It's an okay freebie. The game has all the hallmark foibles of the era in one package, making sure every mechanic and technical aspect is a chore for the player. You may or may not enjoy the humour, which is all the writing the game has and needs.
Loved the writing and enjoyed the world, but the gameplay fell flat. Removing free pointer movement from an RTS is a boneheaded handicap: every game boils down to singular suicide rushes, as movement and staggering strategies are impossible mid-encounter due to the extremely slow pointer mechanic. The Advance and Retreat commands are not coded versatile enough to execute even basic tactics - Overlord did this better in 2007, and it even had to deal with a 3D playing field. I would not recommend Tooth and Tail as a game, but it makes for an okay watching experience.
After reading the glowing reviews, I was sold on Hellblade being an excellent game with superb writing, atmosphere and fight mechanics. I was sold on the developer's ability. The product I received is not superb. It stutters in cramped quarters on Medium quality (i5 4 GHz/GTX 960/16 GB/SSD), the fight mechanics are simple QTEs with autolock setting your feet in place (and your camera nauseatingly close), the voice acting is generic, and the pacing is awful for the first hour. Even the controls are not freely bindable and you cannot invert both axes. I felt cheated. The visuals were on point, and I was into the psychological terror aspect for a good while, but constant horror and poor performance wore me out. There were no highs, only a constant tone with low points in buggy puzzles (patterns on screen did not match rune, compared to video reviews) and excessive wresting of control from the player. I felt like I was being force-fed a QTE cutscene, not like I was playing a compelling game. My recommendation is to demo the game first and then decide if it was worth the hype.
Fantastic setting and classic cowboy revenge story with a juicy twist. Feels very much like a passion project, as the ideas are thoroughly executed and the experience is both beautiful and internally consistent, but the technical execution leaves much to be desired. What is not pretty are the actual visuals: the game looks and animates like Silent Storm with modern filters and a texture pack. The combat is like Silent Storm as well, but extremely cut down and very unbalanced (you cannot parkour, overwatch is automatic and proximity-based, some talents just break the game). The replay value is questionable because of this, as the setpieces and AI seem very rigid, and the ultra-basic gameplay does not require or allow for more tactics than "take cover and flank for instant kills". To further cement the impression of a rough draft, the game's soundtrack seems to consist of three tracks and the text has not been properly spellchecked even by version 1.5. I personally enjoy the game as a tech demo and short story. It is very basic, not very polished and relies heavily on the atmosphere and story to carry the player through. Extremely not worth the asking price of €20. I would suggest half that. I am only plaing the game because I got it for free on Christmas.
Very hectic rapid clicker of a cyberpunk action game that does everything it needs to do in a very short runtime (< 2 h, cutscenes and some exploration included). I like the art, music and writing style a lot, and the melee action is very satisfying. The game definitely prioritises player excitement and rewards, and the rest is cute icing that doesn't get in the way - price included. The game is well worth €10, and the €20 is justifiable if you like repeating fights and improving your runs/skill. The hub and its NPCs deserve a special mention: both are well-designed to serve the atmosphere and amuse the player while they cool down between missions. The downsides of the game mostly come from the "cute icing" aspect. Some character skills are superfluous or outright counterproductive, and the shared activation keys make them a chore to juggle - which is unnecessary to do, and hence unnecessary for the game, I feel. The skill system felt decorative and a compromise (forced addition?) in an otherwise streamlined experience. Exploring is clumsy with the kb+m movement system, but it's passable. The rewards are fun and build up the immersion. The soundbite+text dialogue is a pleasure, as it establishes just enough character for the NPCs without slowing down gameplay at all (speed-readable) - which makes it puzzling why voice acting is completely absent from (some very key) story cutscenes. This brings the great atmosphere to a screeching halt more than once. Some transitions are also curiously jarring and unpolished. The kb+m movement system, as tight and fast as it is, gets very janky around corners (bad collision navigation/objects) and can lead to very angular chases of phasing enemies. The slow-mo dash aim mode is way too slow to activate and breaks the pacing in fights (and even in its dedicated gameplay demo sequence). TAS use only? ;P The game runs well in general on GTX 960 4 GB/i5-3570K/8 GB DDR3-1600/256 GB SSD. GOES FAST. FEELS GOOD. GET GAME, PUPPY.
I liked the idea of Prison Architect for many reasons and thought it would be a fun addition to Rimworld and Cities: Skylines (i.e. my go-to tweaking games). PA, however, is very rough around the edges. My main complaints are that the UI is rudimentary and doesn't scale at all (text is tiny, buttons don't stand out, art is crude and often nondescript), the controls are clunky (no one-button cancel for build menus, painting is sometimes a line, sometimes a square, no visual indicator for interactions, tooltips nonexistent) and the game seems to be buggy - even the intro missions don't work right, the riot police get stuck in doors, can't be moved and won't fight, so squad after squad just dies, prolonging the misery! As it is now, PA sems an okay concept and has good potential (and dev, AFAICT). I'll pay more-or-less-€5 to support its development, but it's a bad product and not a great game.
