Bmane

A fantastic mmo experience, especially if you love narrative story telling. While the narrative here isn't on the same level as the Knights of the Old Republic or Mass Effect, it is on a far higher level than any other MMO currently in existence. It's also enjoyable to take part in if your co-opting with your friends, being able to participate in conversations with other players is certainly innovative. But... it's not perfect, and there are several parts of the game that leave me scratching my head, such as certain quest giving npcs which are solo/same class only, meaning your friends can't take part in the dialogue. I play this as a Free-to-Play game, I'm not a subscriber. As a Free-to-Play game the restrictions are not heavy, if anything they are rather generous, with the max level you can reach being 50 for F2P (60 for subs). But perhaps the most criminal aspect of this game is their support for F2P players. There is no support for guys like me, even ones with preferred status (something you get when you buy off the market). I have never known a game to completely shut off any customer support to F2P players, and not just that, but to do it to even preferred status players. It's a complete joke and the only reason why I'm not giving this an 8. Bioware is not exactly known for its stellar support, nor is EA, but they've gone too far this time. Your pretty much screwed if you run into a bug, a technical issue or even have trouble logging in (something I've had).

Project Zomboid is easily one of my favorite games, developed by perhaps one of my least favorite developers. Zomboid has a rather heavy troubled development history that I need not go into, due Google being more than enough to provide any info in relation to that. Regardless it is a good game that is still in heavy development, with a rather modest, not great, but modest pace concerning development content updates.

I once gave this game an '8'... But then, I never foresaw that the developer would just abandon it and leave it rotting while he uses the money he earned to create a 'sequel'... Simply put, avoid due to the developer.

Elite Dangerous is a odd game. It's perhaps one of the most immersive space game I've ever played, and I've pretty much played them all, being an avid space sci-fi gamer. What's odd about it is my playtime. I look at it, and shake my head. I feel ashamed. I feel guilty. Here's a game that I've dreamed about since my first outing in outer-space. Here's a game that I know I should love, cherish and burn away at until I've soiled my pants and I'm knee-deep in my own waste... Unfortunately, that never happens. What happens instead is, I tend to play Elite in short strides, because, to be perfectly blunt, it isn't 'ready' yet. It still feels like a 'beta' and it most certainly does not feel complete. There is no mistaking that Elite has a lot of potential, it's just a shame that most of that potential will be in the form of paid expansions and future DLC. Which mind you, I have no problem with. With promises such as planetary landings, and multi-crewed ships, I'll happily throw my money at them. But make no mistake, I'll angrily grumble away while I do it, reminding them that I didn't pay for an empty shell ****. And that is sadly what Elite is at the moment. An empty shell. A game that promises so much, and has delivered so little. It is immersive. It is a great game, to be fair. But a deeply flawed one at that. The game's current mechanics are sub-par and undeveloped. Combat is exhilarating, takes skill, proper skill, and is a joy to behold. It's just a shame that combat aspect of the game that I'm least interested in. I'm sure the Elite combat jockey's are enjoying the game to its fullest, but even they get burned out from it now and again. I've a couple of friends of mine who also have Elite, and are 90% combat, 10% trading. They don't play Elite anymore.. Why is that? It's a question that gets answered with a shrug and a statement of, "Well, there's not much too it..." There same could be said for trading. If your not doing anything related to combat, then your possibly grinding your way at the rather mundane method of making money in Elite. Regardless of how you earn your credits, be it bounty hunting missions or trading away on some profitable route, or doing sanctioned courier missions for some NPC faction, watching your faction rep tick up, one percent at a time, you and along with your combat buddies, are all in the same boat. That is, you are all grinding away for money. Combat pilots do it for the bounties, and faction rep to boot is a nice bonus for them. Traders do it via smuggling or legit means, regardless, it's all about money. And what can you do with that money? Well, here's where Elite falters greatly. The core process of progression in Elite is jumping from Ship A to Ship B, and from there to Ship C and D. That's basically what Elite is, in a nutshell. Some of the mechanics are not fully fleshed out and this further emphasizes why Elite is a great but deeply flawed multiplayer game. Let's do a rundown on some of them: Piracy - For anyone that hasn't played Freelancer Discovery, the online RP mod that has a medium sized community following it, then let me tell you that piracy in that game was fun. Essentially you would camp a space highway/tradelane and wait for your intended target. You'd then knock out the tradelane and issue your demands. That was enjoyable and when I did it, I felt like I was committing piracy. It felt... 