Genius! One of the funniest and cleverest experiences I ever had! It's not really a game though but more like a collection of voiced stories, with some songs. I recommend it to everyone.
An adult-themed survival horror puzzle game. Good: - nice visuals, both the sex scenes and the decorations of the levels - all the evil/depravity thing, while not my kink or anything, is interesting and refreshing - good moans and sex sounds - interesting sex positions So-so: - puzzles are more annoying that fun to solve Bad: - opening doors by dragging the mouse is annoying - combat with the knife is just awfully implemented - running away from monsters is very annoying, especially because you don't know where to run. Monsters follow you at the same speed you're running at, then suddenly stop when you leave the area where they're supposed to follow you. You can sneak but that's largely useless, and you don't know their sight or hearing range anyway Overall, a nice looking porn game where only the porn part is really good but the gameplay is poorly designed and annoys you until the next sex scene. Still, worth a look!
Action game where you're supposed to cast a huge number of different spell - that simply doesn't work because you can't cast those spells in a comfortable way. You have to press sequences of keys for EACH spell cast, and you simply forget those sequences. There is a lot of humor in the game as well but I didn't find it funny or smart.
A Diablo-like free-to-play MMO. Good: - great music - a large selection of abilities, spells and effects - free So-so: - the game is messy in a sense that there are lots of mobs, lots of stuff happening all at once and it's often hard to see what's going on, especially if you play as a witch with tons of summoned minions. I recall playing Diablo 1 (I never played Diablo 3 and only very little of Diablo 2), and this game feels like a mess in comparison - at the same time it's a rather simple game, at least the first act that I've seen. You defeat mobs like crazy and the game feels like it was made for kids. As a witch, you can just run around and occasionally summon skeletons - and your minions kill everything for you - the idea of gems giving abilities is novel but doesn't feel good. I'd much more prefer to just learn spells - this feels like improving a character. But with gems and gear it all feels like consumerism, fixed on the notion of owning things. But I understand it's the same from the game mechanic point of view. It's just the framing Bad: - poor performance. Even on the lowest graphical settings everything was lagging for me all the time. I have a decent gaming laptop from late 2018 which at that time could run Oculus VR - there are lots of items dropping but you never have enough space to loot them. You end up leaving even blue items on the floor. What's the point in this? They should have added some spell to disenchant those items or whatever, not just force the player to skip loot. Also, the idea to not have a universal currency (like gold) in the game was a bad one. You end up getting ingredients for various orbs in exchange for the loot you sell - and much of those aren't even needed for anything useful. It's just clutter and clutter in your stash. Sorting out inventory ends up consuming a lot of your playtime, and it's not fun - as it goes with most fantasy games, the story is forgettable trash that I stopped reading after the first few dialogs I didn't enjoy it past the few first zones. It's too easy, too quick, too messy. Maybe it just targets teenagers, I dunno. Not for me. It's sad for me to see the Diablo genre degrade into this.
A nice cartoonish action/slasher game with multiplayer focus. Good: - it's simple enough to pick up when you want to play with kids or your girlfriend - cats look nice, and there are tons of cat-related jokes and sounds. If you like cats like I do, it's really fun So-so: - progression is somewhat repetitive. You need gold to buy upgrades for gear, but there isn't enough of it from the quests for gear to keep up with your level. And when you re-run the same dungeons over and over, there is quite a low amoung of gold looted - although the texts are full of cat jokes, the story itself is silly and not worth reading into. It's probably targeting kid dunno... Bad: - you need 2 controllers to play it multiplayer. Can't play, say, with 1 controller and keyboard. Also, you can't reconfigure controls. I played this with my gf with 2 controllers, and one of the controllers the buttons had completely different functions than on the other one. Overall it's a fun (even though forgettable) semi-casual game that great for a few local co-op sessions.
In short: multiplayer adds nothing. Also, only buy this if at least one of you knows the game well! It's a multiplayer version of Don't Starve. First off, I'm not a fan of Minecraft-like (Robison-type survival) games though I played Don't Starve and Minecraft 10+ years ago for a couple of days. Only purchased this one because of the seasonal discount and because my gf and I wanted to play something together. We had a tiring, unrewarding evening with it, then she tried it on her own 2 times (full-night stretches) with little success, just went to bed in bad mood. Then I watched some 2-hour long "for beginners" video on YouTube, kinda got interested in this game during the first 10-15 minutes of the video, got tired after that and finally lost interest entirely. So, what's bad with this game: 1. NO TUTORIAL. You really can't play it unless you watch videos online about it. Sorry but that's not how games should work. And you come to play this with your gf. To PLAY, not watch hours of videos first 2. controls are pretty much broken. The game doesn't tell you to use keyboard, instead it enourages you to click on things. This works for resource gathering (though it only tells you later in a random loading tip that you need to hold the mouse button to chop trees, not click). But combat using a mouse is impossible. Moreover, all the overapping tress, bushes etc make you give wrong orders during fights. Just imagine how torturous this is when you play with a gf and both of you don't know this game. Fights were total mess. My character was just running around trying to chop a tree while I was trying to click on the running enemy 3. the game is not elegant or anything. I mean the design. Just watch any letsplay video and see how many micro-rules are here. "7 dogs spawn but if you use a wormhole and then teleport back, they despawn", "bees become angry in spring even if they are in your hive, they will attack you but you need to run away 2 screens and run back and they will reset" and stuff like that. Literally thousands of tiny things to remember - which you can only find out through dozens of replays. Something you can't know in advance or expect if you just sit with a gf to play something new and fun 4. multiplayer is broken, totally. Players in the party get maps which are rotated at different angles. You don't even see each other on the map unless you're very close! Half of our time was wasted trying to find each other! We had to sit next to each other, and even when looking at her map on her screen, it was still difficult to figure out where I needed to go to find her cuz of the mental rotations I had to apply. I finally made a compass, but it has limited usage time. And after death, map rotation gets randomzied again until you pick up the compass from your corpse! Players could walk as a group but that makes little sense because we're basically competing for resources and it's more efficient to gather alone. Overall, it might be a fun game in singleplayer (if you like this genre) but for multiplayer and especially if you both are beginners it's just a certain way to ruin your evening.
A simplistic steampunk / dieselpunk 4x game somewhat close to Civ 6 or Endless Legends. Good: - gfx, especially the UI art, are pretty good - music is generally good So-so: - the combat system isn't like in Civ games: when units attack something, the target won't retaliate. No bonuses from attacking from different sides etc. So it's a rather simple combat system, far simpler than in Civ games, with no defensive bonuses from tiles, no move cost multipliers on tiles etc. Bad: - to place new buildings, you need to produce a "Builder" unit first, which you then need to move to the desired location and convert into the building (the builder is consumed). That's too tedious. - the terrain is all done in shades of brown. It's very hard to tell what objects are on the tiles, so you have to click on each tile to get an info dialog slide from the left - that's too tedious as well. Guess what, steampunk units are brown, too! - the game is pretty resource intensive. Even on the lowest graphical settings I had very low FPS on my gaming laptop with GTX1050. I never had such lags with Civ 6 for example If you're a fan of steam- or dieselpunk, you may be willing to tolerate the brown-ish mess this game is. But anyone else, even a Civ fan has nothing to see here.
