SigilFey

Yes, yes. Very much yes. This is everything that older X-Wing / TIE Fighter flight models were, plus more, and everything is better. It is not anywhere near as involved or unforgiving as something like Elite: Dangerous, but you'll really want a HOTAS setup to take advantage of everything it has to offer. Lots of power management and configuration, so having everything at the fingertips is a decided edge over people who are trying to dance across the keyboard to accomplish the same tasks. Gameplay offers some great variety and exciting moments. (The boost drifting in particular is extremely enjoyable once you get the hang of how to pull it off.) AI can be fairly aggressive, which is nice, so SP and co-op missions are quite enjoyable. Graphics are nothing mind-blowing, but everything is crisp, clear, and very well designed. I took only a couple of missions to switch off the hud elements and fly on instruments only. Definitely immersive in all the right ways. And best of all -- 0% of the game is microtransactions. You unlock everything by playing, and it comes at a pretty good pace. No ship equipment options feels OP as of yet, and it's 100% possible to do extremely well in MP matches using default builds. It's more like a Dark Souls approach -- lots to fiddle with, but there is no "best" anything. Everything is give and take. Spectacular. This is definitely a labor of love created by people who care about gameplay and excitement more than the almighty dollar. Shame it had to take EA so many years to get back to the roots of what gaming is all about. So far, I'd say the only complaint I have is that customizing your pilot's appearance is extremely limited. That's entirely cosmetic, but there aren't even options to change the face or hair options. Already had a match in which everyone on our team had picked exactly the same character model. And I was the only one that wasn't wearing the default flight suit. (I felt sooo out of place! :D )

I can't even bring myself to write a full review for this after the crushing disappointment that I feel now, having just uninstalled it. Suffice it to say that the free-roam and random mission gameplay is excellent! I know that those who crave the Rambo-esque style of gunplay from the former titles will likely look at the clubs and spears as a step back for the series, but I really appreciate "going Medieval" over "rapid fire" any day -- so this was right up my alley. It's the boss fights that *completely* destroy the experience. What a travesty. I should have seen it coming after the first ridiculous "Great Hunts" (against signature animals). Rather than it functioning like anything remotely connected to a ****'s simply an exercise in eye-rolling frustration as you die over and over again taking down a bear or sabre-toothed tiger with more hit points than an M1 Abrams tank. Employ strategy? Nope. Set up a tactical ambush using the environment? Nope. Craft special foods to give yourself the particular edge to emerge victorious? Nope. Tame a certain animal that can exploit the beast's weakness? Nope. You just run around like a lunatic unloading every trap, bomb, spear, club, arrow, throwing shard, and tamed beast in your arsenal while the "Great Beast" simply one-shots or maybe two-shots everything it touches and moves around at about 150% the normal speed. After reloading 4 or 5 times to frantically mash attack buttons, you'll be able to subdue it. Which gives you the ability to tame and use this monstrosity and all of its supernatural abilities -- right??? Nope. As soon as you defeat it, it seems to become a normal beast with a different look. So you can't even use it effectively against other "Great Beasts", as it will be put down just as fast as everything else. And the boss fights against human villains are even WORSE. The fight against Ull is the single lamest, stupidest, most un-immersive, boss fight I think I've ever encountered in a video game since the 1980's. For a brief while, I thought, "No...I'm missing something! I have to be. This must work like Dark Souls -- a pattern I need to **** a specific weakness..." NOPE. Just using a few, one-off, environmental damage positions before spamming every available attack ad nauseam for over 15 minutes while Ull just continues wandering around, taking spear after spear after spear, club after club after club, arrow after arrow after **** simply not dying. **** **** **** on... But -- BUT -- Surely, the other bosses won't be like this! SURELY -- it was just this fight because it's, like, Ull's special thing. Right? Surely!!! > I'm not even going into the fight against Batari. Instant un-installation. What the @#$% happened, Ubisoft??? What in honest, living creation!? I have to award this at least a 4 for the ~20 hours of incredible enjoyment the free-play **** beautiful **** really neat Survival Mode... But what should have been one of the most rewarding parts of the game -- tackling the major antagonists and advancing the story -- left me trembling in rage at the utter, pointless, frustrating, monotonous, cheap, trifling execution. It's completely unforgivable. I simply have to ensure the game is in the red. And, I'm sorry. I have never seen a title so instantly destroy every single thing that makes it enjoyable for the sake of "padding the length". The effect is awful. Learn from this disaster. Please.

