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This is a title with AA vibes including some "jank", but overall it captures the "Aliens" (1986 movie) above and beyond what we've previously seen before in gaming, turning it into a very enjoyable squad-based RTS kinda game. It manages to meld together the "real-time" (minus pause you can hit) elements with your squad interacting with the environments (spotting enemies, trying to investigate loot and other elements, trying to exploit cover) with all the tension of going in and being undetected and having the motion trackers fire off. Truly, trying to navigate the rooms whilst hearing the motion trackers is very tense and nicely done. You get to have a FUBAR start to the story motivating evens to carry on. Then you get to have the management of lots of different elements: squad health, squad mental health (facing xeno's ain't your typical bug hunt), scrounging up materials mid-mission, and deciding, on-the-fly, whether to risk going for pickups or just focus on the main objective. On the missions, in real-time, you feel like you're focusing on the tracker, the map, your marines and objectives. Graphically, beaming the flashing trying to discern what's ahead never gets old. And if you're slugglish the xenomorphs can overpower you very quickly (and rightly so). The full soul of the movies is on display here, **** goes fubar, marines get stress feeling hunted by the aliens, but you can also be smart and optimize resources and approaches to your advantage. All missions you get to explore mostly freely and be rewarded with more insight the more crafty you are. Occasionally, objectives and encounters are tough as nails and you are really challenged. All this in keeping with a nice narrative and characters, including some of the iconic "banther" between everyone; though you can feel it lacks some of that AAA budget. Still, the Aliens movie was 1986, this game was 2023, and as a massive fan of those movies and videogames in general, this feels to me like the first big and successful at a squad based game capturing the colonial marines - and it gets that feeling right in spades! Again, this game manages to capture the true feeling of "Aliens" and "Colonial Marines", despite some obvious "AA not AAA" jank. I'm hooked on the campaign and leveling up my squad and managing wounds and level-up stuff. Forget about "one more turn", this is: "a few more seconds and I can make it to the next room" kinda stuff - and I end up going for hours on end.

Excellent sequel to Deliver Us The Moon. Despite being a AA game, this one has more depth and emotional resonance than many a sci-fi movie or TV-show concerning the near future and the fate of humanity in the 21st century. It has a bit of jank in the graphics and controls, but the RT effects can be cranked up to give amazing lighting. The overall story and characters is what strikes me most - even many AAA games don't hit as hard as this. If you are interested in sci-fi and don't mind a game that's mostly about the narrative and light puzzles, you'll be rewarded with an excellent experience, from the simple actions of pushing the buttons for your space shuttle to experiencing how the most ambitious "save humanity" projects could go wrong". Truly a feat for a AA studio - lots of heart and true to the subject matter in ways many a production fails to achieve This is a perfect example why we need more support for this kind of AA teams and their projects. Cheers!

Played for about an hour and got frustrated and gave up. There's very little to help you on, basically you keep banging your head against the wall trying different things to try and make some progress. Then you eventually find something, but you keep restarting and having to repeat a lot of the same actions to get to a point where you maybe could try something different. The time of each loop feels too long when you're repeating stuff you already did and when you're finally able to do and discover new things you barely have any time. Not to mention that when you make a mistake earlier on you just wish you could restart right there. I guess the frustrations is on theme give the main character is in the time loop, but it was just too frustrating to carry on. I suppose there could be an interesting story behind all this, but the method of unravelling it is too frustrating for me.

This game is very well crafted and it surprised me in the best way. It doesn't overstay its welcome (about 4-5h) but still manages to provide a deep and thought-provoking experience with a story involving a futuristic technology that could change the world. Change it for good or ill? That's for you to explore. The gameplay consists mostly of conversations with different options. Each conversation is kind of a puzzle where you have to "read" the other person and figure stuff out. The twist is that, with you're super-bartending-powers, you can serve the perfect cocktail to alter the mind state of whom you are speaking to, like fuelling their fears or enhancing their vanity, for instance. That will affect their answers depending on what you ask about. This is very engaging and cleverly done, as you try to the induce the right emotional state to get the info you need. All this backed up by very good and thought-provoking writing making you think about ethics and morality in a not boring or heavy way. Along the way you'll get a clear picture of what is going on and things keep getting more interesting. My first playthrough left me satisfied though eager to play again and learn more, since your choices make changes on some outcomes. Though you don't need it, multiple playthroughs are possible giving you more time to explore other venues you couldn't pursue before. I don't usually go for these kinds of games, but the writing was so good here in particular that it kept me constantly engaged. I recommend it.

In short: - Great, tense, claustrophobic, post-apocalyptic “lost in space” atmosphere with well realized mechanics, design, minimalistic aesthetic and visual effects - Use an array of drones, systems and upgrades/weapons to explore derelict vessels across star systems - Salvage precious resources in order to survive - Real space features and hazards such as asteroid collisions, radiation, depressurization, leaks, etc. - Drone tank controls plus command line controls make it realistic and interesting, despite sometimes tense and tricky to use - Different drone upgrades provide lots of different approaches, and you’ll need to adapt make do with what you have - Manage repairs and upgrades on drones and systems as they deteriorate - Explorable ships/vessels consist of collection of random blocks and are visually mostly all the same with not much contents or detail - Progression is very slow, so it gets repetitive and not very rewarding - Uncovering of what is going on is also slow and done in short pieces of text

In short: The Contingency Plan DLC is not exactly a completely separate campaign/story, but rather bolsters the original campaign and story, deepening it in every way. The only criticism that could be laid against it is that it feels like the original game should have featured this content from the start. But then again, doesn't that show that the DLC is worth it? In detail: The Contingency Plan DLC solidifies the already very good original game with new agents, new gear, new enemies, new devices/elements during missions and one new original two-part mission. This new mission provides a new, interesting storyline and extends the length of the original campaign. In the original game, after your 3 day period is over, you have to do the final mission on day 4. Without spoiling too much, if you enable the Contingency Plan DLC, day 4 consists of the new mission, after which you have a new period of 3 days until you have to do the final mission. This new period has enhanced alarm penalties and a new mandatory objective which adds to the regular mission objectives, making it more challenging. Last but not least, it is possible to uncover some secrets during some missions, which provide a more detailed back story to the characters, which is very interesting. In closing: Check out my review of the original Invisible Inc. review for more information.

