Can't in good conscience gives this five stars even though I'm a big fan of their first game and enjoyed this game a lot. This is a squad-based tactics game with 3-4 heroes. Each hero has stats, their own abilities, and abilities granted to them by the gear they're using. Sniper rifle have overwatch, pistols double shot, light armor dash ability. There's about 25-30 hours of content across 5 or 6 missions, each mission consisting of 1-3 maps with nodes full of encounters, traders, or events. The closest comparison to this game is not really x-com, but Into the Breach. I say this because there's a big emphasis on manoeuvring and the game often feels puzzle-like. Properly flanking can guarantee hits for any hero, and weapon special abilities often have templates which can require proper positioning. Contrary to some reviews, there is not "full" and "half" cover like x-com, rather there is cover which decreases hit chance, and walls which block firing. Some cover also can be traversed, some cannot. Sometimes the cover is not clear from the map, and the user may think a pit offering no cover is actually a wall. There's a fair variety of enemies, grouped widely into nazis and cultists/zombies. And player characters will gain levels, abilities and loot through the campaigns. Players will also unlock new characters by achievements and there are some hidden characters that can show up in the game. The game can be a lot of fun, and the player will feel quite powerful most of the time due to the progression. This also means though that the game skews pretty easy once you figure out all the mechanics. You can adjust the balance, but only after you've finished the campaign, and once I finished all the campaigns I didn't see much reason to re-play it. I hope they add some additional missions. There is also a lot of lore and world building, but not enough narrative. Would like to see more emphasis on the story itself, maybe with script-based events in mission.
Five episodes, 12 levels each. Levels start pretty claustrophobic and altogether not that fun, enemies are not very distinguished for the most part- a lot of overlap in roles and many of them go down pretty easy. All that said I was having lots of fun by the third episode, barrelled through the fourth and then onto the fifth- and about 8 missions into the fifth I grab a key on a ledge, a wall drops down and about 12 rocket enemies suddenly spam the crap out of me. I die, fine, no big deal. But then my save game is gone! I'm like 56 levels into a 60 level game, and my progress is gone. Zero. No option to continue game, just "NEW" game. Apparently I ran out of "lives", because yeah for some weird reason this game doesn't have save games but instead has a lives system and then blamo- straight dead for all time. Unless I want to replay the previous 8 hours and try not to run out of lives. WOW THAT IS FUN. What is this game design? It's 2020. There's nothing fun about replaying an entire game just to finish the last couple of levels. Is that supposed to be a rogue lite element? I was going to give this game 4 or 5 stars. Not anymore.
This review is written from the perspective of someone who's played the previous two games. The first game is set in Medieval times, you're a farmer turned warrior who avenges his ravaged village. Archers and swordsmen abound with a few goblins in the mix. Next game, Braveland Wizard - you're a young sorceress in medieval times off to do your trials- they kept the same units from the first game, then added a bunch on top of it to fit the wizardly theme. Everything sounds good. Then we get to Braveland pirate. You're a crew of pirates, armed with muskets, cutlasses and pistols off to find lost treasure - and again, they add a few new units, mix up the progression, and reuse everything from the first game. The problem is, it doesn't work. Warrior and Wizards might be able to recycle enemies with ease, but a pirate game is a different era and a different setting. An enemy boss might say he's releasing his "dogs" on his tropical fortress, but if the art is a Wolf, and the game tag is a Wolf, then it's a wolf. Remember all those pirate movies where they shoot guns at people wielding great swords and plate armor? No? Neither do I. I don't mind if they re-use enemies, but they need to at least RESKIN them to fit the theme. The new units are sometimes interesting, but- many of the battles don't allow you to use them in interesting ways. Many of your units are super slow in the first half of the game, and you'll fight tons of high initiative, high movement enemies that will consistently go into your second line and cut up your more vulnerable units. You cannot even re-organize your formation in an attempt to better screen them, the melee guys are consistenly on the bottom and the weak ranged units on the top. At the end of the day, the theme just doesn't work and the battles are often frustrating. For a new player, it's a lot of content- but even for a game on mobile, it feels like they phoned it in.
Much like the first game, pretty simple tactical combat that serves as a quick game to throw a few minutes into or to blast through between longer games. Stacks of units will use either melee or ranged, along with physical or magical damage against enemy stacks. Add some special abilities, some gear with global effects, talent trees and spells and that's pretty much the game. Game uses many of the first games enemies and adds a bunch more; there is variety but, the game still remains largely one of positioning and target priority. The spells do allow for some more combo potential as you bring down a targets armor before hitting it with physical damage, for example. Map is very linear path, with 2-step branches off it along the way, at the first node combat, at the second node, an item or place to recruit new armies. There are some split decision points, allowing for some re-playability, and some dungeons that spawn new encounters a limited number of times between other combats. Later in the game you'll need to do significant backtracking to fill out your armies, though it wont take too long to perform. Story is throwaway, dialogue goes mostly for laughs. Overall its the first game with more content and some tweaks and improvements. It's simple, can be finished in 4-6 hours, but enjoyable for what it is and it's good to see the developers improving upon the original and adding some wrinkles to the formula.
Pretty limited tactics game, main focus is on positioning and target priority. Units have physical or magic resistance, health, damage and move rates and one special on cool down. Player also gets some global spells that charge over time. There are about 7 different units, with up to 5 types on your team at a time. Can also buy some gear that boosts your army. Game takes about 3-4 hours. It's a linear path with branches all along it to either side with shops, troops, or permanent buffs. Background looks okay, characters are cute but very limited in animation (move, attack, death animations). Only two music tracks, world and battle. Story is also bare bones and complete superfluous. Dialogue becomes predictable in nature very quickly: "We hate/want X, but you're here now, so we'll attack you instead" or "we like to attack people, hey you're people, we'd like to attack you" Bottom line the game's cheap, and is a quick diversion if you just want something to pick up for a few minutes or a short tactics game to blitz through between larger games.
