Recent reviews by aeighwoupe

Crashes. Bugs. Connection issues.

Roll delay is a thing. For a game that's based on quick reflex to avoid attacks, this is annoying. It's still a fun game though.

The Longest Journey
An oldies with great gameplay. Don’t be taken aback by it’s low polygon graphic, it still have very good story and character personality. Once you play, you’ll be looking for the game’s sequel.

Pro

• Very good story. With a bit of twist here and there. A fantasy well written.
  
• Character with personality. If you feel attach to the character of a games, that’s a well written and acted character. You’ll love April Ryan, and Crow, especially Crow.
  
• Good and challenging puzzles. The puzzles are well made and not ridiculous as some point and click games are. If you need to do something, there’s a good reason behind it and there’s also a good logic on how doing something will affect the outcome.

Con

• Graphic not at current standard. It’s a Y2K era game. What did you expect?
  
• The pop up menu not showing properly. When you click some menu and a “Yes or No” question pop up, it just showing a blank white rectangle. You can use keyboard (Y or N), but it might not be obvious at first.

A great and innovative controller with a steep learning curve to get familiar with it. It can be an alternative option for mouse and keyboard, but the downside, it's not for everybody. Most people can't even change their keyboard layout to Dvorak, let alone change the hardware of it. It feels a bit weird playing games made for gamepad using this, but it's good to be able to play games not meant for gamepad using this. As other has mentioned, the controller works best to be used with the Steam Link or Steam Machine, i.e couch, where keyboard and mouse are hard to use. With a steep learning curve, it's going to take quite a long time to get used to it before you can play games competitively with it. It's fine with turn-based games, but will be much harder with action games. It would be best to learn a bit of customisation available from http://www.pcgamer.com/steam-controller-setup-guide/

Pro

• A great alternative to keyboard and mouse/gamepad. Precisely, it's a hybrid gamepad with a mouse.
  
• Easy to use albeit hard to master. Good for turn-based or low pace games.
  
• Can also be used for browsing which is very good if you're on the couch playing games and need to look up for tips and walkthrough. You don't have to reach out for the keyboard to do the searches. It's even more useful with Steam own Steam controller keyboard.
  
• Every buttons, stick and pad can be customised to suit you.

Cons

• It is not keyboard and mouse/gamepad. With more than 30 decades headstart, it's hard to catch up with.
  
• Hard to master albeit easy to use. Bad for action or competitive games.
  
• Not really meant to be used if you have a keyboard and mouse in front of you.
  
• The setting template might be way too different from one game to another.
  
• The setting template might not be available for the game you want to play, thus you need to customise it on your own.

P/s: Review written using the Steam Controller

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II
As the second sequel in a trilogy, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II does keep its pros from the previous game. Unfortunately, it also retains its con. Recommended as the cons are not really a game breaking.

Pro

• Memorable companion*. Still loves her.
  
• Quest system*. They have since added some additional quest involving Captains and Fluffy. Not really game affecting quest but it does makes an excuse for a little breather and a nice source of extra income and items/essences.
  
• Tower defence mini game*. The traps are now improved with more choices. Still wish to be able to play this mini game on demand.
  
• The skill systems are well made* but not perfect. It is now improved compared to the previous skill but still, my best skill is Scattering shot from the 1st game, and that is the skill that makes it easy to get past through most enemies.

Con

• Artificial difficulty*. Come at me bro.
  
• Some skills are still useless*. Nevertheless, they made few improvement regarding this. Single target skills generally have much higher damage and almost all skill will have a bit of a multi-target effect to it such as Ricochet.
  
• Some bug and glitches can still be seen*. CTD when trying to place a rune on the create item slot. CTD when trying to refund Acid Puddle skill.
  
• The rune system doesn’t feels like tailored for midgame. Based on the number of required item and price for rune crafting, it doesn’t feels like it meant for mid game item upgrade. You can craft things, but it feels like it’s more of an end game system or rather completing items after finishing all the quest.

* Refer to The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing review

A great ARPG. Does everything we want from an ARPG title, and a bit more. Does have some flaw, but not a deal breaker. The first series of a trilogy. Review based on GOTY version as the based version might have other flaws as mentioned by other review.

Pro

• Memorable companion. The ghost companion makes me feel like I'm not just going out to kill monster randomly. I’m out for an adventure. She’s a playful character and does make all those little things interesting by her quirky remarks.
  
• Quest system. The main quest system doesn’t differ much from any other ARPG, but the side quest is where it gets interesting. The game doesn’t use the standard exclamation-mark-quest-here for all quest. The quest might be out there hidden in the nearby area by interactable items. Once you get the item, read what the item tells you and look for any related items in the surrounding area.
  
