Dozmo

A good game, but not one you will stick with for a long time. To be sure, you can design some amazing death-traps, and finally making it through the gauntlet to someone's vault feels amazing. That said, there is only one highly effective defense design: the combination lock. This isn't just un-fun to play against, it is also, after awhile, boring to watch people die to in your own house. It would be great if you could setup multiple houses using creative solutions and see how people fare. Unfortunately, the game is so punishing when you get robbed or (even worse) die, that you can't afford to be the slightest bit merciful. The result is a game that has such harsh penalties for failure that you have to be really, really enjoying it to keep playing, because the slightest mistake results in you losing everything. There are only so many times one can be forced to start over from scratch before "screw this" becomes the default response. I still endorse buying the game. It is cheap, it is fun for awhile, and you can be pretty creative. Just don't expect to play it for a long time. It is not a game that lasts.

Very disappointing. A good game for most, but, playing as a mage, I felt it left much to be desired. The magic system overall is weak, and most of the interesting bits from Oblivion (such as custom spells) have been removed entirely. Additionally, melee classes get effective access to magic via shouts, which just feels cheap and marketing-driven. If you want to play a melee character, then yes, perhaps try it, but if you want to play a magic-user, skip this one entirely and just get Oblivion instead. It is a far better experience, and cheaper too.

Oh god, the horror. C&C is a RTS series about base building and military expansion. This sequel completely guts those elements, but you don't find that out until after you've bought it. What a horrible, truly pathetic end to the series. It only even gets 1 point due to having Kain in it. Were it not for that, I'd have rated it a 0.

Boring. It plays more like a child's construction set than a real game. This may be acceptable for an iPad or mobile game, but us PC gamers demand more from our games than this.

Essentially, it is a Total Annihilation / Supreme Commander clone, but more expensive, higher system requirements, and a few gimmicky things involving interplanetary movement. Worth trying for a hardcore RTS fan, just for the novelty of strapping engines to an asteroid and ramming your foe's planet with it. Don't expect it to hold your attention for long, though. You're probably better off buying TA or SupCom I / Forged Alliance instead. Just don't get SupCom II - that game isn't even deserving of the middling score this gets.

One of the top 5 genre-defining strategy games, well up there with Supreme Commander, Total Annihilation, Command and Conqueror, Dune, etc. Any serious fan of strategy games owes it to themselves to play this - it is the source of many of the genre's conventions. The graphics are dated, yes, but everything else is of legendary quality, and you can pick it up fairly cheaply nowadays.

Great. Interesting characters - who you genuinely care about, because they can die at any time. Varied skills - which can really shake up the field of play. A variety of classes - which really do play differently. Lots of tactical options to consider and with the expansions/DLC, even more. I'm not typically a TBS player, but even I found this to be a great game. The only caveats are that the action can be a little slow at times (e.g: chasing down the last few aliens on a map), and the base-building part of the game seemed underdeveloped (at least, without the DLC).

Oh dear. While the graphics have improved, many core gameplay elements have been changed from prior versions of the Civ series, and not typically for the better. For example, you can now only put one unit on each tile - which makes moving your army a massive chore compared to previous games. City-states also require a lot more micromanagement than previous games where you dealt only with the big empires. All in all, it feels like the game has been dumbed down, with too much focus on graphics over gameplay, relative to the previous titles in the series. If you haven't played strategy games before, you can try it. If you have, though, you're better off with Civ 4, or one of the older games in the series.

Very, very good. Interesting locations, NPCs, quests and storyline. Great character customization options, even for your NPC party members. Even pulls off humor with surprising frequency. There are one or two minor ****, like the fact some NPC companions start off with sub-optimal skillsets, but that can be fixed with mods. All in all, one of the best RPGs I've ever played. Just don't bother with the sequel, DA2 isn't as good as this.

One of the best games ever made. Incredible options for character customization - beyond anything most players have likely seen before in a game. Genuinely interesting NPCs and quests. Online multiplayer. In short, it has everything. The graphics are quite dated, sure, but in terms of gameplay, it is arguably the best RPG ever made.

Good. Tight visuals. Good sound. Nice level design. Variety of turrets and upgrades. Multiple viable strategies. Interesting NPCs. Genuinely difficult in places. Not the longest game (probably doable in 6 hours if you're good), but fun throughout. I only wish there was more of it. I would suggest this to anyone interested in starship piloting.

Fun, for about an hour. Then you ask "where's the rest of the game?", only to find the answer is "there isn't one". Abandoned by its developer, and unlikely to get any more updates, it isn't worth shelling out for. Sad, because it had such great potential for an alpha. Now, an alpha is all it will ever be.

