Recent reviews by sayko

IMPORTANT: This review is about "Magic Duels: Origins" itself from the perspective of a newbie to the Magic: The Gathering game. Therefore, it may be invalid for (returning) veteran players.

Magic Duels: Origins (a.k.a. Magic Duels) is the digital version of famous TCG (trading Card game); Magic: The Gathering. Unlike previous digital versions of the game, this game is designed as free to play (f2p). There is in-game coin and booster pack store. Booster packs can be bought with coin. Players can earn coin by winning, completing daily missions or buy it directly with real money. I find the store and amounts earned fair enough, because TCGs are based on spending money on new sets and booster packs by nature. Also, all cards are unlockable, so spending money is not mandatory.

Game’s most noticeable part is its tutorial. It has an extensive tutorial showing the player every rule and beginning level gameplay of Magic: The Gathering. Its design is also nice. Unlike showing all aspects of the game in one go, it teaches the basics at the beginning and sends the player to the story mode. During story mode, if a situation arises such as a new type of card or an ability on a card, a notification asks the player if he/she wishes to play tutorial for it. Playing that tutorial pauses the current game and starts the tutorial. After tutorial is finished, interrupted game continues. It is possible to skip these tutorials and play them later from the menu. Every tutorial also gives a small amount of coin, so it is a good idea to complete them all.

First “basics tutorial” and first story mission are kind of mandatory. Because most features are locked until they are finished. After that, the game sends the player to create his/her fist deck and lets the player to have a solo battle. When solo battle is finished all features are unlocked. This way of unlocking the features is not a problem for newbies. Actually it can even be considered a good choice to prevent newbies from losing in multiplayer too much, resulting them dropping the game. But for veterans, it is a big problem. They already know the game and want to jump right in multiplayer with their custom decks.

Other than the story mode, game has solo battle mode which is against AI, versus mode which is against another player and two-headed giant mode which is 2 vs 2 mode against either AI or other players (The player needs to invite his/her friend to able play against AI).

Solo battle can be played against 3 different difficulties. Interestingly though, “Hard” difficulty feels the easiest. These battles give coins depending on the difficulty (5 to 15 coins).

Versus mode can be played against either a friend or an opponent that is ranked the same as the player. The rank of the player changes depending on the result of the matched battle. Battles against friends and AI don’t affect ranking. Also battles against friends don’t give coins. Matched versus battles gives 20 coins.

Two headed giant mode is the only multiplayer mode where more than two players play together. 4 players split into two teams of two players and battle. Team players share the life and a player can block an attack against his/her teammate. A Player’s teammate’s hand is visible but interacting with it is not allowed. This also apply cards on the board. Players can’t use abilities on their teammates cards. Two-headed giant mode doesn’t affect ranking. It also doesn’t give coins.

UI is good and clear. There are no unnecessary animations or information bombard. Most of the in-game actions (such as attack animations of the cards) can be toggled in the settings. That said, I read veterans don’t like this UI. Until “Magic 2014” it was different, and indeed there are big changes. When I checked 2014 version myself, I realized that both button locations and general information design had big differences. For a newbie, it won’t matter. Actually I like the new one more. In the old UI, it felt weird not to be able see how many cards my opponent had in his/her hand. For veterans though, it will feel like switching from Mac OS to Windows.

It appears that previous editions had also chat feature and it was removed in this version. There are mixed opinions on this subject. Personally, I don’t think it is a must have but it certainly could be useful, especially in two-headed giant mode. it is impossible to talk to teammate if the player is playing together with a random player. That said, if the player is playing with a friend, he/she can use steam chat to overcome this.

Booster packs contains 3 common cards, 2 uncommon cards and 1 rare or mythic rare card (total 6 cards). Also packs can’t drop the cards that reached its deck limit so eventually every card is unlocked. Every booster pack is 150 coins. Winning against hard AI gives 15 coins and winning against a player gives 20 coins. Daily missions and weekly mission give 40 coins (there are up to 3 daily missions and one weekly mission). It is said that about 80 booster packs are required to unlock all cards. But there is a daily coin limit (400 coins) so players can’t grind coins (note that daily missions are not counted towards the limit).