From the point of view of someone who loved the original The Banner Saga, I'm sad to say I didn't find the sequel as good as the first game, and, at times, even frustrating. Let me tell you why. The art, animations, visual style and music all keep in the same style, which is great because these were excellent in the original game. In terms of gameplay, the game is very similar to the original, the turn-based combat, RPG elements, dialogue choices, all is pretty much exactly the same, there's a few new units and abilities. The real only new thing added here is a set of optional "training" scenarios that you can do for a reward of renown points. The training master gives you a limited number of characters at up to 4 individual objectives that you need to accomplish, like using specific abilities or otherwise doing things in a specific way. In principle, this is cool, it allows you to "learn" new units and synergies, and the renown points sure are very important, but the problem is that often times the things you're asked to do are rather contrived, risky, not very efficient, and, worst of all, sometimes depend STRONGLY on what the AI does with its units. Because of this, sometimes you end up in frustration as you retry the "challenge" over and over again, even if they're optional... The story starts well where it left off, you're immediately commanding your favourite characters from the previous game, with whom you most likely connected so much with, and there's even an epic moment quite early on that's very emotional. After that, the game splits into a "new" main character, going back and forth between them, much like in the first game. This would be fine, good even, except that this "new" character is SOOO antagonistically different from Rook/Alette that the I felt the change intensely jarring. In the first game, the tone was always that of wanting to protect your caravan and clan through every hardship, and in the face of the approaching End of the World, as best you could, but this new character seemingly doesn't care about any of that. I didn't care at all for the "new" character and felt completely lost: was I supposed to get "in character" and be cruel and selfish in the face of so much suffering everywhere? Actually, you can turn into a good guy via your actions and dialogues, which I did, but that always felt very off character throughout the entire game and considering how everyone reacts to you. Other than that, I felt like there was a maybe too much of playable characters around, with little "screen time" for each, which left very little room for character development, of course, which was disappointing. The mini events that pop up during your travels and demand some choices felt more difficult to understand the consequences of and more punishing this time around, not as satisfying in "building your own story" as in the first game. There was even one key moment almost at the end where I had to load from a previous save point when I was shocked that I had apparently agreed to betray a significant section of my "clan"/caravan and leave them behind... And I was sure I was selecting a "reasonable" answer and trying to get everyone to get along... The main plot was rather mysterious and cryptic to me, what you learn of what is happening from Eyvind and Juno leaves you with more questions than answers, and, sure enough, the game ends in a cliffhanger in a very short last scene where you don't even understand what 3 main characters were trying to accomplish. I don't mind mystery, the world and lore in this game is full of it, and it's good, but when you're feeling almost constantly lost during the whole game, it's not very satisfying in the end. Because of all this, the game wasn't as enjoyable as the first one, even a little frustrating at times. The love I had towards some characters from the first game was what really kept me hanging on to it.

In short, Syndicate is mostly a poorer version of Unity in all respects: gameplay, story, characters (historical or otherwise), quality and personality of the open-world and its side activities all feel less well done and/or memorable than in Unity. Gameplay is repetitive and not very engaging. The only advantage is that it runs better than Unity and with fewer bugs. Detail: You play as Jacob and Evie Frye, twin brothers in the Assassin Order that decide to go to Victorian London in 1868 - Jacob simply wants to kill every Templar and clear the city of the Blighters while Evie is more interested in finding the Piece of Eden and prevent the Templars from having it it. Supposedly Jacob is more combat thirsty and Evie more stealth oriented, but there's actually only 3 unique perks to each of them, and only Evie's camouflage perk (go invisible while standing for about 2 secs) is really noticeable. While you can do side activities with either of them, main story missions are locked to either Jacob or Evie. Also, I found it baffling that some Jacob missions' optional objectives involved stealth, while Evie could kill everyone with no penalty - so what's the point of making a character supposedly more combat focused, and another more stealth focus? There's an overall feeling of "quantity over quality", superficiality, shallowness to the open-world and its characters, events and missions. There's a million collectibles lying about, London is huge, but it feels populated rather than "alive". Supposedly there's background to the Conquest Activities that involve minor characters with a description in the database, but their description is so short and doing said activities them feels so inconsequential that you don't really care. Also, you do one the Conquest Activities, you've seen them all, really, and there's dozens of them. The grapling hook looks cool, but you'll realize the real reason you use it is that you want to get about and get things done as fast as possible, since there's little story and value to be had from them, except money and XP. There's hardly any crossing between the missions and historical events and the cameo appearances of Darwin, ****, Marx, etc. are little more than that, their missions boil down to the same elements. Gameplay is the same of Unity, except for the addition of the grappling hook and the removal of the ability to distract guards with objects you can pick up. In the combat department, I feel like it's even easier, even with the fact you have weaker melee weapons (no swords, just canes, knuckles, knives) and with the addition of enemies' ability to block, which you can simply use the "stun" button to counter it. I never felt like it was actually really helpful and "cool" to go stealth or non-lethal, mostly it was less hassle just to go in, kill everyone in combat and get to my objective. I hardly get the feeling I am an assassin, rather I felt like being a murderer. There's only a few instances that you'll want to kill a few enemies stealthily, in particular when you need to kidnap one enemy alive. Unless you don't care, since that is optional... Other than that you can pretty much just wreck and murder about it London with wild abandon without consequences other than alerting police and enemies nearby, that you can promptly kill. Civilians' reaction is mostly to scatter, if even that, but don't call the police. You can go on roofs and kill dozens of enemies on the ground with throwing knives right in front of each other, but they'll just look to the dead bodies wondering what happened... Oh, and the introduction of carriages and riding them is hilarious, they take little damage, horses don't mind collisions at all, you can drift around corners and pretty much lay untold wreckage in London like it's an everyday commonplace thing. The main story missions are just a minor step-up in mechanics and settings than the optional ones. Murder mysteries are PS4 time-exclusives, and co-op and heist missions are missing from Unity, and those were some of the best actual missions in Unity. The story is not very rich, there's not a lot of characters or character development. Who are the Assassins, 3 guys in London? The main antagonist mostly sits about the whole game, philosophizing, until you fight him in the last mission. The story dances around conflict between Evie's and Jacob's different methods on how to accomplish Assassins' goals, but there's little actual development of that, you just keep on playing. There's hardly any memorable moments, like in Unity's Versailles Ball, Notre Dame assassination, hot air balloon... Historical themes introduced like child labor, votes for women, working class vs high society are just superficially addressed, with little more than mentioning them here and there while you play the same mission types over and over. I suppose I should mention that the game looks and sounds impressive, but that's it.

