Recent reviews by ᴢᴀᴄʜᴡᴀᴠᴇ

This is a lukewarm recommendation

What an incredibly bizarre title. The gunplay is pretty good, the sprites, the animation, music is fun as it looped and finally and most importantly to myself, the mapper's the understanding of the Build engine seemed very acceptable. Unfortunately while I think this passion project gives a great impression by setting a high bar as a free game (!), I can't help but think this game has such an identity crisis at a distracting frequency and at it's core commits to mechanics that should have been chopped much earlier in the development process.

I won't beat around the bush with my biggest gripe but the "story" gets in the way of the game and should have stayed in intro / in-between cut scenes and does not say anything engaging or interesting at any point which warranted me wanting to pause and read except the fact that it was in the way. This problem is even evident in the store page's gameply trailers lol. Additionally, the Build engine is famous for it's interactivity and I found that the mappers involved could have used more opportunity in that regard, especially if you're in urban environments.

TL:DR
The story, hyperactive broken ai and some of the mapping design layout towards the middle to later halfs of the game makes it feel more like you're playing Tom Clancy's Sonic Heroes: 3D. Some will like the sounds of that, others may understand what I mean and get a quick chuckle. I give it a solid 6/10 and hope that everyone who participated in it's development goes on to work on more in the future with lessons learned in hand.

A quick summary of my feelings on this game. It is a much better and polished Wasteland 2 but still lacks an engaging immersive world. Felt like a local theater's presentation of Wasteland or a good crpg. You can see the budget and the shortcuts that were made but in the end it still comes out more favourly than previous works.

+ Good environmental storytelling
+ Overall good story big picture wise
+ Some decent "choices" where they do have consequence
+ The combat is fantastic for a budget crpg.
+ Able to cheese and swing above your belt while get rewarded for it (exploring high rad areas early, fighting strong enemies early etc etc)
+ Good combat arenas, lots of good cover, angles flanks, etc
+ Lots of great loot, secrets and treasure to be found
+ Animal Companions are overpowered to the benefit of the game
+ A "you can have it all" ending if you play your cards right.

~ (Neutral) no real good set piece locations until the DLC
~ For the most part companions are lackluster
~ Not a very captivating start to the game

- Terrible dialog / conversations
- A lot of left or right decision making side-quests that felt checklist or rushed
- Weird difficulty spikes once in a while
- Disappointing locations for urban centers and Hubs.
- No real ruins to explore in a post apocalypse. Majority of locations tied to a quest.
- No real reason to return to an area once cleaned of initial quests and story.

this gave me cancer, cancer of the butt :(

Undoubtedly the best Tropico, with a few flaws outlining from lackluster missions and challenge. However, mechanically, content wise and overall management systems, Tropico 6 corrects the disappointments brought on by Tropico 5. Hopefully the lessons learned with this installment are something they can carry forward, preferrably in a new installment rather piecemeal DLC that feels bolted on rather packed in neatly.

An incredibly heartwarming little RPG experience. A game you would have conjured as a kid with your friends during recess.

While as it is, it is another panzer corp-like hexen game Slitherine Ltd. is renowned for. However, the basic mechanics of those classic hex turn based strategy games blend well with the utter chaos of the 41st millennium. There are difficulty spikes and times where I rolled my eyes because of dice rolls or ridiculous gretchin mob attacks, but I feel that this has laid the foundation for the possibility of future games in this concept be delivered outside the Armageddon scope. The visuals and audio were satisfactory, the available units were excellent, but I never found the scale where I really wanted it to be. Grand battles felt like skirmishes.

Fortunately there was enough mission variety in the grand campaign, with hero units, protection of refugees or defence missions to keep things different from between capturing victory hexes over and over.

If you're a w40k fan, and tolerant of light strategy, I would recommend this game. I believe there is an active mod community too.

A very cute little building game, with lots of potential in the future. It's very limited but your imagination can let you develop Wind Waker towns you wish existed.

Great RTS gameplay, the story is a bit hamfisted and not so subtle in its knocks against the West but I guess that's the way it is going to be in order to enjoy the solid Warfare gameplay. Really come a long way since the original. I've enjoyed tank duels with T-90s and T-55s and zooming around in BMPs. My biggest beef is the anti-tank spam from the original is still here and still such a dice roll. I'd like to see different types of anti tank missiles so that you're not always panicked to hear that click and foosh sound coming your way.

An excellent game but one of those that require you to dive deep into understanding what works and what does not. It will punish those who go in blind. Join the community, ask questions, watch videos and learn meta. Fortunately dying isn't as punishing as it may first look, you get opportunity to buy back your corpse with in-game coins or through DMs (the $$$ currency) earned through the TDM system. Prepare for your climb and definitely truly understand what the power of the mushroom really means.

While it has some weird direction & characters, Tesla Effect is a worthy successor in the Tex Murphy series. If you can squint to avoid some rough models and texture work, you'll find yourself smiling at the detailed Chandler Avenue and the loveable characters of old Tex games. Personally I'm not a fan of some of new cast, or some of the kickstarter spam, it really didn't interfere the overall experience. I look forward to the next one.