20 December, 2016

Rainbow 6 Siege Review

At first glance, Rainbow Six Siege appears to be an action packed shooter in which you clear out all them terrorists and then go home to be celebrated as a highest rank master shooter master after mowing down hundreds. In fact, however, the opposite is true, it is a game where you have to carefully locate the opponent and then take them out - preferably before they see you, and going in guns blazing is a great way to get yourself shot.

However, don't think of it as a simulator, or you will end up disappointed. Much of it looks like it may be, but it is still undeniably a game, and it plays like one. And of course, as it is a Ubisoft title, you will need Uplay.

Reinforcing the wall to prevent hostiles from getting through.
Now that I am 35 hours into said game, I think I know enough to write a review, though I still suck at actually playing. I don't think that will change any time soon, but even then it is entertaining. Much of R6 Siege is about understanding the maps and predicting your opponents, after all, if you can kill with just a single good shot then you want to take the shot before your opponents do. That said, there is a surprising amount of planning and tactics involved, with almost every direction a possible way to assault an objective.

Much of the level architecture is destructible. Walls, floors and furniture are all things that may not actually protect you from bullets, depending on what they are made of, and the best players are able to pinpoint locations of their opponents purely on the sound they make by just moving around. There are a lot of possibilities, and I've yet to find two rounds that played out the same, even the ones where I was new and just hid in a corner in the objective room with my gun aimed at a doorway all turned out different.

Of course, this sounds very well designed, but I don't believe it was intentionally done that way. The reason for that are the noob traps in the game, most notable of these being the tutorial telling you to breach a window with a charge and jump inside under the cover of that charge. If you somehow aren't dead the second you place the charge, thumping at the window, you will be dead from the people who are now aiming their guns at the window you just very clearly blew open. I mean, I suppose you can breach a window and jump in, yes that is very heroic looking and action filled. But it's a very bad idea in practice. The tutorials teach you the controls and that's about it. Attempting to use what it teaches you against players is a good way to die in loud but ultimately ineffective manner.

As taught by the tutorial - stand in front of a window and get shot
But then you can just ask someone to explain things. From my time playing I can say that the majority of players are friendly, and willing to help out. Many will understand if you don't know something or just suck, though there are a few who will scream at you in heavily accented, high-pitched English giving you conflicting orders to go both left and right at the same time before calling a kickvote at you because you're not doing what they wanted. Of course, this is a small minority in every online game, and they are easy enough to ignore with the knowledge that they are worse than you are. Even if you're as bad as I am, there is always someone worse. And they tend to be very vocal.

Games are 5v5 in PvP, both ranked and casual modes, 5 player team PvE, and solo PvE. I can't say much about the PvE aspect("Terrorist hunt"), as the bots are essentially just target practice and mostly good for learning the map. That said, it isn't bad, just not a challenge and very different from multiplayer.
There is plenty of variation with a fair amount of maps and lots of operators (classes, essentially) you can pick and unlock, with a customization system for your guns that seems to be mainly a preference thing, and a cosmetics system to go with it that is mostly very bright and obvious skins that I personally don't really enjoy the look of. Even then there is a lot of choice, a lot of options, and only a few options that are flat out bad.

Lying down behind a couch while my team is shooting.
Overall, Rainbow 6 Siege is a bit expensive, but if you can catch it on sale or have watched enough videos to know that you will like it then it is worth the buy. With a high skill ceiling, large amounts of variation and different mechanics from most other known FPS games makes it a worthwhile investment of both your time and your money.

12 December, 2016

Let's Play Stardew Valley: Update 1 - Opening Sequence


So, let's get into this. Note: I'm still going through the technical difficulties, including choosing a less terrible way to record stuff. Those will hopefully be fixed by next update.

Here's the game's title screen.


Here's the character creation screen. We'll go with some stand-in values for now but I'll open up a vote at the end of the update. 

 We can also choose one of five types of farms and that, unlike the other choices, actually has influence on the gameplay. I have no idea what's in any of them, though, so I'm going with the default for the intro.

 We cut to our grandpa at his deathbed (presumably).


He  throws a letter at us which we presumably catch.

  No, no, don't open it yet... have patience. Now, listen close... There will come a day when you feel crushed by the burden of modern life and your bright spirit will fade before a growing emptiness. When that happens, my boy, you'll be ready for this gift.



The "work" light is blinking.


 Here's us!

 We don't seem very happy.

 We open our desk to find that letter from our granddad inside.

 I've enclosed the deed to that place... my pride and joy: Ivanovich Farm. It's located in Stardew Valley, on the southern coast. It's the perfect place to start your new life.

This was my most precious gift of all, and now it's yours. I know you'll honor the family name, my boy. Good luck.

Love, Grandpa.

P.S. If Lewis is still alive say hi to the old guy for me, will ya?

I guess it's time to head off to Ivanovich Farm!
 

 As we exit the bus upon reaching our destination, we are greeted by a local villager.
Meet Robin. She'll be the source of our house upgrades and extra buildings throughout the game.

I'm Robin, the local carpenter. Mayor Lewis sent me here to fetch you and show you the way to your new home. He's there right now, tidying things up for your arrival. The farm's right over there, if you'll follow me.
 And follow we will.

 Here's our farm. Different farms have different layouts, so what we see is just a portion of the default one.


We  jump into the air in shock. Seems like the farm's a bit run-down after grandpa passed away.

