Recent reviews by TSideAWPer

Fantastic Space Sandbox Sim. Coming from Elite this game had everything I wanted and more. Exploration is not really existent but almost everything just plays better. It's completely SP so I guess there's room for more creative and narrative freedom. Highly recommend for anyone that enjoys this genre.

Improves on combat in AC2 and Ezio basically becomes overpowered through the crossbow and the assassin recruits. Parkour slightly suffers by subtly locking the angle you can jump at from a wall. The biggest weakness is the story, and oh boy is it hot garbage. What a massive letdown compared to AC2. Pretty much all characters established in AC2 has been completely ruined in AC:B, and forcefully introduces the most pathetic antagonist. Ubisoft should have just kept the original lead writer instead of being so money-hungry.
It's still recommended as you will still have a great time playing re:skinned AC2 in Rome and feeling like a god when you slice down an army of Borgia within a few seconds. The trailing missions sucked ass. Also more bugs then AC2.

Fantastic improvement in all aspects from the first game. Considered (one of) the best Assassin's Creed game made. Amazing setting, compelling story (both through Ezio and Desmond), improvements to parkour and assassination methods. It's such a shame the original idea of the AC trilogy will never come into fruition, as this game really set it up well.

Old game and very repetitive, but I overall enjoyed the experience. The setting is THE biggest strength for this game. Playing between Jerusalem, Damascus, Acre, and Masyaf during the 3rd Crusade was such a strong start to the franchise. The overall plot (both Altaïr's and Desmond's) are engaging and interesting. You are left in the dark and have to discover what's going on yourself by snooping around rather than being exposition dumped, except the last 2 chapters unfortunately, but I think that gets a pass as it's near the end.
The biggest weakness is the gameplay loop. It is super repetitive and sometime outright boring. There is no incentive to play outside what is required for the main story. I spent about 2 hours once trying to 100% an area until I realised I wasted that time on basically no reward. Only do it if you are aiming for 100%. You can really tell this game was the first of its kind, its age shows. The parkour is more simplistic compared to even AC2, and the combat is very dull.
Overall I do recommend for those who want to see where the series started. I strongly recommend gunning for the main plot and ignoring all the side activities you can do.

Have been playing Smash Ultimate since it released, and at the beginning tried to endure to awful netcode and multiplayer, but ended up sticking to just locals.
It's quite difficult organising a date for my friends and I to play local Smash, even though we all want to play.
We all played Melee and Brawl when we were younger, and a few of us played Project M, but we were all kids and just played super casually.
We tried Multiversus and hated the movement in that game, and how terrible it was balanced and designed.
We just wanted to play a solid platform fighter online when locals wasn't an option.
Then we found this game. This game plays very well online. No stutter, no lag, no freezing. Just buttery smooth gameplay. I was sceptical at first with the limited fighter pool, but each is very unique and has a very welcoming gimmick to them. Some take clear inspiration from Smash characters, but changed in a way they don't feel like a rip-off or echo/clone. It's incredibly fun. Plays way smoother than Smash Ultimate does (on and offline), and has a wider variety of "legal" stages (Ultimate has loads of stages but only 7 is ever played).
For any fan of the Super Smash Bros, I would give this a try. It has singleplayer modes, local multiplayer, and online. We are going to start playing this locally along with Ultimate when we all get the chance to meet up.

The monetization of this game is insane. I climbed to Platinum with relative ease but after that every deck is filled with ultra-rares that just completely prevent you from playing. Either everyone has been playing before the game came out, or they've dumped a lot of money into some virtual cards.
If you've played Yu-Gi-Oh physically or on another platform, you will also not appreciate the very weird balance choices in this game. It does not follow TCG or OCG banlists, so you have situations where every deck has 3 'Maxx "C"'s in them, as an example.
It was definitely fun at the beginning when you played against all types of decks and strategies, but when you climb you will face the same 4-5 decks without fail.

I've played many tower defence games since the first flash games, and BTD6 is by far the most fun and comprehensive one of them all. Massive map pool, great variety of game modes, weekly challenges, co-op, fun and diverse list of towers, and loads of synergies and strategies to discover.

It is also one of the most simple by design. It purely focuses on tower synergy, placement, and abilities rather than enemy path shaping that other TD games can do (e.g. Defense Grid). On harder maps and modes, build orders become more important depending on the sort of strategy and end goal you are aiming for. That doesn't mean there is only one way to beat map, it's quite the opposite. It means you have to be smart with your economy, tower placement, and upgrades on harder challenges and maps. The game has cross-platform saves which very handy when you want to play on the go (granted you have to buy it on mobile too).
Overall, this edition of Bloons TD has the most to offer, and is also one of the best Tower Defence games on the market. It gets a major update roughly every quarter of the year, so always new content.