A casual colony building sim with some randomness. Good: - gfx and music are nice - UI is well designed So-so: - the game is really casual, without much depth. All you do every turn is: 1) click on a location on the fringe of the explored area, 2) pick 1 building from random 3, maybe build 1-2 buildings in a base, 3) maybe build a mine, 4) maybe plant some bacteria. That's all. Randomness of exploration loot and available buildings make this a rather relaxed game Bad: - nothing really Overall, this game is okay though it would probably work better in a simpler 2D version in a web browser or on a mobile phone (would need some f2p monetization though). Just not sure its simple systems are worth the slick 3D presentation.
An interesting and addicting puzzle-like city builder. Good: - the mechanics of this city building sim are great! There are lots of intricate dependencies between the buildings, lots of stuff to keep track of, and puzzle-like terraforming - graphics are fairly good So-so: - facial expressions of talking characters change randomly. Instead, there could be just several "talking" animations for each of the expressions (happy, sad, neutral, angry, whatever), and those should be chosen depending on the context of the dialog Bad: - nothing!
A poorly implemented puzzle game. Its only purpose is to tell you the story of ****/wiki/Harriet_Tubman which you could just read in Wikipedia. Good: - free So-so: - the setting of 19th century US slavery / abolitionism is somewhat interesting though I don't really like it in the political context of early 2020s Bad: - graphics are rather basic and the color scheme in levels is ugly (green-ish, gray-ish) - when moving your character, there is a rather noticeable delay while the animation is playing, and this gets very annoying. You have to wait those fractions of a second every time because WASD key presses don't have any effect until the animation is done. These hiccups destroy fluidity of movement and artificially slow you down - English texts are rather poorly written, with words frequently used incorrectly. The credits say the game was made by a diverse selection of students - cmon, none of them was a native English speaker? - there are some religious statements... - the game is rather short, with just about 20 levels Overall, unless you are a supporter of BLM etc and want to play this for political reasons, this game is barely worth your time, even for free.
A funny RPG close to those made with RPG maker but more pixelated graphics Good: - free - the story has some hilarious moments - it's worth checking out the game just for that So-so: - pixelated graphics, 8bit sounds and music - depends on your taste - combat is simplistic and you need to press Enter at the right moment for the attack to do damage - that makes this game a casual one Bad: - I'd prefer mouse-based controls and less nestedness in the UI. Current UI simply mimics that in RPG Maker and JRPGs and there it's traditionally horrible. It's free, so you can check it out for a few laughs.
An interesting board/puzzle game with reflecting lasers which suffers from lack of accessibility and a poorly chosen setting. Good: - the idea of not just reflecting a laser ray but making a chess-like board game from that is unique So-so: - music and sounds are cheap and have this strange 1980-s feel which is an unnecessary filter for the audience. I mean, I dislike that whole setting a lot, but I like the main game's idea. Should I play this game? - graphics - these look cheap and annoying. It's even hard to tell pieces from each other with all the glow. I understand that the devs want to have this neon sign theme but it just distracts a lot from the reflection and spatial logic - rotating pieces - need something else instead of the left and right buttons at the top but I don't really know what. Maybe just a mouse drag? Or show arrows close to the piece? Bad: - tutorials are recorded videos which are more confusing than helpful. Only in the last 2 tutorials where you finally get a chance to try it out you start understanding something. Since the game's rules are so unusual I'd suggest a completely different approach here, the one mobile games use. In the first level just introduce the king and the cannon. In level 2 add 1 reflector. In level 3 add 1 more piece. Or even spend 3-4 levels with just 1 new piece, and show different puzzle-like positions where the player has to kill the enemy king in 1 turn or protect his own king from the enemy attack. I'd say, the full selection of pieces should become available only after 15 or so solved positions. - the UI looks cheap, with all the oversized fonts. The font itself is very annoying too. Okay, so, overall I like the core game's concept but the current production values are atrocious simply because of the unfortunate selection of the game's overall setting and the shoestring budget this game is being developed on. I dunno. I wouldn't buy it unless it's re-skinned into something more appropriate for a logic-board game. This neon stuff would be okay for an endless runner-racing-shooter game probably, not for chess. I guess they thought lasers associate with the 1980s culture but not for me, and I don't like it.
A barely playable TBS game which hoped to capitalize on the modern political trends Good: - graphics are good though they lack animations So-so: - the whole "gender pronouns" agenda - combat is simplistic. Although it kinda works, it's clumsy and slow because of poorly placed buttons, confirmations etc. Obviously, the tactical system wasn't front and center for the devs here - music is rather mediocre Bad: - the "beep-beep-beep" sounds when any character is talking. It actually sounds so comical together with the music (which attempts to build up atmosphere) that I almost quit the game at the first dialog - endless dialogs, with each message appearing not at once but with letters one-by-one. Cmon...
A game in the XCom style which tries to improve on the 2010s versions by adding back features from the 1990s versions. However, it's mired with poor camera controls, glitches and lags Good: - the 4AP system is closer to the original 1990s XCom and is a major improvement compared to the 2AP system which sadly became so common in the more recent squad-based tactical games - extensive character customization and classes taken from the later XComs are good - the story is nicely written, it's higher-quality sci-fi with at least no obvious logical inconsistencies. Factions with their ideologies are believable - music is great and deserves a download for listening when not playing the game - graphics and sfx are good - the tutorial does a good job showing you all the numerous game systems - the aiming system is a good idea (borrowed from Fallout New Vegas), it works better than I'd expect So-so: - like in all newer XCom games, overwatch is still king. You can put a few snipers on constant overwatch in the corner of the map and that's it. The game tries to discourage this by putting resource barrels which the enemy will destroy if you don't rush forward - but I guess a bit of lost loot is still far better than a dead soldier. Btw in the original 1990s XComs there was the same issue: there you could just skip 35 turns, the aliens will rush forward to find you, and you put a line of crouched soldiers with laser rifles - the game turns into a shooting practice. The real solution to this was offered by JA2 with its mix of real-time and turn-based modes + interrupts (based on wisdom stat and soldier's line of sight). - the game shows approx locations of enemies which makes the game a bit too easy. The original XComs had this tension where you could never know where the next alien will come from - that's lost here Bad: - can't reconfigure key bindings. E.g. I'd want to flip Q/E, T/G and mouse wheel but that's not possible. Rotating the camera was a constant pain for me. Instead of Q/E, camera should be freely rotatable, say, with middle mouse button, since it's a 3D game. Also, I was constantly trying to zoom out to see where the enemies are - in vain. The camera just refuses to be controlled properly. Most likely, it's because this game was made for consoles first, not PC first. So, everything is optimized for controllers, not mouse and keyboard - there are missions where you need to reach a location or pick an item - even after all enemies are dead you still have to move each soldier in turn-based mode - performance is bad: even at "low" gfx preset, my gaming laptop with NVidia GTX1100 had noticeable lags. When you move around the cursor, it aparently runs pathfinding all the time, so there are delays when all those lines and borders of movement are shown. This creates a laggy experience overall and takes out much of the fun - vehicles are a nusiance. They drive through scenery objects including barrels, explode them and take damage. Instead, vehicles should only enter objects if you explicitely tell them to go there. Or maybe hold "shift" while clicking to move Try it if you're into the newer XCom releases. I'll just wait for Xenonauts 2 instead.
