Even when CP2077 first came out (and i made the good decision to cancel my ps4 pro pre-order and get it for PC here) and it was, honestly, a wee bit of a mess, I loved it... I played it as a Deus Ex sandbox, the biggest Deus Ex level you could imagine.. Completed the storyline, yes, but the highlight was the experience of just wandering around resolving situations. Like most I guess I relied heavily on stealth, but the game didn't punish me for it.. I particularly liked the relatively few invisible walls stopping me from jumping, balcony to balcony, up apartment buildings. Fast forward a few years and it's even better now! The refinements have really elevated this experience. It is now a really fun shooter in addition to a great stealth/hacking sim, and that's saying something as I am usually very much discinclined to engage in combat. It's just the fun, for me, of picking an early pistol (Kongou in this case, for RP purposes), and just upgrading it and upgrading as I go, and just watching it go and watching those headshot damage numbers pop up.. while the automated health and grenade recharge system keeps things challenging and reasonably micro without introducing extra hotkeys into the situation... Other things just work - a lot of the missions seem to have been tweaked, tidied up, somehow eleaborated on... particularly the opening missions - with the exception of a revamped opening tutorial mission (that makes the rinse-and-repeat stealth approach of launch more or less impossible, forcing you to engage in the combat) they're still the same, they just don't go quite the same way they used to.. It's unanimously an improvement. I haven't even got very far into this latest playthrough because, true to my usual form in this game, I'm unlikely to do any story missions until i've wrung a heck of a lot of fun out the other content. And after all that i'll have the expansion!! It's a fantastic game, now even moreso. 110/100. (word count sucks)
I feel in love with FM3 on my PS Vita, introduced me to the series - an awesomely stylish, really engaging game with a slightly hairbrained story and an appearance from Dr Slump which was probably the best turn based mech game I've yet played... Anyway, this game's working with much older material, the clean graphics actually detract a bit from the gritty OG titles, but the story is here and you aughta play it before you play the sequels. The story exists, the gameplay exists, the graphics are the medium of visual interaction... The boosts in gameplay later in the series justifies getting this on sale and getting it under your belt.
Ground Control was a ground breaking title with extremely good graphics and great atmosphere, not to mention an unusually scaled and paced game style for the time. It blew my mind and felt extremely futuristic - GC2 didn't quite have the same feeling, though it's an interesting mid-point between GC1 and the incredible World in Conflict. The key selling point of GC1 games was that you can zoom in far enough to see the grain of the desert, or far out enough to overview the entire map. Zooming in super far reveals highly detailed (for the time) models - particularly vehicles - and aids the aforementioned atmosphere greatly. The problem with GC2 is that it goes away from the atmosphere and roleplaying'esque feeling of guiding your units around the field and brings in a resource gathering/reinforcement gameplay model that dilutes the pace of the gameplay. Add to this some bullet sponge'y feeling enemies and in general the game just has less personality and less rewarding missions. You should buy this because it is a fascinating artifact, but if you want the best gameplay this genus of games can provide you sould play the first game, or World in Conflict.
Plenty of reviews talk about what's really great here, but I just wanna add that EACH technology (among other things) is narrated by Leonard Nimoy (Mr Spock), and it has a fantastic soundtrack. That is all, good luck in Civ IV :)
Stronghold 1 is a wonderful, joyful game set in medieval England. It has a certain pace, a focus on resource management as well as combat, a campaign dripping in character, and a delightful art style. You get more of the same in many ways with Crusader, only the combat, campaign and economy has been rejigged to focus more on delivering quick battles with lots of combat. If you've played through 1 and want a follow-up odyssey into the crusades (a few characters from the first game are still around), grab a nice drink and sink many hours into this wonderful experience. If you haven't played 1 yet, I recommend it, it's a more focused and rich experience.
This game is unbeatably in its field. Built on the shoulders of the giant Ground Control series of games, the DNA in this game is well used and taken to the end-zone. Incredible visuals which, after more than 10 years, are confirmed ageless; amazing sound design; superb tactical military combat gameplay; an ambitious story; blazing gameplay; good difficulty... It's just incredible. Must-have.