Would have given this a higher review but hey, playing the Reckoning my saved games stopped loading and when I tried some Yamagi mod, those same saved games disappeared. We don't live in an age where someone should have to mess around with nonsense like this to play a game. As for the base game. No music. Music files are supposedly included, but why aren't there programs included that mounts or uses that music automatically? Why do users need to again, futz around to get stuff working? Whether its Steam, GOG, or Bethesda that's at fault, there should be a soundtrack with these games. Do the extra work, and get it done. As for the game itself. Pretty bog standard marine sci-fi shoot 'em up. Same id Software weapons that you see in most games, the guns could fit right into Doom 3. The story is completely throwaway, and while the technology in the game was probably very impressive for the time, it's also completely overshadowed by Half Life that came out a year later. The game itself, can be fun at times. But as with the first Quake, the problem is the enemies. They're just not that interesting, for the most part. A lot of cyborg soldiers which aren't that distinguishable from one another. One prime example is the flying enemies, which consist of a VTOL-suit guy, a spaceship type drone and a garbage can drone. These enemies all seem to fire the same gun. The only difference is hitpoints and target size. Why do they all exist? Compare it with Doom 2's three unique flying enemies, the Cacodemo, Lost Soul and Pain Elemental. It's night and day. You can argue maybe that the enemies in Quake 2 are more granular, but they are less iconic. I don't think the game rides the tension line very well either, maybe it was because I was playing on Normal but the game was pretty easy once you get the gear. But I don't think there are a lot of big fights and big moments, and with the exception of the railgun enemies, most enemies don't feel that dangerous. It's OKAY.
Haven't gotten very far in the game. Game seems pretty fun, not as good looking as Doom but the enemies so far are pretty interesting as are the weapons but the lack of music just KILLS it for me. I don't blame GOG, this is the same on Steam as well- I know there are probably work around, doing some sort of CD mounting with some 3rd party files but in this age we as gamers shouldn't need to do that. This game simply shouldn't be for sale. If Bethesda wants it out in the world, just give it away for free. Say sorry we can't give you the soundtrack, so we're not going to charge for this. Either that, or just create a new soundtrack or get licensing or something man. But as fun as the gameplay may be, the experience is just empty because of the overwhelming silence in much of the levels.
This is the height of the 90s space sim, and unfortunately also one of the genres last gasps. I say this having not played the Wing Commander series aside from Privateer, so take it with that in mind. But in terms of story, gameplay, voice acting and graphics this was the game that blew me out of the water. Tie Fighter, X-Wing, love them- but the problem with Star Wars is that all of the weapons are pretty much the same. Few torpedoes/missiles, and turbolasers of one form or another. Freespace 2 capital ships have huge beams weapons, both anti-fighter and anti-ship, there are bombers with torpedoes, single missiles, swarm missiles, huge variety of fighter projectile weapons. Enemy variety is great too, every faction has their own flavour- and the big bad are truly epic. Atmosphere is great too. If you play just one space sim game, this has to be it. If you play two, pick up Tie Fighter after this. Can't recommend it enough.
I'm not a Deus Ex fanboy, I love the new games but the original game isn't any sacred cow. That's the context I give for my thoughts on Invisible War. The game is pretty okay. The story is a bit convoluted, there are too many players and a lot of the writing is not amazing either. Some of the side quests are pretty dumb, like quests for competing coffee shops, and some of the basic premise- like the idea that you need to hire your own pilots to move from one hub to another seems at odds with the motivations of the main players. If your player is a pawn for a lot of big players, why do you need to pay your own fare to get around? Doesn't make much sense. The two opening factions are meant to be shades of grey as well, but when one faction's missions are almost unanimously "kill this person" it doesn't seem so grey at all. There are lots of upgrades. Four different biomod slots giving one choice out of three. Guns with different upgrade choices. The inventory by items but some items stack. Although later in the game my multitools wouldn't always stack for some odd reason. I find some of the biomod choices odd- why can't I get both hacking and cloak? Instead they are on the same circuit and you can only get one or the other. And for terminals you can hack or use the passcode but I never found a single passcode outside of one given by an NPC. In that way the world actually seems pretty barren- I miss being able to search people- instead when you take someone out they drop all their gear and their body is just another item. Would it not be more interesting to find pieces of lore or passcodes on say an enemy captain? My biggest problem with this game is not anything within the game, but the fact that it changes my screen resolution every time I play it. I need to hit up my display settings afterwards to fix it. Overall- I had some fun, but I'm not sure its worth playing over other FPS titles.
Despite being built on the build engine, this is no Duke Nukem. I played this through to completion back in the day but years on I don't really have many great memories from it. The thing I remember most is getting stuck in the first level as it wasn't clear where to go, and of course the lady bathing in the waterfall. But in terms of weapons? There's uzis and shuriken, in terms of enemies? There's some ninjas. There's more of course but I couldn't tell you without looking at the screenshots. This game is notable for being one of the first FPSs to have turrets and dual wielding. Maybe this isn't much of a review, I'm just going off my memory of the game but despite having a great memory I don't remember a lot from this. To me that says something. So like I say, I remember having some fun with it- but it's pretty forgettable. Two wangs out of five.