What's the matter? Sure, it's a bit overgrown, but there's some good soil beneath that mess! With a little dedication you'll have it cleaned up in no time.



Spoiler: it'll take years.


A  man exits the house.
Meet Lewis. He's the town's mayor.

Welcome! I'm Lewis, Mayor of Pelican Town. You know, everyone's been asking about you. It's not every day that someone new moves in. It's quite a big deal!



He turns towards the house.

It's a good house... Very "rustic".

 "Crusty" might be a little more apt, though.

The mayor jumps up in anger, while Robin snickers.

Don't listen to her, Ivan. She's just trying to make you dissatisfied so that you buy one of her house upgrades.


Looks like the mayor's got it right.

Anyway, you must be tired from the long journey. You should get some rest. Tomorrow you ought to explore the town a bit and introduce yourself. The townspeople would appreciate that.



He starts to walk away.


Well... Good luck!





And that's that for the opening sequence. Next time we'll have actual control of our character. Now, in order to determine who it'll be, I'll need some reader participation. Just leave comments with your suggestions or with a +1 to another person's suggestion. Feel free to provide input on just one thing or several (or all) if you want to. Voting will be closed on Friday (December 16th) at 16:00 GMT.

The things we'll need to determine are:
- character gender
- character name
- farm name
- favourite thing
- cat or dog as pet
- farm type
Appearance I'll pick myself.

Farm type is the one actually important choice. We have the following options:
Standard farm: A simple plot of land, with a large amount of open space to design your farm.
Riverland farm: Your farm is spread across several islands and scenic riverbanks. Fish are more common here than usual.
Forest farm: The woods limit your farming space. However, the bounty of the forest is nearly at your doorstep...
Hill-top farm: Rocky terrain and a winding river make it difficult to design your farm. However, a mineral deposit provides mining opportunities.
Wilderness farm: There's plenty of good land here, but beware... at night the monsters come out.

Until next Sunday!

09 December, 2016

Let's Play Stardew Valley: Intro



So, I've decided to try my hand at a screenshot Let's Play. I didn't want to go to Something Awful or any other forums, instead trying to get cozy with the people genuinely interested in this, so I'm running it here.

What's Stardew Valley?
It's a rural life simulator game released in the beginning of this year. It is similar to, most notably, the Harvest Moon series, but has design elements that make it much more modern compared to that. One notable thing about the game is that it was developed entirely by a single person, Eric Barone AKA ConcernedApe. Chucklefish (the guys behind Starbound) handled the publishing but the rest is on him.

The game is supposed to be a simulator of a rural everyman - you farm, fish, chop trees, mine ore, slay monsters, marry one of the people in the small town you live in... there's a lot to do, and, while the game can sometimes get repetitive, it is still engaging. I'll cut out the repetitive parts for you though.

What kind of LP will this be?
This'll try to be an informative and completionist screenshot LP. I'll try to get to the bottom of every cave, find all secrets, level all skills to the max and, generally, do everything at least once. I'll also explain game mechanics along the line, possibly also adding some of my thoughts on them as a game designer.

I'm going in semi-blind - the one time I played this I only got to the mid- or mid-to-late game; I most certainly didn't do everything. I also have almost no idea of what changes were introduced in 1.1, and I expect 1.2 to come out while I'm running this LP, so that's fun.

Will there be audience participation?
Of course! I'll have votes on important stuff like who to marry, what kind of farm we'll start with and the character's name.

When to expect updates?
I'll try to stick to a weekly schedule with an update every Sunday. The first update will be this Sunday.

27 November, 2016

World of Fishing Review

World of Fishing is not bad, but then not good either. It is a very simple fishing game in which you cast a line and then spend a while trying to tire out the fish so you can reel it in. The fishing is not realistic in any way, so do not expect a simulator.

That said, it would certainly be nice if it had some more depth to it, at times even literally depth- Your bait is always at roughly the same depth, and fish all swim at the same depth. Not that you will notice much of that, you only get limited uses of limited time to look underwater, which is not even useful to you because you have no control over what happens once you have cast but before the fish bites.

It is quite repetitive, with almost every fish the same but at a varying difficulty. You cast your line, swipe once and then the fish is hooked(or gets away), at which point you have to try to manage your line's tension to keep the fish struggling. But if the fish gets too far away, or too close your line will immediately break. That said, it is not bad, and you can amuse yourself by turning on some music and just fishing for a while.

You can keep fish in your aquarium, so you can look at them any time you want. But your first fish from the tutorial will be released. After that you can keep your fish, but aside from a few very specific quest fish it almost seems pointless- These fish are all similar.
Speaking of- Another thing you need to be aware of when you decide to play is that the odds are most likely manipulated when you play. If you get a quest for 3 fish of a specific kind, it will take over 50 fish to find the ones you are after, even if those you are after are marked as very common and you use the perfect bait for them. Not that the bait matters most of the time- As most fish you encounter all take the same bait you generally don't see results from changing it. Overall, the game has a feeling of not letting you effect things, you can only hope for the slightest of chances that things go your way.

Since it is free, you will undoubtedly want to know how they make their money. Simple enough, they sell premium items. You may not like the idea, but I can tell you that they are not essential and must-haves. You will not be locked out of things when you don't want to buy them. But that said, they have a noticeable effect compared to your basic free stuff, and quests will provide you with enough to give them a try without having to buy them. Cosmetics wise there is essentially nothing. It is very basic, and you will look similar to everyone else.