Disappointing. While I am not very familiar with the tabletop version of Battlefleet, I can safely safely say that this game is a nearly complete letdown. I am very familiar with past PC titles like Starfleet Command, Starpoint Gemini, and Homerworld. The game very much tries to capture the real-time micromanagement of ships and systems that made these games such a joy to play. Organizing your fleets and maneuvering carefully...executing special abilities and utilizing unique ship systems...using environmental "terrain" in the form asteroids or nebula to your advantage... However, once again, we have bunch of amateur developers floundering around with a novel concept, trying in vain to pad the oh-so-important "length" of their game and make it more "marketable" by a.) establishing clear rules and mechanics, then b.) immediately allowing the computer AI to cheat and ignore those rules and mechanics in a pitiful attempt to simulate "difficulty". Who will -LOVE- this? + Die-hard fans of Warhammer 40K Battlefleet. + Gamers that enjoy puzzle-based, reload / retry systems. + Players looking to exclusively focus on the game's skirmish or multiplayer modes. Who will -HATE- this? - Players looking for a quality, fleet-based combat game. - Gamers that want a single-player game that challenges their strategic and tactical ability. - Anyone who finds repeating almost every level **** 3-10 times annoying. What the game does, in practice, is continuously set players up to fail if they try to play according to what they were taught. For example, one of the first things introduced in the tutorial is the mechanic by which enemy craft are unidentified "blips" until something actually brings them into radar range. You may be able to deduce the class of ship you're seeing based on the speed and maneuverability of a blip, but you can't tell exactly what it is until you get closer and can actually "see" it. Then, you're introduced to a mechanic by which ships in nebula are hidden from view -- even their blips -- until they emerge. These are stock-standard elements of the genre being reintroduced, and players will naturally assume that these mechanics can be used to mask / hide ships...just like you could successfully employ in games made 15 years ago. But almost immediately, everything starts falling apart. One of the first missions you have to accomplish is escorting 3 trade vessels from one side of a map to the other. The mission briefing even specifically informs the player that splitting up the transports will increase their chances of survival. **** course! The player can just use nebula and leap-frog the trade transports from point to point, keeping the enemy guessing...right? Or you can create 3 small groups and ensure they all travel the same speed, so the enemy will have no idea where the actual transports are...right? Or I can hide the main group and send a transport off on its own to draw off the attackers...right? Nope! As soon as the mission begins, the enemy (Orks, in this case) know exactly where your transports are and B-line for the nearest. Are they hidden as blips? Nope. Are they hidden by nebula? Nope. And these Ork craft are SUPER Ork craft, able to withstand all critical hits resist outrageous levels of damage. Even though I targeted the engines of their ships on 12 consecutive playthroughs of this mission, several times using both of my destroyers and all 3 frigates concentrating their fire on one Ork **** I ever, in 12 tries, even once, disable their engines? Nope. See, that's been disabled for this mission so that it's "challenging". And the transports, well, they move at about 50% the speed of all other ships. Because they're heavy, I guess. In space. And Ork boarding parties are automatically successful in this mission -- auto-destroying critical systems and starting fires, even when the little floating message above the victim ship clearly displays "Boarding Failed". Because letting the AI cheat adds "difficulty" and "length" to the game, see? And so it continues as the campaign progresses. I played 10 missions, and it never got better. It got a lot worse, but it never improved even a little bit. This is not a fleet-based tactical game. This is a puzzle game that requires the player to know in advance how the AI will cheat. It's like playing chess against a 6-year-old that claims, um, for the next game, uh, he gets 3 Queens to start, and, uhhh, you can't use Pawns to take Queens, and, ummm, every other turn he gets to move 2 pieces at once...! See? Now the game is "hardcore". Graphics are very nice. Sound design is fair. Voice acting ranges from acceptable to ear-bleeding horrible. (I want to put the Imperial Commissar out the airlock.) Interface functions, but nothing great nor innovative. Multiplayer is really the game's only selling point, but you won't play more than a match or two at a time. Largely garbage. Pass.