I am a real lover of Impressions City Builder games, but this is probably my least favorite of them all. I recommend anyone who wants to give these a try to try out the games I mentioned in my title - Caesar 3, or Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom. They're better for different reasons. Caesar 3 is the best of that particular gameplay iteration, it's a little less passively hostile and you have more agency in your struggles and limitations. Emperor: RotMK is the best of all of these games, in my mind, though it runs on a somewhat rebuilt engine. Ancient (and contemporary) Chinese cities were built according to rigorous logic and compartmentalization - this structure and organization is built into Emperor and it allows you to really get particular in planning your settlements. Pharaoh is just an aggressive experience, to me, and I can't recommend it over those other titles. If you loved both of those titles, however, this one brings a touch of fantasy and cartoon to the series which is refreshing.
Sengoku is a wonderful, if pared back, experience. There is really not much to this game aside from waiting for timed processes to unfold before pausing and taking your next action - but those actions and their itinerant processes are entirely engrossing. It helps to be interested in the context, but yeah this game is just a very relaxing, minimalistic way to dive into a medieval Japanese dynasty. A word on music: This game's soundtrack is fantastic and it was certainly one of the best parts of the experience, for me. I give my review four stars despite this being such a thin offering because the gameplay and music you do get out of it, for a low price, is very satisfying - particularly if you go in wanting to explore Sengokku jidai.
Far Cry lead to two game series: Crysis and Far Cry 2 (and the games that didn't happen after it) and at this time, in 2019, I assert that you only needed to play two games related to the original title. They are this game and Crysis. Far Cry 2 is a game of great menace, hardship, heat and atmosphere. You are unleashed in the malaria-ridden jungles of a central african nation and asked to navigate your own sort of spin off the great 'Blood Diamond' film from a couple of years earlier. Your survival is not a foregone conclusion. The jungle shade and undergrowth aids stealth. The rusting, deteriorating guns fight you even as you fight others with them. Basically every NPC with whom you cooperate wants something in return from you, the ones who are genuinely kind to you are few and far between. The whole feel of the game is convincingly dire and savage to an almost mythological extent. Completing the story-line is by no means central to experiencing the game. Play this game if you have a hankering for being alone and quite hapless, with only the scratchiest of weaponry, crouching around in the middle of a hostile, primordial environment and simply trying to survive at the cost of dozens of lives. (you can play the game some other way, a more gung-ho way, if you want, but that isn't my style) I found it all to be really fun and atmospheric. I sunk deep into it.
Far Cry. Interesting game. On the one hand it lead to Crysis, a truly unforgettable shooter, and on the other hand it lead to a shooter-RPG hybrid called Far Cry 2. But what is it as an individual title? It is primordial. My experience of Far Cry when I first played it (I dunno, around 2004?) was remarkably similar to my first experience of Crysis. (In fact my playthrough of FC probably informed my approach to Crysis entirely) That is to say, I crept around the islands engaging in Operation Flashpoint-range firefights. Far Cry doesn't have a stealth mechanic. At least, I don't think it does, not during the opening sunlit levels. I insisted on crouching and sneaking around behind bushes for dozens of minutes, just because I loved the graphics, the atmosphere, and the setting (which at the time was heavily reminiscent of the GoT of the early 00s; LOST) but I was often spied by enemies through those bushes if my route of self-denial took me into their vision cones. Regardless, I created hours and hours of fun distraction for myself and loved exploring the lush, beautiful island environments. I had a blast, I see the more glowing reviews are remembering this moment too, but in 2019 I can assert for you, potential buyer, that it is no longer such a blast in this sense. Why? Because Crysis does it better. If you want to play this game like a kind of poor man's Halo, you can. If you want to do what I did and try to turn it into a first person sneaker, you kind of can (see above). If you want it to be a really great game, in the context of it's genre as it has grown into since release, you won't get what you expect. I heartily recommend Crysis, an all-time classic, and Far Cry 2, which I (maybe controversially) consider to be the best game related to this original title (no games were made after Far Cry 2, as far as I'm concerned). I do not think Far Cry is going to be as good as the more contemporary titles that are available to us in 2019.
