Recent reviews by Scifer

Remember playing Cops & Robbers when you were a kid? Me neither. But I’m pretty sure the cops didn’t have entire stadiums-full of armoured SWAT units covering 5 separate bank robberies happening within a half-mile radius. See, this is what happens when a disproportionate amount of state funding is channelled into law-enforcement rather than into security intelligence countermeasures. THANKS OBAMA.

The co-op gameplay puts me in mind of Left4Dead. As a team of 4 badguys, the players have to perform a series of devious objectives to secure loot whilst keeping the cops off each others’ backs. There are also a few ‘special’ zombi... er, police officers who can do serious damage to your fellow robbers. Well, I say serious damage. The first few bullets will chip away at the player character’s armoured shield, which can be regenerated by hiding behind some cover and sucking their thumb for a few seconds. If their health bar reaches 0, the character will collapse in a heap and must be revived by a teammate, again, L4D style. Perhaps I’ve got it wrong and all the gunfights that happen in this universe are actually performed with rubber bullets, used as a mutual pact between law-enforcer and law-breaker designed to redistribute the wealth of the economy in a cunning plot to starve out the dystopian ultragovernment. Man, the lore in the Payday universe runs DEEP.

In a way, the realistic scenarios and graphics combined with the lack of any serious consequences or ‘real death’ make Payday feel rather immature. But that’s just fine in my opinion, because it also makes the game entertaining and challenging without being too frustrating. So many games take themselves super-seriously nowadays that it’s nice to have a co-op FPS that remembers it’s actually meant to be FUN!

There’s also a ton of neat DLC, including weapons, missions and new masks. But the best part of Payday’s DLC is that it doesn’t need everyone to buy it in order for the content to appear on a heist. Only the host of the lobby needs to possess the content and other folks can use that content regardless. More games NEED to do this. Gold Star, Sunbreeze! :D

My only complaint is that I’ve had a bit of trouble connecting to matches sometimes. There also seems to be a few problems with the game not recognizing certain DLC content that has been designed for it and branding people that use this content as ‘cheaters’, with huge flashing red letters over their heads. Seems a bit excessive, don’t you think?
So, in short, if you want a highly tactical heisting simulator with hundreds of different ways to organize crime, this one probably isn’t for you. But if you want a highly challenging, nicely balanced, balls-out wreck’em’up where you have to smash’n’grab as much loot as possible before getting dogpiled by hoards of cops, it’s Payday for you, fella!

I have a love/hate relationship with this game. Although, it is free! ... -ish.

Being an old Starfox veteran, I got on well with the arcadey action in the early game, out-manoeuvring enemies and chopping their wings off with the target-leading system. Each nation has a different set of planes, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, although these don't matter too much at this early stage. Needless to say, the bi-plane stage was great fun.

Then, gradually, I progressed into the mid-war era of aircraft. This was fun, too, for a while. But then I started to notice a change in the play style of my team mates and my opponents. Instead of rolling away from each other to engage in a dogfight, my opponents would just fly straight towards my plane guns-blazing, then plough straight through me like a battering ram, killing both of us with no points scored either side. Get used to these head-on collisions. They happen a lot. And not just with enemies. Sometimes, you'll be chasing a plane, only to find that a cloud of friendly players has formed around you, fixated on the same target, trying to nab the kill before you do. Because of this tunnel-vision, eventually a team-mate will collide with you, then call you a 'F**KING RAMMER N00B' for your trouble. Lovely.

My main problem with this outcome is that there is very little penalty to prevent it on either side. So the conflict just develops into a war of attrition - to see which side has bought the most planes to aimlessly throw into the meat-grinder.

Alternatively, you'll get locked in a dogfight with a superior plane (usually a spitfire, with its better turning circle) and no friends will be around to get it off your tail, because 10 of them will be chasing 1 bomber ... and crashing into each other ... and yelling expletives in the chat box.

