Disciples 3: Reincarnation

Disciples 3

A turn based strategy game with tactical combat, a strategic map, and rpg elements.

Overview

Disciples 3: Reincarnation follows the long tradition of tactical combat on a strategic map. You control one or more heroes who command a small squad. You roam the map looking for goodies while following the story line. Your hero and followers can gain levels and equipment, and you can build your home base.

I lost interest with this game before finishing the first scenario, so this review might be skewed.

Story

The story seemed pretty generic and I wasn't engaged. On the other hand, it didn't get in the way very much. If thought of as a loose reason to move from fight to fight, it was sufficient. I liked the setting, though. It is a little more grungy medieval without a lot of the high fantasy elements you generally see in a game with wizards and angels.

Combat

What should be the meat of the game feels very bland. Combat is only a small step up from Final Fantasy style. There are few real decisions because most moves are obvious. Frequently you overpower the enemy so you can auto-resolve the combat. Unfortunately the AI is not very good so don't be too liberal with this. Also, auto-resolving the "most fun" parts of a game does not bode well.

Strategic Map

The exploring the map is a bland experience. There are a lot of resources to be collected, but it isn't exciting. Really it's just a mechanic to get from fight to fight. Some fights are too difficult and must be avoided and it's a little tedious examining enemy forces to make that determination. 

There is very little time pressure so you can wander around to pick up all the treasure and fight the easy fights, then go back and fight the harder encounters once you are higher level. That sounds extremely boring to me, but the alternative is sub-optimal play.

Often treasures are difficult to see because they might be under a tree or something. You can get around this by rotating the map, but what a pain.

This game triggers one of my biggest pet peeves in turn-based games. After a combat, you don't automatically heal. This means that you might intentionally drag combat out a few turns to give your healer a chance to catch up. This is both mechanically annoying and breaks the fiction. If my healer can cast a spell every minute in combat, why can't he cast a spell when I am spending days to travel across the map?

RPG Elements

You can have more than one hero, although it looks like you only really want one squad for fighting. Perhaps a second hero might make sense for picking up treasure.

Heroes gain levels and have a skill tree. Most of the skills in the tree are very bland and just points on the way to the interesting powers. Even the "interesting" powers weren't exciting to me. Equipping items are similarly bland. Generally they are things like +15% fire resistance.

Followers also gain levels. With each level they gain a predetermine skill. Every three levels they can be promoted to a more powerful unit. This feels exactly right. There is just enough variety to be interesting without having to micromanage mundane choices.

Buildings

Buildings allow your followers to be promoted. In the first scenario, money isn't a problem and buildings are mostly an automatic process with no real decision making. You can choose if you want your mages to be wizards or elementalists but the game could have that decision be made when your follower is ready for promotion. There is no building time or building prerequisites. 

Art

I like the art. The design is good. The animations are good, but they get old quickly. After half an hour I set the animation speed to maximum, and it was still clunky.

Conclusion

Despite my criticisms, Disciples 3 is a fine game for the genre. The tactics aren't complicated but they aren't totally brain-dead simple. You can get attached to your squad as it levels up. The story is light, but it isn't bad. For a similar game, I would recommend Mordheim: City of the Damned.

Dishonored

Dishonored

A stealth/combat game with a rich setting and good character development.

Summary

This game feels very much like Assassin's Creed with a little Shadow of Mordor. I enjoyed both of those games more than Dishonored. However, if you like that style of game, Dishonored is very true to the genre.

I really like the settings of Assassin's Creed and Shadow of Mordor. The world of Dishonored is fine, but doesn't have a massive body of lore to expand on like those other games.

In the end, I wouldn't especially recommend Dishonored unless you like the stealth genre but don't want to play those other titles.

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley

A cute farming game with lots to do.

Overview

At first glance, Stardew Valley is a farming simulator but once you get into it there is much more. You get to learn the personalities of everyone in the town. There is an interesting plot that is slowly revealed. Besides farming, there are other activities like fishing, mining, crafting, combat, and all sorts of collecting. There is a lot of depth to it.

The Good

There are lots of things to do and you can pick whatever style you prefer to focus on. Every type of sub-game has a fair amount to do, so there are many avenues of progression. Collection is a big part of the game.

The Bad

Like other farming games, there is no real challenge. There is some enjoyment in finding optimal ways to achieve your goals, but at the core the game is little more than grinding. Watching the story unfold is enjoyable but it is slow.

The Neutral

I'm not a fan of the retro art style and game interface. However, it is done well so if you are a fan you will likely enjoy it. The inhabitants of the town have extensive scripts, but ultimately I did not care much about them.

Conclusion

Stardew Valley is very good for a relaxing way to pass time. If you enjoy farming simulators or simple RPGs, you will certainly enjoy this game.

Broken Age

Broken Age

A cute point and click adventure game.

Point-and-click isn't my favorite genre. I've played many, and I certainly have fond memories of Monkey Island and Space Quest. There are some great Telltale Games out there (RIP, Telltale).

The Good

Broken Age has a lot going for it. The artistic style is unique, the voice acting is incredible, the plot is fresh, and it has a neat gimmick where you switch between two characters.

Art & Sound

Some people love the art in Broken Age. It is very unique and creative and adds much to the surreal atmosphere. For me, it is easy for "unique" art to be distracting, but Broken Age managed to find the line between entertaining and off-putting. 

The voices actors have an impressive cast including Elijah Wood, Will Wheaton, Jack Black, and Jennifer Hale (one of the most talented game voice actors out there). The dialog is well written and has a lot of funny lines when you attempt to do the wrong thing.

Plot

I've played so many adventure games that it is rare to see such a fresh plot. Normally I sit back and watch the story unfold, but the twists in Broken Age kept me guessing and that engaged me further.

