StarVenger

I have to wonder if the people who gave this game a 7+ played the same game I did. This is an 9-10 hour game that I wished was over by hour 2. Almost everything about this game mechanically is irritating. Potions take 2 minutes to drink, so oftentimes you start to drink one and get knocked out of it. Irritating flying sequences with orbs placed at heights where you have to start your bird transform at a certain height, and catch air currents just right or you'll be too high or too low to hit the orbs after 3 minutes of flying already and have to do it all over again for the ninth time, to 90's style invisible walls that prevent you from going places you can clearly get to, almost everything about this game screams low budget trash. It's one of the most irritating games I've ever seriously tried to finish. By about the third or fourth from the last level almost every few minutes I seriously debated on just youtubing the ending so I could play something less annoying, like pounding nails into my fingers.

This is a very good rogue-like game. Each game starts off on a randomly generated map with differing resource allocations, so each game is a chance to start fresh and develop new survival strategies for each play. The different playable characters each add something fresh with a unique perk and dialogue. Almost every time I have died it was due to a combination of a couple of mistakes I have made, and each death is a learning experience. It takes a bit of thought to manage your health, hunger, sanity, and in the winter, freezing meters (although the freezing meter is not shown). As someone who bought into the beta I have put over 60 hours into this game already, and I feel it is a really good way to spend 12-15 dollars, especially if you enjoy rogue-like games, and are open to the idea that you will by dying and restarting from scratch fairly often.

This years edition of the show keeps the series long track record of an excellent baseball sim intact and adds enough new features to make it a worthwhile buy again this year. The new ball physics, improved broadcast presentation, new pulse pitching mode and improved lighting and shading make this year's edition stand out. I was not a huge fan of pure analog pitching, I wasn't very good at it, but pulse pitching is a nice balance between the pitching being stat based and skill based. The idea that you can aim your analog swings is a feature I like. I felt last year that pure analog hitting was a bit too easy. The game has a few shortcomings. I've seen a few too many ground rule doubles and comebackers hitting a pitchers. Outfield throws might be a bit too strong, I've heard reports of sharp hits to RF resulting in runners being thrown out at first. Stealing bags at least in RTTS mode seems to be a bit easier than last year. When you are baserunning in RTTS show mode I'm not a huge fan of the camera movement but it's not a huge deal. One thing I want to comment on specifically is are the comments about the difficulty of hitting. There are no less than 4 hitting modes, five hitting difficulty levels, and a pitch speed slider with 10 notches. I find it hard to believe that all of the people complaining about the difficulty couldn't find some set of adjustments that make the game hittable for them. If you are a baseball fan please do not be scared off by the reports of the difficulty, there are enough options here to make the game playable for a wide range of skill levels.