notyourbuddy

Who Men of War: Assault Squad is best suited for: - World War 2 enthusiasts who enjoy a more immersive gameplay experience; players who find Company of Heroes to be way too casual; and PC Strategy gamers who aren't afraid of a challenge. Quick Summary: - Tactical, strategic, detailed, complex, challenging, and realistic style of game-play where battles actually feel like war, troops feel like individual soldiers, and you will feel like a great general coordinating it all. Very refreshing since most RTS games on the market tend to boil down to a simple blob-based brute force combat system. Not here! - Features extremely impressive cover based (best I've ever seen), destruction, and combat systems superior to its direct competitor (Company of Heroes) with a graphical engine that can be considered its equal if not greater due to a more pleasing zoomed out camera in Men of War. - Comes with a decent but far from perfect user-interface. - Doesn't feature a true single player narrative campaign, but rather a "skirmish" game-mode when it comes to single-player. In that sense it can be considered a more of a multi-player centric experience (either against other humans; coop with friend(s) against the AI; or you taking on a single AI solo). - Probably its only true weakness is the game suffers from some unnecessarily complex resupply mechanics. Really, its too complex and tedious for a real-time strategy game on this scale. It seems to be a left over relic from the earlier Men of War games which were based more on small squad oriented gameplay (like the Commando's series.) Final Thoughts: What 1C was able to create here is a truly impressive feat and I highly recommend at least giving the demo a try. It features one of the single-player skirmish maps and will give you a great sense of what Men of War Assault Squad is all about.

Poker Night 2 improves on the original in almost every way. Almost... Pros: - 7 hours of banter compared to maybe 2-3 hours in the original. And I was still hearing new lines up and beyond the 10 hour mark. This is more impressive when you consider the fact the original had nothing but generic one-liners where Poker Night 2 has the AI players interacting with each other using lengthy story telling, which I found more interesting. - Another variant, Omaha, was added to go along with Texas Hold'em. - Some in-game enhancements. Most notably the display of percentages so you know what your odds of winning a hand are compared to the other players. - If you enjoy unlocking TF2/Borderland items from actually playing poker than Poker Night 2 is a huge upgrade over the original's goofy purely coincidental fluke based unlocking system (if you just want to speed unlock items then I guess it could be considered a huge downgrade.) Here you complete 3 minor objectives and this will trigger an AI player to put his item into the pot. Win the tourney - win the item. Lose the tourney? No problem, the AI will keep ponying up an item every tourney thereafter until you win. No more having to spam restart the game to get the AI to throw in an item. And no more of the "knock this player out to unlock the item" bull---- that existed in the first that promoted anti-poker habits. Cons: - Can no longer skip dialogue. WTF? In the first if you simply clicked the left mouse button you could skip dialogue to avoid the inevitable annoying repetitiveness. Here you are forced to listen to all the same stuff over and over and over again. And I'll tell you... that Claptrap is a talker. When he gets on one of his long tired acts for the fifteenth time you will want to hang yourself. - I don't play Omaha much, but I swear a hand was bugged. Instead of the AI choosing two cards that should have given him a straight and a win. He instead chose two cards that gave him two pair causing him to lose. Don't take it as gospel, but there could be bugs present in this game mode. Meanwhile I have never encountered a bug in Texas Hold'em. - There is still that suspicious AI behavior that existed in the first. Why would an AI player call your ALL-IN when he has a 5, 8 off-suit pre-flop? Then you proceed to watch cards come out that magically give the AI player a straight and the win. Oh I guess that's why. Extreme luck or is the AI cheating with premonition? I'll let you decide.

Rogue Legacy is a combinination of Metroidvania and Rogue-like where you enter a randomly generated castle, try to get as far as you can before dying (with the ultimate goal being to kill 5 bosses), then repeat. This might sound like pretty standard fair, but where Rogue Legacy sets itself apart from its competition is its unusual character creation and its progression system. Character Creation: When it comes to starting a new game Rogue Legacy offers up three random characters chosen from what basically amounts to a Mage class, a Warrior class, and a Roguish high critical rate class (later on a Lich class is also unlocked). Each is given a random spell, sometimes a special skill, and a couple of rather peculiar traits. Maybe your character is colorblind (the game will be in black & white); or your character can't see in 3D (meaning all the enemies look paper thin); or is short-sighting (everything far away is blurry); or maybe he just has gas and can't stop farting. Very strange but kinda cool. It definitely gives the game a unique charm that you won't find anywhere else. Once you get in the gameplay feels really good; the level designs are simple yet effective; the controls feel just right; and the enemies/bosses have very balanced/fair AI to them. There is lots to explore and all kinds of treasures to find. Blueprints for new weapons/armor, runes for improving your character (ability to fly; triple jump; steal HP from enemies; etc.), or just little easter eggs like mini-games or developer goodies. It all makes for a fun platformer. Progression System: The second thing that makes Rogue Legacy different is when you die... you don't really die. This isn't permadeath like you'd find in other Rogue-likes. Nope, all the money, blacksmith blueprints, and runes you've collected in your previous run will transfer over to the next character you choose to play as. You take the money you've earned and use it to buy upgrades (more HP, more damage, more armor, more skills, higher critical % chance, etc.) At first, this sounds really really cool! Unfortunately, in about your 4th or 5th run you begin to realize exactly what this means. It means that future playthroughs are not about beating the game so much as its about farming and grinding for gold. Just like an MMO you are spending your time leveling your character up to the cap in the newbie areas over and over simply so you can participate in the end-game content later on. Not only does it become excruciatingly repetitive, but it has the adverse effect of devaluing your progression. You aren't making it further into the castle because you are getting better at the game or lucky breaks are going your way like other rogue-likes. No, you are getting further simply because your character is much stronger than the previous one. You'll be easily one-shotting enemies, regenerating your hitpoints like crazy, or just tanking hits with your armor that the game can lose its fun/challenge. It makes comparing how far you were able to get in one run with that of another useless and thus takes away one of the great appeals of the Rogue-like genre. All that said, if you can handle the grind, the game will keep you busy for a long time. Its not easy to beat with weak characters so you'll have to devote many hours to gold farming if you want to say you've beaten it. Final Score: 7/10 One final note. There is something funky about this game's settings. Some controls and keyboard keys have been hardcoded into the game and thus unchangeable through keybinds. This goes for controllers as well. Why has the developer done this? Who the heII knows. You might even think you'll circumvent this limitation by using 3rd-party joy-2-key software, but you'll still run into problems. Its impossible to disable the in-game controller if you have one plugged in thus your custom 3rd party settings will always conflict with what the game has hardcoded in. ****in' **** developers.

