Recent reviews by Vampus

The Witcher is a story-driven action RPG. I'll admit that it took me a few tries to get into this game; this was part due to its different combat system. The Witcher’s combat isn't about blindly clicking the mouse, but instead requires timing to effectively chain a number of progressively stronger attacks together (sort of a really cut down fighter’s style of combos) as well as picking the right fighting style for the situation.
The equippable item system in Witcher is rather basic. If you’re looking for a Diabloesce game with an exorbitant amount of different weapons and armour, you won’t find it here. Fundamentally, you’ll use 2 unique swords and a set of armour. These items have a couple of upgrades as the game progresses, but for the most part, that’s all you’ll use.
The real item aspect of the Witcher is with its “power ups”. You’ll spend most of your time looting corpses and objects in search of crafting components to create potions, bombs and weapon boosts.
I thought the levelling system in the game could have been a little more interesting. Every time you level up, you get certain kinds of skill points to allocate to a skill tree. These points mostly just influence your character’s numbers (extra damage, extra resistances, extra chances to dodge) and don’t necessarily feel noticeable. You do get to chain more attacks as you level those skills, but perhaps some completely new abilities as you level to show your advancement may help?
The visuals were quite good, especially given the game came out in 2008. I especially liked the look of the combat as well as the visual effect on the weapons when “power up” items were applied to them. My biggest con for this game however was the repetitive character models. You will run into the same NPCs and enemies models a LOT.
Lastly, the story. The Witcher story was quite enjoyable with a rather hefty length to it. The game offers you a lot of opportunities to make decisions, but ultimately the game’s outcome will be the same. We’re offer 3 endings, based on a few key decisions, with different set dressings along the way based on other decisions. In saying that though, I did get invested in the story and had wished some of my decisions had had different outcomes in the story.
Overall, a very enjoyable game and I’m looking forward to playing the sequel, Witcher 2. Should you so choose, your save file from Witcher 1 can be imported into Witcher 2, so that your decisions and equipment following you, allowing it to really feel like it’s a continuation of your character.
It you enjoy your stored driven RPG and have the time and patients to invest into a long story, I’d recommend giving The Witcher a try.

Superfrog HD is a simple platformer which is a remake of an Amiga classic. The game has multiple world and maps which require unlocking by finishing the previous areas which each maps coming in two forms; a duplicate of the original game's maps and a slightly updated version made for the remake. I personally found the original maps more of a challenge with the last world, world 6, providing the greatest challenge.

Despite what other people have reported, I had no negative experiences with the camera, although everyone's experiences may be different. Technically, the game ran quite smoothly with no problems encountered.

Superfrog HD may not appeal to everyone, but if you're a platforming fan, you should enjoy this game.

Serena is a short point & click / adventure game. It runs for approximately one hour, which much be played in one sitting due to lack of menu / save system. Despite its short playtime, Serena has quite a nice little story and dark atmospherics which it uses well. Added to this, the game is fully voice acted which adds to the atmosphere. The story will have you guessing at what's going to happen with an ending that will have you asking questions.

Simple, challenging, frustrating but very addictive. A simple but affective artstyle with decent sound/music. You run around as a little blue guy with a flashlight and a gun, killing waves of glowing, swarming pink aliens while collecting power-up and money to upgrade your chosen weapon.

Note: Only played CoH's Campaign and my hours are chalked up against the new steam edition of CoH.

Tales of Valor's campaigns breath fresh life into CoH by introducing some interesting mission/campaign features. While these features are unique to Tales of Valor, at the same time they feel at home within the CoH universe. Some of these mission features include a rotating map, alerting your units to an incoming attack and commanding an overpowered lone wolf tank against the British!

Note: Only played CoH's Campaign and my hours are chalked up against the new steam edition of CoH.

Opposing Fronts adds a little extra variety to the units in COH by introducing two new factions; British Army units and a mobile german faction called Kampfgruppe Lehr. This factions add some nice new units and abilities. Additionally, Opposing Fronts also adds two additional campaigns, one for each faction. The missions in these campaigns, along with the camapigns themselves, felt unique and enjoyable, with some nice flavour story and not just rehashings from the first game.

***NOTE: Game played on New Steam Version, but reviewed on this version***

As someone who isn't a big RTS fan, I focused my playtime on the Campaign.

I thoroughly enjoyed the campaigns. While there is always going to be come degree of "build as many units as you can and throw them at your enemy", Company of Heroes felt like it had more to offer than that. There is a lot of strategy involved to ensure your campaign objectives. Which sectors to capture; where to build defences and what kind to build; what makeup should my forces be?

The game felt very balanced, as no units or countries felt overpowered. The quality of your units were traded off well with their costs. A number of the units also have their own flavour dialogue which added a lot of character and humour to the game. The campaigns themselves had a nice flowing story to them, which was a nice surprise. If anything, I would have liked more story, but that probably shows my preference for story-driven games.

Overall, a nice campaign that you don't need to be a hardcore RTS player to enjoy. If you do enjoy your RTS though, there are also skirmish and online gameplay to enjoy.

Quite an enjoyable story and appropriate feel and graphics. Only downside for me is having to fight with the controls from time to time (possibly due to the port).