'right'. In Elite, I do not get that feeling at all. Piracy is not only difficult, (as it should be) but it can be tedious and downright boring at times. It takes a lot of work, a lot of luck, and a lot of waiting around, for it to be reliable and profitable. And even then, why do it? Economy: Essentially Elite's economy is only there to support players in upgrading their ships, there is literally nothing else to it. Sure prices will change based on trades being done, but really, nothing happens on the grandiose scale of things. Factions: Players can grind, and I mean that literally, GRIND to gain faction influence for a system that overall has little value in things, barring direct intervention by the developers. This is an area that is still being worked on, and I'm still not impressed. Exploration: My favorite aspect of the game. Or, it would have and should have been if it was even remotely interesting. It isn't. Go look up player vids of players exploration. Most of it contains oddball commentary on the stats of a planet, such as atmosphere and orbital period, while pretending to sip some cognac while pretending to be the late great Sir Patrick Moore. I want to explore ancient ruined wrecks in space. Interesting and bizarre visual anomaly's and other odd stuff... I don't want to drool over a planets stats. Speaking of planets, another point of criticism is that most of the planets look the same, and are quite dull and not as beautiful as they should be. I can recommend Elite, but I whole heartily recommend waiting for a more complete Elite.

Guild Wars 2 is probably, as of now, the current best MMO on the market. And that's really an insight into the current trend of MMO's. The idea that an MMO is about exploration and living in a new world, reaping the benefits of what should be fun non-stagnant gameplay, has now become set in stone as a repetitive grindfest upon a treadmill that you, as the player, now thread on. MMO's have not changed. Concepts might be new, in some cases, and the gameplay might take on different forms, but in the end, it is always the same. You do a quest. You level up. You kill stuff. you level up. You do dungeons together and level up, collect that epic loot at the end of the tunnel. So what's wrong with all that? Nothing, except for that the mechanics have not changed since the invention of the MMO. Guild Wars 2 was suppose to be revolutionary, instead, it only proved to be a clone of what has come prefer. A clone that comes in prettier graphics with different mechanics that are essentially unchanged, just done differently. Today's MMO's are a bit like candy: They come in all different flavors, and the consumer likes to take a nipple at each one now and again. When they come across a flavor that they like, they'll consume it until they are full and sick of it, and then move on to the next fad. Guild Wars 2 is quite cleverly designed in that it looks revolutionary from the outside, but once you get into it, and discover its rather bland and mundane crafting system that is really only useful at the top-tiers, or its horrendous spam loot system that spams you with useless loot, you'll see that it really is nothing different. Sure the graphics are quite good, probably the best of any current market MMO, but graphics will only get you so far. Guild Wars 2 is the prime example of stagnant. As a player who was in the beta and pumped a lot of hours into this game, I can tell you right now that having briefly jumped back into it recently, nothing has changed. Guild Wars 2 opened to the public on its launch day and has essentially been left as it is with no drastic improvements or features other than perhaps byte-size ones. The devs have adopted a policy of no expansions for the game, while they have not ruled it out completely, the issue is moot. Guild Wars 2 looks to remain as it is for quite sometime. Leveling up in Guild Wars 2 is also a dull affair. Some of the top weapons are not that great, crafting, as I said earlier, is really beneficial if you pump a load of hours into it. Low-tier and mid-tier crafting is useless other than getting your skills up. *yawn* Character progression is subtle and rather bland. You really do not feel that the extra 3% bonus you'll get from progression will help you, and it is incredibly boring when most of your level up is done in incredibly small increments. But the worse offender... and my main pet hate of Guild Wars 2, and any MMO for that matter, is the quests. O god the quests! The Hello Kitty Quests! Guild Wars 2 perhaps has the most non-offensive yet offensive quests imaginable. Did I create a Necromancer in this game just to go around and throw snowballs at unsupervised kids? Why do I have to be turned into a 'cat' and then to subsequently 'pee' on bushes to stir rabbits from them... Why do I have to help the farmer with catching her piglets? Yes... Anyone who has played MMO's knows the story here, nothing new... But Guild Wars 2 just took it to a whole new level. Lets not get into the rather mundane personal story quest that perhaps wins the award for the most anti-climatic end ever in a story. The Guild Wars 2 quests drove me mad. It's as if their target audience was that of a twelve year old girl who sits around and watches the Disney channel all day. That's the sort of level you can expect here. Sure, I'm not asking for Guild Wars 2 to contain a more mature content or a darker atmosphere (o wait, I am!) but I would have liked a lot less of the rather stupidly mundane quests. Even the first GW game was less annoying than this. Honestly, despite the fact that I said GW2 is the best mmo on the market, there are a few contenders. Age of Conan is for one a rather enjoyable affair. GW2 just happens to be the big elephant in the room that dwarfs all the others, and it is a damn shame that it's not as revolutionary as it could be, and all it is, is a rather mundane bland adventure into a fantasy land.

