Bionic Dues

When playing I was most reminded of a cross between FTL and darkspore. There's essentially three parts of the game. One is the city map where you choose your next mission. The layout reminds me exactly of FTL and the beacons in sectors, though you will be able to see what is at your next destination. The second part is the store and equipment screen. This reminds me exactly of darkspore. The loot has a ton of stats so it can be quite overwhelming at first and it is very difficult to min/max because some are flat bonuses that combine with other pieces of loot that give percentages. The third part is the mission gameplay. It's turn based but the turns happen as soon as you move your guy so it doesn't feel slow like most turn based tactical games. There can be a lot of tactics for clearing a mission, it all depends on your setup and the difficulty. Again, very reminiscent of darkspore, you can only control one of your four robots at a time but you can switch between them. In general it's a very fun game but on harder difficulties it isn't actual hard, because tactically the AI isn't that smart and if you go slow you will win. But it is INCREDIBLY grindy on those hard difficulties. You must re-equip the most effective gear setups between every mission or you won't have enough ammo/firepower to win and it gets quite dull. I think 3.5 stars is a more accurate rating, but this game is easily worth $5. I spend over 30 hours on it.

I looked on YouTube for video replays, and those I saw convinced me to purchase this game.To this point, I am VERY happy with my decision. Turn-based strategy, with 47 different enemy 'bots. Your side has four bots, of six basic types. You are free to have one, two, three, or four of whatever type you want. You want four snipers? Go for it. You want one Assault mech, and the rest support mechs? Go for it. There are thousands of different combinations on your team..in addition to the six different commander types, that play completely differently. As you play each mission, you pick up money, and loot. Loot ranges in level from 1 to 25, and is highly randomized. It may be for weapons, computers, shields, reactors, or propulsion units, and may have a vast amount of upgrades. The mission selection system is very well done, with different objectives per each mission type. There is a counter of sorts, as you have a maximum of 50 missions to meet the victory conditions. After each mission, you can upgrade each of your four mechs, and sell any equipment you don't want, and buy NEW equipment from the store. Very involved, very complex, and very enjoyable..do you go for slightly more damage, or do you enhance your reactor's ability to pump out more energy, and upgrade your shields? A near endless variety of important decisions to be made. All things considered, one of the best $5 purchases I have made in quite awhile!

So, does that mean Arcen games are coming to GoG ? That would be a fantastic addition to the catalogue ! Maybe we'll see A.I War around there anytime soon, and that, my friends, would be something^^. Bionic Dues is another pearl from Arcen Game. As usual, they gave their own interpretation of a genre, and this time it's the roguelike. A sci-fi roguelike. You chose one character among several and 4 robots. You have a limited amount of turns to build up your equipement, stats and skills before the machines awakes for the final blast. The gameplay is tight, smart, dungeon exporation is fun and challenging. There is a blastfull amount of loot to customize your mechs. The all thing in a charming and unconventionnal package. Yummy. At this price, it's just a steal.

This one of my favorite strategy games, and it's a little hard to describe. The store page calls it a roguelike, which isn't entirely untrue, but shares a lot with games like XCOM or FTL. It's got an overarching goal of amassing a force strong enough to defeat an army of rogue robots within a certain time frame, but you accomplish this through a series of individual missions. The individual missions are where the "roguelike" description is most accurate. They are randomly generated within the parameters of the location: arms factories have more weapons to loot, barricades have tons of bots in a small space, and fuel depots are made of explodium. Between missions, you have a chance to outfit your bots with various bits of loot you found on the missions. This is one of the places where the game can bog a bit. The robots you control have a LOT of hardpoints, and it's often a bit tedious to figure out the best configurations. On lower difficulties, this doesn't matter as much, but on higher ones you really need to take the time to maximize efficiency. Speaking of difficulty, one of the things I really like is how much variety and replayability is added by all the different customization options. There are several different mission leaders, number of days, overall AI difficulty, and more that let you decide how hard or easy you want things to be, Overall, this is an excellent strategy game that you can tackle in small bits or binge on a weekend afternoon. Highly recommended for those interested in this style of game.