Very fun Portal campaign. Up there with Portal Stories: Mel and Portal Reloaded as my favourite Portal mods. Definitely the best of the 3 in teams of story. I enjoyed that a good part of the early game only restricts you with a single portal, which give a nice challenge. The gel cleansing fluid is a welcomed addition to gel-orientated puzzles, adding a small extra bit of difficulty. In the latter part they introduce a new type of cube you can use which allows for some interesting puzzles. The voice acting was great, especially as the story approached the end.

WARNING: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION BELOW
A lot of improvements from Warband. This feels a lot closer to what Taleworlds wanted out of a M&B singleplayer experience.

The clan system is a welcomed addition, the replacement of marshals for armies was a great choice and far more enjoyable for the player, the inventory system is more modern with nice QoL features.
The battles are just fantastic. Having the campaign difficulty on 1:1 (highest) with unlimited persistent bodies, going into battle with thousands of units each side, and watching the sheer gruelling warfare unfold in front of you -- the feeling is something else. Warband's battles and sieges never felt so dire or desperate. The stakes didn't feel as high. Not once in Warband did I think "wow so many (npc) lives were lost today", after seeing a couple hundred corpses max lie on the ground. In Bannerlord, however, when the battle is over and you ride around the field seeing piles upon piles of bodies, numbering in the thousands, litter the ground, it really feels like you've just survived medieval hell.
The visuals and graphics are a massive step-up too. The snowy maps are beautiful, especially at night during a snowstorm. The castle and town designs are diverse enough across the different regions of Calradia, but you will start to see repetition within the same region especially within the central region (empire).

Here are the negatives:
I played through the campaign on 1:1 difficulty and the game really drew me in. The only part I didn't enjoy, I almost hated, and that when you reach the part of the main quest when you assemble the dragon banner and declare yourself as the rightful ruler of Calradia. I wish I knew that when you do that you are bombarded with a bunch of repetitive radiant quests that only prevent the inevitable - that is the empire factions all declaring war on you and you cannot get out of it until all 3 are defeated. As an example, the radiant quests would either be [raid a bandit hideout], [kill 3-4 roaming bandit parties], or [attack this specific marked caravan]. The radiant quests sucked and didn't fit the current gameplay at that point. How were you supposed to deal with a caravan roaming on the other side of the continent when you've got fiefs to defend on the other? It honestly felt like an afterthought. It would have fit better during much earlier gameplay before you got your first fief. What followed was even more of a chore. If I were to play the campaign again (not sandbox) then after assembling the dragon banner I would intentionally not continue the main quest (you continue it through a series of dialogue options once the aforementioned conditions are met). I wish during said dialogue there was more warning before you proceed, or better yet, tune those boring-ass radiant quests to fit in with the current state of the game. Once that uphill grind was finally over, you can return to the great free-flowing gameplay that Bannerlord has to offer. For anyone reading this and they plan to do the campaign: do not proceed with the main quest if you don't have to (read: do not have a time limit) - wait until you are really established and in a position to bring your faction (your own or one of the existing ones) to victory.

Overall, I highly recommend this game to both new and existing players of Mount & Blade. They are adding more with each patch and really bringing this game to its full potential.

To preface:
The game is the Definitive CoD Zombies experience. Best collection of maps and mods you can find. I could spend hundreds if not thousands of hours playing through all the maps, easter eggs, community challenges, mods, etc.

Update:
While there is no longer a RCE vulnerability, is still not safe to launch the game without being offline or by using Serious/Shiversoftdev's T7 Patch. Therefore the review stays negative until it is longer mandatory to use a 3rd party tool. The T7 Patch fixes the stuttering issue and slightly improves performance. It also prevents hackers from using other exploits on you which still haven't been fixed. You can grab the T7 Patch on Github: shiversoftdev/t7patch.

Original review:
Why the negative review? It's simply not safe anymore to even launch the game without having Steam in Offline mode or being disconnected from the internet. You are open to be hacked by pathetic man-children by remote code execution. The only 'fixes' are launching the game while offline or using this tool to mask your identity online that's not always guaranteed to work, which is more of a band-aid than a fix.
Lastly, thousands of users (myself included) experience constant micro-stuttering because Steam will check for any missing/invalid DLC you (don't) have installed. There is no safe fix for this and you need to get lucky that one of your clean re-installs fixes this issue in-game (still no fix in menus). There is another 'fix' for this by the community but it's shady at best and imo extremely risky to do.
At the moment I simply cannot recommend it. I have managed to get my game to a playable condition but don't expect it to be the same for everyone else, and that's just for offline mode. Can't play online, and to play with friends only is still a risk even with the community 'fixes'.