For Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide, the DLC of Schluesselschloss gives you a single map for the last stand mode, the Schluesselschloss.
Your first task and challenge will be to pronounce it, then after that you will need to motivate 3 people to play it with you as the rewards for this, and indeed the entire last stand mode are at best mediocre and at worst nonexistent.
Luckily for them, they do not need to own it to play with you- As long as the host owns the DLC it is available to anyone who joins them.
The map itself is well made, with just enough supplies unlocking over time and many potentially great places to hold out, all of them flawed just enough to be a challenge. It looks pretty well, has a great view and is not too big or too small.
The price is a bit much for a single map, so I recommend only buying it if you want to support the game and developer. Otherwise, you will probably be able to find better value elsewhere
16 March, 2017
Syrian Warfare Review
Syrian Warfare is a game set in the still ongoing, and, of course, controversial Syrian war. In the game you follow Police Lieutenant Anwar, who takes control of his hometown's police forces to defend against invading terrorists in a realistic strategical game of modern warfare. As time progresses, you will rise through command ranks and eventually will be given military units to command, as well as being allowed to call in Russian bombings on your enemy. In addition, units that survive and vehicles you take from the enemy can be carried on to the next mission, allowing you to build a preferred core of units if you don't let them die.
The first thing one may notice is the lack of a skirmish or custom battle option. There is only a campaign with pre-set missions as far as I have found. While there is plenty of content in the missions and you will almost certainly need several attempts to do everything in them, it would be nice to have a way to set up my own engagements, even just for things like testing out unit accuracy or to see how long one can hold out in defence.
Secondly would be the graphics. They look good, and I find myself wanting to look at the action as it happens.
And that leads to the next thing I want to point out, namely the difficulty. Things move quickly, and they die quickly. As can be expected from an era of warfare where there are weapons against everything, your men are not safe even inside a tank or a big building. Using vehicles or squads of soldiers properly is a large factor in whether or not you are successful. Anti-tank missiles do exist, and are very capable of taking out your armoured vehicles. At the same time, a smaller car or technical vehicle can be taken down by a machine gun, and it is often more likely to kill the driver or crew of a vehicle than it is to destroy the vehicle outright. Which in turn means that you can take over and often repair the vehicle for your own use.
Aside from that a large part of the difficulty comes from the numbers involved. With limited forces and limited reinforcements it is difficult to attack. Defending is easy enough, fortify a position and hold them off. But to attack when the enemy outnumbers you is difficult. To do so while also under time pressure for optional objectives that you will want to complete is even harder. Some missions need you to take out 500 or more hostiles, while you will not have even half of that. As you do not 'build' units like in most RTS games and instead only get a limited amount at the start and limited reinforcements this can make for a very difficult situation where I found myself often asking 'Am I missing something? Am I doing something wrong?' while I am micromanaging the one squad of infantry that hasn't been reduced to a single living squad member to clear out several buildings.
Or maybe I'm just bad at modern tactics.
Everything appears to be very detailed, from vehicles having many parts to them that can be individually disabled to buildings seeming to be fully modeled, though without furniture, to every individual soldier having their own health and carried weaponry. Buildings can have parts of them get exploded, and even fully collapse. I've found it a pleasure to watch what happens to a building and the hostiles in it as it gets shelled by a tank.
In between missions you will be able to follow the social media, giving you stories from people involved in or commenting on the Syrian war. Some serious, and some amusing. Others give background information to Syria for those who haven't paid attention to the entire conflict. At this point, I will say that this game displays some favour to the Syrian army (and Russia) and not as much to the opponents of said army, though it does so without politics getting in the way of gameplay - perhaps it simplifies the situation a bit, but complex politics would not really do much for the gameplay itself.
There are some negatives as well. Aside from there not being a custom battle option, it seems the pathfinding is a bit questionable. Often it will drive, or walk in places you really do not want it to. Infantry in a building can be given a command to face one way, but they will ignore it if fire is incoming from the other side. Such as large explosive tank shells. And then they will stand on the balcony where said tank shells are hitting. They will go onto the roof even when mortars hit, and you can't tell them to take cover in the lower floors when artillery strikes the building and takes off the top floor. Along with the tendency for a squad to get split up this makes it difficult to shield your infantry from harm.
