Athravan legutóbbi értékelései

It's been over a year since my last review. I'm still alive! It takes a lot to encourage me to write a review these days; I almost didn't, but given the mixed views on this, I wanted to share my point of view. I've forgotten how to style a review nicely so you get a wall of text.

If Frostpunk and This War of Mine had a baby, it would be Floodland. It's a post apocalyptic resource and colony management simulator. It's heavy on the micro management and excruciating on some of the detail, figuring out how to do it right and survive can be brutal and will take some time. Considering both Frostpunk and This War of Mine are in my top 10 favourite games, it's no wonder that I love Floodland too. There's so much to learn, so many mistakes to make - but very rewarding when you actually get that ah-ha moment of realizing you do know how to do something, until you're eventually one step ahead of the game.

In my current game I'm still in crisis management mode at the moment, my colony is struggling, I've not got enough workers, I rescued an old lady who gave my settlement the plague and I've got clans of people who hate each other and I'm trying to get them to play nice before all out riots break out. There's a massive world to explore but to be honest, I'm still trying to manage my tiny little island. And it's fun for me. There's atmosphere and there's story and there's meaningful choices to agonize over.

I did read quite a few of the negative reviews before playing and I think that going in to the game you do need to realize how brutal it is, how much reading of text and minute details, how much micro management and strategizing there is, and yes, how frustrating it can be too. Not everyone is going to find that fun. I've never sworn as much at a game as Frostpunk on hard mode, but that didn't mean it wasn't a good game. Perhaps it meant I wasn't a good enough gamer. But trying, and dying, is still a lot of fun. Floodlands strikes me as the same; a game that'll keep me swearing at it for quite a long time to come.

I will say that there are currently some optimization problems. I know a lot of people are having crashes when I write this. The game runs pretty good for me until it gets to day 100 or so, then the saving gets longer and longer and eventually it starts crashing after a save game and I need to restart. If I run autosave (which you kinda want to do in a game like this) I tend to need to restart it once an hour just to keep it happy, but hopefully this gets fixed in future patches. Obviously I understand the frustration of people who've paid for a game they can't play, but I do feel it's a bit unfair to write negative reviews within the first few weeks of release purely about optimization, without seeing if there are prompt fixes.

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The earth has been decimated, and become an abandoned junk yard. Whilst humanity survives on Mars, what better location for the ultra elite playing golf than the radioactive remains of earthly civilization? You wouldn't think that playing golf in the apocalypse is relaxing, but it truly is.

The smooth voice of a Mars radio DJ will provide you with most of the story, epistolary style, with news snippets, interviews and an emotional genre-spanning soundtrack written for the game (and buying the game nets you a free copy of the soundtrack, too). In between levels, you'll realize that someone is watching you play, someone who was left behind on the planet... so you also get a third person view of the situation.

Demagog Studio calls this approach Constellation Storytelling, a term I love, to depict "stories told through nonlinear media with a focus on gaming". I'm all in.

At the beginning of the game you're told to play with headphones, and I highly recommend it. Audio is critical to the atmosphere. It's strange to feel emotional about the story of the apocalypse, whilst playing golf, but the environment is immersive and won't fail to draw you in.

The main gameplay is simple golf, aim, angle and strength, whack the ball through the debris and get it in the hole. If you mess up, reset - it won't affect the story which plays on regardless of how well you're golfing. The challenge comes from dodging sand pits, lakes and rivers, navigating abandoned buildings and cities, and of course, avoiding radioactive cows who will eat your golf ball if it gets too close. You know, just golf things.

Most levels are fairly straight forward, but there are quite a few secrets to be found and achievements to be earned. Occasionally a level will become a bit of a puzzle, but on the whole, nothing too cerebral, the relaxing atmosphere is maintained - unless you choose Iron Man difficulty, and then you have only yourself to blame.

There are three difficulty levels for replayability and challenge, although you'll already have experienced the story so future playthroughs won't have that magic. A single story playthrough will only take a few hours, but at a fiver, it feels excellent value for money.