An excellent game with a few annoying bugs. If you're into RTS/management games, and willing to do a bit of reading to learn how to play, give this a try. Designing a prison which almost runs itself is very satisfying, especially when trouble happens but your design means even minor issues are handled automatically. There are a few annoying bugs, like characters getting stuck going around corners, but none of them are game-breaking. The game loads up in seconds, and is mostly intuitive, with a few exceptions such as managing your prison's electrical grid. I would give this game 10/10, except for the few bugs and areas which are very counter-intuitive. Overall, though, still a great game and one I would suggest for any RTS or management game fan. It is almost like a hugely simplified but better presented version of Dwarf Fortress, or a less comedic version of Evil Genius that concentrates on internal threats rather than external ones. Worth the money.

The art is good, and the gameplay is entertaining at low level, but it quickly loses its charm once you realize how it is designed. The design pushes you to either spend huge amounts of time grinding for crafting ingredients, or spend real money in the store. I could forgive this in a completely F2P game, but I paid $40 for the game back in closed beta, so I feel cheated now I've seen what the game has become. Whether you Pay2Win or not, castle defense is still unviable, to the point that many of the players who play primary for the "design a castle full of traps" gameplay (myself included) no longer play. I wish I could say I have faith that the developers will improve things, but I don't. They have a history of making changes which even I (a casual player) can see would end badly, such as "open creation". In that change, they removed the old limits on where you could place creatures in your castle. So, obviously, players started putting a whole castle's quota of monsters in the same room. Ubisoft should have realized players would make the obvious optimization after the patch, but they did not. Worse, in a hurried attempt to address hordes of mostly-empty castles, they introduced "attack tickets", which both have silly effects (monsters run away from you instead of attacking you, even while you kill their comrades) and also remove a lot of the skill from castle defense (it is no longer possible to trick or trap the player into pulling a horde of monsters when they only intended to pull a small group). All in all, they spent a lot of developer effort to change the system several times, and ultimately ended up with a system which is less fun and less flexible than the original system. So, I can't suggest this game. If you want a castle-building game where you have to design traps, and want to have some hope of actually killing people, I suggest trying "The Castle Doctrine" instead.

This game has many infuriating shortfalls. Examples: (1) The "online kingdom" (the default game mode) moves at a glacially slow pace. Buildings can literally take upwards of 40 minutes, real time, to construct. At this pace it gets dull very quickly. (2) The UI has many faults ranging from the minor "how the heck am I supposed to find out what this button does?" to "I can't figure out how to quit the game without killing the process!". No really, I had to kill the process because I couldn't figure out how to exit the game. (3) Getting started is unnecessarily tough. For example, to play at all you have to register an account with them your steam account isn't enough. "Remember me" is not the default, so when you forget what you registered with, good luck trying to get it back. Their email-based password reminder system doesn't seem to work! (4) Having paid for the game, I found a lot of the advanced items were for sale for real money. IMHO, **** is free-to-play, I expect this, but if I'm buying the game, I certainly don't expect to get marketed a bunch of premium items to speed up my game experience on top of the purchase price. PC games are meant to be real game experiences. This seems like a glorified Facebook game.

This game is excellent, but quirky. It can be played as an action RPG (heroes) or more of a strategy/tactics game (DM mode). Either way, it is fun and unexpected good things are bound to happen. At its best, this game will cause you to break out into laughter as you finally cut down the boss (played by a real person) via teamwork, or terrify the player heroes with a wave of invisible dire ducks spawning on top of them. At its worst, this game will seem impossible when you have only rather stupid bots for allies, or when you're trying to challenge an experienced squad of heroes as the DM without having invested into the DLC which gives improved monster spawners. The less exceptional positive aspects are many, ranging from the various DM abilities and 9 player types ensuring variety, to the high quality visuals and sound. The less exceptional negative aspects are few, but slightly annoying when they do appear, such as the fact the DM DLC is far more powerful than standard DM abilities, the limited multiplayer matches going at any one time, and the rather inept bot AI which never seems to target the key enemies: the spawners. I got a 4-pack of this game for $10 on a 75% off steam sale, and was so impressed I ended up spending a bunch more on DLC. Even at $10 for a single copy, though, it is worth the money, being far more fun than many $30-and-up games I've played. It really does require friends (either online or locally) to get the best out of it, though. If you're looking for a game to play with a controller, as a party game, this is an amazing choice. If you're more looking to play online, it can be challenging to find the right game, but you'll have a blast when you do.