Recommended! This is an enjoyable romp, but don't play it expecting an **** experience. In short, everything it does is "Good!", but not "Amazing!" If you're looking for a challenging, old-school experience with some modern mechanics mixed in, you will enjoy your time! Who will -LOVE- this? + Players who remember the old Ultima series fondly. + Players looking for a difficult challenge. You will die quickly if you overreach. + Players who enjoy never knowing whether they're ready for that quest or not... Who will -HATE- this? - Players that require graphical fidelity to remain engaged. - Players that associate an RPG with "X=Attack, Y=Power Attack". - Players that prefer a casual, guided experience. The game provides the classic "figure out the haunting secret of your world" story to drive things forward. The narrative is engaging enough to maintain interest, but nothing revolutionary. Mechanics such as inventory, exploration, and combat are handled basically -- slightly clunky but 100% functional. Challenge is going to be a surprise for gamers unfamiliar with the old-school approach! (In short, certain enemies are "off-limits" until you've achieved a certain level of power and skill. The game notifies you of this by massacring your character in the face. No "hints". Running away from enemies too powerful for you is a normal and necessary part of the gameplay. It doesn't mean you can't -go- there; it means you can't -fight- there.) Where the game loses a couple of points is in it's hunger / fatigue system, which is simply an invasive and annoying part of the game that is horribly documented. I strongly recommend reading up on this before playing, as it can completely ruin the experience for new players unless they understand how it works. The crafting / smithing / alchemy / training system could also use some direct, clear documentation. Forcing the player to experiment to discover recipes, effects, etc. is one thing, but Balrum's presentation is so un-intuitive or outright obscure, that you often won't notice THAT something has happened, let alone understand WHY it happened. Again, some basic reading online clears this right up. In the end, it's a fun game that is more than the sum of its parts. Everything manages to hold attention, and the experience is completely player-paced. There's a load of content to discover: everything from hunting with your pet, to dungeon delving, to building houses, to farming, to crafting magical weapons, to capturing fairies that ensure your trees grow back... It's well worth the purchase!

A Dark Souls game for the wider market! Which would make it a "Lite Souls", if you would. Don't mistake anything: the game is HARD. (However, whereas Dark Souls will kick you in the face to knock you down, then call five of its friends over to pummel you with baseball bats, Salt and Sanctuary will simply punch you in the stomach then smile to make it all better.) Who will LOVE this? + Anyone that loves Dark Souls. + Anyone that even mildly enjoyed Dark Souls. + People looking for a brawler-RPG with tons of style and a superb visual design. Who will HATE this? - Those easily frustrated by games that **** you. - People who quickly grow tired of "grinding" for better gear or abilities. - Anyone who simply wants to mash the attack button to get by. Salt and Sanctuary offers a ton of challenge using mechanics that are still more forgiving than DS, offering a more regular sense of reward and power as the player improves his/her character. You will still die an awful lot until you learn the nuances of the combat system and beef up a bit, but it never feels teeth-cracking-with-frustration impossible. Customize and upgrade your gear, revel in all of the beautifully animated carnage, and die a few dozen more times. The game offers a wide variety of weapons with unique move sets, along with bows, crossbows, throwing weapons, even firearms...which is very cool. There may not be the absolutely insane number of weapons and goodies as DS proper, but there is an absolutely insane number of weapons and goodies here. One of the best games I've played all year. It accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, and it does it with style!

Grab it on sale! It's not a bad game. It's not a good game. The game has a fun, old-school approach and creates an old-school challenge... ...right down to flat, clunky, nearly-broken mechanics and frustrating sections relying ENTIRELY on random chance to proceed. Many battles are going to boil down to whom the RNG gods favor. Strategy, tactics, meaningful application of character based skills = bleeping jack all. And ****'s not bad. Magic is meaningless. Armor is pointless. Everything revolves around your ability to cause more damage than your enemy, and melee combat characters are king(s). Peripheral skills (lockpicking, lore, alchemy, and [sadly] magic) are basically trade-offs that mean: "You can control what type of BS will make your game artificially more difficult. You must have strong melee characters in your party of 4 -- or you automatically lose! Now, how else would you like to be unfairly screwed as you save and reload?" -Would you like to miss out on almost all loot? Forego lock-picking! -Would you like to be **** by merchants to identify potentially worthless items? Forego lore! -Would you like to rely on random, horribly unbalanced spells that can potentially fail completely even at high levels? Forego alchemy! -The game will cater itself to your desired level of pointless frustration! All of that (warranted) aggression against the game ****'s not "bad"! I had a decent time with it. (Not a "great!" time, a "decent" time.) The art style is quite good! I love the attention to detail in the character models and overall visual aesthetic. Combat was still fun, in an amateurish sort of way. I really wished for real, tactical options that mattered, as I think this game's best selling point would be a solid combat system. The story is ham. The execution is lack-luster. The length is...well...short. COMBAT is what -*should*- be carrying this game. Hopefully in the future, the dev(s?) will learn from this experience and provide a model of gameplay based more heavily on an established trope: D&D Gold Box, Final Fantasy Tactics, XCOM, Fire Emblem... For now, $14.99 is...just arrogant. I'm sure the developer(s) put a lot of time and work into it, but pricing must somehow represent quality. This is the equivalent of paying $15 for a cup of mediocre instant coffee. It's not gonna gag you, but if you intend to spend that type of money -- head for a professional barista. If you can find this on sale for $4.99, grab it!

