Recent reviews by rebus_forever

*A video version of this review is available here. https://youtu.be/mceKyaHByl0 If you check it out, lemme know you are from Steam in the comments so I can work out how useful writing reviews for Steam is.

*If anyone is intending to re upload this review elsewhere, please get in touch via my Youtube contact emails and provide links when you re-post- Thanks!!


Hey there, your friendly neighbourhood goth here, let’s get miserable.

So eh, welcome to my review for Vermintide’s unofficial prequel - with more rats hunting you at night than Charlie Day has in his nightmares.
So if you like your Walnut Whips 6 ft tall and made of killer plague rats, more orphaned flavoured tragedy than watching every version of of a Christmas Carol back to back, and a late game aesthetic that had papa Nurgle calling his copyright lawyer, then hold on to your sling because this might be the loss and despair simulator for you.

Plague Tale sees you tasked with dodging the inquisition as 5 go mad in medieval France, surrounded by rabid Catholics and child bothering rats- though sadly, that sentence works both ways around.
Set in a lovingly re-created, beautiful looking (‘til the rats turn up) slice of France, on a coming of age adventure that will have you: solving puzzles, sneaking past guards -or pummeling their heads in with stones depending on how you roll- and making friends!
Set within a dual narrative based on the both the personal aspect of finding a cure for your little brother (who has a fairly serious case of the sniffles), and the larger more epic scale aspect of solving the mystery of the rat infestation and plague that has blighted the world in general- and the lives specifically of the main cast of little tikes.

This game is exceptional, whereas the Blair Witch left me disappointed with its attempts at spooky, this game’s excesses please me- despite the slightly too whimsical Ratmagneto phase- however the emotional stuff is all spot on with the writing and voice acting being a cut above.

Plague Tale does somewhat depart from historic adventure into historic fantasy- so if you like your history served without a mixer this might not be as historically accurate as you would prefer.
The game itself is a fairly linear mix of stealth, puzzle solving, emotions and combat with many areas being approachable with a range of methods- depending on personal preference, or the extent to which you desire to turn the small children you play as into mass murderers.

All in all, one of the best games I have played for narrative and balance of gameplay elements with stealth games often frustrating me, while in this case I find the stealth both challenging and rewarding. All this despite Plague Tale not being Dune 2 or Warhammer related- at least not directly.

If you enjoy good narrative, don’t break out in plague hives in contact with a linear focused story, crave ambitious games that make the most of an almost accurate, relatively underused, historic setting, this game provides that with bountiful bubonic brilliance.
Even the characters behave like humans with depth and consistency rather than fantasy or sci-fi wizard-elves fighting for some epic excessive and almost intangible aim while often lacking any sort of relatable core.
If any of this resonates with you, then this 'Please God don’t let my kid brother get eaten by packs of insane...fluffy...red eyed..... priests I mean rats!’ -simulator, is the game for you.

Rebus out,

If you enjoy this review, please check out more, or join the group.
It has been a while since I wrote a review for Steam, if you want there to be more, make it known.

* Edits incomming *
A Video of this review is available here https://youtu.be/2o3kGc-oi58

Circle Empires is a fairly fast paced wee little strategy game which for some reason is sadly and confusingly bereft of multi player, what it does got is, 3 modes, all of which can be played in a range of difficulties and sizes to suite all tastes- allowing for an experience ranging from quick and casual to massive and infuriatingly hard,
Loads of leaders to unlock who all bring their own faction bonus or unit selections,
And enough cutesy graphics to seriously undermine even the most hardcore gamers street cred.

Circle Empires could use some refinements and screams out for multiplayer but for this price a grindy single player experience with a bunch of stuff to unlock is still worth its cost.

A game of circle empires generally descends into a fast paced spamming event with the various factions worker units providing the economic backbone for your militaristic aims, a limited selection of buildings provide you with the means to generate gold, expand your roster of beasties or else defend your territory, the majority of your time will be spent managing your troops, reacting to enemy invasions, raiding neighboring territories and committing to outright total war.

The graphics, cutesy though they may be are clear at a glance and make playing the larger maps and reacting to enemy attacks a lot easier than a more realistic looking game might have been able.
The devs still seem to be supporting the game with patches and running a competition a few months back which is maybe a good sign for future features but for a 4 am impulse buy thanks to an email from steam I've sunk 8 hours into this totally credible and grown up game for grown ups.
IF you like yourself some stripped down offline fast paced rts-ness you could go a lot more wrong than owning this game.

