Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance

[rusty_shackleford]

Have any of you played this?

[Ilovecheezecake]

Played it on release for about 2/3 of the campaign. Then got sidetracked by RL obligations. Pretty polished at release too. Really good and underrated game, worth the money as well. Its getting a Legion based xpac soon

[Rand]

To bad it's based on a ****** anti white male John Connor femoid retcon.

The little hispanic ***** they selected to BE the leader in place of John, and not the mother... cringe.
She couldn't lead ****. No military man would listen to the tiny, untrained ****.

[Ilovecheezecake]

True. The movie was atrocious

[ThulsaDoomer]

I have a feeling that many saw the "Dark Fate" part and tuned out, but the game has nothing to do with the movie beyond some of the rehashed lore. Skynet becomes Legion. The Resistance is the Movement. Etc. Honestly, given how utterly bare the whole post-future setting was, I don't really care. In the games past devlog posts, they say they took majority of the designs from the first two films and much of the inspiration shows. I can only surmise that this was the conditions of using the Terminator IP.

Gameplay is solid. Can be unforgiving sometimes but easy to mitigate this if you're patient and abuse smoke and positioning. I've only finished the human campaign and haven't gotten around to playing the expansion yet. The music is dark industrial kino, and it's what elevates this from a good game to a great game.

If you like Terminator and enjoy squad based RTS, this is a no brainer. I doubt we will ever see a good RTS based on this IP ever again.

[BlueMemphis]

Yeah hearing this was based on the newer timeline with john connor replaced meant i automatically skipped over this.

Still salty over the bs they pulled, whats that chuds you thought john connor mattered?

[ThulsaDoomer]

It's not perfect, I would have preferred they kept to the OG films. Ultimately, the lore in this game is shallow at best, and you will be spending 95% of the time fighting robots or humans (in the case of the expansion). The guy who I assume is meant to be the new John Connor, Lt. Church, is a pretty alright character with the high minded idealism you'd expect. Not the worst replacement, and it's obvious the devs do give a ****.

Honestly, if you're skipping an RTS over LORE, then you're in the wrong genre. RTS story has always been B-movie tier at best. I'm here for gameplay, and if it sucks, then good story won't mean a **** thing.

[BlueMemphis]

Beg to differ, lore in RTS absolutely does matter as it gives you context for why you are fighting random map skirmishes. And it affects game enjoyment, in between mission cutscenes/briefings and being yelled at by talking heads is part of the experience so if are not enjoying those, it knocks points off.

Gameplay is unarguably the single most key component of an rts that if you **** up can't be salvaged by anything else, but if gameplay is the meat then lore is part of the sauce that help makes the food tasty or not.
It ain't about the quality of the writing either, the story for sc1 isn't good at all by any means, and command and conquer is famous for its cheesy charming cutscenes and silly lore (and even in that there's skub, some people prefer the more serious tone of mainline cnc games whilst others like me adore the wackiness of the red alert timeline) but it has to at least be enjoyable.

And that's where this terminator rts failed its first impression with me. They chose the license, they chose to base this future war rts on the worst timeline, why would i want to play a game associated with a film i hate that is likely to involve characters i also hate?
I mean ffs, no one cared about this game because they were expecting amazing gameplay, but because of the terminator license. So yeah stopped paying attention to it and forgot game existed until now.

[ThulsaDoomer]

We can agree to disagree, but I still stand by my statement. The future war of Terminator was what, 4-5 scenes and bits of dialogue from the first two films? This game captures the aesthetic and vibe of that, just not the exact names. Is that really a massive deal? I don't get it. I only wanted the vibe of what those scenes portrayed and Terminator Dark Fate is the only attempt made so far. I'm not going to pretend to suddenly be elitist for RTS just because muh lore wasn't respected. Your loss on what is objectively a good game.

To add to that, the success of Terminator games means the IP remains enticing to future publishers. For now, we get a game based on Dark Fate, which isn't ideal, but if it succeeds as an RTS it could lead to developers wanting to visit the original Skynet timeline. People need to stop thinking emotionally and consider the actual reasons the RTS genre previously died. It was unprofitability, among other factors.

[Kalarion]

To add to that, the success of Terminator games means the IP remains enticing to future publishers. For now, we get a game based on Dark Fate, which isn't ideal, but if it succeeds as an RTS it could lead to developers wanting to visit the original Skynet timeline. People need to stop thinking emotionally and consider the actual reasons the RTS genre previously died. It was unprofitability, among other factors.

Heh. First time? Don't worry kid, I been there before too. You'll learn.

[ThulsaDoomer]

To add to that, the success of Terminator games means the IP remains enticing to future publishers. For now, we get a game based on Dark Fate, which isn't ideal, but if it succeeds as an RTS it could lead to developers wanting to visit the original Skynet timeline. People need to stop thinking emotionally and consider the actual reasons the RTS genre previously died. It was unprofitability, among other factors.