All this is, essentially, nothing too bad. There is not much to be had here, but also nothing really terrible. If you have time to spend and are bored then give it a go- You won't lose out on anything, but it isn't going to be amazing either.
Worth a try sometime to see if you like it, but don't get invested or expect much.

25 November, 2016

Cook, Serve, Delicious! Review

Cook, Serve, Delicious is an excellent casual game that surprises in how frantic it can become. In CSD you complete orders for food and drink by pressing the right keys to complete the order. You start out serving simple foods that only require a few key presses, with few variations to start you off, and then you expand into larger, more complex orders that take several combinations of keys with several variations of preparation.

It flows well, both with great overall progression as you upgrade your foods while climbing the ranks from a lowly snack vendor to a 5 star restaurant, and in the days themselves where you have to deal with breakfast, lunch and dinner pressuring you to work faster, with relaxing periods between that serving a few costumers at a time.
One day takes only a few minutes, making it perfect for a casual game to play while waiting on something else, while the overall progression makes it very tempting to just keep playing.
There are extra events, even a small storyline here and there, as well as random emails that in general appear to be quite amusing. There is no real story aside from that though, you are just someone who got a restaurant and you get to make food.

You get randomly generated challenges, and some what I assume are pre-made challenges. Combined with the varied amounts of food and simple but intuitive gameplay this results in good replay value, not to mention the fact that if you play on a keyboard you will quickly become used to it. If you need to break in a new keyboard, CSD is guaranteed to leave you knowing where every key is, though it may take you a while.

Sound and graphics are good. You're not looking at a beautiful landscape here, but everything is clear and functional while at the same time being pleasing enough to look at. Sounds are functional, and the music fits the theme.
There is little I can say about CSD when I have to think about negatives. Perhaps some food types are difficult to figure out at first, but they're not too difficult to understand with some practice.

Overall, you're looking at excellent value for your money, CSD is a game that you can both play for hours on end as well as one you can boot up for 15 minutes. I can honestly not think of anything that would be truly negative about it- Cook Serve Delicious gets a very solid positive recommendation from me, for essentially everyone who wants a game but doesn't already have their mind on any specific genre.

20 November, 2016

Steep Open Beta Review

Simple open beta review!

Steep- It's honestly pretty good. Yeah, you need Uplay. Yeah, the multiplayer system has issues for some people. And some parts of the map are not quite finished looking just yet. But that's what a beta is for.

It's difficult to do the tricks on jumps until you figure out exactly how and the timing for them seems to be a bit rough, but there are plenty of good places to practice, and a large open world with a lot of varied and good rides down the mountain. Plenty of time and amusement just going around and finding things, with a lot of good places and tracks if you put some effort into it, and you can just ride or glide down with friends to relax and mess about as well.

I can't say much on the physics, as I dont often do these kind of sports myself, but I can say that controls often felt difficult. Not in a bad way, but more like you have to get used to them. The camera is often pretty poor- Mostly inconsistency and being in the exact wrong spot for what you're trying to see, but this can be fixed with a different camera mode so it only annoys until you find what works for you.
Multiplayer is sadly limited to only 4 people in a group, very clearly not many with how big a world it is, but you can share your challenges(Which you can make yourself) with as many people as you want.

Customization appears good, though I found myself not really liking most of the options. A little more variety would be nice, but it has enough to be functional and fun as is.
Worth 60 euro fun? I don't know. I feel like I need to get a fair bit more out of it before I'd feel comfortable with 60 euro. But as for someone not usually into sports games, I can say that Steep's Open Beta looks like it promises good things for the full version.

17 November, 2016

Beholder Review

Beholder is an interesting game that pretends to be more than it is. A simple gimmick of spying on people and surveillance, but with a minimum of actual interaction to go with it. After the first few hours, most of the game is about finding out what the developers planned for you to do and then following the story they wanted to tell you. If you wanted to just spy on people and have a few renters to keep an eye on, you're in the wrong place.

Mostly, Beholder tells you a story. And this story demands that you are a douche to everyone and extort them until they have no money left to give you before forcibly evicting them so you can steal whats left of their stuff and pawn it for spare cash. If you do not do this, you will either be given a game over or your family will die. Multiple times at that. In my one playthrough so far my son has died three times and my wife twice, forcing me to pay for five funerals for two dead family members. Through all this, people still threaten me with hurting my family which already died, and there is a good chance that if I don't go along with it they will dig up the body just so they can kill it again and force me to pay for another funeral.

There is not a lot of choice to be had, there are a few stories, and you have to just follow them. Some stories appear to have multiple paths, but in the end only a few seem to have any effect on others at all. Coupled by a world that appears to be intended seriously but comes off as a satirical joke where people try to one up eachother on cynicism, dialogue options being vague ("Tell me" -200 reputation- Could mean threatening them, right? Nope. It's asking nicely.) and the fact that you don't really get to do that much for most of the time except wait for people to leave so you can rummage through their stuff makes this more suited to something you can watch someone else play rather than something you can play yourself.

Aside from all this, I've found there to be some serious issues with Beholder, family members dying multiple times, the game not recognizing them as dead, the complete lack of manual saving, barely functional tutorial that doesn't even explain the basics right and very harsh penalties on what is essentially trial and error gameplay makes for a sadly unsatisfying experience where I found myself deciding that I was done and got the good ending after a bomb killed everyone in the building.