Who will LOVE this -- ? + Players looking for an extreme, roguelike challenge. + Those who love games of chance, taking risks, and either winning or losing big. + People who appreciate quality artistic design and style. Who will HATE this -- ? - People who appreciate skill and strategy over sheer, dumb luck. - Fans of RPGs that rely on meaningful mechanics and smart, rewarding play. - Individuals who wish to finish what they start. There is no "in-between" for Darkest Dungeon. I adore brutally difficult games (strategy titles like XCOM, realistic shooters like ArmA, punishing RPGs like Dark Souls, realistic flight sims like the old Jane's series, etc.), but that's not what this is. Darkest Dungeon presents you with a myriad of brilliantly designed gameplay concepts that all boil down to one and only one mechanic -- completely random rolls of the dice. Whether you play smartly, or you just grab the nearest torch and blindly explore with **** have about an equal chance of success or failure. The RNG is so horribly stacked against the player, that the game's most creative idea (the Stress mechanic) -- which should have created wildly interesting character evolution -- basically degenerates into even more of a chance for the RNG to destroy all of your progress in the most ridiculous way possible. HOWEVER -- if you're willing to simply play the game like you would play the slots in Vegas -- then Darkest Dungeon offers what amounts to one of the coolest, most interactive slot machine ever. It's so much fun to watch, and that's what you're basically doing. You can increase your chances of success by getting into the mechanics of probability and kitting out your party with better chances to "roll high" (similar to playing 3-4 slot machines at once). Know, however, that in the end, success or failure is based almost entirely on 100% **** the House always wins.

Well, the game has been out for a while now, and I am very disappointed. The game had great potential, and it didn't really live up to any of it. 1.) Controls are asinine. The game is basically rolling dice in real-time. There is no element of skill involved, just familiarity with each map. It doesn't matter how precise and careful, nor how sloppy and reckless you are, you have an equally random chance of winning or losing. The game not only creates extremely punishing bullet spread, but there's no chance that your hits will do any damage. That's right, I have an equal chance of firing one-round, and one-shotting an enemy across the map I didn't even see, or I can empty 15 rounds into an enemy at point-blank range from behind, and do 0% damage despite 12 rounds hitting. Incompetent design. 2.) AI is TERRIBLE. The AI is completely incapable of doing anything that remotely makes sense. Rather than CPU soldiers taking position behind readily available cover, moving to attack open points, or simply bull-rushing a target, AI soldiers stand around, mill aimlessly back and forth, run headlong into the same killzones, or get run over by friendly vehicles being driven by random AI soldiers to random locations. From the beginning of the game until the end. Every mission. Every time. All the time. Once again, incompetent. 3.) Single player is a waste of time. There is no sense of progression, no sense of accomplishment, and very little fun to be had until you grind your way across 20+ hours of mind-numbing, repetitive gameplay to get at least 5-6 people in your squad and some decent gear/radio abilities. Once you can summon reinforcements, airstrikes, and set up mortar stations and the like, you can single-handedly gain a minor advantage...! Occasionally... Until the game's incompetent AI takes everything it took you 15 minutes to put in place and completely frigs it up in about 9 seconds. It's those 15 minutes of strategic and tactical decision making that are fun, but ultimately futile. Incompetent single-player design. 4.) Multiplayer can be fun -- IF you have people that know how to play the game and are willing to play the way it was designed. As most multiplayer sessions are either empty or full of typical internet delinquents with every possible hack and cheat enabled, trying to be as obnoxious as possible, and absolutely no moderation being done whatsoever...multiplayer is mostly not an option. (TL;DR) So in conclusion, the game could have been amazing, but this developer just isn't of the caliber the game needed. Lots of talent and a great idea for a game, but ultimately an amateur game released with amateur execution. As I said in my original review: "Potential is not ability." Save your money.

