Where WE review our games

[Sonereal]

Saints Row IV (not 4)

Sonereal must really hate this game if he was disappointed by Saints Row 3. After all, if SR3 merely jumped the shark, Saints Row IV jumped the shark, took it, and clubbed some baby seals with it. 6/10? 5/10?

No, 9/10.

Wait, what?

I'm giving it a 9 out of 10.

And before going on, note that there are going to be some light spoilers in the game.

1.) Technical issues, such as pop-in. I played this game on PC and I am extremely surprised how bad pop-in is and how bad the draw distance is. Vehicles will pop in and out in front of your very eyes too often. This is the same problem that existed in SR1 and 2 and should not exist in Saints Row at this point.

This is really a problem if you're using air vehicles since its very possible you fly so high that you can't see any cars on the ground because the game won't make them appear.

Draw distance shouldn't even be an issue at this point. Crackdown was released for Xbox and had excellent draw distance.

Pop-in isn't gone, but if you're flying (or gliding) around, you can now actually bomb things on the ground. Saints Row 3 had the problem of going so high, nothing on the ground would spawn. In IV, they will spawn.

2.) Boring Minigames. Besides Professor Genki's Super Ethical whatever, there isn't a lot of variety. Mayhem, tank mayhem, escort missions, etc. All the unique-to-Saints Row minigames are gone, and that's rather sad.

Amazingly, Professor Genki's side missions are toned down in this game. They're easier, but still pretty fun. Mayhem missions come in standard, tank, mechsuit, and telekinesis. Escort missions are gone, but that means so are the drug dealing missions where you sat passenger while the dealer drove around and you protect him or her. It makes sense within the context of the game (which says something), but still.

Side missions are no longer rolled up into the main story line. Instead, characters will offer you rewards for performing a group of missions, such as clearing out enemies somewhere, TK mayhem, Professor Genki stuff, etc. The rewards are typically worth it and at this point of time, I have finished the game with 91% completion, including all side missions finished (though not gold in each).

Between story missions and the side mission strings your crewmates offer, there are also Loyalty Missions. Loyalty Missions are special missions you perform with a crew mate in the simulation. Loyalty missions are typically creative and fun.

I have 21 hours logged into the game, and I was doing somewhat of a speed run. The 24 hours I have in SR3 include the hours I spent just goofing around not doing anything related to anything except shooting Deckers. The 21 hours in SRIV was mostly doing the side missions, main missions, loyalty missions, and collecting as many collectibles as I could find.

These were two basic problems I had with the last game.


Before going on, the story needs a bit of explaining.

Since the events of the third game, you have become President of the United States in a way that points to the "good" ending of SR3 being canon. Several of your partners in crime are members of your cabinet. Benjamin King is your Chief of Staff and Pierce your...well, it doesn't matter. Keith David is also your Vice President.

In any case, after the introduction mission, there are story bits and walking around the White House where you learn that you've been president for a while, and that your approval rating is less than 20 points. It seems like it would be a normal day of being POTUS when the Fire Nation Zin Empire invades Earth.

Long story short, most of the game takes place in a simulation and because of that, you have superpowers.

Ok, first of all, the Zin Empire?

Yeah. In every Saints Row previous this one, there was the Rule of Three. First game has three gangs to take down. Second game had three gangs to take down (and Ultor if they count). Third game had three gangs to take down (and then STAG shows up and ruins everything of course). Fourth game has only the Zin Empire.

The Zin Empire is, by all means, the most technologically advanced thing in the universe and this really means something in game terms. In the simulation, provided your wanted level is low, the highest human response you can expect in the simulation during normal player is the humble police officers armed with pistols. They ride around on motorcycles, but usually drive cars. These guys would, in any other Saints Row game, only be a mild threat. In IV, there is now way you're going to lose to cops. You can wipe fifty cops off the face of the earth without firing a bullet thanks your powers.

Pistol meet fire ball is what I'm getting at.

However, the Zin will quickly step in. Zin troops are armed with weapons similar to the ones used by STAG in 3, but these come in more varieties and are more effective at what they do. At first, the basic Zin troop will arrive to the scene in red hover cars, but very soon you'll be dealing with portals. Zin troops jump out of portals. Zin troops shoot you. Portals not your friend.

There are also, again, the STAG-inspired Zin unit with the riot shield. However, that is where the comparison ends.

If you're playing the game on normal, and you've played the last few games, or maybe just are good at games like this, you'll realize quickly the need to amp the difficulty up to hardcore.

Hardcore, which I consider the mode the game should be played on (powers make normal really really really really easy), can ruin your day quickly when dealing with higher level enemies. Sniper troops with super jumping abilities, drones that can make troops invulnerable to your weapons and powers, terminator-esque rapid-firing murderbots, and superpowered Wardens: large beasts that have the same abilities you do.

The game, early on, can be hellish, ease up in the middle, and then smack you in the mouth in difficulty again later on.

But you won't just fight Zin troops all game, and this is why the simulation aspect of the game actually works. The Zin are clearly the most fleshed-out, important enemies you'll fight, but missions will often give a variety of things to kill.

Also, good news, your gang actually patrols territory you control again, instead of just hanging out at the crib like a bunch of lazy bastards.

The bad news is that you don't need homies, or even vehicles. In Saints Row 3, homies were valuable meatshields because, for all intents and purposes, you were human. Not in Saints Row IV. Basic homies are worth their weight in nothing. For starters, non-super homies simply can't keep up unless you're driving.

And not once, during freeplay or during a mission when required, did I drive a vehicle. Why drive when you can leap tall buildings, run faster than any vehicle in the game, and use gateways to get around if you're feeling exceptionally lazy? Because regular vehicles are worthless, regular homies, you can't leap tall buildings with you, just don't make the cut.

Likewise, whereas I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars customizing vehicles in 3, I spent only $150 in SRIV in a required tutorial.

However, whereas three non-powered homies are underwhelming, having three supers with you is downright diabolical and impossible to counter, which is why its actually rather difficult to do iin missions.

But back to the Zin Empire and past gangs, one of the complaints I had with 3 was that because of the linear missions and low characterization of two of the three gangs in the game, there was a real missed opportunity in terms of the Deckers and Morningstar factions of that game. In IV, there is only one enemy: the Zin. Who are the Zin? The bad guys. Why are they bad? It becomes quickly apparent why they're evil and why you need to kick them down the well.

The leader of the Zin Empire, Emperor Zinyak, is a lot more fleshed out as a villain. Unlike Lorren of the Morningstar and Matt Miller in Saints Row 3, the entire game fleshes out Zinyak's character, his sense of humor, the kind of person he is. Matt Miller gets his time to shine in IV as a member of the human resistance.

So while the Zin Empire has only one named, major character, it isn't nearly as bad as the problem one one-character gangs in the last game.

Another complaint I had with 3 is that it jumped the shark. IV happens years after 3 and because of the whole thing about the simulation, I'm not even sure that that is a bad thing at this point.

This is what it says on the Steam page.

The American (Fever) Dream – Play as the President of the United States in a story that spans countries, space, and time. Saints Row IV is to Saints Row: The Third what Saints Row: The Third is to Do The Right Thing. You’re not ready.