Graphics are simple, but they are pretty good at what they do. Renters are different enough to distinguish between them and the music works well for most of the game. I don't think it was entirely necessary to hear the basement stove turned on nearly all the time though.

There are good things to be had in Beholder, but it feels very much like they had a story and a single game mechanic planned, and then just jammed them together hoping it would work.
It doesn't, or not very well at least. The start of the game is fairly well worked out and entertaining, but then after that it mainly becomes a hunt for finding the right thing or dialogue you're expected to find while at the same time bringing in renters just to extort them for money. A routine that encourages you to not care about any of your renters, your family, or the game as a whole. And all throughout this everyone will stress how everything is bad without ever having anything good happen.
The game claims your choices have consequences, but the only choices and consequences are "Do as we intended for you to do or you and/or your family will die" with nearly no room for error. Even if you accept the loss of one or two family members you do not have many meaningful choices, seemingly by design.

Take that as you will, but I can not in good conscience recommend it to anyone but those who are the most hyped about spying on people while also being a fan of passive gameplay.

02 November, 2016

Helldivers Review

Helldivers is a surprisingly well made semi-casual (You can pick it up, do a few runs of 20 minutes each and then drop it, or play for hours) game that allows for a decent amount of optimizing. Mainly group based, it has a good matchmaking system that lets you literally drop in on someone with a drop pod and get right into the action. Or you can make a pre-made group and plan out your entire mission before launching. All this, for Super-Earth.

There are a large amount of weapons available, most well balanced and almost all viable, useful, and easy to use. (Point the loud end at the enemy), with plenty more called in 'stratagems' which range from defensive turrets to airstrikes, to supply drops. There is plenty of variety should you feel like playing with a different style for a change, and it's all viable. The only thing is that you may need to upgrade your items a bit before they reach their full potential.
Upgrading items is easy enough, with the upgrades clear on what they give you, and not too hard to get. You find samples during missions and 10 of these become one research point. It's fast enough to be noticeable progress, but also slow enough that you don't get to just unlock everything and then ignore it.

There are three different kinds of enemies, all with recognizable themes while their mechanics are different enough to be interesting in their own ways, requiring slightly different tactics or loadouts. The game's theme is excellent, with some small bits of humour in the over-the-top Super-Earth and the player character's zeal in spreading democracy. A few very well made one liners and a great overall wholesome fitting theme works well for pulling you in and giving the game a great identity that is worth coming back to.

With missions seeming to be randomly generated, the ability to drop in on any game or to team up with friends while using a varied, well balanced arsenal puts Helldivers firmly in the category of "Good games". Without any noticeable flaws and gameplay that keeps you entertained, it is certainly worth it.

15 October, 2016

Heroes and Generals Review

Heroes and Generals is now out of early access, so lets take a look!

Excellent foundation, Good technical achievements, incredibly poor design choices and missing management.
That about sums it up. But lets elaborate on that.

The foundation of the game- The battles themselves as infantryman are good. Vehicles are well done and fighting over the objectives tends to be pretty big a deal. The physics and gun system are good, once you get past the poor rifle you get at the start of the game, and it becomes more enjoyable when you can actually use a gun that shoots more than spitballs. But then there are things missing, and the game is not really set up for big encounters like it has the maps for. Prepare for a profound feeling of emptiness as you go through a city that is supposedly under attack but without anyone defending anything except one building that has been marked as the objective, and battles happening almost exclusively on a line from your point to the enemy point.
Flanking works well, you can stay still and let your camo make you near invisible even with the default uniforms, but this is not really used that much. You can use it all, be the ultimate soldier, and you will likely still not do as well as the guy who just camped the attic of the capture point and shot four guys who tried to dislodge him by making him run out of bullets. There is no penalty for dying- Not for you at least, but more on that later, and you don't really get rewarded for anything you do either. You play to play, and you win because you want to win.

Then lets get right to the poor design choices. This game is not just pay to win, but pay to progress. The way it is set up is to encourage you as a new player to quit and find an other game. Do you want to group up with a few friends? If there's more than two, then you have to pay for that or you need to spend some time grinding the 'skill' of having a group. After that, prepare for a lot more grind, as you will need several hours just to get the basics for a soldier. And if you want to do anything other than carry a basic rifle and maybe some grenades, you're going to need to grind hard just to afford your own ammo and gun modifications, because every single bullet shot, grenade thrown, mine placed or vehicle you use will cost you a lot. This leads directly to the playerbase adapting to the mentality;
Life is cheap. Ammo is expensive.
If you shoot someone you should pick up their gun because 9 times out of 10 it will be better than yours, even if you've spend 50+ hours on the game.

Of course there are other issues, mainly around balance and the 'generals' portion of the game. I'll spare you the complaints on balance- It's the usual for pay to win games, but more on that other bit later.

That said, if you don't mind the grind, and are fine using subpar weapons for most of your starting hours(10+) the basic infantry combat is good stuff. Moving along to tanks you will find that they're not amazing, but certainly entertaining and useful. Your view is a bit limited when using them but you can generally work them quite well. Airplanes are a joke and they likely always will be, do not even consider getting a fighter because you will be less useful to your team than if you had nothing but a pistol and the idea that you might surprise the enemy if you drive your car right at them. Controls are awful, planes don't do anything, and you take up a valuable spot on the team that could have been used by someone useful. Prepare for a long time of flying around not seeing anything and not doing anything.