At times it appears the AI doesn't do much - except for a few times it mostly seems like it is up to you to attack, and it does not always seem to react to being attacked. I'm not sure if this is good or bad, because if it would react then I am sure I'd be losing pretty much every time I try something.
I have also found the camera to be restrictive. At one point I managed to fly a helicopter to the side of the map where I couldn't see it anymore, at others it felt like I couldn't zoom out to take a look at the whole situation, something that often resulted in me not noticing an enemy RPG team trying to sneak up on my vehicles.
Sound and voice acting are good. With dialogue and voice acting being well done with a touch of humour at times, and the sounds being as one would expect - good quality and distinct enough to be able to tell what is happening without looking at them, though often only when you're late because that rocket flying at your troop transport means you're already too late to stop it in most cases.
In conclusion, Syrian Warfare is not a meme game or trying to sell based on controversy. It is detailed in many aspects and very good in many more. Though there are some slight issues with the pathfinding and the AI, it is very much worth playing for anyone who is into modern strategy, or if you just want to see how well you can do at it.
Disclaimer: Game copy provided for free.
The first thing one may notice is the lack of a skirmish or custom battle option. There is only a campaign with pre-set missions as far as I have found. While there is plenty of content in the missions and you will almost certainly need several attempts to do everything in them, it would be nice to have a way to set up my own engagements, even just for things like testing out unit accuracy or to see how long one can hold out in defence.
Secondly would be the graphics. They look good, and I find myself wanting to look at the action as it happens.
And that leads to the next thing I want to point out, namely the difficulty. Things move quickly, and they die quickly. As can be expected from an era of warfare where there are weapons against everything, your men are not safe even inside a tank or a big building. Using vehicles or squads of soldiers properly is a large factor in whether or not you are successful. Anti-tank missiles do exist, and are very capable of taking out your armoured vehicles. At the same time, a smaller car or technical vehicle can be taken down by a machine gun, and it is often more likely to kill the driver or crew of a vehicle than it is to destroy the vehicle outright. Which in turn means that you can take over and often repair the vehicle for your own use.
Aside from that a large part of the difficulty comes from the numbers involved. With limited forces and limited reinforcements it is difficult to attack. Defending is easy enough, fortify a position and hold them off. But to attack when the enemy outnumbers you is difficult. To do so while also under time pressure for optional objectives that you will want to complete is even harder. Some missions need you to take out 500 or more hostiles, while you will not have even half of that. As you do not 'build' units like in most RTS games and instead only get a limited amount at the start and limited reinforcements this can make for a very difficult situation where I found myself often asking 'Am I missing something? Am I doing something wrong?' while I am micromanaging the one squad of infantry that hasn't been reduced to a single living squad member to clear out several buildings.
Or maybe I'm just bad at modern tactics.
Everything appears to be very detailed, from vehicles having many parts to them that can be individually disabled to buildings seeming to be fully modeled, though without furniture, to every individual soldier having their own health and carried weaponry. Buildings can have parts of them get exploded, and even fully collapse. I've found it a pleasure to watch what happens to a building and the hostiles in it as it gets shelled by a tank.
In between missions you will be able to follow the social media, giving you stories from people involved in or commenting on the Syrian war. Some serious, and some amusing. Others give background information to Syria for those who haven't paid attention to the entire conflict. At this point, I will say that this game displays some favour to the Syrian army (and Russia) and not as much to the opponents of said army, though it does so without politics getting in the way of gameplay - perhaps it simplifies the situation a bit, but complex politics would not really do much for the gameplay itself.
There are some negatives as well. Aside from there not being a custom battle option, it seems the pathfinding is a bit questionable. Often it will drive, or walk in places you really do not want it to. Infantry in a building can be given a command to face one way, but they will ignore it if fire is incoming from the other side. Such as large explosive tank shells. And then they will stand on the balcony where said tank shells are hitting. They will go onto the roof even when mortars hit, and you can't tell them to take cover in the lower floors when artillery strikes the building and takes off the top floor. Along with the tendency for a squad to get split up this makes it difficult to shield your infantry from harm.