The Bad

Broken Age suffers from the same problems as all point-and-click games. It is easy to miss a hot-spot on the screen. Sometimes the "correct solution" doesn't really make sense. Often you have to figure out puzzles through trial and error, applying all of your inventory items on all the screen hot-spots.

Puzzles are hard to balance. It's hard to know where a player will be stuck and need a hint vs. a player is who just starting to try things. For example, if there is a lock a smart player might try to put a key in it. Someone playing around might put a spoon in it and get the response "that spoon can't unlock the door". I mean.. thanks for the hint, but I don't think most people need a hint that a key goes into a door. On the other hand, Broken Age had a few spots where I missed a single piece of dialog and wasn't sure how to proceed. In general, however, the puzzles were more likely to have too many hints than too few.

Conclusion

Broken Age is of the highest quality. If you are in the mood for a point-and-click adventure, you won't go wrong.

Heat Signature

Heat Signature

Heat Signature is a little bit stealth, little bit roguelike, little bit realtime, little bit sandbox, and little bit pause-and-think.

Overview

Heat Signature is a top-down game where you go on missions to infiltrate starships. The game is loosely real-time, but you can pause at any time to give a command, so it's a more thinky and less twitchy. The game is fairly unique so I'll go over some of the features. 

Features

Stealth

If I had to pick a single genre, I would call Heat Signature a stealth game. For the most part you can't just go in shooting and dodging. You have to look at guard walking patterns, and often sneak up on them. Frequently you will try to avoid guards rather than kill them. While stealth is not my favorite genre, this game has the perfect amount. You quickly learn that all guards will do some sort of patrol, and it's pretty easy to guess their route. There is a fast-forward button so you can quickly advance the game to when that one guard moves where you want him to. 

Roguelike

I hesitate to call this game roguelike, since the term is overused. However, you gain items and money and can experience permadeath. 

Sandbox

There is a strange combination of sandbox and campaign. When you start, there are a lot of stations to unlock and it seems like the goal is to win by liberating enough stations. However, there is no urgency to it and not much story to drive that goal.

When you start a new agent, they have a personal goal. To me, this feels more urgent than the campaign goal. To complete the personal goal, you have to save a bunch of money to unlock a really difficult mission. 

Beyond the goals of liberating stations and doing personal missions, there are achievements, defector missions, and codes of conduct. There is also potential to do unstructured challenges, or you might choose to only take missions from a certain client.

One way that it really tries to be like a sandbox game is to have some surprising interactions that you mostly discover accidentally. Like, you sounded the alarm and you only have 10 seconds to get back to your ship, but it's too far away. You think and think and realize there is a window near by. You shoot the window and get sucked into space. Fortunately, you have about 30 seconds to remote pilot your ship to pick you up. While not as rich as a true roguelike (like Nethack), there is a lot of fun things to learn to keep up the interest. On your first mission, you might have trouble killing one or two guards with a single gun. After a while, you can take on a group of five with just two wrenches.

My Take

I pretty quickly stopped caring about personal missions and unlocking stations. Without a larger goal, the individual missions became less interesting. The most fun for me was to do the defector missions. These are like puzzles where you do a mission with a fixed set of gear and don't impact the campaign in any way.

Should You Buy It?

I enjoyed it well enough but I played less than 20 hours, which isn't much for me. I found the game similar to FTL but I enjoyed FTL more. So, if you loved FTL and want something like it, give Heat Signature a try. If you haven't played FTL, take a look to see which one you think will appeal more.

Magic the Gathering: Arena (BETA)

The first time I saw Magic: The Gathering was at a convention. Nobody had heard of it back then. The guy demoing it tried to get me excited about the collectible nature of the game and I totally didn't get it. What is the fun of a game if one person has an advantage? Anyway, I was wrong and MtG was immensely popular. Even today, 25 years later, it remains the best combination of strategy, tactics, depth, and accessibility. It spearheaded the most lucrative business model in gaming, the loot box. 

Overview

I only played Magic the Gathering: Arena beta for about 30 minutes, so forgive the lack of depth in this review.

The game starts with a tutorial, which is reasonably short and fun. For that style of play, Hearthstone is probably overall. After that, I was pushed to play against other players with a beginner deck. More decks and boosters were available for purchase.

The interface itself is well polished. If Hearthstone is the gold standard, MtGA hold up nicely. It still suffers somewhat because instant cards can be played on the opponent's turn, but at least in the tutorial it was handled well.

Who Should Play?

Normally I would say "nobody". If you want more cards you have to buy boosters with real money or grind out coins to buy them slowly. This is the reason I never seriously played MtG and I don't play Hearthstone. It feels too much like "pay to win".

However, MtG has maintained their business for 25 years and is still going strong. The game appeals to a lot of people. If you are willing to sink the money into the game, it might be for you.

Hearthstone and MtG are almost enough fun for me to pay for drafting tournaments. You pay some money, draft some cards from sealed decks, and play a tournament with your draft. When Hearthstone launched, that was a fun option. I don't know if MtGA has that game mode.

Magic is Fun

Magic the Gathering remains to be a very fun game. However, the style has been copied hundreds or thousands of times. There are plenty of deckbuilding games out there that are free, cheap, or offer different play styles. I would only recommend MtGA to someone who is already a fan of MtG and knows what they are getting into.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

I call this game Crawl. It's a true roguelike game.

A Roguelike Game

Crawl is a pure roguelike game, of the same style as Rogue and Nethack. Roguelike can mean different things to different people. To me these are the key features of a roguelike:

• Exploration: A pure roguelike will explore a procedurally generated dungeon. 
• Character Development: Traditionally, you would gain levels and acquire powerful items.
• Turn-based: You can take as long as you want to think about your next move, but in a full game you will make many moves (thousands).
• Permadeath: One mistake and you must start over from scratch. When you load a game your save is erased. There are no checkpoints. There might be in-game ways to cheat death, but when it says "game over!" you are done.

