Bandolero -

GALACTIC CIVILIZATIONS 3: 2019 REVIEW The result is a game that runs much more smoothly and has faster turn times than most, if not all, of the turn-based games of this size that I know of. The weird thing about this aspect of the game is just how much Brad and Stardock initially marketed it, as it was one of the primary “look at what we did!” bullet points for the game and honestly, barely anyone gave two shits what the engine was capable of, as the initial game did disappoint for gameplay reasons. However, now, with the gameplay is full swing, the engine that GC3 is built in has been allowed to truly shine, as turn times are absurdly fast compared to other large 4X games and the game just generally runs faster and smoother than most. So I guess all that marketing and hype was on to something, but it took a while for it to really feel like something I’d want to add to this “What I Like” list. Colony Management: Perhaps my single favorite gameplay mechanic of GC3 is its planetary/colony management system. Each planet has a limited amount of space and each planet has a random number of tiles that boost certain types of buildings. There’s also other random resources (and now, artifacts) that you have to account for, too. Further fleshing out this system is an adjacency bonus mechanic that provides bonuses to certain structures if they’re built next to other structures. For example, a factory receives a bonus if it’s built next to another production building or certain resources, etc. I really, really like it and it creates this pseudo puzzle to figure out at each colony. It’s one of my favorite colony or city management systems in existence and I really like that it encourages specialization and completely prevents that whole “build everything, everywhere” trap that a lot of 4X games fall in to. Plus, we finally received the ability to repeat production queues and that was my final gripe with this system. I really hope to see other developers learn from this management style and adapt their own take on it. The Artificial Intelligence: There’s not a single 4X game in existence with better AI. That’s all that needs to be said. It’s calculating, capable, and almost always a true adversary. Even on lower difficulties. This is Brad Wardell’s forte and he continues to refine and sharpen the AI regularly and it shows. Sure, it’ll still do some really weird shit, but for the most part, it’s leagues beyond every other major 4X game. Mercenaries (Mercenaries): Basically heroes units for hire (who would have thought?!), mercenaries are good for a wide variety of things, like increasing production at your colonies, acting as super survey ships, or even just acting as powerful flagships for your armada. Citizens (Crusade): A truly inventive system that allows players to take a more active role in their ability to play either tall or wide, Citizens are a unique gameplay mechanic that I really enjoy. Every ten turns, a new citizen can be trained in a wide variety of specialties. The professions are limited at first to only a handful, but the more you research and advance, the more variety your given. Eventually you can train your citizens to help nearly every aspect of your colonies OR your empire as a whole. Choosing to train these citizens in professions that are subsequently stationed at your colonies provides those colonies with moderate-sized boosts to that colony, but that colony alone. However, you can also use your citizens to provide moderately smaller boosts to your empire-wide production, research, morale, etc, too. Thus, this system allows the player to focus on either creating a few super colonies, or spreading that talent across many colonies, or a mixture of both. It’s a great system and nearly every ten turns, you’re faced with a crucial decision in where and how to use those citizens. Better yet, the citizens add a bit of personality to your empire and provide some fodder for role-playing, too. I just wish there was a bit more depth to their “leveling up” system, as I think the small amount of character improvement that’s in game is pretty exciting. Maybe the inevitable GC4 can take this system and run with it, as citizens are the kind of quality game mechanic that should become a staple of this series moving forward. Strategic Resources (Crusade): The strategic resource system was completely revamped for the Crusade expansion and radically altered and improved the system that was previously in place. Strategic resources need to be mined using your (quantity-limited) constructors, which build mining stations near these resource deposits. In balance with the above citizens mechanic, you’ll need more administrators to build more constructors, which prevents an old gameplay issue (pre-Crusade), starbase spam, from occurring. It also requires you to use your initial constructors wisely. Strategic resources are initially mined very slowly. Because they are required for a variety of structures, starbase upgrades, and ship components, the player is forced to make tough choices for a while. Hell, they’re never super plentiful, unless you’re on large or huge maps, so the decision to use your strategic resources always feels like a calculated one. The system is engaging and thoughtful and can create tension between you and the other factions who may want those resources that you have (or vice versa). All good things… Invasions (Crusade): While not the most visceral or artistic take on ground combat that a 4X has ever seen, it is much more engaging than most and is a unique take on the genre trope. You’ll have to train legions to both use as planetary defense and as an invasion force. Once you begin combat, you’ll only make some very broad choices as to where to place those legions. However, it’s just enough interaction to keep your interest, while not being so involving that you feel too glued to it. Lastly, and maybe most importantly, t’s definitely an improvement over what it was pre-Crusade. The fact that I will almost always watch them says something about their balance of engagement and speed of resolution. Governments (Intrigue): Based on what I’ve read, the new government system is a bit polarizing. I’m surprised by this, because I actually really like them. Governments unlock as you research them, or through the ideology system, and each of them provide certain bonuses to either production, ship capabilities, or they might even provide unique ships that have pretty rad bonuses. You can switch governments every 26 turns, which makes the system even more interesting, as it’s not something you can just change on