The game is pleasent to play - nice graphics, calm ambient music, clean interface and informative tutorial are included. The gameplay itself is about managing food, wealth and science point in proper way so our empire could growth both by size and power. Military aspect is made well, as instead of sending armies to crush opponent in brutal clash, they're used to spread influence and eventually route weaker forces. Overall all of it reminds kind of party board game, which is designed to finish in relative short time. But why 4* then? Well, as of game using history theme, the history itself is just a generic flavor here. You could switch overall theme to eg. North America tribes, Eastern Europe kingdoms or Mars colonisation and the mechanics will fit seamlessly anyway. Also the war mechanics requires to buy "upgrades" for improving capacity on 8 different types of terrain, what with constantly raising costs makes your forces either very strong or pathetic weak, depending on how many various tiles you have around your realm. Apart from that, game is worth trying and I imagine it would be great deal for any quick multiplayer skirmish.
Mafia 3 is weird game leaving you with feeling that after doing some good stuff, devs decided to disregard their own work and make it purposely bad. Every aspect of game could be great, if not botched simultaneously, so you cant really enjoy anything. Story could be awesome: you hunt the guy, who betrayed you and destroyed your life. You have a lot of cutscenes, dialogues etc. You could get real Mafia experience but meantime, game tries to convince you that Lincoln is some kind of saint who retakes city from evil, white bandits and gives it to opressed, minorites and vulnerables, so everyone can live happy ever after. The fact that he's brutal thug and his partners are common criminals making money from drugs, extortions etc isnt really a problem for such narration. Story missions requires to take districts, what you do by loitering around (a lot of) and damaging mob's property, stealing cash and killing gangsters. Its sandbox-like experience, where you choose path, weapons and way to do your work, so you will either love it or hate it. Story missions itself are ok, but they arent really memorable. Every single side task is the same: hear someones sad story, do boring errand to Bayou and back, listen the rest of sad story. City is well made - every district has distinctive style, inhabitants, and atmosphere. You can see colonial architecture in French Ward, industrial building in River Row, poor houses of Hollow, rich mansions of Frisco or marshes of Bayou. Too bad whole town is just a pretty decoration, with which you cant interact in any way. Racing isnt even worth trying - your opponents drive along scripted tracks and they are glued to ground. You also cant collect cars because you have unlockable, pre-made roster. From DLCs only Sign of the Times is somehow interesting, the other two are very bland and generic. As I said, that's game of contrasts. Even on hard its still pretty easy, so if its on sale, you may try it, but dont expect to be blown off.
If you are looking for immersive RPG, then Venetica would be like 3-3,5 stars game. If you want adventure game with some RPG flavor and dont mind technical hickups, then you can add extra star on top. You can think of this game as Gothic-like experience with few extra improvements: you have open-ish world with some space on the surface and beneath it to explore for extra items or quests, quite decently made main story, a smooth fight system which requires you use proper weapons against different enemies, boss battles, physical and mental skills to get or improve, factions to join and work for and few more. Game however has some noticable shortcommings. There are enviromental issues, like messed side quests dialogs that didnt even try to play along the lore or goes straight-to-point, lack of clues in some assigments or a lot of errand tasks (they are time-consuming even with unlocked though mid-game fast travel). From technical side, while protagonist is very well animated, the world around looks either stiff or "underanimated". Sometimes you can get quest that requires skill you can't have at that point, sometimes world just dont load and you run through void (luckily its not critical bug, restarting the game helps). Also, fighting skills like blocking (sic) needs to be equiped to and executed from shortcut bar, what is highly questionable design choise. The RPG aspect is mostly superficial and consequences are rather minor, so dont hesitate to choose the way you want. Some bigger disappointment is that somehow interesting mental skills are barely worth using in doing adventure stuff. The bright point tho is main character, Scarlett. Although she quite too strong in compare to her physique, shes not an overly capable skull-breaking brute. Shes also not excessively confident, dont have quips for every situation, dont play victim or deliver overly pompous lines. Shes wrote in very human, then relatable way, what is quite refreshing. I hope it helped, cheers
This game is 4* or 5* if you buy all what it gives you or much lower, if you dont. Its unique production and therefore it may be not really suitable for anyone. Its a story of two ... partners, who do some mundane mob job before getting into real business. However, things go completly south and both are forced to work together to save their lives from overwhealming wrath of Chinease mobs, police and corrupted officials. Game is extremly intense, with non-stop violent encounters full of blood and dead bodies, adult language and two maniacs, going forward no matter the cost. There're no noble goal, no happy end and no katharsis, only brutal fight for survival. Some more details: Basicly, its a arena shooter - you get into location, goons or police swarms up, you clear the place and proceed to checkpoint, repeat. Unlike previous game you dont have team to move around, you dont have space to flank nor granades to use. Just peek quickly over your cover and mow as much hostiles before they outflank you. Also in compare to previous game, story is more consistent (although simple), both Lynch and Kane gets some deeper development (kinda) and much better dialogs. Weapons accuracy is ok-ish, but for futher distance marksman rifle or pistol (sic) is advisable. You can get some GTA wanted level feeling, as after you whack some thugs, you'll meet respectively more advanced and more deadly law enforcers, meaning game will become hard. I mean, seriously hard. Last few chapters are more like The Edge of Tommorow experience, although it still remain quite satisfying to finish. Game POV is uncommon : though we play as Lynch, whole action is seens like from hand-held camera: colors are bleak, focus is sometimes off, picture may shake or get distorted - it really build some immersion, but in longer run it may be mentally fatiguing. Chinease enviroment is well made and quite unique in games, its always good to see something diffrent. I hope this short list will be helpful.