During my gameplay, I came across one serious and one minor bug. Serious bug was that during my solo battle against the easy AI, it played 5 of the same card which is clearly against the game rules. (Note: a developer responded to my screenshot of this issue and wrote that they were going to investigate it). Minor bug was that the coin amount was not being updated after completion of the daily missions. It required (and still does) a restart to be fixed.

I didn’t have any issues finding opponents in both versus mode and two-headed giant mode. Also my test for steam friend invite worked without any issues (I need to note that I tested friend invite with only one of my friends, so it might be just luck).

+ Extensive Tutorial: This is very good for newbies to Magic: The Gathering game.
+ Same Drop Limit: Thanks to this limit, all cards are eventually unlocked.
+ Simplistic: All menus and buttons are cleverly put together in a clear and simple manner. (Although, there are big changes)

- Mandatory Single Play: This is only a con for veterans. As a side effect of the tutorial, some single play elements must be finished before multiplayer modes are unlocked.
- Daily Coin Cap: Normally this is not a very big issue. But because of the ability to buy coins with real money, this creates a “pay to win” side.

I can safely assume that Magic Duels is designed to make new players interested in Magic: The Gathering title and not as a solo product to make money. Due to its extensive tutorial, it is very easy to learn the basics of Magic: The Gathering. As a newbie to the title myself, I can recommend this to everyone who wants to learn (or at least try) Magic: The Gathering.


P.S: As a rule, I won't comment on price tag. Everyone has a different opinion on whether it is worth the price tag or not. So it is up to you to decide (Note: this game is f2p but has in-game shop to buy coins so the rule still applies).

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Edit: Fixed some typos

Train Valley is a real time puzzle-strategy game based on trains and railroads. The player connects train stations and makes sure trains reach their correct destination by changing switches on the railroad he/she build himself/herself.

The game has a nice simplistic menu that is shaped as a stockbook (book that is used by stamp collectors). Every Postage stamp in it is a level of the game. There are 20 levels total. The game has two game modes. One of them is classic mode which consist of levels that has a time and money limit, and also have optional objectives. The other mode is sandbox. As the name suggests, there are no restrictions and limits. Also in this mode, the player decides stations’ spawn time and when a train is scheduled from a station. At the beginning, all levels except the first one is locked. New levels are opened by beating the previous level. To play sandbox version of a level, the player needs to beat the same level in classic mode.

First level is a tutorial level that shows basics of the game. Although it shows the most important parts of the game with nice message boxes, other parts are only mentioned in small bubbles that can be easily missed. Luckily, game is very simple and can be learned in a few games. That said, it would be nice to have a better tutorial.

A level starts with two stations. Player is given some money to build railroads. After that trains start to be scheduled. When such train is scheduled, an icon appears on the station it is in. Then player starts the train by simply clicking it. That said, it is not possible to make a train wait forever. After an unknown time, it starts to count down from 5 and moves when the countdown reaches zero. As time passes, more stations are spawned making the game and railroad network more complicated. That said, it will never be too complicated as a tycoon but has its challenges of its own.

Origin and destination of a train is handled very nicely in the game. It is color coded. Every train and station has a color on it. And the purpose is to make a train reach the station with the same color. When the train reaches its destination, the player gets the money. Amount of money is determined at the time of the spawn of a train. After that it will start decreasing even if the train is still in the starting station.

This game is not a detailed tycoon game. It is designed as a puzzle-strategy game. The main purpose of the game in a level is not to bankrupt, but in this game, “bankrupt” means “negative money”. There are no loans, no maintenance cost, no economy. The player earns money by making a train reach its correct destination. After that he/she uses the money to build railroads to connect newly spawned stations. Every game year, a constant tax is debited from the money. There are only two ways the player’s money goes below zero; tax and train crash. As soon as the player’s money is negative, he/she loses. This mechanic is the games strategy part.

The puzzle part is more interesting. Because the actual puzzle is built by the player without him/her realizing. After connecting a few stations with railroads, railroads become a (simple) maze with switches left and right. More stations mean more railroads with more switches. It is never possible to create a network without switches because of either landscape or money constraints. Towards the end of a level, the player keeps clicking switches to send the trains to correct road and prevent crashes. This is the most fun part of the game.

