Nothing seems to do anything. The stupendously unintuitive controls seem to do nothing, or if they do something, it's not what you expected. Confusion reigns supreme throughout this game. You feel like a headless chicken at all times. The graphics are TERRIBLE, and so slow given their low quality. You simply can't see anything at all. It's just a buzzing booming confusion. I have played plenty of other tank sims like this, many more realistic and more complex, yet rarely found the befuddlement issues I have found in "Panzer Elite". The mods that come with it won't do anything to help neither. I have now given it a fair try three or four times, and this is the final time. So now I dump it forever and it joins my VERY extensive "faeces" club of the worst of the worst that GOG have shat upon us. I notice the "fanboi negrepping of poor reviews and posrepping of raving loony 5-star reviews" is strong here, so I expect those negreps. If you're thinking of buying this, don't be fooled because this and other bad reviews are negrepped to shit. Don't pay the good reviews too much mind. If you do still buy, then Lord help you.
Awful, just AWFUL example of the worst of the 3d first person shooters that were so in fashion in the 90's. Graphics are inferior to earlier classics like Duke Nukem 3D, and Duke 3D was two years earlier. The difference in average GFX quality rose exponentially between 1996 and 1998, so Sin Gold was truly behind the rest by a long, long way. It thinks it's funny, but unlike Duke 3D, it isn't. It's cringingly bad. Made with the most stupid of dumbasses in mind, but saying that I could not even complete the first "bank robbery" levels as the "shut down vault security" primary task was just not completable as far as I could find. Gave up after 30 minutes of going round in circles through the shitty scenery again and again. ANOTHER of GOG's complete and utter shitpicks of the worst of the worst of the 1990's. Yet there's so many other much better 1990's classics that GOG ignore. Just DON'T buy.
But first what is this pack of lies in the store page blurb? Star Control 3 is the last installment of the series. Taking a slightly different track that diverged from the Star Control 2 formula, it got excellent reviews though some of the hardcore Star Control fans weren't entirely thrilled by the innovations. Journalists, new fans of the series, and hardcore fans alike all agreed on one thing, though: this game's story is great. GOG should be ashamed of themselves, this is so pack with lies it's almost fraud! Hello Falran! Once again the "third of a successful series" turns out to be a TURD and just makes sure there never will be a fourth. This is even worse an example than "Master of Orion 3"! The designers did try to stick to SC2's formula somewhat, and even tried adding a bit of more 4x type resource management and colony building to it all - but that was done SO weakly, you didn't actially control any of those things, you just dropped colony pods on planets for the various friendly races in the game. They did such a piss poor job of every single last aspect of everything in the game. They utterly warped all the familiar races beyond recognition, look at the Syreen now FGS! For me the killer was the star map. USELESS. Just a bunch of spinning grey dots. No info whatsoever attached to them. If you wanted a specific system you had to search through ALL of them with the mouse one by one by one by one....... truly HORRID. I could tolerate no more than a few hours before quitting. This could have been so much more but for the sheer incompetence of the designers who probably thought they were being so clever and were creating the "best gam eva"!
so it's pretty bad, weren't they all? China Miner anyone? - graphics are merely average even by it's 1992 standards. - SFX are typical of the first generation sampled and midi SFX in PC, couresty of the earliest SoundBlaster cards. Ie they are short, sharp and like listening to badly tuned radio - music isn't bad, except for the instrument sounds themselves, for the same reasons as above - controls are primitive, and awful - gameplay is annoying, as it is with most platformers, more so with old 8 and 16 bit era examples - Jill herself was really just a pathetic attempt to grab the attention of zit squeezing teenagers of the time - and we're all in our 40's and 50's now and should be duly embarassed about that! I'm also embarassed to say I did play through the entire first freeware episode I acquired in the early 90s - and even slightly enjoyed it. Not so here in my twilight years! This is one that is best to leave in the past, even if GOG are giving it away for nothing. The curse of fanboi negrepping seems to be prevalent with all 1 and 2 stars reviews here as well. I know fanbois are extremely moronic sad cases, but to be negrepping bad reviews for this game, whilst posrepping shit like "iz jill" as long a it has 5-stars attached, well this is a new fanboi low! GFY fanbois.
but as a game. Just utter kack! That's about all there is to say. I would have been 9 or 10 when this was released, it would have astounded me then. But 42 years changes a lot of expectations. So barely 60 seconds of playing this was more than enough for me. At least you are not paying for it. Just take it as a gaming history lesson!
