So, I got a promo code. Three days of premium. Lovely, right? I thought I’d try War Thunder — tanks, planes, explosions. What’s not to like?

Turns out, quite a lot actually.

I booted it up, all bright-eyed and full of hope. I'm no tank historian, so I went with the Tiger — big cat, big gun. Classic. That was mistake number one.

Driving a tank? Gorgeous, almost feels like controlling a slow-moving wrecking ball that takes its sweet time but gets the job done. Loved it. But shooting? Shooting feels like tossing pebbles and hoping for divine intervention. Sometimes you one-shot someone from across the map and feel like a god. Sometimes you blast a guy three times and he just shrugs it off like you sneezed on him. And sometimes, you die instantly to a shrub, not a player in a shrub, the shrub itself probably...

As for teammates — oh, bless them — they act like caffeinated squirrels. No tactics. No talking. Just chaos and camping. It's like being in a pub quiz where everyone's blindfolded and drunk.

Now the grind. Oh sweet Churchill, the grind. Before I could even sniff the Tiger, I had to pass through SIX nearly identical Panzerkampfwagen IIIs. Each one with slight variations — “this one has a marginally spicier turret!” Brilliant. Just what I wanted. More of the same. Again. Forever.

And when I finally reached the Tiger? The game went, “Ah, but you need to unlock 3 more rank 2 tanks to actually get it.” It's like climbing a mountain, reaching the summit, and being told the real peak is behind another mountain. Also, your boots are gone.

Even with premium, the game respects your time like a cat respects your glassware. Without premium? You’d probably age faster than your tech tree.

If you enjoy slow emotional decay, déjà vu in tank form, and the sense of being punished even with premium — then War Thunder might just be your next unhealthy obsession. Otherwise, perhaps just... go outside?

Crash Time 3 is a game in which you are penalised for crashing cars or objects during a mission. The only exception is when you're chasing a suspect; otherwise, you're literally fined for crashing and can fail the mission because of it.

Having already played the second instalment, I never understood why the series isn’t simply called "Alarm für Cobra 11", since the main characters and the entire plot are based on that TV series.

Compared to the second part, the third game also feels decent — though sometimes dull or even shoddy in places — but it still manages to be enjoyable. The car fleet hasn’t changed much since the last game; a couple of new models were added, and the old ones got slight visual updates.

Alongside the bomb-on-wheels missions from part two, they added car-mounted shooting — but don’t get too excited — this isn’t America, it’s Germany, so you can only shoot when authorised. Another thing is the addition of night-time, which helps to add some visual variety, though it doesn't significantly change the gameplay. Beyond these features, I didn’t notice any other major gameplay additions.

It feels like the developers had a limited budget and time, which shows in small details such as repetitive character models in cars (during suspect arrests, you can sometimes spot the exact same character models used for the protagonists sitting in the suspects' cars); or the fact that you can literally swap the map with part two through the file system; or even that the game uses the same icon as part two.

I didn’t understand the star rating system for missions — it doesn’t reward you with anything, and earning 5 stars without taking shortcuts or using the fastest cars seems nearly impossible.

This game took me a little longer to complete than the second part, but I still feel like the second part had more content despite a shorter storyline.

The map in the third game is good; the detail is decent, the locations are well thought-out, and it’s generally larger in size — but personally, the map from the second game left a stronger impression.

Should you buy this game? I believe that if you want a modest game with a nostalgic 2000s vibe, then the discounted price is worth considering. It offers around 10–20 hours of content before devolving into repetitive bot races.

Half the game was about why having $3x with twinks is based, also you can take a seat on Führer's lap and bomb French occupied territories.

10/10

One of the first ever racing games I played in my childhood and I must admit it was extremely difficult for me to find this game since it was too niche even when it came out and the game series never had that big success compared to its competitors. You can tell by the fact that the game is originally based on a German TV series called "Alarm für Cobra 11 - Die Autobahnpolizei", so that is the reason why around 95% of the car list is pure German. Well, I didn't mean they got real BMWs, Audis and such, they did them the same way as the GTA series did to avoid copyright issues due to limited budgets which is also one of the big reasons why this game is so bad-known to this day.

I was worried that my nostalgic rose-tinted glasses would deceive me with how I remembered this game from the past but even to this day it's still fairly fun and has no real other alternatives. Tell me, in what other game you can play as a police detective in a well-made German city where you can drive various types of vehicles, and by that I mean not just your standard saloon or SUV but also a kart, APC, F1 formula car, limo, Optimus Prime-esque truck and more.

Since the game's devs were based in Germany you will be feeling German vibes really well, for example I never saw any other racing game that would have TURNING SIGNALS SET BY DEFAULT or soft-limiter when you wanna hear the engine sound while staying still Turning signals are better to swap with manual shift pedals because automatic transmission is horrible with changing gears and you can fool soft-limiter by setting your gearbox to neutral or how often do you hear something related to taxes (there's is a literal hint that says "Don't wreck anything. Taxes are high enough already") or the fact that I completed this game 100% with all cars unlocked within 10 hours precisely lol.

I'm not sure why this game has mixed reviews because the game isn't difficult at all, like yeah there might be some annoying levels but you can still complete them after a few attempts, optimization is relatively good, graphics still look really awesome, story is somewhat cringe but it doesn't overwhelm you at the same time.

Overall I find this game a hidden gem today and it's sad to see that the game series died long ago with the studio that made it, I doubt we will have something like this game any time soon.