I am sorry I did write this negative review, something which I usually avoid doing. In this case the noise of fan boys and girls claiming this game is one of the best 4X games ever made, made me chip in my handfull of dimes. I was guided by those raving reviews (that hardly ever go into the gameplay or describing the experience of playing the game, but will take you down on a trip of someone's memory lane) into buying the game and it was a major league disappointment. Some people compare this game to Master of Orion (1 and 2) or the Total War games, which is a downright insult to the both in my opinion. The worst: the graphics and the colourscheme used. They will give you a headache of gargantuous proportions and leave you with damaged eyesight. Next: the voice acting is infantile, stupid and downright aggrevating. The meeeh: in today's 4X world this is not a 4X game. Exploration is simplistic, planetary management onlyvery basic. Most of the time you'll be watching lines and circles indicating warp lanes and planets. The core gameplay consists of doing research and building ships, however building a sizeable strategy minded fleet is impossible. You can only bring in five ships at a time and battles have a time limit. A time limit! A time limit which can't be switched off and leaves no room for strategy, only tactictival gameplay. Conclusion: the developers of this game force you into doing things the way they think is right. You will have no freedom whatsoever to develop your own playstyle, working out your own ideas. And you'll be left with a cursing headache.
Still a great game if you are prepared to download at least one of the great mods available out there: this game comes with Hellfire so I'd say The Hell 2, which will add a bunch of QOL features and gameplay changes/enhancements as well as rearrange the village layout to a much more accessible map, all the while claiming it enhances on the original ideas and inspiration of the game - which it does. Play it this way and you will find this game can stand the test of time.
This is not such a great game. At all. Useally rogues don't care much about their visual style, but when they do it should not be infantile. This game yells at you from the start, seemingly thinking it is the funniest game on earth, whereas in fact the humor in this game is old and stale, aiming at underaged people. The mechanics are OK, taking into account the game has a lot of examples to look at. No depth and generic character building, flavour of the genre. The feel and the looks are those of a cheap mobile phone flash game without the flexibility of the likes that are much better. Many, many (free) games outdo this game. Look at Caves of Qud or Cogmind if you want a great game. Even ToME, ADoM or Rogue Empire are much better games.
Small indie studio doing a nice job expanding on the ideas found in Rimworld, Oxygen not included and the likes. Currently two types of scenario's are available: Basic Platform and Abandoned Mining Station, the first serving as a tutorial the latter giving the player more freedom. There are four difficulties to choose from. You start with a crew, each member having it's own quirks, on a mining station near an asteroid. Your goal is to construct a spaceship with which you can travel the universe. It's up to the player to freely design a spaceship or use a pre-designed building plan. Like Rimworld and Oxygen you need to take care of your crew, you assign jobs, priorities. All of this is subject of change since this is an EA entry (and the GoG review system doesn't allow for review updates), so pro's and con's are a bit arbitrary right now. The UI can be confusing and occupies too much of the screen, although it has been improved. I do hope ambient sounds and the music get separated, since musical taste is so very personal. Right now silencing the music also silences ship sounds, with exception of the menu sounds, which I feel is a little inconvenient. It lacks a little bit in the area of 'personality', which is such a strong part of the Rimworld and Oxygen not Included experience, but it is not a finished title yet. Nevertheless, I am carefully tilting towards a positive view on this one.
A solid RTS with time-proven mechanics, simple, yet esthetically effective and nice visuals , boring because cliche music and a mediocre short story; a well-copied Warcraft II + heroes remake, poor pathfinding included. It is worth its price, no doubt. Take this game and add some quality of life functions we nowadays take for granted in a RTS, add a well written sophisticated story that enables a campaign spanning 40-60 missions plus an adventurous score, both in musical as in narrative terms and, well it would really be a great game, worth triple todays price. Great for players who long for games of another era as well as for those who just value good games.
Caves of Qud. Roguelike turn - and tile-based open world exploration by a single character built by the player. Choose between a Mutated Human with moderate starting attributes, and, surprise surprise, mutations, or a True Kin with access to cybernetics, high starting attributes. bonus skill points on each level and bonus resistance etc. Travel, trade, fight, solve quests, earn experience…upgrade and die, die, a million times. Learn and start over in a randomly generated, exquisitely enigmatic tile based world and find a build that will last longer, each new run, and slowly uncover the mysteries of Qud… And, very important: User Interface, layout and controls (keyboard, but mouse as well) are user friendly and adjustable. A dense concentration of creativity and content that will grab your attention and hold it for hours at a time.
The premise of Streets of Rogue is neutralizing the corrupt mayor of a certain city by reaching the uptown area of that city and finding him.You start by choosing what kind of game you want to play: on-line; quick start; home base and a daily run. Then you get to choose between 8 characters, with more to unlock by performing several tasks. E.g. by polluting the air infiltration system 5 times you’ll unlock the Scientist. You play in a city divided in a slums area; an industrial area; a park; a downtown area and an uptown area. You start out in the slums. Those consist of three levels; after finishing the slums the industrial levels are unlocked, and so on. The levels are geographically small areas in which you have to do a few tasks, to unlock the next level. Each character has different gameplay and carries a separate quest which is optional but could provide benefits for later on. The main grudge I have: Wayward; Children of Morta; KeeperRL; these are rogue likes that save the progression made and allow the player to leave and pick up at a later date or time. Why does a designer or developer want to force choices upon a player like having five different characters reach a level before it is saved? And why can I not save in between if I want to go for a bite or a drink? The tasks you do with only one character are limited and repetitive after a few runs. Varying the characters adds to the variety but only to the extend of limiting the perks/traits per character vs having a character with access to more abilities varying in skill level - like in Deus Ex. However, Streets of Rogue is not a bad game. Actually it’s a good game in many ways: smooth controls and gameplay even when the shit hits the fan; clear and tasty graphics. In coop most of aforementioned grudges most likely evaporate and as such it is probably a wonderful game. But to be frank: forcing the player thru all kinds of hoops does not equal player freedom.
Great game that will run on Mac if you use Wine or equivalent.
Yes, this game's combat mechanics are great. It allows for all types of tactics the player can think of. The interface is simple yet elegant. 100% top-down view; graphics stripped down to almost symbolic values yet very apt at representing diverse fields of operations. Campaign; skirmish - offline - and multiplayer onlne. Just jump in and out at anytime; play a mission or just a few moves. Personally I do consider this game to be a nice, sympathetic - extra copy for a friend - addition to my library. Why only four stars then? To me, despite the forementioned pro's this game feels as if it would have been a great combat system incorporated into another game. Despite the campaign it feels very *lightweight*. But that can be me.