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INTRODUCTION Sigma Theory: Global Cold War comes from the creators of the award-winning sci-fi game Out There. Although this game does not only come from Mi-Clos Studios but comes from FibreTiger and Goblinz Studio as well. In the near future, a paradigm-shifting scientific discovery looms over the world, promising, new technologies. Suddenly the world’s superpowers realize they could have the power to destroy the global financial system, wipe out entire countries or even gain access to immortality. The player is placed at the head of their country’s Sigma division, with the objective of ensuring that their nation reaps the benefits of Sigma Theory before anyone else. Therefore, achieving this is the player’s top priority and with powerful resources, such as a cadre of the world’s most elite covert agents, advanced tactical drones and their own skills in diplomacy and subterfuge; at their disposal success is guaranteed. STORY Sigma Theory: Global Cold War is a new take on the spying genre and it is set during a futuristic global cold war. In the near future, a paradigm-shifting scientific discovery looms over the world, promising radical new technologies. The world’s superpowers realize they could have the power to destroy the global financial system, wipe out entire countries or even gain access to immortality. However, this discovery called The Sigma Theory can only be harnessed by a handful of scientists and the player’s objective is to acquire as many scientists as they can to utilize Sigma technologies for their country of allegiance. Although Sigma Theory does involve traditional spy genre tropes, which were given a well-deserved freshness that added an immersive quality to the game. GAMEPLAY Sigma Theory: Global Cold War has as many facets to rival a diamond and it may be just as hard as well. Sigma Theory is a turn-based strategy game with a focus on micromanagement. These aspects are both developed and managed through the player’s actions, the orders given to their agents and their relations with the in-game NPCs. CONTROLS Sigma Theory: Global Cold War is a turn-based strategy game. Therefore, its controls are quite simple and easy to grasp, given all the player needs is a mouse. The player’s use of a mouse will involve navigation of the map, placement of agents, giving out orders and so on. This is done by moving their mouse and confirming actions with a simple left click on the action of choice. TUTORIAL Sigma Theory: Global Cold War had quite a thorough tutorial. Although the tutorial is not explicit about its existence, players are made aware of the game’s mechanics, how they work and given a chance to interact with said mechanics. Furthermore, the tutorial happens in sequences, meaning each time a player performs a certain action a dialogue box from their in-game character will come up on the screen to provide an explanation. RECRUITMENT Recruitment is important in Sigma Theory, as agents are the player’s lifeblood. The player has to recruit a team of four special agents from fifty unique unlockable characters to support their missions. Each comes with their own story, motivations, and traits that define their behavior during missions. In addition, with particular characters the player will have to convince them to join their team, thus it is important to pay attention to their files if the character decides to ask why they should join their team. ESPIONAGE Once the player’s team is ready, they can assign them missions around the world to gather scientists, discover compromising documents on local politicians, and more. Furthermore, the player needs to exploit their agent’s abilities to seduce, mani[CENSORED]te and bribe if targets are to be persuaded to their side or neutralized. In addition, some characters have arrest warrants in particular countries and it is vital the player does not send them to these countries. COUNTER-ESPIONAGE In Sigma Theory other nations will also use their agents to infiltrate the player’s country and seize their scientists. Therefore, the player will have to track, capture and interrogate them to gain information on their enemies. Thereafter, the player can then exchange them for ransom when they are no longer useful. EXFILTRATION The player can order their agents to exfiltrate scientists recruited to their cause during gripping turn-based exfiltration phases through the world’s greatest capitals. Furthermore, the player will have to choose the position of their drones wisely, as they will support their agent during these delicate missions. DIPLOMACY In Sigma Theory, diplomacy is the key to the player achieving their goals. The player will meet their foreign counterparts, which will either set back or further their objectives. This is done through the use of flattery, threats or blackmail. Furthermore, the player can also recover their captured agents, advance their research, and much more through the game’s diplomacy mechanic. TECH TREE In Sigma Theory: Global Cold War the theory is the cause of this cold war. Therefore, the player has to rally scientists from around the world to their cause to discover new technologies which will lead to gaining a necessary edge and change the world. This means the player could discover mind control, perhaps destabilize the world economy, invent robot soldiers, and much more. GRAPHIC AND AUDIO Sigma Theory: Global Cold War is a turn-based strategy game, meaning graphically and audially it could deliver quite well. Sigma Theory certainly does deliver on both ends. Graphically, the game uses modern graphics and embeds it with espionage aesthetic. This aesthetic improves the theme of the game, as it adds an immersive quality to it. In addtion, the character portraits and busts were quite polished, however, they lacked a liveliness which could have added more to the game.

