Apart from the oldest original on the genre (Sim City), SimCity 2000 is the quintessential Mayor/ City Sim that you just have to try... it has detail and immersion well beyond the original and was a major part of what got the whole Sim Genre Rolling in the 1990s.
Helium Rain is at its core a space trucking (think "Trucking simulator" in space) and economics management game, which is shoving cargoes around from one place to another. When it becomes a bit more advanced, it turns to economics and managing your trading and production on a large scale. This may sound boring, but it doesn't end there - there is also action elements available, but these are luckily not forced on you (you can avoid a lot of combat by bribing pirates) and if you end up in a hopeless combat situation, the game is pretty forgiving, so this means it's a mostly "relaxed" game, until you decide it's time to not be relaxed anymore. So, it's much like like the Elite/Frontier series games, but a good deal less complex. In short, who is this game for? * If you like "trucking & trading" - YES. * If you like experiencing stuff in space - YES. * Bonus: If you have a good sound system, this gives added ambience. * Big Bonus: The bigger your monitor, the more beautiful visual experience you get, and this is a major factor in the game experience. If you only have a laptop display, this probably won't impress you much. :( I already have 25+ hours played an expect to have a fair deal more in the game, so I consider it a good buy.
This is a very well done survival game with some crafting elements. You've crash landed in the frozen Canadian wilderness, short on everything: Food, warmth, fresh water, bandages, proper gear for tackling the environment, weapons to tackle the wildlife, and everythign else. You rapidly run out of everything thus you have to keep moving on, scavenging everything where you go. You're alone in a world that has broken down. The beaut of the whole thing is it's audiovisuals. They're gorgeous. The visual impressions are magnificent, largely by going the path of NOT using "photorealistic" graphics; they've gone with a "painturesque" approach, looking as if taken from a painters canvas ratehr than 3D wireframes. It works exceedingly well, and is remarkable to behold whether it is at dawn, dusk or the dead of night. ANd yes, they got nighttime darkness RIGHT - you can barely see a hand in front of you when its dark. Combining this with its audio side, it gets better: The sound is very well done, both the everpresent wind, the creaking of the log cabins, and the spooky, dark insides of industrial structures. The Long Dark offers suspense of having to explore both the hostile environments and eerily silent indoors. All of the impressions are very well done, the environments draw you in, and the overall feel is remarkable at first glance and the first several hours. The drawback is that it IS repetitive. It's survival, snow everywhere, scavenge stuff forever etc. For some the feel of the first hours of play will fade before long, leaving a repetitive, bland affair. The game has been in development for several years, and while it does recieve regular and meaningful updates (it is NOT a ripoff contrary to the accusations of some!), it IS a slow burn in that if you want to appreciate it, you've to take it in slowly ie something like five to ten hours of play time per month. Otherwise you will burn yourself out since the content updates will be past your attention horizon.