A procedurally generated indie TBS / RPG where you lead a small party of fantasy characters in turn-based battles Good: - levels are randomly generated - fairly classic types of characters, from warrior to cleric to mage (and some more), and the system works fine. Plus you can push enemies into spike traps or explode barrels - quick travel between already cleared rooms So-so: - pixelated graphics are typical for indie games, so it's up to your taste - sounds are 8-bit - up to your taste Bad: - no mouse-overs and you can't drag items in inventory. - a tutorial would actually be helpful. I did get a handle on the minor rules and quirks after about an hour, but it was quite stressful at first, especially because you can't reload - no music, and it feels cheap and unfinished because of that - no story. Like, whatsoever. You just walk around randomly generated rooms, leveling up your characters and collecting loot. It feels meaningless after a while. Even in ADOM from 1994 you had some quests, big and small
A procedurally generated survival/stealth first person shooter game. Good: - some British humor So-so: - it's procedurally generated so it kinda feels pointless. Locations feel the same, just bunches of houses here and there Bad: - graphics are poorly optimized. Even on lowest setting the game was lagging on my powerful gaming laptop - combat feels quite annoying because of clunky controls and lags - tedious inventory management. There are myriads of useless items scattered behind every door. Space is severely lacking
Good: - it was clever design to put the variables out for the player to control right in the starting screen. Which also plays well with the concept that it's all a theater that the player is running - branches work well together and create a holistic story after you've read many of the branches. It's an interesting take on writing branching stories. Also the idea to explore the same space of events from points of view of 4 different characters, and how branches flesh out all their quirks and sides - it discusses tribalism - like, people in the village hate and fear the demonic overlord in the castle although the overlord never did anything bad to them. So, fear causes people to be hostile - graphics, though done in pixel art and 16-bit (or even 8-bit?) palette, are quite nice and add to the game's appeal - retro 8-bit music fit very well So-so: - some variables seem to have no effect - in most playthroughs there are just 2 choices. And the endings often seem to not be dependent on the last choice at all Bad: - For its short total play time and simple technical nature it should cost $2-3, not $8.
A multiplayer-only puzzle game where you have to talk with the other player and describe puzzles. Good: - innovative idea of forced communication to solve puzzles - it's free So-so: - puzzles aren't hard themselves, it's that you need to find out which objects are interactive and what the puzzle actually is - by random clicks and action. That's quite tedious but there are some players who probably like this - graphics and music are okay. Nothing spectacular, just functional - being stuck in a puzzle game isn't pleasant but when you're stuck with a gf that gets pretty annoying after a while. My gf and I dropped it at the 3rd puzzle Bad: - you can't communicate by typing. Imagine that you're playing in a noisy environment or have people sleeping nearby. Then you can't use the mic. It wouldn't be hard to add a chat system like in MMO games What seemed to be a cool idea (cooperative puzzle solving) just doesn't really work, or at least it's not much fun. Still, try it out, maybe you'll like it.
An atmospheric and creepy adventure game / experience. Good: - graphics style is great. It's mostly done in shades of black and red. Animations are excellent. - excellent sound and voices. Together with gfx these make a great creepy atmosphere So-so: - puzzles are rather casual. This is probably good for mobile players (the game has an iOS version) but to me as a hardcore PC gamer it sometimes didn't even feel like a game but rather as a linear "experience" - you just move left-to-right and because of that lack a feel of actually exploring anything or even progressing. Instead, it's a sequence of meaningless scenes and you don't really care much when or where this ends. Bad: - (nitpicking) they should have allowed control of the character with WASD and arrow keys Overall, it's a linear artistic experience-type of game, in the setting of child's nightmares. It's definitely worth a playthrough. Just don't expect much depth here: it's more about the look and feel than about logic or mechanics.
7/10 An atmospheric roguelike, with an isometric view, real-time melee combat, some crafting and a semi-permadeath mechanic. Good: - excellent audio which gives at all a great, atmospheric "experience" feel - excellent graphics - though they are mostly just low-poly models, without even any textures. Still, the game has great looks due to real-time shadows, lighting, fog and the haunting darkness - it's kinda permadeath but not really permadeath. There are no saves, but as you reach a cooking fire somewhere, you can make it a checkpoint by spending 25 gems (which you loot from killed mobs), and then, after you die, you can teleport to that cooking fire instantly. Then you need to reach your dead body and loot your stuff from it So-so: - inventory is small, but you don't know any recipes in advance, meaning that you generally have to hoard items and find out on your way what 3 items can be crafted into what. Quite early in the game you will find yourself dropping items to free up space, only to later return to the rooms you've been to already and loot the dropped items again etc. Although limited inventory could have been thought of as a mechanic to make the game harder, I think it just introduces hassle and isn't fun. Instead, they should have allowed all items to stack to any amount (also arrows! Currently fire arrows stack 8 max, and bomb arrows 4 max which is way too low) and make inventory scrollable, with no limit on space. - on a related note, most stuff you craft is useless. E.g. boiled soup, stew and broth aren't that much more efficient than raw food. And arrows are downright useless, especially those hardest to craft. A fire arrow flies in an arc and will land either too far or too close, miss the enemy you clicked and just burn out after a while. Caltrops will catch 1 enemy - that's not worth crating it from 4 shards and a few more items. - I kinda expected a tutorial but instead the game chooses to just let you find out its rules through exploration or randomly. For example, I wouldn't have learnt about the whole crating mechanic or the existence of the inventory, had I not checked "Controls" page in the game's Settings screen. But well, I'm a super-hardcore gamer so I always check game settings before I even start playing the game for the first time. It's probably not what most players would do. Some instructions at start would definitely make this game friendlier to starters - fog looks nice but gets dissolved too slowly, and you kinda have to stop at times to just let it dissolve - it annoys a bit Bad: - WASD movement feels clunky at times, especially with the winding paths and corridors the rooms typically are. Often the character will just get stuck if the direction in which you want it to move doesn't fully correspond to the wall's or edge's rotation. E.g. if there is an edge that's going from SE to NW and you hold the A key to move left, the character will be stuck in place. I'd expect it to just slide NW. - due to clumsy movement, most of my deaths were in spear traps - although I saw these traps! I'm not sure but maybe just the good old Diablo 1's control system with "click-to-move" and "click to attack" would be friendlier, and click-to-move means walking around traps(?) As with most art-centric games, Below excels in its aesthetics but isn't great in its mechanics. Also, there is zero narrative: you don't know why you're venturing into these depths, the game kinda sets up the "story" with a long atmospheric cutscene at start and that's it. I'd still recommend this game just for its sheer aesthetics, especially if you get it at a discount. Just don't expect it to hold your attention for too long after you've understood its mechanics and found out that there isn't actually much meat in it. The semi-permadeath thing will pad your playtime maybe 2x or 3x but there is a limit to how many similar winding rooms you'll be willing to clear.
A city/empire builder game about ancient Egypt which is, while educational, not much fun. Good: - the core system with management of food, materials and other resources, balancing types of buildings is fine - in general, the idea of first managing a single city and then expanding to the whole kingdom is interesting - there is tons of historical material. If you're into history, it's absolutely amazing. Many of the game events have encyclopedia-type descriptions - gfx and music are well done So-so: - story events constantly disrupt your play, forcing sudden changes, introducing timers etc. Out of the blue you find yourself lacking some materials with no way to solve this. The desire of the game to match history takes away much of the control. Though you can turn this off in the settings for your game at start - there is no real combat (it's greatly simplified and happens completely on the strategic map), so it's all about the economy. Pretty much 50% of the turns have no orders to give. There is simply too little stuff going on most of the time - but then you are bombarded with story events which have a high degree of randomness in them - the whole mechanic of appeasing gods for bonuses (which expire after a few turns) gets tiring and feels meaningless. The bonuses are just too weak - the whole religion thing becomes quite annoying Bad: - the game has not much replay value, despite the many options at game start. After you've seen the myriads of story-related events you'd probably get so fed up reading (or skipping) all this that you'd never want to try it again. As a result, it doesn't even feel like a strategy game but like some kind of a simulation to learn history or whatever. Just for comparison, Civilization series never feels like that, and it's tons more fun to play Overall, it's a rather boring yet very historically accurate simulation of Ancient Egypt. I gues you should play it only if you're specifically interested in Egypt. But not if you're just a fan of Civ- or Sim City-like games. I actually wonder why this game was made in the first place - the managers should have questioned if the audience for this topic is big enough to justify a commercial project with this level of production quality. In any case, for that small audience this game is good.
