Leif Johnson's Reviews
The Dwarves boasts a strong story that's taken from a bestselling novel, and it generally honors that lineage with a cast of likable and ably voiced characters. It's a good foundation, but unfortunately it's not strong enough to make up for the deficiencies of its gameplay, which include unfulfilling RPG elements and a stubborn camera.
When it works, Strafe is a generally entertaining retro-styled shooter that mixes procedurally generated levels into an experience strongly reminiscent of Quake. It's a great concept that usually comes together, but between the quirks of randomization, powerful enemies that run almost completely silent, lethal bugs, and hefty costs for vital armor and ammo powerups, a lot of the time it feels as challenging as rolling the dice and coming up with double sixes.
When The Long Journey Home focuses on interactions with a diverse and entertaining cast of aliens across its procedurally generated star systems, it's possible to find a degree of wonder and personality that many roguelike seldom achieve. Unfortunately, such interactions take a back seat to a barrage of frustrating minigames with rewards that rarely match the risks. The experience as a whole suffers for it.
Urban Empire's premise of focusing on the political tumult that's usually behind city planning is a good one, and the emphasis on four families allows for some lightweight roleplay in how you guide your city to greatness. Unfortunately, the personal approach tends to stumble as each game more or less plays out like the last, and the constant juggle of votes makes for an experience that's more exasperating than exciting.
Let It Die has numerous rough edges, but it manages to entertain through the sheer force of its weird personality and its varied, if clumsy combat. The controls are often clunky and there's rarely a meaningful sense of attachment to characters or gear, but its characterizations and settings often manage to keep the pain of the poorer stuff down to a minimum, at least for a while.
Might and Magic Heroes 7 is a loyal but buggy sequel that manages to scratch a very old PC gaming itch.
Gemini: Heroes Reborn is short, drab, and derivative, but it nevertheless generally remains fun throughout its five-hour running time. In its best moments, it mixes familiar elements from beloved platformers and puzzlers to create an experience that, at least for brief moments, captures the essence of the show.
There's a lot to love in the way Clockwork Empires attempts to break up the construction sim framework with Lovecraftian creatures and almost assured destruction, but it often takes too long to get to the best parts and fills that time with dull busywork. For most of the hours spent, it's largely a standard colonization simulator that's hampered with an unwieldy user interface and weak AI.
Halo Wars 2's cutscenes are pretty, but the controls remains too console-focused for PC and the strategy is a little thin.
Game of Thrones gets the feel of Martin's universe right, but it relies too heavily on familiar themes to form a memorable identity of its own.
Knights of the Fallen Empire represents the pinnacle of this troubled MMORPG's storytelling prowess, but unfortunately its other elements fall short. The overly easy combat is a sad shadow of what Star Wars: The Old Republic has offered in the past, and the endgame leans too much on recycled content and samey instances.
Smart co-op partners make Shadowrun Chronicles: Boston Lockdown's tactical combat work, but anything less falls short.
Brutal but rewarding, Lichdom: Battlemage is magically empowering, but also tests your patience.
Shorter and far less focused on exploration than its preceding episode, King's Quest: Rubble Without a Cause still usually manages to deliver smaller doses of the art style and writing that made the series premiere so appealing. There are plenty of fun puzzles in store along with a timer mechanic, but the cramped, dark setting and lack of visual variety tends to rob these elements of the charm they could have.
Mount & Blade: Warband may not have a carefully guided plot or even reasonably attractive graphics, but it recreates the sensation of living in a medieval world like few other games by allowing freedom to decide your own approach to carving out your destiny in a dynamic world of rapidly changing alliances. Controls are awkward at best, making it tough to appreciate how good the combat is, but there's a lot of fun here, especially in the eight multiplayer modes for up to 32 players. As a veteran of the PC version, which I love, I feel bad not being able to recommend the console version more highly, but this port doesn’t fully allow Mount & Blade’s charm to shine through.
An attractive medieval survival sandbox that unfortunately gets bogged down in too many demands for time.
The White March Part I provides some incentive to return to the Dyrwood in the form of a higher level cap, and the delightfully brutal combat, but few of the other new features leave a lasting impression. Despite an avalanche of possibilities provided by the wintry setting and the two ostensibly unique companions, the first half of The White March never feels like more than a side quest that was never implemented. There's still plenty on offer here for players who enjoy Pillars' combat above all else, but it's an expansion best suited to new players rather than veterans.
Neverwinter now offers more classes and zones than ever before, but combat still outshines every other aspect.
Figment is a delightful isometric puzzler that skillfully uses storybook imagery to tackle weighty themes associated with trauma and depression.
Distrust is a roguelike isometric survival game inspired by The Thing where hunger and sleepiness are as frightening as the aliens hunting you.