Super Hexagon is minimalist, simplistic, and consists of highly repetitive gameplay. If you are looking for a game that can occupy you for hours or even 30 minutes per sitting this game probably isn't it. But, if you are looking for something you can play on your work breaks instead of Solitaire/Minesweeper or something you can fire up and play for a short 5-to-15 minute spurt because you can't decide what else to do with yourself Super Hexagon fits the bill just right. Its gameplay consists of you controlling a small triangle at the center of the screen and using the left+right arrows on the keyboard or the left+right buttons on a mouse to dodge incoming lines for as long as possible while the screen occasionally rotates to increase the difficulty and up-tempo trance beats play in the background. Guaranteed to challenge your pattern recongition and reflex skills even on the slowest speed setting and makes for both a fun and potentially addicting experience. And, yes, while the game itself doesn't have much content: only a few levels (which are essentially just sped up versions of eachother) and a soundtrack consisting of what seems like only 3 or 4 songs the cheap price tag of 30cents to a few bucks more than justifies the high marks this game gets.

If all you care about is TF2 unlocks then this game is a 10 out of 10 as it can be found for as cheap as 99 cents. Yay! (Okay you can stop reading now) If you are also interested in the actual game itself then feel free to read on. Poker Night consists of You, Max, Strong Bad, Tyco, and the TF2 Heavy sitting at a table playing Texas Hold'em poker. There are some rather pointless cosmetics unlocks (tables and in-game card decks) and of course the all so tasty TF2 items (which I'll get to later). From a game standpoint the graphics and sound work are good. Production value is right up there too as we get dramatic camera angles and sound bites during the tense moments. And of course lots of banter from the AI players that keep things interesting for a bit. But, invariably with a game like this the lines are limited. After and hour or two the AI will have to start repeating the same quips over and over which will become more of an annoyance than a positive. You can turn down the chatter setting to the lowest, but it won't matter two hours tops and you've heard almost everything. There is no way to mute them so be prepared to have to constantly speed click through their conversations for the rest of your play time. Progression wise the game tracks how many hands you've played and won; how many all-ins successfully won-lost, number of players you have knocked out, and of course your overall winnings. Nothing special. Why they don't track second, third, or fourth place finishes or reward you for it is beyond me... instead its an all or nothing affair that more often than not will result in you tracking your progress by your ever increasing negative bank account debt. Hooray?! But, the true real reason I give this game a 7 is the TF2 items. Its the reason most people buy this game and its what gives the game its re-playability as its the only goal worth achieving. Unfortunately, Tell Tale made it annoying as fk to unlock them. Maybe once in every 8 tournaments one of the AI players will throw in their item and the only way you can win it is by knocking that specific player out. Its pure coincidental luck for this to happen rather than any form of skill. You have to have better cards than that player, have more money than him, then get him to go all in. At any point another AI can knock the guy out and the item goes away. A more sensible fair skill-based solution to unlocking these items would have given the winner of that tournament the prize, but Tell Tale wanted to be annoying a-holes apparently. Anyways, if you want these items you'll basically have to constantly restart the matches until an AI throws in the item. Then don't bother playing for real... just wait, hope you have more money than him, then go all in whenever he does no matter how crappy your cards are and pray for luck. Its really stupid. As for unlocking the items legit? Good luck. I've been playing legit for over 8 hours now and haven't unlocked a single TF2 item. Getting so annoying I'm either going to start up the constant restart ALT+F4 bull**** or try and see if The Achievement Manager works. Sure hope they changed the TF2 unlocks in Poker Night 2 cause this system is pointlessly dumb

Fast paced shooter with a unique airborne combat/movement ski system. If you like going fast and flying high Tribes is the place to be. Has some of the most satisfying skill-shots you'll experience in a first person shooter. Comes with a great Capture the Flag game mode (highly recommend) and a wide range of classes to play/weapons to unlock. Plus its Free-To-Play. Some Minor Issues: - Pro Snipers can really bog down CTF matches. - Late game can see quite a bit of skilless Orbital Strike spam. - There are some weapon/loadout balance issues here and there. - Minor pay-to-win elements regarding the Engineer and Spy class (must unlock explosive weapons to be effective indoors.) - Some classes are not as well defined as they probably should be. Example, Juggernauts are a long-range bombardment specialists yet these very same weapon loadouts can be godly indoors. - Vehicles, while fun, have very limited effective use due to the airborne nature of combat (vehicle effectiveness is often restricted to a few maps in a few select areas). - Base defenses are pretty easily dealt with which might bother some dedicated Engineer players. - Unlocking weapons/gear without paying cash is a long long long grind (F2P so not all that unexpected). These issues don't stop the game from being fun/addicting, but I they are worth noting.

