recommend Mius-Front to anyone with an interest in WW2 simulations and battles, history, and TANKS!

Final Fantasy 14 (which I'll call FFXIV henceforth, for simplicity's sake) is, in my opinion, one of the better MMOs on the market currently. The game maintains the $15 monthly fee in addition to purchasing the game itself, which is unfortunate but is the norm for this genre. In any case, I feel that if you plan on playing it, the game justifies that cost with plenty to occupy yourself with.

I will say this upfront: the game does start off slowly and takes some time to ramp up. Combat at the beginning is very basic and you won't have many abilities to really make use of until you level up a bit. The base part of the game, called A Realm Reborn, takes some time to draw you into the story. Once things get going though, the story is great. There is A LOT of it though. And between all of the dialogue and cut-scenes, it takes quite a long time to get through ( while writing this review I'm still not finished). This can be either a good or bad thing, depending on the player. But I feel like the story is one of the main components of the game, so it does make sense why it's so long. One complaint of mine about the story is that certain parts require you to do dungeons with other players to progress. This is probably a minor issue for most of you, but this is just my personal take here. I said earlier that the story is a pretty substantial part of the game, so I wish it wasn't locked behind these. In later expansions of the game you can run through dungeons with NPCs. I hope they'll implement this feature to earlier parts of the game also.

The class (or jobs as they're called here) variety in the game is very good. Pretty much everyone should be able to find a job that appeals to them either gameplay or aesthetics wise. There are some easier jobs that are better to start with, and some with more complex rotations of abilities you need to use. Combat starts rather boring and slowly at the lower levels if I'm to be frank. But as you unlock your full repetoire of what your character can do, it's quite fun.

Now to bring up the most important part of any MMO, the social aspect. This is probably the part of the game that I'm most conflicted about. There seems to be some sort of consensus that the FFXIV community is somehow 'friendlier' or more welcoming than other MMOs (such as WoW). I've played both of these, and other MMOs, and I can state plainly that the FFXIV community isn't better or less than other MMO communities. It took me a while to realize this, but after playing for a while, I learned that the same problems that plague other MMO communities are present here, too. It took a while for me to see past the veneer, but things became visible after a while. There are still just as many elitists, cliques, and old-timers that think they're better than everyone else in this game. The key difference, I think, is that there are rules in place in FFXIV where people can't outright bully you or troll you to the point they can in other MMOs, like WoW. Don't get me wrong, I've met some decent people in the game. And the tools are there to encourage and help you socialize with other players more easily. I commend the developers on how easy and visible these social tools are to the player. And people -actually- use them! But yeah, there are definitely connections and friends to be made in FFXIV. Just don't go in with the expectation that everyone's going to be a saint, and you should be fine.

*This is an in progress review. I feel that I've played enough and enjoyed the game enough to warrant a thumbs up. I'll try to keep spoilers minimal, but there will be some present. Please keep that in mind before reading further.*


I stumbled upon Yakuza 0 almost by accident. I never got the chance to play the games on Playstation back in the day, so when they came to steam that was my first exposure to them. I thought the game would be your typical action-packed gangster game. While it is action-packed and there are plenty of gangsters, this game is anything but typical. My favorite parts of this game are: the story, the characters, the atmosphere and the sheer amount of side things to do. Let's go into a little bit of detail about why these are so great.

Story I'm gonna keep my description here pretty generic, and by that I mean I won't get into any specifics. I said there would be spoilers but I'm trying to avoid them as much as I can. The game is split between you playing two separate characters. The writing in the game is fantastic, where you'll experience moments of sadness, anger, thrills and plenty of surprises. There are lots of cliffhangers.. you'll see what I mean when you play. I just felt like the story was a major rollercoaster. It didn't slow down or lose pace throughout the narrative. There was always something going on or something to resolve that felt of import. One of the most important components a game needs in my eyes is a solid story and narrative. Yakuza 0 definitely deserves it's 'Story Rich' tag.

