Recent reviews by AstolfOwO

Relic really turned around the Company of Heroes 3 ship a lot faster than they did with the CoH2 launch, but the game was also in a better state on launch than CoH2 imo.

Overall its probably my favorite Company of Heroes game now for PvP and the most fun I've had in a CoH game. Not only is it the active one so the meta shakes up once and awhile, but starting with 4 fleshed out factions really makes the game feel complete without needing any DLC. Before DLC this is the most amount of content a base CoH game has ever had both SP and MP wise. (Though it really needs that on the SP side, as it doesnt have any SP expansions yet like previous games.)

The Battlegroups are are also sooo much better than Commanders from CoH2, with no 1:1 re-used abilities and flexible trees for different playstyles or adjusting to game states in the same battlegroup. They really pack in a lot of gameplay with the 3 each faction gets, way more than CoH1 or CoH2 had on offer even after DLC imo due to no re-use of units and abilities. Tbh Relic has also been cookin' with the DLC Battlegroups too, typical new large patch RTS meta discovery and the balance of unforeseen discoveries aside.

The direction Relic has been taking the design is fairly good, though I slightly worry that they may get too close to CoH2s infantry lethality with all the DPS increases that they keep creeping into each patch. The game feel is like a mix between CoH1 and fresh CoH3 feel more than it feels like CoH2. Early infantry fights are pretty deadly and positional, but as durability gets acquired by Veterancy they still have good use in the later stages of the game compared to previous titles. The way the factions work and build is a mix of new ideas and some nostalgia with how the game pace and factions worked in CoH1, no weird CoH1 British or CoH2 USF thankfully though.

The SP content has been my favorite since CoH1, and while theres more on launch than before, though the DLCs for 1 and 2 really added a lot of SP content, so in a way CoH3 does have to catch up still. The linear campaign is about as good as CoH1s and better than 2s, but not my favorite linear campaign from the franchise. The Italian Total-War-esque campaign is a lot of fun though, only Operation Stonewall in CoH1 felt as fun but that might mostly be nostalgia. (Would really like a in-depth Stonewall-like mode for CoH3 with its own units/abilities). The AI feels a bit more fair and does more-player like moves, it is at the cost of being easier to fight though, which can get boring if you are a above average player.

I haven't even gone into all the excellent quality of life the game adds like auto-reinforce, the lowest mouse delay and smoothest pathfinding the games have seen with all the fixes they've done, fully rebind-able keys including double binds and the ability to set up a WASD camera. There's also new features like side-hits on tanks, high ground, many never before done unit types and abilities, and my favorite, towing, with the really cool heavy towed AT guns that centerstage the mechanic.

Is good RTS game.

HELLDIVER's in short is a co-op game where a bunch of people with the physical integrity of wet tissues command enough firepower to smooth out Super Earth and then cover it in craters while fighting three unique alien races on various planets with unique biomes.

HELLDIVER's in long is one of the best co-op games I've ever played, while it doesn't have a lot of super technical or gimmicky mechanics, the nature of a lot of weapons and stratagems(abilities you can call down with a DDR style-minigame) still require lots of precision and skill thanks to their great mechanical design, especially when you are trying to blow up a bug and not your fellow squishy meat comrades with a extremely powerful artillery bombardment, airstrike or simply a revolving grenade launcher.

The core gameplay of being squishy but a full squad-wipe being the only main losing condition makes for intense last-person standing momments where you frantically fumble trying to get the respawn beacon stratagem inputs punched in correctly while dozens of enemies are bearing down on you. Or you are covering your teammate when a enemy tank rounds the corner and they are desperately trying to finish the objective so you can both get the hell outta there. These momments are just a few of the most intense ones that the normal gameplay loop of HELLDIVERs creates. You can also build loadouts with your team that mesh together and give people distinct roles with more active teamwork, EG a teammate stuns enemies with a railgun only for another to drop a literal nuke on their head.

On the more specific subject of loadouts, the gear and stratagems of HELLDIVERs have fantastic levels of feedback and detail in addition to having unique roles and some great co-op mechanics. One of my favorite heavier weapons, the Recoiless Rifle, calls in a anti-tank single shot recoiless-rifle and a backpack with ammo, a single player can pick up the backpack and launcher but after firing a shot it takes around 5 seconds to reload and they cannot move during that time. But if a teammate were to pick up the backpack for the person with the launcher, creating two person gunner-loader team, the loader can load the recoiless rifle nearly instantly, keeping both players very mobile and allowing for a extremely high rate of fire when several very tough enemies spawn at once. Vehicles encourage co-op gameplay in a similar way, in that a driver does not control the gun and the various weapons of a vehicle must be controlled individually by the other players and may have limited arcs of fire.

To prevent from going on too much longer as I could gush about the intricacies of all the loadout options in HELLDIVERs forever, there are three unique alien races that require different tactics and gear to handle. The Cyborgs have heavy armor and are primarily a ranged enemy, making you want to gear for anti-tank and equipment that is good at fighting at range. The Bugs are primarily melee but on higher difficulties can require even more heavy duty armor busting firepower than the Cyborgs, their melee nature encourages you to take loadouts that are good on the move. The Illuminate are the most unique lacking almost any heavily armored foes aside from one, but they attack you from off the screen with heavily telegraphed attacks, forcing you to remain mobile and can create physical barriers out of thin air to limit that mobility and mix things up.

There's much, much more I could talk about but this review is already incredibly long winded, if you've made it this far and are considering the game its well worth the base 20$ and a definite buy on any sale. The DLC is not mandatory and I frequently beat high difficulty missions preferring to use a lot of the vanilla equipment since it's really good. But if you like the game a lot after getting it, I highly recommend the DLC on sale as it adds a lot of variety to loadouts you can do. If my word-salad review got you super interested the game, you should probably get the digital deluxe(esp on a sale) and enjoy spreading managed-democracy throughout the stars with unrelenting firepower and a nice cup of liber-tea.

Featuring over 300 horribly balanced weapons, Pay 2 Win buy all the power you want system. Horrible matchmaking and servers, Terrible engine and hit detection. Extremely bad playbase and more!
Winner of these two awards, One of the biggest Pay 2 Wi- I mean 'Free' 2 Play FPS games and easily one of the worse.

Now on Steam. Its been over 3 years since I last saw this, and now Steam dares remind me of why ITS. SO. BAD.