Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance Reviews

Fantastic little gem of a game. Multiplayer is 1000% dead unless you want to versus a friend but great for campaign and the AI isn't *too* bad compared to other games. Explosive and smoke effects are pretty good for what this game is, too. Great deckbuilding and rts-style action. It doesn't feature base-building and eco management is minimal but everything else is pretty great** **The one thing that was not great (it was AWFUL, actually) is the opening tutorial missions. If I had gone with my instinct, I would have refunded this after the first 15 minutes but I realized the tutorial looked nothing like the game footage that made me want to play this title in the first place. With that being said, I made a new game and ticked the option to skip the tutorial missions. This proved to be a fantastic choice as the game did a complete 180-turn in vibe, environment, mechanics and even voice narration - something that is particularly painful in the tutorial but gets substantially better - and after I started the first mission, I ended up playing for 4-5 hours, hooked.

great game just let me play as the tech cultists in skirmish/multiplayer or even a dlc campaign just for them.

For the love of god, fix LOS and path finding. Give it some fudge, give a tool to see where units can shoot, just do something to fix the none stop LOS bullshit. That should be priority #1, not making more DLC. The user experience shouldn't feel like fighting the AI and the game at the same time. That isn't how you make a game harder.

Great RTS with tactical pause. Interesting missions, tactical depth, unit customization. Now with Uprising DLC with a conquest mode this is one of the most compelling RTS games in recent years. Highly recommend.

Great tactical RTS. Build your army as your roll thru the campaign. There are some limited RPG components with decision making that affects achievements and what units are in your army. The tutorial is really limited, which does make it harder to learn the game. There are guides here on Steam or if you join the discord there's plenty of folks willing to give tips and tricks, like how to de-crew enemy vehicles to salvage for your own army. There have been lots of additions to create custom difficulties to really crank up the challenge, or feed the loot goblin and turn off supply needs. One of the best RTS games in recent years in terms of realism.

The game is hilariously broken. Picture this: a single enemy guy, a human with an assault rifle, can just lie down and become immune to fire. All while being able to damage any of your vehicles, up to and including tanks. Or that same guy can be in a building, your units will dump EVERYTHING they carry into the building and he will be fine. Any encouter will leave your vehicles damaged, normally knocking out the engine first making the whole vehicle useless. Save often, like every few minutes, because you will come across a single unit that will just lay down and waste a pack of abrams with their ak47s.

Great game. Love the universe. Wish Ammo was a bit easier to replenish in terms of mechanics, but otherwise fine.