a whim. You have to plan ahead and consider what your goals are moving forward and what government will best suit your needs. You’ll also need to manage your empire well while your government is in place, as you’ll face elections that are either in support or opposition of your government. If they support what you do, you’ll stay in power with little to fear. If they oppose your government, then your empire will fall in to disarray and you’ll eventually have to pick up the pieces. They’re interesting enough to keep you looking for them on the tech tree and sometimes you’ll focus your efforts towards adopting a form of government as you transition towards another goal. I enjoy the mechanic and find myself referring back to them to see what I might want to adopt next. Galactic Bazaar (Intrigue): There’s not much to say about this, as it’s pretty standard in 4X games now, but the ability to buy and sell strategic resources is very helpful in light of how important they’ve become, post Crusade. It’s also a nice little revenue generator for when you have excess of any particular resource and want to unload it for some extra cash. Not revolutionary, but still nice to have. Artifacts (Retribution): Artifacts are randomly found on planets and unlock active abilities that can dramatically enhance your capabilities. One immediately finishes your current research, while another might transform a previously-dead planet to something habitable. There are many, many different types of these and each of them do something pretty unique. The best part of these are that some of them are powerful enough that they’ll create incentive to wage war against other factions in possession of artifacts that you want. I love anything that creates tension like that and artifacts definitely do that. Tech Tree Changes/Pacing (Retribution): I’ll be surprised if these changes don’t end up making their way to the base game, as they’re significant and game-changing. Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock and clearly a very talented game designer and programmer, gutted the tech tree and reorganized it in a way that makes more sense and that allows the game to flow much better. There’s so much change that it’d be hard to pinpoint any particular change as the main reason that it all feels so much better, but as someone who has put a massive amount of hours in to GC3 pre- and post-Retribution, it’s easiest to just say that whatever the exact changes and rebalances were, they’ve made GC3 a better game. A lot of it was just consolidating different techs and pairing them up better, but it’s a great example of how seemingly small changes to established systems can make a game feel much better paced. WHAT I DONT LIKE : Ship Combat: I’ve come to the conclusion that developers don’t quite understand what 4X enthusiasts want from combat. I’m someone who could be convinced that non-tactical combat would be ideal for some games, but at the end of the day, I truly believe that tactical combat – be it real-time or (preferably for me) turn-based – is what most 4X gamers want. I have fond memories of certain battles in the original two Master of Orion games that came down to the wire. If it weren’t for my mildly intelligent decision making (I’m likely just imagining this), the battle may have gone another way. Mostly, though, it’s just fun to tactically maneuver ships that you’ve likely had a hand in designing. The Drengin are a bit more capable of waging war, the Krynn are a bit more capable of spreading influence, the Iridium are a bit more capable of creating cash flow, etc. etc. etc. In contrast to games like Endless Space 2 or Endless Legend, Sword of the Stars or Ascendancy, GC3’s faction feel pretty bland. In addition, I’m not a huge fan of their art direction for the most part, either. The recently reintroduced Drath look amazing, however: I understand that this is just a matter of personal opinion and I’m sure that others may disagree, but when compared to the likes of the aforementioned games, it’s hard to get too excited about the GC series factions. Diplomacy: Aside from my strange qualm with my inability to reject an offer, (it only allows me to go “Back”): Hypergates: Okay, this may seem a bit petty, but hypergates are both ugly and not nearly as effective as you’d think. They are upgradeable, but their initial speed increase is 100%, which doesn’t feel terribly helpful, and if there’s anything in the way of the hypergate line, like an unseen planet body or nebulas, the ship will auto-path around those things and limits the hypergate’s effectiveness. Also, the ship pathing isn’t nearly as good as it should be. Period. Finally, and here’s where I’m gonna sound especially petty, but the end game, with possibly dozens of these things built up around the galaxy, looks pretty ugly in my opinion. Hypergates are represented by a shiny white line from point to point, so there will be a bunch of shiny white lines all over the map. It’s not aesthetically pleasing: ULTIMATELY: Initially, Galactic Civilizations 3 was one of the biggest disappointments I’ve had in the 4X realm. The base game was uninspired, a bit empty, and all together too familiar. However, the Crusade expansion pack dramatically changed the game for the better and Stardock has mostly continued to make it better and better since then. A few missteps, mainly Commonwealths and Hypergates, in my humble opinion, can be overlooked, as the overall package that is now Galactic Civilizations 3 is a pretty damn good game. I wish that they’d chosen a different combat system and I really wish that they’d revisit their faction design, but those can both be addressed for the fourth iteration. Hopefully they’ll take cues from the likes of Stars in Shadow for combat and Endless Space 2 for faction design. Those items and mechanics that I didn’t touch on above are mostly just aspects of the game that don’t necessarily hurt or help the game. However, as a whole, GC3 is a game that I’ve come to recommend much more than I ever expected to. It’s a relatively safe game, but it’s still a pretty great game and I applaud Stardock for sticking with it long enough to make it a game worthy of the Galactic Civilizations legacy. If you’re a fan of space 4X and haven’t yet given it a proper chance, now’s the time to do so. Galactic Civilizations 3 has become its own, unique game and one that I’ve happily sunk over 200 hours in to and will likely continue to fire it up from time to time when I want a 4X focused on resource exploitation, colony management, well-above-average AI and fast turn times, among other things.

