Recent reviews by Demian

I only played for an hour and a half during a free weekend after coming to the conclusion that this game is not for me. I do not think it is a bad game at all but I am more interested in story-driven/role-playing games. So take my review with a large grain of salt: I was only experimenting with going out of my comfort zone and looking for something to occupy my weekend.

I have no particular interest in the Lord of The Rings universe so I could only recognize a handful of the dozen or so words of jargon that pepper the dialogue right from the start. I'm sure these terms are explained in some lore pages in the menus but since my intention was to just have a quick look at the game I could not be bothered to read them. This made the following the story somewhat difficult. In general I found the story (or what little of it I played) to be mechanically sufficient (being locked into Mordor, giving you some reason to kill this dude, and then this one, and then the next one, etc.) but boring content wise. I have no idea what the first 15 or so minutes of tutorial in the beginning was supposed to be. For a brand new player to the LOTR games it was a confusing ride through disjointed scenes, a very odd way to start a game. Perhaps the deeper meaning of these are explained later but it definitely did not work in favor of the game.

I wasn't in it for the story anyway. I did a fair bit of combat since that appears to the core focus of the game and I could definitely see some interesting mechanics in play with the captains and runes but my combat eventually devolved into button mashing. Perhaps there is greater depth to found later (perhaps additional mechanics are unlocked?) but I had little trouble dancing around in the middle of a dozen orcs mashing the attack button and counter when prompted, trying to find an opening to slit the throats of downed orcs. It was quite repetitive.

The alright freedom of movement (tall cliff faces only slightly slow you down), lack of fall damage, passable stealth mechanics, and the short-sightedness of the orcs make for rather arcade-like gameplay which (to me) emphasize the fact that you are here to kill orcs by the battalion and nothing else. Ultimately the final nail in the coffin for me was the impermanence of the world: everything seems respawn after you literally turn your back on them. I understand that Mordor is supposed to be swarming with orcs but it was extremely frustrating to first slaughter a group of orcs at a camp and freeing their human slaves, then climbing up a very nearby cliff to look down at the camp only to see that the bodies of the orcs were now gone and a band of fresh orcs have respawned along with the human slaves. There appeared to be an area liberation mechanic and perhaps this kind of instant respawning no longer happens when you have liberated an area but it is incredibly demoralizing to see that your actions have no effect on the world. Perhaps that was the intention of the developers?

Really, an hour of gameplay is not enough to get a proper feel for a game of this scale but I had seen some gameplay videos beforehand that made me curious about the combat and captain mechanics in particular. More than anything I wrote this review to remind myself in the future that I did not like the game but I've made it public in case other people are interested in my first impression of it.

This is how you beat the masters in their own game. A few years ago I didn't think it would be possible to make a better city simulator than SimCity 4, especially after the failure of SimCity 2013. Then this masterpiece comes out of the mediocrity that was the Cities In Motion series to save the day.

I haven't looked back at SimCity since.

The gameplay has little offer apart from go to place X because of reason Y and shoot the red enemy ships. Freelancer is better by leaps and bounds.

I've read great things about the game and many of my friends recommended it but to be honest it only felt like an okay game. Not very good, not bad, just okay. The gameplay is fairly standard hack and slash, though solid I didn't feel like it was particularly innovative or new. Towards the end of the game the combat was merely background noise and I was more focused on the narration unlike in the beginning of the game. The narration of the story throughout the game was an excellent idea on the developer's part giving the game an unique storybook-like atmosphere. The painterly visuals support this atmosphere very well.

I didn't really understand the story, I might have missed something along the way but I found it a little confusing and that definitely limited my enjoyment. If the gameplay looks interesting by all means give it a try but in my opinion you play this game for the story. With the multiple endings and a New Game+ mode there's plenty of that to go around.

----[Rating based on the genre]----

Story: 3.5/5
Gameplay: 3/5
Challenge: 4/5
Discovery: 4/5
Replayability: 3/5
Aesthetics: 5/5
Visuals: 5/5
Atmosphere: 5/5
Music: 3.5/5

A surprisingly entertaining game. The mechanics are fairly simple but very enjoyable. It is a very relaxing game. Great for zoning out.

----[Rating weighted based on the genre]----

Story: /5
Gameplay: 4/5
Challenge: -/5 (Varies.)
Discovery: 2/5
Replayability: 10/5 (No reason not to replay this game every now and then.)
Aesthetics: 5/5
Visuals: 5/5
Atmosphere: 4/5
Music: 4/5

If the gameplay videos do not look interesting there is nothing more to this game. I didn't like it. Although from a technical standpoint I quite like the game. It's pretty and I find the mechanics impressive.

All I can say is be prepared for frustration. This game is very challenging.

----[Rating weighted based on the genre]----

Story: 2/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Challenge: 5/5
Discovery: 3/5
Replayability: 4/5
Aesthetics: 3.5/5
Visuals: 3.5/5
Atmosphere: 4/5
Music: -/5 (It's been a while since I played it.)

It's a Peggle game. If you've never played one check out some videos on YouTube. There's no need to read any reviews, if the gameplay looks interesting and fun to you: get this game. There isn't all that much to this game apart from what you see from the videos. Yeah there's different powerups but the core gameplay is exactly the same. On all Peggle games.

If you're a Peggle fan you already have this game.

----[Rating weighted based on the genre]----

Story: 2/5
Gameplay: 5/5
Challenge: 4/5
Discovery: 1/5
Replayability: 10/5
Aesthetics: 5/5
Visuals: 5/5
Atmosphere: 4/5
Music: 4/5

I didn't play this game all that much because I hit a wall with one level. I simply couldn't beat it. The gameplay is pretty good and it's definitely a fascinating game. I say do your research if you're interested in it. There is probably more to this game than I saw.

----[Rating weighted based on the genre]----
I didn't play it long enough to properly rate it.

Story: -/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Challenge: 4/5
Discovery: -/5
Replayability: -/5
Aesthetics: 4/5
Visuals: 3/5
Atmosphere: 4/5
Music: -/5

-WARNING-

Military nerds only. This game does NOT ♥♥♥♥ around. This is NOT your average FPS game. It is extremely realistic and you NEED to know your military ♥♥♥♥ if you want to properly enjoy this game. I could not finish the first mission.

----[Rating weighted based on the genre]----
Not enough play time to properly rate this game.

Story: -/5
Gameplay: 5/5
Challenge: 10/5
Discovery: -/5
Replayability: -/5
Aesthetics: -/5
Visuals: 4.5/5
Atmosphere: -/5
Music: 3.5/5