And Jesus Christ, has never a phrase not been ever truer. Like with any game I really want to play, I ignored reviews, comments, everything I could about the game. I already knew that you would gain superpowers, become the President of the United States, fight an alien empire, and gain access to the most insanely awesome weapons of the franchise. I knew all this going in.

Yet I was not ready. Every time you feel lulled into the idea that there is a status quo in the HSQ, something happens that just makes the number go off the charts again. While going through the storyline, I was at a complete loss in how to process it. Is this game Saints Row 1/2? Not at all. Is the story bad? No, not even that. I actually liked the story a lot more than I liked the one in the last game.

Saints Row IV is the wham episode of the series and marks a progression in your character because this is the same character you started off with in the first game.

This series, this franchise, began when you were minding your own business after a movie and you got caught up in a drive-by. You joined the Saints, who started life as a response to the gangs and called an abandoned church in the poorest part of the city its HQ.

Since then, you have taken over a city, been to prison, came back to lead the Saints to retake the city and clear out the gangs, turned the Saints in a multi-billion dollar corporate machine, taken over another city, fought the government to a stand still, and became President of the United States.

Serial escalation at its finest.


Overall, liked the game.

Gunplay is improved upon and there are weapons for everybody's taste. I ended up sticking with the reliable souped out Bounce Rifle (shoots orbs that bounce from target to target, and fully upgraded can wipe out waves of enemies in a full salvo before needing to cool down) and the Dubstep Gun, a musical cannon that uses the amazing power of dubstep to destroy everything in technicolor musical awesomeness. However, the game has some limited customization for weapons and in a pinch I used the reliable Heavy SMG and Heavy Pistol.

The powers are fun to play with, but make me wish there was a new Destroy All Humans! You unlock powers over the course of the game, like super jump, speed, energy blasts, stomping, telekinesis, etc. Each power can be upgraded further by gathering data clusters to upgrade them, which is where your super jump really comes in handy. Doing side missions for your crew unlocks elements for powers, such as fire blasts and mind control for your energy blasts, and lightning telekinesis for your regular telekinesis.

The only useless powers were life stealing for telekinesis and maybe the shrinking power ability for the stomp.


The bad?

This game is definitely not for everybody. The humor is back to Saints Row levels, and the game, in my opinion, does a better job of mixing comedic bits with serious bits. If you're expecting Grand Theft Auto IV or V in seriousness though, or even SR2, you're in a rude awakening. But like I said, I laughed. I had fun, and isn't that what really matters for a $50 game?

 

[civvver]

Sounds cool but I'm not paying $50 for it. Wait for a sale.

 

[Sonereal]

Sounds cool but I'm not paying $50 for it. Wait for a sale.

With the amount of DLC I know that will come out for it, I wouldn't have paid $50 either except I'm a Saints Row fan.

 

[civvver]

Heroes of Might and Magic 1 & 2

Ubisoft released a heroes of might and magic collection which includes 1-5 and all expansions on dvd which I picked up earlier in the summer. Even the early titles are really deep and take a while to get through. I've only played one game on 3 but have completed campaigns in 1 and 2 and was shocked no one has reviews any homm title since they are such classic strategy games, even if they never were quite as main stream as maybe civ or total war.

The reason I'm lumping them into one review is they're basically the same game only with 2 being the far superior version. It came out only a year after the first and you can clearly see how 1 feels underdeveloped like the developers were limited in resources but did what they could with it. Homm 1 turned out to be a success and 2 really feels almost like a re-release they could've just called "1.5" or "1 the way it was meant to be." So if you're looking to pick these up separately on gog or something I'd say just skip the first one, even though I'd rate it easily a 75/100. The second has better artwork, cutscenes which present the plot much better, better maps, expanded combat map, two additional hero types and more units and spells. The only real gameplay change is in the first one spells had a set number of charges so you could cast each spell in your book 3 times for example, while in homm 2 spells cost spell points and you have a limited pool. This balances spells much better where a super powerful nuke costs 3 times as much as a simply bless spell for example. Also units now upgrade into more powerful (and more expensive) versions and there are secondary skills that heroes can learn as they level up. Oh and there's marketplaces where you can swap resource types. Other than that, exact same game with better graphics and more stuff. So here's the review of homm 2!

Heroes of Might and Magic 2 is a turn based game where you control heroes and towns to recruit units to form armies and engage in turn based combat to conquer objectives on a map. There's definite economic and tactical sides of the gameplay that fit really well together. First a quick explanation of the economic side.

Each town you control gives you gold every turn. There are also additional resources you can control like ore mines and lumber mills. There's five resource types in total which seems like a lot but it's not that bad because they are very specialized. For instance a knight's town only needs wood and ore to build everything except their most powerful structure which requires some crystals. So it's not that hard to manage as you usually only need to control a couple specific resource types early.

Each turn is one day, and every seven days a new week begins and units become available for recruitment in your town based on the buildings you have built. For example in a knight's town you may recruit swordsmen but only if you have built an armory. The units spawn at a set rate per week with more powerful ones spawning less (like dragons only spawn 3 a week while those weaker swords are about 10). So your unit production is limited by how much gold you have to recruit units but also by time. Thus timing becomes pretty strategic. If you capture a town on day 7 of a week then the next week you can recruit are the newly spawned units for example. Or you might need to make sure and build that armory by day 7 of a week so next week the swordsmen all spawn.

That's the economy in a nutshell though there are a lot of nuances to keep it deep strategically. There are markets you can use to buy and sell resources with the exchange rates being better if you control more markets. There's always trade offs to going for control over one resource mine over another, like knowing to deny a warlock sulfur mines because he needs that resource to build his most powerful dragon units. Plus there's the whole consideration of saving for really expensive powerful units vs being able to get the job done with a bunch of cheaper ones. You have to be good at cost benefit analysis or you won't get that far in this game.

Once you've recruited units you can form an army that a hero leads. Units cannot move around the map on their own, only heroes move around the map with their army in tow. Heroes don't actually fight in battles but their stats increase the effectiveness of the troops they lead. Every unit has an attack and defense rating. Heroes add their attack and defense rating to the units base stats. When attacking damage is calculated using base damage and then modified by the difference in attack rating and the defender's defense. If the attacker's attack rating is higher then damage is increased by 10% per point higher. If lower it's decreased by 5% per point lower. Thus a knight is leading an army and has very high attack his units will deal significantly more damage than if a warlock with much lower attack was leading.

Battles take place on a hex grid with alternating turns between attacker and defending units based on the units speed rating. All of the fast units go first, with attacker going first and then defender, then all the average speed ones go and slow ones last in the same order. Not only do units attack but they can also counter attack once per round, so there is a lot of strategy in lining up your attacks. Also some units are ranged and many have special abilities.

The final element of battles is magic. Each round each hero may cast one spell. Spells are based only on the hero's knowledge and spell power stats so while knights and barbarians have a combat advantage, powerful warlocks and wizard heroes can pummel and disable their units with strong spells like lightning and blind. There are tons of spells in the game and they are unlocked by building mage guilds in your towns.

Heroes also gain experience and level up when they win battles. Each time they level they gain one attribute (attack, defense, spell power or knowledge) and one secondary skill. You always get a choice between two skills to advance, whether to pick beginning ranks of new ones or advanced ranks of ones you own (each skill has three ranks total). Your hero is limited to 8 secondary skill slots so there's some choice to be made whether to fill those slots with decent skills early or level up the skills you already have and save those spots for more powerful ones later. Skills do all sorts of things from granting you more movement speed to increasing your luck in battle to unlocking high level spells.

