Hey. HEY! Look at me. Relax. Deep breaths. It will be okay. DF5 was a huge modification for the series and, boy, is it awesome. Taking inspiration from titles such as CoD, Medal of Honor and even a little Operation Flashpoint, DF5 was a pinnacle of urban warfare. Gone were the days of huge, empty maps. No long would you be fighting 4x4 black pixelated blobs from 4km away. This was THE FUTURE, and the future came with vehicles, buildings and narrow alleys (ok there are a few hills but that's beside the point). The missions, while fewer in number, have more of a connection among them, especially mid-way through the game when Operation Mogadishu takes place and (spoiler alert) goes t*ts up. As few as they are they are very different than the previous games. More often than not you will be saving hostages/fellow soldiers/convoys, protecting convoys or relief efforts, taking out enemy transports, capturing bosses etc. The AI has been improved on all fronts (though not by much, this is Novalogic we're talking about). Enemies will fire upon you sooner yet with less accuracy. Their ineffectiveness actually works here, however, as you are (literally) fighting tribal people with guns and they can be seen moving their hands in front of their face while shooting or shooting while looking away. Friendly AI is more or less just as efficient without the same excuse and (sometimes) abundant. You also get 3 squad mates that follow you around particularly and which you can (sometimes) order to take down rooms (seeing them miss a guy 2 feet away is hilarious btw). AI shenanigans aside the game oozes quality. You will have dust and trees moving at the approach of helicopters, insertion/turret section via blackhawk/little bird, the sun blinding you temporarily or reflecting in your weapon scope and (on some missions) medical choppers coming in to take downed friendly units. Also comes with the expansion, which has 8 much more difficult maps that are a bit more open. GET IT!
For me, DF2 was the best until BHD. It was an upgrade over DF1, didn't suffer from the A-team syndrome of DF3 and personally I just never liked the 3D transition of games #3 and #4 (talk about fake guns). DF2 brings all that good stuff and then some, giving you the hills, the thrills and the mindless fun that only this series could do (at the time). graphics were improved slightly making the small black dots from 6km away slightly BIGGER. This is good because the game is also more challenging than the first one, with the enemy AI finding you quicker and the ally AI being slightly less useless. Following the default waypoints usually leads to game over, making the player have to use the map to create his own path, making the friendly AI (which moves based on what waypoint/location you are on) to often fall behind, sometimes just camping there while you take care of business. And finally the Map is now ALSO on your HUD (most underrated UI feature ever). Not that they're any good. Among the first missions you attack an enemy base head-on with a 2-man friendly squad by your side. I have never seen that squad survive the attack. The missions are also better made and diverse. You guard objectives (more often than DF1), parachute in, attack bases with complex interiors. On a few occasions you get friendly units parachuted in right as you are taking an objective (again, not very useful, but a nice touch). The multiplayer is also something to try out if you can be bothered researching how to make it work. Back in the day it was the BEEZ WEEZ.
In today's world of Armas and Squads/Insurgencies, to put Delta Force as a military simulator is kind of like letting a special needs kid join the school football team; it's easy to forget that back then Half-Life had just been released and Doom clones were still a thing. As such, to have an open world map was more than enough to give you a stiffy. Having friendly AI and choppers was an extra bonus. I loved this game when I was a kid but it's hard to recommend it if you weren't into it at the right time. The AI was dumb but challenging, since once it would figure out where you were it could kill you in 2-3 shots (again, "simulator"), the gameplay revolved mostly about snipping black moving dots from very far away and watching their dot buddies crouch and go into "alert" mode (and do f*ck-all) or run-around brain dead attempting to find you. Then after spending 10 minutes just camping outside the enemy base slowly making your way in, checking the buildings corners and (usually) blowing up whatever objective you had on the menu in that particular mission. In terms of gear you'd get 5 weapons to choose from and 2 sideweapons. The UI... well... look at the screenshots... The map was a different button which you would have to check every 2 minutes to make sure an enemy wouldn't sneak up on you. Friendly AI was a bit moronic too yet used scarcely (max 4 on the same map except a few scenarios). It would sometimes die way before you even reached the main objective, however having a few survive and run alongside you to the extraction point was always a fun moment. It was mindless entertainment but if you want a classic DF experience I'd suggest starting straight with DF2 for the slightly better graphics/gameplay. Don't worry about the "story". It's generic 90s military fiction i.e.: serviceable at best.
