Recent reviews by Wolfe

When i was but a wee lad, I loved this game.

But, man.. this is not the version you want.

In menus, the mouse constantly hits an invisible wall, and you must touch both sides of the screen to expand where your mouse is allowed to go.

While playing a mission with the mouse, trying to fly to the right 1/5th of the screen acts as if your mouse left the window. Even in fullscreen. Even in windowed mode. Even if you reduce desktop resolution. Even if you hack a custom resolution. Even if you alt+enter.

I refunded this and purchased the original 1994 version on steam, and all of a sudden i'm taking less hits, getting more kills, and enjoying crispier music.

This thumbs-down review is meant to reach those who game seriously, and want to play a difficult game that, if you are good enough, you are able to win every time.

If you are familiar with Binding of Isaac, this game is like the TCG version. Loot progressively unlocks through play, there's dozens of passive ability items, dozens of abilities that offer synergies, occasional loot rooms and shops, and a variety of enemies & bosses.

In both Slay the Spire and Binding of Isaac, if you are lucky, you can become an overpowered, unstoppable beast.

However, if you are unlucky and find nothing useful, you still CAN beat Binding of Isaac with weak bullets and low health if you are skilled enough; You have no such chance in Slay the Spire. Bad luck means inevitable doom, no matter how perfectly you play.

*Disclaimer for those who wish to tell me to git gud: This review means exactly what it said, and said exactly what it meant.

When I launched this game, I thought it was made by the same exact dev team as Titan Quest..

Compared to Titan Quest, It has the exact same:

• User Interface graphics
  
• Character creation
  
• Attack animations
  
• Levelling/progression/skill system
  
• Point refund mechanics
  
• Quest interface
  
• World/portal layout

It's exactly the same, but different. I can't recommend this as it looks and acts as if it's a mod to a game I already own.

I've run this program for thousands of hours as it runs outside of steam.

I use AMD Eyefinity (Counterpart to Nvidia 3D Surround), which treats my 3 monitors as if they were one single display. This makes my taskbar 5 feet long with the button waaaay to my left, the clock waaaay to my right, and maximizing windows will Always span all 3 screens, making window management a pain.

Although DisplayFusion has many, many options i never use, it has proven quite useful for me to...

• Split a 1080*6000 wide display into three 1080*1920 chunks with 120 pixels of bezel compensation, allowing me to maximize windows that perfectly fit each monitor, as if they were still separate.
  
• Easily apply triple-wide wallpapers, with slideshow options.
  
• Apply a triple-wide background for the boring Windows log-in screen.
  
• Shrink the task bar back to only 1 monitor of my choice.
  
• Use handy-dandy keyboard shortcuts for window manipulation.
  
• Save desktop icon layouts in case they bork up while changing Eyefinity/3DSurround/resolution settings.

It's only problem is that it's not terribly user friendly, and most people won't touch half of it's features or more, but it's the only tool of it's type that I've used, and I've never felt the need to look for a different one.

TL;DR: Consumes minimal resources and does everything to emulate "one" large Eyefinity monitor as if it were still split in three. Comes with several other features, and doesn't break your desktop if you stop the program.

This game looks unassuming and lame on it's cover, but it's a deceptively content-packed and easily moddable platform that can simulate any concievable tabletop game, even ones you make yourself.

Fully-loaded games that would cost potentially $100's that you can play with your friends & online strangers for the low, low, one-time price of $20:

• Settlers of Catan
  
• Magic the Gathering
  
• Warhammer Tabletop
  
• D&D
  
• Cards Against Humanity
  
• Pokemon TCG

- Listen servers may slow down to a crawl over the span of a couple hours if a lot of action has happened, fixed by a restart.
- Remember to lock the table-flip option!

I've loved Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 & 2 ever since they came out, but was disappointed with the 3rd installment; it was graphically superior, but to me was too slow-paced... lacking content, depth, and fun.

I was sketchy when I learned the same developers behind my least-favorite RTC built Planet Coaster, but they have absolutely nailed it this time:

• There are a healthy number of rides, shops, coasters, paths, shrubs, doodads, signs, and building parts.
  
• There are so many shrubs, doodads, signs, and building parts.
  
• Taking the time to make your park look good is a core mechanic to a successful park.
  
• Save, re-use, upload, and download blueprints for Anything; coasters, buildings, doodads, decor.
  
• The most difficult setting is actually difficult, but beatable.
  
• The game doesn't bog down exponentially when guest count starts to climb.
  
• Characters have enough customizations that one specific guest is easy to find again amidst a crowd.
  
• Theft is a neat mechanic to kill the early game down-time while waiting for money to roll in, with security becoming autonomous as money stops being an issue.