Sounds in the game is nice and relaxing but it would be better to have a few different sound tracks.

Total game length is a bit short. There are 20 levels but if the player doesn’t care about optional objectives, then they will end quickly.

+ Simplistic: All menus and tabs are cleverly put together in a clear and simple manner.

+ Relaxing: Because it is simple and lacks ambition, it is fit to be played just to relax.

- Short: Don’t have many levels.

Train valley is a nice and relaxing game. It gives the feeling of playing actual toy trains and if you like trains, you probably will like this game. That said, because it is short, I recommend it to be best considered as a side game when you got bored of other stuff.

P.S: As a rule, I won't comment on price tag. Everyone has a different opinion on whether it is worth the price tag or not. So it is up to you to decide.

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Edit: Fixed some typos and formatting

According to description, Big Pharma is a game about creating medicine recipes and selling them for profit. But it focuses more on production process then profit. It is safe to say Big Pharma is a game about creating an efficient production line to achieve your (scenario) goal.

The game has a tutorial, but instead of (usual) series of interactions, tutorial itself is actually a guide-like-text in “tutorial scenarios”. If player can follow the text, it is quite helping and explains the details to a certain degree. Still, for the first few games, it is highly expected that the player will revisit these tutorials. It is also worth noting that the game expects the player to have “planning skills” because it never mentions how a good/efficient layout should be.

In this game, player is given a set of machines, and a number of ingredients. Every ingredient has one curing effect and one to three bad side effects (There are 4 effect slots on each ingredient). Each effect on an ingredient is active on certain “concentration range” and is most effective at a certain concentration. This concentration and activation of effects are the elements that create the base of the game. The player is expected to create a production line using the given machines, to activate the positive effect on an ingredient and create a medicine. Of course, bad side effects are present and are to be avoided. Curing effects on the final medicine increase the value and side effects causes it to lose rating resulting in losing value.

Illnesses and cure recipes are known, and when you produce a medicine, more advance version is unlocked, up to level 5 medicines. Although illnesses and cure recipes are known, ingredients are not. For each game, ingredients are randomly generated. Only things consistent among games are that each ingredient having only one curing effect and activation range of effects. From effect combinations to how much those effects change final medicine’s value is random. This increases replayability value. But it is also random for scenarios; therefore it affects the actual difficulty of the scenarios. One time the game may be too challenging and other time, it may be too easy.

Another randomly generated content is layout for production buildings. In each map, there are several (depending on the size of the map) partitioned buildings. The player is randomly given a partition at the beginning and buys the rest. The buildings and sockets are premade but layout of the buildings is random. Depending on the layout and starting position, the game may be annoying. Annoyance comes from shape of the buildings or the socket positions/count in a partition. Sockets are the points of entry/exit for the ingredients and medicines, on the walls of the buildings. Although there are at least 2 sockets in almost every partition, it can be more. Starting a partition with 4 sockets enables the player to have two production lines, without the need to but new partitions. Also a bad shaped building may prevent you to complete an advance production line required for the higher level medicines.

There are also exploration, research, patenting and “company management”. Research is the common knowledge. Player hires scientists to do research. Research unlocks new machines and some infrastructure projects such as cheaper machine prices or ability of exploring different types of lands. Exploration is the same thing as research but unlocks new ingredients instead. On a normal game, only the most basic machines and only 2 ingredients are available at the start. Rest is unlocked through researching and exploration. That said, researching and exploration are just a tab in the game and not the main focus. Same thing applies for the “company management”. Other than patenting process, company management is just an info tab showing player’s medicines, yearly revenue and profit. Also rivals’ basic info can be seen in company management. There is a research that enables to see detailed info about your rivals but it is pretty much useless. Patenting is what the name suggests. Patenting a medicine prevents the others from selling the same medicine for a limited time. The length of time depends on how much player chooses to spend on the patent.