It pays to be up-front about this: Narcos is not your typical IP adaptation. The concept of law agents vs criminals is solid, the use of the TV series unique quirks creates a great atmosphere, and the production values are, surprisingly, quite high. Unfortunately, it is also severely undermined by two small design decisions that turn the whole game into an unfortunate slog. Narcos: Rise of the Cartels is a turn-based strategy game similar to XCOM, but where you only move one unit per activation in an IGO/UGO style a la Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus. Featuring two campaigns covering the illegal enterprises of the Narcos and the legal overtures of the United States’s DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration -- not 'Agency', as the game wrongly states), the title allows you to alternate between both sides of the conflict at your leisure, using separate save games to keep things clean. The first thing that hits you when you launch the game is how closely it tries to emulate the TV series. The intro video features an interesting montage similar to the Netflix show’s opening, narrated by someone who does a very good job of sounding like Agent Murphy in both delivery and tone. As soon as the main menu appears, the theme song by Brazilian musician Rodrigo Amarante kicks in, lending an undeniable air of authenticity to the proceedings. Unfortunately, that’s about as far as it goes. The game itself is heavily focused on tactical engagements of the player's 6-man squad versus large numbers of hostiles. Unlike XCOM, Narcos only allows you to move and shoot a single soldier at a time through the use of only two 'resources' -- an action point for shooting, reloading, and using abilities; and a movement point for things such as moving or resting to regain health. Narcos changes the formula slightly by replacing the now-classic Overwatch with something called 'Counteract': a charge-like ability that allows you to manually fire -- third person shooter style -- at any enemy that enters your field of vision. The mechanics of using this ability are a little bit convoluted; you recharge half of a full token for every movement/action point not used. The Counteract only recharges on one of the six units you have selected at the end of the turn, which makes everything unbelievably slow. Alternating activations is a legitimate design choice for tactical games, like in Mechanicus. BattleTech uses it as well, but the key is to design around it to keep things engaging. Narcos’ limitations in terms of its own design choices make it much, much less tactical -- and fun -- than contemporary titles. By shoehorning dozens of abilities into two choices that are immediately reacted to by an enemy unit, the game forbids any sort of interplay, ambush, or tactical manoeuvre from being executed. Instead, it behaves more like high-stakes chess, and it ends up being a painfully slow, frustrating experience that discourages more advanced strategies. The mix of 'one unit per turn' and movement/action point resources actually work against each other, and often means that you only move one or two units out of the six in your squad. Most enemies will start holding defensive positions and then charge forward as you approach, which makes it impractical to waste six turns moving six people into position as the enemy freely takes potshots at the person who ends up closest. This person is unable to do anything further without wasting the turn for every other member of the squad. This also means that once within weapons range, engagements become duels with very few options besides attacking or falling back. The most annoying thing about this arrangement is that it slows down gameplay to the point where most missions are long, largely unexciting affairs. It’s like the developers played other tactical strategy games and took all the wrong lessons. XCOM is often hailed as a ‘gold-standard’ for games like these, and perhaps it’s a tad unfair to compare it against what is essentially a tie-in game designed to raise awareness for a TV show; but it’s surprising how easy developers in general (not just the Narco devs Kuju) tend to miss the point of what made XCOM so good. The constraints imposed by the design decisions feel very misguided, which is a shame because there’s still a lot to like about Rise of the Cartels. The combat abilities are interesting and seem to be trying to make up for the lack of tactical freedom: Passive skills like extra Counteracts or free actions on kills, active items like frag grenades, even the ability to give Counteract tokens to surrounding units. In order to keep those all balanced, Narcos divides soldiers into six different classes that are mirrored on each side of the conflict (DEA’s Grenadiers are the Narcos’ Specialists, for example). The squad management part happens outside missions, in a token management layer called the 'war room'.

Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest Review Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest iOS and Android mobile game is a new strategy game set in the Warhammer universe. It is published by Tilting Point and was released just a few days ago. However, the game already amassed quite the following and overly positive reviews on both Google Play and the iTunes App Store. It is free-to-play, with in-app purchases of course, in a familiar strategy environment, so we are intrigued as to why has the game reaped such critical success. Tilting Point The publisher of Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest mobile game, Tilting Point, is a games partner which focuses on providing development studios with lucrative investments, good financial plans, publishing options, and so far they’ve had great success with FTP games. They are behind such titles as TerraGenesis – Space Settlers, Dino Bash – Dinosaurs v Cavemen Tower Defense Wars, and other. Reviews and scores in stores On the Google Play store, Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest Android version has a 4.2-star rating with almost 6k votes and positive comments. However, its version on the iTunes App Store, Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest iOS for iPhone and iPad, has smaller vote count and therefore the sample is not presentable, though it is overly positive with clean 5 stars so far. Story Over the ages, the old world was in many wars. The Chaos Worshipers were the deadliest of armies in the old wars. Now, long after the conflicts, Dark God followers rise again to fight and try to achieve what they could now. They rally under the strongest of Chaos Lords, which is where you come in as the player. You are one of these Chaos Lords and you gather your chaos armies on your march to Norsca, where you aim to conquer the ultimate prize – the empire of man. You need to sack their capital city and take your place as the Everchosen of Chaos. Gameplay Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest Mobile game pretty much functions as a familiar strategy game. It is along the lines of the well-known genre hit games like Game of War and Mobile Strike. It does bring some improved features, but in a nutshell, that is the game you should expect. Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest is actually aimed to be the next MMO strategy competitive experience for the fans of the genre who want to start fresh and gain ground in this title which is at its infancy. Graphics and Appereance Warhammer games have always had an interesting and kind of a minimalistic take on the appearance. However, this is not the case with Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest mobile game, as it is pretty much-done hand in hand with the latest trends. It is flashy and smooth, the lighting and the textures really bring about the immersive atmosphere of a chaos-consumed hellish world. The models are attractive and cool, especially the demon heroes. Overall, graphics are impressive, no doubt about it. Final Verdict As said, Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest is meant to be a new and improved take on the familiar and beloved strategy genre. The game does not intend to fix things that are not broken, which is a good thing of course. It is an upgrade in terms of graphics and the engine, but the goodness of the genre is intact. Since the game is very young, it represents a good opportunity for veterans of the genre to grab a foothold early on. Also, it is a good chance for new players to jump in. Lastly, the game’s in-app purchase system does function like in other competitive strategy games before, but it appears to be less necessary or less pay-to-win if you will.

