Ian Boudreau Avatar Image

Ian Boudreau

Wilmington, DE
brogonzo

Favorite Games:
  • Red Dead Redemption
  • StarCraft
  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

47 games reviewed
77.3 average score
80 median score
59.5% of games recommended

Ian Boudreau's Reviews

Senior Editor at TapTap
8 / 10 - Victoria 3
Oct 24, 2022

An ambitious, beautiful, and obsessively detailed society simulation that still needs to iron out a few rough edges.

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Oct 10, 2023

Old issues return and some of its new ideas are less effective than others, but Total War: Pharaoh remains a strong and exciting addition to the series' historical catalog.

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7.9 / 10.0 - Frozen Synapse 2
Sep 12, 2018

Frozen Synapse 2 is a welcome return to the intensely micromanaged turn-based tactical battles that made the original so compelling. The asynchronous multiplayer is unquestionably the star of the show, and queuing up multiple online games at once means you're never stuck waiting for an opponent, and that you can play at your own pace. But while the new City Game story mode is conceptually interesting, in practice the largely scripted sequence of story missions doesn't allow for much in the way of meaningful gameplay depth.

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7 / 10 - Vampyr
Jun 4, 2018

What's struck me most about my time with Vampyr is that it manages to turn you into a predator through its mechanics as much as it does with its storytelling. It does collapse under its own weight by the end, but the fact that it so effectively seduces you, almost trance-like, into roleplaying a villain makes it worth biting into.

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7 / 10 - Rocket Arena
Jul 13, 2020

An accessible, lightweight competitive shooter. Though it's a little thin in its current state, this is a solid start for what will hopefully become a lively and dynamic game as its season pass gets underway.

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Mar 8, 2021

While missions can be frustrating and the new diplomacy system is nothing to write home about, Stronghold: Warlords should satisfy devoted fans with its new, gorgeously realised setting.

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Some creaky design concepts that don't hold up well and a slipshod PC port hold Nier Replicant back from greatness on PC.

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Feb 20, 2023

The classic RTS battles carry the third entry in this once-essential series, returning more or less untouched, but alongside a bloated and unfinished campaign mode that feels at odds with the core ideas of Company of Heroes.

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Mar 26, 2024

Simple and beautiful to look at, Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles is a pleasant distraction but lacks the depth in its combat and economy to stay interesting for very long.

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7 / 10.0 - Cobalt
Feb 24, 2016

Cobalt could definitely use a bit more documentation or a more fleshed-out tutorial to explain the many systems it throws at you from the outset, and the gameplay never feels as tight as, say, Super Meat Boy, but it's full of its own weird, clunky charm and certainly has a high skill ceiling for those interested in mastering it. Imagine R2-D2 in Mark of the Ninja – that's Cobalt.

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Jan 14, 2016

A new and complete version of Dragon's Dogma adds some modern polish to a diamond in the rough.

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Feb 25, 2016

[W]hile I loved the atmosphere, the setting, and the aesthetic of The Flame in the Flood, I never got that "one more run" feeling I've gotten from other roguelites like Isaac or Spelunky. It's possible that the game's pace is a bit off, or that I haven't quite figured out the "correct" way to play it.

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7 / 10.0 - Shadwen
May 17, 2016

Shadwen has a lot of dings and dents – a superfluous crafting and loot system, unreliable physics, poor AI, and a fairly one-note aesthetic, and a brief campaign – but it manages to entertain nonetheless with its devil-may-care approach to puzzle solving and a heroine who’s actually a rather horrible, stabby bastard.

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Mar 27, 2023

Grim-faced dedication to history has produced a rules-heavy RTS that's rarely fun or strategically rewarding – a highly accurate depiction of the First World War, in other words, and a success in that respect at least.

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5 / 10 - Hellbound
Aug 4, 2020

An earnest but empty love letter to Quake and Duke Nukem 3D that never gets around to doing anything to call its own.

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A cheeky take on Dungeons & Dragons lore isn't enough to carry the lacklustre combat, sluggish controls, and dodgy enemy hitboxes.

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Jan 22, 2016

Playing it was a trial for me every time I fired it up – the firehose of outdated pop culture references and toilet humor made me feel like Alex DeLarge undergoing the Ludovico Technique in A Clockwork Orange. Should I ever find myself on stage for a robot game show in the 26th century, I'll opt for lethal injection instead.

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Unscored - Parkitect
Dec 5, 2018

I’ve missed out on Roller Coaster Tycoon and its descendants, so I can’t compare Parkitect to those games. What I can say is that it is delightful and non-threatening, and playing it has typically left me feeling pleasantly drowsy and contented, the way I might after wandering around a brightly-lit midway, munching a corn dog covered in mustard in a gauzy childhood memory of the carnival.

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Unscored - Steel Rats
Nov 16, 2018

It’s by no means a terrible game, but it whiffs on too many elements for the admittedly cool aesthetics to carry the day.

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Unscored - Millennia
Mar 25, 2024

A Civ-like with neat ideas, but half-formed fundamentals and messy execution make your decisions feel less than impactful.

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