Recent reviews by Colex

My wife and I are completely obsessed with co-op cooking challenge games (Overcooked-esque), and this one is our absolute favorite! Great variety of levels and mechanics, and VERY well balanced for 2 players - getting 3 gems on every stage is possible but challenging.

Old review below. New impression is that the latest updates absolutely let you tune difficulty to what you want, instead of needing an absolutely perfect RNG run to win (or even get close to the end). Now, it's definitely recommendable!

OLD:

Love these types of games. Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Griftlands, even Dicey Dungeon.

This game is so RNG oriented it's not fun to play - it's beautiful, the mechanics make sense and are reasonably simple, and the card diversity is pretty neat, but getting further in a run is just a complete crapshoot. There's no leeway unless you get the perfect combo of cards that happens to handle the level-by-level change up of enemy types.

Great art style, snappy smart gameplay, absolutely awful balancing.

After 100% achievements and all the pact of punishment statues, I want more. Definitely in the top 1% of games ever made.

Love this game! It's a slightly more relaxing version of Anno (which I also find relaxing but the supply chain management in Anno is significantly more brain-cramping), but with what I think is more personality and just overall really well designed systems.

I was able to beat the game in 8 hours after starting/stopping and playing with difficulty settings. The only odd thing about this game is that the tutorial is... essentially the entire game (with a few missing steps), which is certainly helpful, but removes a good chunk of mystery/exploration that might've been better to have as an element of the main "campaign."

Overally, it's a solid YES from me, but like Anno games, replayability remains a little low.

SUCH a unique game! Blends some really great elements from Total Annihilation/PA, and is off to a great start, even for an EA game. Micro-RTS missions are awesome for a quick 5-6 minute game, or a marathon of increasing tech/difficulty.

Incredibly short but has the humor of the Portal series - definitely a good one to introduce folks to the Index!

Dying is always your fault, and always solvable by running the level more efficiently. Amazing game, definitely comparable to Super Meat Boy despite its differences.

Difficulty is high, controls are tight, level design is solid. Pick up and put down in 10 minutes, or play for hours. Great game.

By far my favorite VR game, even in early access/unfinished state. Constant updates, well thought-out additions, and fantastic gameplay.

GAMEPLAY POSITIVES
PA has been a great game for a while now. I generally play the game for fun, exploratory ways to destroy AI or create awesome battle situations with friends in 1v1 or 2v2. TITANS adds my favorite thing by far from Supcom and FA in the form of giant world dominating mechs, and adds a ton of fun strategy and gameplay options to boot. AI can be absolutely brutal at the higher difficulties, and Galactic War is an interesting take on single player (even if it's not my favorite feature).

GAMEPLAY NEGATIVES
This is an RTS almost purely based on economy and multitasking, which can be a problem for some. It's not 300 APM Starcraft. Commanders are incredibly fragile, and unlike its predecessors, there is no way to upgrade them to have more health or better combat abilities (or create shield systems/etc). This can create victories that are VERY fast, especially on same-planet battles. I'd love to see an option for higher health commanders, or the ability to choose a path for in-game progression. Additionally, without classes, every match is going to be the same pool of units for every player.

OTHER REVIEWS AND COMPLAINTS
As someone who bought into the game shortly after kickstarter, I've never ever felt disappointed in the progress or pace of the developers improving the game. On that note, saying TITANS is "the game we should've had at launch" is entitled at best, painfully ignorant of modern game development at worst. The content in this expansion was never promised in the base kickstarter, but was still given away for free for early backers, and heavily discounted (to what would be an incredibly valuable DLC package if you want to view it that way) for anyone for has the base game.