Good characters, fine voice work, and a solid story. And of course whats a good point-n-click adventure game without some puzzles? Resonance has some excellent ones; not too hard not too easy and nearly all based on logical real world solutions so even if you cheat and peek at the solution you'll go, "Why of course! Why didn't I think of that." Also, the puzzles fit seamlessly right into the story rather than feeling like arbitrary sideshows (except one the puzzle box), which is great. Some are true puzzles like decryption, cracking into safes, or keycodes while others offer up more traditional problem solving tasks. Looking back I can't find a single one that I hated. A testament to the fact that the puzzles don't rely on finding hidden paths, excessive backtracking, or copious amounts of pixel hunting. Okay, maybe a smidgen of backtracking on one or two puzzles, but the areas are few and quite compact (plus you have instant travel) that we are talking 5-10 seconds worth of backtracking. In the world of point-n-clicks this can be considered non-existent. One extra thing worth noting is Resonance takes a risk by altering the standard point-n-click gameplay ever so slightly. Instead of talking to a NPC and having a preset set of keywords Resonance adds a dynamic keyword system of sorts. You can drag any item into your inventory and then re-drag it onto a NPC later on to ask them about it (they call it Short-Term memory.) Kind of neat little feature and well implemented. Its not some drastic gameplay altering change, but it does gives Resonance its own little uniqueness in a point-n-click genre that is pretty set in stone in its ways. All in all Resonance offers up about ~11hrs of gameplay if you don't cheat and I'd say worth a 9/10. Only thing that should scare anyone away from this gem is if you just can't stand the old-school pixelated art-style of the 80's/90's adventures cause Resonance has it and there isn't anything you can do about it.

A good FREE MOBA with lots of characters, skills, items, a steepish learning curve, and Valve's patented drop system that would be a 10 out of 10 if it were not continually undermined by a shoddy matchmaking system that loves to pair players of wildly differing skill levels. A team of 5 above average players going up against a team of 2 Gods & 3 clueless turds is pretty common. For premades and tourneys this is irrelevant. For the majority of players who solo queue on the otherhand it is more than relevant and rage inducingly so.

Not only is the lore in DA: Origins fantastic, but the way Bioware was able to craft an engaging story around it from start to finish (the main storyline alone is probably 50+hrs) left me unable to put the game down until the end credits began to roll. The characters, the assorted collection of companions, the voice work, the personalities, the playful banter, the diversity on the main/side quests, and most importantly the choices presented at every turn allow you to really shape the adventure in your own eyes. The choices themselves were all so deeply routed in fundamental morality that the story essentially teases, tempts, and tests your conscience and better judgment. You basically have a little angel on one shoulder and a little demon on the other the entire time. Do it! Do it! They whisper, but who will you listen to? Throw in the fact that the storytelling itself is filled with all forms of deceit, scandal, and just about every other Shakespearean trick in the book made it a joy to play through. And of course mention to the combat is important. Tactical, strategic, challenging. Its the standard deep proven D&D real-time (optionally pause-able) party-based combat that just works. I never had any issues with the AI not following my pre-designed tactic rule sets or the enemy AI doing anything dumb. Only slightly disappointing thing here was the limitation on the number of tactical slots for each character as it tended to hamper more intricate and useful automated strategies. Final Score: 9/10. Love the first play-through and still feel a second one has lots to offer not only story wise, but difficulty wise should one dare to test their skill on the Hard or Insane difficulties. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Various nitpicks below, which prevented me from giving a 10/10. I might as well mention them I figure: - Despite being the Ultimate edition patched to the max this game engine loved to crash like crazy on a standard Intel i5 multicore machine. Literally every 10-30mins another random crash to the point I'd have to frequently quick save or risk losing my precious progress. Only after I forced the game to run on a single core did the crashing cease entirely (thank GOD!) - Enemies never respawn... ever. If you encounter an area that you are struggling to clear there is no going back and farming some levels so that you can comeback stronger. What you are is what you have. No more raising of gold to buy more potions. No compensating for earlier build errors in your characters. Everything is simply permanent. You can literally be f'ed and have no choice but to drop the game to Easy difficulty level to proceed (especially at the endgame which loves to absolutely f' you hard by dumping you into inescapable quests with no shops to replenish supplies between boss fights. Because of this the last 3 hours of my 60 hour journey were spent in gaming heII). - The in-game crafting was lacking to say the least (no smithing at all and the other skills like herbalism mostly an after thought). I also felt at times the character skillsets to be lacking (especially the general skills shared between all classes). And...making you have to hunt the game world to learn some specializations for your characters felt completely unnecessary (one shouldn't have to run to a Wiki to have fun.) - The shapeshifter class. I was so looking forward to this one...only the game makes it so frustrating to use that I literally abandoned it all together. Thing is, the game forceably turns all shapeshifters into human form during every cutscene. Problem? Every boss fight begins with a cutscene. Bigger problem? To reshapeshift requires not only a long spellcast but also a long cooldown on the skill itself. Yeah, you are essentially screwed for even attempting to use this class. Seriously, insta-shifting the character back into animal form after the scene ends would have been a simple fix how did this game have so many patches and an Ultimate edition with this kind of gamebreaking nuisance going unnoticed? Even one of the most useful skills "Overwhelm" wasn't included in the tactic's menu at all for shapeshifters (the dog yes, but not shapeshifters) so if you wanted to use it you always had to micromanage it. *shakes head* - The final boss fight was an epic battle between you and *spoiler alert* the fking P.O.S. camera. To have such a useful for camera for 95% of the game only to pull that. Really guys?