At times it appears the AI doesn't do much - except for a few times it mostly seems like it is up to you to attack, and it does not always seem to react to being attacked. I'm not sure if this is good or bad, because if it would react then I am sure I'd be losing pretty much every time I try something.
I have also found the camera to be restrictive. At one point I managed to fly a helicopter to the side of the map where I couldn't see it anymore, at others it felt like I couldn't zoom out to take a look at the whole situation, something that often resulted in me not noticing an enemy RPG team trying to sneak up on my vehicles.
Sound and voice acting are good. With dialogue and voice acting being well done with a touch of humour at times, and the sounds being as one would expect - good quality and distinct enough to be able to tell what is happening without looking at them, though often only when you're late because that rocket flying at your troop transport means you're already too late to stop it in most cases.
In conclusion, Syrian Warfare is not a meme game or trying to sell based on controversy. It is detailed in many aspects and very good in many more. Though there are some slight issues with the pathfinding and the AI, it is very much worth playing for anyone who is into modern strategy, or if you just want to see how well you can do at it.
Disclaimer: Game copy provided for free.
12 March, 2017
Blackwake Review
Blackwake is a multiplayer naval game where the players crew ships
and fight each other in often fast paced matches of positioning, skill at combat
and teamwork.
As an early access game, it mostly works off its basics- There remains very little in the way of content but what is there is enough to lead to many varied and interesting situations, often entirely different because of the reliance on player captains to steer the ships and individual tactics(Or lack of tactics) effecting almost everything about a battle.
Currently, there is only what amounts to a deathmatch- Make the other team run out of respawns or cannonballs before they do the same to you. It is worth noting here that casualties are unavoidable at any range, as a lucky cannonball can and will hit people at almost any range, but this effect can be minimized by a good captain giving your ship good angles of attack while minimizing those of your opponent.
Often it gets a bit hectic on larger ships, as everyone needs to get some information out at the same time- The rear sail is on fire while the captain yells to prepare for ramming and a gunner says they ran out of cannonballs and need someone to run supplies. Teamwork is surprisingly easy if people communicate, but with how the game and its systems are set up you will still need to try in order to do well. A few mistakes by the captain can put a lot of holes in your ship, which floods the gun deck and disables your cannons as they can't fire underwater.
Many of the systems involved are simple, working well together to create the full experience. Flooding happens because you have holes, and water flow is not simulated. At the same time, supplies are a single resource, so you don't have a stock of regular cannonballs, gunpowder, grapeshot, and so on. Just supplies you can use. This is not bad, as the simple nature of these systems makes it easy to switch from one thing to the next- Load cannonballs and repair the hull without having to worry about the exact amount of wooden boards you have left (Repairing takes no resources), or the exact kind of ammo remaining.
Although I personally enjoy these kind of details that the game leaves out, I fully understand and admit that they are not necessary for the game to be fun, and those with less of a mind for logistics and supply management may not enjoy them.
As can be seen in the screenshots, it looks quite well. Several times of day and several weather types are available and make for varied looking rounds, with only two map variations that I've been able to find- Small islands and open sea. I've personally found the maps to be a bit small, but this is likely intentional to force confrontation so the players don't sail around without firing a single shot.
All things considered, Blackwake is a very solid game already and seems to be getting regular patches. It currently only features a single game mode and two kinds of ships, but this is enough to be a very enjoyable experience already. At the very least, I would say it is worth the price.
As an early access game, it mostly works off its basics- There remains very little in the way of content but what is there is enough to lead to many varied and interesting situations, often entirely different because of the reliance on player captains to steer the ships and individual tactics(Or lack of tactics) effecting almost everything about a battle.
Currently, there is only what amounts to a deathmatch- Make the other team run out of respawns or cannonballs before they do the same to you. It is worth noting here that casualties are unavoidable at any range, as a lucky cannonball can and will hit people at almost any range, but this effect can be minimized by a good captain giving your ship good angles of attack while minimizing those of your opponent.