Spoilers included. TLDR: This game is for you, if you want to experience intense Tarantino-like action in dark setting of criminal underworld, where only personal matters are worth caring, through the eyes of selfish, ruthless anti-hero and his psychotic sidekick... and if you dont mind having really poor aiming. What's good? Music is top notch, it creates great atmosphere and works well with great visuals - especially enviroment destruction looks nice. Action sequences are great. You have plenty of work to do and maps mostly allows you to take different routes and approaches. Flank you opponents, use covers and smoke granades, blow them with frags, take them in frontal attack or grab in close combat, all of this in quite memorable places like rave club. Also you will have elements like mentioned in title BiA. You can give orders to yout teammates and give them weapons during missions to use them later in certain roles. Even if you just keep them following, they are capable of doing thing on their own ... with some success. What failed? Shooting is poorly made. Bullets flies to random places, what maked firing at anything further than 10-20 meters quite a challenge. Your granades will bounce of covers behind which you are hiding or even of you buddies, if they're standing to close to you. You can, however, get used to all of it, reach some kind of profiency and beat levels even on hard. Story - Its messed. You will feel, that you missed maybe previous game or few starting chapters. Your protagonists are chasing one McGuffin after another, they summon allies for literally nowhere, Kane always has a "genius" plan which makes no sense, all characters has weird and complex relations that arent really explained etc. Also psychological aspect seems to fall shortly, as Kane's parental feeling are so annoying shallow. He cause allies, foes and bystenders alike die in order to save his dauther from bad guys, only to deliver lines of overly emotional sunday daddy.
In contrary to some newer reviews, this game works well by itself and it isn't "bullshit lucky shot fest" as some claimed. It present an "old school" approach to tactical games, what mean you have to THINK ... and read the manual to actually understand, how to play. You dont have big, flashy cover markings, so you must use ground heights and various objects to cover your troopers from hostile fire (... or order them to crouch, it makes them "smaller", y'know). Going into open or right into possible trap might be less deadly, if you deploy smoke screen first, clear corners with frag granades or make a use from scanners. Using long range weapons to clear out some outposts may save yourchilds of glorious Guilleman from certain death, as well as droping Assault team just behind enemy strongpoint. Even your Psyker can help by whipping some filthy Chaos fans. Also, theres a time to attack, but also, time to hold ground. If you think before act, then you do fine work and please the Emperor. Also, it isnt flawless design. In loadout phase, you see a bunch of similar guys in blue armors, so checking their stats and moving them between squats takes some time. There are also restrictions, what firearms may or may not be taken by your folks, what may be kind of balancing the game, but meanwhile it makes tactical squats a bit behind after you progrees through game. Some technical problems also happens, as your troops occasionally stacks in terrain blocks or enemy keep hiting the obstacle right in front of them. Some minor issue is, that game does not provide any tutorial, because everything is in separate game manual. Its the how the game used to be made, but its quite inconvinient today, as you dont have a hard copy to check things when you have to and games encyclopeadia is quite messy. Overall, its quite solid production, with great ambience, nice animations (remember its 1998's stuff) and some rough edges. Think of it as a original UFO, but with Warhammer 40k setup.
As I enjoyed game for the most part, I have to call it a 1 step forward and 2 step in compare to last one. Graphics are pretty, physics are cool and play a noticable role in beating enemies and finally you can choose what role your solders will have, but for some reason mistakes from older game was replicated, like artificial increasing dificulty by various limitations like 1 granade per soldier or completly un-tactical approach to end turn with move left after shot. Whats bad, some new issues were added: some mission force you to push your troops in "human wave" right in front of superior enemy, because you have extremly limited time to fulfill main objective; if anyone took a damage in amount equal to bonus hp provided by armor then they are wounded (even gravely) anyway; story is completly laughable and has no logic, game even dont bother to tell you in cutscene what happen between xcom and xcom2; concealment could be great feature but its less useable than it could be; aliens receive extra movement when noticed but if they arent spotted, they just sit in place, even when they are dying in cloud of poisonous gas and so on. While play itself could be satisfying, its good to have really calm mind for run, because emotions from doing "fast paced gun-in-and-out quick-response assault team" action will be pale in compare to game overall annoyingness.
... you get Shadow Warrior: a load of demons and other hostile forces crawling out of every corner, frantic massacre with huge range on weapons and "spells", mixed with tons of loots collected from carcasses, many skills (and weapons!) to upgrade and pretty fast-pacing story. All of above come with great visuals, even on weaker machines and highly destructable environment. However, as cons must be counted aforementioned story, that may be somehow incomprehensive for newer player, slightly cheesy dialogues (some are really funny, though) and generic maps leaving a feeling, that we play basicly the same few locations. Actually, by buying this game you know what you get: great entertaining stuff, that don't encumber you mind too much... like Diablo... or Doom.
That game have some flaws, but there aren't that many, as stated in already posted reviews. Yes, there are many artificial limitations, but most of them can be removed by certain upgrades or skills. Shoot through obstacle is possible, but it also remove obstacle for good, and so on. Still, some issues or "features" remain annyoing for the rest of game, like you get 3 places where aliens strike at once, but you have only one team to send or point-blank shoots from assault weapons that misses. Also, "2 moves + attack" turn is worse than original APs system. From the bright sides, locations are pretty climatic, battle are sometimes fierce (environment is highly destructable), and later game become challanging, so X-com series veteran may not be bored at all. Overall, if someone buy/bought it during sale, then shouldn't regret, as game is solid one and still enjoyable, despite some questionable design decission.