And then on to the big complaint with this game, when you're not accounting for the fact that you may as well just be playing a basic trial of the game unless you pay them lots of money. The generals part.
It may as well not exist.

The game may even be better if it did not exist.
The entire generals section is deeply flawed to the point that it is literally unplayable.
First you need to slowly grind your way up to being allowed to use it. Then you will need to spend 3+ days to wait for a small squad of the absolute lowest tier divisions to spawn so you can use them. They will die in about 5 minutes and they will have gained no experience. Everything except infantry is essentially impossible to afford unless you pay the devs money for it, which will last only a few days at most and then you lose them. The map is incredibly poor and you will never have anything resembling a strategy- Merely people throwing their units around hoping it works. Sometimes it does work too, but this is never because of any skill at command.
It all comes down to the people playing the war battles. And they don't care. People will spawn in expensive tanks so that they can drive up to a building and get it blown up by AT. Because they don't have to pay for those tanks. The guy who got the tank brigade does. Same for airplanes, infantry spawns and vehicles. Why would they care that you've waited 3 days to get your infantry squad filled? They will run into machinegun fire and then respawn to do it again until you lose your squad. They will spawn every single vehicle available when they have 1000 infantry spawns and 300 vehicle spawns and they fight 160 infantry and 10 vehicles. And because these vehicles despawn after use, they are gone and they remain gone. The only thing here for you is frustration and poorly designed mechanics, a map that does not work properly and ideas that died before they were put into the game.

And that is most of what you will find when you manage to progress past being a basic rifleman with stock gun. A game with great ideas, pretty good technical achievements, but a team that does not understand even the most basic of design and doesn't care either. Greed above all else, and a complete lack of awareness.
Long ago when this was an early build I gave them a small bit of cash because they had a great concept, good basic gameplay, and claimed to have plans to make it better. I wanted to support them, since they were a small group that seemed to be making something great.
I regret that.
I could have burned that money and it would have gone to better use. The game isn't better than it was back then. It's worse, and it's showing no signs of ever improving.

28 September, 2016

80 Days Review

80 days - To travel around the world, west to east from London to London. In what is a story based game about adventuring, route optimization, wondrous stories and relaxing rides through an alternate 1872 as the valet to a well known gentleman who has made a wager.
Along the way you will need to manage funding, items, packing, and selecting the routes to follow. It sounds simple, but it is complex enough to keep you busy.

To get it out of the way, yes, this is phone game. Do not let that scare you off, all it truly means for you as a PC gamer is that even your most outdated toaster can run it, the controls are simple and they do not need to be any more complex to do what you need to do. Game mechanics themselves do not suffer either, with a great majority of your options being simple choices in dialogue. Choices that actually do matter many times, with stories to tell you that I found surprisingly pleasant and interesting to read.

You can embark on an adventure and enjoy a richly filled world while balancing your own interest at exploration and your task as valet to keep monsieur Fogg in good condition and comfortable, on track to win his wager. It is not difficult to make it in 80 days if you try and plan things out in advance, but often there will be opportunities and potential rewards just a little off your chosen path. A lot of tempting things can drag you out to somewhere you didn't intend and it can both be a great boon to your funds and travel time or a disaster. With every city and most travel lines in the game having their own or connected stories, you will need multiple playthroughs to see them all. And even then it may not be likely unless you actively try.
Losing is alright as well. The wager won't bankrupt you, and you will be able to just try again. After all, why bet only once? A playthrough will take about an hour, perhaps a bit more or less depending on how much of a rush you are in.

But then there are some things that you should probably not get very hyped about either. Racing other people? Live multiplayer feed? Unless you actively go looking on the map for them, you likely won't find others except near the start. Even then, there is no interactions with them and I have yet to notice any sort of multiplayer feed. At best there are some icons on the map of where others went before you, and some things you aren't told and have to find out the hard way(Leaving a train at a midway stop when you have a ticket to the final destination of the train voids your ticket. You aren't allowed to get back on with the next train passing by. Some routes don't let you resume at all if you buy only a partway ticket, and so on)
The game is surprisingly easy to break as well, crashing or freezing if you try to do too much at once. A good autosave system helps with this, so you likely won't have issues- Just start it back up and you're back to where you were.
But in the end, these are small issues that don't actually hold it back.

80 days is a great game that tells you a story, while giving you full control over the story it tells, with excellently fitting graphics and amazingly done mood setting. Its flaws are few and easily forgivable, with a very competitive price to make it definitely a worthwhile buy.

18 September, 2016

The Storm Guard: Darkness is Coming Review

The Storm Guard: Darkness is Coming is an interesting mixture of many ideas brought together in a single game, yet combining many good ideas is not always a good idea itself.

I find myself conflicted, since I want to like this game, but I am considering to refund it while I still can. Nobody will see the screenshots and go in expecting good graphics, but I will say that the graphics and animations are actually quite decent. Though the screenshots featured put them in a good light, in game you will find that most models are less pleasing to look at close. That said, they aren't why I was considering refunding.