Relaxation and immersion is exactly what I need right now, so I'm giving this a big thumbs up - I just didn't expect to find it in the apocalypse, whilst playing golf!

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Galactic Mining Corp is one of those games where I don't really know why I like it, and I probably should be doing something better with my time, but I still find myself addictively playing it. Put on some music or your favourite Netflix show, chill out, and start drilling.

A solid 90% of the game is drilling down (or occasionally sideways, maybe even back up if you're feeling fancy) through blocks of many different types of resource on a variety of planets that have different creatures trying to eat you and different damage eroding your ship. The other 10% of the game is clicking upgrade.

You upgrade your blocks, you upgrade the items, you upgrade your crew, and your rooms, and your drill (in many different ways). There's a huge upgrade tree from the core pieces you're rewarded with, and there's a big research panel that's basically you just collecting all these items and then clicking to research it. Your upgrades have upgrades, your unlocks have more unlocks.

And that's it. That's the game. You build rooms, you hire crew, you collect things and you drill. Then you repeat until you've achieved 100% achievements (since there's no story, I'm marking that as the endgame, since you'll have unlocked and upgraded everything.) There's no way to lose; even if you get eaten by a weird alien monster, you don't lose your resources. There's no way to go backwards in progression. It's as casual as casual gets.

Are you already bored reading this review? Then you won't enjoy this game. And that's okay, it's not going to be for everyone.

For me though, there's a zen-like charm to the addictive progressive gameplay loop. The art style is colourful and charming and I adore the character art on the crew - very creative and unique so I enjoy unlocking the next room or crew. I like collecting things. I like upgrading things. I like seeing my money go up. I like achievements. Galactic Mining Corp hits the sweet spot of "I didn't really do anything but I enjoyed doing it anyway and now I feel more relaxed." Any video game that I can close out of feeling more chill these days gets a thumbs up from me.

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Mass Effect 1 was the first game I ever completed on PC back in 2008 or so, and the entire Mass Effect trilogy remains one of my favourite gaming experiences of all time. Naturally when I saw this Legendary Edition was priced at £54.99, I was like, nah. I've already paid for all these games on Origin. I've completed them. I don't have time for this anyway. Why would I go ahead and spend over £50 on it, and I closed it.

It was like a little alien brain-worm had invaded me. I kept thinking about it. Wondering about all the DLC I never bought. Wondering about how it would play in 2021 in 4K Ultra HD glory. Why did I even buy this fancy ass monitor if I wasn't going to buy Mass Effect Legendary Edition? I was already thinking about the playthrough I was going to have, the choices I was going to make, how epic it would be to experience games 1-2-3 back to back rather than waiting years in between and forgetting half the details.

So yeah, I bought it. I've sunk some time into the first one - which is arguably the one that needed a bit of TLC the most. It may actually take me years to finish all three with the amount of free time I have lately (screw you, real life), but I'm off to a good start, reliving the experience. I'd forgotten how tough some of the decisions in the first game were.

It really looks fantastic, I've not experienced problems with bugs (touch wood) and it runs on my PC like a dream. Playing the first game for a second time 12 years later has managed to capture both nostalgia and a fresh feel for me somehow. Probably because I've forgotten just enough detail to make half of it seem new, whilst remembering the other half. It's a smoother experience, but not streamlined or dumbed down for the masses (phew). It's kept that undefinable je ne sais quoi. I was worried some of the atmosphere might be missing - but it's definitely still there. It still feels like something special. But even better.

I never would have prioritised replay the original games, but this re-release gave me the motivation to revisit one heck of an epic series and I have no regrets. Don't expect any new reviews from me for some time though, this one's going to take a wee while to complete! I've even started looking at the achievements and wondering if I could 100% it, wish me luck.

