Where WE review our games

Then I would have reviewed Patrician III.
I'm sure the German world calls it Patrician III too.

There is no Patrician III in Germany, they just went straight to IV. So technically you reviewed Patrician III, only that it isn't actually called III.
 
There is no Patrician III in Germany, they just went straight to IV. So technically you reviewed Patrician III, only that it isn't actually called III.

Just checked wikipedia, you're right. Sorry 'bout that.
 
I'm reviewing ANOTHER game.

Age of Mythology DS version:

This is the DS adaption of Age of Mythology, a AoE spinoff with gods, myth units and superpowers.
It looks fairly cool and the heroes are fairly balanced, with the "Hero Powers" that can aid you immensely. God powers can also be used to swing the game's pace in your favor - Mass destruction? Gods have it. Myth units are cool too. There are also bonus-giving relics your Hero can pick up

Sadly, the RTS of the PC version is absent. There are only three cultures - Greeks, Norse and Egypt. The AI is totally weird - a Norse AI will never advance. Never. The Egyptians will advance as soon as possible to get chariots (annoying little things), 1UPT is annoying, Greeks second hero ability is overpowered, various god powers are overpowered, and guess what? Music's annoying. The campaigns are hard to beat, even on easy (I mean, last Egypt campaign mission has practically invincible enemies). The tutorials are a run through, not good for learning. Norse have six human units, while Egypt has seven.

I'm sorry but this game is not gonna deserve more than a 46%.
 
I really enjoyed the PC version though, most notably the campaign. I only dicked around with the after-campaign single-player skirmish mode, so can't comment too much on that...

I'd give it a solid 7.5/10 for the price, which was a mere $20 when I bought it in-store along with its expansion a few years ago.
 
Time for *groan* a necro review.
I am reviewing Victoria II vanilla with 1.3 patch (bought from steam)
This game is good. It has graphics which will amaze all, and the latest EUIII expansion (Divine Wind) is based on this game. Europe is a nice clean area and you can actually play as your new satellite (vassal)! You just release it and it's on it's own. The flags of your country change too.

The game uses the system of pops: various classes in different strata which have different needs. There is anything, from slaves (if allowed) to aristocrats! A multitude of different products and a bit more of a dynamic technology.
However, some things are annoying. You cannot unitspam 1,000,000 troops (they come in 3,000's) because there are no soldier Pops. Mobilizing somehow requires you to own quite some provinces (transvaal, a 2pm, cannot Mobilize). The State system is annoying but does deliver nice names (Portuguese ______ and then the other half is, for example, Belgian _____), occupying is slow, and colonizing is a painful matter, as well as the capitalists who see it as their duty to leech off your economy (which will always fail until bankruptcy, in which case you don't need loans anymore since a year gives you about 5k£.

I am giving it a 8/10.
 
World of Tanks http://www.worldoftanks.com/

Enjoyed playing World War 2 microminiatures as a child? Liked paper-hex wargames from the SPI/AH era of boardgames? Not enough PC tank sims since Atari Battlezone? Enjoyed Steel Panthers way too much? Want to do the same in matches against live players (16 vs 16)?

Then World of Tanks is probably for you, IF you can tolerate a MMO structure that does include some grinding. MMOs basically have a carrot-stick model. You get so much fun of some type (PvP, instanced dungeons) which is counterbalanced by the developers desire to get paid, such that to be competitive, you either play ridiculously a lot, or you eventually pay into the pot.

The carrot in WoT is getting to "own" a large variety of graphically detailed, and game-detailed armored fighting vehicles, including mobile artillery, tank destroyers, and tanks. There's also a bit of RPG and leveling in that crew-members, gain experience and skills, and can be swapped at will. And the core reward is getting to play a tactical micromachines game with sim-like details, while being relatively casual in a combo game mode that is half-team deathmatch and half-base capture.

Pros: free-2-play model, with multiple premium pay-as-you-go options. Well designed game-play including cover and concealment, an artillery and spotter model, and many detailed characteristics (suspension, engine, gun, crew, extra equipment) that influence a match. Relatively easy to enjoy for free, and then to enjoy a bit more for cash proportionate to what you spend, starting at $8.

Cons: microtransactions can nickel and dime you to death if you get addicted. The release of vehicles is strictly either by premium or by "researching" a tech tree with costs that generally mean you will be spending real money to avoid miserable experience (a classic case is needing to play hours/weeks as a sucky M3 Lee (American tank that is a lousy jack of all trades) to enjoy later vehicles). Some per-pay options are superfluous and non-intutive (almost misleading) if you don't read a wiki/manual thoroughly. Some premium tanks are largely junk and unfun to play (they're basically overarmored, undergunned) and only exist for the meta-game of raising credits. The meta-game mechanism of gold, credits, experience, free experience, and researching the tech tree are fairly complicated for a new player; OTOH, they are pretty fair and help to make sure that the developers make some money while also moderating out some sillyness (e.g. they practically eliminate gold-farming, team-killing, and other meta-gaming that would ruin a typical FPS team deathmatch game.

Overall, I can tell they put a lot of effort into designing this game, with a lot of love for their game and the hopes of developing a large fanbase, rather than use a kill the golden approach that some MMOs use.

