Despite being in pre-release, this game has been very addictive so far. I love the combination of city builder + RTS combat. I can't wait for the devs to fully flesh out the castle building and city walls, and making them more functional. There's definitely a lot that can be improved upon to make managing the village easier, especially with regards to how goods get transported from point A to point B and maybe some UI to show us where the bottlenecks are. Also, a tutorial would be nice so I don't need to google how to do everything. I'm sure by the time the game is finished, all of this will be addressed. I recommend trying this game out, even in current unfinished state!
Arise my brothers and sisters, and boldy venture forth into the cosmos. Let us spread life and consciousness for all eternity, for this is our purpose and destiny! Fantastic game. 10/10. Zero complaints. It's got challenging puzzles that make you feel like a super genius when you solve them lickity-spit. It's got a deep and meaningful story with well developed characters that you care about. The voice acting is solid. Very nice visuals, and varied environments. Breathtaking scenery. Thought-provoking philosophical discussions. Inspires awe and wonder, and leaves you with a profound sense of purpose. Good music, but not as iconic as the main theme of Talos Principle 1. Okay 1 complaint. This game could really use a map. The compass is okay, but the huge areas, maze-like paths and the sheer verticality of certain environments makes navigating a bit difficult, especially if you have a bad sense of direction. I really liked Talos Principle 1. The story in that game blew me away. Talos Principle 2 builds upon the first, and takes it to a whole new level. Awesome game!
I enjoyed both the campaign/base building as well as the tactical combat. This game felt a bit more difficult than xcom due to it being more unpredictable when aliens might show up and attack your soldiers. Also, the mind-control aliens feel very unfair due to them being able to target your troops from anywhere, and there isn't a good way to counter it. One could argue this is a negative point, but I can see people arguing this makes the combat more interesting. My only complaint about this game is the graphics and UI presentation. It looks very old school, but that seems to be a deliberate art style. This really isn't a big negative and did not detract from my enjoyment of the excellent gameplay.
I found the game very enjoyable. I like turn based combat games. I like sci-fi. I like a good story and compelling characters. This game has all of the above. Story-wise, acts 1 and 2 start off very strong. Act 3 feels a bit out of place, kinda seems like filler, but still interesting enough. Towards the end of Act 4 and 5, I am lost and can no longer understand the motive of the Rogue Trader, or the convoluted plotlines. In terms of game play mechanics, I enjoyed travelling around in a spaceship and exploring. I love the idea of warp jumps being dangerous and you can be hit with unexpected, demonic surprises. The turn-based combat is fun. Naval combat is awesome - I really like commanding the ship, taking shields and firing range into consideration, and performing manouevres to maximize the amount of shots I can fire off each turn. Very satisfying to take on a large fleet and come out the winner with little to no hull damage. My biggest complaint about the game is that levelling up is too complicated. There's too much to read, too many numbers to consider, too many options. It's hard to keep track of what talents, abilities or skills I've given to my characters. I have no idea how effective my builds are, or how to optimize. Luckily, I didn't find combat to be too much of a challenge. Despite fumbing my way through the level ups, I managed to build a decent team, and I was able to take on the boss fights without too much pain. That first boss fight at the end of Act 1 - the difficulty suddenly spiked, and I have no idea how I managed to beat that on my second try, but I did. I've played many warhammer 40K games before, but this is the first one that really dives deep into the lore. In my mind, this franchise has now graduated from status of "weird universe but fun games" to "the lore is awesome".
I like the gameplay, both the campaign part and the actual turn-based combat. My only complaint is that the campaigns are unrelated or loosely related to each other. What you did in a previous campaign (eg the money/resources you collected) doesn't really carry through to the next campaign. This lack of continuity of the characters and their stories and their progression breaks my sense of progression. It's like I've become invested in character A, now you're making me play as character B, then once I've become invested in character B, you make me play as character C who's actually a villain. I would like like to play a Hard West game that has 1 continuous big campaign that follows the same characer and only has 1 story arc.
Encased is a fun game. The first half of the game was detailed and level design was good, and the quests were fun. The second half of the game felt less fun. In fact, the main quests felt like a drag. I've figured out why. There were a few quests in the second half that were essentially point and click adventures - not very fun or engaging. This in itself is fine EXCEPT that the major locations that become available in the second half the game were overly big, meaning it's a drag to run around the huge map doing something that isn't inherently fun. Furthermore, despite the huge size of the locations, they were devoid of content. This made the second half of the game feel empty and tedious. If the developers did nothing other than shrink the size of Carmine and Phalanx Base, the second half of the game would have been more enjoyable. Overall, I would still give it a good score of 4/5 since I liked it enough to play through it twice.
