Скорошни рецензии на Arathok

I played the Demo of Lorns Lure and applied for a review key on Keymailer.
Thanks to Rubeki at this point for the key. This Review is a summary of my impressions of the first 2 Hours of Lorns Lure

While Lorns Lure might not be a AAA graphics game it shows perfectly how you can make an interesting game without requiring super shiny textures by having unique game mechanics and a story, lore and world building that makes you want to press on and find out more about the world you are in.

In Lorns Lure you are controlling an android wandering the Megastructure trying to find a way out of it. You do so by following a mysterious owl guiding your ways.

Lorns Lure Introduces a unique climbing mechanic that also contextually reacts to your inputs. Look up and jump from a wall to gain a small vertical velocity, press into a ledge to retain your velocity and slide the wall, slide and jump for more forward reach. Your trusty climbing picks can get you to high places, but by successfully combining sliding and climbing you will reach any place you want to. Provided the wall you want to climb has a material your picks can bite.

Speaking of materials, there are slippery metals, the somewhat standard stone but also wires you can slide on even on steep angles and many more. Sometimes one could think the game was made with those surfing maps from counterstrike in mind.

World lore is explored by finding and scanning pieces of ancient equipment, left by explorers that ventured the Megastructure before you. Its entirely optional (and also sometimes missable).

The ambience of Lorns Lure fits the theme of a large and ancient city like structure, with hearable drafts and cracking stone.

There are Crystals which you can collect but they are harder to reach and you need to get creative to find your way to them. They are optional but fun to get! While venturing the world and also while trying to get the crystals you will fall to your death a lot, but dying in Lorns Lure is not a problem. You will be reset to the last save ledge you can stand on, and you can go on with your travels.

If you love exploring and finding out the (hi)story of a world then Lorns Lure is definitely a game for you!

Now after several patches and content updates (XEN) the full story is complete and you can go enjoy this masterpiece of nostalgia. It did take a long time to get the game to where it is now, but finally its complete!
If you liked half life you will love this one!

You are a wizard looking to unearth the secrets of VERY old Magic. You find your way to an old land with an abandoned mine, which leads far down deep into the earth. Between old Ritual Sites for the old gods and temples you can also find lore of an ancient civilization, but your general goal is to “go deeper” because the most knowledge is to be found at the deepest point.

Noita is a Roguelike / Roguelite game in good old 16 Bit style with procedurally generated worlds. It is also heavily influenced by those old “Falling Sand” games, you might know from DOS throughout Win 98 times, where you could draw lines to direct falling (yellow) pixels into a container. So, what about that?
Basically every Pixel you can see is physically simulated in its entirety. Let’s Start Simple.
You’ve got a puddle of water. Water will make your robe wet, protecting you from fire. If water comes into contact with fire, it will turn into steam and begin to rise. Steam hitting a ceiling, where it can come together into great amounts will fall back down into the level as water droplets.
Water can wash and dilute/cleanse toxic sludge. Water has a higher density as alcohol so it will try to sink below that and may dissipate the alcohol and Water can also be Frozen into ice and displaced by cracking it. Oh, and one more thing be careful where you are pointing that lighting wand when swimming!
The second main ingredient of Noita are its spells. While traversing the different biomes, you can find magic wands each of which have a random number of a massive assortment of Spells and Modifiers to it. For example, there could be a wand that will summon 4 arrows for you to shoot, or there might be a wand that shoots nuclear bombs. No Kidding.
Now between levels you can find portals to like a safe zone where you can switch out spells between wands. Let’s take the arrow summoning wand from earlier. We could add the “trail of fire” modifier to it, so now the arrows have a… you know. If you now shoot these said arrows into a puddle of oil or a pile of coal, it will ignite! How useful! Except you stepped into oil before and your own robe is oily. Then: Not good.

Which brings me to one very important point: Dying in Noita IS SO MUCH FUN!
Why? Well most of the time you did not die because a monster was killing you. No, at least 90% of my deaths have been self-induced!
Using a burning wand while standing on oil. Using a lighting wand while standing in the blood of my enemies. Using a wand with nukes. Are more of the direct causes of my deaths.
Also having a wand with ricocheting projectiles that bounce on walls and hit you or the oil barrel next to you; Or, my favorite, spraying polymorph juice to transform an enemy but hitting myself, thus morphing into a sheep with fly wings getting one shot because sheep don’t have much HP [screenshot] Often times, you cant really figure out why you did die that’s why with the current patch you can save your deaths as gifs! You can scroll through your last moments to figure exactly out why you just went poof.
Controls are very easy and intuitive
A and D to walk
W to jump / levitate
S to drink/suck up fluids
F to Kick
I for Inventory
left click to shoot/throw
right click to spray potions


Noita uses 16 Bit graphics which gives it a nice retro charme and also makes the simulated pixels blend perfectly into the environment when there are effects working om them.
Elements are clearly distinguishable, so you will always be able to identify what you are looking at. Even if there are things with similar colors your UI will always show you the name of the material you are pointing at.

Environment is pleasant to look at and boasts with small details like bushes, grass, moss or funghi.
You generally will find the caverns to be very faithful in their biome structure, compared to real life ones. (Condensing steam will also result in droplets which you can actually hear!)
The Game greets you with a gong like sound immediately setting up a mystical environment.
When you are wandering the caves you will be alone with the sound of your steps and distant ambience noises. This makes finding the entrance to the Holy Mountains even more awesome.