I get the impression that the game wants me to spend money to buy super upgrades for my planes to make them pointlessly unbeatable, like in World of Tanks, or create a squadron of other people who enjoy getting rammed by their team mates. However, my reviewing system is based off the capacity enjoy a game even if you're a friendless hobo. So, if you're looking for some quick arcade dogfighting action, this game is one for you. However, if you're a fan of aviation looking for a dedicated team-based stress buster, you'll find this game utterly infuriating.

They will eventually add tanks and ships into the mix, but until then, I'm not convinced.

Sorry, Warthunder. You only get 4/10 golden badger eggs. :(

How big a part does free will play within the self-contained realm of a video game?

With the advent of narrator-driven gameplay in projects like Bastion and Transistor, The Stanley Parable looks to ask questions about the nature of obedience and defiance in the characters of a story. If playwright Tom Stoppard were to make a video game, it would look something like this.

My one word of advice - don't look up any videos, reviews, or walkthroughs for this game if you are curious about it. Just dive right in and enjoy the existentialism. It will last you quite a while, too. With multiple endings and alternate storyarcs, I have been playing the game for 6 hours now, and I STILL don't think I've found all of the endings. :D

TSP gets 8/10 from me ... and Stanley, was happy.

On paper, (no pun intended), this game has a pretty boring premise. See how much mind-numbing paperwork you can process in a day to make ends meet. It sounds like a level of enjoyment that can be achieved through the use of Microsft Excel. However, clever storytelling, surprising character development and a difficulty curve that increases as the layers of beaurocracy stack up, make this game intriguing and surprisingly addictive.

It is 1982 in a fictional slice of Eastern Europe. The player becomes a border control inspector in the nightmare totalitarian state of Arstotzka, turning away impoverish families into the cold because their visas are a few weeks out of date. Or maybe you want to play the good guy and let a few desperate people slip through the net? But you also have a family to feed, and in this communist society, your salary is paid based on how many people you process correctly in a day. Too many citations and you’ll be the one left out in the cold.

The simplistic graphics of this game are more than just nostalgia. They add to the impact when something shocking and unexpected happens. Like that guy with shifty-looking eyes strutting out of the ticket booth and shouting ‘GLORY TO KOLECHIA’, shortly before blowing himself up and redecorating the wall with the innards of your security guards.

Your moral choices can alter the stormy political atmosphere, re-unite friends and lovers and deliver justice in any way you see fit. For people don't just live in the country. They ARE the country. I think my only complaint about the game is that it feels dry, sinister and clinical. I know that it was designed to be this way, but it means I can't play for any more than a few minutes before I just feel ... dirty inside ... and want to play something brighter, more colourful and happy.

Nevertheless, Papers Please gets 9/10 from me. Glory to Arstotzka, komrade.

I think a small part of every lad wanted to be an astronaut when they grew up. Why wait?! KSP is a sandbox simulation where you build your own rockets, spaceships, satellites and stations from a set of parts like fuel tanks, rocket engines and structural supports ... then see if the laws of physics will be kind to them.
At the moment, this is not a game. There is no real set goal, other than the ones the player sets for themselves. There's no hand-holding tutorial section either. You have to build up a basic knowledge of aerodynamics and think one-step-ahead before you can even build something capable of getting off the ground.
Once you've involved your test-pilots in a few hideous explosions, you could put a satellite into orbit, or put one of the small green astronauts known as 'Kerbals' on the moon. Or perhaps you want to go a bit further and fly to another planet! And you don't HAVE to bring them back home ... but it will give you much more of a sense of pride if you do. ;)
My advice to anyone who wants to play KSP is to research a few of NASA's videos on YouTube about orbital trajectories and thrust vectors, as there is a definite technique to breaking the atmosphere and gravity of your home planet.
My only complaint with this game is that it is not multiplayer. But I really hope that is something the developers make possible in later versions, as a multiplayer space race, custom jet dogfight, or even a Cuban missile crisis would be a game I'd be unable to put down. ;D

This game ... omg this game. It can be summed up in two words. 'Beautifully Obnoxious'. It combines the ballsy, death-defying, hard-as-nails platformer games of the early 90s with 21st century internet humor. It's extremely challenging without being frustrating, oh, and the notice on the title screen does not lie. You will need a controller to play Super Meat Boy to its' full potential. Initially, I thought "Oh, I'm sure my PC-gaming talents will be able to-" no. The 'jump' button is incredibly unresponsive on a PC keyboard, and by GOLLY you are going to need it.

