Recent reviews by Laivasse

Don't support dev skulduggery and post-release content removal.

Simply one of the best games in years and maybe the best value vs content vs quality proposition on all of Steam (especially at 75% off, as it currently is). If you're still not sure what the Yakuza series even is, then ditch all preconceptions or comparisons to games like GTA or Sleeping Dogs, because it's not an open world crime game in that respect at all. There are no drivable vehicles and all the action takes place within a couple of fairly small but dense maps. It's much more comparable to Shenmue or the Way of the Samurai games in that respect. It has an excellent sense of humour, a fighting system with depth and variety of approach (but which also lends itself to button mashing just fine) and practically limitless side activities.

Yakuza 0 also seems to be the best place to jump in on the series, since chronologically it takes place first and it also just seems to be the most fun and well-written entry in the franchise, judging from the others I've played so far.

Since it's a port of a PS3 game which was made on an already ageing engine, it's not the most graphically stunning game ever. On the flipside, the PC version runs very easily (especially now Denuvo is removed - three cheers) and the facial detail and acting performances in many places are top drawer. After a glitchy initial release it appears to have been patched up well. I went from having all sorts of technical problems to having none at all.

Got this game years ago and loved it, been recommending it to people as a great coop twin-stick shooter for years. It evokes the chaos and sense of progressive mission clearing that the old 'Strike' chopper series did, but the tone of this is very different, with likeable over-the-top cheesy comicbook style machismo. Unfortunately judging from other reviews, it seems that newer operating systems have not been kind to the stability of this game. It never crashed once for me back in the day but there are reports of it crashing to desktop occasionally under W10 64-bit, although the people reporting this also say it remains playable overall.

My one warning about the gameplay is that driving and speed is an integral part of this game, since it is necessary for maintaining your kill combo and staying within the time limits. This forms part of the late game replayability and score challenge aspect. But what it means is that the driving controls themselves are a part of the challenge; you have to keep your buggy moving, so it's best to clear areas while driving in circles and stay on the vulnerable side of enemies. The game has both camera relative and tank controls (I recommend tank), but at some point you're probably going to end up crashing into something you didn't want to, which can be frustrating if it's a non-destructible part of the environment. Some people just don't seem to like this aspect (and it's probably a nightmare on keyboard), but I found it extremely satisfying to stay constantly on the move during fights and then boost between areas, and I took the collisions on the chin as part of the challenge.

At current price (75% off) I'd say it's a fun ride for any twin-stick fan or anyone who remembers EA's old Strike games, if you're prepared for the challenges of driving a buggy and for occasional errors. Actually one of my most fondly remembered small games of the last decade. Get the Coldstrike campaign along with it, it's short but got some nice looking snowy levels which are fun to rack up combos on.

Update 25/11/2016: Nominated for my “Just 5 More Minutes” Award.

I saw some footage of this game in January 2013 which was enough to tempt me into trying the free demo. My curiosity was piqued but I wasn't expecting much - just a bit of a time killer to tap away at and fill up a bit of the afternoon. I came away several hours later with the music stuck in my head, feeling as if very little time had passed, then went on to have a dream about Drox Operative that same night. I bought the game from Soldak's site the next day and have been playing Drox on and off since then without ever having cause to regret the puchase.

It's a hugely addictive little loot-focused ARPG with a beguiling amount of depth. As most reviews have mentioned, the most compelling feature is the sense of a living galaxy going about its business in the background while you perform the basic functions of clicking, killing, looting, equipping and selling. Essentially the alien AI races play a 4X style strategy game against eachother (albeit in real-time) while you fly about attempting to affect the outcome, with the goal of satisfying the win conditions set by the Drox guild (such as uniting the AI races, or allying with the winner of an all-out war, or victory via exploration and volume of quests completed, etc.). After triumph in one sector, you move onto the next one - presumably a harder one, although the player can set the parameters for each randomly generated sector, including difficulty. Coop online play is possible, as well as 'Hardcore' (permadeath) mode which unlocks once you get a ship to level 25.

Everything the player does affects the game universe in some way. Destroy a named boss monster and the planets in that system will become more prosperous for the alien races who hold them, giving those races more resources to build ships and advance their technology faster. Leave that monster to its own devices and he may form a fleet with other tough mobs, create malicious devices in space or perform acts of sabotage against the AI and their planets - which in turn leaves them crying for help from you, the Drox Operative, to solve all their newfound problems in the form of new quests.

Performing a fetch quest to prevent a planetary famine may solve that planet's problem - or it might produce another fetch quest from that planet, as they ask you to help destroy their rampant 'super weed' created by the fertiliser you delivered. Failing to solve fetch quests involving riots and civil war may even result in the creation of new races, who splinter off from their parent race and colonise planets of their own, becoming a new force in the sector. Alternatively you might intentionally foment discord and quest for rebel ships in order to fulfil precisely that goal. Much of this sense of life and variety comes only through the flavour text of the quests, but it is all very cleverly conceived and the quests do all have real consequences for the calculations under the hood, for the prosperity and the military fortunes of the AI. If you get tired of questing and manipulating, then you can simply explore and leave the AI to tear eachother to shreds (albeit hopefully without triggering any of the Drox guild's failure conditions).

My current ship, which I've been running a long time, is level 92, it's in a sector with 10 AI races all with their own grudges and friendships and problems, half of whom are at war with me and half of whom love me (and some of those that like me are at war with me anyway). The sector is so busy with catastrophes and weird developments that the events windows scrolls too fast for me to digest. I know I could fire this game up right now and easily lose several hours enjoyably.

To be honest, I don't know enough about the ARPG genre itself to make a judgement on the game loot balance, the min-maxing potential, or the diversity of builds available in Drox compared to other games. It feels very deep in this regard - you have stats, racial specialisations, plus a great variety of shield modules, armour modules, instant hit weapons, aimed weapons, minions (drones), buffs, debuffs, hulls and miscellanous doodads (installed in modular fashion). However I don't play enough of this type of game to know whether Drox is really deep or my understanding of ARPG systems is really shallow. I'll leave that aspect for other commenters to examine. All I know is I'm still having a great time with the unpredictable outcomes and three- or four-way battles that Drox Operative sometimes throws up, over a full year since purchase.

A special mention should be made of Soldak's excellent post-release support. The game has been patched regularly throughout this last year or so, while Soldak (creator of Din's Curse and Depths of Peril) has also responded promptly and effectively to community feedback and bug reports. Drox was a fully formed game long before its recent emergence from Greenlight onto Steam. Now it has the benefit of this wider exposure it deserves to be played by as many people as possible, because it's an unsung gem. Clever, addictive and great fun.

If you enjoyed The Walking Dead then you can consider this an extremely promising start to Telltale's new interactive story series. If anything it's much stronger than Episode 1 of TWD was. The main character is compelling and the art style is lush - kind of a gritty 90's comic book noir chic (based on the Fables series which I haven't read). You need to have some tolerance for the fantastical, in the sense that the whole premise revolves around fairytale characters living in the real world, but as long as you do, and you enjoy Telltale's style - and assuming they can keep up this level of quality - then this feels like a must buy.