As far as MMOs go I give it a 10 for originality, creativity, bold future plans, excellent design in balancing the free2play and per-play experience, and hitting the wargaming niche market (few MMOs hit that except lamely), and a 8 overall since it has a large need for improvement (more maps, addition of alternative play modes).

If you love wargaming and like the idea of a free2play MMO, I'd give it a 10.
For being relatively early in the development cycle (post beta, but essentially at v1.0), I give it about an 8, with the score going up if the developers pull off additional fun game modes (e.g. PvE scenarios, more maps, more traditional FPS game modes).
 
Fallout 3 with DLC

I'm mid-play through on my first game, with a partial cheater 2nd game where I just play as a sandbox jerk (adding in hex codes to just have fun making explosions and screenshots without questing).

Story: Excellent story. The dialogue boxes are still wonky from Oblivion, but the story and multiple ethical, and character-based (i.e. Speech skill, science-skill) options makes for fun. The story is the most compelling reason to play after you have equipped yourself with Alien Disintegrator rifles and Fatmen nuke-slingshots and killed even Deathclaws and Enclave soldiers in power armor. Overall, a better story than Oblivion's short main quest. And tons of sidequests and locations that you can haphazardly weave through. And overall less of a MMO-grindy feel that Oblivion had, in that you aren't just wandering around for the next dungeon crawl looking for the next tier of armor, weapons, and magic, but are more like scouting for a way to make the story progress, following a branch of the story, and dealing your brand of justice. Definitely a better ROLE-playing experience than Oblivion, in part due to the how leveling is handled by SPECIAL system which isn't completely leveling by action-based stat gains (i.e. you don't jump higher for jumping 1000 times in Fallout 3).

Mechanics/Design: Lock-picking is more fun and intuitive this time, than Oblivion was. The science skill computer anagrams are a clever idea for a mini-game, and actually made me think a bit some times. The VATS is a tad fun, but gets tedious after a while, plus occasionally causes crashes. Overall tactical gameplay favors shooting and stealth, over melee, and is heavily linear like a Medal-of-Honor level; they do a good job of making the levels SEEM non linear by tieing them up in pretzel knots, but it's really obvious that you're practically just riding a rail in most parts of the interior maps.


Fun/Graphics: Much over-the-top graphical glory and fun that is reministic of the older Fallouts while still being modern and impressive. You can still make a bloody mess like older Fallouts. You can even make daisy chain nuke explosions if you don't watch out, kind of like the green barrels in Doom.
The fun is also masterfully balanced between occasional spurts of Superman glee, balanced with poverty as your weapons and armor become damaged with use or even being targeted by your enemies; that is balanced by the fact you can sometimes repair your equipment. And everything is quantity-based (no infinite magic amulets) so you will eventually run-out if you play like a fool.

DLC: So far the DLC is creative and original, even if generally more of the same. My first run had me leveling to 10 before even finding my dad in the game, and then completing Mothership Zeta, which kind of makes the game a cake walk for the while that you keep your alien weapons. I've barely scratched the surface of the DLC, but for a package deal of $30, its a great value, easily even better than GTA:SA, except that you can't form 4-member gangs and hop into a nuke-powered army truck and make mayhem.

Overall a 10 (out of 10) if you like stories in your RPGs and can tolerate Medal of Honor era linear level design. Otherwise about a 8.0 if you're just a typical FPSer who just wants to see some graphical glory for 20 hours or so.
 
Section 8: Prejudice (Xbox 360 version)

It's a fun little sci-fi shooter. Jetpacks are standard issue for every loadout, you can summon Akira-style hovering motorcycles that shoot missiles and machine guns, there's a plasma cannon and sniper rifles that fire exploding shells. What more could you want?

For $15 it's a steal if you're going to play the multiplayer modes; the campaign alone is only going to get you 5-6 hours. The Conquest multiplayer is good fun for large-scale objective-based battles, rather than just 32 people running around a shoebox racking up insta-kills a la Call of Duty.

Overall: 7.5 / 10.0 for an Xbox Live Arcade title. (Would bump this up to 8.0 if Timegate Studios would patch the freezes out.)

If anyone's interested and has questions about the game, feel free to PM me.
 
Does it still take 200 bullets to kill someone and feel like a console port? That was my main problem with it during the beta for Section 8.

Well, I'm playing it on my Xbox - so no, it doesn't feel like a console port, it feels like a console game. :) I haven't tried the PC version, can't comment there.

But no, it doesn't take 200 bullets to kill someone. I know what you're getting at - if you're used to COD-style shooters where you score kills with 2-3 bullets, then yeah, S8:p may feel like you're emptying a whole clip just to bring someone down. But you're wearing futuristic power armor with energy shields, so that's kind of the point.

It largely depends on your loadout - the weapon type (assault rifle, MG, pistol, sniper rifle, plasma cannon, etc), ammo type (incendiary, EMP, fragmentation, slug, rail, etc) and the way you've allocated your 10 upgrade points. For example, you can max out two upgrades that give you a total of +64% bullet damage. Or use incendiary rounds to burn through enemy armor faster. Or EMP grenades to quickly disable enemy shields. Or equip the Siphon Tool to cripple their armor. Lots of options to customize how you play different roles, which is one thing I really like about the game. :)
 
I prefer a game where, when I shoot at someone, they die.