Other less important features of a roguelike are:

• Fantasy theme where you fight monsters, usually by walking into them. You have hit points, scrolls, potions, weapons, and armor. You probably have a variety of races and classes to choose from.
• Playable in ASCII, where your character is symbolized by "@"
• Keyboard movement, preferably in eight directions using the vi keys "hjkl;unyb"
• Emergent gameplay where there are many ways to solve a problem depending on your resources. For example, to get past a locked door you might pick the lock, kick down the door, tunnel around the door, teleport to the other side, or just ignore that door and come back later.
• Find the MacGuffin on the final level, then return to the first level and escape.

Is Crawl For Newbs?

Yes. Play a Troll Berserker. If you are a true newb, you might die before level 3. If you have some clue you might make it to level 8. After a few games with a Troll, you will attempt a mage and won't get past level 3 no matter how hard you try. Eventually you will figure some things out and get farther and farther.

Is Crawl For Pros?

Yes. I was a Nethack expert when I picked up Crawl and it took me hundreds of attempts before beating it. Even with easy races, I only win about 20% of the time and I have a lot of difficulty playing spellcasters. The best of the best win 95% of their games.

What Makes Crawl So Good?

There are a ton of viable play styles. Each style will make some aspects of the game easier or harder. The game generation is largely random, but there are many small pre-constructed areas and encounters to give stability to the chaos of RNG. There are a few boss fights that are always the same, and many random mini bosses that can be encountered. Nearly every death could have been avoided by better play, so the game is a constant learning experience. 

Examples of Variety

The three important features of your character are race, religion, and background. 

Race has the most impact on the game and there are about 20 to choose from. Some have fairly defined roles. For example, a troll fights very well but has trouble with spells. A dark elf is excellent with spells and perhaps bows, but should stay out of melee. However, most of the races are pretty flexible. Ogres are a fantastic race for fighting, but they can't wear armor and are half decent as casting spells, so you should consider learning some magic. Most races are similarly suited for a mix of melee, ranged, and casting.

Religion is the second most important choice, and is usually made around level 7. The god you pick greatly affects your playstyle. 

Your background or class seems important, but it mostly just affects the first few levels. It does, however, reinforce the direction you envision for the character. For example, if you start a human wizard you are likely to train your spell skills. However, if you find an amazing suit of heavy armor you might abandon those skills in favor of combat.

The Bad

I love Crawl. It is my favorite game in one of my favorite genres. Everybody should play it. Why don't they? There are a few reasons.

The learning curve is hefty. You might play 1000 hours without winning. Losing is Fun™ but some people want to win. 

The controls aren't intuitive. This is more learning curve stuff, but I find it far easier to play with the vi keys than the cursor keys. Plenty of people will refuse to learn the vi keys to move. 

Spell casting is hard. Playing a berserker is easy to get far without knowing anything, but playing a wizard is tough. Once you get to the end game, wizards and soldiers are about the same difficulty, but new players never see the end game and only see wizards as super tough to play. Also, playing a troll berserker feels like a one trick pony. There are actually a lot of subtle tricks to learn, but after 10 games of playing a troll, a newb is ready for something different because he isn't learning fast enough.

The soul crushing defeats weigh on you. You are having a great game where you die to a dumb mistake. So frustrating.

For the most part death can be avoided, but sometimes the trick is to adopt an uncomfortable playstyle. For example, the top players will mark spaces that monsters have stood on because they are less likely to be trapped. For a mediocre player like me, traps are responsible for less than 10% of my deaths. However, to a super expert, they are more like 50%. That means if I get a lot better, I need to start paying more attention to traps if I want to stay alive. 

Final Assessment

Maybe Crawl isn't the best for a starter roguelike, but if you already like the genre, this is the best out there. I've played lots of Rogue, Angband, Nethack, Adom, and others. They all have something to offer, but generally speaking Crawl is the best.

Desktop Dungeons

Desktop Dungeons

This review is over a year late.

History

I initially played Desktop Dungeons for free in a browser years ago. When I saw it on Steam I decided to give the developers some money, and was surprised at the many new features.

Not a Roguelike

While some people call Desktop Dungeons a roguelike, it is more of a puzzle game. Yes, you pick a class, have hit points, level up, and suffer permadeath. The main difference is that you make fewer than 100 decisions in a game of Desktop Dungeons where a traditional roguelike requires thousands of decisions. In Desktop Dungeons, each decision is fairly important where a roguelike will forgive a few bad decisions if you have a pattern of making good decisions.

Each game of a roguelike has rich variety of options, where Desktop Dungeons has interesting analysis. I play Desktop Dungeons for the same reasons I play Sudoku and not for the reasons I play Nethack.

Overview

Desktop Dungeons is a fun puzzle game where you try to gain levels and items to beat the dungeon boss. A game can be quick, maybe between 15 minutes and an hour. There are a few classes to choose from and more can be unlocked.

Beating levels gives you coins to spend on the strategic map which unlocks things and gives more power and more challenges. 

Summary

It's been a long time since I played, but I really liked this game. The strategic map didn't quite engage me but it did offer a lot of replayability. It's a thinking puzzle game with a nice dungeon theme.

Thumbs up! Play it!

The Room

The Room

A cute, short, puzzle room.

Overview

The Room is a beautiful puzzle game reminiscent of the sorts of puzzles you would find in a puzzle room. The genre is point and click, but that term evokes a more simplistic game. The game this mostly reminds of is The Seventh Guest. 

Critique

Nice graphics and sound provide a pleasant atmosphere for puzzle solving. The pacing is good and interesting animations keep you engaged. The story is mediocre. It starts to build towards something interesting but never gets there.The puzzles are all quite simple. There would have been moments of frustration, like trying to find a patch of wood with a slightly different color. However the hint system is pretty decent and I was able to get help with the parts of the game I found tedious. 