Urgh.... Yea, that's right, Urgh! Or is it Urg? Either way, that's my latest word to describe the new Dragon Age game in a nutshell... This is going to be a short one because I wasted enough time on Dragon Age that god forbid I want to waste anymore time writing about it! So lets start with the pros, because frankly there isn't many of them, so lets get those out of the way first: Graphics: The graphics are not amazing, nor are they out of this world, but they are none the less suitable and impressive. They're good enough that they don't bog the game down, and they are decent enough that you can immerse yourself into the world. There has been some improvement in how the characters look (not creative wise, I'll get to that soon...) and the environments are pretty solid. Customization: The level of customization is impressive within character creation, and you get to design a character that should, in theory, feel 'personal' to you. However, a friend told me that the same customization is lacking in multiplayer, which I've not tried, so that was a strange one if true. And that is, sadly, it. The only two positive things I can extract from the game. Now, moving on! Plot: Lets start with the biggest criminal in the room. The plot. It is bad. I'm sorry but it is. It's like the devs just couldn't come up with something original or interesting - it doesn't have to be original but it does have to be interesting -and decided to go ahead and rip out the plot from Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and put a spin on it. Your central story revolves around you being forcefully cast into being the hero. I won't go into it much as I want to avoid spoilers, but lets say it felt weak. I couldn't help but smirk just how bad the whole setup is. I could go on but I want to keep this brief as possible. For a hyped up game like Dragon Age, I believe the writers have milked their last udder, and should hastily leave the building. Character Design: Urg... Yeah, this is it. This is what made me say, "Right, time for a refund!" I get it Bioware. You want to break away from tradition. You want your elf to look like Dobby from Harry Potter. You want beardless dwarfs (yet again) who go around cheekily trying to tell bad dirty jokes and chatting up the ladies, you want to support gay rights so you have a Big Bull Man (a Quanari that apparently now have horns) become a romancable option even though it makes zero sense for that particular character, but hey, you did it with Kaidan in Mass Effect, why not Dragon Age! Gah! The character designs, the look, the writing for them, are completely terrible. Bland and non-interesting. This is the nail in the coffin for the Dragon Age series, and this is what did it for me. The writing! RPG Mechanic: At no point in the game did I feel I wanted to waste my time with the tactics system or the leveling up system. Everything about it feels uninteresting, tedious and just an annoyance. In the games defense, I chose casual, as I wanted to enjoy the narrative. Since I quickly realized how bad that narrative was going to be, I tried to take some enjoyment out of the DA RPG system, and I frankly found nothing enjoyable about it. It's a cheap hack and slash but done in a way that its even more boring than most mmo combat mechanics. You just hold down the button and hack at everything. The first major boss fight that you'll find yourself in is a bore fest and most of the time the boss roams about not doing anything, as if disinterested. What a shame. Quests: "Lets put some interesting quests in this game for once that take effort backed up by good solid writing." - "Nah... Let's just pop letters around the world, books and have npcs give collection quests." Yay! O wait.. what? Yeah that's right, the old age method of introducing bland quests in an rpg is still live and well. All in all, Dragon Age inquisitions will be enjoyed by those who don't look too deep into a plotline and don't really care about the points I've made above because, if your the type of player that will drool over a large map and large environment then you'll be right at home here.