The campaign mode I found to be really fun, though challenging. I like that you get choices at the beginning of missions on what types of heroes to choose or special items to take, it makes me feel like I'm really controlling the heroes more. My major complaint is the mission difficulty does not seem well balanced. There's a few tricks to beating a couple missions which if you don't know they become extremely long and difficult. I guess you're supposed to play them several times trying different strategies but I found this frustrating and searched for guides online for some. Also there's no difficulty setting, it is what it is.

There's also single map games which you can select the map types and adjust the difficulty so the game has tons of replayability to it.

Overall the spritely graphics have aged pretty well, the music is really, really cool and the game is downright addictive due to the turn based nature of it. It's always one more turn! for me and I'm sure it will be for you too. Really a classic of the series and one I would not skip, even though many say 3 is the best and 5 and 6 have much newer graphics. I'm not going to rate the graphics and sound and such separately like I usually do because for an old game it's kind of irrelevant. Gameplay is all that matters on a throwback and homm2 has it.

85/100

 

[civvver]

Bastion

I finally finished this game. Not like it's particularly long or anything, I just played it in really small chunks spread out over many months.

The game is an arcade style action game played on an isometric map. You play a character called the Kid and you wake up after some apocalyptic disaster has occurred to ruined cities where everyone is missing or turned to ash. The voice of the narrator leads you to the city's safehouse called the Bastion. From there you start to piece together what happened to everyone as you help build the Bastion by collection mementos and crystals strewn throughout the land.

The first thing to comment on is the art style and how the story is presented, because it's the first thing you'll notice. The art is bright, cartoony with an anime influence but it's not over the top. It looks gorgeous and the world kind of has a US western feel. Though perhaps that's just the music, because it's a lot of acoustic guitar driven bluesy stuff- it sounds incredible. The soundtrack to this game is outstanding. Also what you'll notice is the narration. As you play the old man narrating explains your actions in past tense like you are playing out a book. It's different and refreshing style of story presentation.

The gameplay is good, though nothing ground breaking. All the levels are done as stages with you returning to the bastion in between. You character moves around and attacks with two different weapon types of your choosing. You unlock and upgrade more weapons as you progress in the game. You can defend with a shield and there's a dodge/roll mechanic. There's also a unique leveling system where when you level you open up slots to place different alcoholic beverages at a place called the distillery. Each brew you place has a different effect like 10 more hp or extra move speed defending. What's cool is you can swap out your weapons and change your brews at any time for full customization. Want to roll with pistols and a shotgun? Go for it, or you can change it up and use a machete and a warhammer. It's different and customizing is fun for a while, but eventually you kinda settle on a couple best weapon choices. I thought the weapons could've been fleshed out a bit more with counters to certain enemies, but once you upgrade them enough it makes no difference which ones you use. For example some enemies are highly armored so in the beginning you need hard hitting weapons, but later multiple weapons get an armor piercing upgrade so any of them will do. The game is really easy but there's these things called idols you can turn on that make it exponentially more difficult if you want a challenge. If you breeze through the story without doing many challenges you can probably beat the game in under 4 hours, but if you collect everything it's close to double that.

One thing I must mention is the keyboard controls are bad. They offer more precision over a gamepad because you can manually aim shooting weapons with the mouse but it just feels clunky. I don't think it's necessarily the devs fault, it's just hard to play on an angular isometric map with left right, up down keys. You really need a gamepad. Once I used that it was tons of fun and really felt more like this was the intended experience.

Some reviews have compared this to a zelda game. I don't really think that fits. This is much more arcade feeling with short stages and lots of bonus challenges and unlocking weapon upgrades and such. The only thing really like zelda is selecting weapons into two slots and the isometric perspective.

In all it's a really good game, you should play it for the music alone.

Story - 9. Story is a bit simple but high marks for amazing presentation with the narration style.
Graphics - 8
Music - 10. This is the best game soundtrack I think I've ever heard.
Gameplay - 7. Fun but ultimately average and a few control issues.

Overall - 8. Definitely a game you want to experience for the music and style, and the gameplay is good enough it won't get in the way of that.

 

[Ajidica]

Two Worlds​

Released in 2007, Two Worlds is an open-world fantasy role playing game that will forever be compared to Oblivion. Upon release, it was almost universally panned and criticized for just about every element. After several patches it has become a quite enjoyable game that can still be quite fun.
Plot: The game begins with you, a nameless bounty hunter, working with a sinister group of mages to rescue your sister. To do that, you have to assemble a magical relic that does something. Put simply, the main quest is trash. However, that is not where Two Worlds put its energy. The game abounds with side quests and feuding factions you can aid or hinder. House Skelden is locked in a fierce guerilla war with Clan Karga, the Society of Mages is dealing with the heresy created by the Necromancers, the Brotherhood is swamped fending off an Dwarven invasion, and the Giritza Family is trying to infiltrate the Merchants guild. All the while an Orcish invasion threatens from the south. While most of the side quests are pretty basic fetch-or-kill quests, the sheer amount of them and a few unexpected twists keeps them interesting. There are even more side quests outside of the main factions- one particular set of quests involves unraveling the fate of a cursed village.
The journal is decent enough, but the quest markers on the map could use some work. In one case, a quest marker simply doesn't show up. That wouldn't be half bad- except for the fact the marker should be spawning on the far side of the map in an area that otherwise has nothing to entice you to go there!

Graphics: The graphics are definitely showing their age, but are still pretty. The environment is vibrant and colorful, the draw distance is long, and HDR effects work well. The armor and weapons for the most part look cool even if they do get a bit too extreme with plate mail and massive swords too early on for my liking. Unfortunately, the animations are quite primitive and are very stiff. The combat animations are fluid enough but the idle animations for villagers -although abundant- don't look that great. From the reviews I read there were some issues with the graphics and shaders early on, but from my end I've had no problems with that. Furthermore, the lip-syncing ranges from horrifying to non-existent.
The visual design is your standard European fantasy, although there are some Byzantine/Arabesque styles found in the cities of Qudinar and Cathalon, along with the Asian inspired Ashos in the south. While they designs themselves are pretty uninspired, they fit into the world excellently. Looking out from the mountaintop village of Comorin and seeing Tharbakin across the valley, with Cathalon and the River Gor far to the south is very pretty.

Gameworld: The game world feels very large- and it is. The area of the map where you will spend the most time is in the north, known as Thalmont. Thalmont is quite mountainous so you will find yourself taking long paths down valleys or twisting up mountains to get somewhere that isn't all that far from where you started. The world is quite beautiful so I never got bored wandering around, but when you need to get somewhere quickly, there is a teleport network available. Unlike in Oblivion, I never felt overwhelmed by the number of dungeons available. The wilderness between cities actually felt like a wilderness rather than a tour of various dungeons.
Lastly, a word of warning: Bandits and groms (goblins) often make their camps very close to the road and hidden behind bushes. If you aren't paying attention it is quite easy to get ambushed by them and your character will soon be a dead character.