Characters First, let's start with the main characters. Kiryu and Majima are the two playable characters in the game, and they're both great. I'd describe Kiryu as a no-nonsense, kinda dry-humored and fiercely loyal friend. Majima is charming and unique. Both characters come with their own fighting styles (several additional styles you can unlock too) that could be described as 'over the top' but thrilling all the same. Fighting is a series of attacks, combos blocks and dodges you can do. It's enjoyable and not too difficult. Each character has a 'heat' meter, which is basically a meter you charge up when fighting that allows you to unleash a devastating finisher on an unlucky enemy. I would be doing a disservice if I didn't bring up the side characters. The side characters you meet through the side stories stand on their own as some of the high points in the game (at least to me). If you read the game description, you'll already know about the side missions with the dominatrix and performer that you have to help get to the bathroom in time. Do those sound funny and wacky enough to you? Because they aren't even the best side characters or stories in the game. What about a side story where you have to infiltrate a cult (based on a real one, even) and save a girl? That's just a teaser of what you'll experience. I'm not gonna mention my favorite side character, because it's best discovered on your own. What I'm trying to say here is do yourself a favor and do the side missions! The characters and little storylines of them are injected with tons of humor and wit and should not be missed!

Atmosphere This game takes place in the 80's. And it is very evident once you step into the world. From discos to karaoke of popular 80s songs of the Yakuza world, to the clothing and how people dress, they really nailed the aesthetic. Maybe things are a little over the top or overdone as far as the 80s go. But who cares? Go big or go home. All I can say is that this game made me nostalgic for a time period that I wasn't even born in.

Minigames There are a ton of minigames to occupy yourself in Yakuza. If you want to get completion in the game, I feel like this is gonna be the most time-consuming part. Some of my favorite minigames are the gambling den, which is filled with gambling games like blackjack, poker, roulette baccarat and some others. I really enjoy the karaoke minigame too. In karaoke your character will sing-along to one of the hit songs of the Yakuza world, but to do a good job you'll need to press the buttons on your controller that appear across the screen. There is also fishing, disco dancing, pocket circuit car racing, mahjong, and betting on fights. Rest assured, completionists will have a few things to keep busy with on here!

Conclusion Yakuza 0 is a thrilling journey. Fraught with peril, action, a memorable cast of characters and side characters alike, a high-point in time (the 80s) wonderfully represented, plenty of side missions and minigames to keep you occupied. And with all that said I can happily give a thumbs up to this game and recommend it to you!

Atrocious Experience...


I went into this game thinking it would be a sort of silly, free version of Holdfast. And oh how wrong I was! Holdfast is silly and full of trolls, albeit generally harmless ones.. but let me get back to this trash-pile of a game. First off you'll probably notice that I have under an hour played in this game. You're probably thinking wait, how can he review a game and have an legitimate opinion in only 15 minutes? Well, it only took 15 minutes of playing to have such a negative experience that I NEVER would play it again. First of all, let me say that my problems aren't with the general look and feel of the game, the graphics, the shooting, etc. While the graphics are not great to put it nicely, I really don't care to judge a game on the basis of that. I take those things into account, but to a marginal degree. What matters most is the online experience when you're with other players. Shall we talk about that then, the online experience? Let's!

Lets start off with how many players were online: a whopping twelve players! Yes, twelve players on the whole game during the evening. So, my friend and me go into this server to see what it's all about. And within a matter of moments we start getting ♥♥♥♥-talked by everyone, not to mention our own team (all 3 of them that we could see). I can handle playful ♥♥♥♥-talking back and forth, but when it's racial slurs + being belittled and told to quit the game as soon as you start it tends to leave a lasting and bad impression. There is a way to mute players, but why should I have to do that on a multiplayer game where a large part of the appeal is to talk to each other? And besides, I'd have to mute pretty much -everyone-. A major problem the game has is that it's largely dominated by one -regiment- of try-hards and elitists. They have the only server that is played on, and they are quick to flex their internet muscles on you because of this. Perhaps if there were more servers and a larger group of people playing this game it would cancel out all of these bad apples. But with one group having a monopoly on the whole game and encouraging and allowing negative behavior, there isn't much you can do.

In summary: I recommend steering clear of this game. There's a reason it's free and has been largely abandoned.

This will be a short review of my personal thoughts and experiences of Total War Rome Remastered.

*Total War Rome Remastered includes the base game, the Alexander expansion, and the Barbarian Invasion expansion. Once you install the game and hit play, you launch each game individually through the launcher. Hopefully that helps clear up any confusion!*


As someone who grew up on the original Rome 1, playing the Remastered version causes a ton of nostalgia and brings back pleasant memories. But nostalgia alone doesn't create a good game/remaster. But in my view, the game delivers on what it sets out to do. The Remastering is faithful to the original while enhancing the graphics ui/ visibility of important game elements. This remaster gives you the option to choose between the new, remastered settings, or to play the original game with unmodified settings. I recommend the remastered settings, but do whatever you'll have the most fun with. Battles are a bit too quick for my taste, but that's personal preference and isn't a major complaint, there are ways to increase it.

