Recent reviews by Hybrid

I got this on the cheap and by surprise from February 2017's Humble Bundle Monthly pack, and played it beginning to end in about 2 days (4 hours playtime altogether for the basic campaign, not counting extras like speedrun mode, single credit mode, and challenges).

I'm altogether pleased. The art and animations are altogether a treat. It's a nice adventure for anyone who's the slightest fan of shoot-em-ups and gaming pop culture. The music is a pleasant and well-composed blend of electronica with some throwback to older (8- & 16-bit) video game music, but not to the degree of something like Shovel Knight. I found the storyline and dialogue amusing as well. Think of this as an adventure, like going to a movie theater. The $15 price right now is fair, but even better if you spot a sub-$10 sale.

Downsides?

This is a very difficult game. Expect to die many times, and unfairly. Normal enemies don't do much damage, but often one slip-up can send you into near-instakill lava or sawblades. And that's in Normal mode. Luckily, you have infinite lives and checkpoints are fairly frequent.

There are only a handful of enemy types, but they do attack in varied enough formations and arenas for most big setpiece battles to feel unique.

I had one instance of a setpiece battle being much harder than it should have been due a bug (debris was falling at a time when it long should have stopped). I was forced to retry the whole chapter. I also had a few instances of it being unclear as to where to go next. At least in the latter you can go track down a longplay to see what they do, but there should be in-game hints to point you in the right direction if you go nowhere for a minute.

I would not call this 10 out of 10. Nor 9 out of 10. Nor even 8 out of 10. But it's more deserving of a thumbs-up than not.

I've owned this game for over a year and a half, and have seen several updates. Here's my current take on it.

Good points:

1. Spooky and atmospheric. Once you've played as killer a couple dozen times, it's not too "horrifying" anymore, though.

2. Unique asymmetric multiplayer cat-and-mice gameplay. It's a good idea at its core. Fun, even.

3. Easy learning curve on Killer. You'll want to read a guide or two to learn the ropes, but it's not hard to catch novice survivors even without perks or items.

Bad points (why I don't recommend):

1. Huge learning curve on survivors, made worse by the lack of good perks for newbies. The developers have nerfed some of the more overpowered perks so the power increase isn't as big as it used to be, but until you (randomly) unlock the high tier stuff, evading the Killer is extremely hard. Even veteran players would have a hard time escaping if not for their top tier perks. (Note that these newbie Survivors can very well be your teammates.)

2. There is no record of wins, losses, escapes, or deaths. The few words it says after a match is over ("Disgraceful Defeat", "Merciless Victory") mean *nothing*. That means the game isn't a competition. It's a sandbox.

3. The game encourages point farming. Because there is no real victory or defeat, the only thing that matters is reaching the point thresholds (7000, 10000, 20000) to influence your skill ranking, and maximizing points per minute.

Rather than fixing generators and escaping, veteran Survivors will deliberately bait the Killer into chasing them because this is the biggest source of points. You get points for being chased, for losing the Killer, for dropping pallets on the Killer, for healing yourself, for rescuing teammates from a hook ... and you miss out on all of this by being sneaky and safe.

Among experienced players, it's not uncommon for a game to end with everyone's points hovering around 15,000. Everyone wins. What's the point? To get more perks so you can farm faster? Why?

4. The maps have a wide range of favoring Killer or favoring Survivors. The maps with "infinite loops" are not quite as bad as they used to be since the recent addition of the Bloodlust mechanic (killer speeds up in very prolonged chases). But Killer should always hate to see Autohaven Wreckers, and Survivors are probably not too happy on maps with few mazes, windows, and pallets.

5. The Bloodweb (what you use to unlock items and perks) is randomly generated, so there's no guarantee you'll get the good perks sooner rather than later. And a lot of the perks have very limited usefulness.

Started game.

Watched boring, unskippable intro of a still image of guy and his slow talking.

Entered gameplay. Talked to wife by making a happy face.

Wife started following me and said "...". I replied with happy face.

My character wouldn't move anymore. (Too busy making faces?)

Not knowing what else to do, I pressed random keyboard keys. One made wife run forward, reappear next to me, and run forward again in an endless loop. (She is some kind of wizard with teleporting powers?)

Could not move my character again.

Total controllable play time: Less than one minute.

I received Tropico 4 for free from a Humble Bundle promotion.

Tropico 4 is a city building game, a genre not usually my forte, but it's similar to other ones that I've played like Simcity and the Anno (Year #) series. You decide what buildings to make, and your people will semi-automatically fill their roles to become your laborers, craftsmen, police officers, priests, and whatever else you need on your Caribbean island during the Cold War years (1960 onward).

Once you get the hang of things, you may begin to find that building a city from the ground up is extremely easy. Your people will demand certain amenities, but these demands are given to you on an almanac you may access at any time. Are people homeless? Build some apartments. Is a demand for healthcare, religion, or entertainment being unmet? Put down a clinic, church, or cabaret, and the problem will solve itself in time. If all needs are met, it's time to make some money with exports or tourism.

Throughout the 20-mission campaign (in which you almost always start with the same set of basic buildings and end up populating a small fraction of the island), you are presented with different obstacles... but you can build your city nearly the exact same way every time. One island supposedly has a crime problem, but you'll only need to put down a police station earlier than you otherwise might. One island has a rebel problem, so you'll need more military buildings earlier. The problems are thrown at you one island at a time, and only a small tweak is needed to keep things running smoothly.

Despite the wide variety of buildings, many of them either have little or identical effects. Farms growing cash crops, mines, industries, and tourism all make you money behind the scenes. All you need to do is analyze what your available assets are, and place buildings for the one that'll get the most return on investment. Your citizens handle the nitty-gritty of transporting and exporting the goods.

There's a wide swath of entertainment buildings, but unless you are going for tourism or trying to build a giant, deliriously happy island, most of them are not useful. Cabarets provide good entertainment for all Tropican citizens, and don't require electricity. Unless you are swimming in money (and you will be after a while), there's no need for pubs, restaurants, casinos, or roller coasters.

Your island has different factions like Communists or Capitalists whom you must please if you want them to vote for you in the periodic elections, but it's fairly easy to keep all of them happy. Even if you are in danger of losing an election, there are many ways to steal it at the last second, like signing edicts that people like, upping everyone's pay, bribing faction leaders, or just rigging the election. The same goes for foreign powers. In all my time playing so far, I've gotten China annoyed enough to embargo me once. That's all.

I'm going to say that I don't recommend this game, but with the stipulation that if you like city building games with an easygoing pace and low level of difficulty, you may like this anyway. If you're new to city building games or gaming in general, it might be a good starting point before tackling something less forgiving. But if you're looking for a challenge, look elsewhere.

Pointless. Just pointless.

Might appeal to young children because of the colorful artwork and pet-collecting aspects, but the gameplay is very simple and quite reliant on luck to do well on harder difficulties.

I recommend for children, especially if they already have an interest in virtual pets, card games, or other forms of Solitaire.