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Life isn’t always black and white, at least not when you look closely. And you’ll really want to take a closer look when you pick up and play the first-person puzzle game Discolored from creator Jason Godbey. I played the demo earlier this year, which left me pleasantly surprised, and desperate to see more. With the game’s release imminent, I jumped at the chance to play the rest of the game to prove to myself, and the rest of the world, that I was smart enough to beat a puzzle game in one sitting. And, my dear friends, I did just that. In Discolored, people have heard about a diner on the edge of nowhere that has lost all colour. Not a single drop present on the entire street corner. You’ve been sent to investigate the area, figure out what happened and restore the colour that was once rich and vibrant. The game takes place over this one area, inside and outside of the diner, but it expands as you play, proving that not everything is always as it seems. Upon starting Discolored, you’ll be given a picture viewer. With it you’ll be able to “see the unseen”, if you will. When you first look through it, you’re transported to the aforementioned diner where all colour is completely absent. It won’t be long before you start picking up objects, combining them together and using them to solve the various puzzles that the game has in store for you. These puzzles are interesting and definitely keep those brain muscles turning. But never for so long that you get frustrated and want to stop. In fact, Discolored is meant to be played in one sitting and puzzles never felt unwanted or overly difficult in any way. As you pick up items around the diner, you’ll slowly work through how they all fit into place. You’ll eventually find a green prism, the first colour that you’ll see after you transport yourself. When the green prism is placed in the right area, the walls will take on the colour as well as the plants and other items. The more you play, the more colours that you’ll find and the more colour you’ll be restoring to the world. It’s a unique concept that, after spending more than a few minutes in the quiet, dull diner, will make the player truly appreciate the colours around them. After a time, it will become more and more apparent that there is no dialogue or story developing as you progress. While this may turn off some players, Discolored doesn’t really need a complicated story. The puzzles speak for themselves and the soundtrack is beautiful featuring not only atmospheric classic tunes, but little 50s and 60s style ditties. There are also times when the music turns sinister and you’ll find yourself wondering if there’s something more going on behind the scenes. The questions and the mystery are part of what makes Discolored great. Discolored is an intriguing adventure set in a minimalistic but intriguing world. The lack of dialogue and no developing story might put off some players, but its atmosphere alone is enough to keep you engaged. It’s a short experience, and I found myself wishing it was longer – it’s an enjoyable world to explore and discover secrets within – but it means the game never outstayed its welcome. With a beautiful soundtrack, smooth controls and a unique concept, you’ll be hard pressed to find another puzzle game out there like Discolored.

Howdy make sure that u typed ur gmail correctly,to get the verification. also maybe there are email servers low (problem) just make sure that u have typed all informations of gmail correctly,that is most important. If still doesnt work,i wait a PM via CSBD or TS3 also almost forgot: i have an tutorial that will help u maybe. also as i said before up,if still doesnt work,i wait a PM via CSBD & TS3

The Solus Project is a single-player survival exploration experience developed entirely in Unreal Engine 4. Earth has been destroyed and humans are now on the brink of extinction. You have been sent on a mission to find another planet that is inhabitable, but after years of exploration with no luck, you find yourself stranded and alone on an alien planet after your ship has crash landed – sounds all too familiar if you ask us. You must search the crash site to recover supplies and forage your surroundings in the hope of discovering resources to be able to survive and find a way off of this strange planet. The survival aspect of the game is the main focus here: equipped with a PDA that monitors your vitals, hunger, thirst, temperature, and tiredness, you must make sure these numbers are kept at a relatively happy medium. Although it sounds relatively interactive it’s quite the opposite with a very simplistic crafting system which consists of just using two objects with each other – for example, rock and rock creates a sharp rock. Also with a plentiful supply of bottles of water and cans of food lying around the islands make surviving a walk in the park. As for the exploration side of things that doesn’t bring much interactivity either other than the odd very easy puzzle – it’s basically a walking simulator. The environments are very barren as the planet mainly consists of oceans except for five islands, connected by underground tunnels, each one with not much more than rocks, grass, trees, and the very occasional alien structure to interest you. There are very few buildings, no allies, no enemies, no other life – you are completely alone. You are also completely alone in learning how to play the game as there is no indication of where you should be heading, what your goal is, or what the controls are other than in the short introduction which you’ll get through in a matter of a few minutes. The control scheme isn’t the easiest to get used to either with some very weird button mapping for certain things. Also with the majority of the gameplay involving picking up and dropping objects the inventory management should be so much better. It's very fiddly to sort through items, with limited space and an irritatingly clunky UI. The most impressive part of The Solus Project is by far the real time day/night cycle and its dynamic weather which can change from scorching sunshine to meteor showers in an instant. It doesn’t just affect the appearance of the world you are in either as it can have a huge impact on your survival, too; if you let yourself get caught in a downpour for too long it can cause hypothermia which will lead to your demise pretty quickly. There’s also wind and tide cycles in the game which shows the level of detail the developers went to with the survival aspect of the game. All of these cycles are extremely impressive and try to add an element of depth to a very lacking inventory managing walking simulator. Unfortunately The Solus Project suffers with a few bugs; some would say it’s a bit under the weather. Several times we found game breaking bugs or places we couldn’t get out of while exploring which meant we had to either reload our last save point or reload the entire application. Occasionally we had an issue where an item we placed on the ground would fall straight through the world and become irretrievable. We also found some areas to be impassable due to the conditions in the game being too harsh; there was an especially cold section where we continuously died of hypothermia and there was nothing that we could find that would provide us warmth. The Solus Project is also virtual reality compatible; you are able to play the entire game in PlayStation VR although we’d argue it’s not one of the headset’s better experiences. The motion controls are very fiddly, and we found ourselves constantly referring to the very lacking controls page in the menu due to the title's very unique button mapping. The visuals are rendered in very low resolutions and look like a game from the PlayStation 2 era even when playing on a PS4 Pro. We’d argue that the only benefit in playing this in VR is the sense of scale that you get when walking around the environment. Entering caves is particularly impressive, getting completely engulfed by the entrance is a very satisfying feeling in virtual reality. Conclusion The Solus Project is poor survival game that plays far better as a walking simulator. The lack of any guidance in controls and direction will leave you feeling clueless on how to proceed throughout. The environments are bland and barren, and although the weather and day/night cycle offer some positives, they're all ultimately overshadowed by the game’s negatives. To top it all off a below par PlayStation VR option and a large number of bugs turn what could have been a good survival title into a disappointing one.

