Is it solitaire? - No, at least not the familiar klondike solitaire that used to come bundled with Windows. Amazing gameplay? - No. Just simple card game mechanics with obtainable powerups in a Jane Austen novel-like setting. Simple, but addictive. Time flies when playing. (Took me 16 hours to complete.) What is a particular standout feature of this game? - The music. The music is great, soothing, and keeps me playing. How casual is this to pick up and play in short sessions? - The game is organized into a story comprising something roughly 20 stages the majority (that is all of them after the first few) of which consist of 10 tableaus to clear. Nothing in the actual gameplay (as opposed to the story) is progressive or cumulative except for the items you can purchase to decorate your ballroom (which give you gameplay buffs) and the wild cards (cards that can be placed down at any time to help continue your combos) which can be accumulated throughout each stage whether you win or lose the tableau. I don't believe there is any mode to play outside the story mode, though you can just pretend the story isn't there, which I personally would find hard to do. It isn't your low commitment Windows solitaire if you were looking to replace that (darn those ads). Also, it is less casual that Windows solitaire since each stage (of 10 tableaus or hands) has 3 conditions you must fulfill, and the long combo/high multiplier conditions can be difficult to get in a given hand. Do I recommend? - Yes, it is a 4/5 game, and I think it is worth getting on sale, even though exchange rates are currently unfavorable in my market.
This game is meant to be played slowly and deliberately, at least in campaign. You're not balancing resource harvesting and unit production for optimized production. You neither harvest resources nor produce units, though sometimes you get reinforcements. You just have to work with the units you have until you accomplish the mission, which means you can't let them die in vain. Missions can take 40-70 minutes. That means this game is a big time sink. Unless you're sure that you really like this game and can see yourself playing new missions for hours on end, you might want to consider just getting the base game first instead of the complete collection. Just in case you never get around to playing the DLCs. FYI, you can save any time and as many times as you want in the middle of a mission, so there is that. You won't waste time having to start missions over again, but still, the missions can be long. Why 4 stars, though? The visuals are pleasing and the gameplay of playing around vision in the fog of war is pretty good. It's a nice slow game for taking your time when you want a break from faster paced games.
Unlike conventional RTSs like Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, and Starcraft/Warcraft where you build and manage your base while harvesting resources on top of the actual combat, Sudden Strike 4 is a real time tactics game where you are managing only troops. This means that you are limited in the troops you have, and you have to use them carefully so that they don't die as you will not be able to replenish them at will. There are scripted moments in the campaign where you receive the occasional reinforcements, and in skirmish/multiplayer you can call in the occasional paratrooper reinforcements (I think by spending points you accumulate during the match), but these reinforcements can't be spammed to give you a preponderance of troops. You must play carefully and micromanage. Micromangement will consist mainly of sending infantry units ahead to pierce the fog of war (vehicles have limited sight) allowing your tanks to see the enemies they need to target. Units are adequately differentiated so that you have medics who can heal downed riflemen and submachinegunners, APCs to transport infantry, supply trucks to keep your tanks and other attack vehicles fueled and armed with ammunition, and repair vehicles to fix your broken tanks and the broken tanks of enemies which, if unoccupied, can be taken by your infantry. This all means that the pace of the game, especially when you are playing for the first time, should be slow, planned, and deliberate. If you rush like it's Command & Conquer, you will quickly lose your tanks and infantry. In campaign, you can pause the game at any time. In skirmish and multiplayer, the game is in real time, so you better have gotten used to managing your troops quickly and efficiently. You probably won't find a public match, but if you play with friends you can have a fun time outmaneuvering and ambusing them in the fog of war. I would get just the base game because a single match can be 40-70 minutes long, so you may never get to the DLC.