A huge disappointment, and I will explain why. (1) Forget about customizing your character. Unlike in something like ****, where even in character creation you're picking feats, skills, spells and stats, Neverwinter gives you almost no ability to customize your character. Playing up to level 10 or so, I've not seen any serious flexibility in the abilities my character has. You can only slot about 5 different attacks, maximum, unlike in other D&D games where you could have literally dozens of abilities available at any time. This makes Neverwinter seem dull even in comparison to games like DDO and NWN which were released many years ago. (2) Start caring about your twitch skills Combat in Neverwinter is very different to any other D&D game I've played. In most D&D games, it is your armor, your spells, your general character build that matter. It doesn't matter if you stand in a pile of kobolds if you have crafted yourself some armor of invulnerability, have enough armor class, or the right spells, they cannot hit you AT ALL. Other D&D games reward thinking, planning, and generally knowing your stuff. Neverwinter doesn't care about any of that, all it rewards are twitch skills. Enemy mage about to fireball you? Forget having fire resistance gear. Forget ducking around a corner. Forget casting a protective spell, or trying to take him out first. In Neverwinter, a red circle appears on the ground and you run away from it. That's it. It takes all the depth out of the game, making it more about your average first person shooter's twitch skills than anything which resembles any other D&D game I've ever played. (3) Get ready to be treated like you're 8 Everything in Neverwinter glows, flashes, or sometimes both at once. Yes, it looks pretty, but after awhile you start to feel like the game's designers consider you their personal lab rodent easily distracted by anything shiny. (4) Enjoy your weak-ass characters Going back to ****, in that game, I can construct a level 4-7 mage who can one-shot kill entire groups of enemies with a single spell. Yes, it takes game knowledge, crafting, etc, but it is possible. If you know your stuff you can absolutely kick ass in amazing ways. In Neverwinter, it takes a long time to kill each enemy, and AOE effects tend to be quite weak. The result is that, for my class (wizard/sorc) at least, it plays more like a slow grind fest than a game in which I'm supposed to be an offensive caster. Upsides: Neverwinter does look pretty, and the ability to have player-created dungeons is great. That said, nothing can disguise the fact this game is based on the horrible 4th edition rules, which severely limit your gameplay in all the ways that actually matter. If your child wants an easy introduction to D&D, give them this. If, on the other hand, you're considering trying this yourself, don't bother. Even ancient D&D games like NWN, or MMOs like DDO, have far deeper immersion and more meaningful choices.

A great expansion, but priced a little steeply. The campaign is good (better than Wings of Liberty), the new units are fun, and the **** interface is hugely improved. That said, the price tag is still pretty high for an expansion pack, especially when you consider how much you got in WOL versus only the NEW things you get in HOTS. Having played hundreds of HOTS games, I think it is definitely a worthy addition for any RTS fan, but only for RTS fans. If you are simply a casual player your money is better spent on something else.

Good, deep, and interesting, but prone to issues. First, to really get the most out of it, you have to play with mods, like galactic armory. Second, it does crash sometimes. Third, playing over a network isn't guaranteed to work. Fourth, it can get a little repetitive once your empire gets to a size where you can't manage it all yourself and you have to rely on AI governors to do most of the grunt work, while you keep to the grand strategic decisions. This also gives it a peculiar kind of fun lacking in most "strategy" games, but also limits it at the same time. I would definitely encourage any strategy fan to try it, just don't spend your last dollar on it, because it isn't a guaranteed thing, and be prepared for a tough learning curve.

A good concept, but very flawed in implementation. NPC interactions left me feeling strangely disconnected from the game world, movement was simply far too slow, and enemy AI was prone to doing very odd things. Not a game I would encourage anyone to try. I only got about two hours in, before deciding it wasn't fun at all and leaving for greener pastures.

This is a great game that many would find fun, but it wasn't for me. It looks good, and lets you freely mix and match skills. Unfortunately, aside from the occasional puzzle to shake things up, it pretty much plays like every other MMO. 1, 2, 3, 4, mob dead, next mob. For contrast, something like DDO (****) lets me, as a mage, use spells that will clear an entire room at once, with one spell. They give me the flexibility to have truly powerful and unique abilities something TSW simply doesn't provide, as far as I've seen. The story is interesting, the class system is interesting, but ultimately the game plays pretty much the same as every other MMO. Sad, really, considering the high hopes I had for the game after my first few hours of play.

This is a great game. It is highly entertaining and the co-op mode is great fun. The only issues with it are its limited lifespan and the fact that so much of the game is paid DLC. That said, definitely worth serious consideration for fans of co-op action, defense games and of course, those who like frantic adventuring.