Voice-Acting and Music: As this is an open-world RPG, you will spend A LOT of time listening to characters talk. Unfortunately, this is where the game pretty much falls flat on its face. The writing is pretty poor, filled with enough "thee", "though", "verily", and "forsooths" to make a group of Renaissance Festival celebrants tell them to knock it off. The voice acting is of a decidedly poor quality. Although there are many different voice actors, none are good. Fortunately, the game stays away from horrifying accents, so none of the voice actors are actively painful to listen to. Rather, they sound like Bob from Accounting took some valium and decided to read a script because he was bored.
The ambient sounds are actually pretty good, but quite repetitive. You do get the sense this is a living world, but you hear the same bird calling out way too many times.
Lastly, the music. While there is nothing bad about the music, neither is there anything good. The only issue I can think of for the music is that they could use more battle music as it feels a bit odd fighting for your life in a ruined cemetery against a horde of ghouls with only the "creepy exploration" music as a soundtrack.

Combat: The combat isn't half bad, although a bit unbalanced. Two Worlds is played from a third-person perspective. Since targeting enemies is functionally impossible in this setup, the game uses an auto-targeting system. While it isn't bad, neither is it great. For the most part it will target the enemy you want to hit, although when a large pack of enemies are charging at you, it may get a bit confused targeting the orc to the left of the one you wanted to hit. Rather than going for the 'realistic' combat of Elder Scrolls games, Two Worlds takes its inspiration from the hack-and-loot of Diablo games. While wading into a pack of enemies with a greatsword is effective, it gets a bit boring after a while. Unfortunately, going pure archery/stealth or magic simply aren't strong enough late game to be recommended over the warrior. Focusing on archery/stealth prevents your character from making use of the best armor and you simply won't be able to do enough damage with your bow against the hordes of late-game enemies before you are forced to start running in circles chugging health potions to stay alive. Similarly, magic simply can't do enough damage with spells to take down the enemy quickly enough. Plus, the robes you wear are about as effective against an enemy as a wet tissue.
The magic system is worth going into greater detail though. Rather than having a list of spells like in Elder Scrolls or D&D games, you have three spell slots which can be filled with spell cards from any of the schools of magic. The more of a certain spell card you put in a slot, the more powerful that spell becomes. The spells can be further customized by the inclusion of booster cards that may reduce mana cost or increase the damage dealt. It is a fun system that is well worth exploring.
Unfortunately, the enemy AI is serviceable at best. Don't expect great things out of the enemies you face, although they are perfectly capable of using special abilities against you. (You will learn to hate skeleton archers and their disarming shots!)
Furthermore, you can ride a horse into combat! Unfortunately, the map is tight enough and the controls of the horse sufficiently patchy that it rarely makes sense to do so except for the thrill of seeing it once or twice. I had some limited success as a horse archer in the wastelands fighting the orcs, but it would have been simpler to just beat them over the head with a big sword.
Lastly, I've never quite got the hang of blocking in this game, and against animal enemies blocking is useless so make sure to use the 'jump back' button all the time to avoid frequently fatal blows.

Crafting: Two Worlds has a very robust crafting system. Two Worlds possesses an alchemy system that is exceptionally complex and deep that I haven't really touched besides brewing up healing potions as my character put very little points into alchemy.
The way Two Worlds gets around the problem of getting repetitive loot drops is to allow you to combine two of the same items into one, stronger item. Two short swords that may do a damage of 15 can be combined into one short sword doing 17 damage. In some cases it is preferable to combine older equipment than purchase brand new equipment. The older equipment will see more enemies dropping it, allowing you to improve it more and more.

Skills: The skill system is split into 'attributes' and 'skills'. Attributes consist of strength (melee), dexterity (archery/stealth), vitality (health), and willpower (mana). Skills are various passive or active abilities you can level up. While there are many interesting skills (such as being able to shove a torch in an enemy's face to stun them) there is a poor integration of the skill system with the rest of the game. For example, one skill allows you to unhorse enemies. The only problem is that no enemies are seen riding horses! While this may be handy in the multiplayer aspect (of which I know nothing about) of Two Worlds, it is utterly useless in the single player campaign. Another example is the 'Deadly Pirouette' skill that lets you damage enemies behind you if you are wielding a two-handed sword. However, the combat animation already causes damage to be dealt behind you while wielding a two-handed sword! Enough said.
While the other skills range from useful (faster bow draw) to uninspiring (like swimming) they aren't actively useless in-game like the others.
One interesting feature of Two Worlds is that you don't chose a class. Rather, you can chose skills that give certain weapons unique bonus. (For example, if you have put points into 'Shield Breaker' and are wielding an axe, you can break the opponents block to get in a few devastating hits.) If you find you don't like how your character has evolved, for a small fee you can talk to an NPC that will reset all of your skill points and attributes, allowing you to distribute them fresh. The one problem with this setup is that if you change your emphasis (say, from magic to combat), be prepared to pay out the nose for good gear as you will likely have sold all of the non-useful gear and your equipment is very important in this game.

Final Rating: In the final view, I can't say that Two Worlds is a good game-especially when game like Diablo III and Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind are on the market. That said, if you pick it up on a Steam sale for $5, you cannot go wrong.
5/10 for the average gamer, 6/10 for a gamer that likes fantasy RPGs and admires sheer gall of a small developer trying to go toe-to-toe with Bethesda.

EYE: Divine Cybermancy​

If the designers of Deus Ex: Human Revolution had taken a weekend off, consumed copious amounts of LSD and shrooms, and then watched Ghost in the Shell, Terminator, Warhammer 40K, and Akira, they might end up with something resembling the lunacy found in EYE: Divine Cybermancy.
Released in 2011 by a small French studio, EYE: Divine Cybermancy places you as a cybernetically enhanced psionic agent in the middle of a century old struggle between secret organizations. EYE follows a Deus Ex style path of combining multiple approaches to missions, player-determined plot choices, and character customization.

Plot: Due to a spotty English translation, voluminous backstory, and the inherent lack of clarity due to having the PC be a secret agent in a secret war between secret organizations little makes sense in the plot besides what I've already said. The closest I can tell is that the Secreta Secretorum is fighting against the Federation -an interstellar government- while there is a civil war between two factions of the Secreta: the Culters and Jians. Yeah. You won't be playing this game for the plot.

Graphics: EYE is running off of the Source engine, so it looks very dated. Despite that limitation, the developers have done an outstanding job creating a rich, gritty, cyberpunk, Warhammer 40K feel to the cities. In one notable map, you need to sneak through a mazelike warren of streets evading Federation patrols as massive building loom over you and neon signs advertise for obscure products. All in all, the game itself is quite pretty. However, there is a distinct lack of life on the maps. Even on the two urban maps you encounter no civilians to interact with nor hub areas to explore which damages the immersion and role playing aspects of the game.
Unfortunately, the UI is quite possibly one of the worse I've used in recent memory. Everything -from inventory, to character stats, to research projects, to cybernetic upgrades, action buttons (such as hacking), you name it- is found in a single menu that does not pause the game when opened. Individual actions, such as hacking or activating psionic powers, can be put onto a radial quickslot activated by pressing 'c' and then clicking on the action you want to use. Why the developers didn't allow you to bind the actions to number key commands I'll never know.
Furthermore, the radial quickslot menu has the bad habit of wiping presets forcing you to re-select what you want on the quickslot menu.
Lastly, don't bother looking at the tutorial, it is less that useless.

