As it is, Mountains of Madness is fun as a casual diversion for Lovecraft lovers and Cthulhuphiles, and is nostalgia-adjacent for those of us who grew up around Guybrush Threepwood.
There are not all that many games around like it. As an overall strategy-come-management-sim, it's fair, but with a few annoying and perhaps unforgivable flaws. As a chance to stomp around in an underground base built into a volcano, shouting at people and firing giant superlasers at Australia just for the sheer fun of it, it's pretty much your best option.
It's the best action shooter series out at the moment for sure.
And while it's easy to recommend you pick up and enjoy The Falconeer, its real magic lies in waiting. As hopefully it's the start of a new series, where we eventually see The Falconeer Black Flag, or whatever Tomas decides to call it. And that is really where it starts to fill my flight chaps with excitement juice.
Port Royale 4 is ambitious and delivers in most regards, leading to a well rounded and beautifully choreographed world. The green tropical islands seem to breathe with life and purpose, a purpose that you influence through a variety of means, whether through trade, nationalism or just blatant piracy.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 is a timeless classic that is always worth being reminded about. Some things were done well to begin with and the Complete Edition brings us back to the thrilling excitement of management sims.
Struggling has imaginative indie talent sloshing throughout. Plus, you can tell it's got a big publisher behind it, believing in its charm and uniqueness.
I might have mentioned that Crusader Kings 2 was one of my favorite games. All I really want out of a game - any game - is to lose myself in a good story. Crusader Kings gives me that, fresh, every time I sit down to play. Crusader Kings 3 is at the start of its own story - I'm estimating we're going to see around 300 DLCs for this beast before it's all said and done - and already through its clarity of interface and intelligent design decisions I can see years of amazing "OH MY GOD, you'll never guess what happened in CK3" moments clogging up Felix's email inbox as I continue on my own journey with this wonderful, wonderful game.
Props to the small team for really doing a whole lot with a little graphically. The rain never seems to let up, and the neon glow of the noodle stands shimmer on the trash-strewn alleys, and the smoky canyons between the seemingly-endless skyscrapers adds a feeling of vastness to the city. Really though, when you get down to it, Cloudpunk seems more like a straightforward interactive novel than it does a really fleshed-out game. It takes the first part of the 'go anywhere, do anything' sandbox model and does it very well. It just doesn't really deliver on the 'do anything' part all that well.
I loved it, though I barely understood much of it. It's a wild ride despite being mostly walls of text.
I know it seems like a paradox to say that on the one hand, it's a well-oiled, impeccably balanced sci-fi empire building game with all the elements that make a great wargame; and on the other hand it feels a smidgen like they phoned it in, but there you are. That's precisely how it feels.
The Sinking City is deeply evocative in its oppressive dourness, and stays true to the investigative backbone of Cthulhu. We are presented an open world of horror and suspense that HP Lovecraft surely would have enjoyed investigating.
Despite all of this griping, and all of these complaints, Tropico 6 is still sort of fun. Partly it's just watching the numbers going up. When the freighter arrives in port and your first shipment of electronics goes to market, netting you enough money to build a new stadium, it's like a little pat on the head that can be weirdly addictive. There are certainly some bugs that probably shouldn't exist on the fourth (fifth? sixth?) iteration of essentially the same game, but the special sauce that has allowed them to actually get away with making six Tropico games is still there.
What it comes down to is that Paradox is just amazing at listening to their community and developing their games long after release. Now that ships are done, I expect that the air force will follow not too far behind. Then, who knows? Of course, they could release a DLC of nothing but National Focii for everyone from Bulgaria to Tannu Tuva and many fans would be ecstatic. If more companies were like Paradox, the world would be a better place.
I sort of have to criticise, you know? It's the job. Truth is, though, I've really enjoyed every minute I've spent with Dirt Rally 2.0, just as I did with 1.0 before it. The handling is gorgeous, the routes are truly beautiful to look at, and the management is ...manageable. The cars all have tons of individual character, the rallycross feels scrappy and frenetic and everything just comes together wonderfully. Codemasters, eh? They really have the hang of this thing.
I'm really struggling to find anything good to say about Jagged Alliance: Rage, other than that its name is appropriate. I suppose the stealth mechanic sort of works, although even there occasionally your sneaky work can be ruined by a patrolling soldier somehow glitching and eternally clambering on and off a rock instead of completing his route. Each playable character has a background trait that is supposed to play out as a weakness but that you rarely notice in play. The characters you choose to play seem irritated by one another, and by everything going on around them all the time. I've got to say, I think it's pretty understandable.
I've been underwhelmed by inXile's previous nod to nostalgia, Wasteland 2, and everyone else in the universe seemed to adore it, so maybe it's me. Your mileage, as always, may vary. But if you're looking for a rock-solid, incredibly challenging nuts-and-bolts RPG with all of the quirky flair of the original trilogy, this isn't quite it.
But when all's said and done, there's a clunkiness to the pacing, plot and gameplay that relegates Call of Cthulhu to the second division.
Pillars of Eternity, for me, is the best D&D series there never was.
Honestly, I feel like maybe we've seen all of the colours of Total War that we're really going to. It's time to switch up the tried-and-true formula for something else. It has been a lot of fun, and in its day Total War really set the bar. But now it's yesterday's news.