I've been an avid gamer for as long as I can remember... and I have always been a PC Master Race gamer... you know the awful sort who is hardware and specs obsessed... ha ha, no I'm really that... but I do love the depth and genres of gaming that you can find on the PC that you just can NOT find on consoles.
Anyway, whilst I've been on STEEM... I have been trying my hand at writing some Reviews and First Impressions on some of the games that I've been playing. There is quite a backlog of games that I still want to write about... and an even bigger backlog of games on Steam that I really want to play and finish!
This Sunday Showcase post gives me a chance to re-surface some of these long form reviews... and it also gives me a handy single stop post to find them all again! I needed to show some writing recently... and it was a right pain in the arse to try and find everything via Google! After all, I rarely remember what games I have written about one year later!
So, without further ado... here is a selection of some of PC gaming Reviews .... Or at least the ones that I remember or could find relatively easily! I will collate the First Impressions in a different post next week... there were many more posts than I had thought!
Epistory: Typing Chronicles is the latest game that I have reviewed... having just freshly finished it! It is a game that combines the "educational" typing genre with a touch of light RPG mechanics... and a heavy dose of beautiful narrative, sound scape and a papercraft aesthetic. It all comes together to form a really beautiful game that I will be giving to my oldest daughter to help mold her appreciation of games as a quality genre for story-telling and experiences.
As a parent and a dedicated connoisseur of quality games... I'm always on the lookout for great, well-crafted games to present to my children. Too much of the games that are presented as "kids games" are terrible time wasters or horrific free-to-play cash cows... or even worse, adrenaline soaked brain rotters... I want to have my children grow up to appreciate games as both an enjoyable past-time but also a genre that is capable of real quality in both narrative and presentation.
So, when I'm looking for a game for my kids... it has to be well crafted with a great story, game mechanics with immersive music and artwork. So, the sort of thing that you would normally expect from a quality book, film or any other art or narrative form. After all, you can get pretty terrible representations of books and other stuff... but you wouldn't want to be presenting those to novices (children...) as something to shape their view and appreciation of the genre!
Also... something featuring a strong female lead is always a plus!
BattleTech was one of these games that I was completely hyped for in 2018! These days, the combination of a long Steam backlog and a plethora of game sales means that I rarely purchase a game on launch day... BattleTech is one rare exception to this state of affairs.
In fact, I was sooooooo hyped for this game that I bought it TWICE! I backed it on Kickstarter with a GoG game key... and then, on launch day, the GoG version was slow to update with patches... and so, I bought it again on Steam! How is that for completely hyped?
Anyway, it was pretty close to my ideal BattleTech game... with a few tweaks and an updated release or new iteration... it really could become the ultimate nerdy robot stompy pew pew simulator (aka, wet dream)!
The BattleTech games were a feature of my school days! The board game originally published by FASA was an epic universe that combined the fantasy of huge Mech battles with the story universe of a futuristic Dark Ages set in space. I remember having epic gaming sessions with friends, making stomping and pew-pew noises as we fought giant tabletop battles to determine the outcome of Great Houses and later, to defend (or conquer) the Inner Sphere from the Clans (a long lost remnant of the ancient Star League).
The Battle universe spawned countless fiction books and various rule sets, and I was an avid buyer of them all! I was completely immersed in this universe of intrigue, of Great Houses, mysterious invaders from the past and noble future knights riding the fabled BattleMechs into battle! I remember when my Dad taught me how to do some basic coding, I tried to embark upon a huge project of trying to pack the rule-sets of the game into a text simulation. Needless to say, it was just too ambitious for a teenage first coding project!
Earlier this year, after a long absence of BattleTech games, Harebrained Games released their take on the BattleTech universe. When they launched on Kickstarter, I was in the first wave of backers, and after a great deal of playing (you can see the end game here on my alt account
@mcsearles), I am ready to write about the game and what I think about the experience!
Phantom Doctrine.... was a chore to play. The setting and the potential of the X-COM clone in a Cold War conspiracy theory world promised so much awesomeness... but in the end... it was bland and without character... a pity and a waste!
I'm a huge sucker for tactics and strategy games. As a self professed PC Master Race gamer, these are the games that excel on the PC platform and have absolutely no competition from the console platforms. In fact, I would even go as far to argue that the target audience for the consoles is not one that is generally too interested in these sorts of games to start with. So, then the chicken and the egg problem exists for the consoles... no demand for decent strategy/tactics games and thus no development for them...
By far and away the most successful turn-based strategy/tactics game of all time is the X-COM universe... which in it's current incarnation as XCOM2 is an epic masterwork of on the ground small squad tactics and strategic map decisions and consequences. It is incredibly gripping to play, and you really fell like you've won each small victory with perseverance and sacrifice, with disaster always lurking just around the corner.
So, in that vein of games and under this shadow, how does Phantom Doctrine stack up?
Marie's Room is one of those games that pushes back against the idea of games being a testosterone infused superman fantasy. Instead, it takes a story that is revealed though the act of solving puzzles and discovering clues in a single room location. Like other games of this genre, it leans more heavily on the art direction, soundscape and most importantly the narrative and voice acting to bring across it's emotional experience.
These are the games that are trying to widen the audience and quality of gaming beyond the action junkies... and these are the games that will be remembered for ages as gems in the developing gaming industry.