Often it gets a bit hectic on larger ships, as everyone needs to get some information out at the same time- The rear sail is on fire while the captain yells to prepare for ramming and a gunner says they ran out of cannonballs and need someone to run supplies. Teamwork is surprisingly easy if people communicate, but with how the game and its systems are set up you will still need to try in order to do well. A few mistakes by the captain can put a lot of holes in your ship, which floods the gun deck and disables your cannons as they can't fire underwater.
Many of the systems involved are simple, working well together to create the full experience. Flooding happens because you have holes, and water flow is not simulated. At the same time, supplies are a single resource, so you don't have a stock of regular cannonballs, gunpowder, grapeshot, and so on. Just supplies you can use. This is not bad, as the simple nature of these systems makes it easy to switch from one thing to the next- Load cannonballs and repair the hull without having to worry about the exact amount of wooden boards you have left (Repairing takes no resources), or the exact kind of ammo remaining.
Although I personally enjoy these kind of details that the game leaves out, I fully understand and admit that they are not necessary for the game to be fun, and those with less of a mind for logistics and supply management may not enjoy them.
As can be seen in the screenshots, it looks quite well. Several times of day and several weather types are available and make for varied looking rounds, with only two map variations that I've been able to find- Small islands and open sea. I've personally found the maps to be a bit small, but this is likely intentional to force confrontation so the players don't sail around without firing a single shot.
All things considered, Blackwake is a very solid game already and seems to be getting regular patches. It currently only features a single game mode and two kinds of ships, but this is enough to be a very enjoyable experience already. At the very least, I would say it is worth the price.
08 March, 2017
Tavern Tycoon - Dragon's Hangover Early Access Review
Running your own tavern? Sounds like an interesting and possibly
relaxing game doesn't it? Interesting for sure, but not quite relaxing
yet. Tavern Tycoon - Dragon's Hangover has a lot of
potential with an interesting premise, and at the time of
writing(2017,03,08) is still in early access. So anything in this
preview will be subject to change.
Very clearly inspired by Theme Hospital, Tavern Tycoon has you building similarly, with similar looking mechanics that still differ when you get below the surface of them. At present, it seems to use a similar system - Someone comes in, goes to the bar, and gets drinks until they need to go to the restroom. From there on they will attempt to go to other rooms before they finally are satisfied and leave happily, or they get angry at your tavern and leave in a bad mood.
Now, as it is early access you can still expect bugs, crude balancing and other parts that need polishing, the most notable bugs and complaints I've found were that rooms stop functioning with guests refusing to use them(Thus becoming angry at the long wait and leaving), everything being expensive to the point a single bench costs 5 or more months of wages for a staff member, and the timescale being incredibly fast- There is no pausing to design a room, months pass in what feels like a matter of seconds which makes it nearly impossible to make a profit without doubling your prices from the default(Not to mention stressful as you are immediately under pressure to build everything), and many pieces of furniture not being functional yet.
Many more things are not perfect yet, but it shows that the ideas are there, there is someone actively working on them and there is a functional build with more to come.
Even then, it is pleasant to run a functional tavern and it has the beginnings of something that could be very interesting and even challenging to play, but still frustrating thanks to the bugs and unpolished nature of early access.
There is certainly great potential here, but at present it is untapped and unpolished. I've found it to be a bit too close to Theme Hospital to make the tavern theme truly work, but that may still change as updates are made and it develops into more of its own thing. My suggestion for those looking into it would be to wait- At least for the bugs and balancing to be adjusted, or you're going to be frustrated more often than not. But if you need to make a decision right now on whether to buy it or to never look at it again, I would say it is worth the risk. The price is low and the basics are there to enjoy it if you try to ignore the worst of the unpolished parts.
Very clearly inspired by Theme Hospital, Tavern Tycoon has you building similarly, with similar looking mechanics that still differ when you get below the surface of them. At present, it seems to use a similar system - Someone comes in, goes to the bar, and gets drinks until they need to go to the restroom. From there on they will attempt to go to other rooms before they finally are satisfied and leave happily, or they get angry at your tavern and leave in a bad mood.