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The Tutorial for Evil Genius seems to assume you have never played a video game before. It holds your hand every step of the way. Build this room, place this object. Click this, click that. Build the next room, place object, click this, click that. It tells you every tiny action for every single element of the game and it takes HOURS to complete, often repeating itself. It told me four times how to escort a prisoner from a prison cell and put them in the torture chair. I didn't even need to be told once. It doesn't wrap it in a story, or give it any context. It is one of the most boring tutorials I've ever completed.

My suggestion? Skip the tutorial. If you've already played Evil Genius 1 then there's really nothing new you're going to learn. If you've ever played any sort of base building strategy game, you can probably figure it out. My fear is people will get bored in the first 2 hours of the game and refund it - when actually, if you skip the tutorial and get straight to the good stuff, you might realize it's actually way better than it first seems.


In Evil Genius 2 the main strategy elements will come from base design, placing traps, managing minions and mission management. We have to design an evil villainous lair in a way that it doesn't get discovered by all those pesky agents, complete with traps and defenses. We train up our minions into different specialities, researching more and more things as we go, and on the overhead map you must send your minions to certain doom in order to complete tasks. All of these elements are well managed, with a scaling complexity that ramps up as you play the game. It's a slow progression, which makes it initially seem overly simple, but as you play, you unlock more and more options, more items, more complicated missions and side quests with actual interesting and funny stories - it just might take you 10 hours to get to the really good stuff. I'm loving the game now, but felt it was a bit of a slog in the beginning and started off disappointed rather than excited.


I've read a lot of fairly negative reviews about Evil Genius 2, and the crux usually comes down to the fact that it doesn't innovate on Evil Genius 1, and that's true. It doesn't really bring anything crazy and new to the table and it actually simplifies some of the previous processes. I think there's a bit of rose-tinted nostalgia going on here though, because Evil Genius could be tedious and overly complicated at times and certainly wasn't perfect - although it was pretty darn good. Evil Genius was actually my first first game on Steam and the reason I registered for Steam back in the jurassic period or so. In streamlining some of EG1's processes we've got a more modern game that still has a considerable amount of depth if you push on past the annoying hand-holding of the beginning and really dig into the research tree, but it does seem to have lost a little something along the way.


I had hoped that EG2 would bring something new to the table and improve upon it's predecessor, and it hasn't. We've moved backwards a little, but I'm still finding it a very satisfying strategy game and a solid entry into the dungeon keeper genre. I'd give it an 8 / 10, and that equates to a thumbs up from me.

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This is the first game I've ever purchased after seeing an advert on Reddit!

I've been pleasantly surprised at discovering a deep and unique ARPG. This is probably quite a niche pick; but manages to tickle me in all the right places. It reminds me of old school Ultima Online, combined with Diablo, or perhaps Divine Divinity, with a bit of Pokemon thrown in (creature trapping and collecting), and then a card game reminiscent of some of the old Final Fantasy card games on top.

• Interesting old-school genre
  
• Deep crafting system
  
• Interesting skill system, that forces you to make choices about playstyle
  
• Huge open world
  
• Lots of dungeons with simple puzzles
  
• Fun collectibles; Pokemon style animals & card mini-game.
  
• Satisfying gameplay

• Equipment upgrades often don't feel very epic
  
• Can be grindy

9th Dawn 3 doesn't hold your hand and I'm a big girl now, so I like that a lot. It lets you walk out of the tutorial and do whatever you want to, but offers you plenty of options of quests if you want direction. It has a complex and deep crafting system, albeit very grindy, which means almost everything you pick up in the world is actually useful, but it doesn't force you to use it if you don't want to. I do want to, very much, I bloody love crafting. I'm off to collect 32 billion more spiders legs, right now.

Gameplay itself is incredibly simple. Hold the button down to attack, 1-9 to cast your spells/skills or use items, if you've learned any, and vanquish entire hordes of enemies. It's satisfying, watching 2D corpses fly and loot drop, but there are bosses that make you pay attention too. I'm old, and slow, so simple gameplay works well for me.

I love the unique skill point system of having to explore and find ability orbs in the world to actually learn your special skills, whilst also having your crafting skills and background skills, like destruction magic, etc. level passively. This really incentivizes you to explore outside the quest direction and to complete puzzles for something meaningful.