As I said, the puzzles are pretty simple. Many can be solved through trial and error. However, I'm an excellent puzzler and still enjoyed the game. 

Should You Buy It?

If a three or four hour puzzle game sounds fun, then yes. I put the sequel on my wishlist.

Panzer Corps

Panzer Corps

Because you are nostalgic for Panzer General.

Overview

Panzer Corps is a pure turn based strategy game set in World War 2. The battlefield is a hex grid. For the most part, only one unit can be in a hex. You have core units, which gain xp and become more powerful over the course of a campaign. You can purchase reinforcements and heal your units during a scenario. There are multiple levels of victory possible for each scenario, mostly dependent on how quickly you achieve the objectives.

Fun Factor

I have nothing to complain about, really. The game is pretty easy to learn, but has a lot of subtlety. There are a lot of turn based strategy games out there but I can't think of any that are as pure as Panzer Corps. It is even true to the spirit of Panzer General. Still, it doesn't grab me. Maybe I am jaded to the genre as a whole? Maybe I need something more going on? Or maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind when I was playing.

Should You Buy It?

If you want a WW2 turn based strategy game, then yes. Panzer Corps has a wide appeal for the genre although complete newcomers or veterans might not be satisfied.

Kingdom: New Lands

Kingdom

Kingdom: Classic and Kingdom: New Lands are simple sidescroller RTS games. 

Overview

Kingdom is a cross between real time strategy and a tower defense. The controls are very simple and it has cute pixel art. The sounds are fine, and there is something soothing about the galloping noise the horse makes. The story is weak.

Who Would Enjoy It

Don't get this because you like tower defense or RTS. It is very light. Get it because you want an easy cute game to kill a few hours with. For me, this was not worth the time spent but your mileage may vary.

Classic or New Lands?

New Lands is like an expansion. Mostly it adds replayability to a game that doesn't grip me much in the first place. It does add a very simple but welcome tutorial, and I didn't experience any of the bugs that were bothersome in Classic. However, Classic has a satisfying ending where New Lands presents you with a series of more difficult challenges. 

If you only want to play it once for a few hours, play Classic. If you think you will want to do series of challenges, start with New Lands. If you do start with Classic, find a guide to give you the basic controls.

Stories: The Path of Destinies

Stories: The Path of Destinies

A simple action RPG with an interesting approach to storytelling

Summary

Stories is a PC/Console ARPG. You basically click buttons to kill enemies. As you level up you gain abilities to kill enemies better, but the enemies get tougher. 

Meanwhile, a narrator describes the story. At first it seems like a generic hero saves the world story with a few choose your own adventure options. However, at the end of the story you die and discover that each decision you make leads to a different ending. Each ending will reveal one of four discoveries. Once all four discoveries have been learned, new choices will become available and one path will win the game.

The Action

Action RPG isn't my favorite genre. I love me some Diablo, but 3rd person dodge/parry/thrust games make me want to play an FPS. The action in Stories is simple enough to be fun. There is just barely enough variety of enemies and abilities to keep the action from being boring. Leveling up is fun enough but not that special.

The Story

I am totally jaded to stories. I have seen them all so it takes something special to make me notice. Stories is a little bit special. The basic story is a typical "hero saves the world" trope. However, while most stories are told linearly, the full story is revealed after multiple replays. The narrator does a great job remember your past choices to influence your future choices. For example, the first time you play, the choices might be "save your friend, find the powerful artifact, or contact the rebel base", but after you learn your friend is a traitor, the first choice might be, "save your friend, even though he is likely a traitor". 

Because you see the story from so many different angles, you can't help but become engaged. 

Spoilers or No?

For most games I don't mind reading spoilers if it will save me trouble. If I die to a boss three or four times, I'll check Google to find out the trick. If I'm about to leave a zone, I might read a guide to see if there is anything I should grab now so I don't have to come back later.

In Stories there are 25 different endings but only 5 are mandatory to win the game. After seeing 2 or 3, I knew I was not going to be a completionist so I read spoilers to finish the game after about 7 endings. That was great for me because the game was at a high point for fun. There were plenty more skills to unlock, but none of them excited me. 

I would suggest holding off on spoilers for as long as the game is engaging. You can milk a lot of fun times out of this game. On the other hand, you can cheat and win, and still go back to see everything you missed. 

Should You Buy It?

Yes, if you are looking for an action RPG with a unique style of storytelling.

The Flame in the Flood

The Flame in the Flood

A cute roguelite.

I've been cleaning out my Steam backlog, so this is another game I didn't give much of a chance. It seems plenty fun, but it just makes me want to play Don't Starve. 

Endless Sky

Endless Sky

I think I missed the point of this. Take some missions, hit autopilot, deliver missions, rinse, repeat. I didn't get into combat because it looked like a big investment of time and not so fun. Buying and selling goods seemed to generate way less money than missions. 

So, basically like any quest game, but lacking the fun thing you to do complete the quest.

Fallout Tactics

Fallout Tactics

I didn't give this much of a chance. I was immediately turned off for these reasons:

• Too Slow: The animations take too long to do anything. No way am I going to sit through an entire mission.
• Poor UI: Should I loot this weapon? No easy way to find how much damage it does. I want to heal somebody. Sit though a long animation just to see a cryptic message "item missing". I can't shoot the enemy... why? Maybe a tree is in the way? I guess I'll move around a bit. How far do I need to move to have a clear shot?
• Outdated Graphics: I'm not graphics snob, but these aren't "ugly but functional". 

Conclusion

I love Fallout and I love tactical games, but this is too dated for me.

Civilization 6

Civilization 6

The latest offering in the influential Civilization franchise.