Now, as it is early access you can still expect bugs, crude balancing and other parts that need polishing, the most notable bugs and complaints I've found were that rooms stop functioning with guests refusing to use them(Thus becoming angry at the long wait and leaving), everything being expensive to the point a single bench costs 5 or more months of wages for a staff member, and the timescale being incredibly fast- There is no pausing to design a room, months pass in what feels like a matter of seconds which makes it nearly impossible to make a profit without doubling your prices from the default(Not to mention stressful as you are immediately under pressure to build everything), and many pieces of furniture not being functional yet.
Many more things are not perfect yet, but it shows that the ideas are there, there is someone actively working on them and there is a functional build with more to come.
Even then, it is pleasant to run a functional tavern and it has the beginnings of something that could be very interesting and even challenging to play, but still frustrating thanks to the bugs and unpolished nature of early access.
There is certainly great potential here, but at present it is untapped and unpolished. I've found it to be a bit too close to Theme Hospital to make the tavern theme truly work, but that may still change as updates are made and it develops into more of its own thing. My suggestion for those looking into it would be to wait- At least for the bugs and balancing to be adjusted, or you're going to be frustrated more often than not. But if you need to make a decision right now on whether to buy it or to never look at it again, I would say it is worth the risk. The price is low and the basics are there to enjoy it if you try to ignore the worst of the unpolished parts.
12 February, 2017
Warhammer 40k : Eternal Crusade Review
Warhammer 40,000 : Eternal Crusade promises a lot, and delivers very little. Nonetheless, what little there is is solid enough to be interesting and even enjoyable if you do not expect much from it. That said, it is hilarious how overpriced and overmarketed the game is.
WH40k EC promises you the world - MMO Warhammer 40k, massive persistent world, campaigns, thousands of items, huge battles and 20 different subfactions? This sounds great! I'd say that is one of the best sounding lists of features that I've seen before. But that is not to be. As much fun as the game is - good controls, decent graphics and fast paced gameplay where it truly feels skill matters - essentially none of that feature list actually got into the game proper. Not to mention the bugs and missing quality of life things that seem to pop up somewhat regularly.
With that said, the game itself is worth playing, so let's go through the promises to point out where it went so wrong and why you should not expect anything the marketing tells you so that you can enjoy what is there rather than feel betrayed that you did not get what you wanted.
MMO tag - this is not an MMO. It does not look like it will be any time soon, or like anything resembling it is planned for in the future. It is a lobby based shooter without a server browser. You queue up and are placed in an instanced battle with a number of other players and that is all there is to it. Nothing about this is an MMO, and since there is no early access tag I can only assume that there are no serious plans to make it into one.
Persistent world - nope. Nothing persistent about it at all. There is truly nothing about the world that will ever carry over to the future in any way, shape, or form. It is not unlikely that the same map is played on several different servers at the same time, none of them having any effect on anything else whatsoever.
The 'massive' part of the world - maps are slightly big for the playercount, I suppose. But only if you don't bring a vehicle and have to walk. As established there is no persistent map, so there is no real overworld to speak of either. "Slightly above average map sizes" is a better description.
Campaign - does not currently exist. They have a feature called a 'campaign', but it is as the time of writing this review it's both disabled and a joke. "Win 10 random battles for extra tokens" is not a campaign. While I appreciate getting the extra stuff, it would be dishonest to call it anything resembling a campaign.
Thousands of items - to be added, clearly. Because there sure aren't that many now. Maybe if you count every single item in the game, for every race and every modification and scope? Perhaps you'll even get close to a thousand, but you won't reach it still.
Huge battles? 30 vs 30. I mean, it's bigger than Overwatch, bigger than TF2, and bigger than CS:GO. But 60 people isn't exactly that impressive.
20 subfactions - which are entirely cosmetic, nothing to see here.
I'm not sure what happened exactly, although many things appear to be placeholders the game has a solid foundation and is a pretty good thing to spend time on. The combat feels like it's varied enough to not grow tiresome, skill based enough to not become boring and fast enough to not leave you sitting on your rear waiting for hours, and the developers appear to be actively trying to improve things still. But it seems that's all there is to it. It has its issues, and it seems very much like it's just an early access game claiming it has great plans and will put it all in "soon", but it just isn't there.
