Recent reviews by Diamond Llama

As an old Evolved player I can honestly say I love this game. It's still Ark. Brighter, sure, but its Ark.

The official servers are a pain to get onto, let alone play consistently on. But non-official multiplayer is pure joy in this game.

If playing with others isn't your thing, you can tweak almost any aspect of your game play experience in single player mode. This is a fantastic option for the average gamer who has a few other games they want to get around to. Pop into single player and tweak your settings to keep up with how much you want to play - you get the same experience as an always online multiplayer Ark server, but things are suited to your speed.

For a new player, wondering if riding dinosaurs with freaking lasers on their heads is your kind of thing...well you got this far in the review right? So it is.

For us old Evolved players - the Homonid habilis of players - yeah, she's still our old girl. You'll be back to breeding multicoloured dino mutants to form perfect circles and screenlag your mates in no time.

This game is a fun, relaxing time sink. Load up a battleship and irritate cruisers trying to approach the cap. Strap on a Destroyer and go harass a flank. Good action pace, fun rewards and easy matchmaking? This game is a win for me.

Begin as a Count of a small piece of land and manipulate, negotiate, wage dubious wars, murder, marry and breed your your way to the top of the feudal (or clan) hierarchy.
Or maybe just start as an Emperor and grapple with the duty of keeping your lineage at the top of the food chain.
But watch out! Others have their eyes set on your throne, and you won't keep it long if you rest on your laurels.

Its definitely interesting being the minority language in a game and waiting for localisation patches to fix glaring language problems, but if that doesn't turn you off, you have a gorgeous game to look at.

You are going to grind. Forever. EVERYTHING is Grind to Win. Want a new weapon? Grind. Want money? Grind. Want a new pet? Oh that costs real money.

Still. I can't put the game down and I honestly am enjoying the grind.

No Man's Sky is a beautiful, fun and engaging game that draws players in and keeps them immersed in gorgeous, terrifying and exhilarating experiences.

Major FREE updates over the last few years have improved this game step by step, until we have an expansive gameworld teeming with life and things to do.

Go discover the horizon, or become a trade magnate. Perhaps you'd prefer some piracy? It's all here and you're invited.

Brother-in-Law: "We should wait for the right launch window, to save as much fuel as possible."
Me: "Why?"
BIL: "That's how N.A.S.A does it."
Me: "Screw N.A.S.A!" *presses launch button*

10/10 would screw N.A.S.A again!

Well...that was disappointing. I admit this game was an impulse buy for me. I grabbed it without much research because I thought it was a throwback to the old Pizza Tycoon game of years gone by.
Sadly it is not.
It is essentially an acarde memory game. Match pizza orders with shops that sell the pizza in question. This is not a tycoon game and it is NOT a 'Build Your Own Pizza Simulator' wherein you try to construct innovative pizzas to sell in your restaurant.

This game is gets a negative vote because, unfortunately, no description exists on the store page.

Crafting games are quickly becoming (or have already become) a dime a dozen in the wake of successes like Minecraft or Terraria. So one has to be careful picking up another title, and early access to boot.
But you can't go wrong with this title.

Craft the world presents with high quality visuals, is smooth and intuitive. Visually the game is very appealing!
Gameplay is also very easy to pick up. At present the tasks do seem a bit haphazard, but serve well to drive the game forward.
A little bit of Civilisation is apparent in the technologies that need to be unlocked granting access to better equipment and decorations.

In short, you can look forward to plenty of gameplay and enjoyment in this title. Definitely an easy title to recommend!

I think HAWKEN has some great potential. I think this game could have been one of the great mech games we remember many years from now.
Sadly, however, HAWKEN suffers from one fatal flaw: Pay To Win.

HAWKEN works around a freemium model: You get the game free, but everything else is locked behind bright red 'Meteor Credit' stickers.
The game has two currencies; Real World Money turned into 'Meteor Credits' which can unlock gated, tiered equipment, and 'Hawken Credits' earned in game.
The option to unlock basic gameplay essentials with in game money is present. Over time you can level up your pilot, level up your mech and then spend credits to purchase new weapons or better passive and/or 'consumable' items. But at the time of writing the speed at which this happens is SEVERELY restricted.

I started playing this game quite early on, when it was first released - before it appeared on steam. A few years later I have the same complaints about it that I did back then. The speed at which you earn in game currency and the exorbitant prices of the additional mechs and equipment is far too disparate.
A new mech can cost as much as 7500 credits to purchase. I was earning approximately 150 credits in a 10 minute match. Assuming you earn no less than that per match, you'd need about 50 matches to afford a new mech. Thats 500 minutes - 8 hours of grinding JUST to buy a new piece of equipment. That's assuming you do not spend some of those funds on new upgrades for your piffly little starter mech.

Every single thing is paygated. You can swipe your card to get it faster, skip the grind and play the game. I understand that the developers need to turn a profit, but this isn't a game. This is a paid circus. Player's who would prefer to work towards gear and equipment are not afforded the opportunity because of the sheer overwhelming unbalance between paying and non paying customers. This makes the game feel pointless, money hungry and ultimately a complete waste of time. Unless you flourish your card you will never enjoy this game.

In my opinion, this game has a lot going for it. Great graphics, a strong engine, sturdy gameplay. The mechs are a joy to pilot, the action is quick and satisfying - but you are never going to enjoy these things because you are essentially cannon fodder for paying customers.
Ultimately, HAWKEN would have fared far better as a payed game - paying a price to purchase the game and then being allowed to work towards the unlocks would have lent a feeling of satisfaction and achievement to the game. All that this model presents is a feeling of frustration and annoyance.

Hi! I'm new and *dead*....
Hey, guys, how do I use this....*dead*
Oh! Another starter person! Let us collaborate....*dead*

And that's the FUN part of the game. You see, Rust is a very brutal first person survival game. It's unforgiving and frankly, it's not for people looking for a 'safe' form of entertainment. And that makes crafting your first gun VERY satisfying, and landing a killshot with a bow extremely empowering. The problem is the human element. In particular the element of 'humans' (and I use this term loosely), who run servers. I am sure there are some fantastic server admins out there. Sadly, the server I was on was not one of them, but seems to conform to the norm of what is expected from this game.

Upon waking up to a reset world (which happens), I set about spending 5 hours doing my thing. During this time I bumped into a player who was wondering near my home and when I asked him to move along (with a stone hatchet to the face) I was subjected to a vicious string of verbal abuse (not uncommon). Then I was informed that he was the server admin and he was going to find me and delete my house. I found that amusing.

A little while later, my new admin friend (again, loose terminology applied) reset the server without warning because he was no longer the most advanced player on the map. I haven't been back since. The game is not of any value, despite thier 'anti-cheating' policy, hacking and server admin abuse is so rampant that it's almost a game feature. In fact, the beginner tutorial should read: "You wake up in a open world, naked, armed only with a rock and surrounded by vastly more powerful, cheating buggers."

Just don't waste your money on this.