All patched up and running acceptably on PC. Let's bring it down to the level. Absolutely nothing works the way it is supposed to, absolutely nothing is polished (except for the graphics, which are lovely [but completely dysfunctional]), and absolutely nothing lives up to the previous Batman games. Rather than polishing the experience up to a fine sheen, Rocksteady crammed everything they could think of into a disjointed romp of fan-boy lip service, all focusing on the twitch-based ability to tap 2 buttons at the right moment. Repeat until the endgame. 1.) Graphics They're gorgeous. Absolutely, amazingly gorgeous. Dark and gritty, with layers of detail at every turn, and gorgeous special **** all of it serves degrade the experience. 90% of the time you'll be unable to tell what you're looking at, because everything is a crisscrossing nightmare of catwalks, odd angles, and vision-obscuring clutter. This "noise" coupled with the most asinine camera control scheme I've ever encountered in a game means that you never get to appreciate anything your seeing. Details are either something blocking what's important or something whizzing by the foreground of the screen as the stupid "cinematic effect" kicks in and sends the camera automatically panning around to the most obscure and disorienting angle and zoom-level possible. And if you need to get a sense of what you can do or interact with, you tap a key to make everything disappear into a wash of flat blue, orange, and yellow -- literally turning your objectives in glowing neon signs. So very immersive. On foot, you literally cannot see what's in front of you as half your field of vision is obscured by Batman himself. That's right. You cannot look FORWARD. You are forced to play the game by glancing down and to the left to see what's directly freaking in front of you. Rocksteady, you gotta be kidding. 2.) Controls I need to draw a comparison here between Batman: AK and the much older The Matrix: Path of Neo. Both games introduce a wildly complex combat system with insanely complicated combos. And both aim for the same goal -- you can get through the game by using nothing but the basic attacks, but you can invest in the system to get through fights with style! While Path of Neo offers awesome combos and take-downs that let you set up a fight for brilliant, improvised awesomeness, Batman: AK refuses to allow the player any meaningful control over combat, instead forcing them to react to predetermined attacks constantly shoved in the player's face by endless "alert icons" that appear over enemies' heads. The game is filled with interesting approaches to combat evidenced by huge trees of combo and technology upgrades. Good luck actually using them at will, however. Every single skill or gadget that you attempt to use during combat will either fail outright or execute in the most illogical way possible. I guess Rocksteady was trying to add difficulty to a game that can be won simply by spamming beat-down and execution attacks. Nice. Now you're punished for improvisation. Oh, and unless you're a professional typist, be ready to exercise extreme levels of patience. Functions that should have been context sensitive are instead placed in brain-dead locations all over the keyboard, such as quick-attacks required the player to double-tap a number key. Have fun re-configuring keys and avoiding conflicts. Even then, trying to glide while locking onto specific enemies while tapping number keys and switching gadgets without releasing the spacebar... How about a simple system allowing you to queue the attacks in advance, then a single execute button when you're ready to launch. You know, like actual tactics and planning. And the Batmobile is a wash. Tank-mode? Seriously? At least it's only ONE-THIRD OF THE DAMN GAME. 3.) The Story I know nothing about the Batman universe except for the Hollywood films and maybe 10 episodes of one of the cartoons I watched with my nephew a few years ago. It took me approximately two hours to figure out who the Arkham Knight was. Brilliant writing. The rest of the story is a confusing, disjointed series of events and references that requires you to be familiar with the universe and/or the prior games. 4.) Conclusion Why a rating of 5? Voice acting is brilliant. Loved the Joker stuff -- Mark Hamill is my favorite Joker after Heath Ledger! And I really enjoyed wasting time and beating up random rioters in the streets. Best part of the whole game.