Warhammer 40k: Eternal Crusade is worth playing, don't get me wrong. But it does not deliver on any of its promises, barring a few. A pricetag of 50€ is a joke and an insult to anyone considering to buy it, and it seems unlikely that it ever will do as it promises. While I honestly believe the game is good at its core, the fact that the core is the only thing there is and that it flat out lies about almost everything means I will have to recommend against buying this, at least as long as you can't get it for under 20€.
If you do get it, have a referral link so you get some extra stuff ingame:
EC-VV6W63JL0ZJXR
WH40k EC promises you the world - MMO Warhammer 40k, massive persistent world, campaigns, thousands of items, huge battles and 20 different subfactions? This sounds great! I'd say that is one of the best sounding lists of features that I've seen before. But that is not to be. As much fun as the game is - good controls, decent graphics and fast paced gameplay where it truly feels skill matters - essentially none of that feature list actually got into the game proper. Not to mention the bugs and missing quality of life things that seem to pop up somewhat regularly.
With that said, the game itself is worth playing, so let's go through the promises to point out where it went so wrong and why you should not expect anything the marketing tells you so that you can enjoy what is there rather than feel betrayed that you did not get what you wanted.
MMO tag - this is not an MMO. It does not look like it will be any time soon, or like anything resembling it is planned for in the future. It is a lobby based shooter without a server browser. You queue up and are placed in an instanced battle with a number of other players and that is all there is to it. Nothing about this is an MMO, and since there is no early access tag I can only assume that there are no serious plans to make it into one.
Persistent world - nope. Nothing persistent about it at all. There is truly nothing about the world that will ever carry over to the future in any way, shape, or form. It is not unlikely that the same map is played on several different servers at the same time, none of them having any effect on anything else whatsoever.
The 'massive' part of the world - maps are slightly big for the playercount, I suppose. But only if you don't bring a vehicle and have to walk. As established there is no persistent map, so there is no real overworld to speak of either. "Slightly above average map sizes" is a better description.
Campaign - does not currently exist. They have a feature called a 'campaign', but it is as the time of writing this review it's both disabled and a joke. "Win 10 random battles for extra tokens" is not a campaign. While I appreciate getting the extra stuff, it would be dishonest to call it anything resembling a campaign.
Thousands of items - to be added, clearly. Because there sure aren't that many now. Maybe if you count every single item in the game, for every race and every modification and scope? Perhaps you'll even get close to a thousand, but you won't reach it still.
Huge battles? 30 vs 30. I mean, it's bigger than Overwatch, bigger than TF2, and bigger than CS:GO. But 60 people isn't exactly that impressive.
20 subfactions - which are entirely cosmetic, nothing to see here.
I'm not sure what happened exactly, although many things appear to be placeholders the game has a solid foundation and is a pretty good thing to spend time on. The combat feels like it's varied enough to not grow tiresome, skill based enough to not become boring and fast enough to not leave you sitting on your rear waiting for hours, and the developers appear to be actively trying to improve things still. But it seems that's all there is to it. It has its issues, and it seems very much like it's just an early access game claiming it has great plans and will put it all in "soon", but it just isn't there.
Warhammer 40k: Eternal Crusade is worth playing, don't get me wrong. But it does not deliver on any of its promises, barring a few. A pricetag of 50€ is a joke and an insult to anyone considering to buy it, and it seems unlikely that it ever will do as it promises. While I honestly believe the game is good at its core, the fact that the core is the only thing there is and that it flat out lies about almost everything means I will have to recommend against buying this, at least as long as you can't get it for under 20€.
If you do get it, have a referral link so you get some extra stuff ingame:
EC-VV6W63JL0ZJXR
28 January, 2017
Space Beast Terror Fright Review
Space Beast Terror Fright is a fast paced FPS game about infiltrating an unnamed spacecraft or station, retrieving data and then detonating the reactor and getting out before something kills you. A game I would call a hidden gem just in need of some slight polishing and expanding. SBTF is amazing potential on a very solid base game, action packed and at times frantic, yet giving you enough time to think your moves through and plan ahead.
It plays with 1-4 player teams, yet things are set up so that a single person can still survive and do the job if they're really good. Many situations will need teamwork to get through safely, or balls of steel to get through alone. I have found only a few seemingly unwinnable situations myself, and a few of those turned out not to be unwinnable after trying. Often you will feel like you are winning against the odds, and some situations may look very easy but surprise you with how hard they can be. And when you lose, you only lose a few upgrades - all of them optional but still very useful to have, and you can try again the next round.