FOR THE QUADRILLIONTH TIME...... UGH! DIFFICULTY! - the AI cheats, cheats and then cheats some more. It enjoys massive bonuses to well, simply everything, and freedom from all restrictions and game rules the player is subject to. - if that were not enough, the RNG in tactical battles is heavily biased against you. You know what I mean, when you and the AI have the same units, at the same level, their hits go like "10,10,9,9", when yours go "1,1,0,0". - only one building per turn? Just adds tedium to the proceedings. - FORCED IRONMAN mode. That is one of my serious pet hates in a game. - lots of "difficulty levels", but they are all illusionary. There is only one true difficulty level, "IMPOSSIBRU!" - random events are ALL bad, cripplingly so, you won't survive beyond two or three of these. - you get options to mitigate the above, but the cost to do so is even MORE crippling than the event's punishment itself! - suffers from the curse of "repetitiveness" more than is usual in games. The only mode worth playing is "hotseat, against yourself"! Playing against the AI is just NOT an option. Such a shame as this could have been so much more. There are mods, but apparently they INCREASE the difficulty even further! I mean, WHAT? What kind of morons do we have working with this game?!
As GOG's review system STINKS, I've said it all here in the forums...... https://www.gog.com/forum/mount_blade_series/warband_100_hair_ripping_frustration_0_fun_or_satisfaction To the toxic fanbois and developers at TaleWorlds:- Once you've done posrepping all the five stars lies around here, don't forget to negrep this, or just hit the "report" button. After all, that's what you believe it is there for, for you to try to censor reviews you don't like by getting them removed. To every other rational human being around here:- Despite the low ratings on the 1 and 2 star reviews, TRUST THEM. They speak the truth about this game. Do not trust the 4 and 5 star reviews despite the high ratings. Those ratings are all done by the aforementioned rabid fanbois and the developers! If you are fooled, and do buy this, and regret every pennies worth, don't say you were not warned.
NO SINGLE PLAYER mode at all. This is NOT what I bought this for. Ok, it's my fault for not reading the "blurb" on the store page. And if you like online multiplayer only then you might find this worthwhile and worth more than 1-star. To me, it was just a complete utter waste of money. Thing is, I bought it quite some time before I tried it, and can no longer persue a refund. In fact, I might even still try. The base game is truly, truly, truly awful anyway. Nowhere near as good as the original "Mount and Blade". It's broken jank in every aspect of the game, as well as being simply impossible and the grind is like NOTHING ever seen before. Not even Facebook games match it for grind, and they were made ultra-grindy enough to force you to keep buying "ways to skip it". Anyway, the base game is for another review. Now, let's see the usual "GOG fanboi review negrepping toxicity" eh? That is where good, well written bad reviews get negrepped to shit, whilst idiotic retard good reviews like "izgud" get posrepped to the gods.
After having to write three terrible reviews today for the two "Enemy Engaged" games and "Daggerfall Unity - GOG cut" (which will also be negrepped to shit by the stinking fanbois and shills who also possrep all the good reviews even if they just say "tanks gog" or "gud gam" because they are retards) .... sorry bout that, well it makes a change to praise a game for once! :D Afterlight is far superior to Aftermath and the abysmal bug stuffed Aftershock. The graphics are much, MUCH superior, and unlike Aftershock, things actually DO what "it says on the tin"! There are some small bugs but nothing to worry about. It is also MUCH easier and fairer on the player. But you can still have it simply IMPOSSIBRU if you wish! Put it on "hard" or "impossible" difficulty and you'll get that in spades! Put it on "easy" and it may seem TOO easy at first - almost as easy as having "god mode" on - but later the difficulty will ramp up to about "just right". Start on "normal" and will feel just right at first, but you may find some later difficulty spiked missions too much. Luckily you CAN change the difficulty on the fly but you have to do it by editing a config file in the game's relevant player profile directory - you can't do it within the game itself. If push comes to shove, you may need the cheats, which do actually work! Though many internet sources will give you bogus info on how to enable the console. I'll have to put how I did it in the forums! Trouble is, just like a previous review by Spankahontis says, you HAVE to save scum. You CANNOT afford to lose even ONE man in a bad mssion! Simply because you do NOT get replacements and you only have a dozen fighting capable units to start with. In Aftermath you at least had a steady stream of replacements, Aftershock you could buy whole armies easily, in this you get NO more. Drones? Yes you can build as many as you want, but they are weak and USELESS and take a while to build and equip. That is the big flaw with it!