In short: - Striking and stylish design - covert, secret agent feel - Addictive, engaging, suspenseful turn-by-turn strategic gameplay - continuously planning your next moves carefully - Satisfying stealth mechanics allow you to sneak about, kite and otherwise outplay the guards - Multiple characters, abilities, gear, augments, equipment and software provide different approaches - Atmospheric music setting the right tone of stealth and suspense of imminent detection - Good procedural generation of levels creating non-repetitive, non-impossible levels - Challenging but fair, with high ceiling for experience and skill - Interesting story and characters - Only one campaign but lots of replayability with multiple characters, gear, difficulty levels - Only suffers by being a bit on the short side; mitigated by replayability In detail: Invisible Inc. is a turn-based, grid-based stealth tactical espionage game which has inspirations from XCOM Enemy Unknown and F.T.L. Gameplay is divided between the world map, where you manage your agents and equipment and choose between the different available missions, and inside the missions themselves, where you control your agents in a similar fashion to XCOM EU. Stealth is key, since guards will shoot you if they see you. There are, though, deep and diverse mechanics that make it possible to have different tools and approaches allowing you to dance unnoticed around or divert/kite guards, infiltrate where you need to or even use lethal tactics if necessary, although you should use them as a last resort. Your agents move in an AP point system, you’ll constantly be planning how to move, taking care to notice guards’ movements for the next turn, in order to better place your agents. You can engage sprint in the beginning of the turn to get more AP should you want to risk making more noise… Moving around guards unnoticed is best, but you can and will be knocking guards unconscious to make progress. You can even grab and move their bodies across rooms, only they will wake up (more alert) after a few turns if no agent is pinning them to the ground. Other than your agents you have your AI available to you, which uses power you drain from on-site consoles to execute programs in order to break firewalls on other devices such as cameras, security gates, turrets, safes, mainframes, that will allow you to access them. Power is a limited resource, however, so you’ll need to plan its use carefully as well. Also each 5 turns the alarm level goes higher introducing some new measure by security: a new guard may spawn, firewalls on enemy devices may increase, previously disabled devices can be rebooted, and even daemons (enemy software) may be implemented. Whatever way you look at it, it’s a race against time, and either rushing or extending your stay will make it much more likely to be detected, and a full alert will make it virtually impossible for you to complete your objectives or even exfiltrate your agents alive. All this makes for a tense, suspenseful and exciting strategic turn-by-turn gameplay. Will you risk overstaying your welcome to fully explore your surroundings, possibly getting more of the precious loot? It’s always on your mind, especially since more loot, be it more credits or finding items, software, gear or augments, will allow you enchance your agents’ capabilities and since you can also level up your agents’ attributes with credits. The procedural generation is spot on, I could never rely on previous map knowledge, I always had to access the situation I was currently in. And never did I encounter a situation where the level was unbeatable due to bad placement or impossible patrol routines. It’s always of question of not getting yourself into too difficult missions if you are not ready (with better gear or software, leveled-up agents, etc), and solving your current puzzle. The game is challenging, but it you can tailor the difficulty with the different levels, in particular with regards to the number of “rewinds” to the previous turn you have. I found that experience, most of all, made me improve my skill from mission to mission and run to run making for a high skill ceiling and a fun game to try and master. The presentation is unique and striking, both visually and in the writing, with spot-on hi-tech secret agent jargon. The soundtrack is excellent, featuring suspenseful music that actually progresses as the alarm level goes up, building a crescendo in tension and excitement as you play. All of it is just so engaging I found myself losing track of time as I played. My only regret is that the main story isn’t a bit lengthier. But since the atmosphere is so right, the mechanics are so well built and balanced, the gameplay is so engaging and addictive, and there are so many different agents and gear/equipment, I find myself on my third playthrough and not even a bit tired of it.

Weaker back story and presentation overall compared to previous titles. Desmond is always in coma inside the animus, no real-life cutscenes. Appearance of Bill never explained. Overall story only picks up a little later in the game, before that it'is very weak, basically running around in Constantinople. Oh, and there's virtually no follow up to Lucy's death in the previous game. Ezio's and Altaïr's memories regarding to Piece of Eden are somewhat interesting, but only towards the end of the game. And getting Altaïr's memories consists mainly of linear platforming sections in hidden tombs that are nothing like the historic locations of wonder from previous games - it's just a race to the end. Open-world in the city: repetitive, not interesting missions, even assassin ones. Spend most of the time trying to get from A to B, dodging people (I'm getting cramps from constantly holding RMB, W and Space), and missions are not creative at all, end quickly, with targets that you don't care about - not very interesting. City is huge but feels soulless, NPCs are mostly dummies, it's difficult to relate to, and events and characters don't help construct interest and care for the historic time and place. Overwhelming amount of collectibles to get and shops and buildings to renovate and for what reason? Mostly simply achievements, so, it's almost exclusively a time sinker. And den defense is a boring as hell tower defense that I managed to save myself and avoid altogether by constantly paying Herald's 100A to keep Templar awareness down.... Combat and movement is the same as ever, that is to say it's clunky, with the same sometimes despairingly frustrating problems. Ezio keeps climbing or not climbing contrary to what you mean to do, making navigation frustrating, screwing up missions and challenges where you can't be detected or do things in a specific way. Targeting is difficult where there's many enemies, which is most of the time, making it difficult to fire or engaging a specific enemy, screwing up some challenges in missions like preventing allies from getting hurt. With all that, I ended up restarting memories a lot and feeling frustrated about it. Optional Desmond animus sections are visually cool, but there's only platforming to do, and it is frustrating and not rewarding - might as well just watch a YT video with the plot lines. Assassin management and world map control had potential, but ends up being a chore, and there's little rewards - some armor and weapons that are very good, granted, but you can complete the game just fine without them. Overall, playing this was mostly a drag, since the missions themselves were not creative and engaging in the slightest, and with all those control and combat problems, I ended up feeling like I should have just watched some videos on YT with the important cutscenes. There was little of the interest in the city, characters, events and historic locales that the previous games had. And almost everything you can do in the city "open world" is repetitive and boring, might as well not be there. Of course, graphics are still good, as well as acting and voices.

