Recent reviews by The Baron

A very important consideration is that if you are thinking this game is going to be like Gangsters: Organized Crime, you would be very wrong! This is not a gangster/mafia game in the way you are probably thinking, and nothing like Empire, Gangland, etc either. City of Gangsters is actually a logistics and supply chain game, with a mafia skin. It has no gritty and violent crime elements, and is a much more light-toned presentation, even when dealing with violent elements such as the combat. But with that noted, I can say CoG is a very fun and addictive game in its own right!

The mafia elements such as combat, protection money, combat, etc are quite simplistic and very much not the emphasis of the gameplay. There are no prostitution rackets, no loansharking, etc, and the economy is majorly focused on booze manufacturing and distribution. As such, the majority of the gameplay centers around setting up supply networks and having your workers tasked for buying supplies to brew beer and then selling that beer, and much of your time is spent optimizing these trade routes. As you generate cash, you can invest into expanding into adjacent territory which mainly serves to just acquire new buildings and skills, which improve and expand your booze making.

There are some slight touches of roleplay in the game with character traits and the favour system, where building up a relationship with characters can open new social and economic opportunities for you. But largely this is just a means to an end for increasing your economy and by opening up a web of introductions, and characters don't have much meaningful impact beyond that. For example, characters can be related and that will give a little relationship bonus, but you don't build a family (in the personal or even mafia structure sense).

The mechanics of the game are certainly addictive and are designed in such a way that you are always gunning for that extra little business expansion or skill optimization, where there is always one more carrot-on-a-stick reward just out of reach. After a little bit of manual grinding in the early game, it's super satisfying to eventually get an automated supply and demand chain up and running, and successful generating regular income. But like all good and addictive resource games, you will always be coming back later to optimize the chains. Eventually when you have a full multi-product distribution network running, you will see your staff working like bees all over the city, and that is really satisfying too.

Because there is so much going on in the game, from the smallest micro scale of managing shopkeepers individual relationships to macro scale taking over city neighbourhoods, some QOL assistance would be great from the more tedious gameplay elements in the late game, and this is my only real criticism for what could be better. A way to automate the police bribes and put them on payroll would be nice so that you don't have to keep racing all over town when your empire is huge, and similarly for vehicle repairs it would be nice to be able to automate this when you have a lot of staff.
It would be also nice if the delivery planner was a little more intelligent, so you could set up more 'smart' delivery routes where your worker could assess what stock is needed for a supply chain, and be less clunky about overstocking his car or a warehouse with a resource that is not needed.
And finally, another much desired QOL improvement would be less clicks for everything. The game is dialogue menu heavy, and although you will be running back and forth repeating the same buy and sell tasks many times, you will find you have to repeatably go about 4 or 5 dialogue menu clicks deep to get what you need done. The first time you meet a shopkeeper this makes sense, but after purchasing stone crocks for the 100th time, its not so fun and seems clunky.

Overall, CoG is a real dark horse and a thoroughly enjoyable experience, invoking that 'just one more turn' style of addictive gameplay. I would recommend it highly for any logistics and tycoon game fans!

Solasta is a paradox of being both super rough around the edges and also probably the most authentic representation of the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset I've seen. It's a classic diamond in the rough type RPG.

Be warned that there is a tremendous lack of polish that you might not be accustomed to if you are coming from bigger RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect, etc. It feels a bit like a game that might have been released about a decade ago, and I really don't mean that as a hurtful statement to the devs, because it is a really great game. But in reality the small dev studio were only able to achieve so much, so things like the character textures are bad, customization has only like a few beards and hairs in circulation so everyone kinda looks the same, cities are devoid of npcs except the main people with reused assets everywhere, the same small few music tracks play in a loop, animations are average and limited, and sometimes buggy such as holding bows backwards and stuff like that.

So I know this is all sounding bad, but these are the things you associate with standard RPGs whereas the real gem part of Solasta comes from the tactical combat. There is very much an emphasis on strategic DnD combat in the game, and if you can overlook the rest this is the part it does really well, and it kept me coming back for more. The tactical element feels satisfying and if you are coming from tabletop DnD it is familiar and logical. The combat and mechanics are less obscure and 'slick' than something like Baldur's Gate, instead opting to show you directly how your dice roll impacted the outcomes of a combat round, based on stats and modifiers.

