Recent reviews by egallager

I've been playing SuperTux for many years now, and am loving that it's now available through Steam, too. I like it because it combines 2 of my favorite things: Mario-like 2D platforming, and FOSS. Plus Tux is a cute penguin! I just wish I hadn't lost my old user-made levels I made with a previous version on an older computer back when I was a kid...

It's good.

I've been playing Wesnoth for a long time, but only now thru Steam. It's a great example of the power that open-sourcing your game has to create a great community. I think I actually like it better as an SRPG than Fire Emblem for the following reasons:
- Free as in Freedom™
- Hex-shaped grids provide for more interesting tactics than square-shaped ones
- Permadeath is less punishing since you can always just recruit new units
- Your number of save files is limited only by your disk space, making save-scumming much easier
- Multiple campaigns in a single game, so if you're stuck on one you can just take a break by playing another
- Being FOSS makes it really easy to mod; all the files you might want to edit are text-based and have a nice-and-simple syntax

It's a well-done tower-defense; kinda reminds me of that "Swords & Soldiers" sidescrolling RTS in terms of style. Well-paced and gives you plenty to do.

A very well-crafted game world. What the writing lacks in concision it makes up for in quality. The RPG gameplay is engaging, if not a bit OCD-inducing. My major gripe with the game would be the repetitive ambient sounds used in place of music, but that mostly comes my having previously played other Spiderweb Software games that also recycled these sounds. Still, though, the gameplay and player-influenceable story are more than enough to make the game worth playing on their own.

Edit: after reading some of the other reviews, I should mention that I'm playing on Casual (not ashamed to admit it), so I'm not really experiencing some of the difficulty-related complaints that others are. Pretty much the only difficulty-related thing I'm running into is that I don't really have a chance to use up my consumables fast enough on Casual, so I probably waste more time managing my inventory than I might on a harder difficulty. But that's very minor.

On the one hand, it includes (all?) the levels from the original Fortix, along with new ones, so that should make it better merely by being a superset of it. On the other hand, the temporary spikes of input lag feel a little worse than I remember them being in the original Fortix, and I kind of preferred the "Ye Olde Fantasy" art style of the original Fortix to the generic cartooniness of this version. Still though, the gameplay is as engaging as ever, and the addition of keys and locks introduces a number of new strategies. Definitely worth a play.