The game looks and sounds gorgeous, and I am in love with the writing and the universe. I would not hesitate to recommend Witcher 3 to anyone who wants a superb action/traditional RPG mix in 2016, whether they are looking for a high-quality, quite unique fantasy world to sink their time and self into, or just to explore, quest and fight. My grievances with the game are few, but all have to do with off-game mechanics: 1. The FOV is very narrow and cannot be adjusted. It makes me feel sick for half an hour or longer every time I play. It can also make multi-directional fights needlessly frustrating. 2. The game is exceedingly dark with no brightness/gamma setting. I get it, it's for the mood, but really? Having to adjust your monitor every time you play a certain game is CRT era nonsense. (If Cat potion lasted longer than 60 s this would mostly be a non-issue and become an unquestionable feature of the game's world). 3. Geralt's movement is rudimentary compared to Ubi games and even Dark Souls. Collision and passing are janky, parkour is limited and unreliable, and stick hysteresis is too low (Geralt is way too quick to go full tilt). Turning wigs out sometimes (due to collision and steering angles). Fighting works okay, thankfully. I've learned to work around the flaws and limitations, but that doesn't mean they're not there. 4. Hotspot activation does not work at all if you're anywhere close to said spot. You can even see the activation prompt for loot, objects and the like on your viewport's edge, but can't activate them if Geralt is not at arm's length. This goes against common and video game sense, as you are usually quite able to interact with objects in your immediate vicinity - the traditional loot pickup method is touching it, for one thing. Maybe less of an issue with kbm/16:9? Some mechanical bugbears aside, this is a stellar RPG experience with no DRM strings attached. Definitely give it a try, it doesn't get much better than this.
With a name like Big Pharma, I thought the game would be a funny take on the exploitation practiced by pharmaceutical companies. It also had a whiff of Theme Hospital about it, which I thought would manifest as strange machinery and hilarious concepts. What I got instead was a very simple puzzle game with no purpose to it. The game mechanics are nicely polished, but the game itself seriously lacks any incentive or narrative for the player to follow. Humour didn't show up for work either. The fun part is designing the production lines and optimising them, but there are only a few pieces for doing so, and everything happens on a 2D plane - all you do is buy more floor space and develop percentage-based upgrades for existing machinery. I could have bought The Incredible Machine for the same purpose... The rest of the game is a tacked on wall of text. The premise is wasted, as there seems to be no real depth to the business simulation side of things and there is no humour to spur things along. As cool as the Exploration and Research ideas are, both tech trees are very shallow and yield very little in the way of actual cool stuff (+% and new ingredients, woohoo...). As a simple puzzle game, Big Pharma does okay: there's a fair bit of complexity to be achieved with different ingredient combinations and it's an okay simplification of manufacturing processes. But for €23 you can expect more than this. Game is worth €5-10 depending on how generous you're feeling. Or just play a Flash pipeline puzzle game for free.
With Age of Wonders III and Endless Space to play, my cup of 4X is overflowing! What I like about AOW3 is that they included a fleshed-out singleplayer campaign on top of the excellent mechanics. The developers have done their homework (well, it IS the third instalment, so they ought to have by now) and the game does not shy from Civilisation standards in mechanics or visual aesthetics. Except the Race Avatars. They're just straight-off creepy to look at, deep in the uncanny valley over here, by far the roughest-looking thing in the game - and you're playing as one... Speaking of depth, the game has plenty of it. There is a hearty variety of different upgrades, perks, and bonuses available to customise your heroes with, and all that is complemented by over 10 inventory slots (plus a separate passive inventory, holy moly). This does not get overwhelming, however, as everything is well-paced, rather straightforward, and you have excellent in-game help for EVERYTHING in the Tome of Wonders. Cities and units have a more rudimentary upgrade system, but that just prevents the game from plummeting into endless micromanagement - and makes the lack of Governor AI excusable (you CAN release cities as AI Vassals, but you lose out on production). The tactical combat is the cherry on top of the depth cake, as you can make the most of your units and army compositions instead of just watching your units duke things out. I'm more used to the HOMM mechanic of stacks weakening as they lose units/health, but here I think the 'full power until dead' works just as well - just have to remind myself to Kill, not Stun. So far I have been enthralled by the singleplayer campaign (8-10 hours deep) and haven't played multiplayer, so take this as a glowing review of the singleplayer experience.
Everything about this game is clumsy. I first bought it when it came out, and even then I remember thinking the controls were off and the game ugly. These passing years have not been kind either. Would only buy for nostalgia purposes, i.e. if you want to replay this exact game or miss top-down shooters deesperately. The acting, the plot, the visuals and the mechanics have not stood the test of time - many were shoddy to begin with and have not been improved. When your basic shotgun is still bugged 10 years later and characters catch on corners, you know you did a poor job.