I gotta start off by saying... Pinball FX2 has some absolutely gorgeous looking tables (37 in all as of this review). Really, the lighting, models, and animations are all top notch work. They are intricately designed and definitely eye-catching! You'll be excited to jump right in and see everything in action. And since these tables are all custom fictionalized works the designers were able to really go to town with them. A giant Darth Vader walking around the table, test tube aliens, Hulk going nuts, the Avengers fighting it out, ghosts flying around, cool looking water effects, lasers, video gamey minigames, and all kinds of other elaborate gimmicks! The voice work on the tables and sound effects are very appropriate when actually used and the physics for the most part are solid. Yes, there is some unnatural ball stickiness that tends to occur especially around the flippers, but I think it is done intentionally by the game designers to make the balls last longer (compared to traditional pinball tables which were designed to chew through quarters.) Honestly, I find it strips away much of the challenge and makes it too easy. You can literally play on a single ball for over an hour to the point you are just ready for it to end. And when I say "just ready for it to end" its because despite all the eye candy and seemingly intricate designs I found almost all of them to be a dull and lifeless experience. After you launch the ball an initial voice-over plays to get you pumped up and then... the table just kinda dies. You'll basically find yourself listening to the background music and the sound of the flippers flip'flappin' while the rest of the table takes a nap. Its like playing the old simpleton pinball tables of days gone past where getting the ball to finally hit the 3 bumpers at the top and bounce around for for a few seconds was the most exciting thing to happen. I'll give Microsoft/Zen Studios a lot of credit for the effort, but I think I just realized what made companies like Bally/Williams and Stern so great. Its not enough to make the table look like fun it actually has to be fun. That crazy hyperactive audio/visual sensory overdose you'd get from playing the classics and their ability to immediately kick into high gear and not let up until the ball slips past your ever vigilant flippers is something Pinball FX just failed to replicate for me. I'll go ahead and give this game an 8 just because I'm sure some will like it (maybe even love it) and I can tell the company really gave it everything they had, but for me personally I'm going to go back to the tried and true classic experience that Pinball FX tables will never be able to provide me with... they just don't have the magic touch.

The Pit is a RPG rogue-like that is pretty easy to pick-up and play. The interface and combat may take about 10 minutes to figure out but after that it is smooth sailing and the control scheme I find works quite well. The game offers lots of crafting recipes, a wide variety of character stats, a good array of weapons, lots of misc items to discover, socketing for improving your equipment, durability, repairing, status conditions (bleeding, poison, disease, hunger, etc). All the stuff you'd expect from a good RPG. Its only missing one thing... fun. The adage, "Its about as fun as taking a trip to Pittsburgh," applies here. The level designs are bland and often empty. The monsters the same. Combat doesn't feel very enjoyable at all. The randomization of item drops and things such as disease tend to be annoyingly implemented. You can play flawlessly, but simply find yourself unable to proceed simply because the game refuses to give you any ammo or any weapons. Or find yourself diseased with no way of removing it. Will it go away on its own? Maybe. When? 1 turn, 5 turns, 10 turns, never? HeII the game might decide to just outright worsen it and kill you despite having full hitpoints. Gee thanks. Its just so random. Everything is. Rogue-likes are supposed to be random, but The Pit loves to cross that fine line between fair and screw you. When your destiny is already pre-determined before the game even begins that is flawed game design. As for replayability the base game only has 3 un-customizable classes (Scout, Engineer, and Marine) which all tend to play rather similarly. Only in the expansions will you find more. Couple this with the aforementioned gameplay mechanics and your desire to start anew after each death basically becomes an exercise in stubbornness and masochism. This isn't a bad game, I just simply found it to be a very mediocre one with faults that have a tendency to overshadow its positives. I don't regret buying it and still play it from time to time, but if I had to recommend a good inexpensive RPG rogue-like I'd recommend Dungeons of Dredmor over The Pit. Better combat, its got humor/personality, an interesting world, just as in-depth item/stat/crafting if not more, but unlike The Pit ...Dungeons of Dredmor is fun, addicting, and feels fair with a character customization so deep you will find yourself rushing to replay the game over and over again after each death.

