Stuart Thomas


96 games reviewed
77.4 average score
80 median score
56.3% of games recommended
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9.5 / 10.0 - Cities: Skylines
Mar 10, 2015

Colossal Order's stated goal is 'to let you build the city of your dreams', with the emphasis on everyone having unique needs and interests. Of course, their covert goal was to topple SimCity. In both cases, they've succeeded gloriously.

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Mar 17, 2015

There I go again, swinging back the other way! The problem is this. I am a little upset at endless Ubisoft FIFA-esque annual updates that, also like FIFA, are very slight variations on a theme. But these games will never be wholly beige and uninteresting, because they're built on a tried and tested way of making you have fun. Sailing the seven seas with a crew of salty sea dogs, taking on a pair of angry French frigates is just fun. Sneaking through the bushes at a governors' soiree, then sneakily shooting one of his guards with a berserk dart and watching him slaughter all of his erstwhile comrades - that's always good for a giggle. You can feel the swagger when you first buy the captain's uniform and cut a dashing figure through the streets of the colonies. The weaving of historical fact and off-the-wall videogame fiction is engrossing and superbly crafted. So what that it's basically a game you've already played? That doesn't stop it being fun.

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Mar 26, 2015

The fantasy genre is always one of nostalgia for a world long gone, the vague, wistful ancestral memory of weary travelers and simple taverns, of brooding castles and dark-blooded wars. But also nostalgia for a real-life youth spent whispering about orcs at the back of geography class. Somehow, Pillars of Eternity captures this personal emotion with flair and empathy.

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4 / 10.0 - Worlds of Magic
Apr 28, 2015

When they talk about games that stand apart from the crowd... well, Worlds of Magic is the crowd they're talking about.

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7 / 10.0 - Etherium
May 16, 2015

At the end of the day, there are a few good ideas in what is obviously supposed to be a multiplayer-focused RTS, but there's just a lack of anything really imaginative, anything we've not seen before.

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May 30, 2015

I'm still far from the end. I will check in with further thoughts as I progress, but at this point I can unhesitatingly recommend the Witcher III as yet another on the crammed top shelf of excellent RPGs we've seen in the past 18 months. Buy it, buy it, buy it.

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8 / 10.0 - Magicka 2
Jul 25, 2015

There's not a lot to separate Magicka 2 from its hallowed predecessor. But give it time. Paradox aren't ones to sit idly by, particularly when it's as popular a series as Magicka. And besides, as throwaway party-style fun with a deceptively complex core, it's a tried and tested formula. Like death-death-shield.

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At the end of the day, this reminded me a great deal of Telltale's Tales of Monkey Island series of recent years. It's a modern take on a classic genre, heavily capitalising on a famous name and rich in character and humour, but ultimately built on a straightforward foundation short on real innovation or beauty. Still, it's been a while since we've seen a lot of these adventures, and this is the first chapter of five. The main characters are endearing enough that after a couple of chapters they might be able to carry the games more or less on their own merits, but less in the way of un-skippable animations (some of which you'll need to sit through a lot) and mid-game ambling would go a long way toward warming me up when the subsequent chapters arrive.

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Sep 13, 2015

Just like the previous two games, Shadowrun: Hong Kong has stayed with me when I'm not playing it. The flawed, moody characters and the clever use of Asian magical traditions got into my head, and when it finished, I missed all of the main characters. It takes a pretty cool game to do that. For that intensity and depth to be maintained over a series of three games is pretty remarkable.

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8.5 / 10.0 - Satellite Reign
Sep 27, 2015

It's these moment-to-moment planning decisions that really make Satellite Reign a game to recommend and to remember. Eventually, when you've researched the top-flight weapons and your soldier can stand toe-to-toe with entire squads while your hacker turns turrets against the security forces and the infiltrator moves unseen through swarms of alerted guards, you'll get the feeling that nothing can stand against you, and that you've earned every single ounce of your power. But in the early days, while you're scrambling to stay hidden from Dracogenics' henchmen, making the call to pull out with nothing more than a little more intelligence on the layout of an enemy compound to lick your wounds and rethink strategy for the next assault, something really special is happening. Strategy, being formulated in real-time. A surprisingly rare event for a real-time strategy game.

