As much as I can tell the new contents make it easier to reach end-game status since you can pretty much buy yourself into the world of big things very fast. As for those who are already at that point there is barelly anything new. Some new quests, a new ship, and the ability to build a settlement. Well, building is a little strong word to use here but you can do this or that with the place. Good enough if you just want to have some light fun. I have to repeat the previous review however. The known bugs and issues remained unsolved and you still can't play with friends on local network. Knowing this the DLC doesn't worth more than a free patch in my eyes.
So far the only game I ever had for PS3 and one of the few titles even my father played with. I know it sound strange but this tells everything about the game's "X" factor. My father is into management and puzzle games and never enjoyed the action. Way of the Samurai 3 however something totally different The "dull, but at its best" comes from my father after playing a whole night through and it describe the game the best. It is all about being a samurai and that's all. You can do whatever a samurai have to do or actually anything else. Swear loyality to someone... be a ronin and live up to the samurai codex... or simply a cold serial killer without any real goals. The game isn't really have goals anyway. Collect items, find and upgrade weapons, try different methods in different situations, and write the legend about yourself. When you die you lose nothing and upon starting the new play you carry over everything which enables you to try out even more methods. Depending on what you did you unlock new things for the new playthrough, and during the playthrough you unlock more abilities for the weapons. There is a lot of weapons and different methods to handle them, even more as the weapon level up. Swords, famous ones from the strong or custom made by yourself, spears, or whatever make you feel like a samurai. You can even dual wield them or forge them even stronger, but don't forget repairing the better ones if you broke it. This is all. I find the game fun and I definitelly get it once the price getting lower. Honestly that $22 is a little too much for a game of this kind. Just because of pure sentimentality, this is a five star game haha, otherwise three at best.
Sacred 2 is one of the few games I loved yet never bought again digitally. I have no reason for this, I just shared it as an interesting note. At its very core Sacred 2 is an action RPG, nothing less and nothing more. Everything happens in real time, there are abilities that requires aiming or predicting, and moving makes ranged attacks miss, and this is true for both you and for the NPCs. The basic gameplay is the same as in Sacred 1, Diablo 2, or the Torchlight titles: left mouse button for attacking, right is for activating the selected skill. The drops and item qialities are random, shops sells random things. While Torchlight makes the NPCs match your level when you enter a region they will not level up if you do so. What made Sacred 1 unique is presented here: the level of the NPCs is dynamic and always follow you with handicap depending on the selected difficulty. There are places where the NPCs are static and they remain killed when you kill them, but they respawn randomly on 99% of the map. To make it simple, you will not have boring times whie traveling. There is no skill tree, you're free to level any ability in any order. Upon creating the character you can even decide to have shared cooldown for faster single-aspect abilitiesl recharge, or separate cooldown to make the different aspect abilities usable simultaneously but with higher cooldown. The passive skills are about effectiveness and required to max out the abilities' true potential by adding additional effects to it. There are also mounts that buff your character but always comes with punishments. To overcome this there are special mounts that instead buff your class' speciality at the cost of the normal mounts' combat bonuses. As you see, Sacred 2 is the perfect RPG for a non-hardcore RPG player like me, while providing challenge even for the experienced players. And if you're not into any of these, the game let you play like in the GTA titles: doing completelly random things without reasons.
Honestly I started many of my reviews about this game and its DLCs with the phrase "if the aspects could be rated seperatelly..." and now I have to do it again. Nothing changed only new contents were added. A whole new world, ships, equipments, quests, monsters and whatever I haven't seen yet. Everything nicely match the quality of the core game as well the age the game is set. Since there are a bunch of screenshots on the store page I will not spoiler even a little by saying the new contents comming from far east. The title stands for the fact, everything you will have with this DLC should be the core content of the game. With the two DLCs it really feels like a standard game, not just an earily access one. Though what it lacked originally it lacks now. No DRM free multiplayer, no LAN, no option to turn boarding on-off, crew lose moral if you not fight for a long time or escape from battle. As far as I've encountered them the A.I. of the new world's faction is more refined. Now they make full use of speed, can calculate range and not just trying to close distance, but the NPCs are still rather simple. The new ships help them a lot since even though there are battle variants most of them are more speed focused than the classic ones. I would love to see more contents later, but this is definitelly the right way.
