Total War: Warhammer is a turn-based strategy game with real-time tactical battles set in the Warhammer Fantasy Battles universe.
What is Great about this game:
- The real-time tactical battles are beautiful and terribly satisfying to play while the "one-more-turn" compulsion of the turn-based strategic game is as strong as in any Total War game in recent memory
- Giving the units more active abilities (while slightly micro-heavy) makes the tactical battles much more engrossing and compelling. There is more a sense of you needing to be there to act rather than just watching the armies fight each other
- The new customization and upgrade options for your lords and heroes add an almost RPG-like element to the game that is fantastic
- Heroes (Agents from previous Total War games) can now integrate into your army and fight as a unit alongside your regular army
- The fantasy Warhammer setting allows for the developers to free themselves somewhat from the binds of historical fact
- The Steam workshop modding support provides key customization options to make the game play as you want it to without issue
- The Warhammer universe is an excellent backdrop for a Total War game, and they come together brilliantly
- The game was so impactful on me that I went out and bought my first GW miniature (Mannfred Von Carstein)
What is Good about this game:
- There is a game that the developers could make derived from this game where you build up a party of only (a few) heroes and go through the country-side taking on and defeating standard Total War (20+ unit) armies. I would buy that game and play a lot of that game. That isn't really important to the review of this game except to say that that is how good the new lord and hero RPG elements are
- Good use of Steam features including cloud saves, trading cards, etc
What could be improved in this game:
- The new hero and lord abilities - while great - can be a little micro-management heavy as you will spend a significant time in the battles - especially in large battles - just searching for the next hero/lord ability to pop. If a few more of them had been passive abilities - especially for heavy magic users - that probably wouldn't have been a terrible thing
- The city management options are quite sparse and relatively uninteresting. Other than a main couple of core provinces that produce units, most of your additional cities will upgrade almost identically
- I don't like the mixture of fantasy units and gunpowder units
Conclusion:
At this point, I think that Steam workshop support for Total War games is almost a requirement - not because the games are bad by themselves, but because such effortless modding gives these games entirely new life and the freedom to play them as you wish, so this review takes that reality into account.
I am honestly shocked by so many bad reviews for this game. This is one of the exceedingly rare times when I think the professional reviewers were more accurate than the gaming public. The game isn't perfect by itself, but any modest tweaks to the game can be made via the copious mods available in the workshop, so unless you just can't stand a fantasy setting for a Total War game, this is clearly one of the best playing Total War games in years. Moreover, its innovation in the RPG-like lord and hero skill upgrade paths to me feels like an essential innovation for all future Total War games.
10.0 / 10.0
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Friday, April 22, 2016
Ashes of the Singularity Review
Ashes of the Singularity is a real-time strategy (RTS) game at an epic scale based in the far future.
What is Great about this game:
- Very strong RTS game mechanics with solid tactical and strategic elements
- An elegant combination of various other great RTS games (Supreme Commander, Company of Heroes, etc) but still with an authentic flavor of its own
- Incredible replayability and playstyle variety - particularly in skirmish mode
- The unit management for such a large-scale game is second to none. Put units into an army, and they simply work smartly together. No micromanagement!
- Micromanagement is at a minimal level for a game of this scale. Armies are generally smart enough (assuming decent unit composition) to actually follow orders and execute on them relatively well
- The games visuals and tech are amazing. The Nitous engine (which is what this game runs on) is a beauty and looks so lovely that I switched graphics cards to run it better
What is Good about this game:
- Good unit variety with excellent hard counters (e.g. Apollo > Bomber > Zeus > Apollo across several different combinations of units etc)
- Dreadnoughts look and play amazingly - good depth and satisfaction to their upgrade tree, just fun to watch blow stuff up
- There is almost unlimited skill-ceiling even against the AI as the skirmish AI is quite excellent
- A good game of skirmish can feel epic and still be done in 30-60 minutes
What could be improved in this game:
- Some of the controls can be a little fiddly:
- Very large groups of units don't form armies entirely well (e.g. perpetually having the option to group into an army even after you just gave that command)
- If an army loses its "lead" unit (i.e. the biggest highest level unit), the army appears to forget all its orders and ungroups
- Sometimes giving simple capture node orders simply won't work, and you have to target either around the node or click many times which can be frustrating
- The dreadnaught upgrades can be a little tedious on very large maps. Would be nice if there was an icon in the GUI similar to the idle engineer icon to simply auto-find them and select them to upgrade faster with less hunting, even if you find them, can sometimes be hard to select the exact ship among a large group
- I wish the "tech"/quanta upgrade tree was deeper (i.e. more options than just more damage/more health - maybe faster movement, armor penetration, stronger fixed defenses, etc)
- The AI can be tough even at lower difficulties until you learn the game pretty well
- Would love more large skirmish maps
- The story and campaign are lacking, but that isn't why I play RTS games. As an aside, I also don't order salads at a steakhouse :)
Conclusion:
This is simply the best skirmish RTS game to come out probably since Supreme Commander. And even so, the devs are working on it constantly to improve on the game, and the progress continues to show. If you like RTS games, and particularly RTS games that focus on the skirmish mode or large-to-epic scale RTS games, this game is really second to none right now.