Having only barely known about "hacking" games, I decided to give it a shot, as this game was on sale for 2€. I found myself having mixed feelings about it, and writing a lot, so bear it with me. (skip to the last paragraph, above the PS, if in a hurry) Right off, you notice that the game doesn't support 16:9 or 16:10 resolutions and the text is small and hard to see, and nothing can be done about that. Still, I was intrigued and started playing. The intro of the story lacks a bit of depth and background, but you get the idea. The game is mainly played in a command-line console, with some other monitor screens that are the same throughout the game. Although the atmosphere is right (the music, though not brilliant, helps) the presentation is limited and repetitive, there's not much to see. Essentially, the gameplay is that of a slow paced puzzler where in each "level" you have to figure out the best way to complete the objectives (gain access to computers/systems, steal files/money, upload viruses/trojans, etc etc) by taking down security measures (passwords, encryption) in various nodes/computers in that screen, and also finding "hidden" ones. Each action raises your trace level; if it gets to 100% you get traced and loose. You’ll have to delete “footprints” of your activities and pay your ISP to reset your IP, etc, to manage that and avoid getting traced. It is very non-linear, you can never be sure what the best way to proceed is, and there are non-essential things you can do, which may or may not be to your advantage: for instance, you may find a link to new servers that have money to steal, but they can also have nothing of interest and only serve to increase your trace level. Also, you'll have to figure out if you'll risk spending money to upgrade your rig or save it to decrease the trace level when needed, which is always a tough choice. That said, progressing through the level and finding out what to do is mostly interesting, and the "exploration" involved actually makes you feel like you are "unwrapping" what happened, and helps telling the story and getting the plot forward. In the first two missions you have lots of help, which is nice if you start off without any knowledge about the series and/or command lines in general. In the third mission you’re more on your own, and that’s interesting. Then, I realized that your trace level sometimes carries from mission to mission (which was not explained), and you may find yourself in a situation where you raised it too high or didn’t get enough money on previous levels to have “room to breathe” to complete the next one. If that’s the case, all you can do is start from the very beginning of the game (!) which is extremely frustrating. There is no multiple save game slots, just the one! And there is no saving in the middle of a mission either! The fourth mission I found VERY difficult because of this. Then, on the fifth one, EVEN MORE DIFFICULT, I finally managed to proceed, but disregarding some “instructions” that were provided which supposedly I should have followed to get to the next level, which was a little confusing!! But apparently, there's (always?) more than one way to get past the level(s?). So, one can safely say the game is challenging and difficult. All this would still be ok, but the ending, let's just say, is just very abrupt, anti-climatic and unsatisfying. It's really a pity, I mean it wouldn't hurt to write some more lines of text and close the story properly... In short, the game has some fun if you like the hacking/command-line thing, but it is very a challenging game. Maybe that's part of the point of the game, but with the poor presentation, being repetitive, having a very bad ending, and sometimes being extremely punishing by making you start from the very beginning, I fear that unless you are very passionate about IT/hacking and also like very hard puzzles, it will more likely frustrate you than provide you with fun. (PS: comparing with the original game (Hacker Evolution), though, this one is better. Not going much into it, the previous one is even more punishing with some game-breaking flaws in the mechanics, imo. After finishing this one and playing a little of the first one, I find myself surprisingly cheering for this one. So, all things considered, if you want to try one, I recommend trying this one rather than the original.)

Dungeon Siege III, while not stellar, is a bit underrated or otherwise suffers unjustly from its departure from the original games of old. Those had more of a Diablo-like interface, with top down, mouse point&click, party management gameplay, with classes, gear and loot. Dungeon Siege III was clearly designed for consoles and controller use, as the keyboard and mouse controls are very awkward and it has a more 3rd person view. Without a controller, it is very difficult to play this game. I’m a fan of the original game, and I found that despite the change in paradigm to a 3rd person hack and slash action RPG designed for the controller, the Dungeon Siege “feel” is there. Experiencing the different events in the story, meeting new characters and talking to them, going from location to location, playing the combat, collecting loot, and optimizing abilities and equipment in regards to combat, all was rather enjoyable. None was arguably groundbreaking, but was interesting and enjoyable enough to keep me invested for 32 hours, which, in retrospect, is saying something. RPG-wise, it’s actually quite deep with lots of stats and mechanics. You choose from 4 different main characters with different characteristics and play styles: meele/tank, ranged character, an agile fire magic warrior and a spell casting mage/scientist. One of the other characters follows you as an AI companion. Each character has 2 switchable stances, with one attack and 3 active abilities each. Characters also have 3 defensive abilities. Active abilities include heavier or AOE attacks, buffs/debuffs, summoned creatures, etc. Defensive abilities include healing, pushing back of enemies or buffing yourself. Mastering attacks and abilities by using them unlocks empowered versions of them. As you level up, you can develop each of your abilities in a branching choice, for instance do you want more damage or increased chance to knockback opponents? You can go all in on one, or choose any balance between the two. Additionally, there are passive “talents” (buffs) to level up. With all this and also the different equipment you loot, buy and enhance with enchantments (3 weapon slots, 4 armor, a ring and a pendant), with different stats, you have a vast array of possibilities. You can choose the abilities’ perks to work well with one another enhancing your favorite play style, and also compliment your companion’s abilities to your own, which is very satisfying. However, sometimes it’s a bit difficult to perform actions from different stances in the heat of battle with a lot going on. Also, the way aiming works is a bit awkward, especially for ranged combat, as you have to move in the direction of an enemy to soft lock on it. This results in sometimes having to move away to get a better line of sight to the desired target. I got used to it, though. Additionally, the companion AI is not ideal, though it’s reasonable. Local coop should be fun. I won’t spoil the story, which I found surprisingly interesting, meaning that the game is far from a loot fest. Events are set approximately 150 years after the first game, much of what once was has fallen or faded, which also means you don’t need to play the other games to enjoy this one. You’ll learn of what happened as you progress in the game, your journey has always that tone of grandeur lost as you seek to re-establish some of that. You’ll meet interesting characters and the plot will make you reflect on your actions and compare them to the main antagonist, and also think about your dialogue choices. The voice acting is also good and the dialogues lengthy. The lore is very well done, tying in nicely to the Dungeon Siege universe, and is deepened by finding some books or documents, and talking to characters. You’ll even explore a location directly related to the characters of the first game, which was extremely satisfying for a fan. The progression is mostly linear with growing scale of locations, enemies and events. It’s an action RPG, but the pacing and amount of enemies is not insane like for instance on Diablo 3, though some battles are more enemy heavy. Though there are different and varied locations with enemies matching them, “dungeons” aren’t as big as in the first game, but nonetheless acceptably lengthy. The camera is always restricted to look down a little, so you can’t tilt it up and enjoy the scenery in a more 1st person style, which is a shame. That restriction also sometimes doesn't provide the best view for combat either. Though different equipment reflects visibly on the characters, there’s no way to view the full character close up and rotate it, like in a character screen. The HUD is somewhat simplistic, as are the indications above enemies, which at first makes it a bit difficult to understand what’s going on. The soundtrack is quite good, mostly in the atmospheric orchestral style, aiding to that tone of grandeur lost, but with tense and epic combat sequences.