*Edits due *

A video version is available here https://youtu.be/V6Y3qEpcfi8

Battlefleet Gothic was 2016s game of choice for folks who like me wish that more of history had been spent building cathedrals next door to one another, loading them up with cannons of various caliber and then setting about the process of demolishing one another with a righteous and furious cannonade.
I think I basically just described the experience of playing rampart 2 player , but anyway, I digress.
If you like your combat, real time, 2D, and full of gorgeous?
If crenelations, gargoyles juxtaposed with particle beams, nova cannons and batteries of macro cannons make you weak at the knees?
If you liked Battlefleet Gothic 1 but wish it was biggerrerr in every possible way?
Then Battlefleet Gothic 2 Armada is the time sink you need.

A quick caveat for those folks wanting a realistic space game, You just got off the bus in the wrong neighborhood chum, we got space daemons warp space and ships that grow tentacles round these parts, realism belongs in another franchise- on that note, space here is 2D, this isn’t some sort of obscure advocacy for flat earth nonsense, just throwback from the board game.
Expect a game that feels more like naval combat with broadsides, battleships and carriers.
More akin to an arcadey naval ww2 combat emulator from a world where rams never feel out of use in military circles than a space simulation experience, or be prepared to have a very sad time.

The gameplay loop from bfg1, which could become a bit repetitive remains the same.
This consists of management on a turn based strategic map where you organize your ships and systems and real time fleet battles.
If bfg was like eating a king size snickers, largely tasty but perhaps a bit too sickly towards the end, bfg 2 can feel having to eat a massive trade box of the bastards, the repetitive parts of bfg1 are back and as with everything else they are also biggerer.
Having to navigate and react to the various invasions from pita a.i. invaders, moving spire around as missions oddly require his presence to make sense of the dialogue in scripted missions, for bejezuses sake spire, learn to delegate!!!
The bigger map starts to feel like a bit of a nuisance rather than a bonus, you can’t even set a destination for a ship that is outside of its current move range, like jeeze, if I need ships to travel across the universe I want to set one large move and have the ai move my ships to their destination each turn, I do not want to have to search out each one of my fleets and move it individually each turn, not with a map this big, not with this many fleets!
The biggerer selection of fleets, ships for those fleets, races ingame and even races that get their own campaign are all great but for every simple issue that makes the larger scale of this game less convenient to play over the long term there is a very simple solution found in other games for at least a decade, the devs for bfg should try some of them and continue releasing patches that improve the convenience of this games longer and larger campaign.

With the much larger play area we now have campaigns that last about as long in the real world as some of the longer conflicts in the 40k universe took in lore.
The cut scenes continue to create in me a very real sense of loss that games workshop don't have anyone making movies for their licenses.
Sadly, once you have fought your first couple of hundred battles through the campaign, for me, those cut scenes have become my biggest motivator to proceed.
Sure, it is all still epic and big and ‘wow’ but there is just so much of it.
I am still playing my first campaign but the faff of attempting to organize multiple fleets across multiple systems all the while trying to work out how to get Spire from one side of the universe to the other, has lost some of its charm.
The expansion to a larger scale has not been without its drawbacks.
The strategic map needs an organic zoom from system to galactic view, you need to be able to set destinations for your fleets outside of their current range, you need to be able to zoom out in both the galactic and sector mode to see a whole system in one view, basically, if Battlefleet Gothic wishes to go to the party with the other 4x games then it needs to start acting a bit more like them.

I haven't tried multiplayer, I mean, I fully intend to but this review is like 2 months late and I am still chipping away at the campaign 3-4 turns per play session.
I have decided to farm the multiplayer off into a different review when I actually get around to it so for now, know only this, there is multi player.
There is also co-op in the campaign too but also…. I haven't tried that.

I have played countless single player missions though so lets get back to that.
The battles have improved in terms of controls and the use of abilities making the already excellent combat even easier.
They recently patched the game to add and refine a few things which is an encouraging sign of their intent to keep this game going. All in all the combat, as with the last game is excellent, a turn based option would still be a nice addition but with Remillies Star Forts, Tyranid organisms that look big enough to chomp on the moon like a person might bob for apples and various epic units featured in key battles, I am frequently distracted from my old mans desire to see a new and modern game stick to the ethos of an almost 20 year old board game and sabotage its sales by being turn based.