Spell and ambient effects are well made, packed with enough oomph to convince. Especially explosions. If you use lightning spells you will get a sparky, flashy projectile and sound. If you have a fireball spell equipped you get a nice smoky/whoosh effect. Magic in general sounds like they locked a wizard into a studio because there is so much variety to their sound effects.

Music will change its volume and pace according of how many effects are taking place on screen. Between the fighting phases it stays with you as a mellow background music enhancing and refining the whole cavern setting even more.



Noita has the potential to become an instant classic. It offers a refreshing twist to the roguelike / roguelite genre with its biggest selling point being all the hilarious ways you can die. Where other games make me get salty at some point in can go 3 hours a time throwing my self into the world of Noita over and over again. When reviewing my deaths, I will notice that they where my fault 90% of the time anyway where sometimes there wasn’t even a monster there to kill me.

The art of playing with different materials and elements each of them affecting each other and having their own properties and the enormous amount of attention to detail raises this game to a whole new level instantly directly rivaling AAA-Titles with no need to hide itself.
Apart from the “just another run” addictive potential of the game there is also lore to unearth. There is hidden Areas which makes you wonder: “How much more is there to find here?” Trying out spell/wand combinations that create the ultimate attack is what will make you play noita over and over again! (My favorite: Critical on burning enemies (5 times more damage) + fire trail (burns stuff) + tentacle (25 damage flings tentacle at enemy) = 25 Damage and a tentacle coming from your want looking like you borrowed it straight from uncle c’thulu.
Noita is awesome and unique, which is actually a hard to find attribute on todays gaming titles, because there is so many games out there already you gotta praise devs for coming up with genuine new ideas and their own twists to gameplay styles. If you are looking for a roguelike / roguelite title to play casually or consistently, look no further. Noita already is one of my favorite Games of 2019 and deserves an entry as Gold Standard Roguelike Game with no doubt!

You are Drake, a young man who had to witness the destruction of his Home and just escaped Death by a hair’s length. Years later you return to your old home only to find a mysterious voice calling you out. Apparently, your job here is not done and your presence is needed deep down in the ruins of Stonekeep.

Stonekeep is a first person Dungeon Crawler in the style pf Eye of the Beholder or Dungeon Master.
It is one of the Fathers of Legend Of Grimrock, Vapor and Operencia!

The Story takes place solely in Underground areas that all have their own Biomes.
There is thickly walled keep hallways in the Upper Levels, 100 year old Mineshafts, Ice Caves, Underground Mushroom Forests and more. The Deeper you Venture the greater the Danger and the stronger the Enemies but then again: that also means better Loot!
You can traverse these levels downwards and upwards, so you can always go back to places you visited earlier! Exploration is heavily encouraged; hidden switches and puzzles are available to solve for people with a keen eye, but never required to progress the story. Story is told via scrolls which can be picked up and through some main and side characters you will encounter.

There is Magic (or Magick as it’s called In-Game) you can use to build your own spells (more on that later), a range of weapons (ranged and melee ) potions and jewelry!

The center point of your adventure is your journal, (If you can find it) which will hold any information you gather. The journal contains your (auto)map, your skills, the status and background information on party members, item descriptions of anything you found already, your runes and clues (i.e. you overhear a conversation).
Almost every page allows for own entries. You can switch out the item description of a health potion and write down how many HP it heals.
You can add as many map markers as you can possibly put and they are all Tracked in the Map section of your journal.

Another very important item is the Magic Scroll. This Serves as your inventory, and is actually bottomless/infinite. Items stay where you put them and are placed in a List kind of system. You can use Page up and Down to scroll through your scroll (see what I did there?) faster. You will have to sort them on your own though. So, try and find your own order for stuff.
Generally, Weapons, Armor, Ammunition is a good place to start. I put stuff like keys on the end of the scroll and everything else in between

Skills will level like in Elder Scrolls games, so as you do certain things. Attacking with Daggers will raise your strength a bit and your skill with daggers. Running will raise you agility, getting damaged will raise your vitality. Skills have a maximum level of 10 and the levels scale logarithmically.

Controls are pretty simple
Arrow Keys / WASD to move and turn. Doors will open automatically if you unlocked them.
Left klick uses whatever is in the left hand and right click uses whatever is in the right hand.
F2 to Save
F4 to Load
F3 for Subtitles

Stonekeep sports several weapon types. There is throwing weapons, ranged weapons, daggers, swords, two handed swords, and staves. If you have a favorite weapon you will probably be able to use it.
Weapons are separated into three damage categories, but then again every weapon does a little damage in every category, though they have strengths and weaknesses:

Pierce: Daggers, swords, javelins, darts, arrows.
Slash/Cut: Swords, Two Handed Swords, Axes
Bash: Shields, Staves, Hammers,

Throwing: You can throw any item for some added damage. Some items do extra damage when thrown (i.e. throwing weapons like Darts) and all of them can only be thrown at a certain range. You can also throw arrows if you don’t have a bow (these will fly a long way). The items will deal damage based on their normal stats. An item that does bashing damage, like a rock, will do elevated bashing damage when thrown. Thrown Swords will do cutting damage, but since they where not made for throwing their range is low and the damage from throwing is so as well.

Magic:
Magic in Stonekeep works a little bit different compared to other games. Root of it all are Runes.
There is also no “Mana” as is. Characters that are able to use magic, lore wise need some kind of amplifier to cast spells. The Mana lies in the Maximum Charge of your Magical Staff. If you deplete it, you need to refill it. As a little help staffs have their own mana pool, so if you find multiple ones you can drain one, and still use the others!

