I found this application handy for constructing star systems in a sci-fi RPG I used to run. It's also got some fair entertainment value if you have sufficient imagination or curiosity about how complex planetary systems tend to work. And if you're not satisfied with what you've created, you can always blow up the planet/sun/galaxy and start over.
This game is an interesting concept with very poor implementation. Controls are very clunky and unresponsive. Strategy is nonexistent as most players assigned to defensive positions just swarm the ball and are caught out of position. By the time you get partway through your amateur levels, you no longer have any money to train without paying for in game currency. The overall experience was far more frustrating than entertaining.
OOTP 13 is the first baseball sim I've been able to seriously get into. I have yet to see any set of stats or results generated from it that has looked unrealistic to me. Between the historical players and teams, league customization, and career modes, you've got a lot of different options on how to play the game. One thing that really surprised me was the dynamic nature of the leagues. In the three seasons that I've been working my way up the minor league system as a manager, not only did the planned move of the Astros to the AL West happen, but the Pirates wound up moving to Charlotte, and Major League expansion teams were added in Jacksonville and Indianapolis. It makes an ongoing seasonal campaign more interesting when there's other stuff going on that's completely unrelated to anything you're doing. I look forward to being able to manage the Rays at the Major League level at some point... though they might be in Des Moines by then. :)
After playing around a bit with X3, I decided to give the original game in the series a try. As a gamer who really misses Wing Commander: Privateer and the original Mechwarrior game for the PC, I've been very pleased with X-BTF. It seems to have the same balance of combat tactics and resource strategy that keep the game interesting over the long term: You can switch from Businessman to Demolition Man and vice-versa as the mood takes you. As with most sandbox games, you don't start with much in the way of resources... but there's no point to playing an empire building game if the empire's already half-built by the time you start. For newcomers who find the complexity of the more recent games of the X series a bit overwhelming. I'd recommend X-BTF as good way to get a feel for the combat/trading systems and the plot/setting without getting hit by option overload.
Nerve software needs to stick to console conversions. The story is weak, the modified gameplay is even weaker. The versatility of the new weapons doesn't do much to counteract the major annoyances of the original Doom 3, which were turned up to eleven in this sequel.
I hereby dub this title "Spore-ablo". You'd think Blizzard/Activision would have learned from EA's mistakes when it comes to implementing heavily intrusive DRM, but the way it was implemented proves otherwise. Trying to get your connectivity issues resolved through tech support is useless. As others have mentioned, the development team for Diablo 1 and 2 left this company quite some time ago... and it shows in the quality, or complete lack thereof, of what Blizzard released.
Dead Space 1 set a very high bar. All Dead Space 2 managed to do was limbo under it. The plot and concept were fine. DS2 expands on the ground covered by the first game nicely, without going off on any irrelevant tangents like some sequels have been prone to do. The disappointment comes in how the gameplay was implemented, the trial-and-error methods of the deathtraps in particular. The only way they could have made it more blatant is if they paused the action on occasion to flash the message: "We interrupt your regularly scheduled first person horror survival shooter to bring you this cinematic that plays like Dragon's Lair."
The physics and gameplay I'd put in the B to B+ range, same with the in game commentary and music. However, that all gets dragged down by an economy size F grade regarding an extremely glaring bug, along with EA's refusal to fix it: How can you have two decades of licensing to make video games for the NHL, and be completely incapable of getting the points right for the standings in Be a Pro mode? How can your playtesters miss the fact that the game fails to record the single point earned for an overtime loss? And how can your company then refuse to fix that bug despite making two patches that fix other aspects of the game? One point for an OTL, EA. --- It's in the game.