Nanotale - Typing Chronicles Specifications: Genre: Adventure, RPG, Early Access Developer: Fishing Cactus Publisher: Fishing Cactus, Plug In Digital Franchise: Typing Chronicles Release Date (Early Access): 23 October 2019 Platform: PC Windows Nanotale - Typing Chronicles Teaser Trailer Nanotale - Typing Chronicles Review: The game offers role playing elements. You will control an archivist named Rosalina, who is looking for the samples of rock & plant, & she visits a valley where her adventure starts. She discovers the whole land & reveals its secrets. Nanotale - Typing Chronicles is a successor to Epistory. This planet is suffering & it is about to die. The game allows you to control an archivist who is on a mission to travel through the world to reveal its secrets. She wants to reveal the mysteries of this world & find out the truth. The game shows all the action from isometric perspective. During exploration you can also solve puzzles, talk to the locals, & take part in magical duels. The game offers different controls & you can play this game by just using the keyboard. You can type words that are shown on the screen, to lead out attacks & interact with the planet of this game. Nanotale - Typing Chronicles Story: You are in a fantasy planet which is on the brink of extinction. You need to travel to find out the secrets of this planet. Your mission is to gather samples of rock & plant for your experiments. Nanotale - Typing Chronicles Gameplay: This game lets you beat the monsters only by typing & it is set in a colorful planet. During your adventure you will face monsters & you can beat them just by typing the word that appears on the monster & if you succeed then you will cast a magic spell to damage the opponent. Discover a 3D fantasy planet by controlling an archivist on her adventure to the boundaries of this world. There is more stuff that just typing, you can interact with the locals, crack riddles, unleash powers of magic, & beat opponents in magical battles. Everything can be performed by using just a keyboard. The game allows you to control the movement of the heroine & you can also control how she battles against opponents using just a keyboard. This game will improve your typing skills & you need to type as quickly as possible & you must choose which word you type first as there will be multiple opponents & it is up to you to decide which opponent you want to attack first. Hurry up as you won’t have much time because the opponent can attack you if you failed in typing quickly. Nanotale - Typing Chronicles Gameplay Teaser: Nanotale - Typing Chronicles Early Access Trailer:

Just last week I was talking about the lack of mystery games on the App Store. And now, thanks to the release of Apple Arcade, we’re starting to see more of these types of games. Murder mysteries filled with puzzles, a good story, and a bunch of lies. This is the case of Tangle Tower, a mystery game where the main murder suspect is a painting. Interesting, right? Well, get ready as we help Detective Grimoire and Sally with the mystery of Freya Fellow’s murder. Tangle Tower is a puzzle and mystery game developed by SFB Games. You play Detective Grimoire and Sally, a couple of private detectives who got called to investigate the murder of the young Freya Fellow. The good news is there’s a leading suspect, the bad news is that suspect is a painting. A painting that Freya herself was painting has the murder weapon, a knife, and it’s covered in her blood. Right from the start, the story is intriguing. A mystery where a piece of art created by the victim is the murder suspect, and it has the murder weapon. You know something is off, and you know every character is going to lie about it. Instead of actually controlling Grimoire and Sally, you’ll interact with their surroundings. You’ll need to pay attention and look for details to gather information and clues around every room in the tower. You can tap or click on almost anything and it will give you a clue or a fun, snarky comment. You can then use those clues to ask the suspects about what they were doing when the murder happened. You need to be careful because they’re going to lie to you. That’s why is important to investigate each room completely. Missing a clue might leave you clueless (pun intended) as to what really happened that day. Don’t worry, though, the game will help you along the way. If you get stuck solving a puzzle or trying to form a statement, the game will give you clues and tips to follow. However, puzzles are still really hard, and even if you have a hint, you’ll still need to figure it all out for yourself. Tangle Tower’s gameplay is pretty straightforward. You touch everything until you think you’re done with a room. Then you go into the map to move to other rooms. As mentioned before, you’re not controlling any of the characters directly. While this may seem as boring at first, SFB Games did a great job of not letting the game’s mechanics get old by using different ways to interact with the player. You’ll have to solve puzzles, open boxes, and chests, create statements based on what you know and interrogate the suspects. There’s a lot to do in this game, even if you’re just tapping around on you’re screen.

Simulation games are conceptually an interesting thing to me. They often tackle the most mundane or realistic topics, trying to find fun in things that are usually considered work. Of course, they do this by knowing where to bend reality in order to make things more enjoyable. Extremely complex, chaotic elements are simplified into something slightly less complex and more predictable. Everything becomes tables of numbers and how they interact with each other, more often than not. Any why not? It’s fun, challenging, and satisfying to mentally disassemble these contraptions and become their master. And yet, the human condition is often covered by little more than a random number generator, severely underestimating just how much the whims of one person can swing the most carefully-laid plans. King of Dragon Pass ($9.99) is one of the few simulation games I’ve played that not only carefully considers that ever-present aspect of reality but embraces it, and its long-awaited follow-up, Six Ages ($9.99), doubles down on it. Like its predecessor, Six Ages is a simulation game set in Glorantha, a fantasy world created more than 40 years ago by Greg Stafford. Glorantha is famous and well-regarded for its careful attention to mythology and folklore. It’s as wondrous and detailed as any fantasy setting could be, but it does enough things its own way to make it feel distinct from the familiar tropes of the genre. Such a setting would be wasted if it were merely the window dressing of a typical 4X simulation game, but there’s little typical about King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages. These games seek to marry the numbers-focused gameplay of something like Civilization with a rich, unpredictable narrative full of choices, consequences, and random events. You’ll naturally need to manage resources, build defenses, negotiate with neighbors, and kill your enemies, but you’ll also need to deal with giant beaver attacks, discord within your own tribe, and visitors of questionable intentions. When these events occur, you’ll have to make a choice. You have a group of advisors who will weigh in if you ask them, but they almost never agree. Making this more complicated is that while you may be looking for the best choice, sometimes there isn’t one. Sometimes, they’re all good. Sometimes, they’re all bad. Sometimes, they’re just different. There could be immediate repercussions or far-reaching consequences you can’t even conceive of at the time you make your decision. Probably both. Whatever happens, it’s these unpredictable events that really separate Six Ages and its predecessor from their peers. The sheer number of possible events the game includes means that you can look forward to numerous playthroughs of Six Ages with very little repetition. Each event is accompanied by some lovely full-color artwork, and the writing manages to be both informative and entertaining. The simulation side of things is no slouch, either. There are lots of things you need to take care