As with the last game the main event is the story contained within the campaign, though mechanically sound the actual game part of the game for me has as I say become a bit of an effort,
That probably sounds fairly negative but honestly it isn’t, it is just fair warning.
The flashy lazors and tactical real time combat are all fantastic, the range of everything from ships to weapons to the gorgeous environments are all there, but so to is the hint of the imperial bureaucracy and the crushing scale of the universe. So far GW have yet to depict the equivalent of a middle management level bureaucratic paperwork based game and bfg2 isn’t the place to start.
In all honesty, if someone made a 40k spreadsheet based game game I would probably give that a go,
‘I gotta file all these imperial tithe reports from 3 thousand years ago, Cadia just s**t the bed, my secritarius servitor cant make a good cup of coffee and the guy 3 desks over from me just turned into a chaos spawn!!’, till then though, I hope bfg fixes some of the issues I have with zooming and map navigation so I can spend more of my sessions battling rather than worrying I missed some difficult to find busy work.

That aside, bfg2, is pretty good, the campaign is a bit wearing but if you can handle that, buy now, otherwise grab it on sale just for the lore and chip away at it like I am.

* Edits incomming *
A video review is available here https://youtu.be/tlN4hZ9iLd8


Patreon told me that its thank your Patreons day or season or something so er, thanks to my Patreons, all two of you....
That aside, lets get busy praising the Omnisisah, another games workshop game from me and this time its in binary, 111001 0101011 00101010 0101010 110101 bzzzt aruuble fzzt.

Okay, maybe that wont work, lets start again.
If you ever wondered what would happen if you crossed a Cybergoth and a Steam Punk and then turned that result into game?
If you love hi-tech almost magical gadgets and do daas made by one brand, while also thinking hi tech almost magical do daas by other brands are heresy and should be purged from the galaxy?
Then this my confused scene hopping luddite, but also futurist friend- is the game for you.

So many Gamesworkshop computer games feel like someone got a game style and then just painted it with GW licenses, not always badly but y'know, Total Warhammer Totalwar and many hammers, Left4Vermintide 1 and 2, Sid Miers Gladius’s Relics Of War.
While this effort could be called X-com Partial Recall if we were being snippy- it by and large feels more designed around the faction and universe rather than making the universe fit a salable pre-existing format, for this the Omnissiah would be proud.

The game tells what I believe is an original story with your perspective being that of a young Magos commanding from a Mechanicus battleship stationed above the planet with the interface being as relevant as the top class writing that gives depth and character to your various superiors.
My favorite of our overseeing Magi being the religious nut who mostly likes to solve problems by lighting holy incense all over the place like a teenager trying to hide the smell of pot from their parents.
The game play is a mix of managing your expanding and varied crew and their skills and equipment, a place to select your missions based on their difficulty and the rewards you most wish to collect, completion of which will reward you with new weapons, troops and abilities to your slowly expanding selection of units.
With the missions presenting you with an overview of the area through which you must choose your path to the missions objectives. On the way you will be given an opportunity to brush up on your Necron, avoid or engage Necron encounters and be presented with old school style multiple choice decisions that require a mixture of good decision making and blind luck.

The game has you descending into the depths of an awakening Necron tomb with your mix of cybernetically enhanced warriors racing against the clock before the Necrons fully awake while also attempting to gain enough knowledge xp and equipment to face the later missions.
You can choose to explore every room in every mission and risk allowing more time for the Necrons to provide reinforcements or you could rush to the last encounter in each map and take the most direct route but risk facing your opponents later in an under equipped state.
This is a nice system but those prone to worry might find their direct routes result in easier battles and an underwhelming feeling when blasting Necrons becomes an inconvenience rather than a challenge.
I managed to complete the last mission with naught but 3 tech priests which I am fairly certain represents me having accidentally gamed the game rather than some sort of tactical excellence on my part.

I've spent 28 hours with the game as it was one of the easiest games to play with my broken mouse, despite this I am still replaying the game to see if taking a more scenic path through the missions will in fact increase the difficulty of the battles.
There are too few games that focus as well as this game does on the atmosphere and tone of the 40k universe with the banter between the various Magos who provide you with missions providing in 20 seconds worth of binary more depth than an hour of some other games- usually featuring space marines, saying “ ‘brother this’, ‘or brother that’ or at of course a bit of ‘for the emperor’- shouted over and over again.
Mechanicus is not only a great game that blends the feel of X-com like combat with an immersive and true to the universe feeling provided by on point writing with replayability provided by countless options for item and xp customization that looks great, for 23 quid you wont need to start trading in hertiech to grab a copy. In short, rRebus likes this a lot.

I thought I would throw together a first impression while The Bridge was on sale
This is a pretty neato game in that it is both pretty, assuming you can deal with lovingly crafted gloomy hand drawn style art, and neato in that the games controls and puzzle system is both interesting and mind bothering.
Deffo worth grabbing at sale price and probably still worthwhile at the usual price.
A video of my experience can be found here https://youtu.be/0-PISeh2lI0

Hi, A Rebus_Forever here,
For those who would sooner hear my thoughts conveyed via the medium of a British accent, follow this link
https://youtu.be/6dEAUz0lCPs

It should first be stated, I am a fan of pretty much anything space ship themed -declaration of my raging bias out of the way-
Let me get on with shattering expectations by finally having a bad word to say about a space game!!

