ChunkySaurus

The first half of the game seemed very promising, but after finishing the game, i realized the early content was totally meaningless. Most of the people you help don't appear in the later chapters. So it has no impact on the story at all. Most of the quests consisted of fetching vegetables for people anyway. For all I know they were being auto-generated. The back half of the game was an unfinished mess that felt like a chore to get through. I could excuse some sloppy level design or short levels but the writing started falling apart too. Important story arcs were being resolved with a bit of dialog at the end of a fight. In one scene, an important antagonist switches to your side and then gets killed for it; all off-camera. You end up finding his body later on with a stack of correspondence explaining what happened. That is not how you tell a story, I feel like going open world was a mistake. They could have gone with a few detailed zones and focused on the story more. Making this a trans-media production was also a bad choice. To get the full story, you needed to watch a separate movie, a series of animated shorts and play another game. The full FFXV made almost no effort to fill in those blanks. People buy these games for the story and character development.

My biggest complaint about the game is the mission timer. Almost every mission now has an arbitrary turn limit. This takes away from the tactical feeling of the previous XCOM. It's also totally at odds with the guerrilla/ambush tactics the game wants you to use. Setting up a good ambush takes time and the game won't give it to you. The game is definitely not optimized. It performs poorly on my above-average rig and has tons of graphical glitches, choppy cut-scenes and inexplicable pauses in game-play. I hope they will fix most of these issues with some patches later on. If you enjoyed XCOM 1 with a gamepad, skip this one as they have dropped gamepad support. This is really infuriating because they had excellent gamepad support in the last game. So they actually took it out of the engine. It does support Steam controllers, if you have one of those. I bought one; it's not great. Almost every action requires using the trackpad like a mouse. They've totally missed the point **** . It's pretty disappointing to see such a sloppy sequel to an awesome game. I am sure it will get better over time. Once they patch out the graphical and performance issues and patch in proper gamepad support.

This game wastes your time in a bad way. Each map takes several minutes to load and each enemy turn can take 10-15 seconds to play out. This happens even if the enemy unit is not visible at the time. So each turn involves a good 60-90 seconds waiting while the computer moves units that you cannot see. The graphics are OK, but they get repetitive really fast. Every battle seems to be in the same sort of ruined city area. It gets old fast. The unit animations are not great either. So many units just move their legs while running, their arms just sort of lock in place. Warband progression is pretty pointless. No matter how good your guys get, the enemy Warband is always a little stronger. So the equipment and levels don't really matter. I suppose it makes players feel like they are getting ahead but it is really just a time waster. All the missions seem to be generic crap. An enemy Warband is here; go kill them. The sort of mission that you can re-use for any faction the player might have chosen. Supposedly there are faction-specific missions, but I didn't see any after several missions. The worst part is that the game will punish you for doing too well in a fight. The enemy can rout and flee the battle. This means you win but it also means you are denied any bonus objectives or resources scattered around the map. This is a big problem because the money you need to keep your army paid comes from looting the battlefield resources. Something that is only possible while the battle is still being fought. If you are a hardware Warhammer fan, you probably own this already. If you are not a Warhammer fan, I can't recommend it.

