Recent reviews by SWFanatic

Fantastic community and great support for solo play as well.
Almost 1000 hrs and I'm still playing DRG. I'm amazed my ancient pc can run it. I can only imagine how great it must play on any computer with an 'actual' video card that isn't as old as my rust bucket.
Rock and Stone!

Update for 2023 Fall Awards: Nearly at 2000 hours now. I have tremendous respect for the folks at GSG for continuing to support DRG and actually listen to community feedback. Currently I am listening to an audio short story compilation while I Rock and Stone. While most of my games with other random people turn out to be fantastic, some folks who enjoy trolling or griefing make me glad I can enjoy DRG in solo mode.

<3 Bosco

Rock & Stone

Such a difficult game to quit playing. Great music and push your luck gameplay mechanic. Lost a lot of sleep with this game. 10/10.

This game is never going to be completed.

=[

Payday 2 was a great game that was plagued with constant miscommunication from Overkill. This past Crimefest update added microtransactions. Overkill repeatedly states that they listen to their community, their customers. Nobody asked for random weapon skin microtransactions. We've always asked for more content. More heists, more UI fixes and engine optimizations. I can understand them wanting to provide more content for their game, and wanting to be able to support it far into the future, but this is not the way to do it. Masks and weapon skins are not content, its filler.

They say that they support the modding community, and every update they fail to communicate with those modders and their work, some of which Overkill "officially" endorses, is broken. One mod does what these microtransactions offer, for free. They've stated that the engine is unable to support extending hitboxes to the arms and legs and a modder did it in one afternoon.

There is a constant theme of Overkill saying one thing and doing another. I can understand solutions being in the pipeline and not yet implemented, but promising communication/support and then doing your own thing proves their real intentions. They hype things up and consistently under deliver.

If Overkill really wants to prove that they listen to their community, their customers, their fans, they will remove these microtransactions. Or allow another viable way to access that content besides purchases from the Steam Marketplace. This is not the same as TF2 or CS. It is not acceptable.

I've enjoyed my time with this game in the past, but now spending more time and money on it makes me feel sick and angry. I will not support Overkill in the future unless they learn how to be honest and listen to their audience.

As a veteran of X-COM UFO Defense, Terror of the Deep, Apocolypse as well as the more recent remake XCOM Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within, I was very excited to play this.

I just finished it on Normal difficulty and I have to say I'm disappointed.

While its extremely faithful to the original (UFO Defense) and improves several things which I'll list in a bit, this iteration did not have the same charm as the original. While the finale was abrupt just like the original, it offered even less closure if thats possible.

The gameplay was very similar to the original.

PROs:

-Riot Shields offered new options for troop deployment
-Weapon diversification worked very nicely. In the original you could easily get by with everyone just using rifles.
-Some UI improvements
-Research flavor text was amusing

CONs:

-Manually controlling the interception portion of the game wasn't fun. I wound up auto-resolving all of them after some time.
-Music was atmospheric like the original, but wasn't as good. Some parts were extremely noisy and hard on your ears. Yes its supposed to be unsettling but it was almost painful.
-Time period: While an interesting idea I don't think it did enough with the concept. It was basically just a different art style.
-Lack of psionic attacks

A nice change of pace from the original...but not one I'd play again.

What I wanted was just the same X-Com UFO Defense with a better interface, and this failed to meet my expectations.
But if you enjoy UFO Defense, theres no reason you won't enjoy this.

I'm just disappointed it didn't offer more.

6/10

A beautiful game with excellent puzzles. Reminds me of the old LucasArts adventure game The Dig. I bought this by a recommendation saying anyone who likes Braid will enjoy this. I had already heard good things about it from other sources and that was the only additional encouragement I required.

Older games did NOT hold your hand and always allow you to win. If you mess up here it will hurt you.

While the graphics and interface kind of get in the way, the gameplay still really shines. The beginning is the most difficult,

if you manage to survive long enough to upgrade and level your troops the rest of the game is not as difficult. Much hilarity in the end game when you can mind-control the aliens and have them throw grenades at each other.

The real challenge would be to force yourself NOT to reload everytime something goes wrong. Then it really gets challenging. Thats not to mention the difficulty levels built into the game make it more difficult on top of everything else.

This is a great game with lots of value, and while it is dated it is unique, and it was one of the first great successes of computer strategy games.

I actually still have this but couldn't ever get it to run properly on a modern machine. Totally worth it IMO.