Because it is so flat out cards on the table, this also makes the combat brutally difficult! But thankfully (honestly a genius move) the devs included a TON of 'customize it to your liking' settings in the options to change damn near any element of the game's difficulty, from fudging dice rolls, to impacting fast travel, to removing hardcore DnD mechanics like spell components. This is honestly fantastic because you can then play the exact game as you like it, and make it easier or hader at your leisure. There were also other great QoL additions, like being able to fast travel on local maps (so you don't have to run across town for the 100th time), quick buying from shops, and being able to speed up travelling on the world map.

Besides the aforementioned flaws, there are definitely some disappointments for me. The studio were not able to secure the rights to everything related to DnD (at least I believe this was the reason) and therefore the game is missing some pretty major character classes, as well as only being able to level your character to lvl 10. There is also an element of rushed production that I felt throughout, especially with the main storyline/last boss battle which came quite quickly and abruptly, without much fanfare.

In conclusion, this is a really great alternative to the bigger AAA and less DnD-authentic RPGS out there, and if you are a DnD fan you will likely enjoy the familiarity in Solasta. I would recommend it even more for DnD fans than general RPG fans. There is also a lot of value for money - I played every quest and sidequest and ended at about 45 hours. There is also a nice workshop with modder tools for modders to make custom dungeon maps.

In the same vein as other games from this publisher, this is one of those games that is way more fun than it should be. Very simply, it's like a cross between the build mode in Sims crossed with House Flipper. It works really well and is lots of fun to build and slowly build up your empire. The unlocks feel good and well timed too, so you are not purely grinding to unlock new furniture, and so far the overall pacing feels good; just when you are getting too familiar with things a new concept or area is unlocked.

More than just building apartments, I really enjoyed that the game has special buildings you can also design, such as underground casinos, illegal breweries and ship cabins. It definitely spices it up to every now again design something a little outside of the box.

There are good QOL features, such as being able to paint all walls at once, or being able to click on the furniture requirement and it immediately shows you just the options form that category. When you start to get many tenants things do start to get grindy, and this is where I would love to see even more QOL improvements, especially with the later game in not having to micromanage so much (better agents competency and functionality) as well as some kind of bills autopay system.

The current Early Access version (just after launch) has bugs, some even game breaking, but the devs have been quick at stomping them so far. There is some questionable design elements in the current game such as receiving the same special jobs again and again; not sure if this is something that is going to change later in EA. Ideally we would not get the same jobs repeatedly, or even at least have the jobs the same mission theme but randomized layout instead of it being literally identical each time. I also hope there will someday be a better UI design for things like the phone, which is a little clunky right now, having to click into submenus and tryna keep track of everything.

It is cool that this is an Early Access game because even the current iteration is tons of fun and the core gameplay works well. I would love to see modding as a feature so that modders could really go to town adding new furniture and building types, but there are no plan for that as far as I know.

This is one of those, would be nice if Steam had a neutral option reviews. Call of Cthulhu is a fairly slow paced adventure, steeped in Lovecraftian horror. However, I found everything to be just slightly missing the mark and a little rough around the edges. The gameplay is decent, but a bit shallow. The story is decent, not amazing. I appreciated the graphics aimed for cinematic and rich, but I personally did not like the overly green and blurry tint on everything. As a horror game, I didn't find it scary and there were not many jump scares (which I appreciated!) but I did enjoy the rich atmospheres the game creates. Overall it is a decent game, but not incredible. I would mainly recommend this only to fans of the genre or fans of Lovecraftian horror.

Really wonderful and charming roguelike that keeps me coming back for more. You can combine spells in your wand to create diverse, sometimes OP, and sometimes catastrophic effect! In this way it reminds me a little of Magicka. The art style is really nice and the ability to destroy the pixelated environment never stops being fun to watch. The addition of modding is great and keeps the game fresh too while it undergoes Early Access.

Really loving what I've played so far! BattlegroupVR is an RTS controlled from the bridge of your flagship. This is exactly the kind of visionary thinking we need for VR; truly utilizing VR space and thinking about VR games from an outside-of-the-box perspective. Watching the space battles from inside the ship is exciting and super fun. But a super cool little bonus is being able to switch to a god perspective and view the battle like it were little miniatures. I can't express how amazing it looks! It's like playing with toys for an adult.

The game is a WIP as it is in EA, but already has an significant amount of depth, with the ability to switch out captains and ship components, and in combat you can target subsystems much like Elite Dangerous. Controlling the ship with the radar map is intuitive and the game mercifully allows you to reposition all the HUD components. Controlling the ship with the direct mode (ie you fly the ship yourself) is a welcome and fantastic addition, and seems really fun but I found it fairly tricky to fly the ship as I wanted it to, mainly because the ingame "steering wheel" is more like a rudder and the ship swings slowly and unresponsively, as I suppose a huge vessel would. It can also be a little tricky to see what you are aiming at in direct control if you are under attack and there is constant smoke and explosions in your front window.