of in order to keep your people safe and prosperous. There has to be enough food, enough space, houses for everyone, a decent standing army for offensives, fortifications for when you get attacked, and the occasional literal sacrifice in order to curry the favor of one of the many gods or goddesses. You have to handle relations with other tribes, be they friend, foe, or mere trading partner. Should you bring a gift? How big should it be? It’s up to you, but do keep in mind that you don’t win friends with salad. You’ll have to embark on quests to re-enact legends, striving to be as accurate as possible. That means you yourself will have to dig into the game’s lore to familiarize yourself with those legends. And if anything fails you in all of these tasks, you can always try a little magic to see if it gets you by. So yes, it’s a bit of an odd mash-up we have here. Certainly, if you’ve played King of Dragon Pass, nothing here will sound all that unfamiliar. And it’s not. There are changes here, streamlined things there, and you can tell this was designed for mobile first in a way the previous game wasn’t, but all of the broad strokes and quite a few of the finer ones are the same. It’s basically a new scenario, literally hundreds of new events, and a few small refinements. If you loved the first game, you’re going to love this one, too. If you bounced off the first game, you probably won’t fare any better with Six Ages. That said, I do feel like the tutorial is a little better at explaining the mechanics in this game, so you’re not thrown totally in the deep end if you don’t know what you’re doing. The truth is that Six Ages, like King of Dragon Pass before it, is a niche game that a lot of people are not going to be able to get a handle on. But if you do, you’ll likely play it for years. I know people who have been playing the first game for the better part of two decades, and they’ve only just put it down because this follow-up finally arrived. I’m not quite as obsessed with either game, but I regularly came back around to the first game to do another playthrough after my initial love affair with it, and I imagine I’ll be doing the same here. But as to whether any given person will like the game or not, I can only say that it’s a very high-quality game in both of the genres it plants its feet in. You can’t hate either of those genres, though, or it’s just not going to be something you can get into. The turn-based strategy simulation part of the game and the choice-based narrative part walk hand-in-hand, and you’re not going to be able to separate them if you don’t care for one of the pair. If you’re okay with both of those genres, however, you’re very likely to fall in love with Six Ages. It’s probably no surprise to anyone who played the preceding game, but Six Ages is absolutely incredible. You never know what’s going to happen next, but you have enough control to steer around anything if you’re clever enough. It pokes at so many parts of your brain that it’s simultaneously demanding and relaxing. About the worst thing I could say about Six Ages is that it’s content to stay pretty near to what was established in King of Dragon Pass. I don’t know that anyone would have been looking for some dramatic upheaval, but if you were, I guess you’re going home with hat in hand.

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Whoever said you can’t go back is full of shit. Not only can you go back, you can make things even better than they were before. Okay, so maybe that’s not always the case, but when it comes to video games it actually is. Demon Pit lives and dies by that mantra. At first glance you might even think that you’re looking at a game from the mid 90s when you start playing the arena shooter in the vein of all your favorite shooters from a bygone era. However, you’re actually playing a game in 2019 that can stand side by side with any of the games that came before it. Demon Pit takes ideas from the past and present and blends them together to make your nostalgia and your current love for video games both come alive at once. Gameplay will be familiar to anyone that played any of the original first-person shooters on PC and Nintendo 64 long ago. For those that haven’t, you’ll soon catch on. What really makes Demon Pit different is the modern ideas that are brought to life here. Demon Pit is basically just a horde mode. Made po[CENSORED]r when Nazi Zombies first appeared, it’s almost hard to find a modern FPS that doesn’t have some sort of mode dedicated to waves and waves of enemies coming at you. With each wave that you face the arena also changes to make things even more difficult. Here you’ll be equipped with not only your weapons, but a grappling hook that will help you zip out of harm’s way whenever the horde is coming down on you. Around the outside of the arena are ledges that you can use your grappling hook to reach. This not only gives you a second to breath, but will sometimes give you a little bit of health to get you back in the fight. You can’t rest long though, because some enemies can fly. At other times, when the wave changes, the ledge will disappear and you’ll fall to whatever lies beneath you. Like any horde mode you’ll start with a pistol and continue to get bigger and better weapons from wave to wave. Ammo is limited on most of the weapons but, if you run out of the good stuff, you can always go back to your trusty pistol which has an infinite supply of bullets. Enemies look like something straight out of Doom and Serious Sam. The deeper and deeper you get into the pit the more ridiculous they become.

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V1 good effect,text.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is fascinating. Next to World of Warcraft, it has somehow become the MMO I've invested the most time into, despite not always being sure what I think of it. In 2011, it was a game at odds with itself, and while so much has changed since then, that has not. But that conflict has also lead to seismic shifts, with BioWare Austin dragging it in unexpected directions. I keep coming back and, with a new expansion on the horizon, some of you might be contemplating the same. You should. With some Death Star-sized caveats. At launch it was disappointing. There was BioWare's RPG, an enthusiastic Star Wars fantasy full of scintillating class stories that offered up countless lightsaber duels, Sith intrigue, superweapons, a personal spaceship and you could play as a Chiss James Bond. Great stuff. But then there was the MMO, which stuck rigidly to the most conservative adaptation of World of Warcraft, from the combat to the structure. For every great Star Wars moment, there were a hundred lacklustre fights and hours upon hours of running between repetitive quests. Things have progressed quite a bit since those days, however. After you finish your class story around level 50, for instance, you've now got several games' worth of adventures and crises and character-driven yarns left to play through. The first couple of expansions aren't really worth repeated playthroughs, but everything from Shadow of Revan onwards is surprisingly gripping stuff, evocative of the singleplayer RPGs that inspired it, but not beholden to them. Perhaps most like Knights of the Old Republic 2, the later chapters make the Star Wars universe and the Force feel strange again. All of that is far, far ahead of you if you're starting from scratch, but vanilla TOR has been tweaked countless times, and overhauled, so it's not quite the chore it sometimes used to be. Even before setting foot on one of the starting planets, however, you might want to consider if you want to spend any money. Since 2012, TOR has been free-to-play with a cash shop and optional subscription. The free-to-play tier ain't great. You miss out on raids, gear, rewards, crew skills, the bank, races and have an absurdly low credit cap that means you'll never be able to buy anything decent. You do get all of the class storylines, however, which will take you to the free cap of level 50. And while there are a lot of restrictions, many of them can be eased with one purchase, no matter how small. Buying anything from the Cartel Market, the in-game cash