This game might be the thing for you but I would take the games description with a pinch of salt.
I found this game to be a touch more repetitive than I would like with the various games systems like ship design or the society component feeling shallow and less engaging than I had expected, even for an Indie budget game.
My favorite thing about Voidship after the time I have spent playing it remains the feeling I got from reading the description and the listed features- with the experience I had actually playing falling short on almost all fronts.

If you want a very arcadey game and really enjoy the Asteroid esq combat- the endless repetition will probably work better for you than for myself.
My enthusiasm to progress through the game was dented by repeatedly being spawned into combat amidst multiple enemies that would destroy one of my ships systems before I had a chance to do anything = a very unhappy goth.
The distinct lack of anything meaningful to aim for in terms of progression once you have a reasonably equipped doom square also puts a pretty solid limit on how long slogging through the sectors in pursuit of the missions remains a joy verses a lesson in combating apathy and despair.
I am almost inclined to give this game a positive review just because of what it intends to be but that would be disingenuous, instead I will say this- if you are a die hard fan of space games and like there being more to choose from, give this game a try if the gameplay footage appeals to you more than the games description. I think that is diplomatic enough?
I will certainly be checking out future games by this dev even if this particular game is not to my taste.
I would sooner there be too many space games to choose from than not enough.

Thanks for taking the time to read my review/first impression, if you like it, check around for more.

*Edits incomming*
A video review is available here, lemme know you came from Steam if you do and cc is very much welcome.
https://youtu.be/TMNG3wD1SLY

The Colonists.

Think settlers having a baby with Anno conceived on a Wall-E the robot bed sheet!
If you like building paths and roads but can’t fit in the part time course in town management required for proficiently playing Anno?
If you Enjoy path based village games but worry about the sanity of your organic minions and feel more comfortable inflicting an existence of manual labour on cute little robots?
Or if you literally killed an Amiga 500 by playing settlers too much like me?
Then this is the game for you, with some incoming caveats.

But wait, first some caveats to those caveats, at the time of writing this there was no multiplayer and no sandbox, mid way through writing this they released a very basic sandbox mode and I was told on Discord they have an incoming multi player.
I cant speak to the quality of either of these modes in their final iterations but y’know, they are apparently coming.

The Colonists rides the same bus as Anno or master of Olympus with a competent and rewarding economic system that requires efficient and evolving transportation networks allowing for optimised distribution of goods from source to consumption.
3 tiers of house require your standard increasing complexity of resources to fulfil the needs of the robotic residents, there is no need for sprawling cities as your population expands per your need, your houses are more like power stations here.
Keep your robots houses stocked with goods and food and they will produce energy.
Energy is used to power your economic buildings with a system that works better in game than it makes sense when thought about for too long.

Assuming you took sufficient care with your transport network to allow for a smooth supply of good and distribution of finished material you will find yourself running an efficient little robot empire.
Fail to take sufficient care and you will have a gridlocked network unable to provide for even the most basic need of your mechanical serfs with your roads clogged with exclaiming automatons.

This game is focused on the campaign rather than the -at present- fairly basic sandbox mode.
The campaign is split into a military and an economic focused paths allowing you to choose what sort of experience you wish to have.
The military involves little more than the building and maintaining of artillery towers that will bombard neighbouring towers belonging to your opponent until damaged, once sufficiently busted up you are able to capture them by building a road and repairing them.
Even the combat is tied to your economy and your ability to supply ammunition to your towers while repairing the damage being inflicted to your own.
This system might seem basic but I think works perfectly for this game. The only units that are directly controlled by the player are your ships and even then only when exploring the map.

I am 32 hours in and half way through the military and economic campaigns, a mild complaint is that after completing the objectives there isnt much to aim for aside from personal goals you set yourself which for me involves spamming monuments.

Originally when I played this game I saw no sandbox and no multi player and was irked, after spending a short time playing the game I knew with or without sandbox and multi player I was going to give this game a positive review.
I then proceeded to play 32 hours of the campaign just to make sure!!

This game makes an Anno like experience accessible to everyone, with sprawling networks connected by rail, sea, path and road, with goods automatically routed via the most direct method and little need for micro management on account of the robustness of the system.
Should you feel the need- every goods priority and every point on your road network can be tuned to your personal tastes with all the settings a more power user of the genre might require being just a menu away.