History

Except for Civ 3, I have put many hours into all of the different Civilization games. They helped formed the 4X genre and continue to redefine it.  Each release has innovation while remaining true to it's roots. 

Review

There is a lot of breadth to Civilization 6. You can play a very different game from one to the next but even if your play a similar style, the game will certainly evolve in a different fashion. The replayability is endless. 

However, despite the replayability, I found myself increasingly bored with the game. Part of it is the learning curve. To play efficiently you need to know how systems interact, and looking that up can be tedious. The poor automation is another factor. For example, exploring manually is fairly slow but autoexplore does a bad job. 

I found the AI to be extremely lackluster. I wasn't playing on a very hard difficulty level but the reviews say the AI is bad at all levels. It is unsatisfying to build up forces for a complicated battle just to have the enemy do something dumb to give you an unearned victory.

Should You Buy It?

For me, this game was not worth while. It made me want to play Civ 4 and I stopped in the middle of my second real game. However, there is a lot going for it. It looks great and there is a lot going on. I suspect the game is quite fun for someone new to the franchise or someone who puts in the hours to learn how they want to play the game. I wish I could give a clear yes/no answer to this one, but I can't.

Don't Starve Together

Don't Starve Together

The multiplayer version of the dark cartoonish survival game.

Overview

In Don't Starve Together your goal is to survive as long as possible, perhaps indefinitely. You survive by exploring, crafting, and building. There are a variety of things trying to kill you:

Hunger: Early on, hunger can be a threat. Scavenging yields enough food to keep you going, but as you gather materials and build a base, hunger can be a real problem. Once you are established, hunger is no longer a problem and you can use food more for healing or sanity than hunger.

Wolves: Every so often, wolves attack. Early on this can be a problem if you aren't prepared with weapons and armor. Later on the wolf packs become large and can freeze you or burn your buildings down. There are plenty of tricks to deal with them. A common trick is to keep your base near a beefalo herd and let the wolves aggro on the beefalo.

Giant Bosses: Every season, a giant spawns. They hit hard, drain your sanity, and can destroy your base. These are major challenges for a new player.

Monsters: There are plenty of threats out in the wild but for the most part they can be ignored, kited, or run away from. You should only engage with them when you are prepared, so in that regard they should never present a real problem.

Combat

There is a fair amount of combat in Don't Starve. For the most part, combat is simple and engaging. You have to learn to kite, and that can be annoying. Armor and helmets are a big deal, but micromanaging your clothes is also a little annoying. 

Crafting

The crafting in Don't Starve is pretty strong. There is a little bit of a tech tree, but not much. Some items are rare early on so you might make a special trip to hunt down a certain ingredient in a dangerous area.

Building

When playing on public servers some people like to be nomads but playing with friends it is far easier to build a base. For the most part, the base is a few structures and a lot of storage boxes. Nearby you will plant trees and other resources. This aspect of the game is pretty good.

Interface

Overall, the interface isn't bad but it could be a lot better. 

Movement and Combat

Movement is a little clunky. For tactical movement you want to use WASD, but to move in a straight line you want to use the mouse. Mouse movement is not very responsive. Kiting requires precise timing but hitting the combat key with the movement keys is awkward.

Crafting

Crafting games are often clunky and this is no exception. When you want to build something you probably have the ingredients scattered in various unlabeled boxes. Once you pick them up you use the clunky crafting menu to build the item. If you haven't built item before you must stand near the technology building to prototype it. If it's a building, you place it. Otherwise it shows up somewhere in your inventory. Then you put back all the ingredients into random boxes. 

There are some mods out there that help with this. One mod will highlight chests that contain ingredients for a recipe you are contemplating. Another mod helps you know where you can place buildings. 

Inventory

I think the interface for the inventory could be improved. Hotkeys exist to equip items in certain slots, but items often end up scattered randomly in your inventory. It would be nice to designate a slot as "helmet preferred". Maybe designate a key to be "equip torch, I don't care where it is in the inventory", or "equip a weapon". It's annoying that when a monster jumps at me I have to run away just so I can figure out where my weapon and armor is. I used to keep them on hotkeys, but it got annoying. 

Multiplayer

I originally played Don't Starve solo. It was a little bit fun, but it didn't engage me for long. There are too many ways to die or get something wrong. When playing with another person, they can bring you back to life and can help when you get in over your head. 

Should You Buy It?

I would only recommend the solo version if you are a fan of the genre. I really enjoy crafting games, and this was interesting, but I only played for 12 hours. Two years later I found some friends to play with and we have put in over 200 hours of Don't Starve Together. I've looked at some of the public servers and they don't entice me at all.

Heroes of a Broken Land

Heroes of a Broken Land

I did not play long, so this isn't a fair review.

Overview

Heroes of a Broken Lands is a turn-based 1st person party dungeon crawler. The bulk of the game takes place exploring dungeons and fighting monsters. There is some overland travel and there are towns to visit.

Why I Bought It

One of the first games I ever loved was Wizardry, and this has a similar feel. While this game is superior to Wizardry, the adventure genre has had 40 years to improve. Wizardry does not stand the test of time. It helped shape the genre, but has been long surpassed. 

Why Does It Have Such Good Reviews?

Honestly, I don't know. Maybe it's a gem that you don't understand until you have played 10 hours. People compare it to Civilization -- I have a hard time believing that.

Recommendation

I'm not sure how it ended up in my library. It's currently $15, and that's more than I would pay for this game even during a 75% sale. Maybe it was 90% off and I couldn't pass it up? In any case, nothing the screenshots or reviews say make me think my impression is incorrect. "Addictive game" doesn't mean "good game" if you are just mindlessly pushing buttons.

The Binding of Isaac

The Binding of Isaac

An arcade game with a dark theme, boss fights, and many power ups.

Overview

I've played a lot of arcade games in my life. They can be fun, but small innovations aren't enough to keep me interested in the genre as a whole. 

