Ok, fart jokes, chickens, and space boobs, it's all very funny. It actually is, so I give the devs some credit for having a sense of humor. Huge quality lacking in modern games. However, the art style and humor is there to mask a shallow game with a game loop that will challenge the most patient of gamers. The combination of motion sickness, boredom and insanity have caused me completely rage quit a game that doesn't even have any enemies to shoot. I don't know why, but so many space games do this. Genesis: Alpha One does it. Alien: Isolation does it. No Man's Sky certainly does it. It's the fetchit/buildit loop. For example: you need to build a scrapper early on to smash things to get materials. But to build a scrapper, first you need metal. So you have to go into space, collect the materials floating around, then go inside and build your scrapper. Your tools have a limited life, so you constantly have to go back into space and collect even more scrap to build even more tools. Once you build some decent tools, they let you collect more advanced materials, which in turn allow you to build even more advanced tools. And all the things you want to build that are useful all have blueprints that you first have to find, and some of them are so far away from your ship that you have to build even more new things which allow you to get to the blueprints that will allow you to build even more tools. Have you lost your patience reading this? If so, then don't even think about getting this game. The jokes are fine. But the biggest joke of all is the devs laughing at the idea of gamers losing their minds floating around in space in an infinite loop collecting garbage and space goo. I've heard there is a creative mode in the game that lets you build your own space station, but my mind is already gone and I don't care. I usually give a game a few weeks to decide to keep playing it or not, but this one definitely gets my 24 hour uninstall rating. 10 uninstalls out of 10.
I've played several of the Strategic Command games, but this one is the first that takes place during the 19th century. Knowing what the SC series is like, I was cautious about this one, and for good reason. The SC series is better fitted towards moving large units as 'fronts' such as in the world wars. The American civil war was about campaigns with army divisions and corps battling each other over terrain and flanking maneuvers. This is not modeled well in the SC engine. Yes, you can build units and move to capture enemy objectives, but the campaign doesn't play out as it would in any sort of historical way. The AI also seems to be confused as to strategy, so its units tend to move during turns only with the intent of maddening the player, and forcing the human opponent to chase down endless straggler units and guerillas that pop up rather than conducting a large campaign with focus and logical objectives. My biggest gripe about this game (and all SC games) is how manpower and losses are computed. By the end of my first campaign I had lost 64 units and the enemy had lost 145. That also includes naval. Ok, what does this mean in terms of manpower? The engine is ruthlessly simplistic towards this, as well as the more abstract elements of supply and reinforcement. On the plus side, the game does manage UI fairly well. The mini map shows areas controlled (most other civil war games seem to forget this simple feature). The choices for the played during event decisions is also fun. Do you clamp down on bootleggers selling gold and cotton to the enemy? And what about conscription? All these offer choices that will affect the game, and these can offer semi- and alternative history events unfolding. Overall it's a very 'MEH' game. If you're looking to grab a civil war game, there's Ultimate General, AGEOD's Civil War series, and of course Grand Tactician. All are better civil war games than this one, IMO.
Lots of Civil War games out there that do battles better. A few do campaigns better. But few tackle as much (and so well) as Grand Tactician. I've been playing since early access, and it's only gotten better since release. It's a great jack-of-all trades strategy game. The game allows the player to control the North or South during the war, and there's several starting dates to choose from (early '61 to early '64). The player can control the economy, navy, build and arm armies and garrisons, build forts, and assign and promote officers. There's policies to choose from to improve recruitment and finances, or to increase prestige with foreign powers. Both sides can also import or produce its own cannons, ships, and rifles. The player has to contend with morale issues as well, and the game even models feuds and readiness, both of which can seriously alter strategy for moving and commanding armies. And of course when battle commences, the player has the choice to take command on a total war-style tactical map. Overall, there's just been few games that have done so much to allow a player to control virtually every aspect of a conflict. But there's also numerous problems that players have still had to contend with that keep it from being 10/10 level greatness. The AI needs work. Pathfinding during movements and retreats make little sense. The game moves sluggish at times, and even players with beast machines have complained of lags and FPS drops. The AI also makes questionable decisions, like building giant navies then doing nothing with them. Fort battles can sometimes create lopsided results, and the readiness system seems to affect only the player, leaving the AI on a sort of god mode. The dev team is constantly working on the problems however, and new patches seem to be improving the game little by little.