9.5 / 10.0
What is Great about this game:
- Very strong RTS game mechanics with solid tactical and strategic elements
- An elegant combination of various other great RTS games (Supreme Commander, Company of Heroes, etc) but still with an authentic flavor of its own
- Incredible replayability and playstyle variety - particularly in skirmish mode
- The unit management for such a large-scale game is second to none. Put units into an army, and they simply work smartly together. No micromanagement!
- Micromanagement is at a minimal level for a game of this scale. Armies are generally smart enough (assuming decent unit composition) to actually follow orders and execute on them relatively well
- The games visuals and tech are amazing. The Nitous engine (which is what this game runs on) is a beauty and looks so lovely that I switched graphics cards to run it better
What is Good about this game:
- Good unit variety with excellent hard counters (e.g. Apollo > Bomber > Zeus > Apollo across several different combinations of units etc)
- Dreadnoughts look and play amazingly - good depth and satisfaction to their upgrade tree, just fun to watch blow stuff up
- There is almost unlimited skill-ceiling even against the AI as the skirmish AI is quite excellent
- A good game of skirmish can feel epic and still be done in 30-60 minutes
What could be improved in this game:
- Some of the controls can be a little fiddly:
- Very large groups of units don't form armies entirely well (e.g. perpetually having the option to group into an army even after you just gave that command)
- If an army loses its "lead" unit (i.e. the biggest highest level unit), the army appears to forget all its orders and ungroups
- Sometimes giving simple capture node orders simply won't work, and you have to target either around the node or click many times which can be frustrating
- The dreadnaught upgrades can be a little tedious on very large maps. Would be nice if there was an icon in the GUI similar to the idle engineer icon to simply auto-find them and select them to upgrade faster with less hunting, even if you find them, can sometimes be hard to select the exact ship among a large group
- I wish the "tech"/quanta upgrade tree was deeper (i.e. more options than just more damage/more health - maybe faster movement, armor penetration, stronger fixed defenses, etc)
- The AI can be tough even at lower difficulties until you learn the game pretty well
- Would love more large skirmish maps
- The story and campaign are lacking, but that isn't why I play RTS games. As an aside, I also don't order salads at a steakhouse :)
Conclusion:
This is simply the best skirmish RTS game to come out probably since Supreme Commander. And even so, the devs are working on it constantly to improve on the game, and the progress continues to show. If you like RTS games, and particularly RTS games that focus on the skirmish mode or large-to-epic scale RTS games, this game is really second to none right now.
9.5 / 10.0
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Magic: Duels Review
Magic: Duels is an electronic collectible card game (CCG) based on the Magic: The Gathering physical card game.
What is Great about this game:
- This game is a pretty faithful recreation of the Magic: The Gathering card game, likely the best collectible card game around for a few decades
- Unless you are deep into Magic already, this is by far the best entry point into the game as a whole and generally the best way to play some quick Magic duels
- Over the decades, Magic has become a deep and sometimes complicated game (which means lots of rules to track), and playing it electronically allows you to focus on just playing such a deep and strategic game - rather than focusing on rules adjudication
- The free-to-play mechanics of buying boosters is generally fair (if a bit grindy), but one huge improvement over the physical version of the game is that you cannot get more than the allotted cards, so the more boosters you get, the more likely they are to have few commons and more and more rare (i.e. better) cards
What is Good about this game:
- There is decent variety in the types of games you can play, but they could certainly stand to have more - perhaps have the campaign available to go through with your own deck
- The campaigns and tutorials are generally good at onboarding new players
- Good use of Steam features such as achievements, trading cards, etc
What is Bad about this game:
- The game is quite stingy in the way that it hands out coins to buy boosters. It doesn't award coins for playing against friends or playing two-headed giant. I think they are fixing the 2HG issue, but it still seems dumb that I can't earn even 5 coins for playing against a friend
- The amount of cards and card sets available to play with is fairly small right now. It has plenty of gameplay possibilities just with what it has right now, but it's hard not to want some more of the vast number of card sets available in the physical game
- For such a relatively simple game graphically, the performance is generally a little slow both in connecting to the network and in gameplay
Conclusion:
Unless you are already a Magic afficianado, this is simply the best way to get into and play Magic which is the best collectible card game around.