The only issue I have with the game as it stands, is guests will tend to wander between the poles of the park with empty wallets, continuously bee-lining between things they cannot afford, oblivious to numerous ATMs along the way.

It's more of a difficulty handicap that, as a hard-mode player, isn't such a huge deal to me, but it would be nice to see how much better I would flourish if my guests had at least the financial awareness of a cheese sandwich.

I don't think I've ever laughed so much, so often, as when I play this game with friends or random online plebs.

I was hesitant to buy this amidst the reviews that I read, but I am very glad I did. If you're on the fence but you have that itch that you want it, just buy it, especially if it's on sale.

-Occasionally a map will fail to load, or a player is unable to place an item for 1 round, but it hasn't happened enough to deter me from playing.

This program is absolutely brilliant. It's intuitive, user friendly, and well designed.

I recommend a youtube or steam community tutorial before jumping in to learn all the quirks the program offers. MortMort has a few videos that cover just about everything.

For the purpose of making sprite sheets and pixel animations, this beats out Photoshop, Paint, Gimp, and Flash bar none.

Positives:

• Layers!
  
• Forward/Reverse/Back-and-forth animation previews!
  
• Onion skin (cartoonists' light-box style)!
  
• Grouping frames (Make all your animations in one file - Idle, Walk, Run, Attack)!
  
• X- and Y-Axis mirroring, for symmetry or tilesets!
  
• Pixel-Perfect brush (No double-pixels)!
  
• Load pallette from image!
  
• Gradient colors in the pallete (Blend X and Y together and make Z in-betweens)!
  
• Blend tool (You're not generally wise to use but I'm glad you're here)!
  
• 1:1 Scale preview window (Updates live & even shows your mouse hover)!

Negatives: Super Positives:

• Default keybinds for the most frequent tools are far apart You can BIND ANYTHING to whatever!

My review is about the specifics of the game as a port, and not the gameplay... which is great.

Yes, i absolutely recommend this console -> PC port.
Compared to controller or Wii-mote, using the brush with a mouse is an absolute BOON.

Addressing frequent complaints:

• Keyboard uses Backspace in menus & can't be remapped: I use a G13 game pad and have the ability to map those keys to easy-access spots. Most modern mice and logitech keyboards should support the same feature if you need it. For me, this becomes a non-issue, but without this luxury it would indeed be a minor annoyance to occasionally lift my fat arm.
  
  
• 30FPS lock: It's not the sexiest, and this does cause ~16ms extra input delay, but it's still better looking and more responsive than any CRT television, PS2, or Wii experience you've ever had.
  
  
• Wonky camera: The camera is exactly as wonky as any PS2 console game. It will auto-focus forward, and it will cramp in tight spaces. The default camera-look is geared for controller, if you want the standard mouse-look of modern RPGs, invert both the X- and Y-axis. Do this in the start menu, on the fly, at any time.
  
  
• CPU/resource hog: The game used 1 of 4 cores of my i7 ~25% on average, and it made my AMD graphics card run warmer than i thought it would, but no warmer than it should be.
  
  
• Aspect ratio problems: I don't have 4k and I can't speak for it, but 1080p works just swell in both full screen and full-screen-windowed.

Two actual, but bypassable problems:

• The game does not minimize and re-open in Full Screen.
  To bypass: Use Full Screen (windowed).
  
  
• If using a controller, the game does not prevent your monitor/computer from going to sleep. If it goes to sleep while in Full Screen, you will be locked out of the game and lose your progress since the last save.
  To bypass: Use Full Screen (windowed) or use the mouse every little while or disable both your PC's and your Monitor's sleep timer.

This is the first Fallout game I've ever played, so I didn't come into this with the same expectations as long-time Fallout fans. I don't mind the lack of action / consequence with dialogue, especially since Charisma is such a deciding factor in passing certain diplomacy checks. The game has plenty of substance otherwise, and being able to be humorously sassy without consequence is .. rather enjoyable.

The game world seemed pretty small at first, but it is so condensed in cities, with a great number of 'dungeon' areas that, now 200 hours in, I still haven't seen half of what there is to see.

Questing is not particularly intuitive, and the crafting / workbench system as a whole is simultaneously fun, yet lacking in substance. (Collect, store, build. After all weapon mods.. then what? Settlement mechanics = no benefit to tactical base building, especially if you fast travel)

Survival mode, for me, is the saving grace of the game. I'm a skilled mouse-shooter, so the added challenge of being one-shot, and needing sleep, food, water, and medicine makes the game much more worthwhile and legitimately challenging/tactical.. to a point.

It's a fun game to play, it's beautiful when it's modded (ENB), but it's replayability isn't on the same level as Skyrim.

Overall: 7/10
Survival mode: 9/10