X-Rebirth. What a disaster. Where did it all go wrong? Who mistook innovation for bad game mechanics? Who thought it was a good idea to require you to land on stations and have to waste time hunting for dull npc's to engage with them in small-talk mini-games just so you can get a leg-up on getting good deals? I never pre-ordered X-Rebirth or bought it due to the bad vibe that I was getting. I have played it extensively however recently on a friends computer and I have to say that all the negative reviews are generally spot-on. Does make me consider the mental health (or agenda) of any reviewer who can honestly give this game a rating above a 5... X-Rebirth was suppose to dress a lot of the issues present in the past series. So lets have a look at them. Interface: Did they address it? No! They've actually made it worse! What were they thinking? It also feels like it isn't even complete. There is no mission board so your left hunting, literally, for mission icons on stations to just pick up a job. AI Pathfinding/Auto-pilot: Even with the 2.0 patch lately, the AI is still horrendous and simplified compared to the previous game. Map Size: I've often read on the forums of a poor defense argument when it comes to the map size. Some will say that while there is less sectors (only 4) they are a LOT bigger than your average sector. True. But an easy rebuttal is that if you combine just 8-10 sectors from the previous game you would come up with one whole sector, and considering the previous game had around 199 sectors, yeah... See my point? 4x10 is just 40 sectors! Course I've not gotten my measuring tape out but it's quite obvious that the map has been downsized. I'd imagine that will increase later on with paid DLC, O YAY!... (Sarcasm) Graphics: Again, another area in game development that has suffered, strangely enough. You'd imagine this would be an area of development that would have improved, but no! The shaders, while the 2.0 patch has improved them slightly, are still poor. Station interiors are horrendous. NPC's still look like plastic dolls. Stations themselves look like their made out of shiny plastic and the ship designs are, well, crap... Player Mechanics: Ah yes, a topic that has been discussed to death on the forums prior and post release. Egosoft did their best in trying to PR this disaster in stating that the restriction on player ships would no way hamper gameplay, instead, we would have drones to make up for it! Err... Yay? Egosoft made some excuses, prior to release, that such a limitation was there because THEY decided that it be more fun that way. That's right, they figured it wasn't fun to fly other ships and instead more fun to fly just the one! Yes, Bernd did state as such on the forums. Now we know they were just trying to coddle us. With the arrival of the 2.0 patch, or as I call it, X-Rebirth 1.00, there has been some bug fixing, interface improvements and general across the board touch-ups. But, regardless of any future 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 patches, I can't see them fixing the core of the game which is a shoddy mess of design. No matter how many patches/dlc is released, X-Rebirth will still be X-Rebirth at the end of the day, and that's a bad thing. I love the X-Series. X3TC is by far my favorite (along with some mods) so I had high hopes for X-Rebirth despite my misgivings about the 1-ship deal. Unfortunately X-Rebirth is one of those rare games in which there is nothing in it that I can honestly say I like. That's an achievement for someone like myself who loved the series.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

A quick review on this one, because I couldn't bear myself to play the game any further... Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened is very much a game I wanted to love. I wasn't put off by the outdated graphics, so I was expecting solid gameplay, solid voice acting and solid writing to compensate. Sadly, none of that is the case here. I'm a big fan of Sherlock Holmes, (particularly Jeremy Brett Holmes) so I do expect a certain level of a quality when it comes to these games to set them apart. I've tried the other Sherlock Holmes games in the past and found them completely and utterly devoid of essence of what Sherlock Holmes should be. This game does no better, although it does improve on several designs, namely the remastered edition that features a 1st person mode. However the game should be reviewed in its original state. To summarise: Voice Acting - Dreadful. The only decent voice acting that game from this is Watson. Holmes was flat, dry and contained none of the eccentricity that the character should have. It was as if they hired Microsoft Sam to take the part of Holmes in this one. I can't say their support cast were great either. There is one scene in which Holmes is speaking to a (indian?) foreigner in their native language, and it had me in stitches at just how bad it was. I was literally face palming. Theme: I'm a fan of Cthulhu. Not a huge fan, but I've read the books and anything Cthluhu related gets my juices flowing, so this is why I really wanted to like this game. However, since I didn't play the game through its fullest it would be unfair to review it in full on this (despite looking up the plot after). I can say however that from what I played of it, the premise was not exactly subtle, which is a bad thing in my books. Writing: Really bad. Enough sad on this the better I reckon. Setup/Puzzles: The general logical setup had me stumped. Why was Holmes interested in a book on piracy (it has relevance to the plot later, but why at the start?) and fish (again relevance, but much later) at the start... These were books that would be useful later on, but at the very start you acquire them despite not having any need of them. It was nothing but lazy writing and plot setup. I can say the same for a lot of the detective work. I would like to say more but want to avoid spoilers, but I found the whole way they laid out the puzzles as bizarre.

