In the end, Shock Tactics is a good first attempt at a turn-based tactics game but lacks in polish and follow through. Point Blank Games nailed the important concepts and they seem to have the technical expertise to make good turn-based titles in the future. They need more practice and hopefully they will get it.
I'm of two minds about Utopia. On one hand I really like that the game has become more complex, more fleshed out as it were, but on the other I think that there isn't actually much new content added in the expansion itself. It has just been shuffled around and gated, extending the game. If you take a look at what Utopia and the Banks patch bring together—the Ascension Perks, Unity, Traditions, reworked government system, Civics, megastructures, species rights, new technologies, balancing, and hundreds of other tweaks—you can definitely see that they were developed as parts of a whole. Paradox just decided not to charge for part of the expansion.
My final score reflects that it is a well-designed game. It succeeds in what it sets out to do. If you like or dislike time management, the 80's or any of the other things I mentioned then feel free to add or subtract a few points to the score.
Torment is different to other RPGs, and cRPGs, and gave me more of an interaction focused experience than other games within the genre. It's complex, detailed, thoughtful, and it dares to be different. It's also a classic RPG with all it entails. It brought back memories from playing Fallout and Baldur's Gate and it underscores why I love this particular genre with the heavy focus on character interaction, exploration and solving puzzles.