First off, this is definitely designed for controller-play. I wouldn't pick it up for PC without a controller. Without a controller, you are just going to get annoyed at the control scheme. Even with the controller, the control scheme is not great. For example, the digital direction buttons are not used in menus even though the analog stick is crap for menus, the map is under a sub-menu, switching between characters is done with the up/down buttons rather than the standard RB/LB buttons. The world is very open that's for sure. The problem with an open world is that you need to fill it with something. Inquisition seems to fill the open world with meaningless re-spawning enemies and empty space. Most quests involve running long distances to collect X things. The crafting and potion systems involves collecting huge amounts of re-spawning craft items. It is frustrating to deal with these time syncs in a single-player game. Likening this to an MMORPG is appropriate but even MMOs have the decency to give you mounts to speed travel. There is plenty to do though, but it all feels pretty pointless. Similar to Mass Effect 3, you need to do things to improve the power of your forces. You collect power by helping people or convince them to join you. It all gets condensed into a single power score. Rather than have that apothecary you helped make sleeping potions to knock sentries out, you spend power to get through the situation. It all seems designed to give the appearance of many choices and options when they aren't actually there. If you put your blinders up and just get into the experience, it isn't so bad. After-all it worked for the Walking Dead games. The story does have some potential. The starting hook was pretty good but they skipped the prologue entirely. That is an important part of an RPG; it establishes why the player should care about the protagonist. The story after the initial hook is not all bad but it doesn't hold up to the earlier games. I don't understand the 10 scores and I don't understand the 0 scores. It's not game of the year material and it's not the worst thing I've played. It's just disappointing when compared to Origins. I will keep playing because I want to see how it ends but I wouldn't recommend people rush out to pay full price for this one. If you are invested in seeing the next part of the DA story, pick it up on sale and play it with a controller.

The atmosphere in this game is great. The visuals and sounds all fit very well with the situation. I often found myself getting anxious just from the environment or the ambient noises. They did a great job on that part of the game. The rest of the game is just so-so. In terms of story, it is OK. I wanted to see what happened to Ripley in the end. Sadly, the ending was very underwhelming. After several earlier crescendos that seemed like the end of the game, the final scene was a low point. Instead of a dramatic user-controlled action scene, they went with a short quick-time event. They literally paused the action and said "Press Button X". The rest of the ending was left open-ended. They were either planning for a sequel/DLC or they expect you to be familiar with the Amanda Ripley story from the Aliens movie. The scripted encounters with the Alien felt pretty forced. The Alien from the Alien movie is a stealthy predator that ambushes people one at a time. The scripted encounters in this game had the Alien drop into a room and walk around in erratic patrols. As you moved on from room to room, the patrols moved with you. It always felt like the Alien knew where I was, it was just waiting for me to break a rule before it attacked. Sort of like, "I know you are in that locker, but you haven't made a loud enough noise yet so I'll just circle 'round again.". Speaking of circling around again, the backtracking got a little silly. No device on that station worked with any less than three switches in three separate corners of a room. You could never walk down a straight corridor, you would always get to the end to find the door locked and need to take the long way around. I get that it was meant to drive the tension when trying to avoid the Alien but it got annoying pretty quickly. The "You mean I have to go back?" moment loses some impact after the tenth time. If you like stealth games you will like parts of this game. If you like the Alien franchise, you will like parts of this game. I enjoyed most of my experience; maybe some DLC will fix up the ending but I hate paying for a better ending.

This was a disappointing wasted opportunity to do something really cool. Instead it comes off like a mediocre mod for Civ 5. The elements of an exciting game are there, they just weren't put together very well. I am hopeful that this can be patched to something better but it is more likely that this will be fixed with an expansion. I can see what they wanted to do with the aliens and the miasma. They wanted to make YOU feel like the alien, like this was a hostile world. So you would build outposts slowly and close together until you could tech up to deal with the hostile environment. This mechanic was pretty exciting until trading stations just appeared out of nowhere all around my first city, in the first 25 turns. These stations block you from building new cities nearby so you have to over-extend yourself. I didn't feel like a pioneer when the space version of WalMart opened up next door. In the end, the Alien mechanic is just bad. They spawn like crazy and actually become more of a nuisance by clogging the map. Seriously, 10-15 units moving one space to the left and then one space to the right. Getting from point A to B is more like playing Frogger. Eventually they just reach a saturation point and you need to cull them just to get around. This mechanic could have been done so much better. Alien nests scattered throughout the map, preventing you from expanding or accessing resources until you destroy, domesticate or learn to understand them (as per your affinity) would have been so much better. The addition of quests had great potential but it was wasted on dozens of pick option A or B quests. Every time you build a building for the first time, something "exciting" happens and you get to pick a bonus. Trivial stuff like +1 food or +1 energy. The dialog and choice are both pointless. They happen all the time so they don't feel special at all. The victory conditions are not well-defined either. They don't feel immersive at all. If they were going to put in quests, they should have been tied into the victory conditions. The new tech web hides most of the details of what you are researching. The icons are all the same color so you have to mouse over everything to have any idea what you are going to get from a tech. The whole thing is at odds with how you are actually expected to perform research. You will realize partway through your first play through that you are supposed to exclusively pick technologies that advance one of the three Affinities. I don't understand why they bury Affinities within Technologies. A choice between Solar, Petrol and Xenomass generators is much more immersive than being able to research all three. The UI and city management is worse than Civ 5. A lot of little irritating things like cities not telling you the last project they completed or the trade micromanagement. Seriously, by mid-game you will be resetting 5-6 trade convoys each turn. They reset very quickly and you will have 2-3 per city. This would have been much better without auto-reset. The leader interactions and voice-overs are dull and lifeless. Half the time there is no voice over or a message is interrupted by another. I'd recommend it on sale, but not at full price.