Another prime example **** concept ruined by bad design. This is what happens when studios design cash-cow games. They take a good concept and butcher it with grinding gameplay that isn't fun nor is it productive for the player. The game isn't pay2win, but there is a massive grindfest that just screams "INVEST" at you because you do have to invest a lot of time and most of that time is wasted by grind mechanics that force you to play endless hours just to get sufficient upgrades of the most basic level for your castle. If that wasn't bad enough, the game coddles you from the start. It makes decisions for you throughout a good portion of the starting game holding your hand constantly and making decisions for you, such as the decision to publish your ill-prepared castle which makes little sense to me if the game is forcing you to publish your castle. Validating your castle, which is a fancy way of saying publishing, involves you going through your own castle and testing your defenses for yourself. Sound good right? Here's the kicker... You have to do this EVERYTIME you want to update your castle. That's right, every single time you want to update your castle, you need to go through the process of going through your castle yourself. Of all my time spent playing games, this has to be the worse game design mechanic I've ever seen in any game. It also immediately turned me away from it. The game forces you to do this everytime you need to make changes to your castle, it punishes you severely for it. What on earth processed them to go ahead with this instead of making it optional, god knows ... When it comes to the traps themselves, they are no better. They are obvious and rather limited in number and there doesn't seem to be a way to customise your own traps. Having obvious traps kinda ruins the whole point of the game really and ends up being a shallow experience. On the other hand, the minion types are numerous as well as the ability to customise them is the only reason, along with the humour, that this game gets a 4 rather than a 3. Unfortuntely the game is heavily flawed and I don't see it changing much once its out of beta. The concept is good, but the game design is bad.

ArmA III is, unfortuntely, a failed experiment to launch the franchise in a new bold direction. Perhaps calling it a failed experiment is too harsh, but what do you call it when a bunch of hardcore arma vets (myself and my clan) who loved the arma franchise, stop playing it and go back to ArmA II with only putting less than 15 hours into ArmA III. Well, it says a lot, and I mean truly a lot, about the game when a new member of our clan who never played ArmA II absoloutely love ArmA III. It speaks wonders about the games streamlined appeal to those who never played ArmA II before. We even got a member who didn't like ArmA II but loves ArmA III. That's because to its credit the new one is a lot easier to get into and a lot more user friendly. ArmA III is naturally going to be judged and compared to its previous title. Some people tend to forget that ArmA I and II were both launched in a very bad state while lacking a lot of content, but it was accepted by the community for what it is. ArmA III has gone down the mainstream road without adopting a new approach for the mainstream community. The standards were raised for the next title in the franchise yet the developers didn't deliver. The main issue here, when comparing the launch of the previous titles, is that the developers have consistently said they were aiming less content, more quality. An approach that they've taken very seriously to the detriment of the new title. We are just starting the New Year and the developers have done very little for the game, content wise. The pace is a lot, lot slower than previous titles. One might attribute this to the higher quality being put into ArmA III, which may be true, it may indeed lenghten the process. But how long has ArmA III being in development? How many shuffles and re-designs did it undergo? There is no doubt about it; its a rushed job. The fact that the game released, yes, RELEASED, with hardly any content to call it a game and without a campaign is a joke. The first episode of the campaign is also, personally, a major disappointment. The developers also seem more focused on showcasing community missions rather than issuing development blogs. We are not being fooled... Another miscarriage in the arma franchise is the creative design and the cons of bringing the series into the future. We've got a creative designer who is dreadful, just dreadful, at what he does. The armor/uniform designs of the units are horrendous, the vehicles they decided to put in are failed prototypes that have no chance of appearing in any future warfare and it seems that rather than being put into the future, the whole concept of warfare took a step back. I will say to its credit that Altos is, while somewhat barren, is indeed a wonderful landscape to play on. The graphics are wonderful and the optimisation done in the post launch period has been fantastic. The AI itself, while not up to the standards of ASR-AI (mod for ArmA II) it has certainly improved over the vanilla AI. But, the devs can't be forgven for taking a much loved franchise and turning it into what it is now.