shop, confers Preferred status immediately, easing up on the limitations for free players. Preferred players still miss out on a lot and don't get access to the expansions, but that can be sorted by subscribing for a single month. During that month, you'll have access to everything, but you'll also be able to keep a lot of it even if you choose not to continue your subscription. Those first 50 levels are going to either fly by if you're subscribing, or take a good while longer if you're not. All the XP bonuses and complimentary boosts means that subscribers can get to the original level cap purely doing class and planetary quests. They're invariably the best written and most engaging parts of the game, to the point where it feels like a classic BioWare RPG. Everything else is a crapshoot. The actual objectives for every kind of quest rarely deviate from the most uninspired MMO tropes of fetching and killing, so most of the heavy lifting is done by story and characters. I do regret blasting through it these days, because there are some interesting little side stories going on between all the important, fate of the galaxy missions. There are also plenty of duds. Even the poorer ones typically have convincing voice acting and more context than your average MMO quest, however, and if you're playing for the first time, you'll probably want to do most of them. Most of it is also all based on stuff that was a bit dated in 2011. The environments are large but lifeless, the characters are plentiful but look and move like soulless marionettes, and the quest design is just a bit boring. But this is also stuff that I've explored to death. Familiarity has made it more of a chore, and apparently not enough of one to stop me from making my second Sith Inquisitor and playing through that exact same story again. You don't understand, this time I gave him a terrible beard and a sassy attitude. It's a huge difference! You're the one with a problem! When you finish the class story, there's a weird lull. You can't start Knights of the Fallen Empire, where BioWare made some of its most significant changes, until level 60. The Dread Lords and Rise of the Hutt Cartel arcs are related to other stuff you'll know about from your 1-50 journey, but they're weaker than the class stories and, while I didn't mind them the first time around, I'm never eager to return. I usually skip straight to Shadow of Revan. It's a brisk expansion if you're just in it for the main yarn, which ties together lots of threads from both the MMO and its singleplayer predecessors. The writers' treatment of Revan and the Exile is perhaps a bit divisive, but I think that's inevitable when dealing with characters that people have actually played. It's a solid expansion and leads into an even better one. Knights of the Fallen Empire was bold in 2015. BioWare made a singleplayer game in their MMO and it was, and still is, surprisingly great. The original promise of TOR was that it was going to be KotOR 3, 4, 5, 6 and so on. Better than a new singleplayer RPG. Nobody believed it, and that was because it was bollocks. But with Fallen Empire it gets much closer than any MMO has a right to. Calling it KotOR 3 might be a stretch, but there's a great deal of KotOR in it. The episodic structure also works wonders. Instead of trying to have your singleplayer fun while all these other Jedi and bounty hunters are jumping around and doing the same quests, you're transported to a personal instance where BioWare's been able to make a more curated experience. There aren't any interruptions, long jogs between objectives or repetitive odd jobs. They're brisk but manage to squeeze in plenty of action and plot, and while the story is shared across all classes and both factions, each episode gives you opportunities to leave your own mark and reap the consequences. The big choices are still binary and framed as Dark and Light side options, but they are more nuanced than that limitation suggests. A villainous Sith Lord can make what is ostensibly a Light side choice for evil reasons, like saving a city block from devastation because one day soon you intend to rule all the people you've saved. Advertisement

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Game title: The Beast Inside (Demo) Studio: Illusion Ray Score: 3.5/5 GS Reviewer: Ric Crossman The sign of a good scary game is that you can type its name into YouTube and you'll see a thousand thumbnails of people making scared faces as something spooky comes on screen, and that's exactly what we have with the recently released Steam demo for Illusion Ray Studio's The Beast Inside, a Kickstarter horror game that's looking to bolster its fundraising efforts with a small teaser of what's to come. Far be it from us to turn down a scarefest, and so we dived into the demo headfirst to see whether we could experience the horror for ourselves. The first chapter put us in the first-person perspective of a man moving to a house in the middle of nowhere with his partner to try and escape the hassle of the urban sprawl, and when we say in the middle of nowhere, it's pretty much bang in the middle of this huge forest. Now you don't need to be a horror expert to know that this is pretty much a guaranteed bad idea - alongside such other bad ideas in horror games like 'let's split up' - and lo and behold it seems to be. Not that we see it in this first chapter, mind you, as all we do here is work out the controls and mechanics by exploring the house until we find a diary, which details the lives of someone who used to live in the house in the 19th century. This is when the scares start, as it gets dark and we're thrust into the role of the man who wrote the diary, Nicolas, as part of a flashback. Obviously, the darkness brings with it some terrors, and since the demo is so short, we won't spoil the events, but mechanically it revolves around lighting matches and lamps (both of which will run out if you're not careful) and fumbling around to respond to noises and mysterious events that need investigating. Ever since PT came out, the playable teaser for Hideo Kojima's now-cancelled Silent Hills project, every horror game on the planet has been compared to it in some way, and this is no different. There are certain elements that scream PT, especially considering there are spectral beings overlooking you on the stairwell at one point, almost point-for-point like in PT. We're not saying it's a copy or anything sinister like that, but a lot of what made PT so effective is present and accounted for in here, and that can only be a good thing in our eyes. There's a lot that makes The Beast Inside stand out though. For a start, it's incredibly unsettling to know that you're totally alone in a house miles away from civilisation, and this sets the tone early on since you know nobody can help you. That isolation hits home even more when you realise that strange and mysterious events are unfolding, and what's effective here is that we only ever see glimpses of what happens. At one point you see a mysterious figure as you're looking out the window, and at another you're jumped by a ghost who then vanishes, and you're never given too long to try and comprehend all the horrors you're witnessing. It's hard to anticipate, and that makes for the most horrific of experiences. There are jumpscares, sure, but we wouldn't go as far as to say The Beast Inside is reliant on them. The emphasis is more on intrigue here, rather than knowing what the threat is and trying to avoid it. Here we don't know what's going on, so we're forced to keep gathering clues around the house and consulting the diary to make sense of what's going on. When the jumpscares do happen though, they hit hard, so this should be one for those who like to squeal when playing their games. The Beast Inside has definitely awakened something in us. Perhaps not a beast, but definitely a desire to know more about why all these mysterious events are going on and how all these strands of narrative link together. It looks good, it delivers the story to us in satisfying chunks, and most important, it's pretty good at scaring the pants off us, so we're excited to see whether the Kickstarter campaign hits its target by April.

