Fallen Aces

let me start this review off on a positive note, the gameplay feels immersive sim-adjacent with multiple solutions to problems, but also has some boomer shooter dna with secret areas, fetch quests, and a more linear sequence of events. overall I'd say its a pretty good mix, but the one thing that makes this game borderline unplayable is the load times. waiting upwards of TWO MINUTES after every quick load. that doesnt sound to bad but when you're retrying levels upwards of ten times a level it gets UNBEARABLE. ive got a mid level laptop, but ive ran much more graphicly intense games like entropy zero 2, tf2, the long dark, and portal 2 with -10 second load times, and mind you im not loading into a new level, im loading a quick save for a map that should already be saved to memory, and the maps are made of simple, low poly surfaces, theres very little natural terrain, and all the npcs/pickups are 2d sprites like doom and wolfenstein. but on that note the art style is very appealing, the billboard sprites look pretty clean, and they are drawn from multiple angles, so if you walk around an npc you will actually see different sides of them, and the atmosphere just wouldn't be the same if they were 3d models with an outline or something like that. it looks really well done. overall if you have a fast pc our are the most patient person ever its 100% worth picking up, but i cranked the graphics as low as they can go and the load times are still ABYSMAL.