If you're a fan of old-skool platformers, or you're some sort of masochist, then this game is for you. Just be prepared for someone to grab your face and scream "WAAARP ZOOOOOOONE!!!!" into it.

This is one of those games where you'll boot it up, get past all of Ubisoft's wonderful clungeware and DRM assnuggets and be completely awestruck by the beauty of the environment. "OMG!", you'll say, "This world is so pretty! Look at all the dolphins leaping out of the ocean and the people scurrying about in their high-tech cities and the ... the ... ... How the hell do I play this game?" And that's pretty much the universal reaction. I highly reccomend you go on Youtube and research a few 'setup' videos on how to play this game, because it's incredibly fun once you get the hang of it.
In a nutshell, it's an economy sim. You develop an island, trade with other folks doing the same thing, then expand the class of people who live on your island based on the resources available. You can do it peacefully through trade and economics, or you could just build warships and take what you need. Oh, and there's nuclear missiles, if you like repeating the mistakes of history. :D

Let’s face it. None of us would be very good Gods. When given control over the elements in this game, the world literally becomes your sandbox, in which you’ve got to construct a veritable paradise for a bunch of asthmatic tribal folk. Well, I assume they’re asthmatic, or lazy, as they refuse to climb any hill steeper than a council estate speedbump.

The environmental physics on this game are amazing, but the AI pathfinding is a major letdown. None of your tribal folk seem to have any sense of urgency when a wave of lava is about to vaporise their town and don’t want to escape over the bridge you just built for them because the gradient is not to their liking.

Me? I'd be a clumsy God. The amount of times the foliage around my villages has caught fire, making me panic and dump 500 tons of water ontop of it. Instead of burning to death, my villagers get washed away in a flood. Keep worshiping, or I will perform MORE deadly miracles!

Need an antidote to thinking games like Civ and Fate of the World? This is it.

Just Cause 2 is a stoopid action game with next to no story. But you know what? It doesn't need one. Even if the dialogue was written by Shakespeare, I doubt you'd even notice. You'd be far too busy blowin' sh!t up.

Use your Zelda style grapple-shot to leap around the Southeast Asian island of Panau lookin' for sh!t to blow up. Usually, anything with a big red star on it can be classified as sh!t - so blow it up!

What I love about this game the most is the sheer SIZE of the map. You have an entire country to explore and vandalise at your leisure. Use your hook-shot to nab a fighter jet out of the air for a quick travel solution. (Although I've never managed to 'land' a plane in this game, but maybe I'm missing the point slightly.)

Just Cause 2 is a silly, gravity-defying, ballsy, slightly-racist shoot'em up. And that alone makes it a great stressbuster. Jump in, find some sh!t, and BLOW IT UP!

So, you think you fix the world? In this game, Planet Earth is a puzzle (that you're probably not going to be able to solve first time!)

Different regions of the world have varying virtues and vices. Stable regions won’t mind having their long-term energy consumption tampered with, but you will need to balance this out with short-term environmental solutions to keep the sceptics happy. Or perhaps you would rather make the Earth uninhabitable? Well there is an unlockable scenario where you can do just that!

What keeps bringing me back to this game is the tiny margin for error. Perhaps you’ll lose control over a region a few turns before your time is up, causing it to fart out just enough toxic gas to lose the game. So you go back to your last save and make a special effort to keep that region happy.

You'll either love or hate this game. But if you're a fan of thinking games like Civilisation, Fate of the World is for you, too.