Recent reviews by Alex_SM

Lara Croft is the worst archeologist ever

10/10 would shoot more amphoras

Nice little game.

Basically the whole game is a puzzle about comiting a murder and getting away with it. It has a nice art-style, it's really well written and has a good sense of humor. Very enjoyable and replayable. Just bear in mind that a single playtrhough is like 20-30 minutes.

For les than 1€ you can't go wrong with this.

I just finished it and now I'm sad... but not because it ended, but because how poorly it ended.

The beginning of the game is dissapointing. It shows really early that it no longer cares about role playing, and now completely focuses on combat, exploration and looting. But the map is interesting, there are a lot of places to go, and combats are actually very enjoyable so it is entertaining enough to keep playing.

Second act is where the story starts to look decent. There are some little twists here and there, some good characters, and interesting factions. Thinks look good in this stage!

But then the final act is horrible. Rushed and nonsensical. The behaviour of all factions is absurd, and you never have the chance to even try to convince anyone about anything. There are a few situations in the way of:

Faction leader: We have been nice, now you trust us. It is the moment when I ask you do to something horrible and unnecesary.
Me: But why? There must be another way...
Faction leader: There is no other way. I'm not asking you, this is an order. Do it, or leave us.
Me: Choose between "Ok", "enthusiastic Ok", "reluctant Ok", "sarcastic Ok"

All factions have this kind of situation in key moments of the story. And all of them about things where agreements could be made. Just really lazy writing.

So I just finished it and now I'm sad, beacause in the last act I didn't have the oportunity to roleplay my character in any way. I didn't have the oportunity to even hint lots of solutions that I had in mind, way more coherent and pragmatic that the ones proposed by the game. I didn't have the oportunity to just not murder innocent people. I didn't have the oportunity to do lots of things.

So in the end I can't recommend it. It's not a bad game, it's a good one, but it's definitely the worse of the "narrative" Fallouts. And it's underwhelming in many ways.

I thought Hard Reset was a nice effort, but didn't find it that enjoyable. But this one... this one is AMAZING.

A fast paced semi old-school shooter (mixed with lots of painkiller) filled with lots of humour, amazing weapons, great enemies, beautiful maps, a surprisingly interesting story and an AWESOME melee combat system.

Grab it, and kill stuff with the Katana. You won't regret it.

I hate to say this....

...but I cannot recommend this game. I would love to do it, because the game tries to do everything in the right way, but I simply can't, because this time it just doesn't work. It's a shame, because Flying Wild Hog did a bunch of things right. Hell, they nearly headed the perfect direction, but there are a few bad development decisions that have a significant impact in the final result.

As I don't want to give the impression that this is an awful game or anything like that, I will start telling what does this game do right, because it does a couple of things right.

This game is an amazingly beautiful game. It invites to just stop and look at everything. Graphical fidelity is great (really impressive for an Indie tittle), artistic design is UNBELIEVABLE, and it runs like charm (at least on my HD7970). The hand drawn cinematic, similar to those in Mirror's Edge, are really cool and hide the loading times pretty well. This is maybe the strongest feature of the game, it's technical side is amazing. Way better than expected.

The game then wants you to run. Its action it's extremely fast paced, demanding you to aim fast, shoot fast and think fast. It also demands you to search for health, to use objects in the map to cover from fire (sometimes there are so many enemies shooting at you that otherwise is impossible) while enemies moving to get you out of your cover without the regular magical mechanics of AAA shooters which regenerate health and let you stay there for ages. In 2013 all I can say is Hooray for Flying Wild Hog! Even AI is better than usual. It isn't smart, but it's very very aggressive. Even the weapons, which seem to be a bit lackluster at the beginning, are pretty good once you start upgrading them. And there's a huge difference between every weapon, making each of them good or bad depending on the situation. Again, well done.

So, if the game does so much things right, why does it fail? Because there are two important things that it does wrong. First one is the level design. Even if I love all the chances it gives to use map elements to kill the enemies, every level ends up being a corridor with some arenas in between and some secrets here and there. It's very Serious Sam-esque, but the design of every zone (specially in big arenas) is much worse. Sometimes really dull. It's not enough to leave me in an empty place with some objects and throw a bunch of enemies at me. To do that right you need a place that is awesome. For example, the town fight in one of the last levels of Serious Sam 3, or the different fights in the Egyptian ruins, are leagues beyond anything this game achieve.