Voice Acting and Music:
The music isn't half bad, consisting of a droning electronic track that occasionally hits its stride. In one map, I was exploring a ruined, flooded factory and what sounded eerily like a theme from the Ghost in the Shell movie began playing. I paused for a few minutes just to take in the ambiance with that wonderful music playing. However, most of the time the soundtrack is just 'there' with little to recommend it.
The voice acting doesn't really exist. Despite having dialogue written in a mangled version of engrish, the characters deliver their lines in what sounds like Russian/Japanese spoken by a diesel engine. The game wins no points there.

Combat: There several ways one can accomplish a mission: combat, stealth, hacking, augmentations, and psy powers. Each of which is detailed enough to warrant its own explanation.
>Combat: As EYE is built on the Source engine, it appears to have borrowed Half Life 2's excellent gunplay system and it works. The guns all feel unique and powerful, they sound great, and are all a blast to use. Furthermore, the game includes a wide variety of swords you can use, including the Damocles that causes enemies to explode and the ability to dual wield katanas and pistols. While you are blocking with a sword, you will create a 'psy shield', draining your energy but completely protecting yourself from bullets. This isn't unbalanced as energy is used for so many other activities that it is a difficult choice to determine if you want to keep energy in reserve for psy-shielding or for other tasks.
>Stealth: The default stealth system is not the greatest. Enemy eyesight is too good and the maps are too open for proper sneaking. However, an early augmentation you can get is optic camouflage. For a hefty energy cost, you can make yourself completely invisible. At lower levels, it is only strong enough to last for a quick dash between hiding places. After leveling it up late-game, it is strong enough to keep you safe while trying to hack into Interceptor gunships.
>Hacking: As this is a cyberpunk game, hacking plays a large role. When you move to hack an enemy you can choose from a variety of viruses to deploy. You can take control of their body, cause them to turn against their allies, or simply kill them. To do that a minigame is initiated where you need to drop their 'health' to zero while breaking down their shields and staying alive by dropping their attack ability. Although it is pretty difficult, there is little more satisfying than hacking an enemy and hearing the startled shouts and gunfire in the room over.
If the enemy wins the hacking minigame, they succeed in hacking you so you take a penalty to all stats until you 're-hack' yourself to drive them out.
>Augmentations: There are numerous augmentations you can purchase for your character that make you stronger, more accurate, a faster runner, a higher jumper, and so on. I never played around with these much in single player although they do become quite fun in multiplayer.
>Psy powers: The dev team pulled out all the stops with psy powers and they are off the walls insane. One power allows you to destroy an enemy- then teleport to where his corpse was. Another lets you clone yourself several times to distract the enemy. They are mind-boggling absurd that introduces a whole new layer to combat.
Note: By default, you can't really heal yourself. You need to research the 'medpack' technology and then equip a medpack from the mobile armory at the beginning of a mission.

Skills: As in all role playing games, you level up your character, buying new equipment, psy abilities, and augmentations. Many augmentations have skill prereqs that come out of the blue, so make sure to look through the possible augmentation purchases before leaving one skill to languish. It is no fun grinding through non-story levels just to gain enough skill points to purchase an augmentation because you weren't paying attention to the prereqs.

Side-Missions: Once you complete a story mission, that map becomes 'unlocked' for side missions where you can undertake randomly chosen objectives for additional cash, research items, experience, or simple practice trying out a new strategy. These side-missions are very important for hacker/psyker characters as they need a lot of upgrades and augmentations to be as the same level of effectiveness as a strict guns character.

Multiplayer: Yes, EYE has multiplayer. I tested it out briefly with a friend and it does work, although the skills are horribly unbalanced and things just get silly quickly. If you are going to play it with friends, I would reccomend instituting a few house rules. Apparently the multiplayer options allow for up to 64 people to play at once. Since I only had one friend who owns the game, I only got to try out a 1v1 match with lots of bots.

Final Verdict: EYE: Divine Cybermancy is an unintuitive, poorly balanced, glorious feast for the eyes. Nothing about the game is spoon fed to you. You will spend an hour or so fighting the unintuitive interface and overwhelmingly complex set of options. However, when all the systems come together, the game is glorious and easily one of the best action-rpg games played. Then something goes wrong, and you are jolted out of your reverie in a Hindenburg-esque calamity.
In the end, I will give it 6/10. It is fun, but with too many problems for me to give it a glowing recommendation.
Plus, EYE and Deus Ex: HR can hold me over until CD Projekt Red get around to releasing Cyberpunk 2077.
As a final note, the game as a very dark side. In one situation, you can talk a depressed mercenary into committing suicide (although the engrish of dialogue options make this only evident in retrospect). Furthermore, when you kill enemies you get a small pop-up at the bottom of the screen saying what exactly you killed (ie: a lieutenant, a Seeker, etc). Rarely, the pop-up will instead read "You killed a loving father" instead. In my 30+ hours of gameplay, I saw that once or twice.
Lastly: There is a mod for the game that replaces much of the engrish with actual English.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2855200

 

[civvver]

Defense Grid: The Awakening

Defense Grid is yet another indie tower defense game. Might seem like a kind of dull premise, but it is executed very well.

The story is minimal, but that's usually the case with tower defense. There's this AI narrator who is supposed to be a survivor of the last alien invasion downloaded into a super computer to assist you. Then he takes you from level to level explaining why you're there, but it's pretty inconsequential.

The gameplay is excellent. Each map has an entry point and exit point for ground based aliens, some have more than one. The aliens come and take cores from your main generator and then have to escape. If they die carrying a core the core travels very slowly back to the generator and other aliens can pick it up along the way. This game differs from other tower defenses in three major ways. First your towers are invincible. Second there are no resource generating towers. Resources are obtained when you destroy enemies and you get a tiny amount as interest based on how many resources you have banked and how many cores you still have in the generator, but it's so small it makes almost no difference. At first I thought these two features would make pretty shallow gameplay, but the third feature provides a lot of depth. Many maps are setup as open grids with a lot of places you can put towers. Aliens cannot move through your towers so you can make a maze for them and greatly increase the alien path distance and set up choke points and kill zones. If you make a maze with no entrance though they'll simply walk through your towers, so you have to set it up right. This feature is pretty much what defines the game. Simply put, Defense Grid strips out a lot of extra features of tower defense to really focus on the core feature- tower placement.

There's also plenty of tower types all specializing in different things, although if not going for high scores you can pretty much rely on a single versatile type (cannons) so I wished the tower choices had been developed a bit more.

The game is a bit short, the main campaign is only 12 or so levels and there's an expansion with another 4 included. Also there's a fast forward button during play so you can complete levels really fast if you use it, which is especially nice when going for high scores. There's TONS of achievements with this game and I think that's supposed to be the selling point. With the fast forward button you can try over and over for one with ease, even a very difficult one. So there is some replay-ability if you like challenge modes etc.

Overall I score this one a 7.5.

Graphics: 7 - nothing flashing but looks good for what it is. Towers and explosions look cool.
Sound and music: 7 - Good music, not memorable. Fits the game well. The voice acting is pretty good even if shallow.
Story: 5 - Pretty much non existent but what tower defense has any story really?
Gameplay: 8 - Good take on the genre.
Overall: 7.5 - It's a quick ride but a really fun one. And for a cheap game it's well worth it.