A TBS where you raid caravans, build up a hideout and trade/craft. Good: - there is a meaty RPG system of character leveling, equipment and stats - the game does well in presenting the purposeless and self-destructing evil that a life of a raider or a pirate is - the world is randomly generated, so no playthrough is the same So-so: - graphics are functional: detailed 2D with no animations. That's passable for an indie TBS - the theme of playing "for the evil side", while fresh (I haven't seen a game like this), isn't particularly enjoyable after you get what this game is about. I guess the game would have a more lasting appeal if it allowed the player to decide if he wants to be good, neutral or bad, like it's typically done in 4x games like Civ. E.g. if the player just had a settlement where he produces and trades something and then has an option of attacking neighbors, expanding the empire etc - the game would be more satisfying. But as it is, you're given control of drunks who want "an easy life" and even don't want to scavenge or produce anything themselves, choosing instead to depend on slaves. - the whole thing doesn't even feel realistic: with caravaneers getting slaughtered in dozens on a daily basis, the already poor wasteland population would just die out and wouldn't be able to support so many parasites. On the other hand, if the wasteland is so rich and populous, the caravans would just have bigger detachments of guards. I know that they needed to have many weak caravans so that the player could grind and level up the party... - despite all the complexity of the characters' parameters and perks, combat feels repetitive and lacks planning or depth. Partially it's because the soldiers can't move on the filed, and there are just 2 lines of them: melee and ranged. Maybe it's also because of the initiative-based turns of the soldiers. But more likely, it's because attacks happen at 50% or even 30% hit chance, with many misses and widely varying damage - this makes you feel you are simply watching what's happening instead of having any real control. You can't even see the composition of the enemy party when deciding if you really want to attack them - adding to the randomness. - the music and the texts, while conveying the atmosphere of meaningless evil and despair well, lack variety and thus get boring in this non-changing tune. Just for comparison, take Fallout 2 and check how many different themes it had. Or Underrail (it's an indie title) Bad: - while the strategic part of the game and the GUI screens are explained in much detail, there is not much explained about the combat part. A new player could actually run into a party of other raiders that's much stronger at the very beginning of the game and lose without even understanding what's going on. Unless you specifically enjoy the idea of playing out Negan from The Walking Dead slaughtering an endless, magically replenished stream of innocent civilians, this game ends up a rather average TBS with a short-lived novelty effect but too much randomness in its somewhat overly simplistic battles.
A cute city/village building game like Banished, in cute robot setting. Good: - robots (your villagers) are cute - there is a relatively deep tech tree, with many buildings to unlock - you can fully retrieve resources of building you don't need anymore and then free up the space entirely for new buildings So-so: - like in all games of this type I've seen so far, the game's main challenge comes after you've passed the medium size of the village and start drowning in logistics problems. You'll watch robots carrying resources across the roads endlessly. The bigger the village, the more horrendous the inefficiences - some players may find the low-poly / flat-fill 3D graphics too simplistic or mobile-targeted, but it does the job fine in my opinion Bad: - it's strange that robots would need food for anything. Also, resources like wood and stone would better fit a medieval game, not sci-fi. It should have been tiberium / elerium etc :) A cute robot take on the Banished formula. You should check it out if you like village building and resource / logistics management simulators.
An attempt at a tycoon game while also forcing the player to fail to fit the book's plot. Good: - well, at least it may be a way to get the younger generation learn about the Orwell's book "Animal Farm". So-so: - the graphics and the music are okay. Nothing spectacular though Bad: - it may look like a tycoon game to you at first, where you need to optimize your decisions and strive to keep the food supply sufficient, the mood high etc. However, by year 5 the farm just falls apart through no fault of yours. And by year 6 there are no available actions left apart form "sing" and "cheer". I had to drop the game when, in year 6, the game literally showed no available actions. That's effectively game end. - the game totally fails to deliver the book's message, or any message at all. E.g. I've managed to build the windmill but then human neighbors attacked the farm, and destroyed the windmill. Given that story, one would have to say that the USSR was a great country and only failed because the evil West attacked it or at least strangled it with sanctions and the nuclear threat. Ridiculous. Similarly, by day 5 there were simply no animals remaining who would want to do any work. Hens, sheep, cows - these all just weren't on the yard anymore and couldn't be assigned tasks. The last animal to do any work (planting seeds) was actually a pig! Which totally contradicts the book's idea that pigs became lazy and never did any work - animals are constantly "tired'. This begs the question: "if they are constantly tired now when they don't need to feed a human, how didn't they get mortally tired when a human was exploiting them?" - there are plot inconsistencies. E.g. I let the dogs run away on day 3. Still, on day 6 the story mentions dogs arresting the Clower horse. - for many actions, the result is unclear, and the action itself is just one word. I didn't bother to reload and just tried those actions out to see what they do. This all made the gameplay feel random and meaningless. I'd say that the designers of this game took an impossible task: to take a political book with a linear story and turn it into something that, at least to a gamer, looks like a tycoon or farm management game. The thing is, tycoon games ARE about central planning, just on a scale of a single company (run authoritatively by a CEO, in an environment of a free market economy). But this game has to "prove that communism is bad" by cheating against the player and forcing him to fail. Oh yeah, and just to be clear: I'm a Russian, and I still remember the USSR as a child. And I've read the "Animal Farm" book a few times: first time at school and then a couple times in English as an adult. And I hate communism. And I run my own business and hate all the leftist madness that's plaguing the West right now. Gee, what a mess ****.
A simple top-down 2D adventure game with the core mechanic that you get teleported back to the starting point even 60 seconds. Good: - the idea of getting teleported back to your "home" location ("dying") every 60 seconds is novel So-so: - 2-color pixelated graphics (just pure white and pure black pixels), with DOS fonts gives it a distinctive look. It's ok for an indie game I guess. Much like e.g. for ADOM it was ok to have ASCII "graphics". Though of course it would be a better game with some proper 2D gfx - the fact that you get teleported back to home location every 60 seconds doesn't really change the gameplay much. It basically plays like a normal adventure game. Further in the story, your home location gets moved forward so that you could progress. Bad: - I really didn't like that there is no use of mouse, even in menus. Most likely, this game was done for consoles? I guess it was, cuz the arrow-key movement is for for consoles, and for PC it would be better to some something Diablo-like, with clicks to move This "time loop" game looks interesting at first but its appeal wears off to a large extent after about 15 minutes of play, when you understand that it's basically an adventure game with a minor inconvenience of regular teleports to the starting point (which also replaces reloads).
