Just pick a direction and run. I can assure you you will find something amazing.
I feel like giving this only three stars is a tad unfair, because the game achieves everything it tries to achieve. Sadly, that is not a lot. There is one level and one gamemode and the only goal is surviving for as long as possible. The game nailed that part, movement is great, shooting enemies feels great, but I honestly haven't gotten more than 40 minutes out of this game, because it is always the same. The concept severely limits the audience.
Yes, I am aware this is still in alpha and yes, this alpha is already really good; for more information on that, read other reviews. The only reason I am writing this is to inform any potential buyers that as of now, there is no option for AI-Scripts that Original Sin - Enhanced had. This boils down to my love for the dialogue system in the game, which lets you discuss decisions with your partner. Now, if you had an AI-Script, that other character would act accordingly and you wouldn't essentially be talking to yourself; this is a thing that made the first game so great. I do not always have someone by my side who wants to play through the entire game and discuss these dialogues, so it was very important to me that I have those in place. In Original Sin 2, those do not exist (yet), which means I will have to talk to myself again, which takes a big batch of fun away. Another side note: Also, it seems to be impossible to play with a controller at this point, something I really loved about the original game as well, but that is only a very very minor complaint.
I base this review on the Steam version and when I saw it here on GoG, I was literally shocked. I thought the ame wasn't very good; it is fun for one playthrough, but then I lost the motivation because it is the same all the time. The only real fun thing about this game is to see how your little princess dies, but that also gets boring quite quickly
I bought the platinum edition here on GoG for 10 bucks, and every dollar has been worth it. Battle Isle comes with the original game, and two "add-ons" called "Battle Isle - the Desert" and "Battle Isle - the Moon". I highly recommend the usage of a Joystick or a controller for these games, otherwise the controls will drive you crazy.But enough said about that, more about the game: Battle Isle gives you hardly any help with your units, when you progress through the game, you get given new units without being told what they are good for. This could have been done better. I have spent hours with the first Battle Isle and I haven't tried the Moon or the Desert so far, so I can't say very much about these. Battle Isle 2 also comes with an add-on called "Battle Isle 2 - Scenery", which I haven't tried either. Battle Isle 2 changes the whole concept of Battle Isle 1. In Battle Isle 2, these phases were thrown out and now you just have a turn during which you can move units and attack others. The battles have 3D-depictions, but these get quite annoying over the time. Historyline 1914-1918. It is an attempt of BlueByte to try teaching history in video games. It is based on the same mechanics as Battle Isle 1, but has WW1 units. As I am really interested in that war, I particularly enjoy this game; it is realistic but not too realistic so that it would take ages to get into it. I didn't like Incubation and BI3 very much, if I put the reasons here, my review would be too long.
I first played IL-2 at a friend's house and I was completely amazed by it. Since I have seen this game, I was completely into it. The game is hard. Unforgiving and hard. If you want, you can adjust the realism settings from an arcade-plane-flying-"sim" to a very complex simulation. I always played on highest realism settings, I am a big fan of that. Switching these settings would never come to my mind. It will take you many hours to learn how to fly it and that is many hours for every plane! You will learn how to intercept bombers, you will learn how to bomb, and of course, you will learn how to land and take off. This is shown in video tutorials which can be quite dry and long but they are necessary if you want to fly a plane on highest realism settings. The graphics are very nice, fire effects are outdated, but look very good. I will never forget how it looked like when I was in mid-air over Pearl Harbour fighting off Japanese intruders. The atmosphere, the sound, the looks, it is just great and you will spend hours. I highly recommend it to everybody who is committed to planes and plane simulators and who is ready to spend hours to learn how to play. People who like to start very quickly and like to "just hop in and shoot some Nazis off the sky" won't have a good time. Only four stars because of the difficult first hours with the game.