This is a solid survival horror game, with good production values, but, ultimately, it falls a bit flat on the storytelling and on the gameplay side of things, which is a shame. You play as a journalist that received information from a whistle-blower about "wrong" things happening on some mental asylum, and decide to go in and investigate, bringing your camera along. Without spoiling, as you arrive to the huge facilities, the place seems deserted, and soon enough, as you would expect, you encounter some pretty gory and disturbing stuff and the sh** hits the fan. So, a very cliché setting. The "horror" side of things is provided mostly with the atmosphere, the gore, and some jump scares (which are a bit predictable), nothing out of the ordinary. What is quite interesting here is the camera mechanics. You'll need your camera's night vision to navigate the numerous dark sections of the game, but also (and more importantly) you need the camera to record the events that you see. Only with your camera up will you be able to record your "notes" that you can read on the menu and provide some insight on what's going on. Problem is, using the camera, and night vision in particular, consumes batteries, and there's a limited supply of those around. Those notes and some scattered documents that you can search for throughout the game comprise most of the exposition you'll ever get. It sounded good, but, I felt that these documents and your "notes" are either a bit cryptic or otherwise not very informative or engaging. Also, you mostly encounter faceless zombie-like people, which you don't care much for. You'll also meet some characters, but there's hardly any dialogue or character development, and no cutscenes, which makes progression a matter of "do this, go there" where you don't have much agency or motivation other than because it's the way the game is. And basically you spend most of your time chasing after a character that seems to go out of his way to put obstacles between you or goes in the most bizarre labyrinthic path. I also found that the places you traverse along the way have little personality or "history", despite the potential of the setting and location. The setting and plot had much potential for more exploration of the characters, locations and stories. Outside of that, the game mechanics involve stealth, trying to stay out of sight and earshot or hide so as to manoeuvre around enemies, while finding keys or other objects, or activating some things to be able to progress. As you're just a feeble journalist, you cannot do any fighting whatsoever. While in theory it sounds good and oppressive, because you have no way to distract an enemy, it boils down too much to trial and error, which ultimately is more frustrating than scary as you are caught and die over and over again. After the first encounters you'll quickly realise this and it rapidly goes from scary to frustrating. Visually, it's very good, the visuals are very high quality with very good effects, especially the lighting system and your camera's night vision, which truly lend to a disturbing and scary atmosphere. There are multiple dark sections and the rainy sections on night vision are absolutely stellar. The sound is also on par, except that sometimes I found the positional audio a bit off, making it difficult to sneak around and understand the position of enemies with sound. In closing, though the production values are there, I found the storytelling a poor and the gameplay quickly went from providing tension, fright and scares to frustration and annoyance over its trial and error nature.

TL;DR: the "de facto" best Star Trek style spaceship commander simulator, in a "rogue-light", addictive and challenging gameplay, with undeniable charm, an impressive atmosphere, and absolutely stunning soundtrack. Multiple ships, ship systems, weapons, crew races, expanded upon with the FREE Advanced Edition, provide a variety of play styles and endless replayability. In FTL you control a medium-sized spaceship and its crew carrying vital data to the Federation fleet. You are being pursued by the Rebel fleet and must stay ahead of it by doing FTL jumps between beacons of each sector and from sector to sector until you finally reach your main fleet. Problem is, it's an hostile universe out there, and you'll never know what you'll encounter on the next beacon... In the beginning you can pick between multiple ship types (that you unlock as you play), each with different crew compliments and systems that will make for different play styles. The meat of the game plays as a strategy real-time (pausable) "rogue-light", where you control your ship and crew from a top-down view, managing which crew member mans which system (engines, shields, weapons, helm, etc) for a better performance, when and how to fire weapons and also the allocation of power to each system. Crew members of different races have different bonus: one repair systems quicker, one provide extra power to the room they're in, one are excellent fighters, one are immune to fire, etc. You won't have power for everything, and also depending what systems/weapons you have and your crew type, you have to adapt and optimize your strategy and approach to your encounters. And you'll encounter a lot: other ships, some hostile, some friendly; there's even mini-quests and mini optional "story arcs" that you can go on. Not only that but also dangerous asteroid fields, nebulas that interfere with your shields and sensors, suns that burst out flares and set your ship on fire. The real-time battles, despite being pausable, are usually pretty tense. You'll mostly be trying to damage or disable enemy shields and damaging their systems, such as shields and weapons, until you destroy their ship. Or you can beam up a boarding party, kill everyone and take control of the ship, or you can bypass their shields by hurling missiles or beaming up bombs (limited supply of these), etc. Or you can just run for it if things are too hot. And the best thing is, the enemies can do the exact same things! Battles will damage your systems, breach your hull, ignite fires, and that's where you'll need your best managing skills to keep things under control on the heat of battle. Sometimes things just happen too fast, you were not prepared, and you're blown into oblivion and have to start from the beginning. It's an unforgiving universe... After each battle you win, you can get random upgrades but you'll mostly accumulate scrap, which can be used to upgrade your ship's system and go to stores to buy consumables (like jump fuel and missiles) or weapons and systems; or even recruit more crew members. You'll need scrap badly, but how far is it reasonable to risk potentially lethal encounters on its pursuit? Between that and much more, like controlling blast doors and managing oxygen supply in case of a fire or breach, or also venting rooms in your ship to put out fires or choke intruders to death, FTL manages to be the most complete and realistic spaceship simulator, Star Trek style, that I've ever know, despite its 2D, top-down, pixel art style. You can only "save&quit", if you lose, you have to start from the beginning. Some "runs" will go better than others, it always depends on your ability to adapt and optimize your play style, but it also depends a bit on being fortunate enough on finding a really good upgrade or weapon after a battle or on a store. That can be a bit frustrating, but you'll learn a lot from your mistakes. And after finishing the game, you'll realize that you couldn't have done it if you hadn't learned so much. So it rewards you for your failures and efforts. The soundtrack is just absolutely brilliant, one of the best in my memory, being part charming old-school style 8-bit tunes, part dreamy sci-fi space sounds, it provides a unique atmosphere that immerses completely. The overall style oozes charms and tender care, despite being a very challenging and unforgiving game. With the addition of Advanced Edition, completely free, bringing more races, more ships, more weapons and systems, and also more encounters, the game has an impressive amount of content that can get you on it for dozens of hours. If you like space sci-fi strategy games, particularly commanding ships Star Trek style, this is for you. If you get frustrated easily with a challenge, maybe approach it carefully, but you'll be missing out.