Since The Last of Us and GTA V split the GOTY awards in 2013, I would happily call Tomb Raider the 2013 action game of the year. It has plenty of cinematic set pieces that gel and flow well with the gameplay, which more or less unfolds linearly so the pace is kept going and the action never stops for long. Despite the linear gameplay, Tomb Raider treats us to magnificent vistas of the mountainside and distinct imagery of Buddhist temples, mountain villages, a radio tower, a ship, a shantytown, pools of blood, ritual sacrifice, and samurai oni. The musical theme, from the very first introduction of the main menu to moments of triumph and discovery within the course of the game, is iconic and first rate. While the writing leaves a little to be desired at times, the voice acting is excellent, making each character both credible and memorable. Character progression feels great; Lara feels tangibly more capable with each skill acquisition, and the weapon upgrades are appropriately incremental. Progression is felt without being overpowering, and this aligns with the game's theme of Lara growing into a hardy, experienced survivor. There are cleverly placed collectibles, pleasant-to-discover challenges, and environment-based puzzles that can be solved easily enough while still giving a small measure of satisfaction. In other words, they aren't too easy and certainly not too hard but just about right. The modern controls feel great on Lara--a welcome evolution from the more tank-like controls before the series reboot. Overall, the game is excellent. The only would-have-been-nice-to-have is the multiplayer component, which I found very enjoyable on Steam years ago when there was a player base.
I am very happy to have acquired this game at a bargain price. I had been craving a good puzzle game in the vein of Bust A Move or Puyo Puyo--I was unable to find the former in my preferred stores, and Puyo Puyo I found to be overpriced on Steam. This game, though, has scratched my puzzle game itch. I am new to this series and am writing this review after beating story mode for the first time on easy difficulty after 2h 20m in game (due to learning curve and failed attempts). The anime art style is crisp, and the music and sound effects are charming enough. I was reserved about the character art at first but through the dialogue in story mode found the overall direction to be cute. Nia nia nia says Fool. Gameplay I have found to be fun and roughly on par with Bust A Move and Puyo Puyo, although it is a bit different. Instead of blocks coming down and stacking at the bottom like in Tetris and Puyo Puyo, there are no 'falling blocks', and rows accrete from the top towards the bottom. It's up to the player to take colored balls from the bottom row and shoot them back up to match 3+. One crucial difference with other match 3 games is that you can press a button to make the rows come down faster. (I wish I had known this when facing Black Pierrot.) Some newbies have expressed frustration about certain aspects. The game does not explain itself well in gameplay. You have to watch the tutorial, which is kind of slow. RNG, especially for clearing balls of one color in a time limit, can make you lose. The difficulty is uneven such that I lost to my first opponent many times. There is no save and continue. After losing 2 or 3 times to the same opponent, you have to start over. This isn't really an issue for me, since a story mode run is only 30 minutes. I have unlocked the opponents I've beaten in story mode as enemies for match mode. I can't wait to play more to discover how to unlock them as playable characters instead of as enemies. I like, I recommend.
What a game. I haven't felt this engrossed in a game in a long time. The best thing about this game is that it's like reading a story; there is no time wasted traversing, grinding for experience, or finding collectibles, and instead every moment is meaningful. People say that Fallout: New Vegas is a prime example of a choices matter RPG done right, but this game (and other old-school ones like it, no doubt) have choices that matter far more often. I have just played this game for 10 hours, and I've found it to have a steep learning curve. During this time I've been able to engage heavily with the religion/magic, raiding, and now trade/diplomacy systems, and I'm only just starting to realize how much the composition of your leadership team affects how you fare in your endeavors. This management aspect is intriguing in the variety of systems it lets you engage with and becomes challenging. In fact, this experience is fun and frustrating at the same time. But this isn't just a management game where you balance different systems, it has fully fleshed out lore and presents you with a story with narrative choices that makes it super engrossing while affecting the management part of the game as well. You'll also have to pay close attention to the lore in order to advance your clan, and that might get frustrating if you don't have a good attention span for that. A minor annoyance in the game is there are times where you have to send one of your clan members on a task but the clan members' names aren't written next to their portraits, so you'll have trouble if knowing which is the right person you should send. With the wealth of choices this game presents you with, I can easily see this game having lots of replay value, provided that the story choices don't converge to a single possibility. 1 star is deducted for frustrations about the seeming opacity of the economy early on in a first play-through.