The reason for that is that for everything this game does, there are other games who do it better. Nothing here is very bad bad, but nothing is exemplary or exceptionally good either. During most of my time playing this, I thought back to other games who did as this does but arguably better. Sure, none of those games combine all the features offered in The Storm Guard, but they focus on making those few that they do offer great.
There is a village and narrator, Darkest Dungeon style. But less interesting to listen to, and the village appears less complex and with some interface quirks that are not very intuitive.
The combat itself is interesting, but ultimately it just doesn't offer that much depth past 'Put the guy with a shield up front'. Maybe this will change further into the game, maybe not. I can't say I'll make it that far when it takes more than an hour to gain a single level on a hero, and with them potentially dying I would certainly hate to have to re-train them.
Another thing you will quickly notice seems to be directly from Darkest Dungeon as well is the dungeon map system, except it simplifies it even further. Move from encounter tile to encounter tile, eat food along the way. Dungeons are simply encounters connected together through minimal narration- Like a DnD game ran by a newbie DM, rather than actual dungeons and a world full of story it feels like a string of random encounters, followed by a semi-random boss fight that often may as well be a regular random encounter.

As a whole, and in individual parts, it just doesn't have the complexity to justify the overal average-ness of the game. It's certainly not bad, but I feel very much like there just isn't anything for me to do aside from positioning. Deciding what hero goes onto a mission didn't feel very important, and then there is no inventory for me to bother with either, nor complex armour or weapon management. The interface is slightly clumsy, that's not really an issue- You can learn the quirks. But one of the big things in a tactical combat game is that you need to see, at a glance, what's going on. You can't do that as there does not appear to be much of any indication that for example your hero's movement points are reduced until you get to his turn and find that he can't move as far. All the combats appear very similar, with no significant changes outside of scenery. Outside of combat the repetitiveness doesn't fare much better. All missions appear to be of the 'move to tile and kill stuff' variety, even if their description and reason for killing these things are different.

In conclusion, I had expected a somewhat quirky turn based tactical combat game, one with interesting maps and a lot of interesting combat scenarios. In the end, I didn't get any of that. While I can see the potential, The Storm Guard is most alike a string of fights generated by a random encounter generator, with some narration about why this is happening and sometimes a choice which encounter you want to fight.
Perhaps if it goes on a sale it's worth it, but there is no way I can recommend this for 20 euro.
I think I just convinced myself to refund it.

08 September, 2016

Where I've been

As it's been a bit over a month without review, I figured I'd place a message to say why. So here it is, my reasons for not writing a review in the last month or any other post.


Stellaris and Overwatch.
That's pretty much it. Stellaris I won't review because as a general rule I don't review products in alpha states, and Overwatch I didn't review because there honestly isn't that much for me to say that would actually be useful.

I can write entire essays on its design and analysing it, but in the end it will all come down to two things:
1. They knew exactly what they were doing and designed perfectly for their intended target audience
2. I am not their target audience.

Without being salty about it, I can still play it and pass the time, but I can not say I enjoy it much. It's certainly a decent enough game that I would call it good if pressed on it and fully reviewing it, but I will never call it a great game. I can call a lot of the design choices bad because I personally disagree with them, but truth is that for the majority of players all those choices are acceptable or even very good ones. Choices that would have been taken specifically to cater to a specific kind of player that just isn't me.

It's okay, really. I can write a long list of complaints, but most of those are just going to get summed up as their target audience being significantly different from me. I still like playing it with friends, but everything is fun and playable with friends, so that's not really anything to judge things on.

That's where I've been. That, and not finding games I find it worthwhile to review.
Though I will probably put out a review in the next few weeks anyway

05 August, 2016

This is the Police Review

This is the Police is a mostly story based game in which the player takes control of a police department as Jack Boyd, chief of police and on the path to an unwanted early retirement.
You will uncover intrigue, mafia plots, a serial killer, and many criminals trying to hide from the law during a playthrough, interspaced with regular calls for the police to respond to.
As it is a mostly story based game, the mood and setting is excellent, with perfectly fitting music. excellent voice acting and a story that makes you want to keep going through the days to see how things go and what will come of them. As such I would recommend playing it blind, and without prior knowledge of the plot past the basics. The story does not disappoint, though you will have to accept that the game is telling you a story, rather than giving you a sandbox or deep gameplay experience if you are to enjoy it.

During your 180 days before retirement, you will be able to deal with the mafia, sketchy business owners asking for some questionably legal help, and the regular crimes happening in the city of Freeburg. All this while you are given a motivation of collecting half a million. A number you will likely have to do some less moral things to achieve.
Most of the gameplay is simple. I can not call it great, but it certainly isn't bad either. You dispatch officers to calls and occasionally get a multiple choice about how they should proceed while at the scene. While these are some of the more interesting, the results of a call are always one of a few options. The criminal can escape or be captured, the cops can get killed or survive, and a bystander can be killed or survive. There is nothing in between, it's dead or alive without any injuries or details on how many civilians got killed.
Further, there is an investigation minigame, in which your detectives find photo frames and you have to personally arrange them in the right order to unlock the next step- An arrest of whoever did it. I've found this personally to be incredibly difficult, with vague frames and sometimes missing information. This is sadly to the point where I have now stopped playing the game as I can not solve investigations without help from someone else. While I applaud the idea of this puzzle, I personally just can not enjoy it.

A disappointment was the gang and mafia system, which appears at a glance to be an interesting net of people to comb through, but in truth is just a straight line up to the top where if you fail once, the entire gang becomes off limits to you and you can't continue an investigation or try to arrest them. At a glance there is depth to the gameplay, but this illusion is quickly dispelled once you play.