 

[civvver]

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

This is a console port 3rd person action title set in the warhammer 40,000 universe (which I find particularly cool).

First let me just get the console port disclaimer out of the way. The graphics are good, but obviously not as stunning as pc engineered titles. The menus and such transition very well. The keyboard controls are done as well as possible, but they simply don't work. I strongly recommend a controller to play this game. I used the xbox 360 for windows one. The reason they don't translate well is there's a lot of buttons, which seems like it would work well on pc but I kept forgetting what keys did what if I was away from the game for more than a few days. Like 'R' or something is execute, while 'T' or something is stun, huh? On controller it was Y and B. Just easier to keep them straight for me. Also mouse has definite aiming advantages (I prefer keyboard and mouse for dead space) but this game has an auto aim feature for the controller so there isn't much advantage at all. Aiming was really easy with the controller.

Now that that's out of the way, the gameplay is good, though not quite great. Mixing melee and shooting in an action game is always a challenge to make both feel immersive without greatly skewing preference to one or the other. This game does it well. Shooting is just, well hold fire and shoot different weapons with different effects. Effective, sometimes fun, but the melee is more fun. You get chainswords, power axes and battlehammers. All weapons have the same combos (what can be barely called a combo) of a number of attacks then the stun button but they do different animation styles depending and they're all really cool. There isn't any targeting so you'll often find yourself swinging at empty air. But it's easy to lose yourself in the frenzy of melee combat. It's fast paced and somewhat challenging.

One thing that does seem weird though is there's no cover system. You will find yourself rolling behind crates and stuff to avoid fire but you can't actually take cover and pop out like mass effect or deus ex. Instead you just stand behind stuff more like dead space.

The health system is annoying. To gain health you must perform execute combos on enemies which generally means stun them so a little icon appears over their head then press 'B'. The problem is, during the execute animation, which is rather long, you still take dmg so you can die easily in a horde, despite desperately needing to execute to regain hp. The other issue is, sometimes there are no enemies around possible to execute, like they might be all ranged or whatever. It just needs a bit more polish, though I do appreciate they tried to innovate the usually health pack drop system.

Ammo and weapons still drop a plenty though, not really any issues there.

The story flows nicely, using an auto save that actually works. It saves frequently and the game is divided into chapters with checkpoints. If you quit you never lose more than 5 mins progress and it's pretty easy to figure out the save posts. The pacing is well done. The story is good, no major plot twists but there's so much action this is a gameplay driven game not a story one.

Overall I had a lot of fun playing it. If you don't die it's not a long game, maybe 10 hours. If you die a lot, like me, and keep reloading checkpoints it's longer. Overall it's just a fast paced action title, worth trying if you like that sort of thing. I think it has coop multiplayer though I have never tried it.

Graphics: 7.5 - doesn't strain your pc hardware but I love the warhammer style so high marks from me. Orks look cool!
Sound and musics: 7 - standard musical fare. Chainswords ripping through orks has a great sound though.
Story: 7 - Very average warhammer orks invade, oh no here come chaos demons stuff. It doesn't detract or add to gameplay. But I bumped it from a 6 to a 7 just because the voice acting is superb. Mark Strong voices your character, Titus, and he is awesome.
Gameplay: 7.5 - Just needs a couple tweaks to get this to a great level. Love the melee combat though.
Overall: 7 - Easy game to pick up and smash some ork faces for a few hours. Easy to play casually.

 

[civvver]

Deadlight

Deadlight is a side scrolling platformer set in a zombie apocalypse during the cold war era. You play this guy Jake Randal and the whole game are travelling through a destroyed Seattle trying to get to the mysterious Safe Point in search of your family. But there's something more going on as Randal has an incomplete journal which you find lost pages to along the way (weird that they're strewn across Seattle but hey it's for plot so go with it!) and he also keeps having weird flashbacks and dreams.

The atmosphere is amazing. The graphics are just ok as far as the models go but the backdrops to your side scrolling adventure look sweet. They have different fields of depth and tons of detail. It's pretty much why I bought the game cus it looked so pretty.

The gameplay is average at best. The controls are not responsive. Many times you'll be trying to jump to a ledge and hit a wall instead of jump the wrong direction and die. Thankfully there are tons of checkpoints so you restart just a few seconds from where you died to try again. The gameplay is also kind of dull. It's a lot of running and jumping and climbing kind of like a side scrolling version of assassin's creed. Occasionally you fight zombies but your weapon choices are extremely limited so it's really an action/adventure more than a shooter game. The levels are ok but how much variety can you have jumping and climbing through a city?

The story is a little cliche but I liked the cold war era setting. It's a twist on the normal zombie apocalypse. Also Randal is a complex character and the journal was a nice idea to give some insight into him. However the voice acting is terrible. The cutscenes are done comic book style with little animation- it's like reading a voiced over comic. But the voice acting is so bad. The story is just enough to keep you going but not that great once you get to the end.

Also this game is extremely short. You can finish it in 3 hours if you don't dwaddle and read the journal quickly. Thankfully I got the game on sale under 4 bucks but the full price is 15 and it's not worth half that just based on the content. Also I found at least 3 bugs while playing where I had to restart cus my guy got stuck when a switch wouldn't activate and stuff like that.

Pros: Visually appealing, cool setting
Cons: Dull gameplay, poor controls, little content

Overall I give it a 6/10. If you catch it on sale and you like zombies I say go for it but otherwise not worth your time.

 

[civvver]

The Walking Dead: Season 1

The Walking Dead: Season 1 is an adventure game by telltale games. It's presented as 5 episodes which you can play through in order or start at the beginning of one. Buying the walking dead season 1 gets you all 5. When the game was released only episode 1 was available and then more released as updates over time, but it's complete now. I was slightly confused by this cus originally the game was sold as a season pass but all that means is you get the full game as it comes out.

The game also is more of an interactive comic book than a game. I think that's important to note so you know what you're getting. The extent of gameplay is walking around within a super limited area and clicking on people to talk to them, selecting responses from a list of a few, and occasionally clicking on zombies or objects to perform actions (like chop their heads off) and pressing 'Q' rapidly to do stuff (like push a desk or wrestle a zombie).

Really this game is all about telling a story. You play this guy Lee who has just been convicted of a crime and is being driven to prison when all hell breaks loose. From there you meet all sorts of amazing people, some good, others bad, with everything in between. What's awesome is the dialogue choices you make and a few action choices directly impact the story. Some are really obvious, like a few times you'll have to decide between two people to save from zombies and you can only save one of them. Other times it's more subtle like encouraging someone and getting on their good side so they will back you later during a conflict. In all the characters are pretty deep with complex emotions. Although the dialogue seemed limited at first to me the characters develop throughout the game in a way that made me feel deeply invested in the events of the story. The writing is also superb. It's typical zombie armageddon fare but there's still some cool plot twists (even though I guessed a few outright, although the last one was a complete shocker to me). If you like the TV show you should enjoy the story telling a lot.

The graphics aren't anything special but I liked the style. Everything is highlighted in bold lines with bold colors so you feel like you're reading a comic book. I think it looks quite appealing even if it's less graphically impressive than some other titles. The music is also good, ramping up at the appropriate times of excitement.