Pillars offers players that masterful Infinity Engine experience with modern-day polish. I was initially underwhelmed by the overall story and presentation, but by about 5 hours in, I was well invested and enjoying the game thoroughly. There is a lot of depth to uncover here and plenty meaningful role-playing to experience. I would call the gameplay fairly linear, but there are many points at which the choices you make may have a drastic impact on the world, open or close off entire quest-lines, or even alter the way you look at your own character. While not the most unique or ambitiously developed fantasy universe, Pillars' gameworld is quite interesting, nonetheless. I may not have been awed by anything in particular, but I was definitely never bored! Combat can be very challenging, even on the easiest setting, and requires intricate control and management of your entire party to be successful. (If anything, characters have too many unique skills, abilities, powers, special attacks, etc. -- there are a few I think I never actually used!) On the same token, I never really started to feel as if combat was becoming mundane, and emerging victorious was always a thrill. Whether you're a vet of the old Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series or brand new to this whole style of RPG, Pillars of Eternity is easy to recommend. It's not the most incredible game in the genre, but it does what it sets out to do -- perfectly.

Don't let the first game in this series turn you off! The original Starpoint Gemini was a clunky, unevenly paced slog that often left you wondering what you were supposed to be doing or whether the game was even working properly. Starpoint Gemini 2 is a professionally polished and engaging game. It falls somewhere between Freelancer and Starfleet Command in its execution. Its open world is a varied and interesting place. Missions (both story and random) are at least entertaining and usually take about 5-10 minutes to complete. The controls and camera actually work with you this time, offering the player a variety of on-the-fly customization. Combat difficulty can go from pushover to suddenly impossible, so knowing when it's time to bug out is important -- which adds a huge dose of tension to encounters! It also means there is a nice sense of increasing power as you level up your captain and acquire better ships and systems. There are only 2 real negatives. First, the story line. You won't become attached to any of the characters, and the plot is a yawn-inducing tromp across very tired sci-fi themes. No biggie, however, as the main plot is really nothing more than an excuse to reveal the game's factions and explore the map. It is NOT the meat-and-potatoes of the game. You can even opt to play without it! Secondly, there is a bit of a learning curve. Ships move and maneuver in such a way that seems awkward at first: either too fast or too slow. The controls work well, but take a bit of getting used to, and learning which camera works best in certain situations can be a bit annoying. Once you've moved past it, it no longer interferes in the least. What the core gameplay does revolve around is a huge universe to explore, lots of nifty things to discover, a trading system that rewards exploration, and some very cool travel mechanics. (Like riftways. Riftways are confirmed coolness.) And there's a lot of depth here that might not be immediately apparent. It's a nice balance between hardcore space sims and arcade-like space shooters. Recommended without hesitation!

It's awesome wrapped in fried awesome with awesome sauce and a side of buttered awesome. Truly, this is a game that has never been done before. It blends strategic/tactical starship combat, time management, RTS, role-playing, and an interactive novel together in a roguelike experience. The game is bleepin' hard! And that's the point. Expect to lose about 20 times for every 1 time you (almost...!) win. >;D ROGUELIKE, baby!!! In all seriousness, the game's mechanics blend together masterfully to offer the player complete control over what is very often a hopeless scenario. The whole point of a roguelike is to offer the player about the same chance of winning the game as being hit by lightning. (Granted, FTL's "Easy" mode is really that, and most games set to Easy can at least be played into the final stages...once you know what you're doing.) What I cannot praise enough is the level of gameplay you get even if you do lose. Many roguelikes can put you in a bad spot within 10 minutes of beginning a new character. And a "bad spot" in a roguelike usually means instant death by laceration, impalement, incineration, bludgeoning, infection, curse, malfunction, hallucination, insanity, **** a pleasant mixture of them all. FTL allows for a level of player skill that actually affects your ability to succeed. It's not all, or even mostly, up to the RNG. Players will actually begin to get the idea of what they need to survive and can pursue it. In worst-case scenarios, I know I'm dead long before my ship actually blows. Controls, interface, and graphics are simple, clear, and I would not alter them in any way. Text scenarios are quick, interesting, and the number of variables that may appear based on your ship's systems, crew, weapons, etc. keep them from becoming old-hat on subsequent playthroughs. Ship designs are widely varied with many strengths and weaknesses, and the only game I can think of that matches the options you are given, moment-to-moment, during combat is Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates. Does the game have it's flaws? Yes. Is it occasionally very cheap in its reward/punishment randomization? Yes. Is the last mission an exercise in frustration with virtually no chance of success? Yes. **** it's magic. Expect to lose. I'll put it this way: I didn't jump up out of my chair, raise two fists above my head, and proceed to do the butt dance when I beat Skyrim. (Oddly enough, my girlfriend didn't stare at me concernedly for two days after I beat Skyrim, either.) Play. This. Game.

