Old Grizzled Gamers
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Remothered: Tormented Fathers is a horror game that has potential but lets too many small issues bring it down. Its story keeps you on your toes but only after wading through the sometimes murky gameplay.
A powerful, rich, and exceptionally well written narrative experience, with exploration mechanics that heighten the power of its stories, Where The Water Tastes Like Wine is let down by its own central premise. Fascinating, but flawed.
If you want a game that you can sink hundreds of hours learning every minute system and detail, then this is the game for you. There are so many options and choices, but they are all funnelled towards a singular goal - world domination.
Regardless of how you feel about the politics, the underlying game is too simple and what it does model doesn't make intuitive sense or result in something that looks and feels like a real city state. I wasn't bored the whole time, but a lot of that is because I expended so much energy trying to understand what it's modeling. A manual would have cut my playtime in half.
Ghost of a Tale is a triumph of storytelling. It's complex narrative and stunning character writing bump this mechanically successful game to the category of a hidden gem.
A bright, simple turn based strategy game with some interesting unit abilities, that fails to engage in any meaningful way. Unless you've played every other strategy game out there, it's honestly not worth your time.
Insidia is brilliant. Any issues that it suffers from can be expunged in future patches. The simultaneous turns and chaos they cause are wonderful. Planning and executing an excellent combo will be fantastic whether you succeed or fail. To cap this off, it does free to play in the best way possible.
Brief, endearing moments become lost in a sea of infuriating dialogue, mindless wandering, and obnoxious puzzle design. Don't be fooled by the Steam page; the game fails to deliver on all of its baffling yet grandiose promises.
Novel mechanics that allow for dynamic storytelling are what make this game. That strength lies in the small choices that you make instead of an overarching plot or theme. The kinds of armor and clothes you wear around town, what skills you choose, how you interact with local merchants all changes how the world reacts to you, to an extent greater than I’ve experienced before. In many ways, how you chose to live from day to day has more impact than the dialogue choices.
The CCG market is saturated and Fable Fortunes does not do enough to set itself apart. There was the intention of narrative and flair with the morality quest system, but this falls face first back down the well of good ideas. Fable Fortunes is a perfectly fine card game, but there are far better alternatives.
An unsettling, deeply unpleasant management sim, drenched in waves of melancholy and nausea. My Lovely Daughter is affecting, but exhausting, and you'll likely become numb to its horrors long before it concludes.
The combat requires thought and is engaging if you like the puzzly vibe created by Banner Saga (which this game copies well beyond the level of homage). But the massive amounts of nonsensical text you're forced to read leech out any fun the gorgeous graphics and brilliant soundtrack create.
SYMMETRY is latest survival game to entice me with its pretty art style and allure of simulated suffering in a frozen wasteland. It has a unique charm and an alluring story. Unfortunately, it is too short and lacks content. Forget the $11.99 price tag for a moment. There is absolutely zero bang for your buck here. In terms of production quality, it’s an incredibly professional looking game. However, it feels like the tutorial level of a much larger story.
Surviving Mars, is competent but dried up fairly quickly. The systems in place work well and it accomplishes all it wants to do effectively. It has a good natural difficulty and good variation between plays. For those who are comforted by grid lined paper, this is probably a cathartic managerial experience. I am not in that group however. Like the planet itself, the whole experience felt a bit one note and bare. To me, there needed to be something else, another angle or facet to the game to give it the life that it desperately needed.
Considering that Orwell is merely about reading, and then dragging and dropping information, it’s one of the most intense experiences you will have playing a game. You are going to think about Orwell’s implications about fake news, data, and social media long after finishing the game.
Beautiful, well-written and relatable, with a soundtrack that beats the emotions out of you like a tear craving monster. Ignore the RPG Maker roots, it's a superb narrative
Dead in Vinland is a great piece of storytelling but a poor effort as a game. Though it had its moments, I wouldn't recommend this one to most people.
Alchemic Jousts presents a pretty fun logic puzzle in its element combinations. However, it fails at using that as a stepping stone to a full strategy experience, leaving the two systems to fizzle out separately.
While the selling point is focused on hard choices, the unrelenting grimness of the setting and need for survival makes them more obvious than difficult. Luckily all the other components (city builder, presentation, etc.) are quite good and the game is enjoyable even if it doesn't quite hit the feels as it intends.
Superb combat, a lengthy single player campaign and most of the old Mechwarrior charm makes for an excellent turn-based experience. The surrounding story and meta is sludgy but adequate. Multiplayer works and is a blast but quickly loses its appeal without any progression or tracking. Could have been so much more, but what's here is a great turn-based game.