Sparklite review - A new awakening The action/adventure genre has seen much evolution over the years. Franchises such as The Legend of Zelda and Tomb Raider have defined what we expect when jumping into a new game. With such a wide spectrum of what an action-adventure can be, there’s always plenty of room for innovation. Red Blue Games, the developers behind several mobile titles are looking to make the jump to the classic genre with Sparklite, an original 2D game set in a fantasy world. Familiar Territory Our protagonist, Ada finds herself crash landed in the land of Geodia after her ship goes down in a storm. Shortly thereafter, she discovers the refuge, a floating colony of people who take her in as their own. Many of them with their own skill sets and purposes. Ada learns of the Baron, a villainous being with a plan to suck up large portions of sparklite, the life-blood of Geodia, and use it to fulfil his desires. The pollution produced from this mass mining of sparklite is destroying the environment and corrupting its inhabitants. Ada, with the help of some new allies, must take down the Baron and restore peace to Geodia. Sparklite’s story is serviceable. I didn’t hate any of it, but there wasn’t enough to leave a lasting impression on me. There’s obviously some commentary on the state of the world and how we treat our planet, but I’ve seen it many times over. Sparklite is a great game, but it’s story is far from my biggest takeaway. Red Blue Games describes Sparklite as “an inventive twist on classic action-adventures.” I whole-heartedly agree with this sentiment. Although it’s a brand new IP, Sparklite instantly feels familiar. Traveling Geodia and taking on monsters, crawling through caves, and discovering new items and weapons hits on all of the same notes as some of gaming's most beloved titles. However, Sparklite manages to inject enough of its own identity and personality to keep things from feeling like a rehash. For example, the use and integration of sparklite itself. The fantasy land of Geodia is completely reliant on sparklite. This blue mineral works as currency, armor, and a power source. When building workshops and other facilities, you’ll need to pay with sparklite. The puzzles that block the path to new locations and treasure are powered by sparklite, and the material must be mani[CENSORED]ted in order to solve them. Looking to power up or recharge a weapon? You guessed it, sparklite. Not only is sparklite the lifeblood of Geodia, but it’s also the central motif of the game itself. Operating as a narrative mcguffin, while opening the door to some interesting nuggets of lore. It's Dangerous To Go Alone While adventuring through Geodia, you’ll use an assortment of gadgets to solve puzzles and take down foes. I noticed an interesting pattern when discovering new gadgets throughout my exploration. After entering a cave, there would be a brand new gadget sitting on a pedestal, straight up Indiana Jones style. Of course, I snatched it down and took it with me. The rest of the cave would feature a number of puzzles that would require the use of the newly acquired device. Upon making it to the final room, I had to place the gadget back onto a pedestal in order to exit, forced to leave it behind. This perfectly captures how Red Blue Games expertly lays out Sparklites systems and mechanics. Allowing the player to take a new gadget for a spin without having to spend their hard earned sparklite is fair and convenient. Taking that a step further, the puzzles ensure that you’ve got a solid grip on how to control and use said device. In the end, you’re rewarded with the schematics, which you can take back to the refuge and use sparklite to construct. You’re now fully equipped to make an informed decision on which gadgets and facilities to prioritize, rather than blindly picking what sounds cool or seems useful. As for combat, there’s a number of ways to take down the different enemies you’ll encounter. They each have their own unique behaviors, rather that be charging at you like a bull, or giving you a good gonk on the head if you get too close. There’s different melee, ranged, and gadget attacks that are better suited for defeating different monsters. That being said, I noticed some odd difficulty spikes when getting into the big showdowns. The first boss specifically felt pretty unforgiving for how early on the encounter is. This didn’t frustrate me too much, as the death penalty in Sparklite isn’t too harsh. Still, an odd occurrence in a game with sensible enemy and combat mechanics. In Living Colour One of Red Blue Games’ biggest successes with Sparklite is their ability to carve out a clear identity for their new intellectual property. This can be greatly attributed to the work done visually and artistically. The world of Geodia is beautiful and whimsical. From the lush plains and dense forests to the super industrial mineshafts and workshops, this world is bursting with personality. Sparklite sports a pixelated 2D art style, clearly taking inspiration from retro classics. That being said, Sparklites art style is hardly a thing of the past. Each character has a distinctly and detailed sprite, with fully animated movements. The monsters also have a diverse range of designs. From the menacing animal-like creatures wielding a sword and shield, to the peashooter plants, there’s a solid number of offerings in the enemy department. Above The Clouds Sparklite is an impressive outing from mobile developer Red Blue Games. It’s visuals and core mechanics harken back to classic action-adventure titles. At the same time, cleverly designed and well defined systems provide for something fresh and exciting. All of this tied together by a gorgeous pixelated art style. Sparklite is a welcomed addition that honors what came before it, while setting out on its own path. Note: This review is based on a digital download code provided by the publisher. Sparklite is avaialable on Xbox One PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam for $24.99

A Real Scary Halloween Story: In 1992, a 16-year-old Japanese foreign exchange student in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, paid the ultimate price after accidentally ringing the wrong doorbell on his way to a Halloween party, reports Japan Today. Yoshihiro Hattori had been unfamiliar with the neighborhood when he and a friend arrived at the home of Rodney Peairs, a nearby neighbor who opened the door armed with a .44 Magnum revolver. Although Hattori allegedly said, “we’re here for the party,” Peairs claimed he feared for his life and ordered the student to “Freeze!” When Hattori misunderstood the command and kept approaching, Peairs shot him. After being questioned, the perpetrator was arrested but later acquitted of manslaughter. It’s unknown what kind of Halloween costume Hattori wore to warrant such a reaction.

