Recent reviews by Diezl

Cute and soothing, exactly what I needed right now. It's a nice day in a beautiful provincial park for flying around, boating, treasure hunting, parkour races, and just vibing. Achievement hunting is fun for the more type A gamer, but the Type B gamer will appreciate the pretty scenery, calming music (could be an overture for a Miyazaki film), and general ambiance. I'm genuinely surprised how much I've enjoyed this game.

TL;DR I would rather have had another Civ6 expansion than whatever this is.

I may update this review in the future, but my impression at launch is that this is a bizarre take on the Civilization series that I’m none too fond of so far. It’s a much bigger leap than 5 to 6, or any other games that came before. I’m not fond of the mix and match leaders and civilizations. It kind of messed with the historical character of the game: they couldn’t find leaders for each of these civilizations for each of these eras? Also it feels too much like an RPG with complicated leader customizations and upgrades that incentivize people to minmax the same builds instead of playing each leader in a unique fashion based on their individual strengths and weaknesses like in previous games. Also the civilizations feel kind of bland and too similar - each leader/civilization in Civ6 felt very different and special which I loved. The leader communication feels needlessly dramatic without establishing much personality. I want a return to Alpha Centauri’s style of communicating with leaders where there was a lot of available options for trades and agreements, and lots of personality behind everything. The leader dialog system here has potential, but it still feels kind of clunky. I’m surprised they went with something closer to Beyond Earth’s diplomatic favors system since if memory serves that was one of the more controversial aspects of that game. I get wanting to diversity the historical figures, but that could be better accomplished with Great People like civ6.

I’m also not enjoying the lack of builder units in favor of the current system. You just kind of put citizens where you’re allowed and they’re stuck there. You can’t change the tiles they’re working like in every other civ so it really limits your flexibility. I also liked how many different kinds of improvements I could make with builders: this system seems really dumbed down in a bad way. I liked Civ6’s district system more because it made sense. The new buildings and quarters system is very confusing.

I really didn’t care for the combat system either - tons of unique units that aren’t obvious what they are compared to Civ6 where they replaced one of the standard lineages of units. I also hate that you can’t see battle statistics before attacking - just changes in health bars. No “decisive victory” or “major defeat” and no mention of what modifiers change combat strength (no mention of combat strength either). The new great general system is also weird and I don’t like it: it’s confusing and fussy to use. I don’t like stacking/loading units onto the general I’d rather have the flexibility to move and maneuver them individually. Also scouts can’t attack? That just seems silly.

The graphics are pretty, but it’s hard to tell what’s what. It’s easy to lose units in the background. Everything feels “busy” as well compared to the sleek designs of previous iterations. Even Civ5 and Beyond Earth, while graphically detailed and beautiful, still made it possible to tell what was what. I also hate that I can’t promote individual units like I could in Civ6. I like having elite forces from early game combat who give me military advantage in later eras - it’s an incentive to keep veteran units alive in later conflicts.

The new combining of city states and barbarians isn’t a design choice I liked. While barbarian clan modes in Civ6 had its place it was not a game mode I turned on often. Now I can’t easily tell whether a neutral city is friendly or an enemy, and they don’t do much like city states in Civ6. I liked my unique suzerain bonuses and levies and fighting for influence with my neighbors

The diplomacy and espionage system also makes very little sense. Spies just kind of happen? The espionage missions are kind of uninteresting. It’s harder to see what is a good option compared to even Beyond Earth, which I felt was overly complicated but still fun. I would really have preferred a return to probe team style missions from Alpha Centauri but with Civ6 spy deployment mechanics.

Finally, the UI is very clunky. I don’t like the layout compared to Civ6’s clean right side tab for city actions and left side mini map and lenses and top of the screen quick info. Navigating the UI should be able to be done quickly with just one hand on the keyboard and not hunting for small X’s. It feels like the UI is designed very console-forward, which is not how the overwhelming majority of Civ fans play. I understand wanting to make it more accessible, but don’t alienate the existing fans.