A chaotic, yet fun musical eye hazard. There are many beat-based games available today, from the classic but still fully supported osu! to the extremely new and po[CENSORED]r virtual reality game Beat Saber. Both previously said games fail at one thing: automatically creating a level or difficulty solely based on the song itself. Beat Hazard 2 does just that without any human input. Beat Hazard 2 is also unique in the sense that it does not necessarily have you play the level to the beat, but instead creates the level from the beat. However, Beat Hazard 2 is a true hazard for some individuals. If you suffer from photosensitive epilepsy, I strongly caution you when viewing this game as it utilizes bright, rapid flashing lights and colors. As previously stated, this game is based on a song’s beat. With that, there are many ways to give the game songs to use. You can use locally stored audio files on your PC, stream from an internet radio, or use Beat Hazard 2‘s newest feature, Open Mic. Since a majority of people no longer store their own music, Open Mic allows players to use any audio that is currently running on their PC. When enabled, the game will start listening for audio on your PC, meaning that you can use music from virtually any source. Apple Music, iTunes, Spotify and even YouTube are just a few examples that I’ve tested. Beat Hazard 2 then uses the audio to create a level, which varies from throwing different sized meteors at you to giant spaceships with several different types of weapons. In addition, the game uses a service very similar to Shazam called ACRCloud to identify the song that is currently playing. There were some songs that I played that weren’t able to be identified and were simply listed as “Unidentified track”. One example of a song that ACRCloud couldn’t list was Blue Zenith by XI. Firing micro missiles at a boss. Gameplay is fairly straightforward once you have a song playing. You have one small ship that will shoot lasers based on the beat. This makes specific parts of songs difficult because if the song slows down, so does your firing, in turn causing a DPS decrease. Though small, it does make a difference in your gameplay. The game features different power-ups as well, the two main ones being Color and Power. Color does exactly what you’d think, giving the space behind you and your lasers color. Other than the visual effect from it, I have not noticed any gameplay changes from this power-up. Power’s effects are also in its name and adds firepower to your primary lasers, making them fire a little more often with larger shots. An additional power-up you start with is a single bomb. It detonates from the position of the player, then moves outward from that position like a wave, destroying anything it touches. As the player goes through songs, they also earn money to be spent on perks. Perks are upgradable abilities that can be equipped to give you an edge. They range from one extreme to the next. Some are able to increase the amount of points you gain in a song by increasing the score multiplier at the beginning, providing multiplier power-ups more often throughout, or just increasing the raw point value of destroying certain things. Perks can also be used to increase your firepower by raw value or unlock additional power-ups that can be executed by hotkey. One such upgrade is a shield that will block anything from damaging you for a short amount of time and depending on the object, reflect it to the nearest enemy. Another upgrade, and one of my personal favorites, is the micro missiles. They are small autonomous missiles that seek out the biggest threat on the field. Once further upgraded, you are able to fire off many of them in a volley. The player maneuvering in space while being blinded from bright, blue light.

Shooters have always had a special place in my heart ever since I’ve started playing the earlier stages of Counterstrike. While not always at the top of my gaming priority list, Shooters in general, may it be first person, third person or even those sidescroller shooters have taken hours from my life whenever I get pulled into one. And that’s one of the things that happened to me with Super Bit Machine’s online F2P shooter, Armajet. Overview Armajet pits your team of three against three other players in real-time arena-based online mobile combat. With your wide array of guns, you need to win by getting the most kills within the time span. Your loadouts are composed of one primary and one secondary weapon. Typical to multiplayer shootouts, you can switch your loadouts only before matches so you have to prepare them pre-match. Unlike some shooters however, Armajet is a little liberal in terms of the starter weapons as you have tons of choices from the get go. And what I liked about the gun options is that they pack enough punch that you won’t have to feel the urge to grind for new weapons like normal shooters. With enough skill, you can hold your own against veteran players and their fancy weapons just fine. Gameplay The game’s classical mode is the above mentioned 3-on-3 team play, but Armajet has much more under the hood to keep things fresh. There’s various game modes that you can take part in. One is the team shield rush mode where your team needs to get as much shield upgrades as possible. Then there’s the deathmatch mode where you enter against five other players and race to score the most points before time ends. Armajet Mobile Review It's not pretty, but Armajet runs surprisingly smooth considering six mobile devices are connecting to one match. Armajet’s gameplay is really a striped down version of online shooters where plot or storyline fluff is minimal so that mayhem is maximized. After getting into a match, you immediately requeue for another battle with the same team you have. You have a small window of prep time to adjust your loadouts, or bail if you want nothing to do with the team you just played with. Submit this page to Reddit - get some karma! Armajet Mobile Review Vincent