This game represent a great first taste of deeper town building games like Anno for anyone previously intimidated by the genre or else a really nice taste of something different while waiting for Anno 1800 to get made.
This is one of my more polarized reviews with my only complaints regarding the sandbox and multi player being resolved in the future.
For 20 quid I don't think you can go wrong for the amount of gameplay this game offers at present and will continue to offer once the new modes are in place.
So yeah, buy this game, if you want to..

A video version of this review can be found here https://youtu.be/dfbdN2JJeTo

In the midst of an ongoing conflict to overcome tyranny, machines controlled by individual operators of various skill must overcome overwhelming odds and fight on despite frequent losses.
And that's just my channel versus the algorithm.
Back to the game…

Do you like mad jumping robits?
Do you enjoy firing your lazors?
Do you like really good games that blend a number of well crafted individual components together to create an almost perfect whole?
Then this is the game for you...
Battle Tech is part business management sim, part epic space opera and in part the natural evolution of Rockem Sockem Robots.

After Playing Assassin’s Creed Odyssey- and being forced to make an entire RebView that nobody watched about how bad the writing was, this game is a delight!
I'm not even sure if the writing in this game is as good as I think it is or if in fact it’s just average but elevated when compared to what the Ubisoft robots put out!
Either way, the story- a tale of interplanetary conflict, betrayal and revenge- has me curious to follow its progression with one of the best intros to any strategy game for a while in my opinion.
The intro provides hundreds or thousands or more years of context in an efficient and mesmerizing fashion. If the game were cheaper I would recommend it for the cutscenes alone.
If the people who made the intro had a 40k lore channel I would watch the crap out of it.
The last time an intro or cutscenes from a strategy game made me have this many feelings was the Homeworld series, really engaging stuff- hats off to the writers.

The game itself can be conveniently broken down into a few separate components, the combat -turn based and crunchy- looks great! With solid chunky robots blasting lasers, firing streaking swarms of missiles and thudding auto cannon fire punctuating the quieter moments of contemplation.
You plan your moves, manage your firing arcs, your armour facing and the heat level of your mechs, exasperated by most of the previously listed factors.
Aside from the enemy, these are your primary concerns.
Really though- I can’t stress this enough- keep an eye on your heat levels!!

Between missions you will have the opportunity (like in X-com), to manage your business aboard the dropship that transports your mechs; onboard you can choose where to travel to next, manage finances, crew xp and take contracts to earn more cash and keep the lights on for another month.
The dropship is also where you maintain and equip your mechs, store spare mechs, hire crew and upgrade your ship.
Repairs and refitting take time, time becomes a currency all of its own: Travelling through space? That'll cost you some time. Repairs? That'll cost you some time….
Taking the right mission to allow repairs rather than sitting in orbit doing nothing with too few mechs to commit to the mission and monthly expenses building up seems to be one of the deeper arts of the game.

The writing is great so far, the visuals waaay better than a turn based game is required to be, the management engaging and the combat tense and satisfying - full of consequence.
No single element so far spoils the mix.
I have only recently given Battletech a fair chance, I launched it a while back, played the tutorial and dismissed the game as too basic. I was very wrong; rather than basic it is uncluttered and streamlined, the initial simplicity of the battles with your mech pilots lacking more advanced abilities is no doubt an intentional choice to ease the player into the experience; as your pilots level up the tactical choices expand before you.
If you own the game and didn't give it a fair chance, re install now!!
Otherwise, if you like the linear progression of games like X-com with agents that you become attached to, agents that advance before your eyes, turning from rookies to elite specialists before being disintegrated in the face by a sneaky AI - If you can handle the resulting sense of loss not felt in more traditional strategy games, then Battletech is the robot flavoured guilt and loss simulator for you...

Thanks for reading, If you go to the video from here, leave a comment on YouTube to lemme know, Im always curious how many folks come from steam.

Here's a thing https://youtu.be/UNPT-dAOLEE

I'm pretty sure I am supposed to be a part of the demographic offended by this.
I'd say maybe 1.5 triggered out of 10?
I think the game might work better within the context of its own logic if the people you were getting triggered by didn't spout stuff worthy of being offended by, I reckon if the devs are aiming for satire they would probably need to have the sjw over reacting to reasonable positions rather than being 'triggered' by literal white supremacy.
Satirical and logical misfiring aside, the game itself seems to be a fairly buggy shallow affair perfectly matching the depth of the humour.
The only thing in my short time spent playing with the game that I found to be on point was the price.

If Pac-Man and Alien had a baby and held the baby shower at FNAF it would end up something like this.
Cheap at twice the price!!
Here's some sort of a first impression/gameplay type of a thing.

https://youtu.be/ibcRNHlKjZU