In short, This is the Police is a great game if you accept it for what it is. A story-driven game with some basic gameplay to hold you over in between story segments, not a police simulator and certainly not a detective game. You hire the detectives, you don't go out with them. It is priced appropriately, and well worth what it asks as a good story and overall pleasant experience.

20 July, 2016

Bounty Train Review

I don't usually review early access(2016-7-19), but for Bounty Train, I figured I may as well

Bounty Train is a game about running a train through the not-so-wild eastern coast of the USA right in during the civil war, trading in the cities and ferrying small amounts of passengers around. It has several ways to make money, and plenty more ways to lose it. But in the end every part of it works great on its own, but is still not really working together as a single whole game just yet.

You can trade, you can customise your train with carriages and historical locomotives, you can do combat when the bandits try to take your money, you can level up, and you can have a chase scene almost straight from a western. It is already entertaining and a pleasant experience, with the base gameplay being solid and simple enough to understand even for someone new to the game. At the same time it allows you enough control to remain interesting after you learn the basics.

The graphics and sound are pleasant, with the world map being a well made stylised view. That is where my first complaint lies. Specifically, with the transition between your train view to the world map. Every single time you do this you get a loading screen, which slows down the game by a lot as anyone who doesn't know US geography will need to go check the world map every time they see a place name to see where it is, and even those who do know will need to check it regularly to see if there is an indian camp or army position at the track they plan to take. This is quite harsh on the flow of the game, especially if you need to switch back and forth multiple time before actually moving your train.

Other negatives are balance issues. As it is early access, I'm not weighing them as much since they are mainly numbers that need tweaking, or things in need of more explaining. For example, the ability to escape from bandits is fun to have, with the chase being interesting and very good at engaging you as you have to control your train. But what it doesn't say is that you have only old trains, and you are not going to go fast enough to escape from anything at all unless you've left most of your wagons at the station. Any train that has enough cargo to make a profit is better off just stopping and shooting the bandits until they stop coming, simply because of the weight of your cargo slowing you down enough to make escape impossible.
At a similar note, often you do not get a chance to escape at all. When the army engages you(Which they will, both north and south will en up hating you for no particular reason other than you existing) you are only given the option to attack them, with no way to escape until time on their barricade runs out. The barricade they have lasts long enough for them to completely destroy your train before you can move on, which will feel like the game just said "Okay, you encounter this event. You lose", rather than it being your fault for your loss until the late game where you can defend against a small army group.

Another balance issue is the weaponry, some of them are just plain better than others, and when the bandits attacking you have these stronger guns and you don't, you do not have a good chance. What is worse is that you can not loot their weaponry; Loot is randomly generated after combat is already over.

While Bounty Train has a lot of potential, it is still unfinished as the Early Access tag says. Even then it is certainly worth keeping an eye on for when they tweak the gameplay and finish adding the rest of it. The price is a bit steep for what is in it at this point, but there is a promise for more, and if you are sceptical about that then there will be a sale for it at some point.

11 July, 2016

Evil Genius Review

Evil Genius is an excellent, if old game that is not without its flaws. Players are the Evil Genius, leader of the evil organisation that is planning world domination. The evil genius builds their evil lair, on their evil island. He brings in evil minions to do nefarious deeds and generally just manages the organisation's island lair. And he's evil.

You begin by building your base, designing corridors and rooms and placing the neccesary furniture in them. A place for work, a place to let minions relax and recover, a power plant. And then you gradually unlock more rooms and more items, expanding more and more until you've outgrown the small first island. But that will be a while.
During your growth, you're going to deal with agents of the forces of good, investigating your base for wrongdoing, and sabotaging, stealing, or outright assualting you. And for you to defeat them there are varying kinds of traps, misdirection, and just plainly having them taken care of by a minion with a gun(Or indeed, multiple minions)

The basic gameplay is solid, and while it has a few annoyances in the minion and agent AI, it is still very enjoyable. Base building tickles all the right spots for those who want to be creative, and managing your evil base is even immersive in some ways a

The graphics may be a little out of date, but they are still perfectly fine in most cases. It is true that characters viewed up close don't look as shiny as they may be able to with today's graphics, but when zoomed out and inspecting your lair you will not notice much of this, with an artstyle that matches the game's theme. It remains even today a nice sight to see the corridors and rooms with your minions walking around in them.

Sound design is well done, with the music being the best fit for the theme that I could imagine. All other sounds are very much what one expects of them, clean and clear so you can tell what's going on, and the only sound that becomes annoying is your blaring alarm. When you're dealing with a base under attack, you're going to want to keep the alarm on. But your ears will want it off after a while because it is loud and repetitive. More reason to finish off those intruders then!

The game happens to also be laden with humour, as after all, you are a cartoon style villain of sufficient evilness, I highly recommend taking a look at interogations and reading the fluff text of your nefarious deeds on the world screen, almost every part of the game fits seamlessly into the others, with a unified theme that never seems to fail or fall apart except for technical reasons.