Before starting this review I need to declare an interest. I’ve been playing naval wargames on computers since Harpoon appeared in 1989 (as long ago as that – I couldn’t believe it when I looked it up!) I bought CMANO when it first came out, at full price, and have never regretted it – I absolutely love the game. When I heard that a new version of CMANO, Command Modern Operations (CMO), was being released I was over the moon. I’ve now had a chance to play a review copy of the game and while I’m still excited about the new version, I’ve also a few niggles with it. The start screen of CMO is gorgeous. It fills your monitor with a blue spinning globe and looks much better than the standard Windows dialogues in CMANO. The initial load time in CMO is several seconds and doesn’t seem much different from the previous game. All the scenarios from the original game are there and have been reworked to include some of the new features in CMO. If you’ve previously bought LIVE scenarios or battlesets like Chains of War then these are available in CMO too. Just as in CMANO, CMO gives you the whole World to play with. It presents you with the globe and you can zoom down to look in detail at whatever part of the planet you are currently fighting over. CMO includes a whole bunch of new map layers and the effect on the maps is amazing. The default is the ‘Sentinel-2 satellite map’ that does exactly what it says. It’s a full colour satellite image of the entire planet. Zooming down you can clearly see urban areas, runways, roads and all the other stuff you might want to blow up. The level of zoom isn’t as high as Google Earth – you can’t make out house sized structures – but it gives enough detail to help produce a real sense of immersion when planning a strike. The BMNG Layer is pretty much that same as in CMANO and I can’t really see myself using it much in the future as the other map modes are so much better. The ‘Relief Layer’ is also the same as CMANO but much more useful than BMNG as it helps spot valleys to hide things in. The new ‘Line of sight’ tool is a great help in this too as it can be used on friendly AND enemy units to allow you to see blind spots. A new map mode ‘Stamen – Terrain’ also allows you to look at the lie of the land, but includes roads and, if you zoom down far enough, even street plans of towns and cities. ‘Stamen – Roads and Cities’ is a layer that allows you to superimpose the roads and street plans on top of another map, such as the Sentinel satellite map. One of the new game features in CMO is terrain (e.g. urban, cropland, evergreen forest, etc). The type of terrain under the cursor is included in the datablock that appears alongside the cursor, but if you want to get an overall picture of the terrain in an area then there is a ‘Landcover’ map. I’ve found this one a bit awkward to use. It doesn’t seem to like being combined with some other maps and layers and doesn’t respond well to zooming – sometimes the image disappears completely. I know that the developers have claimed that map performance for panning and zooming has been improved in CMO. To be honest I’m not sure I see very much difference. When first zooming on an area there is often a wait of several seconds before the program finds and loads the appropriate tiles. I’m using an old fashioned hard drive – if you have an SSD you probably won’t be troubled by this (and probably weren’t in CMANO either!) It’s not a deal breaker, just a minor irritation and subsequent zooms when the data has been cached are much quicker. The new maps in CMO are lovely and probably my favourite feature of the new program. They help immersion in the game, but are also practically useful for accurately placing targets or figuring out the best approaches for an attack. USER INTERFACE Instead of Microsoft grey, all of the dialogues and windows backgrounds are now dark grey with, mainly, white writing. At first I thought this was a bit of a gimmick, but after playing with game for about 15 hours I now really like it. It’s much easier on the eyes and it seems to be easier to glance at panels and get information. It’s very subjective I know, but I like it! A big addition is that database entries now come with images (that are apparently downloaded as required) and some with descriptions. This saves you from going looking for the image packs that were previously available on the internet. Although seeing pictures doesn’t change the gameplay I think it does work wonders for increasing immersion. I also like some descriptive text, as I find scanning through the platform or weapon data doesn’t really tell me what the thing I’m looking at is to be used for (Wikipedia is usually open when I play CMANO). A really nice new feature is the message balloons. These can be setup in the game ‘options’ in the same dialogue as the message log items. If you set a particular item to appear in a balloon then the message will appear for a few seconds in a balloon that is tied to the map location that the message refers to. This makes it much easier to make sense of things like new contact messages as you can see immediately where the contact is. The message log itself has also been changed so that messages are sorted under particular categories. If you don’t like this (and I still haven’t got used to it) then it’s possible to switch back to a ‘Raw text view’. Another great new feature is the list that appears when you click on an area where multiple units are present. You can then select the unit you want by simply clicking it on the list. This used to drive me nuts in CMANO where unit selection involved multiple clicks or zooming up and down to try to reach the unit you were after. To run the test I used 10 waves of 10 F-18’s, using iron bombs (database #4464), M77 incendiaries (#13681) and GBU-16Bs(#3602) against British Royal(sic) Infantry Platoons (#709). The WRA was set to drop two weapons per target. I ran each weapon test twice – once in the Sahara desert and once in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. The number of infantry sections killed are shown in the table: The thing to look at isn’t the differences between the different weapons, because that’s affected by stuff like damage points, accuracy, etc, but instead to look at the effects of the terrain. Of course, there is a degree of randomness in this, so differences in the numbers might not show real effects (statistical health warning!) Iron bombs do seem to be worse in Jungle terrain, whereas napalm seems to be relatively unaffected by the change in terrain. However, the guided bombs seemed to do better in the jungle! I’ve no idea why this is the case – the aircraft in the jungle did seem to take more time to actually drop the guided bombs but the WRA was the same and the individual targets should have been far enough apart to avoid splash damage. I think there is some more work required here from the developers. Another feature of adding terrain is that land units moving through it will plot their own path between objectives to minimise the movement cost. This is quite a challenge given the sheer amount of ‘terrain’ present on the planet. Unfortunately there seems to be a problem with this too. I found this when running the ‘Raid on Kismayo’ scenario – this is one of the scenarios recommended in the manual for learning the game. Part of the scenario involves a car leaving an airfield that has to be tracked by a drone. In CMO it is completely impossible to complete this scenario as the car continually oscillates between self-generated waypoints. I opened the scenario up in the editor and the cars path is plotted, but the new pathing algorithm avoids this path and generates its own (very badly).