The Binding of Isaac isn't fundamentally different from any twin stick shooter, like Robotron. Since I basically have negative feelings about the game, let's go over what it's good at:

Theme

The dark humor theme is unique but it isn't engaging in a significant way. Even if you think tampon weapons and aborted fetus monsters are funny, it's a quick laugh at best. One episode of South Park has more irreverent humor than this entire game.

Powerups

While powerups are nothing new in the action genre, The Binding of Isaac has a whole lot of them with a large variety of effects. 

Boss Fights

There are a fair number of bosses to fight to keep the game interesting. How you beat them can be influenced by the powerups you have.

The Bad

There is nothing specifically bad about the game. I personally don't like the feel of the action. The hitboxes are unclear, movement is a little too fast and awkward. Your shots have a weird type of momentum. I don't care for the theme.

But all of that is subjective. What damns the game to me is that I have more fun playing free flash games or iphone games than I do playing The Binding of Isaac. There are a million games out there to let me mindlessly shoot things. The only thing Isaac has going for it is a cult following that exploded into a pop-culture phenomenon. 

Should You Buy It?

If all your friends play it and you want to talk "strategy" with them, then yes. If you want to play the best action game out there, then skip it. If you just want to shoot monsters, go find something free to play.

SanctuaryRPG

SanctuaryRPG

A simple ascii adventure game.

Overview

Sanctuary is a cute RPG that makes extensive use of ascii art. You choose a class, grab a weapon, kill monsters to get loot and gain levels so you can kill tougher monsters to gain better loot... you get the idea. There is a plot and many different random encounters.

Gameplay

Most of what you do is combat. You have a few choices, but generally you just enact your combo moves over and over. Every so often you need to dodge or throw an ultimate. You might occasionally heal or use another special move. I only got far with the Ranger and his gameplay was extremely simple.

In addition to fighting, there are a lot of things you find in a typical RPG. For example, there is a store, crafting, some sort of alignment/allegiance system, and small side quests.

In the typical mode of play, you get a single life. If you mess up and die, the game is over. There is no save game. It is easy to save scum, but don't do that, just play a different mode.

My Impression

I'm kind of amazed at how many features they put into this simple game, but then I remember my first decent RPG, Wizardry, and it was similar.

Combat with a ranger was so boring and repetitive, it was a chore to beat the game. I didn't look into the autoplay options. Crafting is kind of fun, but not all that involved. Same with the other mini features, like owning a tavern and the arena.

The plot of the game was just silly. You fight demons, robots, skeletons, bats, and pools of slime. The humor relied mostly on being farcical and was rarely clever. Still, there was an occasional reference that made me crack a smile.

I'm not a big fan of the basic combat. It is pretty close to cheesy web games or Final Fantasy.

Should You Buy This Game?

I think I paid less than $2 so it's hard to say it's a bad deal. It doesn't take long to install and get started. If you think you might like the off-the-wall humor or the ascii art style, go for it. Otherwise, there are thousands of better games out there, and many are literally free.

Hacknet

Hacknet

A hacking simulator.

Overview

Play as a hacker trying to solve a mystery or avenge a death, or something. I didn't get very far into the plot. Mostly you use console commands on a simplified UNIX system to hack into servers and copy or destroy files.

The basic game is a combination of a story being told with some server hacking. A few other systems are used, like email and bulletin boards.

My Impression

It was interesting at first but got repetitive very quickly. I didn't get far enough into the game to see if it got more detailed. I'm already comfortable with UNIX so using a gimped version didn't make me feel like a hacker. I'm not especially versed in hacking but I know a little about security, and this game didn't teach me much.

I only spent about three hours before deciding Hacknet is not for me.

Should You Buy It?

Maybe. It has good reviews. The story wasn't anything new to me but I've read my share of hacker novels. If you don't know anything about UNIX or sever security you might learn something. It gets cheap during Steam sales so even though it only entertained me for an hour or two, it wasn't a waste of money.

Far Cry 3

Far Cry 3

This is my first Far Cry game. I enjoyed it quite a lot.

Overview

Far Cry has been around a while so I'm only going to hit the highlights. 

At it's core, Far Cry is a first person shooter. Everything else the game does is secondary to putting the enemy in the crosshairs. 

While combat and slaughter is the basis of Far Cry, there is a whole lot more going on. Most missions can be accomplished more easily through stealth than frontal assault. It looks like there are many styles of play available -- for example I didn't like the obvious choice of assault rifle and preferred a light machine gun for general firepower. I hated using the bow, but some people swear by it. The flamethrower is lots of fun and you could build an entire play style around it. I talked with one guy who used two of his four slots for different sniper rifles.

The crafting system is decent. There are skill trees, money, and a large variety of weapons that can be improved. 

In addition to the main storyline there are tons of secondary and tertiary objectives. A completionist could spend hundreds of hours with this game.

My Reaction

I really enjoyed the plot. It was strong as satisfying but fairly unobtrusive when I wanted to play in the sandbox world. The minor characters in the game were well developed. 

The tower puzzles were neutral for me. I didn't especially enjoy them, but it was welcome variety from the usual mission that involves killing things.

The most fun for me was taking enemy camps. I would try for maximum stealth but usually I would get detected so it was satisfying when I could take a camp completely silently. If you go in guns blazing, they call for reinforcements and the camp becomes very tough unless you cheese it.

In general I'm a fan of the strong story 1st person shooter genre and this did not disappoint.

The Cons

Like most games that are build for consoles, I had to change the field of view to avoid motion sickness.

The cut scenes where choppy for me despite a high framerate. I did some research and this is a fairly common problem on the PC. I never solved it, but it isn't too intrusive.

Because the game is cross platform, the interface isn't slick. I hate "hold E to interact". I want to just tap E. There were a few times I died because I would hold Q to heal but it didn't take. As far as cross platform interface goes, I'd say Far Cry is average. It's better than Assassin's Creed 3 and worse than Fallout 4.

