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War Hospital is a primarily functional World War I management simulation game that struggles to establish a meaningful connection between players and their staff and patients. As you progress beyond the initial hours, the gameplay becomes bogged down by repetitive mechanics exacerbated by an inadequate user interface with insufficient tooltips and unclear instructions, accompanied by a host of frustrating bugs that compelled me to frequently reload older save files and restart entire chapters.
When Expedition Zero is at its best, it's a tense battle against the elements as you scavenge and try to get out of the surreal zone. At its worst, it's getting killed by annoying monsters. Unfortunately, you do more of the latter, making it more frustrating than scary. If Expedition Zero still interests you with its problems, get ready to grit your teeth.
A Bounty You Can Safely Skip
While Orwell's Animal Farm stays true to its source material, its repetitive and unclear gameplay weakens a stylized portrayal of the book. It's not the worst way to spend a couple hours thanks to replayability and excellent narration, but it's not compelling to get every ending and collect every stamp. You'll get a lot more out of reading the book than you will from the game.
A seemingly faithful adaptation of a German RPG franchise that may be too detached and boring for modern players.
With a concept that's insensitive at best, Cannibal Cuisine has a rough first impression to overcome. The mechanics that are under it are fine, but the controls can feel too slippery for their own good. Add that with an average combat system and you've got a game that never shines beyond its sensationalistic pitch. If your mates crave some co-op chaos, there are far worse games to play. However, there are also far better games out there.
A lore-breaking spinoff that removes most of what makes the new XCOM special and replaces it with short bouts of repetitive tactical combat and bad writing.
Promising concept, lacklustre execution
Even though there's heart and care put into the game's style and use of myth, the same isn't true for the rest of it. It runs fine and the combat is functional, but it won't leave a huge impression. If you're fond of Norse Mythology and don't have much time to spare, Fimbul might be up your alley. A single playthrough is enjoyable enough, but filling up the story thread and replaying the same battles repeatedly isn't worth the effort.
The final DLC expansion for Far Cry 5 is dead on arrival
Unless Blizzard has some real story shake-ups and a phenomenally tuned raid on the horizon, I'm honestly expecting the sharpest player decrease to set in within the next few months. The expansion itself has some interesting ideas, but sticking to a World Quest grindfest is quickly becoming the norm, and the Island Expeditions aren't exactly exciting.
Exorder is a technically sound game save for optimization issues, but fails to present a personality of its own or stand out from the crowd with any unique or creative aspects. With poor visuals, bland gameplay and a barely existent storyline coupled with the mobile-game feel leave a sour taste in one's mouth after playing.
An ultimately underwhelming content pack that barely offers enough to justify its price.
Jade Dragon adds precious little to Crusader Kings 2, which would have benefitted much more from a playable and visible Chinese region. This expansion feels far too feature-bare for its price tag, and even at a smaller price point none of it feels really impactful. Even when you have access to the China menu, you'll likely find yourself progressing via other means.
Blue Reflection feels like a Gust game. That is, it looks and sounds beautiful at times, but ultimately falls flat elsewhere. While certainly easy on the eyes, it cuts every corner it can in what feels like a purposeful attempt to emit mediocrity. There's some good in here, but the rest feels hastily put together.
Sadly it’s pretty bad. I don’t mind short games but at two hours (including puzzle solving) the game doesn’t leave much room for storytelling, character and world building, compelling puzzles, or much of anything really.
We can’t remember the last time a game disappointed us so much. Petroglyph are a gifted RTS developer filled with industry veterans, and their last title Grey Goo was superb. 8-Bit Armies though is not.
Villagers is a promising game that doesn’t deliver on any of its potential. Its mechanics don’t provide much strategic depth and its lack of content means that there’s no reason to come back. I can say, in some faint praise, that it’s not broken, but it’s so completely dull and unremarkable that I can’t think of any reason to recommend it.
Blood and Gold is a mess of ideas that feels half-finished.
Chris Capel tries to get his little grey cells to work