I don't generally like horror games since they usually nerf combat or don't allow you to fight back. Evil Within does not suffer from this issue. Sure, you can sneak around them or hide if that's your cup of tea. I prefer to put bullets in things and kill everything in the map, and Evil Within allows you to do that. No matter how tough or scary the monsters are, if it bleeds, you can kill it. I like that. Still, it's a horror game, which means it's got all those horror-related themes like darkness, scary sounds, and weird distortions of your perception of reality. I don't personally enjoy this kind of experience, but that's a subjective preference so I won't let that affect the score I give. I only gave Evil Within a chance because I saw that you can shoot things, and it was on sale. What isn't a matter of subjective taste is that the main villain seems kinda lame. His motivation is laughable. He's like that kid at school who gets bullied and now he's having a power fantasy about getting revenge. lol (BTW, him getting bullied at school is not part of his backstory - he just gives off that vibe). Also, the story isn't told very well. It left me with a lot of questions. Some things just don't add up and don't make sense, but that's pretty typical of the horror genre. Anyway, if you like horror games, you'll like this one. If, like me, you don't like horror games, but enjoy shooting things, you'll still get enjoyment out of this game if it's on sale.
I had fun playing this game, but due to 3 issues, I finished the game early without bothering to finish all the remaining quests. These flaws bothered me enough that I would have given the game a 3/5 if not for the fact that it's an indie game that deserves a chance to succeed. 1) No obvious means of fast travel I HATE it when developers force players to constantly back travel through areas we've already cleared only to have to clear out these same areas OVER AND OVER again. This wouldn't be so bad if either a) enemies don't respawn so damn quickly, or 2) I can bypass them by fast travelling. I don't enjoy grinding or repetition. It's a waste of time. Don't waste players' time. This was the main reason I rushed to finish the game without completing all quests, and it's the reason I won't be replaying this game or any of its DLCs. If fast travel exists, it wasn't obvious, which brings me to my next complaint. 2) Game mechanics not well explained Throughout the entire game, I collected a ton of bullet casings but never figured out how to manufacture ammo. The piece of paper next to each workbench says I need scrap metal and gunpowder. Where to find or buy these items??? This is just one example of many. It doesn't help that there are hardly any forums for this game since few people know about it. 3) Easter egg hunt quests My biggest pet peeve when it comes to level design - quests that force you to waste time searching high and low for things that are hard to find, especiallly when it's not obvious what you need to find in the first place. Easter egg hunts are not fun. They waste time. Don't waste players' time. Running around the whole map for an hour searching for a key only to realize, after reading on some forum, that you actually need to find nails to open some door, then find the key - ugh. Summary: good game, but could have been great. Since it's indie game without huge budget, I give it high score 4/5.
Graphics are amazing on highest settings, as long as you have a pc that can run it well. Feels like I'm in a bladerunner movie. The lighting, the smoke and haze of the city, cinematic filter - just stunning. Walking through night city feels like walking through an actual city - bustling streets filled with activity (although there isn't much opportunity for interaction). The story is engaging, and you will care about characters you encounter. I thoroughly enoyed the character side quests, and although the nomad one is my favorite, I felt like the nomad arc had a rushed ending (without getting into spoilers). The main quest was much shorter than I expected - so to get your money's worth, play the sidequests (at least the ones for the main characters you encounter). I didn't encounter too many technical issues that took away from the experience. I have a powerful pc, so the game ran smoothly at highest settings, even with ray tracing turned on. The game still needs polishing. I felt like there were too many awkward pauses in the dialogue. Also, there were issues with people talking over one another or a cell phone conversation happening at same time as an ongoing conversation. My biggest criticism is that this game felt more like a very well done FPS with RPG elements, rather than a true RPG. I did not feel excited about levelling up. There weren't enough cool abilities to invest in, despite there being a ton of skills to choose from. Most skills are aimed at improving the FPS experience, like allowing you to reload while sprinting. I feel like I should get this for free - why make me level up to reload while sprinting? And a lot of skills feel like very marginal improvements, such as 5% damage bonus with specific weapon for 5 seconds only after killing an enemy. That's just lame. I want to shoot lasers from my eyes, stealth takedown multiple enemies etc. Think Deus ex.
Loved this game. The voice acting is surprisingly good. Highly recommend this game for those who like games like Fallout 1 and 2. This game could definitely use some polishing to improve gaming experience. Characters you don't have in your active party don't level up with the rest of the squad, which is a huge disincentive to swap your party members to experiment around. Also, would be nice to be able to respec your characters in case you made bad decisions about how to level them up.