The game is long enough, though I could've easily played twice as many chapters. It took me 11 hours to get through it. It sorta has replay value because you can go back and make different decisions and see what the outcomes might be, but knowing the final outcome of the story that doesn't hold huge appeal to me. So for full price this game lacks a bit of the value I'm used to but on a steam sale it's a great deal.

In all playing walking dead was a great experience. I didn't want to put this down, I didn't want this game to end. I was extremely emotionally invested it in, which seems weird for a game, but it's much like reading an amazing book or watching a great movie. I would highly recommend this game to anyone. I'm not going to do a breakdown of gameplay and graphics and such cus this game is not about that, it's about the story telling, so it wouldn't make sense. I'm actually trying to think what should prevent me from giving this game a perfect score other that just out of principle? I guess it you want to get really nitpicky the length was a bit shorter than I wanted and even though your choices directly affect the outcome of the game it's still a linear story. You don't get to explore or choose where to go, you just affect the journey along the way. It would be awesome if in season 2 you could select from multiple destinations and the game had really replay value as you'd want to explore everything. So I guess I can knock a few points off for that, but there's not much to complain about here.

Final score: 95/100

 

[civvver]

FTL: Faster Than Light

FTL: Faster Than Light is unlike anything I've every played before. It's an indie game with retro 16 bit style graphics done as a space commander sim with heavy rogue-like elements.

You start the game as the commander of a ship carrying vital information on an evil, xenophobic rebel force. The entire goal is to traverse eight randomly generated sectors and get that information to the imperial command. In the last sector after delivering the info you have to then go fight and destroy the rebel flagship. If you succeed, and it's a pretty big if, you then get a score based on a bunch of factors so going for a high score is a secondary goal.

Each sector is divided up into nodes you travel too called beacons. The map looks like a big connect the dots puzzle. The beacons are variable length apart so you sometimes must traverse them in sort of a linear order, or sometimes pick a path through them. As you do this, the rebel forces keep advancing every time you jump to a new beacon and you must exit the sector before they reach you. If you don't, no sweat, the game isn't over, but you must fight heavily armed rebel ships and beacons controlled by rebels won't give you and rewards.

At each beacon is a random event. Some are just events that are presented in text and give you choices, like finding a stranded survivor on a lonely planet and then being given the option to take him aboard or leave him. There are multiple outcomes based on your decisions, again all at random. Take aboard that stranded guy and he may join your crew as a valuable member, or he might be totally insane and kill one of your crew, who knows! That's the heavy rogue aspect, that everything is randomly generated and chance plays a huge role.

Other times you encounter ships you must fight. This is where the real fun begins. During combat you see an overhead layout of your ship with all the rooms and your crew members. You can move crew members around to man different systems like weapons or engines. Manning those systems provides a bonus to their effectiveness. Manning engines for example increases your ship's chance to dodge enemy fire. The combat is done in real time but it can be paused. You can issue orders while paused, queue up your weapons or do anything really that you can do unpaused. Then you unpause and those actions execute. So although it's a real time game it sort of has a turn based strategic feel to it. Once your weapons charge up/reload you fire them at the enemy and they have a chance to hit and do dmg. You can also specifically target certain rooms on the enemy ship and take out their systems like their shields or weapons. Crew members can also repair damaged systems on your ship and board enemy ships and engage in hand to hand combat. You defeat enemy ships either by destroying them or killing all their crew. Once defeated you salvage whatever you can from them in the form of in game currency called scrap (as well as fuel and missiles). Scrap is used to purchase items and upgrades from merchants strewn throughout the galaxy and can also be spent upgrading your ship, much like experience points in an rpg.

Upgrading your ship offers a ton of options. Are you going to put more into shields, protecting you from laser fire or dump it into weapon controls so you can fire additional weapons? To compound matters every ship system also needs power to function and you must upgrade your ships reactor to simultaneously power more systems. Don't have enough power to run everything? No problem, you can dynamically reduce power to systems and funnel it to others. There's really tons of things to manage and it can be quite daunting at times, but that's what the tactical pauses are for.

Beyond all that awesome gameplay there are tons of weapons available (ion cannons for disabling ship systems, bombs for killing crew, burst lasers for pummeling shields, missiles that bypass shields are just a few), multiple ship designs that must be unlocked all with unique features and starting equipment and multiple alien races of crew members. There's humans who are like the standard race, then there's mantis, excellent combat fighters but poor repairmen, the hardy rockmen who have extra health and are immune to fire (did I mention your ship can catch fire from dmg?), the resourceful engi who are a mechanized alien race adept at repairing your ship, plus a few others.

I'm sure I haven't covered everything but watching a trailer of the game will help show what I've just described much better than I can describe it. I will say this game is brutally hard. Thankfully there is an easy mode, but even that is difficult. You need a lot of luck to win. I win on easy probably half the time. I read somewhere the normal mode is designed to have a 10% win rate. Sometimes it sucks and you will get frustrated, you'll run into an enemy ship in sector 3 with multiple shields when you don't even have access to weapons that can break multiple shields, but hey it happens. You just start all over if it does and try again.

There's also tons of unlockable ships which require a lot of chance to unlock so it's fun to replay and try to get them plus try out different ship configurations and see how they do.

Graphics: 6/10 - Nothing fancy but they get the job done. This is probably the only part of the game that could be dramatically improved but I think they were going for that retro look.

Sound: 8.5/10 - The sound is awesome. I read somewhere the sound developer actually designed multiple styles of the soundtrack, tense vs relaxed so the sound would be dynamic whether you were in combat or whatnot. It's really good.

Gameplay: 9/10 - Amazing gameplay. Extremely addictive. Love the randomness and the leveling up. The one knock on it is the difficulty. This game punishes you sometimes and there is nothing you can do about it.

Replay: 9/10 - Due to the random generation of everything and lots of unlockables this game has a lot of replay. I probably put 30 hours into it the first couple weeks I had it and I go back to it now and then. It's also really easy to play on a laptop on the go.

Overall: 9/10

It's pretty close to the perfect indie game, really unique strategy and just tons of fun. It's also dirt cheap, on sale for $2.50 all the time at gog and steam.

EDIT: I forgot to mention how games are saved. There is only auto save when you quit with the option to continue your game later. No saving and reloading if you don't get the events you want, no playing multiple games at a time, but it is a very easy game to hop on for 20 mins, kill a couple ships and hop off. A great lunch break kind of game or for marathon session as well.

 

[Sonereal]

It's pretty close to the perfect indie game, really unique strategy and just tons of fun. It's also dirt cheap, on sale for $2.50 all the time at gog and steam.

FTL is the game I play it bursts before taking a break and coming back to it in a few weeks. $2.50 is a pretty good price, and the developer is planning on giving out a free expansion pack to those who own it. At that price and with the expansion in mind, I would also recommend the game to everybody who doesn't already have it.

Source

 

[civvver]

Bionic Dues
Rogue meets Mechwarrior meets Torchlight!

Bionic Dues is an indie rogue like game where you pilot a bunch of mech style robots called exos through various missions all culminating in a final showdown at your base with a horde of evil robots. The story goes the robots all went nuts and invaded the city, and the only exos that survived the initial attack were yours at the training grounds. Now it's up to you and you alone to stop the bad bots, pretty basic general stuff.

