Recent reviews by Slashrawr

For an Early Access game it has a staggering amount of depth. A steep learning curve accompanies that depth and it appears failure is the teacher of this class. It's brilliant!

I was a late comer to the Soulsborne franchise but it's definitely a case of better late than never. This game got me hooked on the franchise. If you're trying to figure out if you should play this or not...do it...just...do it.

An unquestionably pretty game but a game that doesn't quite know what it wants to be - city builder or RTS. It's so confused that it effectively has those two modes working entirely independant of each other.

The city building ranges from incredibly mundane through to outright frustrating. I don't know why the developers thought it a good idea to make you build a city to gain population and then require you to build incredibly large buildings near that population when it's at a size that you no longer have any space to actually fit them. Most of the city building is like playing tetris in 3D as you try to fit combinations of building blocks together in some coherent fashion. The management of several location is not so much an intended game mechanic as it is a work around for technical limitations. Having to jump between several regions - and wait for loading for each one - especially later in the game was tedious and annoying. It may have worked better if no loading was required.

The RTS portion, which in previous versions of Anno were part of the core gameplay, is now almost entirely optional. You can choose if you want to go on a "mission" or just grow your population to level your corp and skip it altogether. The ability to upgrade your ships was great...but there was no real point in doing so. The missions themselves were incredibly easy with the AI not being all that bright.

The mini-missions or quests within the city-building portion of the game seem to just be tacked on with no real purpose other than to check off something on a feature list. The core campaign missions aside, they are not required to do and there's no real benefit to doing them at all. The campaign missions comprise of go here, get this, take it there type of objectives. More than one of them was literally completed without having to scroll across the screen - the things I had to collect were where I got the mission.

Anno 2205 is a clear prime example of style of substance. I loved 2070, but 2205 is a real disspointment. What a pity.

24 Years on and I still play it. It spawned a number of sequels and spin-offs, but this is one I come back to. It set the standard for squad based, turn based strategy games that is still used today.

If you can live with the (outstanding) super low res graphics and (frankly brilliant) midi audio, then give it a go!

Got this specifically for use with a single ultra-wide monitor (3440x1440) and it's been fantastic! I use it primarily for splitting the screen into sections which works almost flawlessly. I say almost because some windows have a tiny gap between them - Chrome for example - but it's really no major issue. The wallper customisation is great as well. I've found the Window Location feature more useful than I thought I would.

The productivity gains granted by DisplayFusion are fantastic and I would recommend it to anyone looking for greater control in multi-monitor or ultra-wide screen monitor setup.

As of writing I'm only about 6 hours in but I feel compelled to write this review now while some impressions are fresh in my mind.

Being a long time fan of the XCOM franchise I approached this game with a fair amount of skeptisism. It turns out that skeptisism was somewhat unwarranted. While I'm still not entirely sure if the game belongs in the franchise but it's more than capable of standing on it's own.

Let's get deal with it's weaknesses first; of which it's biggest by far are the clunky controls. They make movement particularly during combat a bit of a gamble. Sometimes you can't get into cover, sometimes you can't get out, sometimes you just find yourself popping out of cover and not going anywhere. I can't help but feel this comes as a result of it's console affiliation. The sprint button is the same button used to take and leave cover. Moving around corners while in cover is not performed automatically like in most games, it requires it's own keypress. Another weakness appears to be the friendly AI; they're just not terribly bright. While they seem to know when a grenade is thrown and move away, at least first, they often just rush straight back to where they were _before_ the grenade has gone off! They require constant babysitting. Sometimes they'll stay where they're instructed to, other times they'll just go wherever they please. The enemy AI aren't Einsteins either - they have a tendancy to run back and forth between two cover positions - but they appear to be more capable than the friendlies. They actually move from grenades for a start, and are capable of flanking when possible.

Now for what makes this game genuinely good. Firstly the outstanding visuals. The models, textures, lighting are brilliant. The levels are highly detailed making it feel like ones really in old 1960s America. The immersion is deepened by small touches like photos, audio reels, documents and notes, my favourite being ones that instruct folks to ask specific questions - like what sound does a dog make or where someone was when President Johnson was assassinated - to aid in identifying disguised aliens - because they aren't able to reproduce a "woof" sound and they have trouble with distinguishing Human names so won't know that President Johnson wasn't assasinated. It's the sort of thing one could imagine actually happening in such a scenario. Great little touch! The story itself while not all that original is told really well through discussions with NPCs and the documents and audio reels all over the place. You get fed the story in small chunks and the underlying mystery is slowly revealed. The sound is top notch and the voice acting isn't half bad either.