I would say that all the 10/10 reviews out there are Kickstarter backers who want to help promote the game. The game is decent but no 10/10. If you liked Baldur's Gate, then you will probably enjoy this game too. The elemental area of effect mechanic adds a lot of fun to the game. Cover an area with flammable poison ooze and then set it on fire to create an explosion. Then use a hostile teleport spell to throw enemies into the conflagration for good measure. Make sure you pick up a good spread of elemental abilities. Not only is it fun, the game assumes you have them at certain points. The Rock, Paper, Scissors method of winning arguments with NPCs is stupid. It detracts from immersion in a big way. At one point I accused someone of doing something(no spoilers!). When I presented evidence to back up my case, we played Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide the argument. I'm not kidding or exaggerating, you actually do this several times in the game. If they wanted to randomize success when using Intimidate, Reason or Charm a hidden dice roll would have been less annoying. The writing and dialog are pretty good, when the game has a chance to "warm-up". It is a little iffy early on; they dump a lot of weird useless story on you early in the game. At times your two main characters will have "discussions" where you role-play both sides. This is good if you want to role-play but silly if you just want to have an experience. You will be frustrated by the interface, unless you are a sniper. There is no assistance to click on very small or moving objects. If your mouse is one pixel off, you don't select the monster/item. It is very frustrating when a monster shrugs so your attack command turns into a move. Crafting exists but it is not explained very well. I haven't done any the whole game. You probably won't either. All-in-all, this is not a bad game. Good for some nostalgia if you liked BG. Some bad design choices hold it back though. Worthwhile on a sale.

I reviewed this poorly before but after seeing footage for Dark Souls 2, i decided to give this another try. If you press beyond the PC port issues there is some rewarding content later on. As long as you go the right way and have a walkthrough open most of the time.

This is definitely a game to play with a friend. It is silly and stupid in a good way. I played the first level 3-4 times and had a lot of fun losing. The novelty started to wear off when I realized I could not try other levels until I beat the first level. When you start trying to play seriously, the game loses a lot of it's entertainment value. If the devs allowed level selection at any time, it would be a better game. If they had included some kind of hilarious briefing or optional tutorial it would have been a better game. A few minor improvements and this is an 8. But for the Steam sale price of $6.99 it is a worthwhile purchase.

A fun game in the typical Puppy Games visual style. This is a fast-paced, top-down squad shooter with the added hook that your squad comes from "transferring" into other robots on the field. The first few levels are pretty quick but get progressively more challenging. Worthwhile for when you need 5-10 minutes of action.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It plays out more like an interactive story that a game. What a story it was though! It just goes to show that a small group of people with good writing and music can elicit more emotional reaction with 16-bit sprites than any of the big gaming corporations. The puzzles seemed like a pointless addition and some of the game play was glitchy. These problems were trivial and shouldn't stop you from trying this one out.