Things I like: the music is pretty good. Not Civ6 good, but good. Graphics are pretty, but needs more clarity on what is what units wise and district wise. Also needs a button to hold down to temporarily speed up animations- they go very slow sometimes.

In summary, I received this game as a birthday gift so I will be keeping it and hoping it turns into something playable. I cannot, however, recommend it to anyone. As someone with well over 1000 hours each in Civ6 and Alpha Centauri, and many hours in Beyond Earth, Civ5, Civ2, etc I have to say this is too much of a dumbed down departure from the 4X series I love so much. I really hope they take all of our feedback to heart and overhaul the whole game into the greatness it should be.

Outstanding puzzle game with an interesting premise revealed as the story unfolds. The language puzzles were challenging without being tear-your-hair-out frustrating, and it's a fresh puzzle mechanic to boot! Definitely pick up this game if you enjoy a good puzzle.

They've done it again! This game is utterly terrifying in the best possible way. The ambiance and immersion is excellent, and as always I enjoy a good period piece, especially from eras that don't often get attention (WW1 always feels like it's forgotten or at best glossed over, and it's one of the most important events in human history). The game has some mechanics that players of Dark Descent and Rebirth will find familiar, but it also manages to reinvent itself in some key ways such as the introduction of weapons (moreso than Penumbra) and also changes in the monster mechanics to keep it fresh. That being said, the item system definitely changes the core game loop since you now have to manage inventory, which becomes QUITE challenging at normal and above difficulty. Running out of lantern oil in Dark Descent was annoying, but running out of torches and rotten meat can prove fatal to your playthrough and necessitate a restart. To that end, I'd definitely recommend playing on Easy difficulty to start with, even if you're a veteran Amnesia player until you're more familiar with how the game works because Normal and above is VERY unforgiving in terms of consuming items and this can be immensely frustrating. The game is also very strict about save points: in normal mode you only get the one, and if you die you lose ALL the progress you made since your last save, which is also a big point of frustration (in Dark Descent and Rebirth you at least get to keep the notes and stuff that you picked up). The actual gameplay and artistic polish is wonderful though: exactly what we've come to expect from the talented Frictional games. Definitely pick this one up and experience the horror for yourself!

Cute point-and-click adventure game. Short and not too difficult, but if you're a fan of Wallace and Gromit you'll like this. There's lots of show references, too :D

Aged remarkably better than I thought it would, and the controls on PC are a bit easier than the original Xbox. Fun overall game with a great concept for small unit infantry tactics that, with polish, would make an outstanding genre. That being said, gameplay can be frustrating at times because your soldiers are complete idiots a lot of the time. I don't know what they think the RoE are here, but it should be if they've got a gun and aren't NATO then shoot them! Lots of times they'll walk around corners right into enemy gunfire and not do anything about it, so be prepared for a lot of saves loaded lol. Still a fun game, and the first real entry in this genre. HOOAH!

Wonderful game! It's easy to pick up but challenging to 100%, has many laugh out loud moments, fun cooperative play, and beautiful music (love me some Debussy). This game is absolutely iconic!

This game aged like mayonnaise on a hot, sunny day. If you've played ANY of the later MGS games you will likely experience severe frustration at the clunky controls and lack of features like 1st person aiming. The graphics and voice acting held up decently at least, but wow is this ever a chore to play. Where's my MGS Twin Snakes remake? THAT was the best way to play this game. How did any of us play this the first time back on PS1?

Outstanding remaster of the original two Metal Gear games for MSX. These re-releases are nice and polished and actually are still quite fun to play. Well-worth it for any fans of the series! Clearly a labor of love.

Outstanding cooperative game! It combines first person shooter mechanics with mining/building for a really fun hybrid game that's a ton of fun with friends. Player-friendly leveling system and tons of variability in the kinds of missions and maps, as well as customizable loadouts lends itself well to exciting gameplay even as time goes on. Difficulty level also scales very well to match player ability and to reflect the upgrades that you unlock by playing. This is the most fun I've had playing an online game in a long time. Highly recommend!