I logged 800+ hours, what do you want. it's for map nerds and excel table nerds. it's no Dwarf Fortress as you have complete control over every unit, but it does have that type of obtuse-ness.

A very deep strategy game, which once mastered, rewards you very well when playing SP. still has tons of MP issues (desync, rehosting issues, etc.). UX doesn't really tell you a lot, but luckily the community has a decent wiki and active subreddit. the modding community is also incredibly creative, ranging anime-waifu portraits of Hitler to reasonable game play reworks.

the complaints about DLC are valid when you are just starting out and don't want the weird subscription model. but when you log 800+ hours, divide that by $140+ spent and it makes a lot of sense compared to a 30-40 hour game costing $60, with an online model that doesn't make sense (and hosting services that will eventually discontinue).

If you want something more visually rewarding, you play Company of Heroes 2 (not 3 atm), Gates of Hell, or Steel Division 2.

I think on paper, Stellaris could deliver a more wholistic game between the grand strategy/combat systems, but at the moment HOI4 is a better combat game than Stellaris, even if it is more number-crunchy

Mechanically clunky AF, gun play is boring, and the clash between radiant AI and scripted main story moments is grating and defeating

But an incredibly well acted, unbelievably good story kept me through the 80 hours


I’ve heard on pc if you play first person, and without GTA 3rd person game design, it’s p good

the only time i can remember being mad as a child at a video game, i got all the way to the final match against Bowser in the hardest tournament and blew a lead.

due to the game design, you had to repeat the entire Open/Tournament over from the start.

i threw my controller gently on the ground and i think i sold my gamecube shortly thereafter

if you turn the music off and put eurobeat, this becomes 6/5

comically bad story, not great video editing/replay mode after missions (can only scroll through at 2x speed for a 20 min mission). SP campaign is fine on normal, challenging on hard. DLC Top Gun planes break the progression. The MRP grind for weapon and plane unlocks is also blehhh. Like i want to try all the cool planes you put in, why do i have to grind/repeat missions over and over to unlock them. Especially if i'm not interested in the multiplayer.

lack of co-op story mode or custom missions is unforgivable, as multiplayer after launch window is dominated by pros and it's hard to practice. if you had a forge mode and some other reasons to continue playing casually.

if it's on sale and you like planes that go neeeeeroooo, this is alright.

my first GT game, and definitely not the last, although this is far from perfect.

what the game gets right is attention to detail in all the car / racing parts, but completely fails in the gameplay/loop. 400+ detailed cars? i'm sold, they all look, sound, and handle distinctly. it's so much fun. photo-real tracks, great weather effects, great materials, lighting, god the game looks so good on ps5.

ok so you want to have to earn the greatest cars in the game, fine. how do you do that? you grind the same 24hr LeMans race against the AI over and over. As of update 1.4, you get a decent amount of in-game currency for daily races, and 0 for custom races with your friends. however they also made the most expensive cars in the game even more expensive.... the game just wastes your time when really what you want to be doing is experimenting with cars on tracks and trying to find your groove or living a fantasy (because this is a video game after all). Especially if you aren't interested in daily races with certain tiers of cars (which thankfully the game allows you to use even if you don't own them). Oh so you just want you and your friends to race VW Minibuses on Dragon Trail? here's what you have to do:

1. play through Menu Book 9. That's about 2-3 hours depending on how bad you are / difficulty setting. yes you have to play SP to UNLOCK MP in a game you bought.

2. all of you have to own the car, own all the parts for it. what does that require? more time. grind, look for the car in the store, etc.

3. One friend has tuning parts for the bus, but one doesn't. how do your other friends match the car, well you can set the PP requirement to min to level the playing field, but then you can't equip silly suspension parts of tweak the gearbox with custom ones that increase PP. oh and did i mention you have to grind points to earn these parts since they cost in-game currency for a quick race with your friends online?

and all that time you spent with your friends how does the game reward you? oh ZERO GT Cash........

Just make it so every mile you drive you get some cash. no matter the event type. do the Call of Duty thing where even if you are losing the number goes up and you get something out of it. give bonuses for clean races/finishing on the podium.

give the hardcore fans spoilers or body kits as grindables. when my friend comes over i want to show him the coolest cars, not have to explain, "sorry, i don't have an additional 100 hours to unlock that car."

coming from GT, the handling model was incomprehensible. i feel almost no difference between cars since you can set every car up for drift or grip tuning. engine swaps also make little sense as you can't put in a 4.0 Liter V8 into a tiny hatchback and expect it to create enough downforce to not spin out with FF design. but whatever. this is arcade, not sim.

races are really repetitive, online and in SP, but at least in SP you get cash and then you get cars with that cash. there isn't any weird gating, and cash is readily distributed.

in online you have to "race 100 races with a BMW to get this tier of BMW." wtf is this grind. who thought this is fun in arcade-racer?

i do like aspects of the online GTA-style server, although its really limited in design. so much more could be done but it seems EA only wants to do some car releases and track releases, no major gameplay loop overhaul in the coming months. no cops in online races is boringgggg. credit for allowing you to earn currency in party-only races, as me and my friend will just hang out and have goofy races for hours as a mindless way to catch up.

the diving pedestrians is a nice touch, and the limited destruction has those fun elements of the Frostbite engine.

a good first entry for a revival of the "force: unleashed"-type star wars game. nothing spectacular, borrows a lot from Uncharted, God of War, and other AAA, contemporary games. Nice that they added a challenge DLC for combat, as there wasn't a good way to do that in the main game. it didn't have to do a lot to grip you (as it did for me) if you are already a Star Wars geek... therefore it is a good, albeit uninspired, 20-30 hour game.

Points off for a whatever plot and silly ending, tedious backtracking for plot advancement, and not being able to dismember humanoid enemies. thank god they fixed that in the new release. Based on early reviews for the new one, there is no reason to go back and play this IMO.

all kinds of technical issues on PC really make this a rough sell (keys not rebinding this many years after launch). the fact that object destruction/physics and some really cool features from the original release were not ported make this a let down.

coupled with the very-early 2000s dialogue and "ooorah marines" run-of-the-mill story, it's pretty forgettable. but a <10-hour game means you can finish it before it gets reallllyyyyy tiring.

boss fights are comically bad, which means the end of the game loses a lot of the goodwill the first half had earned by feeling "wide-linear" (linear objectives within a constrained space, but multiple options to approach). i like the different guns don't get me wrong, but ultimately you put a silencer and a long-range scope on everything meaning customization feels superfluous. it's more about movement/environmental awareness than a DOOM game where you use certain weapons for certain encounters.

even so with all of those complaints, it's still a remaster of a historic piece of gaming, updated for modern systems (which has its benefits than trying to run back-compat Windows Vista), and is a part of FPS-gaming history. I enjoyed some of my time playing it, so if you get a chance, sure go for it.