140 is a minimalistic and abstract platformer rhythm game. There are no lives, menus, tutorials or hand-holding: it's you and the game. The levels are composed of platforms and blocks with different properties that respond to the "periodic nature" of the music/rhythm, comprising of minimal dubstep with a subtle hint of chiptunes. (At places, it reminded me of Krafwerk). Besides watching, listening to the music/rhythm, feeling it, is essential to figure out how the obstacles work, enabling you progress. This discovery involves some trial and error, but there are frequent seamless checkpoints that almost immediately respawn you when you fail. As you progress along each level the music and rhythm patterns become more complex, making for more complex obstacle sequences, which creates a sense of momentum and exhilaration as you move along. At the end of each of the 3 groups of levels, there is a "boss", which is challenging but spectacular. The overall design of this game is nothing short of brilliant: the music and visuals/blocks are synergistically woven together; the platforming elements and obstacles nail the sweet spot between recognizability and making you pause a moment to observe and think; the flow and pacing are perfect and the aesthetic, both in visuals and music is the definition of minimal beauty. Because "dying" hurts the flow of the music, I felt the game instilling me a desire to play without errors on further playthroughs, and mastering this game and being able to finish it in one go would be a truly special achievement. You could try just that: after finishing the game you unlock a special mode where you can start from the beginning with the levels horizontally reversed and, if you die, you start from the beginning... 140 managed to provide me one of the most immersive and memorable experiences I ever had in gaming. There are only two things keeping me from giving it a perfect score. Firstly, the game is somewhat short (it took me about 1h to complete? in one sitting) and left me wanting more. Secondly, the final "boss" is quite difficult and I suspect will frustrate some people because it involves not only realising the pattern but also using very fast eye-hand reactions. However, there is something very special about this game, so minimal and yet so complete.

Review as of May 2014 by a non-fanboy who never played Diablo nor Diablo 2. I think maybe the closest game I've played to this was Dungeon Siege I & II back in the day. In Diablo 3 you only have 1 AI follower at a time, except if you play with friends, but even then, the gameplay boils down to INFINITE grinding and looting. The different classes have some depth, but you'll eventually find your favourite 4 active skills and 3 passive skills and there's little incentive to change your play style, especially on higher difficulties where you need to be fast and precise and not be burdened by experimenting around. Nevertheless, the combat is ok, the 4 active skills you can choose at a time (from a wider offer which you keep unlocking as you level up) provide some strategy opportunity, but really it comes down to either you can kill the monsters or you need to escape and lower the game difficulty. The different locations are really not particularly interesting, and the progress through them is very linear. The story and its presentation is SHOCKINGLY poor! It's basically a poor excuse to allow to unlock new paths (always very linear, btw) and keep progressing. Progressing? I should say keep grinding and looting. And the allure of looting better stuff can only motivate you so much. There is not much lore, interesting side quests, characters or really RPG elements other than combat stats. If you expect an adventure with an interesting story and characters, you'll find none of this, I fear. Instead, this boils down to infinite grinding of monsters. Even if you play with friends, which I haven't, I don't know that you'll get much out of it other than keep grinding to get loot in order to keep grinding and keep getting loot... Frankly, I finished the single player out of spite for the money I spent, which was not a cheap amount... I was not left with good memories.

I'm not a big fan of point and click adventure games, I usually find them usually too boring or with excessively contrived puzzles. However, seeing the trailer for this one got me to play the demo on steam. Quite frankly, the demo blew my mind, I couldn't wait to play the rest. After buying all 4 episodes and having just finished the first, and it's everything I hoped for, and more. In short: try the demo on steam and know that the game builds and expands on that, especially on the "puzzler" side. You play as Erica Reed, FBI detective in this puzzle, murder investigation thriller, point and click adventure game. The game has very immersive atmosphere supported by nice art and beautiful music, ranging appropriately from relaxed and melancholic to foreboding and tense. Additionally, the voice acting is superb across the board, giving life to the characters and supporting a very good story, gripping and often emotional as well. While you're putting your puzzles together, you're not just figuring out gimmicky, weird puzzle mechanics, you're actually using clues and information you uncover on your investigations in a quite logical manner. Furthermore, and not to spoil anything, Erica's special "intuition" talent is cool tool for finding clues that is very well realized and interesting to watch. So, you'll actually feel that you're unravelling the mysteries and learning more and more about the story. Making progress provided me with a lot of "oh!" moments, when I felt that rush after you just realized something new that happened in the story, and made me feel gripped by it. There are very good scenes to be had, especially one close to the end, where the voice acting, the writing, the art and the music all came together in a magical, memorable way. There's even some tense "action puzzle" scenes, which were very interesting as well, I wasn't expecting to be so engaged and tense by a point and click puzzler. I only stumbled very occasionally on a puzzle here and there, and I found out that it was my fault in missing some info or other. If you're stuck, you can text your dad, a former police investigator, and he will give you hints on things you've missed that point you in the right direction without giving it away. A very cool system, I thought, hitting the balance between preventing real frustration while making you "do the work" without straight giving you the solution. With all this, I found the puzzles overall to be interesting, logical instead of randomly contrived and virtually non-frustrating. There's only a few cons to these game, in my opinion. There are occasional bugs involving the characters' placement and movement on the screen, but they "fix themselves" straight away without disturbing the game. The other "problem" is that the game is sometimes a little slow, not only the overall pacing of the story but (and more importantly, I think), while you're clicking and waiting for the characters to do their animations. Still, one can argue that the slowish pacing enhances the immersion and enjoyment of the game by exposing you more to the very good atmosphere overall. It's not often that a game surprises me so. If you are ready to put some quiet time aside for this, you'll be rewarded with a good mystery story, with some sparks of beauty, that will make you feel the more engaged the more you progress through the puzzles, and even has some interesting and tense "action puzzles". Again, you can't go wrong in trying the demo for yourself.

Hell, boy, Gunslinger is the fastest single-player FPS in the West! Where most of them "shooters" nowadays go all serious and business-like, arguing fancy tactics and whatnot, Gunslinger is like jumping off a stagecoach, off-loading lead from your trusted six-shooter while pouring down your favourite Whiskey refreshment. The game plays as a fast-paced, action-packed shooter, with a story and presentation style that capture the exciting atmosphere and feel of the "Wild West", with all the tropes from your favourite Westerns. If you like shooters or have even a remote interest in the Wild West, I challenge you to try the demo and not be hooked. You get a taste of the full game, the rest is pretty faithful to that demo. The gunplay is really great, and the gameplay mechanics with "concentration" (kind of a bullet time) and "sense of death" (last chance to dodge that bullet that was about to kill you) are really satisfying and fun. Plus, it features different tropey locales and situations, like prison escape, bank heists, mines, indian caves, train robberies, ghost towns, etc etc. The graphics engine is really good, providing nice detail and beautiful sceneries, and is as fast as the action itself, with ultra high fps even in the highest quality settings. Hell, boy, I ain't had this much fun shooting since Lord knows when. TRY IT!