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition review — Gorgeous new look, more enjoyable than ever About 20 years ago, the second installment in the real-time strategy (RTS) Age of Empires series was released for PC. Developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings saw an expansion — Age of Conquerors — about a year later, bringing more campaigns, civilizations, and some quality of life (QoL) fixes. This collection of games was played incessantly by a huge crowd of RTS fans and eventually saw an HD remake in 2013. Age of Empires II: HD Edition spawned its own collection of expansion packs, including The Forgotten, The African Kingdoms, and Rise of the Rajas, complete with a bunch of new civilizations, campaigns and a graphics reworks that better suited modern hardware and displays. Now, with Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (AoEII:DE) — developed by Forgotten Empires, Tantalus Media, and Wicked Witch and published by Xbox Game Studios — fans of the series are getting an impressive graphics overhaul with new animations and 4K support, three new campaigns with four new civilizations, remastered audio, new units and technologies, plenty of QoL changes, and an improved multiplayer experience with leaderboards, ladders, matchmaking, and improved spectator mode. I've been playing AoEII:DE for about a week to check out whether or not it's worth a buy for long-time veterans and newcomers to the series. What I loved about Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition Age of Empires II isn't a game that needed any major mechanics reworked, and that's been honored here in the Definitive Edition. I played a lot of the original and HD versions, and I was able to jump into a Definitive Edition skirmish and play without having to make many adjustments. Hotkeys can be set to classic or to a grid-like method — the top row of the keyboard is used for the top line of your commands, middle row for middle line, and on — that's easier for newcomers to pick up. Gameplay is immediately familiar, but the myriad QoL improvements also make it seem new. Age of Empires II has never looked so good, and the developers have kept the feel of the original game. I'm still uncovering small tidbits that make macro- and micro-managing easier. Still, there are some significant changes that benefit everyone and ultimately make the game a lot more fun to play in Dark Age through to Imperial Age. Starting out, you can now set farms to automatically reseed as long as wood stocks allow. No more spamming the farm queue button and eventually running out ten minutes later. Units can have multiple waypoints set at once, meaning you can chart out a path for your original scout (or any other unit) and not have to continuously click a new place for it to travel to. Trebuchets will now pack and unpack automatically when you assign them to attack a certain building either in or out or range. And you can now queue up technologies and units at the same time, allowing less downtime for production buildings while you're busy managing other aspects of the game. Your global queue of tech and units now includes icons in the top-left corner of the screen, just below the reworked toolbar. Along with standard resource counts, the idle villager icon has been moved up top and shows how many idles you have. Below each resource is also a value that indicates how many villagers are collecting at the given time. When you've hit Post-Imperial, and there are hundreds of units to manage, these small changes make a huge difference. The user interface (UI) is also scalable, so you can find something you're satisfied with depending on your monitor size. Resources now have a toggleable "health" bar that shows you how much remains of a certain item, like a boar, tree, or gold tile. No more having to click an individual item to see how much remains. These changes make for a more user-friendly experience, but the biggest and best upgrades are the graphics and animations. Age of Empires II has never looked so good, and the developers have kept the feel of the original game. Units and buildings haven't been changed so much that they aren't recognizable, and the artwork and animations are absolutely gorgeous. Ever since I played my first round of the original game, I wanted to see castles and town centers crumble into dust, and that's now a reality. Trebuchets swinging, troops riding into battle, battering rams hammering down production buildings; it's all here, and it all looks stunning. A zoom feature has been implemented, so you can now pull back to get a broader look at the map or punch right in to see your workers toiling. With the HD graphics pack enabled, everything remains clear no matter how close you get to the action. The factory settings do take some tweaking to get looking perfect, and performance is going to be an issue, but I'll get into that later. To go along with the graphics overhaul, all audio has been remastered and reworked. The original soundtrack has been redone and sounds as epic as ever, and unit and building sound effects are more robust and more varied. With a quality gaming headset on, your ears are in for a treat. There's an old joke with Age of Empires II fans that the game taught more history than any class in high school, and that's more valid than ever with three new campaigns. The collection is called "The Last Khans" and encompasses the four new civilizations added to the game, including Bulgarians, Cumans, Lithuanians, and Tatars. The new missions are expertly voice acted, and the older campaigns have also been reworked with new voice acting. Some of the HD expansion campaigns only had text, but voice acting has been added there as well. Altogether, you're getting more than 200 hours of singleplayer gameplay before even breaking into skirmishes and multiplayer action. I played through most of all three