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naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
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Notes -
Sseth, one of my favorite[1] youtubers put out a 'humorous' but rather accurate review of the (secretly) Russian[3] vehicle combat game War Thunder.
It's thirty minutes, but imo enjoyable if you like bizarre humor, sarcasm, quick wit and are interested in learning about games you don't know. Give the first minute a listen, I say.
TL;DR (in this case, video):
It's this Russian F2P military themed game with various game-modes - from arcade to simulation, featuring air, ground and naval combat.
The flight simulator, relatively unpopular mode is fairly good, doesn't cost a cent and is completely free to play. It can be played only with mouse, but not with all airplanes. Some high performance planes, especially agile jet fighters are too tricky to control with it, most props are fine. It also supports VR[2], which I'm tempted to obtain, only scared of the motion sickness.
Sim is very enjoyable, especially with friends.
The other game modes can be.. very frustrating, bordering on masochistic, especially for people who don't learn fast.
Graphics are good.
I enjoy the game because one can do well if one thinks hard enough and keep your calm, and it often puts me into a flow state that's relaxing despite being quite exhausting to maintain[4]. Flight sim apart, is not a game where you can 'shoot the shit' with friends much of the time. Especially ground, and I find out I can't talk much even during naval, where doing rough ballistic calculations in your head requires serious concentration.
E.g. the ground fights brutally punish inattention, lack of sleep, predictability, listening to loud music and many other minor sins. It rewards careful yet bold approach, skill - you often need very precise shot placement, being able to calc pythagorean theorem in your head (range estimation) and so on.
Correctly landing a first hit on a target exactly 2100m away if extremely satisfying - the guy counted on you having to shoot 3-4 times before getting the range..
This cinematic is made with mid range in-game footage ran through a filter. This official one shows high end graphics, what you might get if you buy a top of the line card and use custom cinematic settings.
On a mid range system, say, a 5 yr old gaming pc, the ground tak game looks somewhat like in this unexpected music video for "The Caissons Go Rolling Along" song, showing the makeshift tank destroyer M3, which used a 19th century artillery piece wrecking German WW2 armor. Extreme levels of skill required to play like that, some people manage that and ruin everyone's day.
If you don't want to pay, do not try to progress above rank III-IV vehicles, higher rank economy makes paying for the game a must unless you're a literal gaming god. Masochistic eastern-European schoolchildren have been known to get to the very top without paying a cent over the years though.
The game is competitive, thus exciting and enjoyable. It's also stressful, and the 'bad' reviews on steam are fairly funny.
[1]:Some psychologist could explain why is it that listening to him is so easy. Something about the cadence of speech ?
[2]: this blew my mind, some maniac with VR and HOTAS flying the most realistic control mode wreaking absolute havoc with dumb-fire rockets and helicopter. If you don't get the joke, helicopters with unguided missiles are the pinatas of War Thunder. Free points, they're too slow to avoid machinegun fire, too fragile, and generally have a lifespan measured in tens of seconds within 1.5 km of tanks. (that's about effective rocket range, mind you too)
[3]: they have good PR. It's registered in 'Cyprus', HQ'd in Europe, but owned by Russians, and I'm probably betting given that they were based there, and still hire people there, and that Russia is one of the world's largest sources of cheap software dev labor, they still constitute a great part of the workforce.
There's also the Russian bias which can be discerned from win rates at top tier and various controversies regarding armor spalling, ammunition detonation and such.
[4]: computer games are supposed to keep you keyed up, but I noticed that after playing late at night I end up actually feeling exhausted, probably due to the sheer demand of 'watch everything, listen for engine sounds, keep track of enemies /friends on the minimap, estimate lead/drop etc'. That is, more exhausted than I'd be had I been I dunno, reading online or posting.
EDIT:
speculation about 'Russian' bias; it's possible the company as a whole isn't pro-Russian, just that some asshole is editing the requisite XML files and sneaking it through version control system. It's the ultimate easy troll thing to do for a crypt-nationalist Russian. (not that other people don't play Russian tree but you get it).
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