Joshua Smith's Reviews
This game tried to actively stop me from playing it and eventually it won. Sniper games are something I love, and there is a great game here, but it is buried deep under bugs, assumptive tutorials, and other problems.
I noticed a bit of frame stuttering as the drop ship put my mercenaries down for our first mission on Hephæst. After putting the difficulty down on the lowest, most condescendingly-titled setting, I was prepared to get a feel for the mechanics. But then it crashed and I had to do it all over again. This was the first and only Crash to Desktop I suffered with the game, but unfortunately it wasn’t the only issue I wound up having.
While I wanted to get in and explore the beautiful looking world of Shiness I was constantly routed in my efforts by the frustrating fighting system and some strange design choices.
The ability to lay waste to complete strangers or engage with friends in private will be a boon to the game. I really think that this game will shine in the multiplayer aspect, and if you are a fan of this universe, this board game (or board games in general) and don’t give a single flying fig about the single-player campaign, or playing against AI, then pick it up. You’ll like it.
It became very clear to me early on that it wasn't that Has Been Heroes was bad. I was just really bad at it. For the same reasons I shy away from bullethell games, I was really really bad at this one. So take everything I am saying from the perspective of someone who appreciates the game, but who struggled and screamed at it several times.
The Surge is an action based sci-fi that follows the story of Warren, a protagonist who dreams of being able to walk again by signing up to work for the suspiciously altruistic company CREO. After a rather upsetting process, Warren awakens being hauled to an uncertain fate by a robot that really thinks he is garbage. Fortunately, his newly acquired exoskeleton rig has given him the ability to walk again, and as he stumbles through his first steps, we too join him in stumbling through the game.
Made by an indie studio out of Turkey by the name of Cultic Games, Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones has a lot going for it. It promises to be a CRPG with high replayability, meaningful choices and one heck of a creepy vibe. Stygian draws upon lots of the classical work from the Mythos but also tries to set itself apart and do its own thing.
Based out of Bulgaria, Haemimont Games has made the last three Tropico outings, Omerta – City of Gangsters, and 2015’s Victor Vran. Their experience with city builders in a dangerous setting – as with Tropico – show in this speculative colonization game. While the dangers are less political and more dust tornado shaped in Surviving Mars, one danger stood above the rest. Like a lab-created black hole completely out of control, I was sucked in. Hours of my stream seemed to vanish before my eyes as I struggled convincing colonists not to abandon me to the strange red landscape, with only peppy radio host to keep me company.
Get your controller out for this one, folks. It says recommended – I would check that in as mandatory. Take a breath, ease up on the button mashing, and follow the Old Man in our look at Immortal Planet. Currently available on Steam for the very reasonable price of 14.99 USD.
You kids may know by now, this ol’ salt really likes his space games. Strategy to cockpit – it doesn’t matter, done well space is a subject that always inspires wonder. As such, I tend to go easy on games that at least try, and get angry at games that promise the moon, but roll up a cheese slice and say it’s the same thing. (You know… cause the moon is made of cheese? Do people still say that? Forget it – I’m off topic) With that in mind, Everspace is decent game. But I can’t fathom how people are calling it a rogue-like.
This is the first game calling itself a “Rogue-Like” in a while, where I really feel fans of the inspiration are going to be extremely happy. The creation of Kitsune Games, MidBoss is a really clever take on the old idea.
It has been a long time since I really felt empathy for a protagonist like I have for Kay. The reluctant head of his household, Kay inherits a crumbled ruin of an old great kingdom. He really has reservations about it, and at first flat out refuses – not in a typical whiny petulant way, but in the realistic way an ill-prepared person would react to having a great amount of responsibility thrust on them. Unfortunately, circumstances crop up forcing him to take over the kingdom, regardless of his own desires, and Kay, his two sisters, and his loyal bodyguard are forced to stick around and rebuild.
At the end of May in 2013, the company Logic Artists released Expeditions: Conquistador. The title was a well-received tactical RPG with a fantastic take on simulating a journey to the new world. It was with great anticipation that a sequel arrived on our shores here in 2017. Not a direct sequel mind you… This adventure would focus on another group of explorers: The Vikings.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 3 is the latest in a series of popular Real Time Strategy games put out by Relic Entertainment and published by Sega. Currently it sits at a modest price of 59.99 USD. So we’ll be digging out the old man glasses and taking a gander to see if it’s worth the cost of admission.
This game really wants to take you back. So much so, that it seems new characters will even just start out in Morrowind if they skip the intro story. Fresh off a boat in Seyda Neen, you go through a lot of the motions of the original game. There are many shout-outs, call-backs, and Easter eggs for those familiar with the first Morrowind – so many, in fact, that you’ll nearly choke on them all. And that’s okay, really. It’s what we wanted.
It’s a very transparent system. I think too many games try to dazzle us with an overwhelmingly complicated system of upgrades. Not this one, and that’s a good thing. There’s a whole bunch of stuff going on in Remnant, and an overly complicated game loop for upgrades and leveling would detract from it. The game wants you to be a rooting-shooting (or is that just root shooting?), hacking-slashing badass and doesn’t want you too hung up on learning how to build this character optimally or how to min-max.
And so it was in the middle of one of the hottest summers to record, that the Old Man felt a chill down his back. It gripped him, cracked his skin, and caused him to slump over his post for hours. His hands were shaking, his eyes bleary, he knew that the Beast of Winter had come for him. And he knew not how this would end.
Every game of Imperator: Rome may have you winning or suffering defeat in the Punic wars as the titular Rome. But how many of those games did you have your rival, the leader of Carthage, tossed into an arena, and forced him to duel his son to the death? Of course, when he won, you granted him full rights of a citizen and brought his surviving family members into the fold, and a generation later, they were your most staunch supporters.
Mechwarriors and the Battlemechs are separate beasts. You can swap them around, one can get messed up pretty bad and the other survive an engagement without a scratch. You need to watch everything. Facing, elevation, turn order, sensor range, and way more information that I could elegantly lay out in this review. Rest assured it is a tactical players dream come true.
Anyone familiar with my reviews knows my greatest fear for some sequels is messing up a perfectly fine system just because they can. Innovation for its own sake is not only dumb, but it’s also dangerous. It can be a series murderer. However, I am happy to report that Deadfire doesn’t fall prey to that scenario. It leans hard on its old mechanics, the CRPG roots that made it great and refines qualms about the previous iteration of the game.