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7 / 10.0 - SOMA
Oct 3, 2015

They're good at telling stories, these Frictional guys. They're good at building tension, and at using audio cues to stimulate fear. But in the end, I was put off by the inconvenient monsters. When fear is replaced by impatience, something is lost. This is something that Alien Isolation had very occasionally, and that completely ruined the 1999 PC game Aliens vs. Predator. When the monsters become a nuisance, and you're more worried about them for holding up your progress into the main plot than really terrifying you, it's hard to stay really scared.

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Oct 30, 2015

Then, once I realized that I'd been a numskull, I installed the DLC and tried again, playing with the new tourism and leisure districts, and building taxi ranks and bus lanes, and… well, once again I had a great time and felt that the DLC was a little light on content.

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Oct 31, 2015

So OK. I know I'm supposed to be frothing at the mouth. I know that something I was really looking forward to was passed off to me in an unfinished, slapdash state, and if there'd been less in the way of public outcry Warner would have happily taken the money and run. But after all the grief, and all the misery, there's a really special game hidden here. A tightly-scripted, well-paced superhero simulator that captures the attention to detail that Gotham City deserves with care and respect. If you're still willing to give it another chance, I doubt you'll really be disappointed.

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8.5 / 10.0 - Rebel Galaxy
Nov 1, 2015

Rebel Galaxy is extremely 'aggressively priced', as I believe the marketing guys say. For the money, it's really the best you can do for space trading. It's fun, simple and engrossing, and if you're put off by Elite Dangerous' more-than-double price and you're not bothered by single-player only, Rebel Galaxy is really filling a niche that needed to be filled.

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7 / 10.0 - Blood Bowl II
Nov 14, 2015

The storyline of the campaign mode is sort of fun and playing a season with all of the ups and downs that brings is also fun, but for me I think most of the joy comes from the nostalgia, I'm afraid. 

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7.5 / 10.0 - Hard West
Nov 28, 2015

X-COM was a really great game, and Hard West is flattered by the resemblance. But when it comes down to it, there is nowhere near as much genius in it as there is in Firaxis' predecessor. As a tactical shooter it's fine, if simple, and the fairly gentle system requirements and low price point bring it back to the table a little. Lacking in obvious flair and with sub-games that often do little to add anything to the game besides unnecessary management, the gunfights still manage to keep Hard West from being a failure.

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Getting back into the world of Pillars of Eternity was soothing, like a comfortable pair of slippers that you'd almost forgotten about. Sure, it didn't give me the same unexpected euphoria that the core game slapped me with but as a few evening's entertainment, it was a very welcome addition to the lore and gave me a chance to lark around in a world which, despite its reliance on walls of text and creepy obsession with souls, I'd fallen in love with.

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8 / 10.0 - Darkest Dungeon
Jan 30, 2016

It's sadistic, mean-spirited and unfair. And it makes no pretense at being anything other than that.

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8 / 10.0 - Firewatch
Feb 9, 2016

Like a good thriller, the whole time I was playing Firewatch I was completely engaged and couldn't wait to see where the story went next. The tale raises interesting questions about solitude, privacy and paranoia. However, a weak ending and some occasionally strange pacing ultimately detracts from Firewatch's spark of greatness.

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Ultimately, it comes down to your own relationship with Pillars. I know, I know. Lazy journalism. But if you've taken a lot of time off and don't feel like you can re-engage with the world in a short time, you'll maybe miss some of the fun. When you roll back into Stalwart and the locals are coming up to you and talking about things you can only vaguely remember, something is lost. If I remove my own personal feelings on the matter, though, it's exactly what you'd hope for: a roughly ten-hour excursion back into a fantasy world you know and love.

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