Ah, it's always nice those rare times you get a game that falls into the category of "how the f*ck is a tie in of a movie series actually good?!" (Especially because it's... Dark Fate, not the worst one, but... like, yeah, it *absolutely* lives up to the modern Terminator movie stereotype). This game was supposed to be the random spinoff, instead, this game is genuinely the *real* star of the show. I confess these are not usually my type of strategy games. For me it's usually Total War or a city builder, and while I did have fun with Dawn of War, even that game's greatness did not match the Total War games to me. This game is different, however, in one key way, one that made Dark Crusade, and Homeworld great as well: Persistent units, (Well, for Dark Crusade it was buildings, but same point). Every battle you fight, every soldier you lose, is a tangible resource you have to learn how to deal with the consequences of even after the battle. Your beloved tank takes a nasty rocket to the side? Guess what, you're allowed to repair it no problem, except for the rest of the fight that part of the tank that took the hit will have weaker armor, and repairing it costs resources. But what makes it great is it isn't a universal type of resource you have to spend 5 minutes watching the top left or right side of your screen as it *slowly,* *AGONIZINGLY* ticks up for you to use, it's a specific one tied to each individual vehicle. Your soldiers essentially repair it with scrap, and every vehicle carries a different amount. Heavy duty ones like tanks have the great benefit of having well over 1000, meaning you can keep fixing it over and over again, while humvees and technicals carry about half of that, but make up for it... (kind of), by being lightweight and mobile, and great for mowing down regular infantry. But once that scrap runs out, you are SOL, be *very* careful, because you are not repairing those vehicles until the battle is over... if you even have the supplies for it, because guess what? The campaign, as mentioned, is persistent, and part of it is you have to learn how to manage your armies and your supplies. So while it sounds easy enough, just wait until the fight is over and you'll get it back automatically, obviously right? No, you're gonna have to spend precious supplies to make sure that vehicle is fueled and the scrap is replaced so you can use it again next battle. Except those supplies are also how you move around the map, no supplies, you starve, but also, no supplies, no way to rearm your vehicles and infantry. So now you have to have this delicate balance of what are you willing to spend to maintain combat effectiveness without starving yourself? Are you gonna have to get rid of precious soldiers? Because guess what? You also have extra soldiers. Your infantry squad or tank crew is down to one man? You'd better hope you have the manpower to replace them, because if you overextend and get too many guys killed, your reserves of extra guys can run dry *fast* if you aren't careful. That, to be blunt, is the absolute beauty of this game. Just like with XCOM or Frostpunk you are in this perpetual cycle of each resource naturally feeding into each other and organically promoting the mentality that you are fighting as a resistance. You *CANNOT* afford to just blob troops up like it's Starcraft because the ammo and soldiers you'll lose can absolutely cripple your campaign, but sometimes you have to take risks and take immediate losses now, to soften up an advance later. Even militia soldiers, the most basic, replacable units genuinely feel painful when you have to decide whether or not you're gonna use them as meat shields to cover for Founder soldiers or vehicles, because that is another resource you're gonna have to replace, and, ironically enough, meat shields like them, when you have to use them that way, are absolutely invaluable in a campaign. Oh, and I didn't even mention unit experience, *why* you bother keeping your men alive. The more battles you fight, you can add abilities for each of them from infantry to vehicle crews, and they can be *game changers,* without being cheesy, boring stat increases that just break the game. Even militia units can be shockingly independent and unique from each other based on what abilities you give them, making them serve a legitimately vastly different purpose compared to other ones. This game is about leading a resistance, and it sells it f*cking *PERFECTLY.* Every man you lose is painful, every victory you gain is monumental. That said, it is also a game that will teach you *very* quickly, the value of the pause button, because this game can and will absolutely crush you if you're not prepared. Make a mistake, and you will be punished *heavily* because of the potential resources you'll lose. In games like Battlefield, or again, even Dawn of War a lot of the time, never cared much for vehicles, always loved the bread and butter of a good infantry charge. This game? My M1 Abrams might as well be a child to me, because I get so excited every time I get a new top notch vehicle. And the urban warfare aspect of it helps make it so great. Watching said Abrams roll alongside a wrecked building so it can blast a hole into another building in the distance as all of the glass in it *shatters* from the impact is exhilarating, the environment breaking down around you as you push on and fight makes it feel like a genuine battle every time. This game is an absolute blast even for someone who has never been too big into the Dawn of War or Age of Empire types of RTS'. That said, not a flawless game. It can be mind numbingly frustrating at times watching a javelin completely out of view fly out and blow up your humvee or burn your tank forcing the crew out, with what sometimes feels like no way to properly retaliate. Light infantry vehicles like humvees can also be frustrating because a random infantry unit with AK's can damage the engine super quickly and overwhelm it even if you have a plasma machine gun mounted on the top. And yeah, that might be decently realistic, and it is nice how you can do the same to them, but it also makes those light vehicles extremely situational, because even as scouts, they can get annihilated way too quickly sometimes. And that is the thing, I'm *definitely* not the most skilled player, but it still doesn't make it any less frustrating sometimes when you run into a wall that just feels artificially difficult at times. Now, granted it actually has felt pretty fair for me by and large, and as I get better a lot of those problems will become far more trivial, but be prepared if you're inexperienced at these games for a couple moments that genuinely feel crushingly unfair, quick save a *lot* too, because autosave is not implemented the best. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting one every 10 minutes for this type of game, but when I get done watching a vehicle drive for multiple minutes on end listening to dialogue in the middle of a mission, only for the game to not autosave once it's done, it's painful if you have to reload that save). That said, obviously, as you can tell, super obvious recommendation. I love how well they implemented their mechanics, and while apparently at launch, difficulty was a lot worse, right now, for me it's the perfect blend of punishing enough where you can't cheese and screw around, but fair enough where you can actually experiment with your strategy instead of relying on a couple cheesy tactics to exploit the game. Also, use your vehicles *with* your infantry, tanks *especially.* Isolate them, and you will not have a fun time.

I'm on the verge of the thumb up/down here. It's a well made game with interesting mechanics and good tactic/strategy. I wanted RTS; this isn't RTS. RTS as a genre includes resource management, base building and unit control. This lacks 2 of those three. There is no base building, the resource management is as flat as possible - you get points between each mission, you spend points to build your army for the next mission (and upkeep). Your army is set at the start of each mission, save picking up a couple recruits in some missions, and you have to make due. That IS part of the charm... but again, it's not an RTS. It doesn't feel like an RTS. It doesn't scratch my RTS itch. As a side complaint, the difficulty has a strong element of knowing what's coming and countering it before you see it. You have to play a mission, figure out a few different places where you need a specific unit in a specific place, then restart it and do it right ahead of time. It doesn't feel like skill, it doesn't feel like there's room for me to play well or to be rewarded for good execution.

i never thought id see a terminator game where time travel is actually a gameplay mechanic (save scumming)