Broken Sword, the fifth in a trilogy that has seen its ups and downs, has finally arrived. Was the wait worth it? Did it live up to its expectations? I'd say a tentative yes in certain aspects. Serpents Curse tries its best to bring back the nostalgia from the first and second 2D games of the series. At times, it is rather successful in doing this and at other times it tries too hard. The 3D drawn characters for example; beautifully rendered but come across as strange and often appear stiff like mannequins with awkward movements. This is even more apparent in the opening intro especially considering they are portrayed against the backdrop of masterful handrawn 2D backgrounds that just don't mix well with the 3D movements and rendered characters. What madness processed them to go along with this approach escapes me. Some developers just can't let go off 3D altogether, and Serpents Curse tries to blend both worlds together but fails to do both right. Don't get me wrong; the backgrounds are masterfully done and are fantastic, as limited as they are, and the characters themselves, while they do appear stiff and rigid, have a tremendous amount of detail to them. It's just a shame Cecil decided to try to blend both 2D and 3D together because it simply does not work. Regarding what I said about the backgrounds being limited, well, they are. There's not that much backgrounds at all to be fair. Episode one mainly takes place in Paris and features a lot of heavily re-used backdrops and you don't get the feeling that your 'going places' but rather stuck going back and forth to the same locations. This is quite understandable considering the quality of the backgrounds and the size of them. At such a high-resolution, drawing them must take up a considerable amount of time, but Broken Sword 5 misses out on the feeling of traveling to a wide selection of area's that was very much present in the 1st and 2nd. Sure, at the end of episode 1 its clear we'll be off to a certain place, but I get the slight impression not much will change in Episode 2 in terms of background variety. Broken Sword The Serpents Curse general plotline is nothing to marvel at; at least in the confines of what Episode 1 presents us with. Having completed the game in full now, I can honestly say I foresaw practically every twist that came my way. I generally knew who was 'bad' and who was 'questionably good' but the story tries to present its twists and turns as shocks but in reality they didn't. I can't say much without going into spoiler territory, but I will say that the death of a prominent character did not surprise me one bit. The story is also filled with little plotholes and in-consistency now and again which don't make much logical sense, but if anyone played the previous two games in the series, then you learn to suspend reality while your playing a Broken Sword game. The characters don't have as much depth as past characters did in the first two series. Broken Sword 2 has a wealth of complex characters; who remembers Raoul, who was ruled by his mother but you soon learn later on that there is a lot more to the cowardly Raoul than meets the eye? Sadly Serpents Curse characters are rather one-dimensional. Laine and his overly sense of entitlement. Father Simeon and his constant overbearing sense of religious burning hatred for you know who. Detective Naveat (I'm sure I spelt that wrong) and his rather unrealistic portrayal of just bad detective work. But this is getting all very negative and now its time for some positivity. Having completed the fifth game, I can honestly say I felt satisfied with how episode 1 has turned out. It's a step in the right direction, but only a step. For me personally it doesn't surpass the quality fo the first two games, but it certainly races past the 3rd and 4th game whose name I shall not speak. In that way, Serpents Curse is a resounding success for what it's trying to do, and that is trying to redeem itself from the last two games. It just falls ever so slightly short of reaching its goal. Perhaps episode 2 will have some of that missing charm and complete the saga of nostalgia. Who knows. But I am certainly looking forward to the next episode.