But is not only the level design what is flawed, but the enemy design. I'm not only talking about aesthetics, but behavior. Some robots are cool (the one that charges on you), but some other are just dull and the game relies too much in throwing lots of them at you. Again, this works in Serious Sam because every enemy presents a different and well balanced threat. Here it doesn't. Also doesn't help that some of them, if they are a bit far from you, look a lot like the environment, making them difficult to be seen.

This two things lead to some very uninteresting fights, which considering this is a shooter is like a capital flaw.

Talking about the story... well, there's not too much to say. It doesn't help the game, neither kills it. Just an average one which is never very important for the enjoyment of the game.

Considering all of this, I cannot recommend it. And it's a shame, because it's a game I wanted to like, but I just don't enjoy it too much. That doesn't mean some other people won't enjoy it, because it still gets many things right, but here the scale is just a binary yes/no, so this one gets a no.

Anyway, Flying Wild Hog looks like a very promising studio. I'll take a look sooner or later at their Shadow Warrior, and I'll definitely wait for their next projects.

Not as good as the original.

Anomaly 2, the sequel to Anomaly Warzone Earth is a good game. The shame is that it isn't as good as the original part of this series.

Not from the technical standpoint, that's for sure, because Anomaly 2 is a beautiful game. It's attention to detail is really good, artistic design is great and graphical fidelity is more than enough. Even the music is good, and the voice acting is better than in the original. Only flaw on this side would be the UI, that despite being quite minimal, sometimes gets confusing. There are times when it's hard to see which health bar belongs to whom. Anyway, that's just a minor flaw.

Its main problem is that it starts slow. Too slow. First levels are pretty dull. Specially if you played the previous game. It spends too much time being a tutorial. And it's a shame, because it's easy to get bored soon, too soon. Then everything gets better. Then its difficulty gets higher, new towers appear, the game stops treating you like a newbie, and the fun begins. It's a shame it needs more than an hour to realize you are ready to roll. An hour in a game which lasts about 4 hours? - I'm in mission 9, of 14 I think, and I've had 2.5 hours of actual gameplay, so I think 4 hours for the single player campaign is a pretty good guess. That's its mistake, and it's a big one. But once you pass trough that, things get really cool again, like in the first one.

As for the multiplayer... I won't say anything about it. I'm really not interested in it, and I didn't even tried it.

Don't get me wrong, this is a good game, but it would have been better not spending so much time being a tutorial. Maybe it's just me, but I love those sequels that assume you have played the first one and/or you know what you are doing. Anyway, mechanics are not intricate or anything that justify so slow learning curve. Everything is pretty straightforward and easy to learn.

Do I recommend it? Yes, but with a bit of caution. Bear in mind that it could disappoint during the first missions.

Not a game.

This isn't a game. This is some kind of pretentious interactive experience with obtuse narrative and no goal at all. It's just about 30 minutes of roaming around two places, reading a few texts and completing one minigame. It tries to tell a story, yes, but it's terrible at it.

Technically is also quite terrible, but that doesn''t even matter. It could have Crysis 3 graphics, and still would be terribly annoying.

If you wanna try it, bear in mind that this is not a game, and wait until it's on sale. Then it will still be a pretentious waste, but a cheap pretentious waste.

Play it NOW!

Maybe the most awesome thing ever made. The pinnacle of mankind.

Great Game. Just a twist in the tower defense concept, but a great twist.

Now you are the force trying to pass through. You have to set routes, set the squad, the formation and give them support by fixing units, placing smoke screens or calling air strikes. You may think it's just "set tactics and see what happens", but it is definitely not. Sometimes it becomes a really frantic game in which you will need to be extremely fast thinking and acting to make it.

Graphics are good, mood is well set, there's a little story and lots of voice acting (really good IMO). Difficulty is well adjusted (easy at the beginning, hard at the end).

Really entetaining game. Campaign lasts for about 7 hours (maybe around 5 if you play it on easy or do it perfect on first try). A great deal, even better considering the low price.