9.5 / 10.0
What is Great about this game:
- This game is a pretty faithful recreation of the Magic: The Gathering card game, likely the best collectible card game around for a few decades
- Unless you are deep into Magic already, this is by far the best entry point into the game as a whole and generally the best way to play some quick Magic duels
- Over the decades, Magic has become a deep and sometimes complicated game (which means lots of rules to track), and playing it electronically allows you to focus on just playing such a deep and strategic game - rather than focusing on rules adjudication
- The free-to-play mechanics of buying boosters is generally fair (if a bit grindy), but one huge improvement over the physical version of the game is that you cannot get more than the allotted cards, so the more boosters you get, the more likely they are to have few commons and more and more rare (i.e. better) cards
What is Good about this game:
- There is decent variety in the types of games you can play, but they could certainly stand to have more - perhaps have the campaign available to go through with your own deck
- The campaigns and tutorials are generally good at onboarding new players
- Good use of Steam features such as achievements, trading cards, etc
What is Bad about this game:
- The game is quite stingy in the way that it hands out coins to buy boosters. It doesn't award coins for playing against friends or playing two-headed giant. I think they are fixing the 2HG issue, but it still seems dumb that I can't earn even 5 coins for playing against a friend
- The amount of cards and card sets available to play with is fairly small right now. It has plenty of gameplay possibilities just with what it has right now, but it's hard not to want some more of the vast number of card sets available in the physical game
- For such a relatively simple game graphically, the performance is generally a little slow both in connecting to the network and in gameplay
Conclusion:
Unless you are already a Magic afficianado, this is simply the best way to get into and play Magic which is the best collectible card game around.
9.5 / 10.0
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Total War: Attila Review
Total War: Attila is the latest iteration on the series with turn-based strategy and real-time tactical combat set in the time period during the fall of the Roman empire.
What is Great about this game:
- Mechanically, the most sophisticated and playable Total War game to date
- Family trees and factional politics are implemented smartly and with real consequences
- Improved faction options such as creating hordes and relocating improve strategic depth
What is Good about this game:
- Good use of Steam features such as cloud saves, trading cards, etc
What is Bad about this game:
- The game is centered around the fall of the Roman empire and as such is set in a relatively bleak period
- The difficulty of the game seems tuned for players that want a constant struggle (perhaps related to the setting as well)
- Due to its setting, the campaign of the Romans is centered largely around "maintenance and defense" of the existing empire rather than on the generally more enjoyable "expansion through conquest" of Total War: Rome 2
Conclusion:
Take Total War: Rome 2 and put in significantly better strategy mechanics but place it in a less appealing, more bleak, and more difficult setting and you have an excellent Total War game if perhaps not quite pinnacle of the series.
9.0 / 10.0
What is Great about this game:
- Mechanically, the most sophisticated and playable Total War game to date
- Family trees and factional politics are implemented smartly and with real consequences
- Improved faction options such as creating hordes and relocating improve strategic depth
What is Good about this game:
- Good use of Steam features such as cloud saves, trading cards, etc
What is Bad about this game:
- The game is centered around the fall of the Roman empire and as such is set in a relatively bleak period
- The difficulty of the game seems tuned for players that want a constant struggle (perhaps related to the setting as well)
- Due to its setting, the campaign of the Romans is centered largely around "maintenance and defense" of the existing empire rather than on the generally more enjoyable "expansion through conquest" of Total War: Rome 2
Conclusion:
Take Total War: Rome 2 and put in significantly better strategy mechanics but place it in a less appealing, more bleak, and more difficult setting and you have an excellent Total War game if perhaps not quite pinnacle of the series.
9.0 / 10.0
Star Ruler 2 Review
Star Ruler 2 is a hybrid space 4X/RTS set in an unknown galaxy.
What is Great about this game:
- Intuitive and enjoyable fleet design, mechanics, and combat
- Nicely paced 4X/RTS that does not require twitch reflexes or ADHD to have fun
- High level of easy modification available and Steam Workshop support
What is Good about this game:
- Detailed ship builder allows for different ship designs as the game progresses
- Significant options such as diplomacy and trade to play the game as you would want to
- Good use of Steam features such as Workshop, trading cards, etc
What is Bad about this game:
- Frustrating initial difficulty that requires mods to become more reasonable
- Some systems such as the economy, resource dependency, and planetary development are too obtuse even after hours of play
Conclusion:
If you can modify the game to relax its difficulty to a more manageable degree, Star Ruler 2 has a lot of good ideas to bring to the space 4X/RTS genre.