There are a lot of positives to The Pinball Arcade: - Detailed instructions for each table breaking down its rule set while simultaneously illustrating these rules on the table itself. Great great great for learning a table and makes playing it much more fun and engaging! - Beautifully recreated pinball tables that you remember from the arcade (models, textures, and lighting are fantastic.) - Available on lots of platforms. - New tables/features always being added. - Optional online leaderboard/tournaments. - Access to the internal settings of each table (if you want to access them) - Great sound/scoreboard emulation. - Pretty solid physics. (though without owning the actual table its hard to tell if they are perfect or not) - Multiple camera angles (a traditional static fixed camera or a dynamic one that zooms in and out). Cons: - Purchased tables do not transfer to different platforms (iPad PC) [wow big bummer] - I guess its not technically free-to-play as people are used to that implying a way to grind to unlock things. Instead they give you one free-to-play forever table and the rest are just limited trials. The one free table they do give you however is a well-known and famous table called Arabian Nights. Final Thoughts: Its a top notch pinball simulator (there are not many) where the developers seek to recreate the classics and a lot of care has clearly gone into each table. Any true pinball enthusiast would be crazy not to give it a try. At the time of this review there are about 40 tables and purchasing ~20 of them in a pack will run you about $29.99-$39.99 which honestly ain't a bad price at all. If they ever go on a Steam Sale *crosses fingers* then they are worth an instant buy. If, however, you are a cheap jobless hobo living with your parents who expects everything to be given to you for free well then just keep review bombing the heII out of this if it makes you feel better then go download VisualPinball+VPinMame, which is a truly free-to-play opensource pinball simulation that recreates the exact same tables (and more) with top notch physics and sound emulation. Its only drawback is it now suffers from an outdated graphical engine.

The original Syberia was one of the great classic adventure games. A must play for any point-n-click fan and more so for anyone thinking about picking up Syberia II as this game isn't a standalone story, but rather a direct continuation of the first which left us on a cliffhanger. And since the two games are so technically similar (very minor resolution/game-engine improvements in the sequel) there is really no reason to skip the first. So DON'T DO IT :) Anyways if you loved the first the second shouldn't disappoint as it faithfully continues and completes the original story. The familiar cast of characters are all back, new ones are added (even a villain of sorts), the locations (we finally get to Syberia!), voice work, dialogue, and length (~12hrs?) are all on par with the original. There is even quite the plot twist involving one of the main characters that genuinely surprised me. And oh, the cell phone this time around has taken on a reduced role which I greatly welcomed as it tended to get a little annoying in the first. As for puzzle aficionados they aren't exactly this game's strong suit (though I guess the same could be said of the original Syberia.) There are a few good ones like the plane and the large ivory flute (a Myst-like puzzle), but there are also quite a few duds. In fact, some could hardly be categorized as puzzles at all but rather blatant time fillers that involve you walking down a linear path, picking up an item at the dead end, only to have to backtrack the same linear path to the beginning just to click a button to proceed. That's not a puzzle, that's not adding to the story or gameplay, and it certainly isn't fun. Its just pointless. Others lacked sufficient clues forcing upon you a trial-and-error method to complete them. Not the worst thing ever, but when some of these same trial-and-error puzzles were accompanied by either long walks or having to sit through deliberately drawn out character animation sequences with repetitive voice overs it quickly got annoying (I'm looking at you fishing puzzle!). But, perhaps most frustrating for me was this game seems to have introduced a progression through dialogue tree system that I don't recall being in the first (or maybe it was more subtlety done?). Its not enough to talk to people with the same keyword once, or twice, but sometimes three times just to advance the story. I literally talked to everyone in an area then spent 20+ minutes just pixel hunting, backtracking, scratching my head with a puzzle thinking I missed something; talked to everyone a second time, repeated the pixel hunt, only to remained bewildered and in the end find out it wasn't a puzzle at all that was preventing my advance, but rather it was because I didn't badger all the NPCs with the same keywords a 3rd time! Arrrg! These things don't ruin the game. Not even close, but they did sour me enough that I will always remember the original Syberia more fondly. Final score: 7.5/10

Braid is a puzzle game with a classical soundtrack and a van gogh like art direction that makes for a very sublime melancholy experience. This may lead you to think Braid is designed for the casual non-gamer market, but don't let it's initial impressions fool you for beneath is a series of devilishly constructed brainteasing contraptions that will have even the most experienced of problem solvers doing a double-take. The unique twist of Braid is the puzzles are based around time-travel or in this case time-reversal. Which means there is no fear of death or level restarts. Make a mistake? No problem, just reverse time for as long as you need and correct it. You'd think this might make the puzzles easy, but in fact it screws with your normal way of thinking and actually makes the puzzles more challenging. Its probably safe to say you've never experienced any puzzle solving like this before and you probably will never again. Creative, ingenious, satisfying, and one-of-a-kind. A must try. 9/10 P.S. The puzzles might not require a walk through to complete, but the storyline sure did. In the end that might be Braid's biggest puzzle of them all. Good luck solving that one.

Syberia manages to find just the right amount of difficulty (possible to complete without a walk-through), dialogue, exploration, puzzle solving, and compelling story for a classic adventure game. The voice work is impeccable and the graphics hold up quite well into 2013 (suffering only from aliasing on the characters which any modern graphics card can easily eliminate.) From the title you might be expecting the adventure to take place in a frozen tundra far from civilization, but instead it has Kate Walker (the main character) gallivanting through a multitude of fictional settings ranging from a large robotic toy factory in a small European village to a secret abandoned communist space complex as you seek to find a mysterious mechanical savant. And of course along the way you run across all kinds of his mechanical wonders that serve as the premise for some interesting visuals and stories. The game does have a few little nitpick faults though that I might as well mention: 1) Kate's cellphone is one of the main methods of storytelling. She gets calls from her boss, friends, mom, boyfriend, et al. This adds great depth to your character, but can also become a drag when you are in the middle of something interesting and *ring ring* "Its your boyfriend Dan" with more idle chit-chat. Bugger off Dan! 2) The ending. It doesn't have one. If you want a complete story you have to buy Syberia 2! Considering this game offers up ~12hrs of game-play its by no means a deal breaker (especially since these games are dirt cheap now), but its worth pointing out. Final Score: 9/10. Despite being released way back in 2002 this is still one of the better adventures out there.