Runes come in three (actually 4) languages. Human, Throgg, Elvish and Meta.
To cast Runes you have to first inscribe them on your magical Staff. (Open the Runes Section of the Journal, klick the rune while holding a staff and then select a slot.

Each Rune language has their own characteristic spells. Human Runes are the standard spells, like fireballs, healing, and some buffs.
Elven Runes are gimmicky. Some make you invisible, some let you float or shrink enemies. And not to forget: a fabled secret Rune ;)
Throgg Runes are for brute forcing stuff. Buffs shield you from physical damage or give strength.
Lightning Bolt serves as ranged Damage.

Meta Runes are special. You can scribble them over existing runes to change their effects.
scribble the double power rune over Fireball and you will cast two fireballs at once.


Stonekeep falls in a perfect time period to relive today. Overall Graphics are well saturated with strong colors, magic spells feel and look powerful. Although you can probably count the Pixels, the game still draws atmospheric environments. The narrow Hallways of the Stonekeep castle really feel much narrower than the mineshafts, although all hallways are the same width.
Weapons used in battle keep true to their icons and are nice to look at. So, to sum things up. graphics convey and portray the game world in a believable manner, models and textures are clearly made with love and everything has this bit-y pixely look which is currently having kind of a renaissance. Can’t get any more original.

Music is atmospheric and ads to the feeling of your surroundings, battle Music is a bit weird though.
But hey, for a DOS Game made in 1995 it is the best you can get!

Voice acting is actually very well made (and swallowed lots of the 5 million$ budget, second to the short intro which did cost half a million…) for each character has their own voice and no voice actor got recycled (Think of the typical Dark Elf voice in Elder Scrolls games).
Item sounds are feeling both impactful and sharp. Bottles you put down have a nice glassy sound to them. Same goes for weapon “swooshes” or the impacts of magic spells.
You will also be able to HEAR when your weapon is effective against an enemy. An enemy resistant to a damage type will make a noise that sounds like your weapon just brushed off their armor, yet a weapon that’s effective will leave you with nice and hefty hitting sounds, like a hammers crush, or a swords gory slash.

Overall the Sound is heavily influencing the whole presentation of the game and will greatly add to your experiences even with its few flaws.

Stonekeep is a medieval RPG experience that I can only recommend to play through!
If you are new to the game you are in for about 20 hours of Story wrapped into an atmospheric and intricate system of dungeons.

For players with sharp eyes, there is lots of secrets to find and explore, some of them will uncover lore, some will give you very good items that will help a lot.
Fighting feels powerful will have cower in fear when you enter areas, you shouldn’t be in yet.
The Magic system is special and unique to this game, hence its player involvement.

Stonekeep undoubtedly belongs to the Gold Standard Game Titles and deserves a place in your library!

You are Gomez. A marshmallow like creature living in a Village on a 2D Plane in a 3D Universe, together with all the other Villagers. Every once in a while, one of the Villagers gets the Magical Fez which bestows the Power to fold the universe onto itself and thus changing the perspective of the world, practically enabling the wearer to exist and interact on all 4 2D Planes. Although when Gomez receives the FEZ the universe breaks apart (apparently the universe can only fold in on itself only that much) and only the holy hexahedron can fix it, so Gomez ventures out in the world…

FEZ is a Puzzle Platforming game which means it relies on your wits and on your reflexes.
The ability to switch perspective is used throughout the entire Story and makes up all the puzzles, depending on how clever you get with it Puzzles can become very easy. Difficulty – overall - is ranging from easy to challenging but not unbeatable.

The goal is to collect all 32 golden Cubes (and if you want to go 100%, all 32 Anti-Cubes).
Cubes are divided into bits of 8 pieces which are hidden all over the world but can sometimes be found as a full cube hidden in treasure chests or behind hidden(!) puzzles.
A full cube works somewhat like a Star in Super Mario 64 enabling you to enter certain spaces.
Anti-Cubes are hidden treasures you can get for solving extra special hidden puzzles. This could mean to rotate the perspective in a certain way or (for many of them) to decipher a completely unknown alien hieroglyphic language. See the Anti Cubes as your reward for unraveling the lore. Personally, I think that is a nice way to convey to the player, that there is a deeper side to things and you get rewarded for trying to uncover it. As a little pointer to where you need to go, there is treasure maps which you can find by exploring the worlds!

The World is divided into 4 big sections with their own sub-worlds (sub dimensions) which then divide in several “rooms” (like sub-sub-dimensions… My head hurts!).
Every set “Rooms” has a distinct theme AND function. There is an ocean dimension where you can lower the water level just as one example. Another example would be a forest that relies on time-based puzzles or an industrial world where the perspective changes when you step on rotating tiles or use screw-like elevators. There is also a Gameboy-Themed dimension shifting the color palette to four shades of Gameboy-Display-Grey-Green

Controls are pretty easy and customizable
Standard WASD and Q/E to rotate SPACE to JUMP
A Controller is recommended but not necessary

There is no enemies in the game, the only enemy is your Brain (and I can tell you that my brain wanted me to play this game on super hard :D)

I would describe FEZ’s graphics as “cozy” The 8-bit Style brings a lot of nostalgia to the game and the warm colors make you always feel at home. Even the impending doom seems to be very far away.
The day and night cycle with crickets in the evening and the tetromino shaped star constellations makes the game world feel especially homely. Dawn and Dusk have the perfect hue to round it all up.

Certain Puzzle elements like switches/vines/ladders all fit perfectly into the settings and nothing seems out the picture.