But then, there are issues too. As there are always issues with games that will lessen your enjoyment. Luckily for Evil Genius, these issues are few. Specifically, they are twofold, though other flaws exist.
Super agents, and the AI.
The AI is the simplest to find, and simplest to complain about. It is incredibly simple, and even without resistance it will not go deep into your base, or pose a threat to your evil genius avatar. A little planning and you will always be safe, though you may lose all your minions as they too don't think about things. You will see a horde of minions happily run into an attacking army to repair the door that is being broken down, or to use a fire extinquisher on an item that is still being actively attacked.
The agent AI is not much better. For the 'forces of good' they are remarkably bloodthirsty, with some super agents and soldiers shooting everything that moves on sight. They will enter a hotel and shoot all the valets, bomb the tourists' bedrooms, and declare their mission a success. They will destroy a cardboard target and explode the pressure plate triggering it, then get injured by their own explosion and go on alert because they took damage. The AI is, sadly, incredibly simple and completely incapable of making sense or anything resembling planning.
That said, it is still functional, though the killing spree and indiscriminate destruction these agents cause will be most annoying as you can not tell a few highly trained minions to sit back, thus almost guarranteeing that you will be spending the next 30 minutes recovering from AI sillyness. And recovering is a slow thing, as everything is expensive, and income is low.

As for the super agents, I won't spoil them. But I will say the complete anticlimax that is the final super agent is a shame. Instead of an interesting ability like the other agents, the only thing this one has is boosted stats and an interface screw. The best way to deal with his ability is to pause the game and fix what he messed up, which can take a while with bigger bases, and manually set everything back to normal.

In the end, there is a lot I can say about Evil Genius, but even with its flaws it remains a very solid game capable of hours of enjoyment, unique and interesting with all the right things to make you feel like you are, indeed, the evil genius.
s you get to be the big boss cartoon villain for a change. It provides you with every tool you may need to feel like you're in charge, with systems that are neither too complex, nor too simple to enjoy.

 No pictures this time because it's near impossible to add them, instead, here's a link to a few of the things
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198002567771/screenshots/?appid=3720

14 June, 2016

Space Food Truck Review

Space Food Truck is a game about traveling the universe cooking food and staying alive. This is as is usual with games something that involves a lot of risks and dangers. That said, it is doable on a first try if you're somewhat experienced with risk-management games.



You play as a crew of four, each with their own job on the ship. The engineer to repair and upgrade the ship, the chef to cook the ingredients, the scientist to research, and the captain to pilot the ship. You can be one of these in multiplayer, or all four in singleplayer. Either way, you're going to have to work together to get through things safely. With that said, it's not actually that hard, at least on normal difficulty. It's very forgiving and you can handle most things just fine unless you've messed up your card deck building.

Speaking of which, you handle your options through a card based system, with cards being your available actions and the fuel to use on these actions. In some cases litterally, with the captain's card to move the ship taking cards with power points to fill up the FTL engine. At the end of your turn, you have to buy a new card to add to your deck. As such, it is important to find ways to trim your deck, or you will be left with useless or lesser quality cards. Several ways to do this exist, and as such you can usually keep your deck under control.


Then there is the actual cooking. Gather ingredients, have the chef cook them up and then deliver the dish to its destination. It seems easy, but it can get a bit more complex. Some ingredients are much more rare, some need to be unlocked by the scientist. And then you have to actually get them cooking too, which again costs you time to find the right cards. After some time though, it begins to feel like everything is the same.

After some time though, it begins to feel like everything is the same. Very few things will ever change and in one or two playthroughs you will have likely seen everything it has to offer. You can stabilise safely and last almost endlessly as long as you have the right cards and did your deck work right. Science becomes mostly useless after they finish researching, and engineering turns into 'play all your cards to fix everything, end turn'. Especially if you play multiplayer, it may begin to feel like your turn is automated where the rest of the crew actually does things.

With a fitting graphical style, simple but functional animations, and what I would definitely say is above average humour with simple but not unthinking or boring gameplay, Space Food Truck rounds out to be a decent game with some replayability troubles. While I would certainly recommend it if it were half price, 20 euro is pretty steep for what you get out of it.

05 June, 2016

Turmoil Review

Getting right to it, Turmoil is a time-constrained pipe building optimisation puzzle game. Your main goal, and main problems will resolve around getting all the oil in a level out of the ground and sold within one year. It does what it does and it does it fairly well. The pipe building is intuitive(Simply drag the mouse to where you want it), and everything makes sense. Oil only flows as fast as the smallest pipe, thus you need to make sure you don't have a bottleneck in your system. And if you pump oil up faster than you can carry it away then you spill it, incurring a fine. The game explains mechanics well and there are enough upgrades and level varieties where it does not become a chore or too similar to other levels.

A solid foundation, improved upon by hazards such as rocks and natural gas which can be used for profit as well, with the right upgrades, or just by adding it to your regular oil pipes so the pressure brings the oil up faster. As before, you may spill some if you bring oil up too fast, so be careful about what you drill.
To further the gameplay there is a solid campaign that last just long enough to be a good experience without overstaying its welcome. You need to buy the upgrades, lease land you think has a good amount of oil in it, and compete with 3 AI players trying the same. Eventually leading to auctions for shares which allow you to win the campaign once you have a majority share. Even if you are not into optimising things, the base gameplay is well enough and the game forgiving enough that you can get away with a profit just drilling for oil, though you may have difficulty making large profit margins.


Turmoil is a simple but solid game, build on a good concept with good execution at a competitive price. If you're looking for a few days worth of entertainment, Turmoil is a good choice at a good price.