The world is large with many many dungeons and explorables. Dungeons are filled with puzzles that are primarily based around finding different locations and objects, pulling levers and killing massive amounts of nasties. A large number of people seem to have locked themselves in rooms or accidentally stood on the wrong side of gates and that could perhaps use a bit of variety or some sort of school education system to stop this continually happening. Puzzles on the whole could do with being a bit more cerebral, but what's here does work very well and fits with the simple gameplay.

Gear is pretty straight forward but has some bonuses that make it worth collecting and making you decide if you want to be stronger, or level faster, or to choose between bonuses such as ice magic or earth, or defense. If I was going to fault the game, it would be the upgrades often don't feel particularly epic and most of my loot gets chucked at the vendors. On the plus side the sprites for the equipment are pretty cool. The graphics on the whole are a fun style and well done.

9th Dawn 3 has a deep nostalgic pull to me of older games that didn't mind making you work for your money, that didn't mind forcing you to grind, to make you explore for yourself, to make your own decisions about where to go next, to build your own character rather than googling for "most OP build this season" and of course, pay for your own mistakes as you make them. You won't find instant gratification here, but I have found it very satisfying overall.

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I kickstarted (Well, figged? That's such an odd platform name..) Wasteland 3 back in 2016, waiting four long years only for it to be released on Games Pass at the same time. My tears were salty, but I got over it. Then I got abused by a parrot, creeped out by a clone and propositioned by a whole host of strange (and very occasionally, sexy) characters. I'm not sure how I feel about that... let's not even talk about the goat.


Wasteland 3 is an RPG party management game which has been much streamlined from it's predecessors. Everything is fairly intuitive and easy to use. Wasteland 1 and 2 were clunky; but 3 is a more modern iteration for the gamer who wants deep skill choices and heavy party balance but without too much faff. One of my favourite upgrades from the previous is if you have your party selected and your selected main character doesn't have the skill you're looking for, whether that's diffusing a bomb, opening a safe, or repairing a toaster, the game will automatically switch to the character needed and complete that action. Hallelujah! No more endlessly switching trying to figure out which character I need for which action. Smooth and easy. Maybe I'm easily pleased.

Talking of smooth, inventory and combat are also simplified, without taking away any of the thought involved. A shared inventory between the party makes equipment a breeze, but there are a few ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ for me in weapon choices, a few things that seem underpowered and some that seem OP. It's okay though, it's easy enough to switch things around, and if you decide you don't like a party member full stop, you can easily switch them out either for a pre-made creation, a completely custom character, or a flavour-personality.

Combat is solid and familiar. There's a respectable array of weapons, some quite unique. There are pets and assistants, some with a whole host of flavour and lore to them. The environment is great; full of detail and things to pay attention to, like cryo barrels to freeze your opponents, or fire to warm up your team. Wait, maybe I did the fire bit wrong... according to achievements at the time, 4% of other people have killed their own party with fire so at least it's not just me.

In short, the gameplay is great. A solid improvement without taking anything away. Not innovative, but an example of the genre done well. Accessible enough for someone who's never played a party RPG before, but with plenty of depth (and difficulty options) for hardened or sadistic souls.

There's also an online co-op mode. I don't have friends willing to play games like this with me, so I can't comment on that, but I love that it's an option.


The Wasteland series has always had a great mix of gritty realism and slapstick sillyness, with witty on point writing, grizzly scenarios and random oddities. Wasteland 3 is no exception and really captures the surreal apocalypse vibe. In fact, I'd say the writing is the best of the series. The characters have personality, the quests have depth and intrigue and everything was interesting to me. I love it when I want to do every quest in the game, not for loot of exp, but genuinely, to find out what happened. Choices feel important in most quests, although it's hard to say how important they really are without multiple playthroughs. The choices are hard; often pulling on your morality and you never know if 40 hours later something you barely gave a thought is going to come back and bite you in the butt. Save refugees or get power armor? Enslave a girl or get secret vault codes? Ahhh, I don't want to be the bad guy. But I do like secret vault codes...