The gameplay, now this is a bit a mixed bag. A key mechanic is the use of a "Battle Focus" mode which slows time to a crawl and allows you to issue orders to your squad. This is actually done extremely well. Moving a squadmate into cover shows the level of cover provided by that position - partial or full. Orders can be queued up for execution. They system works really well. Having said that I have a few qualms about it; I don't like the fact it just slows time down instead of pausing it altogether for example. At least it should be an option to do so. To use the main characters abilities you're required to execute them through the "Battle Focus" mode as well, you can't just push a button to do so. This is particuarly annoying when you want to heal your squad quickly, you have to open "Battle Focus", hover over the characters skill bar, click the skill or push the number associated with that skill. I would rather just be able to push the button. Back at base the player is given the choice of missions to run; the choice varies between storyline missions which must be completed at some point and side missions. Side missions are a great way to increase the XP of the player and his squad. And that brings me to another hit-and-miss part of the game; the RPG element. The player and his squad obtain XP through kills, XP translates into leveling up, leveling up translates into new skills and stats; the usual affair. That all works just fine. One can even customise their squads names and looks - a nice touch. What stands out though are the classes of squadies. Different classes afford different abilites on the battlefield. This works especially well and adds a fantastic dynamic to the game. Of course it's possible to specify the loadout of your squad but this is where I had a small issue; you get a selection of weapons which is all good and well, but nowhere are you told what damage the weapon does or what enemies it's affective against or anything. There is a shooting range provided at the base which I suppose one could aruge should be used for this but I'm not sure how accurate an assessment that would be. I would like to be told what range of damage I can expect and what distance it's effective over and if it's good for taking down shields or mechanical targets, that sort of thing.

Overall, it's perfectly competent 3rd person tactical shooter set in a masterfully constructed world and set to an intriguing albeit unoriginal story. I would certainly recommend it.

Type:Rider proves that educational games can not only be fun, but also look incredible. Set to brilliant soundtracks that are somewhat associated with each typeface, Type:Rider takes you on a journey through the history of fonts.

The art - all based on typograhpy - is simply stunning and the level design is ingenious. The mechanics and gameplay are fairly trivial and there really isn't much of a challenge until the "secret" level which, depending on your disposition, is either the best or most infuritating level ever created in a game. I did encounter a couple in game bugs which necessitated a restart of the level but this didn't dampen the experience at all. The experience itself is quite short, though I do believe it's the right length given the simple gameplay.

Would I recommend it? Most definitely, if only to experience the beautiful art and brilliant level design.

To the Moon is a masterpiece, a triumph of substance over style. While one might describe it's visuals as 'quaint', it's the beautiful story and superb audio that make this game one of the greatest I have ever played.

There's no action, no blood, no explosions. Instead, it's a love story told in the most ingenious way and set to a haunting yet sublime soundtrack. It's a touching story that tugs at your hearstrings one moment, then has you laughing out loud the next. The creators did a fantatic job of creating an atmosphere with the music; it changes to reflect various situations or conversations. This along with the narrative serves to draw the player in as they want to know more.

In terms of gameplay, well there isn't much of it. That's not necassarily a bad thing, in this case, less really is more. Every so often you have to complete a picture puzzle - always the same type of puzzle - but it's not hard at all (which is a good thing because it means one can get back to the story quickly!). I would highly recommend using a keyboard, since I found using a controller to be a bit more 'finicky' when moving with the analog sticks due to the 2D tile based nature of the levels. It's a very relaxed game to play, in fact it's probably the perfect game to play at a time one would usually read a book.

Overall, To the Moon offers the player a truly moving story told in a unique and equally brilliant way. I can not recommend this game enough to anyone who places story high on their list of desirable game traits. It's simply magnificent.

I wasn't expecting much from Papo & Yo but ws very pleasantly surprised.

Papo & Yo tells a very sad (and very real) story through a compelling narrative and clever gameplay. While it may seem to be a game for children, it's mature subject matter means some parental guidance would be advisable before letting them play.

While the story may not be for kids, the visuals, audio and gameplay certainly are. The environments are more less variations of the same favela theme but some certainly do stick out as particularly pretty. The audio is great and befits the environment. The soundtrack especially is outstanding; a beautiful selection of Latin American instrumentals.

The gameplay is a mixed bag. The puzzles while simple are fun to solve thanks to some unique mechanics and smart level design. The only gripe I have is with the lack of an auto follow camera forcing the player to control the camera manually all the time. The game is short but fulfilling nonetheless.

Papo & Yo is a fantastic little game masking a touching story of some real world issues. It is well worth a play through, if only to experience the story, mechanics and level design.

The Stanley Parable is a product of brilliance. It's creators took a simple concept and executed it perfectly.

While there isn't much in the way of gameplay or challenge or pretty much anything else, if there is one thing this game has - in spades at that - it's character.

It's hard to give more of a review without giving away what makes The Stanely Parable so great but it is is great and once you play it, you'll realise it for the genius it is.