I find the premise of this game very interesting. Build a bunker to defend your brain and control several "bots" to defend, mine and attack. I want to like it a lot more but the game is far from a polished product. The new campaign button will even warn you that the game lacks polish. Too bad the developer didn't tell people that before taking their money. The game play itself is painfully slow. I am a patient person, but the speed at which bots move is unbearably slow. It becomes almost painful to hold down the key/button to make your bot walk all the way across your bunker. Most of what you do is make the bots walk to where they need to be so this is a real problem. Bot movement is very goofy. I am still not sure if this was an intentional design choice as you are supposed to remote controlling these bots. The physics were just off in a lot of situations. Several of my bots stuck to walls or fell off the edge of the map, never to be seen again. I have heard that the developer is still working on the game actively. If there are improvements made this score could jump higher. But as-is this is not worth $20. There are so many better indie games out there for a lot less. I would wait until the developer has made an effort to fix this mess before trying it.

I was so happy to hear that a second Orcs Must die was coming out! I was not disappointed at all. The addition of co-op really adds a lot more than I really expected. It loses a point because some of the levels are a little too difficult without a second player around.

Not a typical TD game in that the game play is mostly focused on player versus player instead of player vs AI. You create a wave of attackers while trying to fend off enemy waves using your own towers. There is a limited single player mode where you play against an AI that sends endless waves of progressively harder enemies. This mode is more of a time-attack as you can never "win". Games take a long time to play out, even when you are losing badly. When you start to lose, the enemy waves get a little closer each time. It is a painfully slow way to go. My first game had me losing pretty badly because I had no idea what I was doing. Even so, it would have taken another 10 minutes for the other player to finish me off. Rather than wait for my inevitable defeat, I left the game (there is no surrender option). For that, I got a rage quit achievement ... so thanks for that. If there was a single player or co-op campaign mode, I would have given a higher score. TD versus players kind of feels like a really simplified RTS. If you've always wanted to play TD with a friends, this is for you. If you like classic TD, skip it.

I was so insulted by this game that I opened a tech support ticket with Metacritic to fix the release date so I could submit a review. It started with the account sign-up. This is not uncommon, but I have no clue why they required me to sign up for an account for a mostly single player game. I tolerate other games with this requirement, but I never like it. Especially when the game is part of an established always-on network, like Steam. For me, the game has a lot of bugs and glitches. I ran into recoverable freezes at several points, including adjusting the volume. Several camera keys just didn't work at some points and basic polish was lacking. For example, Esc opens the menu but no key closes it. Basic feedback on actions is nonexistent. I tried repairing ships several times but nothing ever happened. Each time, the unit confirmation sound played and nothing ever happened - I still don't know why. While on the subject of the unit confirmation noises, these have to be the worst part of the game. The confirmation and acknowledgement sounds seem to be pieced together from various sound bytes to sound like military chatter. It sounds terrible because each sound byte is said in a different yet still monotonous tone. The chatter is also constant in a battle. Cries of "Shield stress levels are very high!" abound, even when shields all seems pretty relaxed. The game play is very slow paced. I spent 60-70 turns just hitting the End Turn key before I even got to some basic story. I realize that 4X games tend to be on the slow side but there is usually lots to see and do while you wait for things to pick up. LoP has very little in the way of management and information screens to browse and tweak. This was touted as Sins of a Solar Empire but with a single player campaign and story. The intro was a black background with voice-over and text. I really would have liked to see THAT game. The game just kind of dumps you into a situation with little background and starts into the first few missions. After almost an hour of game play, I saw some proper story sequences. The dramatic tension of the entire story went down the toilet for me when they demanded I build a shopping mall before establishing any sort of defenses or governance for my beleaguered colony. Aliens may be attacking but there is this awesome sale at the outlet! Maybe things speed up later on, maybe the story gets better, maybe I am being harsh because I was very much anticipating a good 4X game with ship customization. I know that with other 4X games like Sins and Homeworld, I was into them from the start. I didn't feel like I had wasted my money. So buy this one at your own risk.

An excellent 4X type game. You really get the sense of massive ships blasting each other apart. Games take a very long time to play out, but if you enjoy the genre this won't matter. The graphics are decent, I really enjoy the multiple independent guns on the capitol ships. The big drawback is that there is no single player campaign.