Rivals in the game serve two purposes. One of them is to cause saturation because they use the same ingredient as the player and produce (mostly) the same medicine. This saturation increases the cost of ingredients and lowers the demand for a specific cure effectively lowering value of medicines. The other purpose is to patent medicine preventing the player to sell the same medicine. Of course the player has access to patenting after researching it too. This creates a nice “patent war” situation in the game, but patenting is pretty expensive and mostly not worth it until late game.

As with all of the production themed games, most of the time in the game will be spend in paused mode. The player will try to make a good choice of ingredient-medicine pair to avoid side effects. After that, he/she will spend an equal time to position each machine in a way that they will occupy the least space. Since it is the nature of the game it is not a bad thing. Still, it is worth noting that machines can only be rotated in 4 directions and belts (connections between the machines) can’t be multi-layered (although they can be crossed and it mostly works well). These limitations may annoy some people, but also some “puzzle people” may welcome them because it gives the production a puzzle feel.

The interface is very well designed and the player is never lost in it. It has a futuristic design and goes well with the game. The sound effects of the game are nice and do not bother the player. But the game is a bit quiet. It needs a few more soundtracks.

Finally, a personal note: Everything in the game is sold back at half the original price. Especially at the beginning, you may struggle with the design and make lots of mistakes. Buying and selling the belts will cause you to lose lots of money. To prevent this, plan and imagine the whole process in your mind, put all the machines first and then put the belts. It is also possible to get the “free belts” mod from the official site.

+ Simplistic: All menus and tabs are cleverly put together in a clear and simple manner.
+ Good Formula: Game elements go well together.
+ Fluent gameplay: There is nothing to get in the way during interaction with objects and interface.
+ Mod Support: It does not support workshop but has a separate mod support.

- Randomization in Campaigns: This results in the campaigns becoming too easy or too hard.
- Crammed Buildings: Sometimes building designs are too narrow or weirdly shaped and they do not allow a good production line.
- Feels Repetitive: Although some of the content is randomized, after a while, the game feels repetitive due to its focus on production. This may be a deal breaker for some people.

If you think this game as a production tycoon game -as I did- it is well made (considering this is developed by a one-man-company). Overcoming the challenge to get rid of the bad side effects and creating a high rating medicine gave me enough satisfaction, so I recommend it. But because it focuses on production, it may be insufficient for some people.

P.S: As a rule, I won't comment on price tag. Everyone has a different opinion on whether it is worth the price tag or not. So it is up to you to decide.

If you liked this review or want to see more recommended games, be sure to follow our curator group: Follow Original Curator Group

Edit: Fixed some typos

“Strata” is a 2D puzzle game which players are asked to create the correct pattern using different colored ribbons. Its artistic textures create a soothing gameplay.

The game starts with 2x2 tutorial puzzles. Tutorial is nice and easy to understand. It shows the player what his/her goal is, and how the ribbons are used.

In the puzzles, the player is given a set of different colored ribbons. These ribbons can be placed on rows or lines of the diagonal puzzle ground. Puzzle grounds have colors in intersection of rows and colors. As expected, when ribbons are placed on rows and lines, they intersect. Puzzle logic comes from this intersection. Whichever ribbon is placed later, its color occupies that intersection. Players’ goal is to create the same pattern on the puzzle ground.

This game has a static logic for its puzzles. That means there are no new additions when player advances to later puzzles. Logic is always the same. Only things that change are size of the ground and number of the ribbons’ colors. Smallest puzzles’ grounds are 2x2 and largest ones are 6x6. If I calculated correctly there are 485 puzzles (excluding tutorials) separated into 7 sets and each set is separated further into 4 waves. It is worth noting that this static logic may be a deal breaker for some people.

Puzzles’ difficulty is tricky to talk about. There is a trick to solve the puzzles. This trick can be used to solve even the most-complicated-looking-level. If player can figure it out then very few puzzles are challenging and rest is easy. So it is safe to say that unofficial puzzle goal in this game is to solve the trick. Levels can be considered as tools to figure it out.

During my gameplay, I came across some minor bugs. These bugs did not affect actual puzzles; they were all in main menu. The game has a menu that resembles a navigation system instead of standard button menu. And this menu can sometimes act weird. Luckily the game can be restarted in a few seconds so even a restart doesn’t make player loose anything. Regardless, they should be fixed.