Heh. First time? Don't worry kid, I been there before too. You'll learn.

I'll admit it's a reach, but it's also not a coincidence that Slitherine greenlit this game after the success of that Terminator FPS. The RTS market isn't getting tons of DEI money by blackrock or consultants with SBI because its a genre that always receives the least amount of attention. Sadly, a lot of its failures are self inflicted by the developers. They all dream of being the next Starcraft 2, but seem to have learned nothing of the problems Blizzard had and were only saved by their sheer dedicated fanbase who put up with their ********. I was a big Warcraft 3 fanboy in my teens, and despite Reforged being a pile of dogshit, that community still keeps the game alive because its core gameplay did its job.

[rusty_shackleford]

and enjoy squad based RTS

so is this more like Myth and less like Warcraft?

[ThulsaDoomer]

and enjoy squad based RTS

so is this more like Myth and less like Warcraft?

No, more in line with the wargame genre, like Company of Heroes/Men Of War.

[ThulsaDoomer]

For all five RTS players who may give a ****, I have finally gotten around to finishing this games first expansion, We Are Legion. Not a review, just my raw opinion.

All in all, it was good. Instead of limited units that you absolutely need to ensure survive and salvaging whatever you can get your hands on, with Legion, you have a lot of reinforcements to work with (not infinite) and objectives become top priority in order to maintain these reinforcements. A good decision, given Legion is meant to have sheer numbers on its side, and it never felt overpowered. Although, this means highest difficulty is the only real way to go, as my tests on lower difficulty meant I could afford to lose a lot of units and still come out on top. Granted, if you played the vanilla campaign realistically and always slowly moved via defensive formations, you could end up with a real army by the end. Maybe I'm just autistic.

Another perk was that every mission felt fresh, with I believe six or seven in total? Already forgot. You usually fight different opponents each map, minus a few, which helped keep things from getting repetitive. Story was alright, a decent insight into an AI creating expendable sub-units to do its conquests to avoid network infiltration and other elements. Not gonna spoil all of it. It sets up the next expansion releasing on the 29th, or today depending on your time zone. I'll be buying and playing it since I'm still in the mood for more.

If you can get over Legion being Skynet and other peculiarities, it's still a solid fuckin game. Gameplay feels good, and the next expansion introduces a conquest mode which I've always enjoyed in older RTS. This game has been a surprise given a lot of recent RTS is turning out to be quite terrible, other than Tempest Rising I suppose.

[Red7]

Have any of you played this?

any game that thinks there is such thing like "savescumming" and tries to hinder restart from failure point and waste my ******* time with NO ******* REASON is made by a total ****** that i have no time to bother with.



that ****** from vid is ********.
beside waste of time, inability to do proper manual saves also hinders sense of software ownership which also rubs jew wrong way.

[ThulsaDoomer]

Have any of you played this?

any game that thinks there is such thing like "savescumming" and tries to hinder restart from failure point and waste my ******* time with NO ******* REASON is made by a total ****** that i have no time to bother with.



that ****** from vid is ********.
beside waste of time, inability to do proper manual saves also hinders sense of software ownership which also rubs jew wrong way.

No idea what you're ****** rambling about but the game has manual saving at the moment although the uprising dlc does not during missions. Instead there's a customisable autosave function although if feedback changes I can see them just adding back in manual. It's just not necessary when the Realistic difficulty effectively provides that upper level **** you to the player and savescumming, I agree, is simply a user issue and not the responsibility of the developers. They shouldn't punish the rest of us who need to exit out of a mission asap and don't want to leave the game running during the hottest days of the summer or some ****.

I actually took the time to watch some of that video rusty had since I didn't bother before and yeah, the guy reviewing the game is a genuine moron. He's rushing tanks with technicals, he deserves to get squad wiped. Especially on that mission, where the tanks are scripted to follow a specific path, where you can actually set up ambushes and not risk those units. I swear most RTS reviewers never played the genre and just do it for the videos. It's not really that unfair when you can two-tap an enemy tank yourself in specific circumstances.

[Red7]

► Show Spoiler

Have any of you played this?

any game that thinks there is such thing like "savescumming" and tries to hinder restart from failure point and waste my ******* time with NO ******* REASON is made by a total ****** that i have no time to bother with.



that ****** from vid is ********.
beside waste of time, inability to do proper manual saves also hinders sense of software ownership which also rubs jew wrong way.

No idea what you're ****** rambling about but the game has manual saving at the moment although the uprising dlc does not during missions. Instead there's a customisable autosave function although if feedback changes I can see them just adding back in manual. It's just not necessary when the Realistic difficulty effectively provides that upper level **** you to the player and savescumming, I agree, is simply a user issue and not the responsibility of the developers. They shouldn't punish the rest of us who need to exit out of a mission asap and don't want to leave the game running during the hottest days of the summer or some ****.