The Music of FEZ is a well-made Chiptune Soundtrack and accompanies the worlds perfectly.
Sometimes glitchy, sometimes mysterious it adds another layer to the whole package.

FEZ will teach one very important thing. Perspective matters! If first something seems too difficult or even impossible changing one’s perspective might already give a solution!
Its cute 8bit pixel graphics will draw you in and hold you with the cozy colors and the beautiful sceneries.

The approach of solving puzzles by changing the worlds orientation is fun and a breath of fresh air to all Puzzle genres. The Platforming and traveling in between the Puzzles gives the whole game world a sense of direction and entices you to explore every nook and cranny. Working on the secret/hidden puzzles can distract you from your primary task (collecting the golden cubes) for longer amounts of time without you even noticing!

FEZ can be speedrun in about 1 hour but will last you 6 hours if you just want to play through the main Story – up to 12 hours if you want to get the hidden Anti Cubes as well.
For a game released in 2013 FEZ stood the test of time, and still holds up to this day.
Its unique combination of perspective switching mechanics and platforming is a nice twist on puzzle game mechanics and fun for everybody whether you are a puzzle veteran or just started out.
FEZ is another successful Example for the creativity Indie-Developers bring to Gaming, without eating up millions of dollars!

Therefore I’m proud to say: FEZ is most definitely a Gold Standard Title for the Puzzle Genre and a outstanding game worth a spot in your collection!

You are Garret, a young man from the street living in a medieval city. Since your early childhood you hat to beg or steal for food and basic necessities. Once upon a day You tried to steal from a Keeper, a secret organization that is watching over the city. Normally not visible to the eye of the normal citizen, the Keeper sees the potential in Garret and invites him into the Order. You undergo several years of training (the tutorial mission) but in the end Garret decides that keeper life is not for him. And thus, you leave the Order of the Keepers and start thieving your way through the city until you get involved in a dangerous play of a power-hungry god…


Thief plays exactly like you would expect from a stealth game. Stealth is NOT optional here, if a Guard sees you, you are in for a fight. Even on easy difficulty more than one guard spells trouble if not doom for our sneaky friend Garret. You are not without tools to aid you though.

You have a Light Crystal that shows you how well hidden you are and if you keep the sound of your steps low, you can sneak past most dangers without a problem.
You’ve got an arsenal of Tools you can use, both to take out enemies or to conceal yourself.

Controls a very responsive and allow for quick and precise movement be it jumping across ledges pulling yourself up another one or just running / sneaking through hallways. You are also able to swim and dive through all of the given water bodies you will encounter. Every Item or function of the game can be mapped to a keyboard or mouse button if you want to but there is a shortcut for next/previous item and your first step should be linking it to the mouse wheel; makes the game so much more accessible.
Default controls may conflict with today’s standards but can be changed for any key you like so that’s not a big deal. The Game also supports quick saving, by pressing alt+s or alt+l (default controls).

Your Maps are often not very detailed but allow for making annotations wherever you want by just clicking on the area where you want the annotation to go in the map screen. Also, you’ve got a compass to help you getting a sense of direction

Before each mission you can buy several items to aid you from a shop, but you have to keep an eye on your money. The number of valuables you bring home from your mission directly decides how much more items you can take with you on your next mission, so make sure to be a good thief and take EVERYTHING. You don’t HAVE to buy anything from the shop but stocking up on Water Arrows is always a good idea.



The tools of your trade consist of a bunch of Items actually.
A Blackjack for knocking out people. If you can get behind someone and clubber their head, you can take them out for the rest of the mission without killing them, a versatile tool!

• A Sword to deal more damage than with the Blackjack in case something goes wrong or you stumble upon some wild creatures.
  
• Broadhead Arrows for picking off enemies from afar and from the dark.
  
• Water Arrows to douse light sources – probably the most important item in the game.
  
• Moss Arrows to apply a carpet of moss to surfaces like tiled or grated floors which will dampen the sound of your steps.
  
• Gas Arrows to instantly knock someone unconscious
  
• Noisemaker Arrows for luring people into their doom
  
• Rope Arrows for vertical movement

Items / Consumables consist of Lightning Bombs (a medieval flashbang), health speed and breath potions, holy water, lockpicks and food.
Weapons and items can be used in multiple ways, for example you can always shoot an arrow against a stone surface to make noise if you don’t have a noise maker arrow, but you will lose the arrow.



There are several types of enemies in the game but the greatest difference between them is their humanity. Animals can be killed without risking the success of your mission but you can’t just knock them out.
Human or Humanoid enemies though are the ones you need to take special care with though.
Guards will listen very closely to every sound you make, and if it was loud enough they will stop with whatever they were doing to see if they can find the source of the sound. They will also notice if doors have been unlocked/left open or broken (wooden doors can be bashed) or if their comrades are missing or when torches are suddenly not lit anymore. If there is more than one guard in an area a searching guard will call out to the up until know clueless guard and alert them of what anomaly they’ve found.
You can alert a whole castle if you don’t hide a knocked out body well enough, but of course you can always find a nice dark corner and wait until things have settled down a bit.
Guards that have spotted you and did not manage to kill you will return to their duties but they will be more alert than if they hadn’t seen you, because now they now someone is around.

Guards also have a certain threshold until they stop patrolling or leaving their post. While a doused torch may just rise suspicion, a doused torch and an unlocked door right next to it will definitely make the guard check out the surroundings. If there is even more suspicious stuff happening while the guard is already alerted it will try and follow the trail of anomalies, which can also be abused to lure guards into a trap. Keep in mind, that an alerted guard will react to new sounds and visuals faster than a guard just patrolling minding their own business. You can knock out alerted guards but it gets difficult if they come close to you while searching for whatever made them jump.