The Game is Old, Should I Buy It?

Yes. At least by today's standards the graphics are quite decent. Everything else about the game is timeless. I will certainly buy Far Cry 4 the next time it is on sale.

Crypt of the Necrodancer

Crypt of the Necrodancer

A roguelike rhythm game.

Overview

Crypt of the Necrodancer brilliantly combines two genres, the roguelike and the rhythm game tied together with a weak story. To beat the game you must clear four zones each with three levels. After the fourth zone, you fight a boss to win. You start with two characters unlocked but there are about 10 in total. In that respect it's a roguelite. You don't level up or have stats. You do pick up items that can have a large impact. Levels are randomly generated and populated with monsters and loot. Each level even has an awesome Shopkeeper.

But wait, there's more. Each level plays a unique song and you can only move on the beat (although it's very forgiving). This is in stark contrast to a typical roguelike where you can spend minutes or hours pondering a single move. Because of this, Necrodancer feels more like an action game.

Comparision to Other Games

Difficult! This game is quite unique. But I'll give it a shot.

Rogue/Nethack/Crawl/Adom

Necrodancer is nothing like the original Rogue games. It doesn't have the depth and the gameplay is very different. It shares randomly generated content, a theme of dungeon exploration with levels, and multiple classes to play.

Dance Dance Revolution

The rhythm aspects are very much like DDR. However, DDR is more about precise timing and hitting the required direction. Crypt of the Necrodancer is more forgiving about timing, and generally you have a choice what direction to go. The big difference is that Necrodancer often requires complex tactical thinking while following the beat. Some monsters have patterns that make them easy to kill, but trying to handle multiple threats gets intense. You can play Crypt of the Necrodancer using a dance pad. Look it up on YouTube, it looks amazing.

Realm of the Mad Overlord

This shares the same level of roguelike. Overlord has more content and more character development, but they are both pretty lite. Overlord is a bullet-hell game where Necrodancer is rhythm.

My Reaction

I loved Crypt of the Necrodancer. I enjoy roguelikes and some rhythm games and it pairs the genres really well. I'm probably done with it now after 53 hours of play. Some of the characters and game modes are far beyond my skill.

Should You Buy It?

If you are patient like me you wait for sales. I think I bought it 75% off for $5. Totally worth it.

Diablo Season 12 -- Witch Doctor

Diablo

I used Season 12 as an opportunity to play the Witch Doctor. It was fun, but I suspect that's because the free set was a very powerful one. I have now played all of the classes at a high level, except Necromancer.

My favorites are Demon Hunter, Wizard, and maybe Witch Doctor. Eventually I will get around to playing Necromancer outside of Seasonal play.

Now that I have unlocked the maximum number of tabs, I doubt I will go back to playing seasonal. Since Diablo 4 is likely to be announced soon, I might not have much Diablo 3 left to play.

Check out my previous Diablo entry.

Batman: Arkham City

Batman: Arkham City

This is another review almost a year late.

Overview

Arkham City is an action fighting adventure game where you play Batman. You do missions to save the city.

Impression

Seems like a solid game, but I just don't care about Batman. Didn't finish it. Action seemed solid, voice acting was fantastic. Lots of dumb collection objectives that are so common these days.

Compare to Other Games

Shadows of Mordor

Very similar, but I much preferred Mordor. Combat is about the same. Batman had a stronger story if you are into Batman, which I am not. I finished Mordor and almost restarted it. Maybe even purchased the DLC, which is rare for me. I couldn't get a third the way through Batman.

Far Cry 3

I'm currently playing this one. It is far superior to Arkham City.

Tomb Raider

I really liked the Tomb Raider I played in 2013. The story is simpler but more engaging. I mean that I sometimes empathized with Lara Croft, where I could never suspend my disbelief for Batman. 

Assassin's Creed

I have a love/hate relationship with Assassin's Creed. It feels like it was made for a console and is clunky on the PC. If it wasn't for that clunky feeling, I would easily recommend Assassin's Creed over Arkham City.

Should You Buy It?

Despite my negative review, the only real complaint is that I don't especially care about Batman. I've heard Batman fans really enjoy this game. No idea why I would enjoy Tomb Raider or Far Cry over it, but I do. I say, if you like Batman, this is a sold game.

The Red Solstice

The Red Solstice

The Red Solstice is a medium-light co-op action tactical bullet-hell game. Grab some friends (up to 8?) and get ready to kill aliens or zombies or nazis or whatever they are. 

Impression

I wanted to like this game, but it just didn't click well with my group. There was a little too much frustration at being out of ammo or dying too much or being unsure what to do. We probably should have learned the game single player before trying out with a group, but the single player game didn't hold my attention.

Recommendation

Play Alien Swarm instead.

Mordheim: City of the Damned

Mordheim: City of the Damned

This post is way overdue. It's been over a year since I've played it.

Mordheim is a genre that I really like. A few technical flaws prevent this game from being fantastic but it's still very enjoyable.

Overview

Mordheim is a tactical squad-based RPG with a strong storyline set in the Warhammer universe. It has a lot going for it.

Story and Setting

If you like the Warhammer fantasy setting, this game is spot on. Each of the campaigns capture the flavor of that race.

Campaign

The strongest feature is playing a campaign. It is so much fun to level up your units or watch them get scars and injuries. There are meaningful decisions about how to spend gold and who to train and when.

Tactical Combat

Perhaps the weakest element of this game is the tactical combat, but even so it's pretty good. The AI is smart enough to not do too much obviously stupid stuff. You have warriors, archers, mages, etc to put together combined strategies. Scenarios often start you off scattered so you must make decisions about whether to regroup, ambush the scattered enemy, or collect the loot that dots the map.