An indie TBS RPG with combat close to the 2010s XComs and the strategic layer close to FTL. Good: - there is a lot of meat here, with multiple weapons, several character classes, character leveling So-so: - the story is not so interesting and poorly presented. E.g. 1 hour into the game I still didn't know why it's all on submarines and what I'm fighting for here - graphics are pixelated which is okay for an indie game, though you may be already getting tired of this art style - some music tracks are good and would be worth listening to separately but some are rather annoying - the core combat is based on the midcore 2-action-point system from the recent XComs. From an indie game I'd expect something more hardcore and closer to JA or the original XComs (Xenonauts). Though I guess younger players will like it. Bad: - the GUI has large buttons with huge pixelated font which I probably have never seen in any game. It's absolutely ridiculous and makes it hard to read even the simplest things. They should have made GUI elements at least 4 times smaller, or given the choice of the GUI scale. The game looks like some DOS game from the 80s which was struggling with 320x240 monitors back in its time. Actually, even XCom: UFO Defense from 1991 had smaller and more readable font. - graphics of the environment are misleading due to strange perspective. Walls, doors, crates are all drawn from the top and also slightly from the front. So, you'd expect that there is 1 tile covered by walls where your characters can walk. However, the walls also occupy the tile which they visually cover! This is very counter-intuitive, and often I couldn't even understand where I can walk and where I can't - line-of-fire calculations seem to be broken. Often soldiers can fire when the line of fire is obviously blocked by a corner - camera doesn't move when you push the cursor to screen side. Also camera keeps moving by itself and centering on soldiers, always trying to make the enemies get out of the viewable area. You can zoom out the camera a bit but not enough. This struggle with the camera just gets on the nerves and you never get used to it - walking around locations in the turn-based mode is annoying and meaningless. The game does have an Ai "follow" mode where you'd only need to move one soldiers, and the others follow. However, it would be just better to have a real-time mode like in JA2. - all battles start with you opening the door, with all your soldiers exposed and all enemies waiting behind crates on overwatch. Ridiculous. It's hard to say how this game's designers made so many poor decisions while at the same time thinking up a relatively complex combat/RTS system. Also, how the issue of overly huge font never came up in development. It's as if they initially made this for some Java dumphone with a tiny screen and then made a clumsy port to PC which they lost hope in mid-way and just rushed to publish as-is. And as it is, it's just hard to enjoy.
TBS + trading game somewhat like Mount & Blade, in Fallout-like universe. Good: - writing is very good, conversations with NPCs are intelligent and believable - the game has a distinctive style and atmosphere - combat is Fallout 2-like, with shots of varying degree of precision costing different amount of action points So-so: - graphics may turn off many, especially the character faces (they aren't only blurry but somewhat unprofessionally drawn). Combat doesn't have many animations. Though one can really forgive the low-budget graphics in an indie game - GUI is somewhat clunky. E.g. mouseover tooltips could be helpful as well as dragging items with the mouse between the slots. - the tutorial is somewhat lacking in explaining the GUI to new players. Often there is just too much explained in the walls of text before you can actually have a look at the GUI elements to see what the text refers to - the game focuses more on trading than on combat or even the story. You will like this if you wanted more of an open world trader/rogue game. You probably won't like this if you wanted just an RPG with turn-based combat like Fallout 2 or Underrail Bad: - nothing really Overall, if you're into trading games, like turn-based combat and enjoy the post-apocalyptic setting, it's definitely worth its modest price for you. It's obviously a labor of love, just done on a shoestring budget.
A mediocre TBS with some randomized travelling between battles. Good: - actually nothing. So-so: - I found the combat system way too simplistic. Though I guess some players may find it okay. It could probably work fine on mobile - the art style: it reminds comic books. If you are fan of comic books, you will like it. I was never a fan of comic books, so it's a miss for me - story - it's wordy and you might enjoy it if you're into teenage-targeted comic books and Mad Max. But it's far, far from the level of Fallout. In fact, I just stopped reading it after a while because it's all about random resources to loot and random fights Bad: - nothing Yeah, it's the first game I've ever reviewed where I can't really point out anything specifically bad or specifically good. It's just kinda mediocre all-around. It does have a distinctive art style (which I'm not a fan of), so maybe if you are into post-apocalyptic comic books you could give it a try just for that alone.
A remake of Advanced Wars, but in fantasy setting. Good: - it's a sold TBS with good controls - graphics are pixelated and look nice - online multiplayer and map editor So-so: - I personally don't like that essentially for each unit there is a table how much dmg it would to every other unit type. Such a system is just not elegant in my opinion. Though I understand that for most players is okay or maybe even great - I may be too old for it, but I didn't the cliche story and how it was written. I can't recall the story in Advanced Wars - maybe it was similarly kids-targeted. I think they should have made it more like a parody of RPGs to make it funnier and fit better with the art style Bad: - nothing really. Well, it feels unoriginal but that's the purpose, as it's an intentional remake for the Advanced Wars audience. A fantasy remake of Advanced Wars with multipalyer and map editor - a gift for Advanced Wars fans and still a TBS worth checking out for other TBS players.
A trading sim with turn-based combat, somewhat similar to Battle Brothers but with more focus on trade. Good: - the characters in your party have personality and their own quests, you can customize them as they level up by picking perks from a tree - difficulty is high and the game generally does no hand-holding. If you aren't careful, you can pick up a fight that cannot be won, and it's game over - relations between in-game factions change dynamically, and this makes each playthrough unique So-so: - graphics have style to them (water colors) though I'd say they aren't great and somewhat lack detail. The marketing materials on Steam actually say it all: I almost skipped this game because of its poor capsule image. - writing varies in quality, and e.g. in tutorials the English is quite poor - combat has relatively high degree of randomness, as hits/shots can miss even if it's 95% chance to hit. Combined with permadeath, this can be stressful Bad: - I'd prefer an interactive, hand-holding tutorial, but okay, I get it, tutorials are for weaklings Overall, it's a game for the same audience as Battle Brothers, just in a different setting (post-apocalyptic sci-fi instead of fantasy), with somewhat more variety in gameplay but with a smaller budget (which shows in the graphics). It's also a game entirely designed and programmed by a single developer, so it's quite an achievement.
A one-man's attempt at a Darkest-Dungeon style game in sci-fi setting. Good: - there are many abilities and effects, so there is a lot of meat in the game - you make your party from 4 characters out of many available, so each replay with a different party setup will be very different. You can also change abilities of existing characters during the session - levels, enemy groups etc are procedurally generated, resulting into even more varied experience So-so: - this game was made essentially by a single person and has rather simple pixel art. I'm neutral about it especially because the game's price is not high - some music tracks are good but some (the guitar one) are annoying Bad: - GUI is poorly designed. Although the tiny characters (since they are pixel-drawn) leave tons of space on the screen to use, the dialogs of the enemies still overlap. Tooltips of abilities cover the whole party. Just for comparison, the GUI in Darkest Dungeon is much better designed. - there aren't enough explanations. E.g. a tooltip for some abilitiy says that the ability applies some effect. But what that effect does is not in the tooltip. Overall, it's a laudable attempt to make a Darkest-Dungeon style dungeon crawler game but the poorly designed GUI makes it rather inaccessible to new players even if you are ok with its super low-budget pixel art.