The enhanced graphics are probably the most significant and noticeable improvement, and they look quite good. There's something quite pleasant about playing a old game that's new again through a remastering. You get fun and enjoyable mechanics that make sense, but with a more streamlined experience overall.

One of my favorite aspects of the game is the population system. If you only play the newer total wars, this will probably be a foreign concept to you. But yeah, population actually is a sort of resource here. Each of your cities will have a population number, with various ways that it can be decreased or increased. Recruiting soldiers will take from a city's population to recruit them. Tax levels influence the growth rate (or decline) of a city's population. A certain population number is needed to upgrade your cities to their next level, and hence to unlock further buildings. Modern total wars are sorely lacking these type of mechanics, and it's unfortunate. Features like these give the campaign a greater degree of depth.

My biggest gripe or complaints with the game would be the pathfinding of units (sometimes units will get lost in settlements or have trouble navigating them.) They have improved this, but sometimes there's no avoiding it. Another issue is that the game crashes every once in awhile. Again, they have improved this but it still happens at times.

With any total war game, mods bring more longevity to the game, and RR is no different.With the latest update to the game modding capabilities have been enhanced considerably. There are already a few good mods worth playing now, with many more that I've heard of being in the works. (Including a Lord of the Rings mod). Expect many many more mods in the future worth checking out.

The verdict? Total War Rome Remastered is worth your time. If you like some of the concepts I talked about that the game includes, you will probably enjoy it. Or if you were a fan of the original Rome 1, this is just a more streamlined and better looking version of that with steam modding support. I will be playing a lot more of this game in the future, and I strongly feel that now is the time to get involved playing the game, considering the modding support and latest update.

After reading many of the other reviews for TU, I found that, from the context of a new player looking to purchase the game, they probably weren't too helpful. I'll offer some insight into the game, largely based on my personal experiences and what I've learned at large. The goal of this review is to be a small primer that tells someone interested in the game what to expect and what not to expect.


TU is a very casual-friendly game, easy to pick up, with plenty to do and things to keep you occupied. This is the type of game I fire up when I just want to wind down after a long day, socialize with some friends and not have to worry about too much. This is not a hardcore game. You play at your pace and set your own goals, whether that be having the most amazing condo set-up ever, or earning all of the badges from the various minigames in the game. Being a social game, your experience will, in large part, be determined by your interactions with other players. One recommendation I have to anyone new starting the game is to have a friend of yours also start with you, and to start playing with that person. It's very difficult to get into this game if you have no one to play with at the start, and I can imagine this has been the reason certain people don't get very much into it. While it's possible to go it alone and meet people that way I think you'll have much more luck with taking a buddy with you from the beginning. Another thing I have to mention is the community. I've met some really cool people here that enjoy this game. However, there are a lot of bad apples in the form of trolls, furries and people just generally looking to ruin your experience (often these people will check all three of these boxes). These people can be avoided easily enough, and you can continue on your merry way to find sort of people that will enjoy hanging out.

• Game is easy to pick up. You can invest as little or as much time in it as you want.
  
• Social aspects. You can meet people you have things in common with.
  
• In-game media players. I think these are great and a cool way to share your music interests or other fun videos with other players.
  
• Condos. A mini-game within a game. Plenty of tools to edit your condo as you see fit.
  
• Minigames. The minigames are fun to play, with the exception of maybe one or two.

• Trolls and such.
  
• Sometimes there aren't a ton of people online.
  
• Certain bugs and annoyances of that sort.

Keep in mind that everything I've described has been through my personal experience playing the game. Yours will be your own different, personal journey. Between the condos, minigames, social aspects, and continued development, TU has a lot going for it. To anyone new or who is on the fence about purchasing this game: you can help create the type of experience you want on the game. When it comes to social interaction within the game, avoid the type of players you need to avoid and gravitate towards the ones you get on with. Do the same thing with minigames, playing what you like, while avoiding the games or activities you don't enjoy. Maybe you're not interested in the condo/decorating aspect? You can ignore it entirely if you so choose, and can simply enjoy the minigames. I hope this review was in some way helpful to you. If you decide to get the game, I hope you enjoy it as much as possible! Final note: Me and a friend on TU often throw parties at his condo in the game. New players or other cool people are always welcome to join in the fun. We'd be happy to help you get to know the game if you have any questions.