Legal gibberish aside, this game feels more like a tech demo than anything else. It was my first Crysis experience and I went in full of hope and, about as quickly, went out. I have finished the entire game in 4 hours and to this day it remains the only game which i start completely new and end in the same day. It's decent, but much to short There's way better stuff out there for much cheaper prices. If anyone played any Crysis game ever, you know exactly what to expect. If not: You're a super soldier that gets to play with a suit having all sorts of funky gadgets in an open world environment that allows you either stealth or assault; but again, super soldier, so stealth is more for the hardcore fanbase. Gunplay is decent, AI is decent. Everything seems to swirl towards the singular monotony of mediocrity. Really, if it wasn't for the graphics, we probably would've never had a Crysis 2 or 3. BTW, the graphics are incredible, but you can check them out in the first game since they literally run on the exact same engine.
Fran Bow is a very well done adventure game. The graphics are gorgeous, the story is captivating and the setting is unique in it's mixes of existing and new lore. For old timers, it could be a direct descendant of Simularcrum. You play a little girl who lost her parents and finds herself in a children's mental asylum where everything seems off. Things only get wilder from there on, making the player constantly question what is real and not, as Fran meets beings from all corners of the spectre, from gruesome to adorable. The puzzles are fairly easy, which for me was an added bonus. Only towards the second half of Chapter 2 does the game start getting challenging, but even then in mild ways, as there is no way to "fail", helping the player focus less on the game mechanics themselves and focus more on the story and world around. Which is great since the world is magnificent. Beautifully drawn, the game oozes imagination and style! Problems? There are a few. Dialogue choices are useless, for one. You will always have a choice between two reply lines. More often than not one will continue the dialogue, the other is "k thx bye". Even when there are two distinct dialogue paths, they make no difference to the game itself; only different flavour text. The few mini-games between some chapters are also plagued by clunky controls, but they are skippable. Also, my main (yet arguable) grief is with the ending. [SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD] The beauty of the game is the looming possibility that Fran might actually be insane and just imagining things. Similar to Simulacrum, however, this illusion is mostly ruined towards the end and replaced with a more happy ending, out of tone with the rest of the game. Arguing that it is still possible she might be crazy would be viable, had the developers not announced that they are planning a sequel, which will most likely continue proving that the Ultrareality is a real place (or not, it could go both ways).
[TLDR: get at sale] Now, you might ask yourself how can a "very good game" have a 3/5 star rating (i.e.: mediocre). Well that's because, while Massive Assault is excellent in some areas, it's also lacking in others. I'll give you a short pro/cons description: Pro: - Competent AI - Secret Alliance feature meaning enemy might come from any side (random neutral country allies to you/enemy on every map) - land/sea/air combat - Laser Squad Nemesis / Frozen Synapse style of gameplay, with the player being able to undo moves or deployments - Hotseat mode (well, it USED to be the sh*t... In the 90s, I guess) - Transport units are actually helpful (can move furthest per turn out of all ground units) Con: - rather basic options; no button configuration - information can be hard to find sometime; tutorial won't hold your hand and will often give you info on how to defeat your enemy in current situation rather than how to do what's required to defeat enemies (not too much of an issue though, since the game has few rulesets, most used before in strategy games) - 13 units in total per side, with only skin differences, and all are unlocked from the first mission - besides the intro movie and "powerpoint" presentation that follows it, little to no other story given - "global" warfare is just a fancy way of saying they have a (somewhat) large map on which the campaign(s) take place; the maps stay the same but the situations change between missions (besides this, 24 more skirmish maps) Even with all these, this is still awesome game and, at the end of the day, you could think of them more like "nitpicks"... Problem is, they're quite a few nitpicks for a 10$ game. Also, there is a multiplayer option within the game that requires an account, but not sure if it's still functional, since it doesn't appear on the store page.
Signal Ops is a like something I've played before. Rainbow Six & Ghost Recon. Signal Ops has the close quarters combat and (some of the)features that Rainbow Six had. It's focus is a lot more on fighting from the shadows or around corners. However, it doesn't involve the planning ahead of the mission as in RS, but more on field decisions, like in Ghost Recon. Now, you have a game that mixes the two formulas and an atmosphere very well done. It can suck you in. It's like waking up in Brazil (the movie), or 1984 (although seeing as my agents must hide from the police instead of being aided by them doess seem to make it "less dystopian"). So far, the game sounds great. You can actively control each unit and then leave the monitors with your officer and just walk around the base without encountering one loading screen. The electrical power requirement means this isn't a game for the casual man, however. Where it falls short, though, is in the execution. This game is -FULL- of bugs. Graphical glitches and bad friendly AI pacing are frequent, with NPCs remaining blocked in a door and you having to get them out of the way. Moving while leaning is also bugged. Worst of all, it's clearly a console port, worst not because they thought of it for the consoles, but because they ported it poorly. You can't even see your control list and change button positioning. If they fix this mess and add a few minor PC features, then this is a solid buy.