This is because I like games where positioning and strategy and surprising your enemy is more important than keeping my mouse over a moving character for 3-4 seconds in the hope that the pre-programmed spray of the gun will actually hit more often that the opponent's, who has had a chance to see me already and start shooting at me despite having eaten 10 bullets to the torso.
 
I prefer a game where, when I shoot at someone, they die.

This is because I like games where positioning and strategy and surprising your enemy is more important than keeping my mouse over a moving character for 3-4 seconds in the hope that the pre-programmed spray of the gun will actually hit more often that the opponent's, who has had a chance to see me already and start shooting at me despite having eaten 10 bullets to the torso.

Well, if you want them to die just by glancing at them so you can score easy kills without really trying, then yes, this is not the game for you. The upside is that you rarely spawn and die before you take 3 steps. :) In deathmatch games like COD, there's barely anything tactical about it - you just run and gun and kill people as fast as you can so you can "win" a meaningless game of numbers by scoring the most kills the least time. S8:p actually has more to do - taking and holding control point objectives, participating in dynamic missions that take place throughout each game, etc - so killing other players is a means to an end, rather than the end in and of itself.

I should also mention that every player gets an auto-lockon ability that works on a cooldown - activate this ability and your crosshairs lock on to the enemy you're aiming at and will follow his movement for a couple seconds. Given that your opponents are often flying (using the jetpack) while you're in combat, the auto-lock is crucial for tracking that moving target. You can only activate that ability every so often - the cooldown is 20 or 30 seconds or so - but you can allocate your upgrade points to reduce the cooldown and increase the duration if you so desire.
 
*writes game off as possibility* **** auto-aim.

I'll keep waiting for someone to make an excellent actually AAA space marine game. maybe one day Warhammer 40K fans will finally get aronud to actually making a good mod.
 
*writes game off as possibility* **** auto-aim.

You apparently skipped the parts where I said "it lasts a few seconds" and "there's a cooldown" but yeah, write this one off. It's definitely not for you.

For me it's about me being intelligent enough to be at the right place at the right time, not about aiming. And for me, the longer they take to die, the less it becomes about that.

I'm not sure I really follow, but it's not important. (For what it's worth, I kill most players inside about 3 seconds; maybe that's really slow for you?) If you're actually curious about the game and want to know more, I'd be happy to tell you, but it's looking more like you guys just want to find reasons to dislike something you've never seen.
 
I played the beta for Section 8 on Steam, i have an idea of what its like. Its not a bad game, just not a game I'm interested in.

Fair enough, assuming you mean Section 8: Prejudice. (Section 8 was the first game; this is the sequel.) I never played the first, but by all reports this one's much better.

But yeah, it doesn't really sound like your cup of tea - I assume you're more of a CoD kind of FPSer, by the sounds of it.
 
I assume you're more of a CoD kind of FPSer, by the sounds of it.

Um, not really. The recent CoDs kind of suck. I prefer Red Orchestra, Mount&Musket, TF2 and the occasional other FPS. I don't like shooters that feel like console ports.
 
Dinner Date

Oh god, you guys. You know that innocent-looking title on Steam, the one indie that looks like it might be an interesting game, but you haven't read any reviews about it? I'll make it nice and short for you, since I went ahead and bought it without reading reviews.

Don't. This is a twenty-minute exercise in hitting keys that have zero impact on the main character's prerecorded monologue. See, Julian Luxembourg got stood up for his date. You get to look through Julian's eyes while he waits for a date who never arrives. In the process, you also get to listen to him moan about his insecurities as a 29-year-old man. Hitting several keys will make him do different movements. Apparently this is supposed to be roleplaying his subconscious but it's really just you making Julian spaz out like a kid without Ritalin. Once you realize there's nothing to do beyond the four or five actions you're given, you might as well need medication. You can max out everything this title has to offer within five seconds. The rest of the time is spent...waiting....waiting for the end to come.

And of course, nothing happens for Julian. His date never comes and neither does any development into interesting themes. His wants and cares are as tedious as your key-tapping. His gripes are your regrets, a never-ending spiral of worry that could only be the hallmark of indecisive, sloppy writing. My college writing class made stuff like this. The difference between Dinner Date and my classmates' writing exercises was the teacher willing to give them an F for their self-satisfied nothings.

Is this a game? No. This is an exercise that should be languishing on some graphic artist's "Other Stuff" page. Dare I ask how making fidgets with your hands and looking at the clock is supposed to be the core impulses of the mind? Why should I care about this "interactive" movie if there is nothing to do? How did this thing win awards? The answer is, as those jokers who make this stuff want to say, was always up to you. And after all, aren't all wallet-holes more of an open question anyway?

0/10 - A waste of time and money in every sense of the phrase. When you can get better value out of an expensive Civ 5 map, that's saying something far more profound and existentialist than this failed attempt at your $5.
 
Top Bottom