Banished is simply one of the best city-builders I have ever played. Very nice balance of design freedom and challenge. The game masters a less-is-more system, from its mechanics to its graphical presentation. Much like the old Settlers series, you want to take it slow and watch closely while you are learning how to play. Much of the game is in discovering the nuances of the resource system and then min-maxing your way to a booming economy. I really appreciate how the game's most valuable resource is actually "people". Keeping your villagers healthy, happy, and productive is far more important than stockpiling goods. As each citizen has his/her own name, occupation, and family, I found myself attached to a few here and there, following them around on their activities...perhaps with a bit of sadness over time, as the toddler I remember playing dangerously close to the river was now a tailor in her 60's, and likely to pass away soon. Pacing of the game is deceptively slow to start, as one tiny mistake early-on will likely spell disaster for your entire settlement. Once you learn the basics, it doesn't take long to get a flourishing settlement up and running. But, just like Dwarf **** more successful you are, the more likely things will go to pot in a heartbeat! It's truly a game about seeing just how far you can push your growth until it all collapses under its own weight. Graphics are quite charming, and don't take a powerhouse PC to run well. There is a great deal of macro detail, and big settlements really look awesome. Terrain can be a bit redundant after a few games, however, and it would be nice if you were able to build some unique, set-piece structures to show how far you had really come. There simply is not the bleep-ton of variety as offered by SimCity or Tropico, nor the intricate detail of the Settlers series, but what is here blends together well and creates a beautiful picture. I have a feeling Banished has already been granted a permanent spot on my hard drive. (*Ahem.* Excuse me! My "SSD". Must keep up with the times...) It might be nostalgia, but I spent many chilly days this past winter at my desk, mug of coffee in one hand, mouse in the other, guiding a handful of refugees towards a civilization of their own. I intend to return to that place many times again in the future.

Very enjoyable title! Understand that this is a fairly direct game insofar as story, mechanics, and tactics. It's more about playing through the game using a character design you find enjoyable. It's easy to mix and match skills to get pretty unique character builds, and it can be fun to play through the game multiple times to see how other builds will fare. In short, think of Eschalon as: The Elder Scrolls meets the D&D Goldbox Series, presented in the style **** roguelike. [Comparing this game to Diablo (as many have done) is a fallacy of reasoning. The ONLY similarity is the isometric view of the game world. The focus and gameplay are completely different.] Like old-school RPGs, selecting a good mix of skills and specializing is necessary, as characters that focus on more than 3-5 skills will wind up hope hopelessly nerfed at higher levels. The turn-based nature of the game works brilliantly -- offering unlimited time to consider the best course of action and examine your surroundings. While mechanics are fairly straightforward, there are plenty of options offered by different spells, weapon damage types, potion effects, and environmental advantages (like a heavy iron portcullis in a narrow choke point or a conveniently placed barrel of black powder). Difficulty can be up there, especially early on, and the game world follows suit with that old-school formula of areas geared towards certain experience levels. Grinding is not really necessary, but it helps sometimes to get an edge or squeeze out that next level. The game uses an RNG that is absolutely granting NPCs all sorts of bonuses to attack, critical chance, damage, and defense. Normally, this is not too much of a problem, but it can occasionally result in far too many "cheap" deaths. Be prepared to save and reload ad-nauseam during certain sections. On the whole, it's a shorter game (about 30 hours or so), but it offers a pretty engaging world to explore and a significant amount of replay value. If you are someone who associates role-playing with "X = attack... Y = power attack..." Eschalon is probably not going to be your thing. If you are a fan of older games like The Curse of the Azure Bonds, Ultima, or The Magic Candle, you should feel right at home here!