Haosonby Vincent Haoson@haosonREVIEWOct 17, 2016Critic Score: 4 out of 5 User Rating: (9 votes, average: 3.11 out of 5) Shooters have always had a special place in my heart ever since I’ve started playing the earlier stages of Counterstrike. While not always at the top of my gaming priority list, Shooters in general, may it be first person, third person or even those sidescroller shooters have taken hours from my life whenever I get pulled into one. And that’s one of the things that happened to me with Super Bit Machine’s online F2P shooter, Armajet. Armajet Mobile Review No frills attached here. It's all about the core gameplay being solid. Overview Armajet pits your team of three against three other players in real-time arena-based online mobile combat. With your wide array of guns, you need to win by getting the most kills within the time span. Your loadouts are composed of one primary and one secondary weapon. Typical to multiplayer shootouts, you can switch your loadouts only before matches so you have to prepare them pre-match. Unlike some shooters however, Armajet is a little liberal in terms of the starter weapons as you have tons of choices from the get go. And what I liked about the gun options is that they pack enough punch that you won’t have to feel the urge to grind for new weapons like normal shooters. With enough skill, you can hold your own against veteran players and their fancy weapons just fine. Gameplay The game’s classical mode is the above mentioned 3-on-3 team play, but Armajet has much more under the hood to keep things fresh. There’s various game modes that you can take part in. One is the team shield rush mode where your team needs to get as much shield upgrades as possible. Then there’s the deathmatch mode where you enter against five other players and race to score the most points before time ends. Armajet Mobile Review It's not pretty, but Armajet runs surprisingly smooth considering six mobile devices are connecting to one match. Armajet’s gameplay is really a striped down version of online shooters where plot or storyline fluff is minimal so that mayhem is maximized. After getting into a match, you immediately requeue for another battle with the same team you have. You have a small window of prep time to adjust your loadouts, or bail if you want nothing to do with the team you just played with. There are tons of unlockable features in Armajet, and most of them don’t necessarily require you to spend money on them. The way purchasing and getting new stuff in-game happens is that you have to purchase “boxes” that provide shards of weapons or of aesthetic unlockables in-game. You need to reach a certain number of shards per item before you get them to use them on your account. The game’s player tracking system is also top-notch. After every match, you are given the stats of how you did in-game and overall to allow you the bird’s eye view of how great or how bad your run is. This gives players who are a bit more particular with their game results a proper breakdown of where they need to improve. Other Features Since this is a shooter, it’s kind of expected that awards, medals and trophies are given to multi kills and the like. Armajet just loves to show you how much you earned, or failed to earn. Each double kill, triple kill, bomb kill and any kind of enemy killing variations that you can do in-game is tracked. This ties into the competitive feeling the game has and the streamlined matchmaking. You rarely wait in-game as long as you’ve started matchmaking and this is what makes the game such an enjoyable one. Armajet Mobile Review Stat junkies and competitive players will love the detailed breakdowns. If there’s one thing that the game doesn’t do well, that’d be visuals. Armajet isn’t the prettiest in terms of the looks department and there are undoubtedly prettier shooters in the market today, even on mobile. But at least the game’s visuals stick to the theme that Armajet is gunning for – dark and gritty.

The facts What: Cashtronauts Type: Indie game Company: Simon Prefontaine Platform: PC, Steam Price: 7,99 euro Release date: 1 september 2016* When I fired it up, I had no idea what the game was about. Of course, I could have read the description on Steam or watched a video beforehand, but I like going in blind. Turns out Cashtronauts has no tutorial whatsoever; you just get thrown in. And that seems to be the main attraction of it: prodding things, see what happens. I guess the following picture sums up the Cashtronaut experience pretty well: The tiny pink vessel on the picture above is your starter ship. Collecting moneeeeeeey. Why? You need it for unlocking risks and new ships, and playing around with them. There are other things, too, like upgrades that you can pickup and install, that I didn't find out about until recently. I wouldn't be surprised if there is more to discover. The ultimate goal? Nothing that I've discovered so far. It's a more about the road than the destination kinda thing. The charm of the game lies in the explorative and messing around part - and in the arcade nostalgia vibe. I fondly remember the eureka moment when I found this place that wanted my crystals Navigation Cashtronauts is played in a top-down 2D view, in which you use simple arrow or keyboard keys to move your ship around in space. As the game has no map, compass or any sort of area overview, you'll have to remember your position compared to a select few landmarks in the center and their border in order to orient yourself. At the start nooby Rav kept getting lost in outer space and eventually blown to bits by predator ships as I ran out of fuel! This made me come to the realization that knowing how to get back to the safe "center of space" is a vital ability. After a few play sessions, though, I developed a feeling for direction and distance. Eventually, I came to appreciate the absence of in-game navigation methods as an extra something to keep you on your toes. I'm an asteroid, pretty please. Please do shoot me!