As a final note, games achievements are all easily achievable. So this is a good game to get a “perfect game” status if you are interested in such things.

+ Good Art: The game has nice textures and uses pastel colors, which makes it easy on the eyes.

+ Soothing Gameplay: Art style and realistic instrument (piano, classic guitar and bell) notes that play after almost every player action create a relaxing environment.

+ Originality: Puzzle logic looks really unique.

- Repetitive: Because this is a puzzle game, it is not necessarily a bad thing. Also it is a little expected. That said, using the same logic throughout the game results doing the exact same thing again and again.

- Minor bugs: The game has some minor bugs that don’t affect actual puzzles. Still they should be fixed.


It was nice to play a game that actually made me relaxed for a change. These kinds of games show that games are not all about action or achievements; so I recommend it. Still it is worth noting that this puzzle game is mostly recommended to people who care “solving puzzles” more than which puzzles they solve, due to its static logic.


P.S: As a rule, I won't comment on price tag. Everyone has a different opinion on whether it is worth the price tag or not. So it is up to you to decide.

If you liked this review or want to see more recommended games, be sure to follow our curator group: Follow Original Curator Group

AERENA can be summarized as "a turn based MOBA in a chess-like arena" (It is "M"ultiplayer, it is "O"nline, it has "B"attle and it has "A"rena. Therefore it is a MOBA).

This game has no story, because it does not need any. There is nothing to say about story, so I will talk about game elements.

In this game, each player has an air ship and up to 6 crew members called “champions”. Ships can equip 3 special abilities called “shells”. Only 3 crew members can be placed on the arena at any time. Every crew member is different, well designed/animated and has a unique play style. Winning condition is simple, destroy opponent’s ship. To do so, players can kill crew members or attack opponent’s ship directly.

Turns during a match are actually not players’, but crew members’. At every turn one crew member is active and only that crew member can move/attack. Each turn, active crew member has two actions. Moving, attacking, using a special attack and using a shell consume one action. Crew members don’t die permanently. If it is the beginning of the match, or a crew member was killed before his/her turn, player can spawn any of his/her crew members who aren’t on the arena. Spawning a crew member consumes the turn.

Crew members also have 2 special attacks, a small special attack and an ultimate attack. These special attacks use aether (hence the pun on the name). Aether is gained every turn of the crew member and every time that crew member uses standard attack. These special attacks are nicely designed and most of them can make big differences in a match.

Matches are played in a 7x7 arena. There are 9 different arenas; each has different, well made designs. There are different types of tiles in an arena; some gives extra aether, some causes damage and some causes instant death. There are also block tiles which make that tile impassable and block line of sight. Also if a crew member is knocked back by an attack and this type of tile is in the way, it causes extra damage by collision. Surround of the arena is empty (Actually arena seems to be flying or on the summit of a mountain). Therefore crew members can be knocked out of the arena. On the opposite sides of the arena, player ships are located. They can be attacked by enemy crew members if they are within range.

Ships can equip 3 shells. Shells are like general special abilities. Every crew member can use them. Ships also have aether and shells use ship’s aether instead of crew member’s aether. Shells are classified into 4 types (Attack, Support, Trick, Aether control). Ships are not limited to certain types of shells. For example, a ship can equip 3 attack shells or 1 of each type. Shell types are only becomes important when you try to do quests.

Playing matched gives you almost no in-game money (i.e. shillings). Player gets only 30S every 5 matches. Actual source of in-game money is completing “quests” and “career quests” (names are the same, it is not a typo). Levelling up and earning “badges” also give some money but they are extra. Quests are simple; they say “do these X times” and give player in-game money when completed. Player uses this in-game money to unlock new ships, crew members and shells to equip and use in matches. Badges are basically achievements. They give title pictures and some in-game money.

Players gain levels as they play matches. Actual values of how much experience was gained and what decides the amount is not shown. It is just a bar filling up as you play. As far as I can see, winning or losing does not make any difference in terms of gained experience. Leveling up unlocks (or sometimes unlocks to be “unlocked by in-game money”) new things such as ships but they are few. Most of the things in the game are available from the start to be purchased with in-game money.