The Overall intellect of guards may be not very high, but if they found you out once, they will work together to find you out. Let’s just say, guards maybe not the sharpest tool in the shed, but they definitely excel at guard duties!



GRAPHICS
The Base Graphics of the game are okay for its original release date but maybe a bit too rough for you. I will recommend the thief HD Mod at that point:

https://www.moddb.com/mods/thief-2-hd-texture-mod/forum/thread/thief-2-hd-mod-faq

This will bring the Graphics of thief up to date and does not break the stealthy atmosphere!

SOUND
The Sound engineers of Looking Glass Studios did a great job with bringing the world of Thief to life!
Guards have different voices (young, old, drunk) and other NPCs are voiced well enough to make their behavior believable and lets them fit in with all situations they may be involved in.
Sound plays an important role in sneaking as well: tiled floors, will make a heck of noise even worse if they are in long hallways, even when walking veeeeery slow on them, most guards will immediately hear you if they are in the surrounding area. Grated floor is maybe as bad, but you can sneak on it well enough if there is enough distance between guards and yourself. Other surfaces are grass, mud, dirt, rock, carpet and wood, all with their own sounds whether you are running, jumping or sneaking on them. Walking on Wooden floor is fairly low in volume but if you jump or fall onto it you will have a bad time.

Making Noise in Thief is like coming home at 3AM trying to not wake your parents up but you step on that one creaky floor board and because life is a b*tch it will be extra creaky that night!



Thief’s Medieval world and dark setting and great story, together with all the gadgets you can use give it that little extra something that makes it a real Gold Standard Title in the Stealth Genre.
If you are new to stealth games, why not start with the one that pioneered the core mechanics and paved the way for all Stealth games to come? For just 1€ you can get around 30 hours of Missions and a great Story (which is followed up nicely throughout the whole series). A definitive must have in your collection!

In Stardew Valley you inherit your late grandfathers old farm which lies far away from the big city in lush Stardew Valley. A quick view over the farmland suggests that it wasn’t tended to over the past years. Before you can start into the farming business there is a lot of work to do…



One of Stardew Valley’s strengths is that it divides gameplay in more sections than just plain farming.
As you progress through the game you will raise your skills and can get traits that benefit you in one way or another.
Of course you will be able to build relationships (both romantic and platonic) with the citizens and there is a crafting system as well!

The general area of Stardew Valley is divided in multiple areas. You’ve got the Town, the bus stop, your farm, the western forest, the hills above your farm, the train station with SPA, the quarry, and the beach.
There is several more secret areas you can discover as well!

There is a good number of hair styles skin tones and clothes to choose from, also the color of your eyes and hairs is free of choice!
You also get to choose between a dog or a cat to keep as a pet! (dog person approves!)
But wait, there is more! You can also pick and choose between 5 farm layouts!

The Game progresses through 4 Seasons of which each lasts 28 days with several birthdays and festivals to attend to (get a calendar!). Fish, townspeople and seasonal fruits will change their behavior and schedule depending on the season and weather.

Stardew Valley supports playing with standard XInput Controllers as well!


FARMING

You will be able to plant a multitude of seasonal seeds, growing fruits, vegetables and - if you are proficient in foraging - wild plants that normally can only be harvested from their natural habitats.
As your farming skill rises, you get to choose between 2 traits one at level 5 and one at level 10.
Farming also unlocks the first basic crafting recipes for useful tools like a harvester for tree sap, fertilizer or even sprinklers!
Crops can have different qualities ranging from normal over silver to gold, each one selling for more.
If you turn your best crops into artisan goods, they are worth even more! On rare occasions some crops can randomly mutate into giant crops and will shower you with small versions of themselves upon harvesting!

There are also machines for almost everything: cheese/oil makers, beehives and many more can be used to refine your basic produce.
Farming also makes using the watering can and the hoe more energy efficient.


FORAGING

Foraging is your skill for picking stuff up from the nature. Depending on your skill, you will be able to pick up more and higher quality goods from the forests and hills around your farm. Everything in Stardew Valley is seasonal. If you dig up certain spots in the ground you may even find some artifacts!
Foraging also will unlock several nature based crafting recipes, like wild seeds and makes using the Axe more energy efficient.


FISHING

Your fishing skill determines your overall ability to catch a fish and its general quality.
Fishing is done through a little mini-game where you have to keep a bar behind the fish you want to catch. Every fish has its own behavior during that minigame, some fish may almost stand still making it easy to catch them, but the most rare and valuable ones will jump around like crazy!

There is a chance for treasure chests to appear during the minigame and if you put up the effort (and potential loss of your fish and the treasure!) you can get yourself a nice price (sometimes) !
Fishing will unlock several fishing based crafting recipes like crab pots or bait and will make using the fishing pole more energy efficient.


MINING / FIGHTING

Mining determines your success of finding ores and geodes from rocks.
Ores can be turned into metal ingots which are used in upgrading tools and crafting machines.
There is a mine in the hills you can delve into and there is rumors about another secret mine.
Be careful though because the old mines are overrun by monsters.
Mining unlocks crafting recipes for bombs or transmuting metal and makes using the pickaxe not as tiring anymore.

While fighting monsters in the mines you will raise your fighting skill. Based on it is your critical chance and how much damage you do. Several weapons and equipment pieces can be found in the mines or bought from the adventurer’s guild.
Fighting will also unlock crafting recipes like health potions and rings you can equip.