• Tower defence mini game. The game manages to incorporate a tower defence game without slipping away from its main genre. You can’t fully rely on the traps provided thus you should deploy the trap tactically and let you yourself be the main defence. Unfortunately, there are not much chance to play this mini game and only playable depending on the storyline.
  
• The skill systems are well made. You have lots of build choice you can make. With the skill refund, you can change your playstyle midgame. The build might not be well balanced, but it might be just me, not good at creating a build.

Con

• Artificial difficulty. As other mention, the game uses artificial difficulty by employing a sheer number of enemies. I’m not saying the enemies design are bad, but you always need to fight with a sheer number of them, and by that I mean, a buttload of them up to the point that you can’t move due to being surrounded by them. It is not undefeatable though.
  
• Some skills are pure useless. The skill itself aren’t bad, but due to the artificial difficulty, some skills, especially single target skills are worthless. You’ll only use AOE skills or you won’t make it to kill each of the enemies one by one.
  
• The game feels pretty short. Granted that this is only the first part of a trilogy, but it does feels a bit short. Nevertheless, it makes you want to continue with the second instalment. Probably it’s not really a con point.
  
• Some bug and glitches can still be seen. For example, the Mana per second for Ray of Destruction skill are listed as Skill.Common.ManaCostPerSecond.
  

A very well made game. The graphic and layout may gives an impression of a cheap and sub par game but when you try it, you know you were wrong. Well, after you finished the tutorial of course. The first few hours of the game might be boring but if you stick to it until you get your base, that's the real fun and action really starts.

Pro:
- Nice story. It is not a blockbuster, but it is not as simple as save-the-damsel-in-distress-but-she-is-in-another-castle linear type of story.
- Nice implementation of RPG gameplay. You start weak, you end strong. You start poor, you end rich. You start with fist, you end with a rocket launcher. You start alive, you end dead, at least couple of time for me near the end.
- Nice action/combat. It's kinda simplistic, but fits well with the gameplay. Some people dislike the targeting system where with the lowest skill, you can even miss at melee distance. For me it is done well as you can improves it with firearm skill. It's better than not being able to use certain weapon due to not meeting the requirement. You want to use a rifle? You can, but you'll waste lots of rifle bullets. If the rifle bullets are too precious, keep using the gun until you get better with your aiming.
- Nice enemy. Some people dislike the infected being able to detect you from distance and ambush you. I think that's brilliant. It will give you a sense of fear and always be careful when exploring especially new area. It's not zombicalypse if you're not fear for your life. You're not only dealing with zombie, but also with human.
- Adequate partial RTS. You can build a base, or multiple bases. You can provide shelter and create a self sustain community. Fend off gang of raiders or zombies. I would love to have more choice, but it is adequate for the game.
- It's a survival. You need to eat, you need to drink, you need to sleep, you need to make lov...maybe not. Be prepare for your adventure and scavenge as needed.
- Choices you make, affect the game. All those people you kill, all those people you shakedown, all those presents you give, will affect others.
- There are no "I'm the kindest, purest, friendliest, generous" type of gameplay. It's a state of emergency, act like one.
- Large map. It is kinda empty, but it is large.

Cons:
- Slow tutorial. The tutorial is embedded within the storyline. It'll be a while before you'll complete the tutorial and left only with a real quest. Before the tutorial completed, the game kinda boring, which turn off some of the players.
- Some part of the objective give you a sense of rushing towards the ends. You don't have all the time in the world to explore the map (in the beginning). It's part of the story, and with a good reason to do so, but some people just get annoyed by it. Me included. After finishing the game, I'm glad it's there. It serves a purpose. A valid purpose.
- Super equipment to know everything. I'm not sure why it's there, but it feels like a cheat.
- After you established a self sustain base, the survival part of the game feels empty. Corns are way too effective that it's becoming a trading commodity.

A very good city-building game. It can satisfy your city-building genre need and having pleasure while doing so. Very good graphic and nice challenge with the climate requirement.

However the game is not without flaws. The game lack upgradability, which mean once you built something, there's not much left to it. If your eager is just to build everything on the build list, you'll have it all in few hours.
Thankfully, there's a large mod which added lots of craftable building to the list. The game, however still lack the quest/challenge to push you forward, even with the mod. In short, it's like Anno series in sandbox mode.
If you're the type of person that lost interest once you reach the stable city build, play the game with the hardest mode. This way, you'll spend more time learning and perfecting your planning, instead of just spending 3-4 hour build everything the base game has on the list.

I had too much fun with this game. I can play it any time I want as long I have one free hand to use. I can now play a full game while eating a pizza, drinking a coke, write a diary, play the same game on two different monitor or even mast....anything you want. You can now play a decent game in your busiest time. Grab it, you wont regret it.