I actually took the time to watch some of that video rusty had since I didn't bother before and yeah, the guy reviewing the game is a genuine moron. He's rushing tanks with technicals, he deserves to get squad wiped. Especially on that mission, where the tanks are scripted to follow a specific path, where you can actually set up ambushes and not risk those units. I swear most RTS reviewers never played the genre and just do it for the videos. It's not really that unfair when you can two-tap an enemy tank yourself in specific circumstances.

average ****** thinks any sort of ambush is "lame camping"
same with mil sims, goy thinks like cattle not like tiger

[Ilovecheezecake]

Game good

[SpellSword]

I just read a review claiming that Slitherine has locked LAN multiplayer behind some kind of DRM requiring you to login from their servers to use it.

► The Review In Question

Review on GOG.jpg

[ThulsaDoomer]

I just read a review claiming that Slitherine has locked LAN multiplayer behind some kind of DRM requiring you to login from their servers to use it.

► The Review In Question

Declaring that an RTS uses a company server to run its multiplayer is not ground breaking anti-consumer information, it's mainly the LAN being put behind the same connection requirement is very bad practice for developers. The steam copy seems to be busted as I cannot access multiplayer via steam account, but I don't use multiplayer anyway. This game is, frankly, not well suited for it.

The saves being flagged as malicious is pure nonsense. Is this moron using windows defender?

As for the DRM free advertisement on GoG, it's technically true and false at the same time. This could apply to every other RTS in existence, as they always used external servers to run the multiplayer platforms. There is no online requirement to play skirmish or the campaigns. It's clear that the industry cannot decide what constitutes something as "DRM free". That's a GoG issue more than it is a developers issue.

Moving on from boomers reviewing games on GoG, I've been playing more of the Uprising DLC here and there as time permits. Very mixed feelings. I don't dislike that it's effectively a skirmish campaign, that's what every other conquest mode has been in RTS, however I do dislike the current lack of objective diversity. Attacking and defending means you'll be seeing the same maps often, and random objectives or even more story focused objectives would help the repetition. Also, defending a sector means you immediately lose all but two of the control points, which makes no sense as I'm defending. Only for bases do you actually have decent defenses and the enemy needs to take out a primary defensive point to launch a full assault.

Speaking of, these base defenses are ******* brutal. My second time defending my main base, Legion suddenly had a large surplus of tanks. To my counts, they had 6 normal plasma tanks, 5 rotary tanks, and around 12 HE cannon tanks. (HE tanks are the best the AI can field in this game) Keep in mind I have two abram tanks and maybe a few cannon platforms that get immediately nuked because they're stationary and the AI has insane aim chances. On one hand, this is the worst balancing I've ever seen. On the other hand, it was an insane challenge, and I actually survived with my two abrams intact. (Long story short, the crews all died due to the HE rounds, but the tanks were salvagable.)

For those unaware of the games mechanics, High Explosive rounds can clear out buildings of infantry within 2-3 shots. Given infantry basically need structures to survive and deal damage, especially in a defense mission, getting hit by a dozen HE tanks was the worst imaginable outcome. On easy I'm sure this is a cake walk, but on high I barely held on. Realistic is a god **** death march in this mode.

In summary: If you're a masochist and love skirmish and insane difficulty, it's a pretty good DLC. Good for naturally boosting cortisol levels. Otherwise, you may not enjoy this.

[Vergil]

I have a feeling that many saw the "Dark Fate" part and tuned out,

Funnily enough this is the only reason I clicked on the thread because I couldn't believe they actually made a game for that shitshow.

[Tweed]

Dark Fate was so terrible that I couldn't finish watching it.

[Vergil]

Dark Fate was so terrible that I couldn't finish watching it.

I was going to say the same but then I remembered Dark Fate is the lesbian one and I was thinking of Genysis or whatever stupid misspelled name they gave it. The one where John Connor looks like a rotund hobbit and is evil.

[Tweed]

Dark Fate was so terrible that I couldn't finish watching it.

I was going to say the same but then I remembered Dark Fate is the lesbian one and I was thinking of Genysis or whatever stupid misspelled name they gave it. The one where John Connor looks like a rotund hobbit and is evil.

That was one was terrible too, but not so terrible that I turned it off. I wouldn't watch it again, but I managed to sit through it.

[Ilovecheezecake]

Game is really good, hard too.

Playing it again on realistic with Founders only troops and its ******* great

[ThulsaDoomer]

Defiance is getting another DLC that continues the story properly instead of the sandbox we previously got.



I'm looking forward to it. Finally, we get a RTS game that showcases the real state of Canada, a desolate **** hole full of golem AI.

I'll be doing my usual mini-review when it eventually releases and I get around to playing it, unless my GPU finally dies before that happens. So far, I have good expectations, and frankly I look forward to the new music tracks by EDLISE as this is one of the best RTS soundtracks in recent years. We desperately need more dark industrial metal from the days of Tiberian Sun.