Recent reviews by Double Danger Dad

Showgunners combines modern X-Com gameplay with a gritty, satirical The Running Man scenario. What's not to love?

I had it on my wishlist for quite some time and I am so happy to finally have it! I played isometric TBS games since I was a kid, my favs being Jagged Alliance 2, the oroiginal Fallouts and Fallout Tactics. Showgunners one defenitely is a contendor to to join the ranks of my favorite TBS RPGs. The combat is extremely slick and fast paced, the violence and animation is very well done, the overall cyberpunk comic book asthetics are absolutely gorgeos. It has everything I seek in a modern Turn Based RPG with lots of guns!

Very good job Artificer and thank you endlessly for the Key Good Shepherd Entertainment! <3

I hope to finish it soon to extend this review, because I will 100% play through it!

I gave this a good spin at almost 5 hours and in the end I thought this is fine for what it is. It reminded me of Castle Siege, an old browser flash game I played as a kid. The concept of building and using your siege engines is very neat and overall a great idea for a niche sim game. I will say though that my experience felt very bare bones and the gamplay loop started to feel very repetitive after an hour. The building process is not overly involving gameplay wise, neither is the crafting. You just assemble parts and push buttons to put everything in place. Every engine feels very similar to build. The actual shooting with the engines is ok. You aim it right and buildings go poof, but there is no challenge or deeper mechanic to it. You aim, shoot, repeat until the game will tell you you've done enough damage. Once a level is cleared, there is no replayability. The graphics are rudimentary but by no means bad. Don't expect an atmosphere to slice through. Same goes for sound design and music.

I had to end the game at the Riverside trebuchet mission because I could not figure out how the soldiers will provide more beams to me. I progressed with building as far as I could but never got more beams. I have no idea if it was a bug or I did something wrong.

So what do I think this game needs? Give the player a challenge, like, "destroy this target with 5 shots or less to earn 5 medals", like Castle Siege did. Don't give the medals away for just crafting stuff. Make the actual building more engaging by creating a system that let's you screw up parts, make them not fit right, etc. to make the engine faulty. The better the player makes the engine the more accurate it is, the more damage it deals. The smithing system of Bannerlord comes to mind. This would provide a higher feeling of accomplishment.
Also the actual shooting feels very dull. There is only a basic "swoosh" sound effect for the flying projectile. I was hoping for creaking wood and a big BANG! when the catapult's arm hits the upper horizontal beam. Also a slight turmoil couldn't hurt.
The segmented square damage model of the buildings makes it feel inorganic.

Now for personal taste, I think the physics effects can be very hilarious and downright silly, which adds to the entertainment value. It's in the "It's not a bug, it's a feature" territory but I like it. I'd go further down that road by adding more sillyness. Again Castle Siege comes to mind. Put some of the inanimate soldier models in the buildings and make them shout when the projectiles come flying at them. Make them spin around like mannequins when the building implodes. This idea sounds like streamer bait of course so I will not say it's the best way to go.

My bottom line is, it's defenitely worth a look if you're into medieval scenarios and enjoy niche simulation titles. If these are true for you, you might get your 11,39€ worth of fun out of it.

Imperator: Rome did not live up to my high expectations at first but now I can see it unfolding to become the next big grand strategy hit that we were promised.

Das 4X Grand-Strategy Spiel, welches alle 4X Spiele beendet.

It's not as bad as everybody says it is but while watching it, I started reflecting on my life (Within the first third or so). Whenever a movie gets me to do that I shut it off. Maybe I'll come back to it and give it another chance. Maybe. And the streaming is really bad for me aswell. You may want to consider another platform to view this.

Ich wollte mir kein urteil bilden bevor ich es nicht selbst gespielt hatte, jedoch haben sich für mich all die schlechten Kritiken die man so zu lesen bekommt bewahrheitet. JA2 ist bald 20 Jahre alt und bis heute hat es wirklich niemand geschafft dieses beste aller TBS Spiele fortzusetzen.
In JAF sind Manche der alten Söldner wieder mit dabei (Wobei ein paar meiner Lieblinge fehlen), während viele neue integriert werden. Das ist ja erstmal nicht schlecht, jedoch ist die interaktion mit den Mercs so redundant, dass es unmöglich ist sie ins Herz zu schließen, wie man so schön sagt. Das hat JA2 damals wesentlich besser hin bekommen. Ich war beinahe traurig, wenn einer meiner schützlinge zu Konfetti verarbeitet wurde. In JAF ist es mir relativ egal wenn einer hops geht.
Massenhaft modbare Waffen sind wieder dabei, kann man nicht meckern. Aber was das Spiel wirklich schwer zu lieben macht, ist die umständliche Steuerung. Über die zweckmäßige grafik kann ich ohne weiteres hinweg sehen, aber diese Steuerung! Ich hatte erwartet, dass die kameraführung und -winkel einigermaßen geschmeidig sein würden, was sie nicht sind. Das Inventardesign ist ebenfalls fummelig und mit viel Mikromanagement verbunden. Man muss etwa die Waffen aller Söldner einzeln nachladen.
Bevor ich mich weiter in langweiligen Details verliere: Es fühlt sich nicht wie ein JA an und erbt viele Fehler der Vorgänger wobei es diese um weitere Makel addiert. Jemand der sich, wie ich, endlich eine würdige Fortsetzung von JA2 gewünscht hat, wird hier, mal wieder, bitter enttäuscht.
Hoffen wir, dass die Lizenz irgendwann bei einem Studio landet, welches sie in eine moderne TBS-Oberfläche integrieren kann.

Wer die D&D Spiele von Black Isle mochte wird POE lieben und kann sich wunderbar die Zeit bis zum Release von Torment: Tides of Numenra vertreiben. Denn dank Chris Avellones Gespür für das bitter Böse und Zynische fühlt es sich fast etwas wie ein Planescape: Torment 2 an. Ein absoluter Zeitfresser.
Grafik 10/10
Musik 10/10
Sound 10/10
Story 10/10
Immersion 10/10

After nearly 500 hours in-game I can say: It's quite alright.