Flaws

The biggest flaw is that scenarios take too long. Maybe there is a setting to turn off animations and such, but even then there is a fair amount of fiddling around to maximize the use of your action points.

Another flaw is scenario end conditions. There is a lot of loot scattered around to pick up, but the scenario ends when the enemy fails a morale check. Sometimes you want to avoid beating the enemy too quickly so you have time to pick up more loot. It is very unsatisfying to me.

The third biggest flaw is that some scenarios can be buggy or just too large. One mission was huge and had teleport puzzles. I hated running around trying to map colors of teleporters to figure out what still needed to be explored. When the scenario bugged out and I had to start from the beginning, I rage quit.

Worth Buying?

To me, yes, absolutely. I'm not a total Warhammer fanboy but I do like the setting. This game is faithful to the RPG/Boardgame. It does a good job implementing my favorite features in one of my favorite genres. Unfortunately, because of some of the flaws I haven't finished a campaign. It just takes too long to play, at least the way I like to play.

Compare to Other Games

XCOM: This is a tough one. They have a lot of similarities. The campaign features of Mordheim are simpler but more enjoyable. The tactical combat in XCOM is cleaner, and ultimately I am willing to play an entire XCOM campaign but not a Mordheim one. To me, XCOM feels more snowbally -- if you win a lot you are likely to keep winning, but if you lose a few missions your game might become impossible. I suspect Mordheim has a better middle ground where you can still come back after losses. Ultimately I would recommend XCOM unless you prefer fantasy over sci-fi.

Civilization: Civ 4 was the last Civ that I really enjoyed. It's not exactly a campaign of squad based combat, but it has both tactical and a strategic elements. As king of the 4X genre, it's hard to recommend any game over it. If you don't care about exploration and city planning and want more squad based combat, Mordheim is a better choice.

Heroes of Might and Magic, Total War, or any other Squad Based Tactical Combat

For me most of those games miss the mark. I can't think of any game of this type I would recommend over Mordheim or XCOM. 

Destiny 2

Destiny 2

It's a fine AAA game that didn't hold my interest.

I'm pretty far behind in this review as it's been a few months since I've played. I was enjoying myself and then one day I didn't load it up anymore. 

Type of Game

Destiny 2 is a MMO 1st person shooter with loot. It's mostly co-op with some pvp. There is a strong story and three classes to play. Once you hit max level, the game turns into a loot grind like most MMOs. There are many different types of events to fit your preferred playstyle.

Opinions

For the most part I enjoyed the game play. The weapons are fun, the powers are fun, the encounters are fun. After max level, a lot of options opened up but after doing them all a few times, it felt repetitive. I have done plenty of grinding in Diablo and World of Warcraft and this felt about the same.

Compare to Other Games

Borderlands

I thought Borderlands 2 was an amazing game. I prefer it to Destiny 2 in all ways, except for the MMO part. If you like to play solo or with a friend, Borderlands is stronger. If you like a rich world with strangers, some raids, and some pvp, Destiny 2 is better.

Diablo 3

Diablo popularized the loot grind and continues to be king. For loot grind, Diablo 3 is superior to Destiny 2. Many unique artifacts, set items, ancient and primal make the loot grind a richer experience. 

But really, do you prefer 3rd person or 1st person? Because that playstyle preference is a big deal.

World of Warcraft

(Or any MMORPG)

RPGs have a much wider variety of character options. They also have more difficult raids that require precise team coordination. Game play is more about abilities, tactics, party balance and less about shooting accurately.

Overwatch

(Or any 1st person shooter)

I really like Overwatch so perhaps I am biased. It is a much more competitive game where your mistakes let your team down and your awesome plays turn defeat into victory. Overwatch PVP is far superior to Destiny PVP, but Destiny has many more different ways to play. If you just want to shoot things, play Overwatch.

Good Value?

Always a difficult question. You can get some amazing games cheap on Steam. You can already find Destiny 2 on sale sometimes. Buying a AAA game at full price is worth while if you want to be swept up in that initial rush of excitement. You are playing with a bunch of other early adopters. 

Destiny 2 is solid. If you buy AAA games, this one is a fine purchase. Not an amazing purchase, but no regrets.

Volantia

Volantia

Got this one for free. I was excited when I realized it involved crafting chains with little men carrying goods along roads that you build. I have fond memories of Serf City: Life is Feudal and I like the Settlers type of game. Nothing has been scratching that itch lately so I had high hopes for Volantia. Also, it is the same developer who did the excellent Desktop Dungeon.

Worth Playing Once For Free

While I enjoyed my one playthough, it was enough. Unless I'm missing something, there isn't a lot of game there. The crafting chains aren't very complicated and I never felt much urgency. The objectives are a little odd -- you must build a long road to a monument to keep playing for another 20 minutes until you finally build the YouWin building.

It was a fine little game and I think without much work it could be turned into something great. It needs more depth in the production chains, and perhaps additional threats.

The Turing Test

The Turing Test

I loved The Talos Principle so finally got around to playing this one.

What Is It?

The Turing Test is a 1st person puzzle game. It has a lot in common with Portal and The Talos Principle. There are some items and some physics and lots of puzzle solving. Meanwhile, there is an overall story being told with the help of a mysterious computer-like mentor/tormentor. 

My Reaction

Lots of fun. The puzzles were good and the story especially appealed to me. I don't want to give many spoilers but it was quite philosophical and dealt with the nature of humanity.

Should You Get It?

Maybe. I never played the first Portal, but Portal 2 was very good and a bigger part of gaming culture. Get that instead. I also really liked Talos Principle. So if you've enjoyed those games, The Turing Test is a safe bet. 

One advantage of Turing Test is that it is shorter than the others. I did my playthrough in less than 15 hours, compared to 25 for Portal 2 and 30 for Talos Principle.