There are 4 game modes; survival, practice, against friends and ranked. Names are self-explanatory. In survival mode, you fight against an AI opponent whose ship regenerates to full health each turn. Goal is to survive as much turn as possible. In practice mode you battle against an AI. Each time you win its difficulty is increased (up to a certain level). It is a good mode to learn the game. “Against friends” mode is online battle with your friends. Friend list is not Steam friend list. You need to add them separately in-game. Ranked mode is the main mode of the game. In addition to experience, player gains rank. Rank is based on wins. There are 5 rank tiers; bronze, silver, gold, platinum and diamond. Each rank tier is further split into 3 ranks (e.g. bronze 3 is lowest, bronze 2 is one rank higher, bronze 1, silver 3, silver 2 an so on). A certain number of wins are required to rank up. Actual number depends on the rank tier. Until gold rank tier, Losing is ignored and player ranks up as he/she wins. After reaching gold rank tier, losing lowers the progress. Player can lose a rank, even a tier.

Due to small playerbase, finding a game takes a while but I think matchmaking is good enough not to send the first player it finds as your opponent and waits sometime for similar players. That said this game has good balance, therefore even against a higher ranked player it is still possible to win. I know this because I won against a diamond-1 ranked player when I was gold-3 ranked, but also lost against bronze ranked players more than once. Most of the time matchmaking waits until a close ranked player is online, so these are exceptions.


+ Good Balance: Higher level players don't get too much advantage. But I would give it a "very good" if there was no level locked content.

+ Simplistic: Design is clear and simple with big buttons (There is a tablet version. It might be the reason. I haven't played that version). This is both good and bad. Bad side is below. Good side is that design is very user friendly, even in 1080p resolution.

+ Fluent gameplay: There is nothing to get in the way during interaction with characters and interface. Animations are fast enough to keep the game going.


- Few Unit Types: Game has few crew members, ships and special abilities. It is still fun but number should be increased.

- Simplistic: Bad side of this is some important info is not there. Also descriptions of attacks are not detailed enough.

- Small Playerbase: Although matchmaking is doing its best, there are very few players. Half of my ranked matches were against the same opponents and sometimes it took too long to find an opponent. Please note that I write this as a con because it is a con for casual players who want to play a few games quickly and exit. It is a fact that if you don't but/play the game, playerbase won't grow.


Game is fun. It is also rare to see good balance in this kind of games. When I see the shortcut on my desktop, it makes me to play a few rounds if I am free. As a result, I recommend this game.


P.S: As a rule, I won't comment on price tag. Everyone has a different opinion on whether it is worth the price tag or not. So it is up to you to decide.

If you liked this review or want to see more recommended games, be sure to follow our curator group: Follow Original Curator Group

Edit: Fixed some typos and formatting

The Last Federation is a 2D (4-1)X space strategy game that combines politics and battles. It is (4-1)X because exploration does not exist. Also, player does not control a race but manipulates other races by using politics and by helping battles.

In this game, player is the last survivor of a murdered race (Hydrals) that was the dictators of the solar system. But one of them betrayed the race. His (Its?) goal was to make the space technology available to other races and then creating a federation to unify the solar system. After Hydrals' homeworld got destroyed, the last hydral (i.e. the player) crashed into one of the rivals' planet. When that rival race built their first capital ship, he managed to steal it and escaped. That's all the story the game has. It is not deep but enough to make things clear, at least to a point.

The game does not have a separate tutorial. Instead, when player starts his/her first game, most of the game elements are locked and these elements are unlocked and explained as the game progress. Its execution is very good. Although there are lots of things to learn, player is never overwhelmed by them. Most of the information and choices have very informative tooltips. They are especially useful when some option is not eligible. This way, only thing the player needs to do is reading the tooltip which explains the reason. That said, some of the advanced information, such as which conditions are required to capture a planet, are never explained.

