I picked up both CSD and the sequel on sale recently, and started with the first. It was a good enough concept, I liked the management aspects and the gameplay was good. I got a bit tired of it pretty quick, due to the fairly tedious grind involved in levelling up your restaurant... something like 5 hours to gain a star, and no gameplay variety to be found anywhere in those 5 hours. So I thought, I'll just switch over to CSD2, they probably fixed all the things about the first that I have gripes with. And while the overall presentation is slicker, they seem to have completely stripped out all of the management and simulation aspects, the only thing I really liked about the first one. It's just the grindy arcadey gameplay distilled with no thinking whatsoever, boring.
I binged this game for a few days, and I'm calling it quits without finishing the campaign. Hearthlands is in many respects very similar to Banished. However it falls short in many areas: it's not as pretty, it doesn't feel as balanced or engaging, and the production values otherwise feel lower. The one advantage over Banished that it does hypothetically have is the inclusion of military units and combat, however the implementation is so half baked and unfun that this doesn't actually play in Hearthlands's favor.
Is this game a roguelike? I'm not sure. It has randomly generated worlds (though this feature actually has 0 impact on gameplay), randomly generated items, levelling, permadeath... but for some reason it just doesn't feel like a roguelike to me. I think it's more accurate to just think of it as a very short RPG that is also very light on story. The user interface, modeled after a desktop computing environment, is totally charming. Navigating that environment is, more than anything else, the source of challenge in the game. You'll likely find yourself trying to juggle nigh a dozen little satchels that each hold a meagre amount of items, while frantically clicking on various dialogue boxes that also move around erratically. Beyond this, you progress almost mindlessly through the game, until you win, or come up against some new wall that you haven't previously encountered, and which ends your game. I achieved one of the game's endings on my 3rd or 4th attempt (the first attempts were extremely short). I could keep playing to unlock further characters, but unlike true roguelike games, having played through Kingsway once, the prospect of doing it again doesn't hold much appeal.
Beat Cop is a interesting game. I like the graphical style. But it has some flaws. The story and the writing are not great. The opening cut-scene is awesome, and really gets you excited for some plot, but unravelling the story is just a matter of 'go to this spot when told, then wait, then later go to another spot when told'. There are some parts where you're given the illusion of choice, but most of these junctures are actually impossible to fail. Late in the game, after you become used to just coasting through all the dialogue, there is actually a spot where you CAN fail a plot related moment, and the game lets you continue playing even after failing. I had to go back and play several hours over from this point to achieve one of the endings, and was disappointed to see that there was no special cut-scene for the proper ending, just another brief epilogue blurb. The gameplay is extremely repetitive. You just run back and forth writing tickets. I usually didn't have any trouble doubling or on occasion tripling the ticket quota, so it wasn't very challenging. Sometimes you run back and forth to cuff perps, and I think there are just TWO occasions in the whole game where you can get into a shoot-out, and I missed the first time cause I didn't expect it. Making money on the side was trivial, and managing the relations with factions also didn't require any thought. In fact, I'm pretty sure you can completely ignore the other factions and still finish the game.
The game is cool, but there are only 11 levels in the game, including the tutorial level. In fact, several of the first few levels have some measure of hand holding, even on hard mode. Finished the single player campaign in 7 hours (again, hard mode). I don't think I'll be playing much more, despite the online mode, which I haven't looked at... I'd probably get my ass handed to me and I don't want to practice to become competent for multiplayer.
There's enough content here for maybe a 6 hour game. I've been playing for twice that, and as far as I can tell, I'm only half way through. Bought on sale for $7.50.
I hate to say it but, this game seems a lot less like an RPG than an adventure game with the illusion of choices. It's extremely text heavy, and it seems that certain skills are virtually essential to completing the game (i.e. lore). So, a lot of possible character builds appear to actually be inviable, and if you paint yourself into a corner, so to speak, you'll have no alternative but to restart the game. Unimpressive graphics. Also, load times are a pain. They're only 10-20 seconds, but when you have to savescum your way through practically every combat encounter, it is unpleasant.
Very short game, but decent enough gameplay. The graphic novel style of presenting the story is oddly contrasted by the profound genericness of said story.