The relationship system in Stardew Valley is approximately the same as in Harvest Moon games
Your relationship with the townspeople is measured by the friendship points (FP) you have, which are earned through small talk, quests, presents, attending festivals and doing good in competitions.
Getting to know the townspeople will reward you with them sending you presents and recipes via mail and gaining access to their private rooms.

Raising your friendship levels will also unlock friendship events which unveil more about the backstory of the person you try to befriend.
Every other day there will be also postings on the bulletin board in the town, where you can do timed delivery quests that help a lot with gaining FP, perfect for making the girls or guys fall for you!

Stardew Valley sports 6 bachelors and 6 bachelorettes, all with their own characters and quirks.
Also nice: the game does not care whether you want to have a same sex marriage or not. Everyone can marry any of the single townspeople and even have children with them, in case of a same sex marriage through adoption.



The local carpenter can also build farm buildings for you; all of them are useful and some are upgradeable. You can build several coops and barns, a shed, a mill, and a well.
The shed acts like another building with free space where you can put machines or storage chests into. The mill turns beets into sugar and grains into flour, a well can save you the trip to the river to refill your watering can and looks stylish as well!



Another strength of Stardew Valley is its Multiplayer:
you can host any saved game to play together with up to 4 people in total. You just need to build small huts for your friends where they can live and sleep (100g each). After building the huts you can invite them to the game via steam friend invites fairly easy.

Of course you can always start a completely new CO-OP game from the Main Menu, which gives you the 3 Huts right at the start.

You can also marry anyone of your friends in multiplayer, so if you are not happy with the available bachelors or bachelorettes just marry the person you already know best! But be careful, your friends can also snatch your love interest out under your nose!



Stardew Valley unites all the loved and known aspects of past farming games under one banner and – to be honest – finally brings a nice farming game to PC. (and other non-handheld platforms)
Stardew Valley combines well-made and fleshed out systems from the past, like the friendship and farming aspects and simultaneously brings a lot of fresh air to the genre with its open marriage and multiplayer system.

The 8-bit Graphics brings you right back into your childhood and makes the whole experience so much more wholesome. I’ve sunk so many hours into my farm and its easy to see why.
Stardew Valley offers everything I could want from a farming game (having played almost all of the Harvest Moon games that is a real achievement!) and keeps me in its grip with his beautiful and mysterious landscape!

Stardew Valley deserves a spot amongst the Gold Standard Titles of Simulation Games without any doubt! This game is worth grabbing anytime, but if you played farming games earlier in your life and liked them, get it ASAP!

Crashed on an alien planet. Alone. Alone?

Factorio starts with you nothing more than feeling puzzled as what the hell to do now and one goal: build a rocket and get off that alien planet!!



Either self-taught through free play or with the guidance of the new campaign (0.17) you will learn how to make a factory outpost that gets you all the things you need to survive!

Campaign helps new players understand the basic concepts of running a factory through giving you meaningful tasks to fulfill, with each of them showing you how things work in general and how they can work together.
Unlike other games tutorials, you will keep your progress as you go through the story as your surrounding map gives you more and more features / challenges to experiment with.
You will solve basic bottleneck problems and you will learn one thing:

THE FACTORY MUST GROW! As your needs of resources are ever increasing.

The real fun starts in Free play:
You start with a map generator, where you can pick and choose between any settings you want:

• richness and size of resources
  
• number of trees
  
• landmass to water ratio
  
• enemy frequency and size

Wait: Enemies? That’s right! You thought you are all alone, but in fact your neighbors have been watching you closely.
As you build more and more machines you will pollute the air generating a cloud of pollutants several times larger than your factory. As soon as the cloud reaches nearby hives of the indigenous aliens, also known as Biters, they sense that there is something wrong and will start to seek you out, in the quest of destroying whatever the source of the pollution is.
And they are smart about it! You can wall yourself in and put up gun turrets, the Biters may fail, but they will learn, and they will find that ONE spot where you DONT have a gun turret placed.

Time is of the essence. If you don't turn down pollution or research better ammo you will be overrun sooner or later.
The pollution will cause the Biters to evolve growing ever larger in size, gaining mutations that allow them to spit acid or flammable substances and many more. Also, there is worms which will hurl acidic slime at you that will slow you down, so be careful!



Progression through the game is divided into lines of research which are divided by science packs. Each and every one of these research projects will benefit you in one way or another and in the end, you finally get access to rocketry!
It always feels so rewarding getting a new research project done and immediately see how it benefits you.

In the end there is nothing more enjoyable than to zoom out and see your writhing almost living base bring in raw resources, turning them into intermediate products and eventually into a rocket. As soon as you launched your first rocket you will see the "Victory" Screen, but Factorio is never over. You can choose to stay on your planet and move on with ever better researches making your machines even faster, hunting for that most effective setup for a product. Or maybe you will master the art of blueprinting?



Another real big bonus is that you can reload any single player save game and play it via multiplayer.
There is an in-game lobby which you can use to play with your steam friends. You can also make your own save game of any multiplayer map you’ve been on and play it in single player, if that isn’t a cool functionality, I don’t know what is.



The graphics of Factorio are artistically crafted and with the recent (0.17) polish they got upgraded even more. Every detail of any aspect of the game is depicted in an absolutely good-looking manner. Enemies have animations for walking and attacking and they do make sounds, which are adding up to the already tense feeling when they are around.

