I quite enjoyed my time with Convoy. You are onboard a large interstellar ship that goes down on a foreign planet. Your ship needs repairs and you are the man to go out into the world and get the parts your ship needs. That is the setup for you to pilot your convoy through the wilderness in search of parts, scrap, tactical combat, new weapons and vehicles, and unique encounters. There is a constant risk/reward balance that these types of games usually need to be compelling. Do you buy that new weapon or stock up on fuel? Do you try and supercharge your engines to escape this upcoming combat encounter, using extra fuel, because you're banged up from the last encounter? What choice do you make in this random encounter scenario? The game reminds me in many ways of FTL, except instead of controlling a single static ship you are controlling several vehicles which can move. That adds a layer of tactical combat that is quite rewarding. Now things like range, speed, maneuverability and terrain matter, not just the stats of your vehicles or what equipment you have. There's nothing quite as rewarding as ramming your opponent into a wall or buzzsawing them to death. There is a definite "Mad Max" vibe to this world and the graphics, while simple, reinforce this. My biggest complaint is that is feels a bit light on content compared to other roguelite type games. Bottom line, if the idea of driving across the wastes of a forbidding planet battling pirates and scrounging parts sounds fun to you, and it is fun for me, then buy this game.
While you won't devote days of your life to this game I had quite a bit of fun with it. You fly around, shoot enemies and solve basic environmental puzzles. Well worth a few bucks.
Torchlight 2 is a game that took what I loved about ARPG classics like Diablo 1 and 2 and modernized it while also retaining a lot of what made those early games so good. It builds on the designs of Fate and Torchlight 1, both good games that were limited in scope, and delivers a really polished product that can easily give you hundreds of hours of gameplay if you are into hitting the level cap and farming gear. To this day it remains me favorite ARPG and I hope Runic gives us a Torchlight 3 after putting out their next game Hob.
I really like this game. It's an action rogue-lite, tight controls, great pixel art, lots of items and unlocks, and great challenge. There are some slight issues I have with the game though. Once you've unlocked everything there are items you may not see again in twenty, thirty hours or play or even longer. Getting snyergies becomes difficult. Honestly in some ways there are too many items and guns. I wish there was a way to have some control over the drops, some element of choice. Other rogue-lites, like Nuclear Throne which I love as well, gives you choice in mutations. You are picking up and dropping guns as you go through a run. The choices you make determine what kind of run you have. In Gungeon the only choice that has a material impact on the run is your starting character. Otherwise what drops is what drops and you have no choice. It can be frustrating having a good run but getting no good drops. Or even worst getting great drops but they're all active items so you can only use one. Frankly I want to just love this game and I do really like it but that lack of any choice during a run has started to leave me frustrated, especially since I've unlocked all characters/beaten all the pasts/killed lich/etc. Still worth buying and playing, especially for the very low price of $15.