Overrated. This game wants to be a RTS that emphasizes tactics and strategy, but ends up being more of a cleverly disguised spinoff of the Command & Conquer series than anything else. Don't get me wrong there are lots of cool ideas here, but none that really excel in the framework of the game. You have the ability to station troops behind walls or inside houses for cover; engineers can build sandbags, barbed wired fences or anti-tank blockades, and even plant landmines; you are given a variety of troop types from machine guns, snipers, basic infantry, down toward mortars for long range bombardments; and even an RPG like level up skill system based on experience gained. Heck, the game even adds an overhead tactical view as if to say, "see this is more than your mindless send wave after wave of whatever type of unit you want and auto win." All sounds really cool! However, it won't be long till you realize all these "strategies" are a waste of time and you'd be better off ignoring them and going back to the standard "build tons of whatever units, group them all together into a giant blob, and just move around the map steamrolling the enemy." The AI is dumb. Your troops are dumb. They require 24/7 babysitting with micromanagement intervention for every fight or they will just keel over and die at the mere sight of the enemy (even if you put your troops in superior cover positions). So attempting to tactically spread troops around the battlefield is not a worthwhile tactic. Attempting to move to a different area of the map away from your main army and build up some defenses with an engineer is not worthwhile. These things will just cause your troops to needlessly be lost and you finding yourself falling behind. The terrible zoomed in camera that makes the game feel like its 640x480 resolution from the 90's is just the extra kick in the balls for strategic gameplay. Company of Heroes manages to somehow actively punish you for attempting to play it tactically and rewards those who who don't. As for the battles they are cartoonish. Makes Call of Duty look like a hardcore combat sim. Infantry standing 2 feet from eachother unloading hundreds of rounds unable to kill eachother. Flank some enemy infantry and get them surrounded and pinned down. Easy kill right? Nope, the game has an infantile Retreat functionality that magically turns your troops into zombie-like super soldiers with tank like defensive buffs and cheetah like speed. Up they pop and safely run back to base to heal while surviving thousands of bullets being fired at them along the way. Is this a PC RTS or a RTS made for XBOX kiddies? Hard to tell sometimes. Its not a bad RTS, but its not a great one either. Certainly not the absurd "Greatest RTS of all time" taglines being thrown around. Have you people ever played a RTS before? Half the Age of Empires series, the C&C's, Starcrafts, Warcraft, Total Annihilation, et al all trump this game. Even if we are strictly talking WW2 RTS the less marketed Men Of War series is a more impressive feat. Final Score: 6/10. Despite being hilariously cartoonish and immersion breaking for a WW2 title the single player campaign has some pretty good production value. And if tactics, strategy, realism, base building, or the minimum requirement of a functioning brain in a RTS is of no interest to you then the multiplayer is probably right up your alley.

Its a rogue-like (Binding of Isaac/Faster Than Light genre), meaning its less about trying to beat the game and more about trying to see how far you can get before you die (farther you get higher your score). And you will die. For instance, the game comes with a tutorial designed for people who have never played a video game before in their life. I died in there twice. The game congratulated me for dying then gave me a Steam Achievement for it meaning the devs not only know you can die in there... they wear it as a badge of honor. *Note: You can turn off perma-death if you wish. - Combat: Dungeons of Dredmor is the standard hack-n-slash loot fest (Diablo/Torchlight genre) except it uses a turn-based system. This means winning is not about quick reflexes/clicking, but rather how you choose to utilize the skills at your disposal. It works well and the turns are pretty much instantaneous so fights/exploring plays out as fast as you want it to. - Loot: Loot is plentiful. So plentiful in fact you will quickly learn to stop picking up things that do not suit your character's build. The game has a crafting system for food, potions, armor, weapons, traps, etc. giving you even more ways to obtain items. And a few shops located around should you choose to buy items. - Character Customization: At the beginning of the game you have 50+ different base skills at your disposal of which you get to choose 7 to take along with you on your adventure. As your character levels up related skills get unlocked giving a high level character 40-50+ skills. The skills are quite varied and allow you to create all kinds of weird character combinations. Mage skills, range combat, warrior, thief, assassin, trap specialist, alchemist, smithing, banker, etc. Its all here. If you want somekind of weird warrior vampire mushroom loving tourist you can make one. The stats for each character are also pretty deep. 7+ different types of damage resistances/types to go with 23 different stat categories (dodge, critical chance, trap skills, magic, health regen, smithing, etc). This is definitely an old school RPG at heart. - Replayability: As mentioned the character customization is pretty deep so starting over can feel like a completely different experience. The monsters, loot, store inventory, crafting recipes you find, and other in-game items are all randomized for each play through. Its even moddable so new loot, recipes, character skills, and features (loot deconstruction to extract raw materials) can be added. - Some Minor Cons: a) Some things are quite vague. Whats this potion do? What does this skill do? Why not just tell me in the tool-tip? b) You don't get to visually see your character progress from peasant to mighty warrior. Equip a traffic cone on your ragdoll it won't show up on your actual character. Bummer. c) Screen seems to be always locked on your character. Cannot use the mini-map to view parts of the dungeon that you have already explored. d) Tried and true user friendly RPG elements are missing. A way to compare the stats of loot you find with the current loot you are wearing would have been great. e) I thought the music ****. Mute it and use your own collection or play in silence. - Final Thoughts The screenshots/video might not blow you away, but I thought the actual gameplay was pretty good and at $1.25 for the base game or $2.50 for the game+all DLCs I feel its a no-brainer purchase. Works great on Linux as well.