At first glance you may wonder if this DLC isn't just more of the same. However, that is far from the truth. This review is long, with emphasis on the historic and political side of things, bear it with me. Skip the next paragraph if you know about the "Gempei War". The DLC's campaign is set on the "Gempei War", a period of time very unjustly overshadowed by the Sengoku Jidai, which is more wildly known, but is actually very rich and vibrant, both politically and militarily. Before 1180, two rival "warrior-class" clans, the Taira and the Minamoto, had been gaining more and more power over the Imperial Court by performing various "military" deeds and getting rewards from the court in the form of lands and titles. This was at the expense of the Fujiwara family, who were from the nobility class, and previously had had the most influence over the court and the Emperor himself, intermarrying into the Imperial family for generations and thus pulling all the strings of power. In 1180, the Taira clan's leader Kiyomori put his 2-year old grandson on the the throne, in detriment of the Emperor's son, Mochihito, the rightful heir. This provoked Mochihito to seek the aid of the Minamoto and raise a call to arms against the Taira. Different clans aligned themselves with the Taira and the Minamoto. After much fighting, eventually the Minamoto won and in 1192 established the Kamakura Shogunate, essentialy the first feudal government in Japan controlled by the warrior class (before, only nobility populated the court). The Fujiwara were exiled in northern Japan, away from power. Ironically, Prince Mochihito's call for help ended up further taking effective power away from the Emperor, the Court and the nobility class, reinforcing an usurpation of Imperial power by the warrior class which later reached its peak with the Tokugawa Shogunate. The game reflects all these Gempei War localisations very well in many aspects and adds these different dimensions to the gameplay, which complement the militaristic side very well and add to the overall strategic layer of things. Firstly, there are the 3 main families available to play, Taira, Minamoto and Fujiwara. Each has 2 clans two choose from, reflecting the distinct branches of each family. Each of these 6 has different and richer (not just military) stat modifiers reflecting their own characteristics and enabling different play styles and campaign experiences. Allegiance plays a huge role now: there there are a multitude of non-playable clans, each with its own allegiance, and the provinces' population itself has an allegiance. So, while you can still be the military genius and crush everyone, you should take into account this new aspects, you must remember you are answering the Emperor's call to arms, otherwise you'll have no support from other clans and favour from the populace and court in your claims to power. The Junsatsushi is the new agent for this. They enable the conversion of population to your allegiance, the paying off of enemy armies *and* the requesting of allegiance from other provinces to join your clan. You now effectively gain control of enemy provinces by converting the population to your allegiance and then requesting them to join you, kicking out their previous rulers. Very interesting. And, of course, all the diplomatic relations between different clans will take this into account as well, making it very interesting to plot your way through with negotiations, alliances, vassals, backstabbings, etc. Also interesting is the Shirabyoshi agent, female entertainers/dancers dressed as men, who can not only seduce enemy generals to join your side but also distract enemy armies, making them "lose a turn" (very interesting for campaign map army manoeuvring tactics), or entertaining your generals in order to raise their loyalty. Very nice touches of flavour. There's also the Monomi agent, basically a ninja, and the Sou, preacher-like characters that can inspire, demoralize and incite revolts. In short, while the battle/military aspects of the game may not provide a fundamentally distinct experience from the original Shogun 2 (no guns now, though), the new allegiance element provides a whole new strategic dimension to the game, bringing much flavour and fun to it. The Shirabyoshi agent also adds to this, and brings more falvour. Because all this, I highly recommend you take the trouble to read a little bit about the Gempei War (wikipedia, fast to read) and try this DLC.

This game is just the definition of groovy! You can call it a "platformer", though you're floating in a water world, with "puzzle" and action elements, in which the rhythm and beats of the music play a huge role. There's a variety of puzzles, some combat and other action sequences as well. The integration of the groovy music/rhythms with what you do and the seamless progression of it throughout levels and situations is nothing short of marvellous. Even every character you meet has their own recognizable beat (that rhymed, which is pertinent here, ahah). Much like the funny characters, the art style is colourful and cute, making it a pleasure to explore the rich world. The pacing is just masterful, you keep flowing through the levels with the music and the beats, and never get "stuck" in a puzzle for long. I've played the first two levels now, and was so completely engrossed that I lost all sense of time, only to, at the end of each one, be informed by the game it took me about 50 minutes to complete each. It's just that fun! I like electronic/beat-box music a lot, and the game made me want to start dancing numerous times! If you like music games and/or platformers you'll totally have a blast with this game. I haven't had this much fun in a game for a while. And even if that's not your thing, I recommend you try the demo (available on steam) for I suspect you'll enjoy it.

"Lilly Looking Through" is an adventure/puzzle game in a somewhat minimalistic approach, with a very relaxing and heart warming atmosphere. The presentation of the game is nothing short of magical. The art is beautiful, the music is dreamy and ethereal, and the characters' animations are most exquisite. The kids, Lilly and Row are so cute and animate so well that right from the start it was unbelievably endearing. The game immersed me in a feeling of childhood, with all that innocence, curiosity, cuteness and sense of awe and adventure, like I never have experienced before. Speaking of the actual gameplay, it plays like a point and click puzzle adventure where one needs to figure out how to get past the obstacles of each screen to progress to the next. I can't spoil you, so I'll just say that along the way you pick up an item that not only serves as an excellent, original and creative device for the puzzling itself, but adds to the wonder and magic of the game and its world as well. Some of the puzzles are quite hard to figure out, but the hint system, which highlights items/actions you can click makes sure you're not missing out on where you can click, so you can focus on the puzzles themselves. If you have no patience for this genre (or in general), though, or you can't stand low tempo, relaxed games, I wouldn't recommend it. Despite all that I loved about the game, which was, in a nutshell, that it provided me with a nostalgic reliving of the magical feelings of childhood, the game has some problems. Mainly, it's short, around 2-3 hours long, which is a pity and a little frustrating. Towards the end, the puzzles get a bit repetitive in "theme", and their mechanics get a bit more cryptic, thought one can argue that's the point of a puzzle game. But more importantly, and again, without spoiling, the end has little closure and feels more like a cliffhanger than an actual resolution it's surprisingly abrupt and open. Also, it creates the idea that there will be a "sequel"/continuation, one feels that there should be, that the game/story isn't quite finished. It pains me to give such a relatively low score to this game, because, in spite of its failings, the game is so magical and endearing that I was really impressed. It was one the most memorable gaming experiences ever I had. I really hope that there will be more and longer "Lilly" in the future.