A failed f2p multiplayer JA2/XCOM style game Good: - 2D graphics are high detail - it's an XCom/JA style game which I'm a lifetime fan of So-so: - it uses the 2 action points combat system with covers which I personally dislike since the 2011 XCOM re-make but everyone is using it now, so I guess some players like it and it's a matter how casual the game wants to be. Being an f2p game, this one obviously has to be midcore, hence the 2AP system Bad: - it's a 2D game but it lags on my 2019 gaming laptop! I don't know what this is. Maybe the whole game was first developed for web browser, and the PC version is a wrapper around it? - English localization is horrible, to a point that you won't understand the tutorial properly because of mistranslations. I had to switch to Russian (and restart the game) during the tutorial. - it's obviously a pay-to-win game, that's why it's free. Though this doesn't matter in 2021 because the game is dead. I wonder why they even still keep a server running. In retrospect, even if this game had proper English localization it still probably wouldn't succeed because the fanbase of JA2 and XCom despises f2p. Though, what do I know...
An interesting concept of discovering more and more stuff without moving an inch. Good: - the game looks simple at first: there is just a red button. But as you try clicking stuff in the room and type in codes (hints for which you see written all around you), stuff appears. You're never really sure if you've found everything. All that while still sitting in a chair So-so: - music and graphics are passable for this type of game Bad: - I did get bored rather quickly. Maybe it's just because I'm not really a puzzle type. The puzzles aren't clearly stated here, and you kinda have to find them on your own, through random actions. This usually is more fun in theory than in practice. After a while, it just felt like a waste of time to me, with no sensible reward apart from just checking off all the endings (which have been arbitrarily created by the authors and have no meaning). The mechanics of discovering all endings reminded me of Stanley's Parable, but there you have lots of humor to make the exploration worth your time. This game is ideal for VR: it doesn't have any player movement (something VR has struggled with), but it offers a very rich space which you can explore all while sitting. It's an interesting game design experiment and is worth a look if you're into puzzles. Just don't expect this to be a game you'd keep on your PC for long or come back to years later. 7/10 - I'd rather recommend it than not, though it's not a strong recommendation, more like if you're really into puzzles.
A Silent Hill-like survival horror game which is unfortunately unplayable in its PC version due to bad controls scheme. Good: - great art direction, with tense atmosphere. The game sets the tone really well - it's much like Silent Hill, just without combat Bad: - unlike Resident Evil, the WASD keys moves the character relatively to the current camera's view and NOT the character's own rotation. If you've played Resident Evil on a PlayStation emulator like myself, you'd be used to pressing W to move forwards (where the character is facing), A and D to rotate, and S to walk backwards. The scheme used here is: W to move away from camera, S towards camera, A and D left / right from camera. However, the camera itself constantly changes its view angle as your character moves around rooms (and you can't control this)! At the time time, as long as you keep a key down, the character keeps moving in a straight line even after the camera has rotated or even jumped to a different spot. It's an utter mess. I kept struggling with this for about 20 minutes and finally gave up. They obviously haven't done any playtesting on PC, so fk this. This game isn't intended to be played on a PC. Grab the console version if you like, but the PC one is unplayable. If they wanted to make a PC game, they should have used a normal first-person view with mouse controlling the camera, W walking forward, S backward and A/D strafing sideways, with the light source just pointing at view center.
A pretty good TBS somewhat similar to Darkest Dungeon but lacking its taste and style. Good: - many unit types, with many abilities - as others mentioned, there is no grind. You can't replay completed battles, but also you're free to create new minions at will (no need to wait for recruits) So-so: - art - it's functional and is highly detailed, but overall the game just lacks personality. It even feels somewhat like a mobile port (hidden object game?) due its almost casual palette. It's especially noticeable when one compares it to Darkest Dungeon: there art was a significant part of the game's appeal and character. But here it's generic an adds to the feel of it being a mediocre clone of Darkest Dungeon (which it's not) - the Dungeon Keeper-style narrative of expanding the kingdom of an evil master, killing humans and converting their corpses into undead armies. I guess the idea is just not fresh anymore. Also, Dungeon Keeper had a lot of dark humor, and the evil master was intentionally over the top. But this game stays serious all the time. And one quickly notices that this narrative just doesn't offer enough motivation to proceed. - music is rather generic as well Bad: - I found English localization pretty shaky, with misuse of words in some places - which makes understanding the game's rules harder at times The game's complex battle mechanics deserved more dark humor and more character in the aesthetics. But it's a passable game if you've already completed Darkest Dungeon and wanted more of the same but with a bit different units and abilities.
It's a solid RPG which builds well on the previous Wasteland releases and the genre overall. Though, as a 39 y.o. fan of Fallout 1 and 2, I'll skip it simply because it seems to be targeted at teenagers. I couldn't help but yawn when seeing all the cliche cinematography tricks with which they try to build up tension. Like, as soon as you come to a cliff, a ranger falls down. Some idiotic chatter on the radio etc. I dunno, all this just adds to the feeling of linearity. The game drags you through this silly 10-y.o. targeted stuff... I guess they need it for sales, and since the console version will probably sell more copies than the PC one. Well, good luck.
An artsy TBS which is just too unapproachable and in the end lacks meat. Good: - the art is great. I must say, its limited color scheme (only red and shades of gray) felt somewhat low-budget at first, but the stylish animations, semi-erotic models and overall feel quickly convince you that it's just "Art" with a capital A. Obviously, development of this game was done with an artists as lead - instead of turns it uses initiative of units. It's not very unique (Disciples 1 and 2 used this, and also newer games like Conquistadors and Vikings) however here you can push enemies backwards in the timeline with some abilities, delaying their turn. Also, attacks can have a delay until they are actually performed and can be interrupted. This all provides an interesting core system to play with So-so: - it uses permadeath, but after each failed run you get slight boosts. While this looks good in theory, it essentially means you'd replay stuff over and over until the game becomes simple enough because of the accumulated booosts (and you've learnt it enough) to beat it. I guess it's still a better system than just normal permadeath. Though I'd probably prefer the usual save/load system and an optional iron man mode which experienced players could try as a challenge Bad: - the game starts as a cryptic mess and would turn off many players instantly - so I'd guess they have lots of refunds. The tutorial is way too hasty, not giving you any time to understand what's happening. In a similar way, the story is incomprehensible. Not only everything has weird names (and you essentially have to create a renaming map in your head) but also it's all presented in a convoluted manner. There is some "Mother", then some "Veil", it's 1897, then 1929, then there are some plague doctors, many words are capitalized (like they have some special meaning) etc. It's like trying to get any sense from ramblings **** in a nuthouse. It's not fun, and the only thing you know for sure is that their writer probably has very high opinion of themselves and wasn't fired because they are one of the owners of the project or a relative/wife/lover of the owner etc. - important hints are lacking from the GUI, e.g. you can't see the range of your pistols, or enemies' ranges. - with just 3 characters that the player controls and a not-too-large selection of enemies, the game gets repetitive fairly quickly. It would just need more meat to have a greater long-term appeal. Overall, I have an impression that there was some pretentious team or maybe even a single person who is an artist and maybe an amateur writer. The dev team probably followed their lead up the point where the game was almost completed. Then they tried to do some playtesting, saw that players don't understand the game but then had to just release it as-is because it would be too costly to change anything, and the players are stupid anyways, so for this great game there will be some small audience of players who are smart enough and can appreciate real art. I'd say this game is an unfinished product with some good art sadly wasted, or only usable as a bait to get sales (followed by a high % of refunds). If some proper game designer could take lead here and improve the controls based on player feedback/playtesting + give the story some sense, it could become a proper, playable game. Still, 6/10 out of respect to the artist + the interesting core timeline mechanic. PS. Btw I know some guy who is about 40 now, and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. I knew him since he was 17. He was an amateur writer, and used a lot of capitalized words in his stores. I don't know if that's relevant to this game, but just feels very familiar.
