I kind of liked the early variety - one mission has you building base, another one sends you with just one squad to solve a very scripted mystery, then the next one is more RTS-y again. Graphics are good for 2005. There is a lot of cheese - both tactically and in story/voice-acting, but that can scratch your B-class sci-fi movie itch. Not a bad RTS by any means. Just not great, either.
The first few hours of the game are fairly interesting: - learn about special abilities, spend a lot of time choosing new skills, build combos, - develop upgrades for your spaceships, set up your second fleet to help rescue planets and gather resources, - get a couple of funny calls from your neighbours, feud with pirates, accept missions, - develop your starbase, solve power issues, upgrade rooms. And then, well, it's another X hours of the same. You upgrade from Tier 2 to Tier 3 ships, your nominal damage output goes from 234-345 to 456-678, typical enemy health goes from 1500 to 3000...all the numbers get bigger, battles last the same or longer - felt like typical JRPG pseudo-progression. Your alien neighbors fade into the background (calling once per hour maybe), most base upgrades are just incrementing numbers (exceptions in next paragraph) and it all runs fine on zirordax, and at about dozen or so officers it takes an effort to care about them as individuals, not just faceless gofers. I wanted to finish it, but during the endgame I was simply wishing for no more sub-bosses, just to quickly get to the end. What I loved: - different spaceship attacks, especially the ones outside central rock-paper-scissors, with unique effects instead (Torture, Rev Up, Meditation Boost, ...), - personality - background info on officers, quirky aliens, - early exploration & outpost/economy building (although fog of war could make this even more interesting), - unique base upgrades (Hyoid etc.) - but these appeared in endgame and you got all of them easily :(, - that one quest that was not just simple fetch - you needed to find the planet's name, - epic powers. What the game could used more: - ground battles: some of my officers NEVER participated in one, so all these skills were blank nodes on the way to space powers, - using these personality traits (there was...once? something about parents) like bluetext in FTL, - prestige classes, - not-so-random events, - less linear tech
I was able to complete tutorial and create a fireteam. Then, in first mission, the "Breach" button does nothing. I restarted the game multiple times, tried different things, no dice. The soldiers just stand in front of the doors and don't execute any commands. GOG Team: this game should be removed, as it's unplayable.
Paper Sorcerer isn't bad - you can definitely see they wanted to give the classic dungeon crawler formula an upgrade and make it more accessible to modern players. Managing the party is engaging, there is a lot of special attacks for every character, and if you got just a bit more choice when levelling up, it would be up there with Gameboy-era Pokemon's battle system - and we all know how many hours you can sink in these games. It also feels good to give newfound toys to your warriors, and with the very limited number of equipment slots you have to make hard choices and specialize. Unfortunately, there is a number of rough edges - mostly UI. Character portraits or names are all over the place - popping up from the left, from the right, in modal dialogs, in small rectangles. In most places you can use Q/E to cycle left/right, which helps, but still...I keep thinking there must be a better way to switch between characters and menus. Also the collected items appear in...3 different submenus? Given the way that characters filter weapons, it always took me waaay too many clicks to make sure I have a given item on me. Managing battle also had too many pop-up dialogs. It could do without the "Guard A", "Guard B" menu and just move the highlight. I'd probably get used to the less-than-amazing UI, and still have a lot of fun, but unfortunately the game also has some bugs. On my first visit to the Sanctuary I bought some equipment, and after that I noticed that my party members' HP was showing 0/0 and displaying the bar to the...left?! I didn't save before using the shop, because I didn't think it would be that dangerous. Unfortunately, when I then entered next level, hoping for the 0/0 situation to reset, it became clear that the game does not know how to proceed from this point. During the next battle the first enemy became stuck in a loop, casting the same buff over and over. Alt+F4 was my only option. And I really didn't feel like retracing my steps from last save.
It's good for what it is - minimalistic game that you can grasp fairly quickly, and then focus on good execution. Definitely improved my micro. Liked the single player campaign. I'm deducting two stars, unfortunately: - one star for how the game looks on high-resolution screens - the resolution options are limited, "fullscreen" does an ugly stretch that does not preserve ratio instead of normal mode change that would let my monitor deal with it better, and the UI elements are tiny. - one star for buggy selection - Z/X/C don't work as advertised, usually select only a few of the ships they should. And selecting ships by hand is a pain with tiny UI, see previous point. If I could play the game with both keyboard and mouse, it would be MUCH better. As it is, I'm clicking fleet-select ships-target in a loop. Only Q for invasion seems to work reliably. Oh, and shift-right-click for first point(s) on a route and regular right click for the last one is kind of reverse the usual RTS fare (add waypoints with shift-(right)-click to the end of route that was started with regular right click).