*Sigh.* Mash the buttons! Screen fills with so many special effects you can't see 2 feet in front of you. Mash more buttons. You are surrounded by action that is so ridiculously fast, tactics are as impossible as they are pointless. Hold down a button for minute...then mash it. At least the incessant yammering of poorly-written dialogue never stops streaming. More button-mashing. Then you realize: this game is not tense and ****'s just chaotic and messy. It's "fun" in the same way a frenetic teenager calls spinning around in a circle and screaming "fun". Basically, the game backtracks across the time-honored tropes of the space combat genre, accelerating everything to a wholly unrealistic speed and removing any sense of meaningful gameplay. Your chosen armaments, your angle-of-attack, your wingmen, the arrangement of capital ships that are present...mean...absolutely nothing. They're just filler. This is a basic, twitch shooter that has roughly the same level of complexity as a 1980's-1990's video arcade coin-op: 4-way joystick, attack button, and afterburner button. That's. It. Only, Strike Suit tries to pretend that it's a deep and meaningful universe full of characters that you care about. Except, you don't. At all. I've played for nearly 10 hours now, and I honestly don't remember MY character's (the protagonist's) name. Mission structure is annoyingly simplistic and predictable. Game mechanics like prioritizing specific ships, torpedoes, etc. are exercises in frustration since you can't simply cycle through targets. You take virtually no damage from one enemy, then the next one will almost one-shot you. Special effects white-out your screen EVERY SINGLE TIME you are hit by so much as a slow-moving pebble. Nearby explosions also blind you and add over-the-top camera shaking. And every single enemy in the game will ignore all other targets and focus on you. If you don't suffer from a seizure, you'll still have absolutely no idea what's going on. What a joy. And when will game developers finally get it through their heads: players do NOT want to be interrupted every 30 seconds to watch a flippin' cutscene! (I believe I counted 12 cutscenes in one mission that lasted about 15 minutes. That's right, almost one cutscene every minute.) The game is just poor. It's a fun diversion for about 30 minutes at a time. For maybe 2 hours total. Even the game's selling point -- transforming into a "Strike Suit" ala Gundam -- just lets you...attack even faster. No game-changing mechanics. No unique powers or weapons. No memorable moments. Just fire bigger cannons and launch missiles in salvos. I tried to at least finish it, but I really can't be bothered. It's pretty enough to look at, though nothing amazing. And virtually every aspect of its gameplay has been done better by about 20 other titles. Very hard to recommend, even to dedicated action gamers.

This is the original 1993 XCOM: UFO Defense (UFO: Enemy Unknown) remade for modern day systems! Being a die-hard XCOM fan, I can assure anyone that has any doubts that we finally have it. Every single mechanic from the original game is here. The title is religiously devoted to the original formula. If anything, the developers have IMPROVED on the original. A much better interface. An overall darker, more gritty feel to the universe. The dogfighting minigame is just awesome. Graphics are polished and do well more than simply "get the job done". If you are someone who has ever been curious about why the original game was so successful -- or if you are brand new to the whole XCOM arena -- don't hesitate for a second to pick this up! Can't recommend this enough! What an accomplishment!

The developers for Fable Anniversary basically took a magnum **** peed all over it. PC controls are RIDICULOUS -- just incompetent. The once gorgeous, vibrant, storybook graphics are gone. Music, dialogue, and sound cut out, don't play, or play right over the top of other tracks. Camera is a jerky, spasmodic mess. Special effects (spells, glows, etc.) are washed-out and look like dull watercolor. Minigames have been turned into clunky frustrations by "snap-to" controls that rival the idiotic design behind of Fable 3's minigame stuttering. **** real? This is what the developers did to "revitalize" one of the greatest games ever made? 4 points: 1 because it's still the core game of Fable. 1 because at least it runs without crashing. 1 because people who have never played the original will probably accept this. 1 because it's STILL better than the steaming pile of rot that is Fable 3. Goodbye, Fable franchise. This is the last pill I will swallow. **** form.

Delver is a light roguelike that nails everything important and adds a massive dose of charm. It's nowhere near the depth or complexity of most games in the genre, so pretty much anyone can pick it up and enjoy it! That's not to say it's easy -- early stages are fairly forgiving, but the endgame is pretty much guaranteed "death-on-a-stick". So...yeah! Rougelike at heart. The games major selling point is its ease-of-use. There are no set character classes or gigantic learning curves. Jump in, grab whatever weapon you find, and play the way you want. It's possible to be a fighter, archer, or mage (or whatever in between) simply by collecting the appropriate gear and bringing the smack-down/lightning bolt/arrow-in-the-knee to your various and sundry victims. (Except for the one that kills you. Obviously.) The design and aesthetics are brilliant. Somehow, the game manages to feel exactly like a roguelike despite the first-person approach and 3D environments. Replay value is pretty high, as each play-through can easily be finished in a sitting, and you keep all of the gold you find between characters (which is useful for buying decent starting gear.) The graphics may look basic at a glance, but there's enough detail and charm there to get the job done with a real sense of style. On the whole, it's a very easy game to recommend!