An interesting take on time travel which is impenetrable to new players. Pros: - it offers a different model of time travel which I haven't seen in other games. If in Achron you could send units to the past or to the future to change the past or the future, and there was just 1 timeline, here any time jump creates a new time line. Also, units can move between timelines, and time essentially becomes 2-dimensional - it actually stays very close to rules of original chess, even with concepts like check, stalemate and checkmate working essentially the same in all these multiple dimensions (I'd expect them to be simplified to just "capturing the king") - I know a few other versions of chess with time travel (one of them dating back to 2003), and this one seems the only one that actually got developed well enough to become a proper computer game, with a multiplayer and AIs and even some community of players. That alone is an achievement of its own So-so: - the game has passable graphics and sound effects. While they look functional and not much else would actually be needed for a super-hardcore puzzle/tbs like this one, the game still would become better if it had richer aesthetics like selection of soundtracks, customization of the pieces and the board and so on. - the game invites you to join their Discord channel, but this is not something the game should rely on to be playable. I don't use Discord because I don't like it, so I don't expect any game to force me to use it so that some random strangers would start explaining the game to me. The whole approach is just ridiculous. The game should be a product on its own, and fully playable in single-player. When I feel comfortable with the game I may want to play online as well, but it shouldn't be a prereq. It's not an MMORPG. Even if it has multiplayer focus, it should have an in-built chat of its own. What if Discord gets shut down? It's a third-party service, independent from Steam even. Cons: - the game is impenetrable to new players. Even though most players may think that they are just not smart enough to understand the game ("my brain hurts" is a frequent comment I've seen on Steam), or should be more patient, the real truth is that there is no proper interactive tutorial which is commonplace for puzzle or TBS games since 2000s or even late 1990s, especially if the game is so complex and has unique mechanics. I'd imagine most players, even those experienced with chess, TBS genre and having interest in time travel, simply give up right after seeing the first timeline splits and being unable to understand what all the differently colored arrows, frames and highlights actually mean. So, it ends up being a game for a tiny community of super-hardcore fans who invested dozens of hours, chat on Discord about the game and probably also participated in the game's development as playtesters. - as mentioned, there are multiple colored highlights, arrows, frames (white, violet, yellow, black) - with no explanation anywhere, even in its lengthy wall-of-text - style "guide" pages At its current state I can't recommend this game. However, I'm giving it 6 stars because it's a major achievement in game design and its main drawback (lack of proper tutorial) is actually quite easy to fix. I'd estimate this to be a rather small chunk of work for the devs compared to other, very complex features (like multiplayer, or even the mind-boggling timeline mechanic) which they've already implemented. It's simply an unfinished product which was released too early without proper playtesting and player feedback.
A bombastic clone of XCom (the recent versions) with some primitive story and 3 action points instead of 2. The game just doesn't let you play: at every step you are interrupted by cutscenes. Everything is scripted: enemies appear at scripted times, it's a "cinematic experience" more than it's strategy. There is no "sandbox" or multiplayer, or random battles or anything, just the linear story. The "tactics" word in the title is misused. It's probably more of a turn-based RPG. Well ok, that's what passes as strategy on XBox, fine.
It's an action RPG where you can rewind back the last few seconds of the fight. Essentially it would be equivalent to be able to reload autosaves you've made at 0.5-second steps, just without the hassle of extra clicks. So, don't think it's any real "time-bending" mechanic like in Achron or Braid or other games that really are about time manipulation. It's more like Time Shift where it's all still linear, just with the word "time" added as a selling point. Iron Danger is essentially a game about quickly and constantly re-loading whenever you take damage. My main problem with this game was with the controls: I kept scolling up/down to zoom in/out the camera since that's the standard in most games. However this does the time rewind! The right-drag controls for camera are clumsy. I'd want to be able to remap those key and also reverse X movement of the camera but I couldn't find key reconfig options. Combat is pretty boring: you just rewind whenever you get hit and select block. Or alternate between block and hit without rewinding. It's all pretty clumsy because your characters and enemies also slide on the ground like it were ice, and get stuck if there are any obstacles (like fences or columns). There are tons of objects in the levels which get highlighted but can't be interacted with. Dialog voice-overs are more of an annoyance.. The starting scene is just awfully directed and made me dislike the game from the start! The dwarf comes to tell a story how he was the only survivor and is supposed to be all excited, but instead it's a slow dialog, with long pauses.. It doesn't get much better after that. The dwarf actor ruins any tension there could be, and I just stopped caring about the story after 10 minutes. Control is constantly taken away, and the camera moves somewhere to show some characters speaking, then everything is shaking all the time, and the character can fall on the ground or get up - all without command. It all just doesn't feel comfortable. I have a feeling they just didn't playtest this game properly. It feels like much of the clumsiness could be avoided with help of early player feedback.
I played Fallout 1 and 2 as well as Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Planescape Tourment, even Arcanum, so this one feels familiar. However, Beautiful Isolation's main problem is that's just just an "impenetrable" game. It's unclear what's going on. So much that in the very first location I couldn't even understand what genre it is or what I'm supposed to be doing. It doesn't get better later on. Got stuck after the crashed troop transport, with no desire to continue. Sad, especially with so much great art wasted here. There are tiny little environmental animations everyone, and animated 3D dialogs with voice-overs. Gee, so much work for a boring point-and-click adventure or whatever this is.. You should fire your game designer. It's just criminal to waste artists' work like this.
Portal meets The Witness. You solve puzzles where there are 2 basic mechanics: 1) when you pick up an object, its physical size will depend on where in the scene you drag it - while the size of the object on the screen stays the same, 2) certain objects may first exist just as distorted pictures on walls, possibly even scattered across several 3d surfaces - when you look at them from the correct spot, they visually align, and you can create the 3d object. Pros: - the novel mechanic of "physical size derived from render size on screen" - the novel mechanic of 3d geometry looking like something else from the direction where you'd approach it, and other ways of visually deceiving the player for a fun effect - some humor in the voice messages scattered throughout the levels So-so: - overall the game reminds Portal which is a double-edged sword: it feels familiar but you also expect some crazy story with colorful characters but instead the story is somewhat bland Cons: - levels feel a bit too repetitive, probably because there are too few 3D models which get recycled over and over. - somewhat laggy mouse. I don't know what engine they used or what it is exactly but the cursor doesn't immediately follow your mouse movements - as if the cursor were rendered in the scene, and frame rate were low Overall, Superliminal is more live than The Witness but doesn't reach the cult status of Portal. 8/10
A walking+dialog adventure/rpg detective story with psychological depth, but not for a typical RPG player. Pros: - nice art with distinctive style, and good audio - a lot of skill checks and generally a huge number of branches in the dialogs, far more than, say, in Fallout 2 or Baldur's Gate - the general feel of decadence/apocalypse So-so: - it's just dialogs. No tactical/combat part that would be typical for RPGs but that's what this game is about: talking and navigating huge dialog trees with skill checks - text is complex and hard to read which you could call "pretentious" or "refreshing" depending on how you want to look at it. Frankly, it impressed me at first but got me even more bored after a few hours - the main character is an alcoholic with weak health. I guess that's interesting to try out in a game for once. However, since I don't drink or smoke IRL, I can't really empathize with that. I have zero interest in problems of alcoholics and would prefer if this game had no references to substance abuse at all, of if that topic was used in NPCs, not the main character. - the whole topic of a police investigation: if it's your cup of tea, you will like it, but I was bored to death after the scene with the hanging corpse (basically, where I dropped the game). Why would I be interested in investigating a crime of which the character learnt just recently and isn't even fully sure he's a cop? I would't want to be a cop IRL, I don't respect the police (in fact, even dislike it quite a lot).. i couldn't care less why some body is hanging there and what political tensions exist between some fictional organizations.. Bad: - nothing really In short, I share the sentiments which critiques have about this game: that it's unique and a milestone in games. However, personally, it's not what I would enjoy for more than an hour because I'm more of a math person than poetry person. I see why this game is good but sorry, I'm not the type for it. Definitely check it out if you are writer/poet/journalist with a drinking problem!