Well, not much have to say. As the description says you can now fight on islands, there is some spots you can anchor. It plays exactly like the improved boarding: you can attack with a click and defend with a click, except the surface is random generated instead being a ship's deck. The goal is to kill the targets or find something, then the treasure room opens. Not too worthy loot and nothing unique except for the once monster-only drops now can be random awards during land fight. This helps a little getting better equipments or gold faster. The game still depends on the clients to play with friends, if you can find them in the messy network. No LAN, no improvements, and they still charged money for it. The expansion pack is not a must have, only buy it if you're a hardcore fan of the game. Otherwise wait till they implement a standard LAN option.
A game that is on my wishlist for a very long time because I felt in love with it when we played at my friend's house in hotseat. A remake based on the localization of a game, "really?", you should think. This is more a tribute to the experience we had as childs rather than to the Kunio-games. Intended or I'm the only one who feels like this, I don't know. RCRU is a beat 'em up game with level up system, manageable stat development, and loose combo mechanics. There is a lot of characters with different focus and different way of crowd control, because most of the fights is actually about crowd control. The difficulty (especially on higher difficulty) is what we call "NES-like". The AI calculate the distance, the timing, and moderately capable of sensing openings in your movements. Your special moves is the only way of countering this so you have to know the characters inside out if you want to play on hard. You can chain your moves very well and situationally anything can follow up anything successfuly. Unlike the original game however there is an energy bar to limit the use of special moves but you will barelly feel it if you not just spam them. It is an open world game but some places requires story progress to get access. After you get the grip of the mechanics you will often find yourself going back to previous areas for buying things to develop your character. The world is made up from separate places and whenever you re-enter one, random enemies will spawn again. You're not forced to beat them and can keep moving forward but hey! You get XP and cash for them, and after all the battle is the fun part! Multiplayer, online and hotseat. Story mode, arena VS., new game + bonus options, unlockables, even after achieving 100% completion you still will find fun here. Additionally I would love to mention something. If you run the game without Galaxy client you can play online with direct connection instead of lobby. For me this was an important plus.
Turn based strategy, real time strategy aka. RTS, government and political simulator, and a touch of tactical combat. Divinity: Dragon Commander is something what Rise & Fall and Maelstrom (less known TPS) should be. At its very core it is a fantasy kingdom simulator where you are the king, and more importantly you are a dragon. The gameplay really can't be simplified to a single word. You start at the largest scale and will end up at the possible smallest (mostly unexisting) scale of strategy: directly controlling a single unit while commanding the others. First here is the turn based part. A large table to capture the regions and put your most basic structures up and build the most basic units. Enough control to menage your empire and the diplomacy with others. This is the phase where you get the special ability card you can use later for defensive, offensive or dragon boost. While you can do everything at once in a single turn, every group of units are limited to move only between neighboring regions. For a second aspect here is the real time strategy that occurs when you encounter something hostile in the same region where your units stands. Before starting it you're able to macro manage your start by adding cards and distributing the units. As you hopp in, it plays like a normal RTS. You can build structures on the different spots, build and upgrade units. There isn't a large selection, but every unit has a role and every one of them are usable at end game also. There is only one type of resource which is generated by a building which has the rarest spot to build on. Yes, the basic play here is about capturing control points. Finally here is THE dragon, you. Any time you can turn yourself into a dragon to actively participate the fight. Dodging fire, using special abilities and precise execution which is impossible just by clicking. As dragon you lose some control but you're still able to command your force. It even has multiplayer with direct connection.
(note: I have the game as retail CD, an never played the expansion pack.) I really doesn't want to start with the usual "it is a tactical shooter, you've to menage your team.. blah blah blah", because this game is nowhere near that category. SWAT 4 is superb blend of simulation and arcade: not too real and not too mindlessly unreal. As you expect from a title of this genre, you have to chose your equipment instead of searching for it. The gameplay is about dealing with the threats rather than just running around a map and killing everything at sight. It may sound a little complex and the game IS complex compared to other tactical shooters. To aid you in this situation, there are some very intelligent team mates, but you can aslo play lone wolf if you want bo the the lonely hero. The game has an awesome multiplayer mode. There is just no better thing than joining with your friend to save the world. One of the few games I've played with voice chat with my friends. It really balance the slow tactical advancing with the fast gunfights, and believe me it is wise to have a plan before 2-3 players the same room with live ammunition. I can't remember if this was an in-game voice over IP function, or we used a 3rd party software however. If you're new to the genre this is the game you should start your career. While I love Rainbow Six 3 there is no doubt SWAT 4 is the best title in this type of games.
