At first Skyshine's Bedlam succeeds in it's attempt to be a FTL inspired game in a Fallout styled world. You must travel through the Wasteland with your mobile base of operation: the dozer. And unlock a legendary city. But of course your journey will be filled with perils ! You have to manage few resources in order to be able to find and deal with every situations you will encounter. Even your crew/population needs to be take care of and sometimes (during events) you will trigger some funny moments. Also searching point of interests will unlock powerful weapons that serves as skill that can be triggered during fights... because Bedlam is a harsh and dangerous place. However, it's where the game shows its limits. Characters are some kind of cannon fodder that level up after a certain number of kills (starting a new game forces you too choose if you take few veterans of dozens of meat ba... hum... rookies). You can't unlock abilities for them, you only increase basic stats. The "skills" I've named before are weapons/utilities mounted on your HQ that uses the resources you collect during your adventures. And because you need to use them on other upgrades like the ones on your dozer to be more efficient in general. Fights turns into dilemmas about using the appropriate skill at the right time or to sacrifice of a unit to protect some others. Because, like in Fire Emblem (strategy in less), 0 Hp means game over for every characters of the game. Notice that you only use the mouse to check unit's range and right click to move/order them to attack. In general it leads to miss important movements/shots due to lack of visibility. Especially when you hide behind cover and magically find that a sniper can shoot through a small grid near a buddy that previously blocked your line of sight ! Until strong overhaul of the combat system, Skyshine's Bedlam will be a nice little game but with limited combats. Quite an issue for us: "Bloodthirsty" players -_-
Take Nuclear Throne's gun fights, Risk of Rain's loot, Binding of Isaac's levels layout... and you have Enter the Gungeon. A totally assumed Rogue-lite/bullet hell where anything is here to cause your untimely death. Difficulty resides in dodging dozen of glowing shots coming from enemies in complex rooms filled with many dangers: gaps, spikes, traps, tnt barrels or tables that you can use as temporary covers. Ammo management is still important but you only have to select the appropriate weapon you want to resupply, making things really easier especially in front of a game like Nuclear Throne. So you can stick with your favorite weapons without too much problems and it's really good. You can get 2 currency to buy items during your expeditions or after having died/succeeded to increase your item pool. Exploring the Gungeon gives you access to some items in the same vein of Risk of Rain. The more you find the more you can choose later in shops/levels. Weapons are numerous, around a hundred with weird effects like this rifle i found that launches dirty shirts or the crossbow that fires shotgun shells ! Nearly everything is destructible makings levels a huge warzone filled with emptied bullet casings and destroyed furniture among dead bodies. The game is nice and i really liked yogurt speech of monsters that gives an appealing touch to the overall: Yoshi's dino power! You can unlock few elements such as new npc to get more items/weapons available or shortcuts to deeper levels. The only rather average element of the game is the soundtrack that could have been better with less sound effects during music tracks. It makes music very noisy and breaks a bit the immersion and the pleasure to exterminate your enemies. Also consider that this game is horribly hard without any difficulty setting making co-op a very good addition. Enter the Gungeon is still a good game, less random than Nuclear Throne but slower than Risk of Rain.
People compared Lethis to Caesar 3 and i don't know why. Especially considering that Lethis is completely different on many aspects and the most important to my humble point of view: atmosphere. Many games try to be as realistic as possible. Famine, diseases, wars and many horrible events occur when you play with humankind. Lethis is different. Your goal is to create/design utopian cities in a world caught in a recent industrial revolution. And it's where the game shines: nothing is horrible or important. There's no wars or clash between people because of their origins or social state. Build a settlement and please immigrants and your city will grow. Some will protest a bit because of your lack of micro-management. You forgot to build a strong production chain ? Citizens will go somewhere else leaving your beloved city into a ghost town state... But you can reverse the process and start again depending on the scenario in the campaign (very well designed) where the emperor of the country must be pleased in order to get favors. Maybe you will miss some deadlines when you need to deliver resources... and Emperor standing might decrease a bit. But in Lethis... nothing is bad, permanent or punishing and potential failures are always related to lack of planning (in general too much haste [my biggest problem]). It's a nice game with a huge life span, tons of depth in terms of city building and most of all... people in Lethis are happy to live in a beautiful world filled with hope and wonders where nobody suffer. It's so enjoyable to create a wonderful city for wonderful people where the most violent elements are butchers and fishermen. That's why i love this game.
"There's a man going 'round taking names..." Deadbolt is a mix between Not a Hero, Hotline Miami, Hitman and Blade/The Professional movies. As the Reaper, you have to execute contracts on undead creatures that lurks into the darkest places of your city. You plan your missions in your stylish and comfortable flat. Choosing your weapons from Charon on the docks, listening some nice tunes or just sit in your armchair and chat with... your fireplace. The atmosphere is great. The city is a dark place where creatures lives in gettos, nightclubs and mansions. Soundtrack is clam and relaxing, making your contracts "smoother" than they look... because Deadbolt is a very hard game. 1 hit and your dear Reaper is... out. I had tons of fun to play Deadbolt. The Two first chapters are rather easy. You can vanish into air vents or pipes to reach other rooms and stay low. Or even knock on doors to call enemies and welcome them with your sledgehammer or a headshot. By speaking about gun fights... you can go loud because of the nice targeting system that depends on how far you slide your cursor. So if you follow the head of an enemy... you are sure to land your hits. But you still need to hold a mouse button to draw your weapon and stay still to be able to shoot. Being unable to move or dodge when you aim is really difficult. But the rest of the game is really nice and like Hitman, you will prefer to do your contracts like a ghost , breaking electric bulbs doing diversions and execute everybody to get souls: the currency to buy new gear. Also bosses can be "aggro" and can make very funny situations, like when he tries to follow you... and is welcomed by a fully loaded shotgun/smg/dual pistols/ect... Very good game can't wait to have new characters and content ! Note that you can create your own levels. "I saw a white horse.... he's name was death... and hell followed with him." Johnny Cash.
Every games starts like this ( skirmish): In your HQ with a fat brawler as a bodyguard. You can spend 15K dollars to buy a weapon store to start gathering ammo/medkits and of course cash. By the same time a random character will show up at your base and ask you to kill 1 or 2 civilians (again the number is random). Do this will give you an other henchman, his class is also random. After this you will have to get money by extortion or take over of different shops. The more money the better as usual.... And it's where the game starts to become a pain; you must move your boss to these locations to talk with owners. You can use one of your child to do so but their number is limited and if your main character dies: game over. Even recruiting units can be dangerous because they spawn in bars randomly and, again, you need your boss/ child to go there and recruit. Henchmen have many skills and weaponry... but again planning new units/ equipment like cars, ect... are RANDOM. Why ? Because your boss needs to stay in his HQ behind his desk and pick up the constantly rigging phone icon in a corner of your screen. You can switch it off of course but you will miss some interesting offers. Contracts can give you a lot of cash but tons of other calls are absolutely useless. One dude will ask you to kill a target very far on the map for 9 K and an other asks to kill 4 random enemies to get 15 to 30 K with a special unity in bonus.... And i don't talk about units offers that are unable during hours because... it's RANDOM ! Add to that bad graphics/light effects, horrible controls, no active pausing, no general map, no interface for international relations (miss a job... nothing changes) even police standing is nowhere to be found ! You can't even drive cars correctly or the covering system is a huge joke that favors AI because... it doesn't struggle with the poor interface this game has to offer. Only campaign rather good compaired to the rest.. Try Gangsters instead.