branches of the new campaign, and if you enjoyed the older entries, you're sure to enjoy these. Additionally, there are nearly 150 achievements to attain. Once the optional campaigns are completed, you can jump into singleplayer skirmishes against AI or into multiplayer against other humans. All the classic modes return — Random Map, King of the Hill, Regicide, Deathman, etc. — as well as a new mode called Empire Wars that starts you out in Feudal age with a number of production buildings and assigned villagers. It's a quicker way to get into the action and offers something new for returning players. On top of the usual ways to play, there's a new feature called "The Art of War." It's a five-part section that teaches players how to get a good start on economy, how to boom, how to get to castle age as quickly as possible (a po[CENSORED]r strategy), and how to employ or defend against a rush. New AI has been implemented, as well as a ton of new commands for allied AI players. For example, you can tell allies to attack with certain troops, you can choose where to fortify with walls, and you can ask them to focus on certain aspects of the game to better complement your playstyle. In previous games, high-level AI had to cheat to keep up with human players. That has been removed, and AI now instead operates more similar to how pro-level humans play. I watched enemy AI scout with sheep, push in deer to the Town Center, and raid my economy with small forces as I attacked its front door. Enemy troops took the high ground when attacked, and wouldn't throw units away at the foot of my castles. Able to put up a strong fight against Hardest AI in the HD version of the game, the new Extreme AI utterly steamrolled me. I enjoy multiplayer but certainly spend a lot of time allied with and against AI opponents, so these changes make a huge difference and ultimately prepare players better for multiplayer. HD and original CD AI are also available to play against. On that note, multiplayer has also seen some changes. The old peer-to-peer servers are gone in favor of dedicated servers spread out across global regions. I played with an ally from the UK and experienced no noticeable lag. That might change with an eight-player game from different regions, but overall there should be far better stability in online games. There are now leaderboards and ladders baked in, and a matchmaking feature makes it easy to find an opponent in the same rating range. There's no limit to how many spectators can jump into a game to watch, and they have new tools to get the best viewing experience possible. AoEII:DE is available on Steam and from the Microsoft Store, but both versions will be able to cross-play. What I disliked about Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition I'm thoroughly enjoying my time with AoEII:DE, but there are certainly some noticeable issues. Foremost is the performance on my PC that includes an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 processor (CPU), NVIDIA RTX 2060 graphics card (GPU), and 16GB of DDR4 RAM. I immediately changed graphics settings to my liking — disabled bloom, disabled animated fog, and cranked everything else up — and set resolution to 1440p. This gave the game more of an original feel that veterans will likely prefer. I first played a number of matches without the Enhanced Graphics pack and saw framerates consistently around 120, dropping below 60 with a lot of action on the screen. Without the pack enabled, the game still looks good, but you can't zoom in nearly as far, and sprites do look pixellated at max allowable zoom. The game looks stunning with the Enhanced Graphics pack enabled, but after placing down some farms and massing some troops, the game dropped down to a consistent 30 frames-per-second (FPS) and regularly dropped below 15 FPS in action-packed sequences or popped up to 60 FPS in quiet moments. My PC certainly isn't the most powerful out there, and I could turn down more settings to boost framerates, but performance could certainly be better. If you don't have a dedicated GPU, you're going to suffer even without the graphics pack enabled, and the HD version of the game will likely make a lot more sense. Performance aside, I saw some wonky stuff in terms of pathing and logic. For example, I sent a bunch of villagers to build multiple farms with a mill in the middle. After checking back later, I noticed that only the mill and one farm was built and tended, while the other villagers had gone off to hunt nearby game. I noticed some weird pathing as well when sending villagers to work outside of walls. I tasked a group to build a castle outside my base, then deleted a section of the wall to allow them to walk directly to the castle's foundation. I retasked them on the castle with the wall deleted, but instead of noticing they now had an easier trail, they kept heading for the nearest gate. I had to click the ground next to the castle to get the villagers to go through the deleted wall portion, then click the castle foundation again to have them start work. The patrol command for troops, ideal for sending battalions into battle, seemed, in some cases, to be off. For example, I patrolled a group of pikemen into an enemy base, and instead of taking out the cavalry in front of them, they set fire to a farm while their numbers were hacked down by the knights. This wasn't the case every time, and more often than not, units figured out what they should do to ensure a long life, but I did have a laugh a couple of times as I watched my units pass by the enemy to attack something completely non-threatening. These issues, if not just me making errors on my end, will hopefully be addressed in the future. Microsoft has stated it will continue to work on AoEII:DE after release, with a focus on balancing and QoL changes. That's especially a good thing in terms of the new civilizations. The Definitive Edition has attempted to balance out some key aspects of the game — including making the Barracks infantry line more feasible with new technology — but there's still a way to go. Some of the new units in the game are quite powerful, and we'll have to see how the competitive community responds and how the developers react. Finally, no doubt because of the cross-play feature between Microsoft and Steam, mods will be collected at the Age of Empires website instead of the Steam Workshop. That's no doubt a bit of a worry for some long-time players used to the Workshop, but thanks to the built-in mod manager within AoEII:DE, there shouldn't be much issue implementing the additional content. One po[CENSORED]r mod — the addition of gridlines on the playing field — is now implemented in the game as a gameplay setting. Should you buy Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition?

