I can't answer the title question for you. If you could take a time machine and go back to 2012, I would tell you to do it. But now? Spec Ops: The Line is one of the greatest game storytelling achievements of all time. It is a mirror. It did things to me and to many others. A great many reviews hated the game simply because they were in denial, because they never understood the message and desperately needed excuses to justify themselves. The game is admittedly far from perfect, so why five stars? Because Spec Ops sets out to accomplish a unique and profound goal, and achieves that goal in ways that no other videogame ever has and perhaps never will.
If you've played any Ubisoft sandboxes lately, don't bother with this one. The good: The environment is fairly pretty. There's a few interesting mechanics and world aspects, particularly the moon. It comes together nicely to create a world that really feels hostile. There's results in some fulfilling challenges, like conquering outposts. By itself very tired and old, but since you're so deep in hostile territory, conquering an outpost means making interesting risk versus reward choices. The bad: You've seen 95% of what the game has to offer after the highlands. Most items like veilcreep or salvage have no late game purpose except to soak up inventory and fill up the otherwise empty landscape. There's no way to tell various kinds of loot apart, so there's a good deal of pointless hauling to collect stuff that will never be used. The snow tornadoes barely move at all and only exist to look threatening. The game implies that your followers' morale is an actual mechanic, but it's not, their morale will go up automatically regardless. The finite lives and resources system sounds interesting, but it's not. And you knew that going in. The ugly: The game is very janky. This goes double for the sled, which will randomly launch into the air or hurl you off a bridge. I've sunken through the terrain several times. The ending is a huge letdown. The closest thing to a final boss is a jumping puzzle and a miniboss you fight in the second area of the game. Conclusion: Fade to Silence is a flawed B-tier product at best.
If you're looking for a deep satisfying experience, move along. This is a fun but casual game that'll occupy you for an hour, maybe two.
I reviewed this game on Steam. Didn't say much about the gameplay, because it's great, complex and diverse and there wasn't a lot I could think to say beyond just saying how great it is, over and over So instead I focused on what I found interesting about the story. No spoilers. See, TOME has a great worldbuilding twist and then layering more twists on top of that. It's basic fantasy with numerous kinds of twists I've never seen before. The writes do an amazing job subverting expectations while keeping a solid core intact. So I posted a review, mostly critical because I figured straight praise was just less interesting. I got a dev response. We then had a nice exchange, that still stands as one of the most positive interactions I've ever had with a developer. He's still in my friendlist, all around great guy, In summary, if you like roguelikes and complexity, TOME is a thing you want. Even if roguelikes or complexity aren't usually your thing, for this price, TOME might be worth checking out at least once. Like Binding Of Isaac, Terraria or Darkest Dungeon, this game stands in my hall of fame of best game deals of all time.
Excellent game, immersive dwarf fortress like pain simulator. Haven't seen a single bug yet, contrary to what the reviews indicate.
Battletech is a poor product. It's full of game breaking bugs. Missions become impossible to finish because of bugged hidden triggers. Firing animations get stuck halfway, forcing you to restart the game. I strongly advise against playing ironman mode; you are practically guaranteed to lose your campaign to a bug like this. The campaign missions are decent and the dialogue is adequate; there are some obvious flaws but I won't nitpick. It's obvious that some of the development team invested real love into these aspects. But the interface feels like it's waging war on me, at times. Called shots are a mess. Shoot off the legs? Flat out doesn't work, the torso gets destroyed instead everytime. Nevermind that it doesn't work for missiles; it doesn't work for ANY weapon. After dozens of attempts, I've given up: it's just not a worthwhile mechanic. The random missions are the worst, though. hey contain prominently some of the worst strategy game sins of all time. They are utterly repetitive yet also random and unpredicatble. New enemies will spawn randomly on the map, and they'll take their turn before you do. Potentially landing an entire new lance behind your troops and focusing down a vulnerable target before you have time to respond. I get the sense that these random missions in general are designed to waste my time. Gaming in general is a waste of time. Battletech isn't the worst strategy game ever made. But it's flawed mediocrity angers me to the point where I wonder why I even bother to start up the PC, when I could just be staring at the wall or going outside to shove old ladies into traffic.
Since the roguelike genre has come to include a rather wide variety of games, like FTL, Binding of Isaac or Dead Cells, it's important to note that ADOM is a 'true' roguelike. No unlocks. No progress carried over between games. No second chances. Just you and a gigantic maze of random numbers to navigate. In terms of gameplay I feel ADOM is close to Tales of Maj'Eyal, but perhaps even more unforgiving. There's a large variety of monsters and traps, but even your inventory is full of risks. A single wrong click can doom your character. Which is exactly what most people look for in a roguelike: a huge amount of variables with multiple strategies for dealing with them. The biggest downside to ADOM is the constant crashes. For some reason there is no autosave between floors or anything. I've lost like five charactes to crashes after five hours of gametime, truly absurd.
Timers count down and then they just randomly start counting down again? Then wtf was the point of the first timer? Cards and timers cannot be changed once initiated. Accidentally activated another dream instead of recovering an affliction? Too bad, screw you.
Timers count down and then they just randomly start counting down again? Then wtf was the point of the first timer? Cards and timers cannot be changed once initiated. Accidentally activated another dream instead of recovering an affliction? Too bad, screw you.