If you enjoy online first person shooters you can do no wrong adding Natural Selection 2 to your collection. With its asymmetrical combat (Aliens vs Marines), transformative maps (alien infestation), and its combination of real-time strategy elements with that of a traditional first person shooter it offers an unique gameplay experience that very few if any other FPS titles can. Real-Time Strategy Gameplay: One player on each team takes on the role of the commander building bases, researching upgrades, using abilities on his allies, and coordinating his team's movements/strategies from an overhead real-time strategy point of view. Traditional FPS Gameplay: The other players are playing from the standard first person view with respawns coming ~8 seconds after death (so downtime is minimal). The gameplay consists of securing resource points around the map for both their personal resource income (so they can buy weapons/upgrades) and for their team (so the commander can build/research things). The ultimate goal: Destroy the other team's "headquarters." The Marines have the familiar weaponry at their disposal. Shotguns, assault rifles, flamethrowers, grenade launchers, jetpacks, and giant mechs. Teamwork is of utmost importance and death awaits you around every corner (especially when the power goes out hope you brought your flashlight!) The Aliens rely on speed, stealth, and ambush attacks. Their alien lifeforms vary greatly (to suit anyones' playstyle) and their ability to see in the dark, walk on walls/ceilings or even fly, as well as the ability to take shortcuts through vent systems gives them distinctive advantages over marines in many areas of the map. Both sides are fun to play and both require teamwork and skill to achieve victory. Keyword being skill. You are rewarded for good aim, situational awareness, and teamwork more than most shooters. If you lack these you will die. But, thats part of the fun and replayability of this game. Seeing yourself improve with each and every match and then having your efforts pay off as you start getting kills that you couldn't when you first started playing. It makes for good competitive play if that is your thing or just good ole' fashion shoot-em-up in the standard public servers. Note: There is no single player mode. If you don't like playing against other players then you should skip this title. Multiplayer matches typically last 15-30 mins.

I once gave this game a rave review. Having been the first FPS/RTS hybrid I played it was a refreshing twist on a tired and mindless frag fest first person shooter landscape. But, having recently experienced the Natural Selection series the glaring weaknesses I found upon returning to this game hit me in the face like a sack of bricks. Most notably the ability of a commander to spam the battlefield with hundreds of mass murdering turrets that shred through buildings and enemies alike. It creates a really restrictive style of gameplay where all the players are forced into one little area of the map. Mobility is highly restricted and it results in the commander having infinitely more influence over the outcome of a battle than the players actively fighting on it. It no longer becomes a tactical first person shooter, but rather a game of having to spend 10-15 minutes just standing in place as an Exo trying to destroy a thousand turrets faster than the enemy commander can build them. The graphics are still nice, the classes still feel perfectly balanced, and teamwork is extremely important (all reasons I gave it a high mark in my first review), but the turret spam turns fun matches into tedious grinds in the blink of an eye. And trust me. Getting hit in the face by the rocket turrets in this game is one of the least pleasant ways to die in a FPS. Its spam animation and fast time to kill will have you enraged.

New player? Enjoy a horrible learning curve. No in game tutorials and to kick you in the balls harder they immediately dump all new players right into a battle without even allowing them to change their hotkeys or in game sensitivity/graphical settings. Congratulations your dead. Welcome to Planetside 2. In game store? Enjoy being asked to pay 7$ for an item with no proper in game preview system. Pretty much have to blind buy your cosmetics and hope they don't look like toilet. SOE was even lazy in that half the weapons they are asking $$$$ for don't even have their own models/skins. Gameplay? If you stick around for 5-10 hours to learn the ins-and-outs of the game you'll be rewarded with some fun battles here and there. Sometimes fun little skirmishes other times the big cinematic battles the game promises. You may even begin to think this is a great game, but soon the dark underbelly of this beast will reveal itself. Nobody plays defense. Why? 1) There is no incentive for doing so. 2) The maps are designed to favor attackers. Try to play defense you will be zerged and you will be spawn camped hard. Its a pointless waste of time and everyone knows it. You'll get to defend for 2 minutes or so then time to just respawn elsewhere and surrender the base. This has turned the game into nothing but traveling around the map in your own faction's offensive zerg capping empty base after empty base. Infantry play? Infantry have been neglected and tanks + airplanes rule the day. Bit of a joke to the point this game has earned the monicker Tankside/Vehicleside/Airside etc among people who have played it any decent amount of time. Infantry's main role tends to be getting farmed by vehicles. Sure you can have a few fun fights here and there, but you can always count on a vehicle zerg to ruin that quickly. The developers have even gone out of their way to make it extremely easy for vehicles to farm infantry by giving all vehicles free texture hacks. Yeah, those things that FPS try to ban SOE gives to you for free. Cover, day/night, camo... all irrelevant as vehicles can see you anywhere you go and one-shot/two-shot you with ease. Go ahead. Download it. Play it. Its worth a good 20 hrs or so until you discover the faults I mentioned above then you'll find yourself getting annoyed at its repetitive pointlessness. Not all hope is lost of course. It has only been about a month since release so there is still plenty of time for this to become an amazing game. All the ingredients are there. Interesting weapons, vehicles, and the framework for large scale battles. The developers just have to be willing to modify their horrid map designs to encourage the right mixture of infantry/vehicles and offense/defense on its battlefields. Definitely a game I will keep my eye on over the next few months to see what direction they take it, but as it stands right now, a mediocre 6 is all I can muster.