The first hardcore restaurant sim... Well, that's what it calls itself! Lets face it; its a blatant lie. There is nothing 'hardcore' about this game, nor is it a sim by any fetch of the imagination. It's a mindless button smasher that requires you to think fast with your fingers. It's a relatively simple game with no complexity to it at all, hardly hardcore. I get the feeling that the marketing language used behind this game would be perfect for the Android/IOS but even saying that, it's a very shallow experience for the smart phones and even shallower for the PC. If your expecting a restaurant simulation, this ain't it. At best all you have to worry about is filling your orders on-time. Hell, it should be called 'Order, Serve!'. There is no management aspect to speak of. You get a simple menu interface for upgrades for your food bar and even those are simplistic. You can't even adjust the prices of your food. My main gripe with this game is that it calls itself a hardcore sim, which I keep on repeating, only because I have to nail the point down that this is indeed not a sim of any kind and does much injustice to sell itself as one. I feel those who voted for this on Greenlight have been misled. It's a shame because with a bit more complexity to it, perhaps it could be a good game. Unfortunately this game isn't about managing a business. It's about filling your customer orders on time, and that's as far as this game goes. If you don't mind that, and your looking for a simple button basher **** that deals with food, well, this is it. If you want more than simply just cooking your food, then avoid.

The problem with Knights of Pen & Paper +1 edition isn't microtransactions, as mentioned by reviewer Type4101, since the implementation of being able to buy extra stuff in-game is purely, purely optional, and in no way does the game ever force you or make you feel you need to part with your cash to progress within the game. However, the inclusion of a store is puzzling considering how little affect it has. God forbid the type of player that would buy stuff in-game, I can't begin to imagine the sort that would. Regardless, the developers must have been a tad bit overzealous to include such a thing knowing that they would receive little to none income from it. This was a mistake on their part; from a marketing and design viewpoint. But enough of that, as I said already, the microtransactions within the game are pointless. As I said earlier; the problem isn't this. The real problem is the game not taking itself serious for a PC platform. This game was originally designed as a mobile app/tablet game. It suits that environment very well as a quickplay sort of game.. However, marketing for the PC is a different ballgame altogether and the dev's have utterly failed in their quest to win the hearts of PC gamers, as evident by majority of reviews. The 1+ edition has alwasy been marketed as a pen & paper rpg for pen & paper fans; and here lies the problem. Despite all the hype, the 1+ edition is little more than a few bells and whistles attatched onto the original game and brings no real changes to the PC nor does it in anyway entice P&P players (like myself) to buy this game (reviewing this game based on a copy I played on a friends PC, and no I didn't pirate it!). The game features crammy hammy dialogue that for one, isn't remotely funny, nor is it common enough to even earn the hype that this game has been given for the suppose banter that takes place. Hardly any banter takes place between your fellow NPC players, and when it does take place its over in a second and you could hardly call it banter. This would be my main complaint about the game, the lack of any real comedy value (and not the *overly slapstick can't take myself seriously enough comedy*) or banter between any of the npcs or any meaningful quests creates an incredibly repetitive dull experience that only the most blinded faithful consumers could love. The only positive thing I can say about this game, which isn't much, is the pixel art and backgrounds. They are a joy to behold, but sadly a game doesn't win on just art alone. The game is surely lacking in a lot of area's including customisation in which there hardly is any. Want to name a NPC at your table? Well, you can't! Want to create your own? Well, you can't! Enough. If you want a dull repetitive experience; buy the game.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Payday 2: over-hyped repetitive grind-fest, or a remarkable fun and enjoyable game? Read on.. Payday 2 has turned out to be a tremendously successful game. Pre-orders were almost sold-out everywhere while post-sales hit the roof, turning it into a instant commercial success for the small studio. Beta feedback has been positive on some fronts, and post-launch reviews have given the game a high-rating from some of the mainstream critics. However it seems Payday 2 is now suffering post-launch blues, and has fallen into that developer trap. More on that later. One of the reasons why Payday 2 has been so successful on launch is that it is, indeed, a really fun co-op game. There is no denying it. From that adrenaline rush you get pulling a bank job to the joy of managing to do just one job on full stealth. Payday 2 is surely best played with friends for maximum enjoyment, and isn't the sort of game you want to play with just random players. So, why am I rating it a measly 6, then? Well, here's the thing; Payday 2 is a satisfying game on