Every race has a different political structure and has a different opinion of life. Some values military strength and are more aggressive, another is all about peace and quiet. This makes the player approach them in different ways to gain influence and convince them to join the federation. It is also possible to agitate a race against another, resulting in starting a war. Of course, these actions do not happen directly. There are lots of friendly and hostile actions player can take. When player visits a planet, possible "missions" are listed under their own menu. These missions are the main tools to manipulate races. By using these "tools", player achieves his/her goal for a certain race. I won’t go into details because this is not a guide.

Combat is different than classic turn-based combat. Units don't move/attack like in a chess game. It is actually more like Dragon Age's pause-order-continue style but pausing happens in periodic intervals called "turns". In each turn player issues a move order, then an attack order, and fight continues until next turn. There are also abilities that consumes one full turn. Player can select 6 abilities to use in battle and if an ability's ammo is depleted it is replaced with another ability of the same type during battle (Abilities have three types, i.e. "offensive ability", "operations" and special ability”). Starting abilities are random, but how many abilities of a certain ability type a player can use, depends on which race's first ship was stolen by the player at the beginning of the game.

There are some points that make the game less “believable”. For example you can make a planet’s environment go bad, but race itself does not take any counter-actions to fix it. It will stay as it is, even if it cost billions of inhabitants.

The main soundtrack is similar to 90s arcade games’ low bitrate sounds. Other soundtracks are smoother and easy on the ears. Sound effects are decent. Also when a very important event occurs, a female –I am guessing AI- makes funny comments.

+ Good Simulation: Every planet advances depending on the status of planet and race. Strategic elements and properties of the races affect outcome.
+ Humorous: Game has some humor in comments, descriptions etc. It is always a good thing.
+ Chaotic Battles: This is both good and bad. Bad side is below. Good side is that it makes battles more challenging.
+ Replayability: Every time a new game starts, planets and their inhabitants change. Due to compatibility factor between a race and planet type, a different race becomes more effective. This effectively changes how that game progress.

- Overcomplicated: Finding which information is important and which is just for "decoration", takes too much time.
- Static UI: This means, UI size is static and the higher the resolution is, the smaller the UI becomes. Therefore, when the resolution is set to full HD, UI elements become too small and very crammed.
- Chaotic Battles: Bad side of this is what the name suggests. When every small dot-sized ship fires another dot, screen gets covered with dots.

Game has a different approach to space strategy games and the formula worked well, enough to keep me in the game until I unified the solar system without taking a break. So I recommend it.

P.S: As a rule, I won't comment on price tag. Everyone has a different opinion on whether it is worth the price tag or not. So it is up to you to decide.

If you liked this review or want to see more recommended games, be sure to follow our curator group: Follow Original Curator Group

Edit: Fixed some typos and formatting

The Talos Principle is a first person puzzle game that does an excellent job combining an immersive story and puzzle solving. I can confidently say it would be an epic (if not legendary) item in a MMO.

Main puzzles are closed areas with everything required to solve it is inside. There are also stars. Getting stars requires combinations of advanced puzzle solving and exploration. Stars are wild cards in my opinion in this game. Some people will love them and others will hate them. I am in haters group because I don't mind trying to solve a puzzle for hours, but spending hours trying just to find where a star is not for me. Note that, as I said before this is not necessarily a bad thing.

The game tells its story via consoles placed puzzle areas. Some consoles are in main areas, others hidden and requires some exploration. You can totally ignore them but doing so is definitely not recommended. Without the story, it becomes a classic solve-this-to-advance type puzzle game. As a result, game is best suited for people who like to read everything and check every corner.

Difficulty of the puzzles is just enough. They are easy enough not to make you rage quit, but hard enough to feel satisfied. At this point I need to point something. Some of the puzzles have extra things. It may be a gadget, a door or a laser receiver. They might be there to provide multiple solutions or I might have solved them differently. But in case they are there just to mess with your mind, I am saying that, keep your mind clear and don't focus on the goal door.

The game also has lovely scenery in almost every main puzzle area. I personally took some screenshots. It is nice to stop once in a while and relax. It also feels nice after a challenging puzzle.

