I dont know how "metro:exodus" got such good ratings. The great and atmospheric graphics aside, this game is at best mediocre in every other aspect. The story is overall ok, but it is driven by extremely annoying characters and aweful dialogues presented with a fake russian accent. The cutscenes are so damned long, and these boring characters just wont stop talking. It feels like they could have chopped them down to half the length without losing anything (except some blant dramaturgy). The "open" world is a nice scenery, but exploration is somewhat not very entertaining. In fact, this feels more like a rail-shooter than anything else, "press E for awesome" is strong in this one. Yes, there are sometimes different approaches to accomplish a target, but all feel scripted. Stealth, shooting, the cutscenes, everything feels unpolished and I dont know how some people are drawn into this by the atmosphere. Its not completely bad though, just terribly overrated.
Battle Realms is my favourite RTS due to several reasons: The graphics are well-aged (and with a little bit of nostalgia) still really beautiful, cause the units and the environment are wonderfully designed. Together with the great soundtrack/voice acting and the interesting setting, the game creates a great and uniqui atmo, when you ever wanted to play a hidden gem, thats your game :) The Campaigns are a good way to learn different game mechanics (and clans) and teach you and how to react in several situations against even larger armies, but they still offer much more. The story itself isnt really special, but very good narrated and all the characters are interesting, even the bad guys ^^. You have to make decisions between the missions how you want to develop the campaign and so 3 the campaigns have a replay value. They overall feel very well-rounded and detailed. Like mentioned in my heading, the game mechanics are really simple and can be learned withing some hours. You just have a couple of units to control and so the game never gets unclear. The economy is kept very simple and training units is a bit special, but not what defines the game in my eyes, hence also very simple. Of course you can optimize your economy (and later your fight tactics) a lot, but its very easy for beginners to learn and truly understand what happens during the whole game. The game concentrates on (relatively small) battles. You can specialize your small armies and lay in ambush till the enemy arrives or keep pushing the enemy with brute force and trying to weaken his economy, and so on. The mechanics are all easy to learn, its the right timing and the overview what distinguishes a beginner from an advanced player. The battles are a lot of micro-management when the player reaches a certain level, but need to be well prepared as needs to be the environment where you want to face you opponent. (Forests for ambushes, mountain ranges for defensive positions etc). No signs left, buy it!
