Old Grizzled Gamers
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Underneath the pretty visuals, Fear Effect: Sedna is not a good game. The included systems all sound intriguing but in practice do little more than aggravate. This is an example of a story in the wrong medium, Fear Effect: Sedna would have made for a half decent film.
If you dig in and look, you can find a wealth of games, both old and new, trying to be the next Portal. Games like The Spectrum Retreat try for a little more, which makes it all the more devastating when they miss the mark so completely. With a by the numbers story and simplistic puzzles that frustrate rather than fascinate, there’s nothing here worth recommending. This game is competent but unremarkable, and that’s really the nicest thing you can say.
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.
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.
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.
There are some solid ideas that carry you fluidly through the first few hours but the more you play, the more you realize that you're being brainwashed to think that menial work is fun
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.
I can't see any reason why you would want to play Ironbound. It doesn't do anything revolutionary or interesting. Instead, it wants to take all of your money in return for unrewarding gameplay in an economy built for pay to win
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.
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.
There's fun to be had in Danger Zone 2's crash junctions, but the game's short length and shoddy production values make it pretty forgettable.
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.
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.
Verdant Skies is a bold and smartly written farm sim which takes a familiar formula and overlays it onto a new setting. Though there's much for a fan of a genre to appreciate, technical flaws inhibit the game from reaching its full potential.
There’s a lot of Wulverblade that I do like. It takes on a historical story with a serious demeanor, letting players learn as they complete the campaign. Its customizable gameplay experience caters to all types of players, even if the difficulty curve is a bit rocky. Its art style, while somewhat questionable, is an accomplishment in and of itself. Despite all that, Wulverblade is a video game, and the gameplay that is supposed to tie everything together falls flat. Unless you’re already sold on a history lesson, this beat ‘em up doesn’t do enough to justify itself over countless other arcade revivals.
Moonlighter sells itself as a rogue-lite action RPG with shop management mechanics and some of the most beautiful pixel art around. It’s a frustrating game to review because it both succeeds and fails in many places making it difficult to prioritize what works and what fails.
A visually unique, inventive tactical roguelike with a satisfying combat loop. All Walls Must Fall attempts to offer variety in mission approaches, but fails to make alternative approaches anywhere near as enjoyable as combat. At the same time, combat fails to remain tactically interesting throughout. It's not a flawed masterpiece. It's a failed masterpiece. But fragments of absolute brilliance still remain.
There just is enough good stuff to make this game fun. The writing is top notch, combat is okay, and the UI is sub-par. Other than the storytelling, nothing else is noteworthy; and to be frank, I don’t think the writing is enough to salvage this HD remake. Everything feels like a rough draft of what could be an amazing game. I don’t feel like this recreation stands on its own feet. If the original release wasn’t beloved, I doubt this game would have even been noticed. It’s fun and it works, which is probably more than enough to make it worth buying, if not at full price than certainly on sale.
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.
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.