In short, Tomb Raider provides an amazing adventure and a wonderful experience. It intermixes and balances very well exploration, action, combat and story, alternating between those just with the right frequency so you’ll never grow weary of any one of them in particular. And each of them is not just superficial: they’re deep enough and enjoyable. Throughout the game you’ll see Lara’s character develop and build, and you will witness and experience her becoming what you know from the past games. It’s her origin story, and after finishing it you’ll feel she is reborn. I’ll go into more detail. The environments are beautifully realistic and atmospheric making the exploration very immersive. The visual presentation is stunning with various downright jaw dropping and/or even “magical” settings. There’s a lot of diversity in the locations, they’re not repetitive. Also, they are very well interwoven with the story and the “culture(s)” present in the island, with lots of personality. The weather and time of day keeps changing making it a joy to watch and also provides encouragement to revisit locations. I didn’t find the main path of the game too linear; there are lots of open spaces off that path you can explore. You’ll encounter the optional Tombs there. The puzzles you’ll encounter are mainly on them and aren’t that long or complex, so you’ll not be frustrated or bored, but have just the amount of challenge to make you pause and think. The pacing of the game and the unraveling of the story is just masterful. The way the scale evolves is very pleasing and exciting. Lara begins inexperienced, with limited capabilities and very scared, trying desperately to be reunited with her colleagues. You feel her vulnerability and desperation in face of the extreme circumstances she’s in and only with the support and encouragement of the expedition’s captain is she able to build up courage and confidence, thus progressively gaining new skills and determination. The level up system used for this is superbly designed, as the experience gained allows Lara to develop new skills that not only increase the gameplay possibilities but also develop and define Lara as a character. It’s exhilarating to witness and feel Lara’s growth in skills, confidence and determination. And you are growing along with her in your skill within the game. It truly made me feel like I was living the adventure. One detail I loved is that Lara sometimes “talks to herself” as she progresses in the environments. She often will be thinking out loud about how she can get where she needs or do what she must or comment on the history on documents and relics she finds, providing insightful information. In the action sequences she will also react to what’s going on with screams, groans of pain, etc. All this made the game more personal and involving. I found the combat to be very enjoyable and diverse, with just the right difficulty as to be tense without being frustrating. Sometimes you’ll have the option of using stealth, which is preferable particularly in the beginning where you’re not that powerful. In regular combat the enemies try to take cover and to flush you out of cover with grenades or molotovs. If you camp a little some will also try to use suppressive fire wire others try to get close. When that happens, the melee combat with its dodge-counter mechanics makes things feel very up close. I had no complaints about the AI. One remark that could be made is that Lara maybe gets a little too powerful, taking down various groups of enemies when she’s so young. Still, she never feels overly “Rambo” or “arcade”, and as the combat is so enjoyable it’s easy to “forgive” this. And nevertheless you’ll die sometimes and are thus always reminded of the imminent danger: some death animations are just brutal and make you really feel them. The ending was epic and memorable without being insanely over the top as to make it unbelievable. To finish, being a fan of Tomb Raider since the first game I had very high expectations and was very pleased to be impressed. Personally, I would have preferred if there were a little more Tombs and them being a little longer, but as the game is so well balanced and crafted I’m more than satisfied.

I decided to write this review after being surprised at the low user score 5.5 (as of 22-June 2012) and reading some of the negative reviews. I think one thing you have to bear in the mind, and most negative reviews don't, is that this game is targeted towards players new to magic or players who want a casual experience, even if they may be very experienced. For players completely new to Magic, the tutorials may be a little lacking, but that's always the case: the best way to learn the basics of Magic is with a friend/tutor. After handling the basics, the tutorials here and the experience playing will make the rest of the learning. This game features 10 decks of various colours including some multi-colored ones. Each deck has its own "theme" and I found that the themes are well-explored, fun and comprise a good diverseness of Magic/deck styles. Each deck has additional 20 cards to unlock as you win games with it. After unlocking cards you can enter the deck manager and add/remove cards as you please within the pool of each specific deck. The game automatically adds lands for you according to the cards and colours of your deck, and you cannot control the numbers lands you have. Also, you cannot create your own original decks. You begin with a few decks and unlock new ones during the single-player campaign (against the computer) when you beat them. There's the default campaign and the "revenge" version of it, where the opponents have better cards in their deck, the same ones you can unlock, which makes it more challenging and competitive. There's also the Archenemy campaign which lends an interesting twist on the traditional Magic formula. In Archenemy you play with two AI team mates against a single opponent, the Archenemy, which has special "scheme" cards which are powerful and equalize his disadvantage. There are some single-player puzzles which, similar to chess puzzles, will make you push the boundaries of magic-thinking and improve your depth in the game. Lastly, in online multiplayer you can play 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2 and Archenemy. Sometimes online there's a little lag, which may make it you will not be able to play some cards at the exact timing you want, which is a little frustrating and can break some games, especially tight ones. The AI, for the most part, does a nice job in playing Magic, but of course it isn't going as deep as a human player can. The real annoying thing that can happen is, because you don't choose which lands to tap to play spells, sometimes you have lands to play spells of different colours, but the AI will tap some of the coloured lands too much and you end up with no more lands of that colour available. So, the verdict: despite the technical issues I mentioned, Planeswalkers 2012 is a good game, especially for players in search **** Magic experience without all the magnitude and cost of real life Magic or Magic Online. The decks have soul and interesting cards and the variety of the decks makes for a good magic experience in the vast universe the different colours and game styles provide. This makes sure no duel is the same as before and that things are interesting and fun for a long time. And for 8.99

This is a very good and fun game to play with your friends! Heavily inspired by the 2nd Aliens movie, it takes all the best from that sci-fi Aliens-like lore. The execution of the game's storyline is nice and of the gameplay elements just brilliant, powered by the Source engine. It plays as a top-down view 4-player co-op tactical shooter. There are 4 well designed classes of marines, each with its strengths and weaknesses: Sarge, Weapons Specialist, Tech and Medic. You'll need each of them, so the game inuitively encourages the co-op of 4 friends and is at its best in that. As you play and work together you will feel engaged and rewarded for cooperating and coordinating with each other. The campaign has a good pace with multiple missions and a nice variety of objectives and situations, like those you would expect from the Aliens series. Before each mission there's a briefing screen when you can review the map and objectives and select the best gear for it. There's also lots of weapons and items to unlock as you level up. There are some really nice touches, like being able to draw on the mission map with your mouse, either in the briefing or during missions, to help plan and coordinate strategies, or reviewing your performance after a mission with different charts and an animation of the teams progress on the map. Connecting your friends together in the same game is effortless via the main menu. It lets you create public or friend-only games and lists friends playing and friend-created games available, which you can join with a click - no dedicated servers needed nor ip details. The only downsides I found are that the in-game voice chat support had some noise and that there is only one official campaign. But you can always use skype for voice chat and there are more fantastic fan-made maps and campaigns, like for instance the MapPack 1.2 which you can easily find. All in all, an amazing free to play game with lots of fun to be had especially in a group of 4 friends.