Pathway is Indiana Johnes themed rouglike with the twist that even if your characters die they keep their experience points(characters have different skills and level up) and items unless you quit the adventure by your own will. The graphics are gorgeous. The music is in the vein of Indiana Jones and fits quite well. The game requires 8GB RAM and to be sure you can run it you need 8GB, however on my PC (Win7) it used about 6 GB RAM. What really shines for me in Pathway is the combat. It is turn based but it is fast and each shot can be deadly. Some enemies can die in one hit of an assault rifle if they have no armor (nazis, dogs). If the enemy has no cover and is in your weapon range you will always hit them(the same is true if enemies are shooting at you). Chance to hit is calculated only when the target is behind cover. If you are next to someone you will again always hit them. This removes the recreation of scenes from Star Wars where stormtroopers shoot from 2 meters away and miss the target which is common for turned based combat games. On the other hand the number of events that you encounter in a single adventure is not that big or at least that is my experience till now. Then again the point of the rouglike is to replay it multiple times so the game can't show all it's got in a single run. The map has a decent numbers of locations to visit but a few of them are empty(just flavour text) and the fuel needed for the Jeep is scarce so I was able to visit only a handful of places before I had to make a beeline for the end goal. The way the traveling works although node based(like FTL) reminds me more of Convoy due to the fuel mechanic. You can also go on foot but instead of depleting fuel you are depleting your life points so it is not ideal. What Pathway grabbed me with is the overall atmosphere, graphics, music, combat and the urge to fully level up my characters. It might not be a milestone in gaming but it has loads of charm and a great combat system.
The game is an old schoold arcade racer. So don't expect any form of realism. I am not talking NFS aracadenss I'm talking Outrun or F1 Race for NES arcadeness. Knowing how basic racing works will do you no good here, having fast reflexes is what matters. Better think of this as a rythm game. And being and old school arcade racer it has fairly simlistic gameplay, it has only two mechanics you need to learn - drifting and drafting(slipstreaming). Once you make yourself familiar with those it all depends on your reflexes and your knowledge of the track so you know when to start drifting and on which side of the corner you need to stay so you can go into the next corner with maximum speed or without crashing. The game requires a solid amount of concentration since some corners require a split second action. That's it. If it seems a bit shallow you might be right but that is the whole idea of the old school arcade racer - stripping down racing to bare reflexes input. There are five cars but each one is hadnling a bit differently. I'd wish there were more een if they hadnled the same just for aestheitc sake. Theere is a variety of tracks and all of them look great. The graphics for me are the high point of the game. There are rivals and each of them has their set of lines for overtaking/wining/losing. It is not much but adds some charm to the game especially when you encounter Bob Ross in his Lancia. The game accomplishes it's purpose of being an arcade racer. I can only whish that the developer expands on this and adds more mechanics to the gameplay, more cars and even a story mode ala Initial D. The full price seems a bit steep for the content it provides which is the only drawback for me.
I find 4x game interesting but most of them are quite complex and with a steep learning curve. I've tried Distant Worlds and Stellaris and although they offer great amount of customization and numerous ways to expand your space empire(especially Distant World offer insane amount of control) I find them a bit intimidating. Stars in Shadow on other hand is reasonably easy to pick up and play and I' haven't felt overwhelmed with what's going on the way I felt with Distant Worlds or even Stellaris. This of course means that the gameplay is a bit simplified but for me this is a plus. The art style is appealing and one of the distinguishing traits of the game. The music while not being exceptional is fitting and quite enjoyable. On the negative side I find the UI to be clunky and not intuitive. As an example of what I mean I can give the way you queue building projects. In most games you click on the thing you want to build and it goes to the building queue. Here when you click on a building or a ship it does not go in the queue but becomes the active building project no matter that before that you have selected something else. If you want to queue it you have to click on a small button on the portrait of the object. This might seem like nitpicking on my side but it feels weird and is only one of the few other things in the UI that is not working as I would expect. As a whole the game is enjoyable and scratching the 4x itch while not demanding a huge time investment in order to learn how to play.