Starting a game you first pick your exo loadout. You have a group of four selected from six varieties plus you select your pilot. During missions you only pilot one exo at a time but you can switch between them at will, a lot like Darkspore. (Side note: This game feels exactly like FTL mixed with Darkspore to me, it's so similar I have to think the devs played both, but since no one else probably played Darkspore I'll end the comparisons there). The six types are a Brawler, short range fighter bot with a shotgun, Assault, jack of all trades bot with grenades and lasers and stronger shields, Sniper, long ranged shooter bot, Ninja, a stealthy bot who uses traps, Siege, a long range aoe powerhouse, and Science, a computer specialist but weak otherwise. You can have duplicates as well like all Assault bots but I don't know why you would. The different pilots also have their own unique abilities like better access to loot in the store or better sensors in missions.

Once you choose your bots you see the city map. It looks a lot like an FTL map with various missions spread out like leaves on a tree. You can see the mission types available to you and one ring further so you can plan out your moves. Want to access that weapons facility and get some upgraded weapon parts? You might have to fight through a roadblock mission to get there. So there is some randomness there, that's one of the most roguelike features.

Once in a mission you have particular objectives but they're all pretty similar like blow up this reactor and exit or simply exit the mission without dying. Combat is done turn based but you can move and take turns as quickly as you want using arrow keys so it almost feels realtime, though you can stop at any time to plan your moves. Combat is as simple or as complex as you make it. On easier difficulties you can simply walk up to most robots and blast them. On harder ones you might have to lay down mines and lure them to their death or lure them into the open to snipe them. The missions are procedurally generated so there's some variety there. There's also loot containers in each mission and when you finish a mission you get even more loot depending on how many exos survived the mission.

The gear is what makes this game so cool but is also a bit of a curse. You can equip the loot drops between missions. There is tons of loot and they all fit different parts of your exo with varied effect. For example one part might fit your weapon and give +50% attack power, or it might give extra range. Another part might fit your shields for a bonus but also give your entire exo +weapon attack power. Different parts also play off each other, like a reactor part produces power and a computer part gives a boost to power generation. Power also acts as a budget to equipping parts. A few choice parts produce power, everything else uses it. You cannot deploy with a negative balance. So balancing your exo can be a bit tricky. To complicate things further there's also hacking points (for opening locked doors in missions), stealth points (a number of actions you can perform while invisible), overload rating (self destruct your reactor slightly damaging you, major damage to enemies), regen rating and more. It can get sticky. On lesser difficulties it's not a big deal. I got so tired of searching for the best setup between missions on easy I'd do 4-5 in a row before checking my gear setup. But on hard this is not possible. You have to equip the best upgrades every mission.

Also the game is quite long. It takes 50 missions to reach the final battle. Between equipping items and doing mission that could be well over 10 hours for one playthrough. And you can save at any time and reload. So if you're a perfectionist beware, this game can be a major timesink. But the ease of saving also lends itself to a nice casual game. You can jump on, do one mission in 10 minutes and jump off.

That covers the basics, it really is an astoundingly deep game, but some things do get grindy and repetitive, as is the case with any dungeon crawler style game in my opinion. But in general I found this game addictive and tons of fun.

Graphics: 6/10. This game goes for a retro look but doesn't pull it off nearly as well as FTL. There's also a distinct anime flavor which isn't bad, but in general you can tell this is a mediocre graphic attempt.

Music: 6/10. Some tracks are good, others really annoying. Obviously this is personal preference, others have raved about the music.

Gameplay: 8/10. Really deep tactically. Can get repetitive and tiresome.

Value: 10/10. There's tons to do in this game, tons of achievments, tons of replay value to try different bot/pilot combos. And the base price is $5 I think, I got it for $2.50 on sale and have over 10 hours already.

Overall: 75/100

I would like to rate this game higher, I really would, cus the things it's good at it is really good at, but there's simply too much grind on hard difficulties to rate this an excellent title. Overall it's just quite good and a super value, nothing wrong with that for a cool indie game.

 

[Sonereal]

LUFTRAUSERS?

Luftrausers.

LUFTRAUSERS.

What in the hell is Luftrausers? It is a game that came recently to Steam, and I picked it up for 10% off from a $9.99 pricetag. The game is a 2D bullet hell game where you fly a plane and down other planes and sink ships. Your goal is to destroy as many as possible before dying. Completing certain tasks in the game unlock new parts for your plane, which dramatically change the way your plane works, moves, and the music that plays in the background.

Graphically, the art style is very nice and simplistic. This isn't an ultra-textured AAA title, but I can't help but feel that the graphics, combined with mechanics, makes this a rather expensive flash game. Still, if you take a look at the screenshots from the store page, you got a very good idea of what the game looks like.

Spoiler :

Musically, I love the soundtrack. It isn't Monaco, but it certainly puts you in the mood to take out the enemy. Whoever that is. The game's plot, if there is one, is one I haven't really followed.

Gameplay wise, again, I think the game is on solid footing. The game can get very hectic at times, which is good for a bullet hell. However, as a pure bullet hell game, the game isn't the BH game to end all BH game. The game is very forgiving in the sense you won't be relying on hitbox abuse to get by.

Your starter plane is pretty decent, and very maneuverable. So far, of all the upgrades I've gotten (I haven't made a huge dent in the upgrade chains), none of the options are pure upgrades, just side-grades. Plane customization works by having a weapon, body, and booster. The earliest parts I got in the three categories, respectively, were the Laser, Armor, and Super Rocket Booster Thingy (I don't know the name, so SRBT).

The Laser replaces your default machine gun, fires continuously, and does piercing damage. You can do pretty quick sweeps of the air with it to heavily damage weak enemy planes, and dive bombing the lesser boats can sink them pretty quickly. However, the drawback of the weapon is that it only fires straight in front of you, and firing it slows your turning speed.

Armor increases health, but reduces speed. Booster increases speed, but reduces maneuverability.

All in all, the customization is pretty light. This isn't War Thunder or anything. However, the gameplay is solid, and the customization is good for what it is.

But price tag man. Do not get me wrong. I like this game. I enjoy this game, but if I could go back, I would not have bought the game for $8.99. I feel like I should have paid only $4.99 for the game at most. If what I said above is interesting, you have a few hours to throw away, and you have money burning in your pocket, check it out now. If you're saving your money for something else though, I strongly suggest waiting for a 50% or deeper sale.

Overall Score: 5/10

Adjusted for Score Inflation*: 7/10

*I think making 5 the average instead of the current school-based system would do wonders to making most of the score table actually useful. I think this game, based on everything I've seen/played, is average. Fun, memorable, but at the end of the day might be priced too high for what feels like a flash game.

 

[Rub'Rum]

*I think making 5 the average instead of the current school-based system would do wonders to making most of the score table actually useful.

This is how we decided to grade things, 4 years ago, in the original posts. So I'll mark your game as 5/10 in the list.

 

[civvver]

oh 50% is supposed to be an average game? I thought average was 6-7, 7.5-8 was good, 8-9 was excellent, 10 was game of the year.

 

[Rub'Rum]

It's not a huge deal at this point.

 

[Sonereal]

To be fair, four years ago is a long time.

 

[Rub'Rum]

To be fair, four years ago is a long time.

I'm still meticulously updating the Original Post with every new review.

 

[Maniacal]

To be fair, four years ago is a long time.

Doesn't make it any less relevant.