Pine is incredibly ambitious. Successfully funded on Kickstarter roughly two-and-a-half years ago, small Netherlands developer Twirlbound set about working on its big idea. The project promised to combine many genres: the adventuring of a Zelda title, Shadow of Mordor’s intricate AI simulation of NPC friendships and rivalries, a dash of Fable‘s hero’s journey, and a Bloodborne-inspired combat system for good measure. Promising Breath of the Wild on a shoestring budget, Pine very nearly achieves its lofty ambitions, featuring an engaging world, impressively deep simulation, and a wide variety of gameplay systems. However, the clunky controls, poor communication with the player, and a raft of bugs prevent Pine from reaching its full potential. In the tiny island nation of Albamare, evolution played out a little differently. Alongside humans, groups of other creatures also gained sentience, edging humans out of their territories with superior physical attributes. So inferior are the humans to the other species that only a handful remain on the island, a tribal group living upon a crumbling mountaintop. This isolation brought them peace, for a while, but the peace was not to last. The shifting soil they live upon turns into a landslide, killing several people and destroying much of the village. The tribal humans have always been afraid of the outside world, but with half the po[CENSORED]tion wiped out they have little choice but to let Hue, a curious young man, explore beyond their home plateau. As Hue looks for a new home for his people, he discovers a world more complicated than he could have ever imagined. The world outside of Hue’s little village is vibrant and teeming with life. While perhaps a touch small compared to other open world games, the map is dense, containing a wide variety of biomes, hills, lakes, and valleys to explore. Crafting materials are abundantly distributed across the land, regrowing at a steady clip. This bounty of food items, stones, logs, flowers, and gems is quickly put to good use. On his travels, Hue can gain ideas for new crafting recipes, turning sticks and stones into makeshift traps or improving weapons. Food restores health and reenergises him for battle. Any item he does not have an immediate use for can be thrown into a nearby donation bin, which will gain him favour with the nearest tribe. Alliances between the island’s inhabitants are constantly in flux, with Hue’s actions having a marked effect on the world around him. Relations between groups are divided into hostile, neutral, and allies, with the current relationship affecting both how Hue can interact with the creatures, and how they interact with each other. Allies will trade with Hue, offering a friendly wave as he goes past. Neutral creatures are more skittish, keeping their guard up but otherwise going about their business. Hostiles will attack on sight, often ignoring smaller monsters to take on the human threat. Mani[CENSORED]ting these relationships is key to progressing through Hue’s journey, as he will need to interact with each race to uncover the deeper mysteries of the world. Raising friendship is easy in the beginning, a few items in the donation box enough to sway opinion. Each action taken has knock-on effects, however: making a donation to the Krockers, for example, a race of large crocodile-like beings, will anger anyone they are at war with, causing Hue to lose standing with the opposing race. Helping a group to upgrade their village will see the idea spread like wildfire across the map, with better buildings and weapons at every turn. Relationships will continue to shift even when Hue is not involved, warring and trading as the leaders desire. This deep level of simulation is the core of Pine‘s appeal: a living, breathing ecosystem that is constantly changing. It is also, however, the source of much of the bugginess of Pine. Most of the story quests need a group to be in a certain state to progress, hostile, neutral, or allied, but the unpredictable nature of their behaviour means they can switch between states at the most inopportune time. This results in odd behaviours, such as people attacking when they are supposed to be neutral, animal monarchs refusing to interact with the player, or quests being brought to a standstill since poisoning their king was apparently not upsetting enough to break the alliance. Once one gets used to the volatile nature of the simulation, if something strange occurs the player will know the best choice is to step away and try the quest again later. In the early stages of the Pine, however, stuck quests are quite frustrating, as alternatives are lacking. This is compounded by extremely barebones quest text, which will not help the player determine why their current approach is not working. While the whole world is open to explore from the start, only a single quest is available at the beginning: to explore one of three vaults. Once a vault has been chosen, all other options are blocked off, but the quest text does not reflect this, leading to confusion. Things improve considerably after the first vault is completed, with a large number of quests becoming available, giving the game the flexibility it desperately needs. Some more side quests earlier on would help the game considerably, as the gameplay experience is best when the player has a lot of options. Hue’s adventure involves a lot of combat, both from monsters in the overworld and the sentient races. Each group has a unique approach to fighting: Krockers and the moose-like Carablin favour hard-hitting melee moves, slow but powerful. The fox-like Fexel are potion masters, throwing smoke bombs and healing constantly. The large flightless birds of Gobbledew are the all-rounders of the animal kingdom, using both melee and ranged attacks. Hue’s movements are slow and deliberate, requiring the player to carefully watch enemy movements to find a moment to strike. Enemies hit hard, but their attacks are clearly telegraphed, similar to the Dark Souls style of combat. For the most part, combat works well, but the lack of a proper dodge button is frustrating. When locked on to an enemy, the wimpy side-step does little for evading blows. An approach to get around this limitation is to not lock on to the enemy at all, and run back and forth to evade attacks. Thankfully, for those who do not enjoy this style of combat, the game autosaves often, meaning little progress is lost after death. Most encounters can also be avoided entirely by either running away, or maintaining a decent reputation with all the groups. Less impressive are Pine‘s platforming challenges, located both as optional extras in the overworld, and annoying obstacles in the dungeon-like vaults. Hue’s jump is extremely sluggish, requiring the button to be pressed well before the edge of a platform. No concessions are included to help with correcting a dodgy jump, like the ability to grab onto a ledge or allowing the player to leap just after they have stepped off the platform, known as ‘coyote time’. Compounding this frustration is the design of the vaults, where a missed jump often requires a long climb back up to the previous position. While the vaults have some nice puzzles, lots of flicking switches and checking ancient markings, the platforming aspect taints the whole experience. Completing a vault simply evokes a feeling of relief, not accomplishment. A lot of thought and care has clearly gone into the visual design of Pine. The environment is lush and beautiful, an explosion of colour that shifts depending on the time of day. Each of the races has a unique design, reflective of their different cultures. However, this personality could be better reflected in the writing; talking to a non-storyline NPC will draw from the same small pool of generic comments, evidenced by a Krocker remarking ‘I was scared when a Krocker came to our village’. Main characters fare a little better, but with such a fascinating world on display, not delving deeper into the lore feels like a missed opportunity. The main issue holding Pine back is poor communication. Tutorials are close to non-existent, a brief display of button prompts before pushing the player out to explore the world. This is particularly notable with the combat. If one is unfamiliar with the Dark Souls style of fighting, the two minutes spent explaining the concept is woefully insufficient. No options exist for sorting or storing inventory items, a big omission in a game focused on crafting. The map is hard to read, white icons upon a pale background with no key for the icons. Quest text is basic and, at times, confusing. With item-based quests, half the time the player will be given the item and the other half only the crafting recipe, with no clear distinction between the two. A significant patch dropped during the review process, which corrected some of the glitches and writing issues, so hopefully more of the same is on the way.