The interface is well made and sits neatly in the center of the screen where you can assign quick bar slots to items in your inventory, complete with shiftable rows via hotkey.
Researches add more functionality to your interface like a copy and paste function or the ability to turn your exoskeleton and personal roboports on and off. There is a hot key available for almost everything you can think of, but the intuitive interface allows the game practically to be played just with WASD and a mouse.

Map markers can be placed on the world map and assigned icons and text.

The train interface allows for easy rerouting and switching of conditions for train stations.
You can even send your trains to a spot somewhere on the rail network!

tool tips are very generous with information and tell you everything you need to know.



Every single aspect of the game is modable, if you are not afraid of scripting LUA you can change Factorio in whatever you want. The game is so open to the community you can find a mod for almost everything. After you are finished with the base game (or just whenever) mods will add another lay of complexity on top of whatever you already learned. Big Ones like Bob's or Angel's add a ton of new buildings and functionality to the game others just make your trains "HONK" or your bots "BUZZ" or make your weapons fire tracer bullets.

If it exists there is a mod for it. If there is no mod for it, you can make one!
A very nice and wise decision from WUBE, because modding communities give live to games on a whole new level.



The game is already well polished and yet the devs still work on it with determination and love; sometimes, if there is a mod that they like they even integrate it into the game! Progress can be followed through their own devblog (every Friday!).

For a small price you will get a game that hones your thinking and problem-solving skills in a very well-made automation environment. With hundreds of items to automate, design and build production chains for, finding ever new ways to tweak your production, you will never run out of things to do.
If you love to look for ways how to get your factory even more efficient and love that rewarding feeling when something that you just built, works perfectly get this game at once!
I have had many hours of fun with Factorio and will have many more.

A truly great game, worthy of being a Gold Standard title in the Simulation Genre!

You are Morgan Yu. You are at your office, and are on your way to a meeting with your brother and a couple of medical tests you need to go through. You will find out that something is very wrong though, as you reach the Space Station TALOS 1 - which is built around an old Russian scientific space station. An experiment with alien biomass seems to have taken a very wrong turn, as the Station is flooded with creatures. While you try to understand what the hell is actually going on, you will unveil all the events that happened behind the curtains which lead to your situation.
Eventually you will realize how everything that’s happening is just a million times bigger than you…



Character development is available in form of 4 Skill Trees, Scientific Skills, Engineering Skills, and Security Skills. The fourth Skill tree is locked behind a story element and I want to avoid spoilers!
All skills feel equally useful and immediately will give you advantages in fighting, sneaking, hacking or plain surviving.
Skill points are obtained by administering Neuromods to yourself. A kind of medical tool, inserted through the eye, used to remap the synaptic structure of your brain. Neuromods kinda feel like the plasmids of Bioshock and are used (and abused!) in a similar way as well!

The game is entirely in first person view, which adds so much more to the oppressing atmosphere!
Unlike many other games, you are not a floating camera though! As with many of their games Arcane Studios actually give their characters bodies extremities, so you will always be able to see your legs and arms (i.e. While climbing or jumping or looking down).

The inventory is limited and you will have to watch out to not fill it up with unnecessary items.
Unwanted items can be recycled and broken down into their raw materials at recycler stations and raw materials can be used at replicator stations to create ammo, weapons, or even Neuromods if you can get your hands on a blueprint!
Items and Weapons can be accessed conveniently via a quick-wheel which makes switching them around during fights very easy.

Enemies can be scanned to learn more about them which also unlocks scientific entries in your journal giving you even more background information about them!

Decisions are made by doing or not doing side quests and will affect the ending!



Prey gives you full freedom in weapon choice. As long as you have enough inventory space available you can pickup and use any weapon! Weapons feature fairly standard ones like pistols or shotguns, but of course the good old sci-fi weapons can’t be missing! From the EMP-Pistol, which is relatively tame, over to the Q-Beam that cooks your enemies to vapor, up to the GLOO Gun, which can be used to cover your enemies in a quickly hardening foam, practically freezing them! (the GLOO Gun can be misused in many other ways!)

Available Items consist of grenades, medikits, devices that can lure enemies to you and many more.
Every grenade can be used as mine as well!



The enemies, called Typhon, are working like a hive mind and will communicate with each other on where they THINK you are, unless they’ve got a straight line of sight to you. If they get the chance to, they will try and ambush you, so watch your back!
That doesn’t mean you cannot hide though; enemies have awareness levels that you will have to rise before they actively start to search you out, which also means you can play through the entire game sneaking!

Enemies are divided in several development stages of the Typhon species and thus have varying intelligence levels.
For example, there is the Mimic, spider-like creatures which can and will hide from you by concealing themselves as a multitude of things including items, furniture, and clutter. So be sure to check twice if you think the room looks different ore there is an off number of chairs there!

Overall the different Typhon variations all have their strengths and weaknesses which are yours to find out, so be sure to use that scanner to learn everything you can, to give yourself an advantage!
Enemies will respawn over time, so don’t feel too save when walking through an area you had cleared out previously! Respawns generally don’t happen to often but will quickly teach you not to be to careless with your surroundings and they keep that creepy feeling of “never being alone” up throughout the whole game.



GRAPHICS

The Graphics of Prey are similar to Dishonored maybe more like Dishonored 2 with a new coat of paint and more space style. The entire space station has a 50’s Style with wooden linings and shiny metal ornaments. All Hazards appearing on the space station are portrayed with detail and the overall setting of a huge space station with all its departments is brought across in style.