launch, and even after a day or so it still remains a satisfying game, but after the 3rd day you start to notice the faults with the game that creep out at you. It's this very reason why the game has been so successful with critics, and I would imagine they would review it a little differently further down the road. To say the game suffers from repetitive play is an understatement. You soon realize that the pace of the game is slightly off whack. It turns into a massive grind-fest due to everything costing money. Fancy that red-dot sight you got in the lootbag dlc? Well, it costs in-game money to attach it to your gun! How about mask customization? Well, that costs in-game money as well. Leveling up? In-game money. Practically anything you do with your characters involves money. Now, this wouldn't be so bad if the payouts were a little more balanced, but unfortunately the games current system forces you to grind repetitive missions with little room for change, making even grinding a bore fest. Now, lets talk about that dev trap I mentioned earlier. I've seen this in other games, so I'll sum it up. A developer designs a game. It has a good concept, good working mechanics (****, class/skills), a wide range of variety in assets (guns/mods) along with excellent customization (masks/guns) and the core concept relies heavily on repeated plays of maps. However, the developer only designs a few playable maps (7 or 10 I believe minus the safe-house). These maps are relatively small, with the so-called 'huge dynamic changes' as marketed being rather small and not worthy of note. Since the core concept of the game itself relies heavily on the maps themselves, the game becomes a tedious repetitive experience once you repeat the maps. At this stage some things become apparent; there is only one bank map. There is only one map featuring stores. There is only one map featuring a jewelry heist. There is only one map of each specific genre of heist. Granted, there is supposed to be 30+ heists in the game, but they all take place on the same maps. It turns into a *steal X item profit* on the same maps, over and over again, with little changes that don't add anything to the game. A vault may be somewhere different. There may be 3 guards around the back instead of 2. All these changes are indeed welcome, but marketing it as huge changes isn't appropriate. Playing the same maps over, and over, and over again, wouldn't be so bad if the actual heist mechanics were done right. Unfortunately, that's another area that they didn't design so well. Drills take a large amount of time, so much so that you just end up not drilling after awhile, it becomes a case of "I just can't be bothered to wait 3-4 minutes for this bloody thing", not even taking into account of how many times it breaks down. Repeat this process several times and even the most harden players will start getting bored. Payday 2 does do some things right. **** example is a good mechanic, while it suffers from shoving repeated heists down your throat, the idea itself is good and would work really well with more variety of maps/heists. The safehouse seems like a stale introduction, but it seems like Overkill has some plans for this later on, possibly in the form of some dlc. However, unless Overkill is planning on introducing rather large map-packs in his DLC plans, I can't see Payday 2 playable longevity lasting long. Only after 3 days of playing I can tell you its become tiresome to play some of the same maps again, with the dreadful repeated soundtrack. Payday 2 could have been so much better, but unless your a hardcore grindfest kinda player, you will soon grow tiresome of this rather enjoyable but flawed co-op. Summary: Graphics 6/10 Soundtrack 4/10 Sounds 6/10 Gameplay 5/10 Re-playability 4/10

First, I have to state I've not bought this game. No, I didn't pirate it either! I played this game through a friends steam account, as I was very wary of what FHI did. I was under the sneaking impression that they released Wargame European Escalation under a new name, with a few bells and whistles; planes, new maps, new units and very slight improvements to multiplayer, and then charged a full standalone price tag on top of it. Unfortunately, it seems I was correct. Now, I love Wargame, and the new one is a fantastic addition to the franchise. If only it came as a DLC or expansion to the current game, and not a standalone one with the price of a full game, I would be happy... Now, if your reviewing this game and not had the pleasure to play the original, then naturally your going to give it high praise, as it is a good game. If you've played the original, loved it, you may cast aside any principles you might have regarding developers who copy and paste their games and fork out the cash to try this new one out. Fortunately I'm not so easily persuaded with my cash, and even with the 25% sale on at the moment (interestingly enough, so early too?) I'm still not keen on purchasing it because if I my concerns that this title is simply a copy and paste of the original with planes added (which it is) then I feel that giving them my money would be condoning what they've done, and shame on them for doing it. Make no mistake: If you've not got the original, by all means, get the new one. If you are like me, and have got the original one but are on the fence about it... Ask yourself, is paying an extra 39 euro's (or whatever your currency is) really worth it for the same game with planes added in?