It's basically about walking around weird locations with nothing to do and no purpose. Although the audio is fine and the graphics are nice and varied to look at, as a gamer I had to drop it after about 10-15 minutes of walking in random directions.
An interesting puzzle/TBS game spoiled by clumsy controls and questionable learn-by-dying design. You control a group of survivors in turn-based battles where they fight alien creatures, refuel the car, pick up items, move and destroy obstacles etc on small puzzle-like maps. Good: - decent variety of maps, and high replay value due to randomly generated sequences of levels and randomized characters - nice audio - the game is difficult and keeps up the "survival feel" - some unique mechanics, e.g. in one mission you have a generator which keep the street lamps on, and if you turn it off to siphon some fuel, light goes out and you don't see approaching enemies; you can smash smaller enemies with your car; enemies can push or destroy obstacles themselves So-so: - graphics are low-poly 3D models without textures, which doesn't look too bad (even has some indie style) but still doesn't fit all that much with the post-apocalyptic setting - nothing is explained. So, basically, you have to "try things out" to learn the actual rules of the game. E.g. what would happen if you "ram" obstacles with your car? Apparently, the obstacle (like a garbage container) would stay in place, and after the second ramming the car catches on fire and all characters inside it die on the next turn. Oops, didn't expect that at all. And sorry, no reload. I lost count of cases like that: when the rules were counter-intuitive or at least unclear, weren't explained, and learning them caused a situation where I'd want to reload - nope, no reload in this game. If you liked ADOM and other similar "permadeath" games, you might actually enjoy torturing yourself like that, getting a bit further in the game after every restart - just to learn a few new rules before a party wipe.. But I prefer when rules are known in advance so that it were a strategy game or at least a puzzle, not a "surprise me" experience.. - a questionable choice of making the enemies essentially unbeatable. Each time an enemy dies, another one appears elsewhere on the map. If you kill an enemy with a pipe, then 2 enemies spring up! This shifts the game from TBS to puzzle feel (and makes it closer to Into the Breach game of 2018) which is something not many players would expect or want when they see a JA2- or XCOM-like game.. Bad: - controls seem to be optimized for consoles? You can do everything with a keyboard even, without ever touching the mouse. Sorry but on PC I want to play with the mouse, and use right-click, maybe even middle-click and the wheel. Strangely, right-click switches between characters instead of deselecting (yet sometimes right-click exits menus?) Getting used to these clunky controls is almost impossible since, as said, the authors seem to not have cared for PC at all and focused on cross-compatibility with consoles and maybe mobile. Instead, they should have made separate, independent and completely different control systems for each platform. I'd also expect tooltips to appear over stuff at mouse-over. Also I'd expect mouse dragging to move items between inventories. - can't rotate the map! So, if an item on the ground is behind a building or a container, it can't be seen at all - can't see which items on the ground are lootable: no highlights. Can't loot by clicking on the item on the ground, instead you have to open inventory (by clicking on the character), then click on the item there to loot it. It's really a mess. Half of this game's difficulty comes from fighting with its horrendous interface and controls. Overall, I'm split on whether to recommend it or not. It's definitely worth a look, but I doubt that many players would have the patience to learn all its convoluted rules through dying, let alone fight through its clumsy interface.
Atmospheric Banished-style city builder but with a circular-shaped city, a focus on heating, and with citizens trying to overthrow you. Pros: - stylish atmospheric frost/ice-punk graphics together with the music keep a depressed mood and do their best to share the despair of your citizens - a unique mechanic of a circle-shaped city where you need to place every building as close as possible to the center where the heat generator is. - you have to adopt strict laws (like e.g. make children work, or decide what to do with frozen limbs) and would usually eventually create a dictatorship So-so: - just like most of games of these type, it's a simulation where you keep optimizing stuff for as long as possible. Scripted story evens and variations in the temperature try to introduce more challenge. Some of these feel artificial. E.g. just when you've solved the heating, hunger and medical issues and everything is running smoothly, people start wanting to leave. If you into games about passive optimization and adapting to random/scripted events, it will be fine though Cons: - NONE
A generic JRPG in robots setting. Pros: - if you like JRPGs (where 3-4 characters stand on the left, 3-4 enemies on the right, anyone can attack anyone, and there are tons of stats, upgrades and special effects to learn) - it offers a lot of meat - music is nice So-so: - it's a robot setting, with AI rising against humans - that's an ok story, just lacks originality Cons: - graphics are 2D and somewhat poorly drawn which is especially noticeable in the human faces - the game feels very generic overall. It's probably the combination of a more-or-less standard gameplay (with Darkest-Dungeon-style transitions between locations) and a bland theme - there is some poor English in places, and sometimes this makes certain mechanics unclear - various things show that it was thought of as a cross-platform, mobile-first game which should have been free but offer IAPs. E.g. there is an in-game currency which is used for upgrades of everything - typically this is for the player to grind in a mobile game. Also, GUI seems to not look well on a big monitor, with too small font and a lot of wasted space. It seems they haven't released the mobile versions yet but, as it is, this title might even better work on PC as a free game with in-app purchases. A seemingly mobile-first f2p-minded robot-themed RPG which would be good for mobile but feels mediocre on PC due to its bland setting and poorly drawn art.
A decent modern remake of Theme Hospital (which I played back in 1998 on PlayStation1 and for many years after on PC, the DOS version). Pros: - it stays very close to the original, so if you always liked Theme Hospital and now want your kids/mom/spouse to try that game out, at least they won't be put off with the old DOS graphics and be able to edit the rooms with a more comfortable 3D camera - it's the same voice actress saying stuff like "patients are requested to not die in the corridors" So-so: - the 3D models somewhat lack detail for my taste. They have big round low-poly heads... Strangely, I like the pixelated 2D DOS graphics of the original more because it had more character - just like the original, as soon as you've mastered the mechanic, there isn't all that much to do in the game. The original would just throw more frequent earthquakes at you or send waves of patients from a helicopter - that's where you'd probably stop playing but that's kinda ok because the topic itself (managing a hospital) isn't all that fun, and kudos to Bullfrog (and to this modern remake) for making it as entertaining as it could possibly be. Cons: - the game lacks in humor. Instead it feels just casual. The original was fun in a "hardcore" way: with circus-style music, strong jokes (a doctor with a chainsaw on the starting screen!) and an overall "adult" feel. Here you have relaxing music, some mediocre radio channel filling up the background, round-ish GUI and politically correct, generic jokes about overpriced medicare in the US, pharma industry - I guess that would work for people coming from mobile but compared to Theme Hospital this just makes the game dull. Overall, a decent remake, with some character lost to political correctness and the desire to appeal to casual players.