SOUND

English vocalization is done very well, and does not break atmosphere. There are also recorded voice messages which give more insight on what happened before or during your playthrough, which adds a lot to the game’s atmosphere.
All other sounds are realistic and blend well into the surroundings. Electronics crackle, robots make bleeping sounds and every material gives off the correct corresponding sound given whatever you do with it.
When in low atmosphere/pressure or in a space suit, sound is muffled and the sudden silence fits in well with the dangerous and tense setting.
Same goes for music which is shifting and adapting with the given situation, mellow when wandering through the station, eerie with enemies around - making you stick to the shadows, and with a good amount of beats during fights; a very good composition of varying styles and a nice play with the theme of the game!


Prey, messes with you. Its enemies ambush you, there is intrigues all around and you can almost never feel save. Its oppressing and tense atmosphere is something that has been missing in the past years; you could almost say, that Prey is a light Horror Game.
The story is perfectly written and will keep you hooked with all its plot twists, searching for more background information!
The weapons are fairly standard but you got to give it to Bethesda and Arcane, the concept of the GLOO gun is pretty nifty!
Prey will last you for 35 Hours so it is neither dragging, nor extremely short; plus, all of these hours were tightly packed with a lot of action / tension and fun even when backtracking, I still found stuff I overlooked, like access to areas I couldn’t find the entrance for earlier.
I’d have a mid-range long game with a great amount of fun any day, over a 80 to 100 hour game with long sections of downtime in between.
Prey offers a lot of replay value as well, if you are an achievement hunter or want to try out other decisions throughout the story, or if you want to try a different skill build.

Overall Prey offers a fresh sci-fi shooter experience with a ton of atmosphere and a bunch of nice ideas and gimmicks and it deserves it’s title as Gold Standard Action Game.

In case you are still not convinced, try out the Demo!

You are Madeline, a young woman on the journey for the summit of Mount Celeste. Taking a break from live, out to get a clear head, to get yourself together and maybe even to find your true self.
Sounds Familiar? Don’t we all need a break from all our Problems some times? Not to run away but to get a better picture from another perspective? Well maybe Madeline also wants to prove herself that she is strong and can reach the summit of a Mountain without a problem. You will find out, that nothing is at it seems. On Mount Celeste things work differently Peoples inner Demons can become very real up here…



When starting the game, Celeste feels like any other platformer but you’ll learn that you found something special here in the first minute of the game already. Madeline not only can jump and climb, she can also dash! This simple mechanic can be used in a multitude of ways and there is multiple techniques to master.

Every Level or Zone will introduce you to a new mechanic that it will teach you and then keeps building on your new knowledge resulting in one-room Platform puzzles, getting harder procedurally until you reach the end of the level. That way every new Zone is not necessarily harder than the previous one, but will always introduce another interesting tech to master always making you wanting to go on and get just one checkpoint farther, or just to finish that one zone. A vicious cycle of time sink quality.

Depending on how you want to play, there is three things to collect.
Strawberries (which are basically there to measure your progress through the level (and a measurement for you if you want to 100% the game). Strawberries are not without a use though and will slightly affect the ending. (Oh great, now you will try to get them all, right? )

A Blue Heart (which is hidden very well)

And the fabled B-Side Cassette tapes, which will unlock a twisted and harder version of the zone you did find them in. You can always access these levels from the main menu as well, so you don’t have to them right there. (some of them are really hard, so hard you would benefit from finishing the game first before doing them.)
Rumor has it, that there is a legendary C-Side Tape hidden in these as well…
Every B-Side level also has another heart to find in it which serves as the goal of the level.

When dying you won’t have to restart the whole section, you will be neatly teleported to where you entered the room so your flow is never interrupted and you can just go on and solve your current platform puzzle without worrying too much if you could do the previous one again.
Checkpoints throughout the level will save your progress, so make sure to get to one if you want to stop playing the game!



GRAPHICS
Celeste has beautiful 8-bit Graphics during its levels and a nice hand-drawn scene at the end of every level. Each Zone has its own distinct style, old city ruins, cloudy mountain ridges, castles, stormy outer parts and caves. It’s all there and it all looks so beautiful!

SOUND / MUSIC
The Sound and more specifically the music of Celeste is one of the most important parts of the game.
Every Zone has its own musical theme ranging from happy to dreamy and sometimes mysterious and melancholic styles. The Music has a lot of synth and chip tune elements with a driving beat beneath, that will just make you push on no matter how often you died already.

The Soundtrack for Celeste was composed by Lena Raine, which you may already know for her work on other indie titles and for Guild Wars 2. Celeste’s music for the first time in my life made me wanting to play a game just by myself. No interferences where allowed when playing celeste.
I think I am not alone saying, the sound track was what made me push on during these hard sections of the levels especially the last few checkpoints during the climb of the summit.
I am pretty sure, without Lena Raines musical talent, Celeste would not be the great game it is.
If that doesn’t tell you something about the quality of the Soundtrack, I don’t know what will.



Celeste is a game that does not only teach you platforming, it also tells you a thrilling and powerful story about overcoming your fears worries, making peace with your inner demons / bad sides and overcoming them to become a better person. You are in for a nice 10-hour ride (+ 100 of Hours B and C-SIDES, prepare to get salty though! ) for your first playthrough. The game can be speed run in under an hour if you are up to it which makes it replayable as well, for a quick run in between chores!

Celeste’s Story and interesting mechanics together with its Soundtrack make it a Gold Standard Platforming Title straight away. This one is a no-brainer! A must have in your collection and a great game to pass time! Celeste shows that you don’t need a million-dollar budget to make a great game!