Recent reviews by MamiyaOtaru

"I have a lot of hours played" you might say, so how can I say I didn't have a good time? Well, I did for a bit. But this game preys on my innate tendency to collect things. Never mind that they are worth nothing. This game is a grind, but there is always something dangled at the end of the next thousand enemies killed, and that keeps me playing even when it isn't fun. The Guardian Games were the worst example. Pretty cool machine gun, behind a week or two worth of the same old same old.

Getting new and better gear means running the same missions over and over. If you have played MMOs, you are probably expecting this. If you haven't really, and came at it from regular FPSs like I did, well beware, or you'll find out why MMOs are such a ridiculous waste of time.

The things that keep you going are the sunk cost fallacy, and fear of missing out. Sunk cost makes you say "I've spent a week on this grind. If I don't do the next week, that week will have been wasted!" when it really means you just end up wasting a second week. Fear of missing out is "This gun is only available during this short period! I'd better do what I must to get it!" when a week before it didn't exist, you didn't know about it, and you were fine without it.

People often say the journey is more important than the destination. With this game, the journey is boring and there is no destination.

dead. No funding, no development. And they never got close to the pitched vision of coop campaigns with weird/cool enemies like land sharks. this game is never going anywhere

fun. More Settlers than Starcraft

The graphics, presentation and atmosphere are great.

There is a lot of complexity I haven't grasped yet, but I feel like it will be limited in the long run. There is almost no micro. You can run back units that take damage until their attackers focus on someone else then put them back in the fight, and duck hurt units back across borders. That's about it.

With next to no micro I worry that the macro will quickly become min/maxed, and figured out ala https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/ugc/927046054700339451/1E648D93F6FCE336C72336225A47BF44620DA31D/ . Once optimal strategies are figured out and no micro to suck attention, it will be about executing the optimal strategy someone else has spreadsheeted out, *possibly* in a rock/paper/scissors manner.

THAT SAID I am still very new, and am only looking at micro in combat. There are probably plenty of APM sinks I am missing or not giving enough credit to, like switching villagers to woodcutters in winter when food production slows and wood production is unaffected. Switching units to military for an attack then back to production etc. instead of just trying to build up everything at once. I will note that I couldn't figure out how to turn an assigned worker back into a regular villager from the game itself, but had to read it elsewhere (right click on a house with one)

I wish there were a few more units. Seeing 2 or 3 dudes row around in a longboat sort of encapsulates the limited population for me. Wish the pace was a little faster too.

And I hope they get some campaigns going soon. The game has been looking good for a while, so I guess most of the work has been on balance and tweaking, but some longer term goals or progression or whatever would be nice.

So, those are thoughts from a newb!

Avoid.

Got bored of this one pretty quickly and realized I'd have more fun no longer advancing the story and playing something else. To be fair, the same thing happened with 4, but I loved the MP in that (firetruck races!) and I thought I would like 5's too, but it's all about GTA Online. You can't hop in and screw around with friends without dealing with disgusting pubbies. Events are a PITA to set up, and the whole thing smells like free to play nickle and diming. It seems to be their main money maker now too so it's never going away.

At least mods were cool.. but those are no longer allowed thanks to Take2.

Their attitude and pricing makes it seem like they think their poop doesn't stink, but the game just isn't that fun.

*EDIT*
updates stopped. The controls never did feel good, and while the dev was willing to listen to feedback it makes no difference now that it's unsupported. It's been left in an unplayable state. Was really too good to be true to have this old favorite remade

*original review*
This is Early Access, with all that means, but so far at least it is Early Access done right. It is still being updated, the developer is listening to feedback and iterating and making meaningful changes that make the game feel better. If you hop in now and something doesn't feel right, if you can articulate it you have a chance at seeing it get fixed.

The visuals are in the spirit of the original, which has always been an old favorite. I am definitely looking forward to putting some more time into this as it progresses.

This reimagining strikes a nice balance with its main Character Lo Wang. He's toned down a bit from the original, but not too much.

The gameplay is generally great fun. The environment is full of things that go boom (ala Hard Reset). The level design is fine; it is generally easy enough to figure out where to go while still leaving one plenty of room to explore. There were two locations where I gave up and checked a walkthrough to find some button / elevator whose small glow I had overlooked for a while.

There is an over-reliance on monster closets, but destroying wave after wave of enemies is saved from being a chore by the absolute glee of carving through them with a variety of interesting weapons (foremost being the katana). Occasional greater enemies provide more of a challenge and force one to juggle weapons abilities and powers. The boss fights are also reminiscent of Hard Reset, and didn't end up being too frustrating.

I'd love to see a Duke Nukem reboot from these guys, something more modest and just plain shooty than DNF. Shadow Warrior was my favorite game of 2013 (of those I played of course, but to be recommended regardless)

The level design and gameplay speed are a breath of fresh air, a nice throwback to the era in which the original appeared.

Unfortunately control is really janky. It is infected with UE3's inexplicable default terrible mouse code. After some .ini editing it controls better, but still suffers from some atrocious framerate issues and an unfortunate sensitivity to the same when it comes to input

Flying around levels mowing down mooks has been fun, but I don't think I am likely to play past General Darian. Just the worst things about Boss Battles all encapsulated in one encounter.

It's neat to see a resurrected property from a dev I loved growing up, and neat to see it pulled off by a small team, but I think Shadow Warrior did it better. ROTT is closer to the original gameplay wise, but the issues mentioned above lead me to recommend giving it a pass.