+ Good graphics: Environment has high texture quality, objects are detailed
+ Fluent gameplay: Usable objects snaps without a problem, there are no small unnecessary things that would get in the way.
+ Good puzzles: Most puzzles provide just enough challenge.
+ Immersive backstory: If you play as intended, you feel how people felt and can empathize.
+ Good Length: There are about 130 puzzles and lots of reading.
+ Rare trait: Few puzzle games actually have a story that makes solving the puzzles mean something.
+ Workshop support

+ Low replayability: This is a puzzle game so it is normal. Only reasons to replay are having the "Serious DLC" or getting the achievements. (Some people can challenge themselves to find "off the book" solutions for the puzzles, but I don't consider it a factor)
+ Too much running: Some puzzles are big, and makes you to run from one end to another end several times. You solve the puzzle in 30 seconds but spend 5 minutes to finish it.

The Talos Principle gets a definite recommendation. It is best suited for people who like to read everything and check every corner in addition to solving puzzles.

P.S: As a rule, I don't comment on price tag. Everyone has a different opinion on whether it is worth the price tag or not. So it is up to you to decide.

Edit: Fixed some typos and formatting

Banished is a game about a group of people who were banished from their home (for an unknown reason) with just enough food and tools to start a new life in the wilderness.

In the game description, this is said to be a "city-building strategy game". Well, I think it is only 20% city-building. In my humble opinion, this is a "strategic survival of a town against nature". Things like collecting resources, building structures just the right way so your villagers can use the optimum route to their destination, planning village growth according to terrain, are what this game is all about. If you buy this game expecting a "city-building game", you will not like it. Actually half of the bad reviews are based on expectation of a "city-building game".

Game's complexity is fair. It does not have hundreds of buildings, tools etc. There is only one "tool" which villagers use to collect resources and build structures. There are also a handful of structures each with a different purpose, from producing fuel to keeping villagers happy. Its complexity comes from learning what works best how and with what.

Game does not have an end game goal. This may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on people's perspective. After you start a game and get the hang on basics, you put your own goal. For example mine was to grow to 600 citizens and got the achievement. It is not actually a sandbox game, but some people put some restrictions on themselves, like not building certain buildings. Some of these restrictions are also encouraged by achievements if you are into it.

+ Good graphics: Structures are very detailed, villagers are distinguishable, trees and nature look good enough.
+ Excellent simulation: Every villager has a status based on their hunger, clothing etc. and distance between their house and work place makes real difference.
+ Nice tutorial: Tutorial teaches the basics but doesn't give too much detail. For a survival game, learning optimum ways is part of the game.
+ Works great: My system is considered high end, but should work great on medium level systems because its recommended system requirements are currently considered very low end.
+ Workshop support

+ Slow paced: This is not necessarily a bad thing but it may make some people bored quickly.
+ Wrong classification: Well, this game is about survival but classified as city-building strategy game. It makes expectations of new players different and most bad reviews are based on this.

I don't regret having this game and recommend it without a second thought. I hope developer (yes singular. afaik, it is developed by one person) considers making a sequel in the future.

P.S: As a rule, I won't comment on price tag. Everyone has a different opinion on whether it is worth the price tag or not. So it is up to you to decide.

Edit: Fixed some typos and formatting

I will assume, if you are reading this you haven't bought this game yet. Also if you were a veteran fighting gamer, you would already had this ( or non-ultra version), So you are not a veteran, maybe even a noob of fighting games. You decided to get into the genre by buying this. DON'T.

Why? you say.

Because there are no noobs in this game. I just closed the game after I got matched with a player ranked 4th of all , in a custom search that was set to "same skill". I am, as a new player, tier D ( lowest ) wih a point of 0 (yes zero. just started. so it is normal). This can only mean two things. Either matchmaker is extremely bad or no low level player to match me with. Either means;

You won't find it fun.

Yes, there are other modes but they all are like tutorial, preparing you to online.

If you have a friend/relative etc. with you and you decided to play against each other, it may be ok if it is on a big sale.

Game is -as the name suggests- is about controlling a sine wave to direct the light, collect lights and avoid dark matter. Game mechanics are simple yet very well executed and levels are fun.

A game well done. Definitely recomended.