Marie's Room is one of these games that divides the game community over what the definition of a "Game" really means. This was perhaps most public when games like Firewatch, The Stanley Parable and Gone Home were branded by the Steam Community as "Walking Simulators".
These games approach the gaming medium more as a story-telling and narrative medium with light gaming (mostly puzzle) elements thrown in. The emphasis is more upon the unveiling of a narrative or a gradual enlightenment via the story interaction rather than upon gaming mechanics and twitch reactions. Despite the bad reaction that these types of games generally get from the "hard-core" gamers (of which, I would consider myself part of...), I really think that they are evidence of a genre that is growing up and maturing beyond the male fantasies that normally pervade this genre.
The genre of gaming has more than enough space to fit a wide variety of tastes, just as the movie and book genre has space for action based narratives and tear-jerking/heart touching stories. This sort of game will not bring down gaming as we know it, but will serve to broaden and mature the appeal of beloved genre!
From a personal perspective (again, coming from decades of hardcore gaming), I do crave the game or narrative that makes me feel, or cry (in a manly way) or to suddenly have a moment of enlightenment. I enjoy these games as much as the next FPS shooter or in depth Paradox grand strategy.
Freeman was a game that piqued my interest as it promised an updated modern setting for the Mount and Blade series. Now, Mount and Blade was pretty damn phenomenal for it's time... but now it is pretty dated, but I'm really looking forward to it's successor. Freeman brings the Mount and Blade formula to the modern day, with guns and all the modern war-fighting kit.
I have to say, it sort of works... you are thrown in a sandbox and left to sort things out for yourself.. however, the distinct lack of direction and story/narrative does make it a tedious long term play... unlike other sandbox games, there is little in the way of emergent stories, which makes it difficult to hold interest!
It's a horrible way to describe games these days as Blah with Blah... or like game A had a baby with game B... or game C is the lovechild between K and W. It's completely lazy and gives often the wrong impression that a game is a complete copy of another game... or sets up the unnecessary and unfair expectation that it has the same structural systems and gameplay as the games that had inspired it!
However, just this once (well... guess it isn't going to be just the once...)... I'm going to submit to this sort of description. After all, we gamers have a shared experience of games and easiest way is to use a heuristic and just give this slogan type description of a game... which instantly gives us a base impression of what a game is about. However, keep in mind that this sort of thing is only a beginning point and shouldn't be used to judge and define a game completely!
Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare IS Mount and Blade WITH GUNS!
So, I'm glad I've gotten that out of my system!... and I mean with guns, I don't mean like the Napoleonic Wars expansion. Napoleonic Wars was an update that added muskets and primitive firearms to a game that was heavily melee based and set in a distinctly Swords and no Sorcery setting. Now, this comparison is meant to be a favourable suggestion... as I LOVED Mount and Blade... the open world, the running of a ragtag mercenary company in a medieval setting... all combined with a novel and unique hand to hand combat system that was intuitive and WORKED!
How does Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare stack up, both as a standalone game... and in comparison to its gaming inspiration? (I'm gonig to get really sick of spelling Guerrilla wrong....).
Judgement starts terribly by mis-spelling it's own title (which I can't bring myself to do...). Again, it is one of these games that has a great narrative/setting set up... but fails to follow through with a decent game mechanic and loop.
In the end, the game is quite tedious to play as there is just so much blandness for the characters and there is no real attachment or desire to empathise with your toons. It does come across a bit of a budget game... but that hasn't stopped other developers from getting the balance right... you have to make us care about our characters... gaming loops and mechanics are not enough by themselves... especially if they don't really develop.
It didn't help that I had recently discovered RimWorld!
Judgment: Apocalypse Survival Simulation is a game that is a colony management game in the same genre as Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld. However, the thing that sets it apart is that it has a built-in narrative (unlike the other two, which have emergent stories from open worlds) and that it is set on a post-demonic apocolyptic Earth. Sounds like it should be pretty decent? Like a survival colony management game version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
Well, that's what I was hoping for. Now, for a little disclaimer, I started this game after playing the all-round excellent Rimworld. My first impressions of that game can be found here, and I will hopefully be putting up a more detailed review later (time permitting!). So, it is an incredibly high benchmark to be comparing against!
Monument Valley 1/2 was my first attempt at writing a game review for STEEM. It has aged in an okay sort of way... of course, there are now many things that I would do differently... but aht is what learning and growth does!
Anyway, these two games were part of my quest to find real qulaity gaming for my children... I can't stand it when people give crappy games to their kids and then wonder why they think games are crappy. I look for beautifully crafted games, with great game mechanics... not time wasters or thinly disguised gambling machines. I want my kids to appreciate that games can be a real storytelling and interactive medium of expression.
There is no other way to say this, Monument Valley 1 and 2 are just beautiful games. With a distinctive art style that is just a pleasure to look at, this is a game that will just make your heart ache with the beauty of the images on the screen. With great ambient music and the gentle colours of the art, this is a game that lures your into a blissful trance of puzzle solving.
Have you heard of Humble Bundle? It's a place to get some really great deals on Games, e-books and comic bundles. However, if you sign up for a Humble Bundle Subscription (12 USD per month) you get some really nice bonuses!
Humble Bundle Subscriptions, it's a no brainer for the dedicated gamer!
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