Recent reviews by vassilevb

I'm only giving the thumbs up, because I payed around 3 EUR or something. I know Cryengine is pretty (mind you, it existed before this game came up), I can see the big budget behind the voice acting (Romans speaking English while fighting Britons is comical) and the music, I see that the writing isn't complete trash n' all, but, as I've said before, in my book, gameplay is king. The gameplay here doesn't offer anything new and is almost identical to the gameplay of the PS2-era Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King (released in 2003, i.e. more than ten years prior to this one; unfortunately, you can't buy it digital at the moment; I'm a proud owner of a DVD, lol). It also reminded me about Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade (2004) (surprisingly, this one was released on Steam last year). I regularly go back to play LotR: RotK (2003) when I feel I the need for the button-mashing orc-beheading entertainment it gives. Why would I only recommend this one during a sale and what's the difference gameplay-wise then, you may ask, and the answer is simple — the thing I despise, called "busy work", i.e. exploiting your ancient brain's reward system with many, many, many XP points, hollow "achievements", useless collectibles, and grindy multiplayer ranks, but, in the end of the day, offering a, let's face it, extremely simplistic repetitive gameplay. As a consequence, "completing" this game is a chore, but if you play 10 minutes of it, you've basically played it all.

I'd prefer watching Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000) for the tenth time and replaying LotR: RotK (2003) for the seventh time as opposed to "completing" this one.

The only reason I bought the garbage "game" that I'll never have "the pleasure" of playing for two hours and downvoting it afterwards is this soundtrack. It's just five tracks, but thanks.

I despise DRM (I am not a Richard Stallman fanboy either). I am not a Ubisoft hater. I play the guitar since 2005. Music was always a significant thing in my life. Right now, I am in the worst period in my life. I haven't picked my guitar for more than a year. I wasted a lot of time (around 20 hours), money (more than 200 EUR, not including my instruments, of course), and nerves around troubleshooting and testing various setups (both with the original and the remastered version). I guess it was worth it. It emulates the feeling of playing with humans. Playing alongside someone else was always a joyful experience for me, if they could live with me being a very crappy musician wannabe, but it's not recommended during a global frickin' pandemic. I would've definitely be overwhelmed if I were a true beginner and would've given up on this game. Maybe the console experience is truly plug-n-play, but the PC is not (unless you spend more money for the DRM cable, which I finally did (only the remaster is playable without the DRM cable; this original is not); with time, it will get harder to find and its price will be artificially inflated). Keep that in mind.

Yeah, I played this for 80 hours and I payed around 5 bucks for it. Still, that doesn't mean that I should like it and that I somehow "owe" my thumb up.

I like winter settings/snowy landscapes very much.

I played the first one and I didn't like it. Then I did this one and I didn't like it. It's that simple, actually. And one of "the greatest thinkers of the last century" once said: "It's like poetry, sort of. They rhyme." That exact same guy also sold his 5#it for four fück1ng billion dollars (that would be nine zeroes), so...

... whatever, man / o.

The campaign is something very rare, considering the domination of blatant militaristic glorification (despite any claims for the contrary) on the contemporary gaming market. If you had the stomach for Arma 3 at all, then it deserves your time and attention.

For any war that takes place in the real world, it is always very likely that you'll end up as a casualty, regardless of your side (be it neutral or non-neutral), citizenship, genetic inheritance (including gender), age, acquired skills, competence, environmental awareness, etc. You will never see it coming (not just UXO/UO/ERW/UXB).

https://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/weapons/explosive-remnants-war

I ain't no senator's son / 1o.

What happens when:

1. You wanna compete with CoD and CS:GO on the team-based FPS competitive scene.
2. You own the "Tom Clancy" name.
3. You have a "locally grown" (i.e. made by and constantly improved by your own humans) decent engine that works and you don't have to pay a license/royalties.
4. You have resources (a.k.a. humans, time, and "the KA-CHING!").
5. You don't want your game to be as arcadey as the other ones, but at the same time you want to make it more accessible than, let's say, Arma 3.
6. You have your own digital distributing platform and you prefer to give the finger to lord Gaben.
7. You don't bash microtransactions and the "games-as-a-service" model, but you're actively embracing them, making a $#1T ton of "the KA-CHING!" in the process.

... you make this game. Which is kinda arcadey, but still fun. And, well, it makes "the KA-CHING", so, yeah, 1o/1o.

Welcome to left-click simulator, a.k.a. "how we did it back in 1996 & 2000" / 1o.

Why is this, forgive me the movie analogy, a Michael Bay type of schlock?

1. It cost $50 000 000 to produce.
2. Its marketing budget was $200 000 000.
3. The script is both pretentious and ridiculous.
4. It's absolutely unrealistic (just a few annoying examples — you don't hold a handgun the way you'd hold a fück1ng banana; even though there is no bullet drop, all the weapons feel like airsoft toys — they have next to non-existent recoil and almost endless ammo). (See p. 3).
5. The dialogue is cheesy (see p. 3).
6. There are next to zero characters. Just looks and faces.
7. In its pathetic (and failed) attempt to look neutral on the "nationalism vs. cosmopolitanism" debate, it's filled with "wisdom" a.k.a. random pretentious quotes, but the premises behind the statements are never neither subjected to an analysis, nor even mentioned in any context (yeah, go on, accuse me of "my unrealistic expectations" with the counterargument "dude, it's just a gAEm" (yeah, "just a game" with a budget of "just $250 million") and then tell me how "a game story is, if not more important, then at least equally important to the actual gameplay").
8. The gameplay is nothing new — very arcadey FPS (the highest "difficulty" is simply unfair to the player).
9. It looks good (though it was not a surprise for me, IdTech 3 (a.k.a. the Quake III engine) is quite powerful, despite its age; modifications (at a certain cost, which isn't an issue here (see p.1)) can obviously make it very capable).
10. The music is original and is of high quality (see p. 1). The main theme is composed by Hans Zimmer (see p. 1).
11. From the (mainly, cinematic deaths') animations, one can infer that they really put a lot of work (high quality motion capture n' all that $#it).
12. It's got the obligatory vehicle chase sequence.
13. Other people attempted to emulate the experience (e.g. Specs Ops: The Line and Max Payne 3's levels in the favelas).
14. It's popular (see p. 2).
15. It's overrated (see p. 2 and p. 14).
16. It's overpriced (see p.1 and p.2).
17. It's overpriced in 2021 (even during a sale).

A few positives I could say (far from enough for a recommendation at even a discounted price in 2021):
a) At least it doesn't have microtransactions (they weren't so ubiquitous in 2009; but there would be, if they were).
b) I had some fun with the coop.

Unless 1) you're very young (and never played some of the older Tekkens), 2) you don't have friends and must play online, 3) you have aspirations for professional competitive play, then I don't see why you should throw away your money to this DLC-infested, 80-gigabytes in size, and overpriced piece of DONG.

o / 1o I wish I could refund this ridiculousness that reduced the lifespan of my SSD.
o / 1o WATASHI WA BAKA DESU for buying this even during a sale.