Disco Elysium still wins my "Best written game of the decade" award; but Wasteland 3 is definitely in my top 10. An improvement would be more unique characters that you can recruit; as your base ends up being staffed by a lot of forgettable faces and I think they missed a chance to improve base management in general.


It's buggy, buggy, buggy.

That's what holds Wasteland 3 back from greatness really. If you get annoyed by bugs then this game will frustrate at some point or other. I have several quests in my quest log that appear uncompleteable, have had to roll back time an hour at one point, and have experienced many bugs and glitches like shooting through walls, characters losing health instead of gaining it and at one point an invisible enemy shooting me from inside a wall, which seemed particularly unfair. There are patches going out so this might be fixed in the future, but only you can decide if this would be a dealbreaker for you right now. It's always a shame to see a game held back by bugs.


Yeah, absolutely. I had an intimate and memorable experience from this satisfyingly solid RPG. I'd give it a solid 8/10.

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Death Stranding is one of the oddest games I’ve had the joy to play to date. It’s a post apocalyptic delivery simulator, coupled with a deep, desperate story-driven enigma. It’s got moments of action, but what I enjoy about it the most is just driving or hiking through the wind-swept wilderness, hoping I won’t have my soul sucked out of me by unseen ghosts, determined to take my package from A to B.

It has haunting moments where you’re making your way across the landscape, the music switches on, the game zooms out, the clouds are in the distance, and there’s just a moment of pure video game zen. Death Stranding captured a certain je ne sais quoi that I really wasn’t expecting.

If this sounds like the most boring thing I could possibly describe, and for some, it will be, then the game isn’t for you.

The story is bizarre, with mind-boggling backstory that’s often info-dumped. The exposition in Death Stranding is clunky. Kojima has never been subtle and some of the story telling feels like being hit with a hammer, repeatedly. But even so, the world building is fantastic. Creative, unique, an aesthetic that really complements the setting, buildings and machinery that are futuristic and otherworldly, yet fit perfectly into this messed up version of Earth. The cut scenes, whilst indulgent, are top quality. Norman Reedus as Sam Bridges is astoundingly well voiced and animated, but the whole cast of experienced actors bring the story to life. I really want to read the book, watch the movie.

I loved the social commentary. The country is divided, isolated, afraid. We’re making America whole again by connecting it together, sharing information and resources. Likes are our currency. We’re isolated and alone, even as we’re connecting the country with our magic-internet. Sam’s journey across America is an epic test of faith, a belief in an idea, the trust that it will be worth it. Sometimes when I was on a long journey, overburdened, staring at a mountain that I knew was going to take 45 minutes of painstaking walking to traverse, I also had to draw on that faith.

The gameplay is fantastic, if it’s a hiking simulator you’re looking for. Terrain has to be traversed, equipment has to be unlocked and upgraded, progression is steady and rewarding, with both practical, informational and cosmetic options. Packages degrade and have to be carried careful, you must manage yourself as much as your journey. You have to think ahead. Construction helps you navigate, making subsequent journeys easier and this is beautifully implemented with an online network that means other players can affect your world; and you theirs. Connecting you with your fellow gamers, even as you play alone.

The least fun part of the game is the weapons and the action scenes. The enemies become tedious making me avoid them out of boredom more than fear, and the bosses are repetitive. Grenade out, rinse and repeat, anticlimactic. I don’t think the game would have lost anything if the combat had been removed completely; it might even have gained something. It would have felt tighter, more together. Death Stranding is a terrible action game; but it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played.

For me, Death Stranding has been an epic journey. Tough and sometimes frustrating, but also relaxing, rewarding and at times, even awe-inspiring. An experience.

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I've had this in my library for a few years but had never played it. I noticed it was very cheap on sale so wanted to give it a go as a recommendation to others, and to knock one off my unplayed list. Only 1600 to go?! Send help...