INTRODUCTION This review of Grimm’s Hollow will set a personal achievement. Normally, when I prepare to write down a formal review, the subject has set in my mind for at least a day or more. While I believe that critiquing is best done when the topic is fresh, there remains an urgency to let the emotions settle. My personal schedule will not permit me this leniency this time around. In order to get this article out the day of Halloween, I have to do it within an hour of finishing the game. With an RPG like this, residual emotions may run the risk of tampering my personal preferences. This time of year is one that many count down the days to. Halloween remains one of the most impactful holidays in the United States, resulting in millions of communities allowing kids in costumes to go around the neighborhood from early to late evening demanding candy with a magic phrase. Even as an adult, the opportunity to cosplay and participate in scary activities makes October 31st a memorable day of festivities. For me, I don’t generally dress up or even do anything too out of the ordinary. What I do like to do is partake in spookier-than-normal games and what have you. Wouldn’t you know, Grimm’s Hollow comes out of nowhere and releases the night before Halloween, providing an eventful pre-Halloween treat. What it ended up focusing on gave new meaning to what many consider the traditional Halloween frights. Grimm’s Hollow is available on Steam for free. STORY While I’ve been wrong about a creator’s intentions before, this game feels like it wishes to tell a story more than it wants to enrich the RPG formula. The “Story Rich” moniker, excessive amounts of dialogue, and presentation of characters and narrative significance reminds me greatly of Undertale. Similar as it may be, Grimm’s Hollow is its own entity, wishing to provoke and elaborate on a story that’s a tad more straightforward. Something that can be noted right away is the game’s desire to appear cute. Humor is incorporated quite often early on, and periodically throughout the events that transpire. Much of it isn’t funny, but at least it isn’t so distracting that one couldn’t take it seriously. Some of this may be a result of the title character, Lavender, and the spunk she brings as a lead. While her age is only implied, her presence evokes a maternal maturity found in those a tad older. Inquisitive, caring, and immensely stubborn, her independence makes for an endearing perspective. There are some things that a silent protagonist cannot provide, and this is an example of a well-written lead character. The game is as much her journey as it is ours. What I didn’t come to expect from Grimm’s Hollow is just how serious the story gets, which makes it risky to review. Efforts have been made in the past to generalize a story based on vague emotional buffers to avoid spoilers, and this may be another case. On paper, the story is simple: a girl dies and awakens in the afterlife, with a sudden realization that she needs to find her brother. Upon doing so, the goal shifts and the focus of the story alters its trajectory. “One-track” would be a good way of elaborating on the narrative, with the twists and loops only done to hamper the expected arrival time. In the big picture, there’s only a single goal and the entire game is confined to seeing it through. To some, that lack of nuance could be a dealbreaker. For what it’s worth, this linear path isn’t so painful. Of what does occur, I was invested enough to care for the characters involved. Characters have clear goals and personalities that embody their place in the game. And while I may simply be too excitable, I’d argue there’s symbolic representation to the events of the game. Specific characters and their ambitions, the type of enemies one faces, the areas one goes through, and the trials that Lavender faces—all feel strangely calculated. Messages lying in wait could make for repeated dissections. As could the heartfelt messages of loss and forgiveness, too, but nevertheless. GAMEPLAY One other reason I feel story was more interesting to the developer is that the gameplay aspects are not deep. As an RPG, this is a very run-of-the-mill interpretation of the genre, with some real-time strategy as a spice. One can level up various statistics, learn new moves, and build up experience-like points to use as currency for shops or a talent tree system. Battles consist of normal attacks, special moves, items, and fleeing. One has a timer bar that one must wait to fill before doing anything, as is the same for enemies. Does this all sound familiar? It should if you’ve played any RPG ever. This review could paint Grimm’s Hollow into a very bare-boned gameplay experience, but in all honesty, I was fine with it. It’s a matter of expectations. This game is free, and spans only two hours. Don’t expect Chrono Trigger. If you’re an RPG veteran, this probably isn’t the game for you. Should the incredibly simple and straightforward game mechanics not bother you, there’s fun to be had here. Battles take up about 60% of the game’s two-hour-ish runtime, so one need be fond of it quickly. The assortment of enemies one faces provides ample challenge to experiment with new techniques and strategies. Some enemies multiply, others poison, while a few are just all-around awful. My advice to anyone trying this out, though, is to advance through the talent tree immediately. I died a handful of times within the first twenty minutes because of neglecting the talent tree. The initial stages of the game kind of throw instructions at you and expect the player to pick it up as they go.