EVE is graphically beautiful, and has a lot of depth. It also has some of the most brutal, merciless PVP found anywhere. Unfortunately, the way it is designed for the most hardcore PVPers means it has nothing to offer anyone else. If you're the sort of person who likes to pick on defenseless other players, almost kill them, ransom them for the majority of their in-game assets, and then kill them up anyway just for fun, then this is, as far as I know, the only game where such conduct is not a ToS violation but rather an accepted way of living for many players. If like most people, you find the above unethical, horrifying, or just downright vicious, EVE is not the right game for you. I've always been a fairly competitive PVP player (spend a lot of my time on SC2 ladder) but EVE is way beyond what even I am comfortable with. EVE is a universe where anyone can randomly kill you at any time for no reason. There is no safety anywhere. One of the players' mottos is "don't fly what you can't afford to lose" because you can and will get randomly ganked by much higher-level players for no reason, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. IMHO, this is not the way to run a game. It caters to the most sociopath players, and anyone even suggesting that PVPers could do their thing in their zones, and PVEers could be left alone in theirs is labelled a "carebear" and mercilessly mocked by other players. The whole game is built on a brutal, exploitative attitude where everyone is out to get everyone else and that just doesn't make for a very nice environment to play in. I really did try to give this game a chance. I played for a few months. I flew every class of ship up to and including battleships, but in the end, the fancy graphics and the hype just couldn't cover up that this is essentially a game for sociopaths. If you're a sociopath, this will be your paradise. If you are a normal person, then stay away.

Anyone interested in MMOs or D&D should try this. It is free and, while it is not perfect, it is very good. Of all the MMOs I've played (WoW, TSM, RoM, etc), including ones released years after this, DDO is the only one that managed to hold my attention. It has the best gameplay of any MMO I've seen. It lacks PvP, but it does have a mature and helpful playerbase. There's plenty of crafting and levels are very meaningful. Character builds vary widely and you can do things that I've not seen to be possible in any other MMO, such as making a melee character that takes literally no damage from attacks, or a spell caster who can instakill whole rooms full of enemies with one spell. Quests are varied. No "Kill 10 rats" type quests. There are only two things that stop me rating DDO a 9/10. One is that it can be a money sink, if you're not smart about what you pay for in the game. The other is that like any MMO, it can become repetitive once you've done every quest 3 times, and you're just re-running things to farm them for loot. Still, you can get at least a year of fun play out of it before it gets to that point. I'd encourage any D&D or MMO fan to try it.

A truly excellent game. Right up there with StarCraft as one of the best multiplayer RTS games. Make no mistake about it, all but one player on each side uses a FPS point of view, but this is still a strategy game. You win by teamwork, skill and strategy not by FPS skill alone. As an RTS player playing on a decent team, there is a really enjoyable sense of teamwork, aside from the fun FPS elements and the fact the game looks great. As a commander (someone commanding their team, who uses the RTS view of things) you'll spend much of your time issuing orders to your team via voice chat. With a team that has any understanding of strategy (and most do), this almost completely eliminates micromanagement for you, and means you can spend your time developing map control, thinking strategy, and issuing orders like "PlayerOne, harass BaseName. Try to pull as many of them over there to defend it as you can. Everyone else, group up, wait in LocationOne. When you see them move to BaseName to defend it, hit Base2.". Trying to do that in a traditional RTS would be a lot of micromanagement, but in NS2, its simple. There's a lot to be said about NS2 as an RTS game, and this barely scratches the surface. The main thing, though, is that if you are a fan of team-based shooters, OR a fan of strategy games, I would urge you to definitely give this a try. The combination of RTS+FPS might seem odd, but it works well. Really well. Amazingly well, in fact.

Possibly the best strategy game ever made. Free, but you will need a graphics pack (Google: "Dwarf Fortress Lazy Newb Pack") and a willingness to spend literally hours reading a wiki following tutorials in order to learn how to play. Once you do know how to play, though, you can do pretty much anything. Many games claim you can do anything you can imagine. DF, however, is the only game I've ever played where this is actually true.

A great game. I'd even go so far as to say it is a classic. There are a few issues, such as a minion named Red Ivan loving to blow up your base by using his rocket launcher indoors, and one or two things I wish it had (like more maps), but since everything else is great, it is very hard to complain. Particularly praiseworthy are the deep gameplay possible with doors and traps, the memorable henchmen, and the way it is all tied together with an engaging theme. Even the music is great. Cheesy, but great. If you like base building or defense games, you owe it to yourself to try this.

A poor game. Bugs have so far forced me to repeat all of Act I, as well as my current mission 3 times over due to seemingly random freezing up. Even frequent saving did not help saves turned out to be unusable. Their tech support forum says these are "known bugs", but IMHO these things should have been fixed before the game was released to the public. I could forgive the technical issues if the gameplay is good, but, frankly, it isn't. The strategy element of the game is severely lacking in depth, and appears poorly thought through. Example: treasure chests can spawn mobs that take 4 squads to kill, and reward 25 treasure. A basic treasure quest also offers 25 treasure, but only requires you fight a single level 1 mob. That isn't remotely balanced. Another example: squads can restore themselves by eating food at a kitchen, but even when they're starving they will never eat without explicit orders to do so from you. Even then you have to order each squad individually. Makes no sense, and heavy on the micromanagement. Overall, this is a game with many bugs, but little strategy, and these two things combine to ruin it. It does have some upsides like the great character dialogue which while cheesy is fun to read, but they aren't enough to save a poor game like this.