The maps are varied in size, but at present still mostly empty rooms and hallways with a few consoles lining them, and they do look mostly like it's a map for a game still, without furniture. That said, they are generated when you play, and this generation will almost always be fair, challenging, and giving you interesting situations. You can even have everything set randomly - if you're going in blind, you truly will not know whether you're out for a milk run or for the hardest round you've ever encountered. And if that is not your thing, you can customize the map generation extensively and use pre-set seeds to get a map you like, though at present you still can not create a custom map.
Graphics are simple, but they work. At times they will even look pretty good in the right light and right angle. Sound design is quite well done, with every sound being fitting and atmospheric. In general, the mood is one of action and shooting, heroic space marines in big armour against a tide of aliens. Until the power goes out. Standing there, watching a dark hallway as your motion tracker bleeps at you in increasingly rapid tempo while a distance counts down from 10m, stressful? Maybe. But it is the good kind of stress, and certainly a great experience.
The overall design of the game, the way it uses light and dark and how you are both easily able to shoot down the aliens at range, yet utterly helpless if they get close, is excellent. I've not seen many games that can pull it off, but SBTF manages to do so perfectly, and it manages to do it consistently.
Whether you play it with friends, or you're playing it with random people online, SBTF will provide a worthwhile experience every single round. A few quick rounds can quickly string together into hours as you try to survive the endless waves of aliens while completing your objectives, and not a minute of it will be wasted time.
If that did not convince you, a single player demo is available at
http://www.nornware.com/launcher/sbtf_demo.zip
It plays with 1-4 player teams, yet things are set up so that a single person can still survive and do the job if they're really good. Many situations will need teamwork to get through safely, or balls of steel to get through alone. I have found only a few seemingly unwinnable situations myself, and a few of those turned out not to be unwinnable after trying. Often you will feel like you are winning against the odds, and some situations may look very easy but surprise you with how hard they can be. And when you lose, you only lose a few upgrades - all of them optional but still very useful to have, and you can try again the next round.
The maps are varied in size, but at present still mostly empty rooms and hallways with a few consoles lining them, and they do look mostly like it's a map for a game still, without furniture. That said, they are generated when you play, and this generation will almost always be fair, challenging, and giving you interesting situations. You can even have everything set randomly - if you're going in blind, you truly will not know whether you're out for a milk run or for the hardest round you've ever encountered. And if that is not your thing, you can customize the map generation extensively and use pre-set seeds to get a map you like, though at present you still can not create a custom map.
Graphics are simple, but they work. At times they will even look pretty good in the right light and right angle. Sound design is quite well done, with every sound being fitting and atmospheric. In general, the mood is one of action and shooting, heroic space marines in big armour against a tide of aliens. Until the power goes out. Standing there, watching a dark hallway as your motion tracker bleeps at you in increasingly rapid tempo while a distance counts down from 10m, stressful? Maybe. But it is the good kind of stress, and certainly a great experience.
The overall design of the game, the way it uses light and dark and how you are both easily able to shoot down the aliens at range, yet utterly helpless if they get close, is excellent. I've not seen many games that can pull it off, but SBTF manages to do so perfectly, and it manages to do it consistently.
Whether you play it with friends, or you're playing it with random people online, SBTF will provide a worthwhile experience every single round. A few quick rounds can quickly string together into hours as you try to survive the endless waves of aliens while completing your objectives, and not a minute of it will be wasted time.
If that did not convince you, a single player demo is available at
http://www.nornware.com/launcher/sbtf_demo.zip
20 January, 2017
Fallen London Review
Fallen London is a browser game, with a focus on short stories and
interesting snippets of information, set in an alternate universe in
which London has been taken by a mysterious force and brought down to
the cavernous world of the Neath inside Earth.
If that didn't turn you away, good. It's actually quite interesting. You start your adventure in New London, having come down from the 19th century world, and from there on, a multitude of stories are available to you. Without spoiling them, I will say that they come in both short and long, in obvious and not-so-obvious, and in many possibly surprising ways. And all of them are made so that you can explore the world of Fallen London while you're at it, learning about them and getting into the mindset that is the Neath and all its secrets.