Love the black & white style to the game and from start to finish I can definitely say it looks beautiful, but it can also feel quite redundant at times. Thankfully there are some memorable moments to break the monotony: the first "boss", the neon signs, and the rotating world all jump to mind. Unfortunately while much attention was paid to the art/animation by the developers - the game itself still feels unfinished. There is no story (only the title and your imagination to go by), little if any music (some levels this works while others beg for atmospheric melodies), and the ending ****. Even having only offered ~5-6 hours of game-play with no replay value I still don't regret buying it. Its one of those indie games worth supporting.

Dear Esther was an unusual hate-love experience for me. For the first 45 minutes you will feel like a **** duped into paying for nothing more than a tech demo. You will be walking around in a snail paced first person camera, unable to interact with even the most basic of objects, such as books or papers strewn about in a room. It would have been nice to be able to pick them up and read them as is common in adventure games, but apparently that was asking too much. In fact, the only controls in this title are move forward, back, left, right, and swim up (which is used sparingly if at all). Your purpose is to wander - wander aimlessly hoping beyond hope that you will stumble upon the imaginary trip wires placed around the world that trigger the narrator and bring some purpose to this dull experience. And I say dull not because of the pacing, or the lack of interactivity, or a graphically hideous engine (as in fact its quite beautiful when maxed out), but rather the lack of imagination that went into the world as the island is nothing but the same bland repeating rock, ground, and grass textures over and over. As for your lone companion, the narrator (whose voice is exceptionally well done), he rambles incoherently. Its as if he walked into a book store, picked up a random book, flipped through the pages, and just started reading obscure passages out loud. The whole experience is a disjointed mess. Oh and it got worse; the island which at first felt like a sandbox you could freely wander in is soon to be revealed as being a closed one-way track. When it does fork you are quickly led to a dead-end, with no narration, no purpose, only a few rocks that a newborn toddler could conquer, but yet you somehow are unable to step over. All that is left is to backtrack - backtrack with a slow moving camera only adding to the frustration. Troubles continued. As I approached the first interesting thing in this game, a half sunken ship submerged in shallow water, I like any normal person had the urge to swim to it. Well, I drowned in about 4 feet of water, "come back..." the narrator says, as I am transported back to land and free to continue on. Only I wasn't. I could look around, but I could not move. Nothing is blocking my way I'm just stuck. So this thing is bugged too? . In a blood boiling move I had no choice but to restart from the beginning and re-walk the whole bleh experience up to this point (interestingly however was the fact that some of the narration had changed). So, if you do decide to try Dear Esther do yourself a favour and quick-save before jumping off any cliffs or swimming in any water. I might have fallen victim to a rare bug, but no point in risking it yourself. Anyways, out of sheer stubbornness, I continued on from the start, mere inches away from bursting out in profanities condemning Dear Esther to the 9th levels of Hell. But, see... this is where the hate ends and the love begins. For the cave - the blue cave is where Dear Esther grabbed me and didn't let go. From here till the end I was captivated by the world. Long gone is the bland island and instead is a wondrous cave of waterfalls, streams, smoke-effects, creative lighting, and emotion inspiring environments ranging from psychosis to tranquillity. This was the experience I was hoping for when I bought Dear Esther. The story comes together, the narrator's incoherent ramblings start to actually make sense, and your purpose takes shape (which of course I won't spoil). I still don't know whether Dear Esther can be categorized as a game - and having only lasted 85 minutes in length (including my restart) I'm not sure its really worth the $9.99 price tag being sold for. However, if you wait and buy it on a Steam sale like I did for 75% off its hard to argue its not worth $2.50. Despite the slow starter it did come on strong and its unusual epistolary style of story telling will leave just enough holes to give you plenty to think about even after Dear Esther is long over.

2D platformer for the mashocists out there - casual gamers need not apply. Spoiler Alert: You'll die. You'll die. Then you'll die some more. Not all that uncommon to die 20 times within a 60 second span. With arcadish throwback presentation, a hyper announcer, and levels lasting only 5-20 seconds it will keep the attention of even the most A.D.D. of A.D.D's. Quite a few characters to unlock to mix up the gameplay, lots of levels, lots of pitfalls, lots of bandages to search and find, and even nice homages to games past like Castlevania, Zelda, etc in the cutscene . The game tracks your best times for each level which also adds to the competitiveness as you can see how you stack up against complete strangers or the people you have friended on steam which is nice and trying to get A+ times on every level will add some nice replay value to levels you already beat. I'm only a 1/3rd of the way through and its quite a challenge. I can only imagine what horrors await me in the future levels. This is one of those games you will be proud to beat and considering it can be grabbed for under 4$ on any Steam Summer or Winter sale its a no brainer for those who are up for a challenge. (note: can be played with a keyboard but you will probably want a gamepad for this one).