8.0 / 10.0
What is Great about this game:
- Intuitive and enjoyable fleet design, mechanics, and combat
- Nicely paced 4X/RTS that does not require twitch reflexes or ADHD to have fun
- High level of easy modification available and Steam Workshop support
What is Good about this game:
- Detailed ship builder allows for different ship designs as the game progresses
- Significant options such as diplomacy and trade to play the game as you would want to
- Good use of Steam features such as Workshop, trading cards, etc
What is Bad about this game:
- Frustrating initial difficulty that requires mods to become more reasonable
- Some systems such as the economy, resource dependency, and planetary development are too obtuse even after hours of play
Conclusion:
If you can modify the game to relax its difficulty to a more manageable degree, Star Ruler 2 has a lot of good ideas to bring to the space 4X/RTS genre.
8.0 / 10.0
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Review
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a third-person action role-playing game set in a dark fantasy open world.
What is Great about this game:
- Fully fleshed out and realized world that feels lived in and realistic while maintaining its fantasy world character
- The core Witcher game mechanic of investigating, hunting and killing monsters is exceptionally executed and fits perfectly in this type of open world game
- A huge world with an enormous amount of content where each piece of content feels hand-crafted with the intent to be meaningful
- Large, absolutely gorgeous and detailed environments that reward you for exploring
- The story-telling, even (and sometimes especially) in the side quests, is exceptional
- The game provides real choices with real impacts to how you progress through the story and side-quests
- The voice-acting is pervasive and almost entirely excellent
- Character creation is nuanced and allows for many different playstyles
- The combat is tactical and deep allowing for the player to improve their own skill as they progress through the game
What is Good about this game:
- Good use of Steam features such as trading cards, achievements, and cloud saves
- The crafting system, including the Witcher equipment quests, is enjoyable to master
What is Bad about this game:
- At times, the character movement on foot, on horse, and swimming can be slightly finicky and excessively difficult
Conclusion:
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is easily among the finest role-playing games ever made and likely among the finest games of any genre ever made. It is simply a delight to be in the world it creates and should be played by everyone.
10.0 / 10.0
What is Great about this game:
- Fully fleshed out and realized world that feels lived in and realistic while maintaining its fantasy world character
- The core Witcher game mechanic of investigating, hunting and killing monsters is exceptionally executed and fits perfectly in this type of open world game
- A huge world with an enormous amount of content where each piece of content feels hand-crafted with the intent to be meaningful
- Large, absolutely gorgeous and detailed environments that reward you for exploring
- The story-telling, even (and sometimes especially) in the side quests, is exceptional
- The game provides real choices with real impacts to how you progress through the story and side-quests
- The voice-acting is pervasive and almost entirely excellent
- Character creation is nuanced and allows for many different playstyles
- The combat is tactical and deep allowing for the player to improve their own skill as they progress through the game
What is Good about this game:
- Good use of Steam features such as trading cards, achievements, and cloud saves
- The crafting system, including the Witcher equipment quests, is enjoyable to master
What is Bad about this game:
- At times, the character movement on foot, on horse, and swimming can be slightly finicky and excessively difficult
Conclusion:
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is easily among the finest role-playing games ever made and likely among the finest games of any genre ever made. It is simply a delight to be in the world it creates and should be played by everyone.
10.0 / 10.0
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Pillars of Eternity Review
Pillars of Eternity is an isometric party-based computer RPG using real-time-with-pause combat.
What is Great about this game:
- Complex and deep story that moves the game along incredibly well
- Deep character creation and multiple classes each with multiple viable playstyles bringing significant variety to your own playthrough
- Rich and appropriate back story, lore, and flavor text added throughout the game that is worth reading
- Enjoyable tactical combat with numerous options for pausing and other options to make the game more enjoyable
- Unique and sometimes fascinating quest lines with multiple alternative methods for success (e.g. talk yourself out of a combat encounter)
- An ending storyline that was possibly the most thought-provoking and intelligently written as any I have experienced
What is Good about this game:
- The game looks quite nice but could have used more art/animantions to improve it further
- The voice acting is quite good where it exists
- Good use of Steam features (cloud saves, trading cards, achievements, etc)
What is Bad about this game:
- The combat could have been significantly improved (although still very good) by including methods to automate companions similar to the systems in FFXII or Dragon Age: Origins
- Given how story heavy this game is, it would have been much improved by including more voice-over work. The voice acting is very good, but is only available sparsely. The writing is more than worth reading, but having it spoken would have been that much more engrossing.