And what secrets they are. A beautifully crafted, well-written world for you to explore, every time finding something new or interesting out there or uncovering curious tales. And if you don't like the stories you've gone through then you are often free to switch sides, change directions or move along to other tales entirely. There is certainly no shortage of places and tales to explore, and you can just ignore most of these to do your own things. Do mind that while some things won't change, some choices have actual consequence.
The way it works seems to be very well made and designed for modern life. You start with and can store up to 20 actions, with one refreshing every 10 minutes. This means that you will have a full action bar a little over 3 hours after you've spend them all. Which, for the most common work and school times means that you can play once in the morning before you go, then at lunch, and once more at your coffee break or when you get home. There are suitably short stories that you can spend a few minutes on them, and then spend the rest of your actions on some repeatable storylets if you are running low on time, and longer stories chained together that you can spend days trying to get to the bottom of. The design appears to be full of this, and is incredibly well made to fit in to modern life without issue.
Progression is solid, with four stats for you to raise over time. The stats are "watchful", "dangerous", "shadowy" and "persuasive", and they will grow both with success and with failure, more so if you try difficult challenges. You might at times feel like you are missing something, repeating the same things over and over, but there is always your own home to go to, with options to grow your statistics much more quickly through other players. And that brings us to player interaction. Sadly quite limited, but with enough ways to send things to each other (not your normal items though, that would be too easy), and to speak with others that you do not feel isolated. It is not an entirely single player game, but certainly has you doing things on your own for most of it.
In the end, Fallen London is a long-lasting, but surprisingly casual game that doesn't take up much of your time. It is well worth trying, and even without spending any money you can enjoy the great stories and explore its secrets. It is well worth the time to give it a try, and certainly worth the effort. As far as persistent browser games go, Fallen London may very well be the best I've played.
If that didn't turn you away, good. It's actually quite interesting. You start your adventure in New London, having come down from the 19th century world, and from there on, a multitude of stories are available to you. Without spoiling them, I will say that they come in both short and long, in obvious and not-so-obvious, and in many possibly surprising ways. And all of them are made so that you can explore the world of Fallen London while you're at it, learning about them and getting into the mindset that is the Neath and all its secrets.
And what secrets they are. A beautifully crafted, well-written world for you to explore, every time finding something new or interesting out there or uncovering curious tales. And if you don't like the stories you've gone through then you are often free to switch sides, change directions or move along to other tales entirely. There is certainly no shortage of places and tales to explore, and you can just ignore most of these to do your own things. Do mind that while some things won't change, some choices have actual consequence.
The way it works seems to be very well made and designed for modern life. You start with and can store up to 20 actions, with one refreshing every 10 minutes. This means that you will have a full action bar a little over 3 hours after you've spend them all. Which, for the most common work and school times means that you can play once in the morning before you go, then at lunch, and once more at your coffee break or when you get home. There are suitably short stories that you can spend a few minutes on them, and then spend the rest of your actions on some repeatable storylets if you are running low on time, and longer stories chained together that you can spend days trying to get to the bottom of. The design appears to be full of this, and is incredibly well made to fit in to modern life without issue.
Progression is solid, with four stats for you to raise over time. The stats are "watchful", "dangerous", "shadowy" and "persuasive", and they will grow both with success and with failure, more so if you try difficult challenges. You might at times feel like you are missing something, repeating the same things over and over, but there is always your own home to go to, with options to grow your statistics much more quickly through other players. And that brings us to player interaction. Sadly quite limited, but with enough ways to send things to each other (not your normal items though, that would be too easy), and to speak with others that you do not feel isolated. It is not an entirely single player game, but certainly has you doing things on your own for most of it.
In the end, Fallen London is a long-lasting, but surprisingly casual game that doesn't take up much of your time. It is well worth trying, and even without spending any money you can enjoy the great stories and explore its secrets. It is well worth the time to give it a try, and certainly worth the effort. As far as persistent browser games go, Fallen London may very well be the best I've played.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)