• Unique turn based strategy mechanics
  
• Meta progression
  
• Interesting hero choices once all are unlocked
  
• Good aesthetics and sound.

• A bit repetitive.
  
• Can be grindy to build the strength you need to proceed past the first 60-90 minutes.

Like more detail? Good, I like writing...


Guards is a simple turn based strategy game from the developer of Warstone TD (which I loved) where you play a team of four different heroes, each with a standard attack and a special attack. You have a small grid that allows three heroes to stand at the front and one at the back. To take your turn, you have to switch any two heroes. You can't choose to keep them in formation, they have to move to progress the game. The heroes at the front get hit by waves of monsters, each with melee, ranged or special abilities, whilst the hero at the back heals. Switching from back to front activates a heroes special ability. You need to switch around your tanks, healers and ranged damage, whilst keeping in mind the special abilities, until you defeat the designated number of monsters and win the level.


At the end of the level you can upgrade heroes with gold for that run. If a single hero dies, it's game over, although there are some items you can equip and use as well, including a resurrection rune which can help save one death. After the game is over, you get runes which you can spend on meta progression or unlocking new heroes. Other than upgrades, you can buy and equip items, and complete quests which help progression go faster with rewards.


It is quite grindy and you will have to die quite a few times to unlock what you need to progress, which is a little frustrating because the levels are very similar so playing them over and over again to farm runes doesn't really need much different strategy - although once you unlock all the heroes and play further, you've got more options. It does feel like I'm hitting a wall not because I'm not employing the best strategy, but because I simply don't have the stats upgraded yet so I think there is room for better balance.


Despite the grind, I like the game. It's aesthetically pleasing, it has a unique and interesting mechanic, the heroes you unlock are quite interesting and playing requires a good amount of thought. I'm not sure it really has a massive amount of replayability in it, but I do think it is well-made.

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Planet Zoo is probably the game that I was most interested in of the last 10 years, which might seem a little weird, but the premise of the game literally ticks all my boxes. Not only have I worked with exotic animals for my entire adult life (which showing my age, is quite a long time), I have an avid interest in animal breeding genetics, conservation, and video games. It's a bit of a hard combo to meet all these interests, so the original Zoo Tycoon series (topped by Zoo Tycoon 2) is one of my favourite games of all time (ignoring the hideous console reboot of course which I like to pretend doesn't exist). Planet Zoo released when I was wallowing pretty deeply in depression and haven't had much time for video games, so I haven't quite managed to get the pleasure out of it I'd hoped for, but that's certainly no fault of the game. 100 hours later and I've finally mustered up a few words to start reviewing again, and almost made a decent looking custom enclosure or two...

• Stunning graphics
  
• Realistic animal behaviour
  
• Complex Breeding and Genetics
  
• Ample Tycoon / Management Mechanics if you want them, and a Sandbox if you don't
  
• Franchise mode which allows you to link multiple zoos and get a great feeling of progression
  
• 62 million (feels like) customization options
  
• Extensive workshop support and amazing fanbase of creators
  
• Lots of conservation information and very educational
  
• Regular updates and new content
  
• Interesting campaign with some stunning pre-built zoos
  
• One of the narrators is Welsh

• Perfect customization is a bit fiddly with a high learning curve. Expect to spend hours making a single wall at first, if you don't want to use the workshop
  
• I expect the rising cost of buying all the DLC is going to start putting some people off who are new to the game
  
• The pathing system still makes me want to throw things at my computer

I think that Planet Zoo is everything that we could have hoped for in both a successor to Zoo Tycoon 2 from an animal simulation perspective, and a successor to Planet Coaster from a tycoon perspective. Planet Coaster initially lacked in tycoon elements and campaign features, but feedback was definitely listened to and Planet Coaster has a much deeper array of management tools, as well as a fully fleshed campaign complete with storyline and voiceover. Also one of the narrators is Welsh, and hearing a Welsh accent unexpectedly when I first played the game brought a rare smile to my face.

It gets a double thumbs up from me. Right, back to encouraging animals to get it on.

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