The UI is decent, but could maybe benefit from a little additional makeover. It's be nice it windows like the wrist controls could be pinned, and if all HUD elements could be freely moved around in 3d space and not just pushed or pulled. Overall, I am very optimistic about the development and very interested to see what is next for this game as it is coming along nicely.

I don't say this too often, but to me this is the perfect game of its genre. The difficulty is just right. The art and design direction is fantastic. The characters are diverse and interesting. The voice actors are stellar. The game is long but never boring; each level introduces some new concept or mechanic to keep the gameplay fresh and challenging. And then when you are done you have the lovely addition of being able to go back and play bonus missions from "The Baron". (hah!)

Much like Shadow Tactics, Desperados 3 has the same medley of real time tactics gameplay, but the devs built upon all the successes of ST and then expanded it a little; not so much that they needed to reinvent the wheel because they felt they had to, nor as a little as to just slap a fresh coat of paint on ST and call it a new game. I really can't overstate how impressed I am. All of the character tropes of ST are here - the strong guy, the femme fatal, etc, and with that all the familiar skills are here too such as the trap, the distraction, the sniper shot, etc, yet the game still manages to make everything feel fresh and fun. The introduction of a wholly brand new character to Desperados might be met with a feeling of not such a big deal, but even that is fantastic because it is not just a new character with some skills; the new character introduces some radically game changing concepts that shakes up the entire game halfway through.

Really amazing job. If you like Shadow Tactics, you will love this.

I love using this app for making DnD maps. Official updates to the game seem rather slow, but luckily there are lots of great assets you can easily download thanks to the Steam Workshop integration, which was an excellent decision to include. For the actual app itself, you get used it and it gets the job done, but it has some surprisingly unintuitive and irritating UX design. I think it would have benefited tremendously from having a professional UX designer work on making the user experience as smooth and streamlined as can be for map making. But other than that, I enjoy it a lot and the export works great in conjunction with Fantasy Grounds.

I have to mention straight off out the gate, the original trailer for this game was wildly misleading, and while I can appreciate things change over the course of development and cuts sometimes have to be made, those misleading elements were present on the Steam page long after launch and removed only recently. Many have remarked similar dissatisfaction with this, and hopefully the devs will never repeat this kind of behavior and be more open and transparent with the direction of the game.

With that out of the way, despite not being like the original trailer, the game is still fun! You get an order, prepare your drug, meet your buyer and collect cash to buy more drugs, and repeat as move up a linear ladder of buying and selling increasingly more expensive products. In between you can use your cash to buy and furnish new hideouts and mix products to make new drugs, but essentially the core of the gameplay is pretty much the aforementioned with little else. Yet despite the simplistic gameplay formula it is surprisingly addictive to play (no pun intended, heh). Even though I was essentially completing the same task again and again but with a new drug, I was still compelled to play more to get to that next milestone. I think the carrot on a stick progression system is what makes it so addictive, and you will likely find yourself sinking hours into it. However I did reach a burnout point and mostly while playing I kept thinking of all the amazing things I would love to see in the game and the potential, but that leads me to another issue which is the game is not in Early Access, so what it is now is what it is. You will have fun with this game and the price is fair, but I would have to give DDS only a soft recommend based on its repetition.

Project Hospital is like Theme Hospital's older, more mature, and more complex brother. Whereas Theme Hospital is a tycoon game with a charming tongue-in-cheek decor of hospital management, Project Hospital is very much a hospital simulator. For this reason I could see the game being extremely polarizing, depending on if you are the kind of person who loves the nitty grittiness of in-depth management or if you prefer are more loose 'overseer' kind of gameplay. In Project Hospital you can get into the weeds with staff schedules and personalities, tailor each room right down to every little piece of equipment that is realistically needed for surgeries, and diagnose patients through real diseases and illnesses, with real life methodology. Honestly, it can be too much and overwhelming at times but I love this kind of depth myself, so it really depends on what kind of player you are. My only difficulties with the game are in the UI which is nice looking but overwhelming, going back to that depth factor. Sometimes it can be easy to get lost in a maze of samey looking windows while you are trying to figure out where the clog in your treatment pipeline is. But beyond that, Project Hospital is a 'true' hospital simulator and will surely appeal if you are a fan of complexity and realism. The inclusion of mod support is also a huge plus.