Conclusion:
Pillars of Eternity is the current pinnacle of story-telling in RPGs with a great combat system and a classic style.
9.5 / 10.0
What is Great about this game:
- Complex and deep story that moves the game along incredibly well
- Deep character creation and multiple classes each with multiple viable playstyles bringing significant variety to your own playthrough
- Rich and appropriate back story, lore, and flavor text added throughout the game that is worth reading
- Enjoyable tactical combat with numerous options for pausing and other options to make the game more enjoyable
- Unique and sometimes fascinating quest lines with multiple alternative methods for success (e.g. talk yourself out of a combat encounter)
- An ending storyline that was possibly the most thought-provoking and intelligently written as any I have experienced
What is Good about this game:
- The game looks quite nice but could have used more art/animantions to improve it further
- The voice acting is quite good where it exists
- Good use of Steam features (cloud saves, trading cards, achievements, etc)
What is Bad about this game:
- The combat could have been significantly improved (although still very good) by including methods to automate companions similar to the systems in FFXII or Dragon Age: Origins
- Given how story heavy this game is, it would have been much improved by including more voice-over work. The voice acting is very good, but is only available sparsely. The writing is more than worth reading, but having it spoken would have been that much more engrossing.
Conclusion:
Pillars of Eternity is the current pinnacle of story-telling in RPGs with a great combat system and a classic style.
9.5 / 10.0
Cities: Skylines Review
Cities: Skylines is a brand new city-building game in the vein of Simcity but built with modern sensibilities.
What is Great about this game:
- The city-building simulation is deep, complex, and incredibly satisfying to master
- The agent and traffic simulation is particularly deep and compelling to manage
- A variety of tools are available to manage almost any problem that arises in your city
- The game looks and runs beautifully
- Available areas for expansion are massive (and truly huge with easy to acquire mods)
- Modding and Steam Workshop support is pervasive in the game, and the modding community is prolific
What is Good about this game:
- Good use of Steam features (cloud saves, trading cards, achievements, etc)
What is Bad about this game:
- Some of the mechanics of the simulation (e.g. freight train depots, RCI) are not well surfaced so it can be a challenge to know how to answer certain problems
Conclusion:
Cities: Skylines is the new benchmark in city building and city simulation games. This is the game to get if you are at all interested in the genre, and everyone should at least try it once.
10.0 / 10.0
What is Great about this game:
- The city-building simulation is deep, complex, and incredibly satisfying to master
- The agent and traffic simulation is particularly deep and compelling to manage
- A variety of tools are available to manage almost any problem that arises in your city
- The game looks and runs beautifully
- Available areas for expansion are massive (and truly huge with easy to acquire mods)
- Modding and Steam Workshop support is pervasive in the game, and the modding community is prolific
What is Good about this game:
- Good use of Steam features (cloud saves, trading cards, achievements, etc)
What is Bad about this game:
- Some of the mechanics of the simulation (e.g. freight train depots, RCI) are not well surfaced so it can be a challenge to know how to answer certain problems
Conclusion:
Cities: Skylines is the new benchmark in city building and city simulation games. This is the game to get if you are at all interested in the genre, and everyone should at least try it once.
10.0 / 10.0
Wasteland 2 Review
Wasteland 2 is an isometric party-based role-playing game set in a post-apocalyptic southeastern United States.
The Great:
- Deep and expansive story that starts quickly and expands out in numerous branching paths
- Real player choices that change both the progression of the story and how gameplay mechanics play out (can avoid combat using conversation)
- Incredible amount of quality content as the story expands to tremendous length and allows for deep exploration
The Good:
- The combat system is of good quality and gives much variety and satisfactory tactical options
The Bad:
- RPG progression skills and traits are locked once selected which can cause significant potential problems for new/inexperienced players
- Some of the areas are notably barren or seemingly unfinished (e.g. all the random encounters that are nearly exact repeats of each other)
Conclusion:
Wasteland 2 should be on everyone's short list for engrossing stories in RPGs.
9.0 / 10.0
The Great:
- Deep and expansive story that starts quickly and expands out in numerous branching paths
- Real player choices that change both the progression of the story and how gameplay mechanics play out (can avoid combat using conversation)
- Incredible amount of quality content as the story expands to tremendous length and allows for deep exploration
The Good:
- The combat system is of good quality and gives much variety and satisfactory tactical options
The Bad:
- RPG progression skills and traits are locked once selected which can cause significant potential problems for new/inexperienced players
- Some of the areas are notably barren or seemingly unfinished (e.g. all the random encounters that are nearly exact repeats of each other)
Conclusion:
Wasteland 2 should be on everyone's short list for engrossing stories in RPGs.
9.0 / 10.0
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