...and all the "UPGRADE COMPLETE" grinding, too ;) Basically, you have the heart of a nice sword-swinging platformer in randomized levels (I liked the map generation a lot, and the enemies are pretty varied), and then a shell of spending hard-earned gold on unlocking new classes, upgrades to your health, damage etc., and buying items to equip. With decently decked-out character you can now breeze through the starting areas feeling all-powerful, letting spikeballs bounce on your head with barely any impact (and destroying them, thanks to Retribution runes). There are hard choices to make - every character class has some cool powers, and there are only so many equipment pieces and runes you can wield at once. You are not going to waste Siphon runes on a Spellsword, for example, but they could make sense on an Archmage - up to a point when every spell you cast yields net positive mana if it hits at least one enemy. If you have enough dexterity, you can jump into a room with Hokage and clear out the enemies with just a few sword swings. To play defensively and survive longer, choose a Barbarian with tons of health. And if you want to switch gears and just collect gold for that spell discount, get a Spelunker. I got more than 20 hours of fun out of the game, beaten it and toyed for a while with NewGame+. All in all, good entertainment.
You see, I have a problem. I tend to obsess over many games, saving and quick-loading multiple times until I get a level just right - no damage, all collectables, best time etc. - sometimes it can suck the fun out of playing. I found myself repeating the same parts of Serious Sam levels until I got bored of them. That's why a rogue-lite (or Procedural Death Labirynth) FPS is just pure fun for me. Don't have to worry too much, just run & gun. If I die, the next run will be better. And Tower of Guns has a lot of fun, and a lot of variability between runs. Just the badges make all the difference. With the right combination, you change from floaty and clumsy to ninja-fast, with capability to reach the highest (secret) places. Seriously, multiple jumps for the win. And the game is made with lots of love - all the tiny details, goofy dialogue, Hugbots... It even has a Dopefish grafitti hidden near the final boss! A Dopefish! In a game from 2014! The sound design is good, there is enough enemies, the areas feel different (and I hate Warehouse - I mean, I get it, but it is haaaard). Now, the bad: there are a few areas where it lacks polish. In a game made by a big company the pause (i.e. Esc) menu would be prettier, and you (probably) wouldn't be able to sometimes sneak a peek through the geometry when pushing against the wall. But I can live with that. Other frustrating thing is that the randomness is really random - as in, there is no "storyteller" that would ensure that random drops make sense; that they are useful. I had multiple runs where I accumulated 300+ money, with nothing to spend it on (hey, Joe: a "shop" area would be nice, with 3-5 items to buy next to each other, allowing the player to choose). And in one run a boss dropped a gun upgrade that I already had. 100% useless, even worse than one of the crappy items (and there a few). Overall: had a lot of fun, cursed the RNG, died 50+ times (hello, Caketown), won about 5 times, would die again.
This game is the "lite" cousin to Jagged Alliance - less penalizing, less gritty, more arcade and stylized. You play series of missions in three different places around the world, each time utilizing 1-6 of your team members. They each collect experience points and level up, gaining cool skills that further differentiate them. The fragile and easily distracted sniper (deadly and laconic - "Target cleared" means one less bad guy, every time) plays completely different from the guy who just bashes in the doors and unloads his shotgun at close range, laughing at the enemies firing back ("Barely even nicked, no big deal!"). Still, a successful mission more often than not requires a deal of stealth and mapping out the enemies' hideout - that's when your scanner guy comes in handy, while also providing some utility skills. And the two members of your team equipped with silencers can clear a room before anyone raises the alarm. Once again, use stealth for as long as possible - then start tossing grenades, shooting shotguns and basically try to funnel the panicked enemies through a choke point where you can deal with them on your terms. If you just rush in without a plan, one or two shots can spell doom to your squad. That much is common with the more serious tactical shooters (e.g. JA). Overall, I had good fun with this game, had to replay a couple of missions multiple times to get it right, but most of all I loved the increase of power as my team learned new skills: getting Maya from situational to 100% deadly, Raphael turning into a room-clearer with the door-breaching charges and more potent grenades, ... You can really start to like these guys, with their differentiated voice acting and even their own behavior when they panic (once I had a berzerk Bear clear a full room of enemies by himself, without firing his shotgun, just jumping from one to another and beating them to pulp). There is always more than one solution to a mission. Save game before talking to people.
Yay! I actually hoped this one would come to GOG! At it's core the game is kind of simple, you have a handful of propulsion types and maybe 8 guns (and that's only during the endgame, when everything is researched). In 2017 some free-to-play smartphone apps have more variety ;). But the game gives you interesting missions to crack and it's all about those "aha! I think I know how to win this one!" moments. There is a bit of odd character to this one - you are trying to win a government bid and your co-workers are a curious bunch, not to mention your competitor who might be playing dirty...or not, you are never quite sure. But I definitely had a lot of fun experimenting with robot builds and assembling that team of 2-3 units that will be able to make it all the way to enemy base...only to get destroyed when they succesfully attack and make the base explode ;) It has fun, thinking and odd charm, definitely a Good Old Game!
140 gives you about 2 hours of good platforming fun and nothing else. It does not try to do crafting, procedural generation, different endings, collecting crap for 100% completion - none of that. You just put on your headphones and enjoy. The game is extremely focused on what it does and I think that's great. It doesn't even have a menu, because there are no settings here - this is also a bit of a warning: most people are OK with WSAD or arrows, but if these keys are broken on your keyboard, you're going to have a bad time. I liked it because I didn't need to get in the zone or reserve an entire evening to have fun with it. A quick session, beating one of the bosses, get out and do something else. After finishing the 4 areas I'm done with the game and I can play something else from my collection. A couple of bucks well spent ;)