I went into this game as one of the guinea pigs for my newly purchased handheld PC (MSI Claw) thinking it looked 2D and should be easy to run. I was surprised by how quality the game was. - Sound - The first thing I noticed was the sound. The sound direction was very atmospheric from the menu and into the first moments of the game. It suited the white of the Antarctica setting really well. - Graphics / Art Style - The art style and visuals did not impress right away, but as I played I came to appreciate how well it worked. They drew snow bleak, suspenseful and tense, and hopeless really well. The game also had a few really picturesque scenes, especially on the mountain. Also, the effect of Molly's red coat was not lost on me (with it being reminiscent of Spielberg's film Schindler's List). There were a few instances of feet not matching the ground. - Storytelling - The storytelling was superb, transitioning naturally between the here and now and scenes from the past. It was interesting like a well written novel, or perhaps a well done film (Atonement with Keira Knightley and James McAvoy comes to mind), and I kept wanting to see more, discover more of the story of these characters. - Characters - The two main characters were very likeable and understandable. The supporting cast fit their roles really well too. - Voice Acting - The voice acting was superb. It felt cinema quality. I loved the protagonist's British accent, and the other main character's Scottish accent. So quaint the accents of those British Islanders. The Australian's accent really put him in character. The protagonist's friends were quite believable. The Russian was the only one who felt somewhat off. - Themes - I appreciated the variety of mature themes on display, which made this a thoughful game. - Ending - The ending left me scratching my head, so that's where I detracted one star. It made sense thinking about it, but still, was this the best way to do it?
The zombie genre is a big one with a small number of iconic IPs standing out amid many more less memorable properties. In film, The Dawn of the Dead is perhaps the best and most iconic. Other works have also expanded the genre; for example, 28 Days Later highlighted the running zombie. Likewise, in video games, there are a plethora of zombie IPs, but only a few are iconic, or exemplary, or unique in the way they handle the genre. 1. The House of the Dead The House of the Dead allowed you and a friend to kill all the zombies on screen or be killed in an on-rails shooter adventure in arcades before zombie games were widely enjoyed in the home. 2. Resident Evil Especially in its early entries, the series struck players with the horror of being stalked by rising corpses in tight spaces, employing fixed camera angles to claustrophobic effect. For better or for worse, the franchise seems to have moved on from the zombie as an object of horror to super villains unleashing monstrosities. 3. Project Zomboid It effectively captures the inevitability of demise in a hostile, resource-limited, swarming-with-undead environment. Its top-down perspective contrasts with the abundance of third-person survival and first-person shooter games in the zombie genre as does its slower gameplay. 4. Dying Light Dying Light does the opposite of Project Zomboid. Dying Light is about the moment. If you are outside a safe zone when the sun sets, darkness is not the only thing that sets in. The snarls of invigorated zombies and the screams of nocturnal volatiles fill your ears, and any substantial activity or failure to evade will have volatiles on your tail. No other zombie game combines parkour, zombies, and the environment to provide the level of thrills of Dying Light. The in-the-moment thrill provided by Dying Light is its contribution to the zombie game genre, and it deserves consideration on this merit alone. For other detailed considerations, you may wish to consult other reviews.
I already reviewed this game but it's asking me to review again. Since it's been some time, I guess I'll add some extra thoughts. 1. The game needs a content warning at the beginning of the game. It should ask the player's age and offer the setting at the beginning to filter/skip explicit content. 2. While Kingdom Come: Deliverance is my most played game on GOG at the time of this review, when I finished Kingdom Come: Deliverance I was done. It was a very involved experience and one that demanded a huge commitment of both time and undivided attention. Cyberpunk, in contrast, feels a lot more accessible and easier to get back into. I missed the city vibes and the overall world of Cyberpunk. The release of Phantom Liberty also incentized my return to this game. The feel of Night City hasn't been replicated for me in any other IP that I know. 3. In spite of point 2, I still give it 4 stars, same as my first review. (a) While it's a quality game with a great atmosphere and world, looking back now I feel the visuals were perhaps overhyped. Turning off raytracing effects gives the world and NPCs sort of a flat cartoonish look. The textures perhaps are not the best. (b) Gameplay, too, is good but not great. Gunplay and aiming do not feel snappy and responsive like a traditional FPS, and I always find myself going to hacking enemies rather than relying on force. (c) Personally, I would love to have meaningful gameplay of working towards becoming a Night City legend beyond finishing the story. I found the story okay, but want to get more than just the string of acquaintances on the way to the ending, and the endings (and the way they're done through epilogues) weren't fully satisfying and meaningful roleplaying as the main character. I mean, how the story ends is a big deal for V (whichever way it ends), but not so much for me as the player. I've started a new playthrough as a nomad, and I'm looking forward to getting to the Phantom Liberty part.
It's fun even today. It's timeless. I do prefer vanilla (without the elemental alignment), however.