I stayed away at the original launch due to the poor reviews. Since the Atlas update and discount, I decided to give it a try. NMS is deceptively shallow considering its scope. There's frankly very little to do, even with the Artemis missions and base building added. The missions are extremely limited and worst of all, cyclic. No matter how many times you start a new game or change the difficulty, the exploration and base building will have the exact same missions each time. So in base building it goes like this - build basic structures, plop down some terminals, hire specialists, do specialist missions, gather new blueprints to upgrade parts and buildings, rinse and repeat until finished. And it's like that EVERY SINGLE GAME. There's to divergence, no real randomness, despite the game's promises. The worlds themselves are basically the same. There's a few categories for planets, and each biome falls into these similar patterns. Dry arid, lush paradise, cold ice, and so on. That's it. There's no brown dwarfs, no gas giants, and even the planet sizes seem to fit to the same mold. The life forms follow the same pattern as well. 2 and 4 legged animals will dot the landscape of even the hottest or coldest of planets, yet they hardly vary at all, with the same pre-fabricated prototypes given only a few cosmetic differences. No giant fish, no packs of carnivorous dinosaurs, and certainly no infamous sand snakes. Lots of hot and cold planets with space cows roaming the surface. That seems to be the structure for NMS's entire galaxy. There may be wild variations out there, but after journeying to several different systems and cataloging numerous planets, I have yet to find any. No Man's Sky has amazing potential, but right now it's nothing more than a framework to which a good game could be attached. Perhaps with future updates or expansions it will become the game it was intended to be. For now it's giant toy box with a very poor selection of toys inside it.
Is not without cost. In other squad based games (Final Fantasy, XCom, etc) you can basically get to a point where you know how to maximize perks and battle options in order to create nigh-invulnerable teams. Not with Darkest Dungeon. In Darkest Dungeon, even upgraded crusaders or occultists with charm trinkets and amazing stats can fall in battle. Anyone can (and probably will) fall in battle. The Darkest Dungeon knows that everyone has a price. The strengths of the game relies on its atmosphere and the 'just one more quest' approach to hook you, and it does a really good job of it. It's been years since I've played a team-based RPG with such brutality... yet it beckons for you to keep struggling to overcome each dungeon's challenges. For those reasons alone, it is a very well made game. As others have stated, it is a very frustrating game with tons of surprises that will keep you on your toes. After playing several hours now, I have yet to defeat any higher level bosses and have lost several good team members. If you love a difficult game, or just squad based RPGs in general, Darkest Dungeon will be right up your alley... or dungeon.
Sunless Sea will cause your confusion, your hunger, and your death. Intensely and often. It is a game of exploration and discovery, both inner and outer. The game designers have decided to lose their heads and then reassemble them using this game as the main tool of invention. The clues will make you ponder, the quests will make you frustrated, and the pirates and living icebergs will try to kill you. I've yet to play a game quite like it, for better or worse. The imagination used in creating this game is immense. Some of the early quests might get a repetitive since you'll have to restart games often due to death at sea and repeat them many times. It's also a slower paced game. If you're looking for instant action (or hate reading text) then this one's probably not for you. If you like bizarre, fictional worlds littered with odd characters, esoteric mysteries, and giant crab monsters, then this one's right up your darkly lit London alley.
Meh. It's ok. Redshirt brings a lot of potential and offerings to the table, but with little to show for its promises. It reminds me of the career aspect of the Sims games, where to advance in your job, you had to have a certain level of friends and skills. Same thing here, only in space... spacebook, that is. You learn new skills, throw parties, and try to impress your 6 armed purple alien boss. It has some funny moments and lots of potential, but ultimately you'll end up playing it for a few hours and suddenly realizing that there really isn't much to do other than level grind your generic avatar up to 'space toilet maintenance manager.' Yay.
Who knew? I've been watching this one for a while now. It's an excellent building sim, especially considering it was designed by one guy. Just keep in mind that there's no combat. If you're looking for a expand-conquer type of game, this isn't it. Otherwise, plant another bean field, stock up on firewood and kick back and relax. This game is meant for cruise control.
