Recent reviews by Raven

This game is a lot of fun, especially for the price! Great retrowave aesthetic, the soundtrack is awesome, and my Xbox One wireless controller worked without any configuration necessary. The cars are recognizable, and the number of different environments you can race in, along with the multiple game modes (one way traffic, two way traffic, etc), make for a nice quick gaming break in your day.

After sinking nearly 40 hours into the game, I'm still having a blast... a Demolitionist blast, that is!

Grim Dawn gives me everything I want from old-school Diablo, Torchlight, Victor Vran, and most other ARPGs I like, with few of the pain points while adding a pretty cool class and skills system. World theme vaguely reminds me of Victor Vran, sort of a dark fantasy-laden pseudo Victorian era world in decline.

Start by picking a Mastery... basically a character class. I chose Demolitionist because FIRE, EXPLOSIONS, INFERNO, GUNS! And, since I ended up loving two handed rifles, I chose Shaman as my second Master when it was offered to me a few levels later as I could boost my 2H weapon damage (both melee and ranged). Turns out, Demolistionist + Shaman = Elementalist, so I'm out there blowing stuff up and napalming to my heart's content.

You can choose your skills from nicely branching skill trees, and there is a secondary system called Devotions. By using Aether crystals to complete constellations in the night sky you'll get some pretty cool bonuses.

Death penalty is more like Dark Age of Camelot than Everquest (to compare to some other RPGs). You'll lose a percentage of experience, but you don't lose all your gear and gold like in Diablo (I HATED THAT). Like DAoC, if you get back to your grave marker, you'll get most, but not all, of your experience back. Also, bosses will regenerate some if you die while fighting them.

I see there are pets in this game, but I haven't come across any yet. Whether that's because of my choice of masteries or I'm just not high enough yet, I don't know. I tend to progress pretty slowly vs time played because I am a completionist/explorer and have to find every secret and uncover the entire map.

Interface is clear and easy to learn so far. Story is engaging enough to keep me going. I'm planning on picking up the expansions when I can, since they add more masteries and I really want to try out the necromancer.

If you like ARPGs that are not the same old thing, I highly recommend Grim Dawn. Hell of a lot of fun.

TLDR: A fun, arcadey flight game where you can dogfight, strafe, and bomb run the enemy in WWII.

Taking place over Britain (imagine that!) in WWII, you fly various missions against the Germans in a variety of British planes. Graphics are decent and the game runs decently smooth which is important as you use a mouse and keyboard to fly in casual mode. There is a flight-sim mode, but I was looking for a fun arcade flight game, so I didn't try the flight-sim mode out.

I've actually finished the full campaign twice, because it's really that enjoyable to me to just jump in and quickly get to work flying about to shoot down Luftwaffe. Targeting is by no means difficult, but you do need to be accurate when shooting.

Whenever I want a little WWII dogfighter action, I pull this one out of mothballs. It's 2019, but this is still a fun experience for me, and with the price as it is now, there is zero reason to not pick this one up if you're looking for a nice, casual arcade flight game.

TLDR: this game is brilliantly fun.

I pre-ordered this game back in 2016 (is it really that old?), and have had MANY hours of fun trying to build the perfect living/office/shopping spaces. One of those easy to learn but hard to master games, I learned a little something new with each new highrise I built. ProTip: Make sure you have enough staff and enough utilities for everyone! For example, units will get dirty and need to be renovated, and if you overload your phone system, tenants will get mad and move out.

The missions ease you into the game with goals you have to meet to proceed (make $xxx each day, have x number of office rentals, collect x number of prestige points, etc). If those aren't your cup of tea, or you finish them all, there is a sandbox mode where you can just build your dream tower.

The graphics and animation are simple, but extremely pleasing, and the management side of things offers complete data, but not in an overwhelming manner. Music is pleasant, but fair warning: it may get stuck in your head if you play a lot like I have.

At the time of this review, it's the Winter sale 2019, and this game is on sale for a CRIMINALLY low price. Lunch at McDonald's costs more. If the concept interests you at all, there is absolutely no reason to not pick it up. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised... even at its current full price which is cheaper than it was at release. This game is a gem, and I'm still not bored with it after over 80 hours of gameplay.

I picked this up on a whim... and I'm glad I did. The game works on the paint by number theory, except the pictures are all created from pixels, and each pixel has a number corresponding to a specific color. You can fill it in however you like: one color at a time, or a section at a time, using your mouse. That's what's great about it! No clock to rush against, no failure scenarios, just the fun, somewhat meditative practice of coloring by numbers. You get a lot of bang for your buck here, with many puzzles included in the base game. If you run out, or want to try something different, give some of the expansion packs a try. They are VERY reasonably priced and a lot of fun as well.

The music is nice, if repetitive, but you can turn it down or off if you want.

And, c'mon... any game with a Bob Ross badge has to be good, right? ;)

UPDATE: Finally got to the last boss, and I'm really, really disappointed. This is where the game's fatal flaw is. Not only is the boss fight tedious, but you're lucky to have enough gold to fill your healing potions (If you've been spending it properly to unlock cards slots and upgrade things). Additionally, this is where the big weakness in the "click move" mechanic becomes painfully apparent. Irritating as hell trying to move when you click somewhere and your guy just STOPS unless you keep the button clicked and even then, he sometimes won't move. They really need to fix this mechanic.

I started playing this game back in Early Access when it was on my wishlist and a friend gifted it to me. I don't often do EA titles, mostly because I've been burned (as you have, I'm sure) by the games remaining perpetually in EA, unfinished and sometimes abandoned. I am really glad that is not the case here.

I have to tell you, if you like fantasy RPGs and dungeon crawlers, you will LOVE this game.

It's not a traditional ARPG like Diablo/Torchlight/Sacred etc., but it's unique and it works. It's a combination of grid movement exploration and battle, and cards. Three class archetypes to choose from, with varied difficulty levels: fighter, rogue, and spellcaster.

Much like with a tabletop RPG of old, they layout is grid based and you move on the grid. Kind of like rails, if you will, but you can attack anything you can see, on the path or not. The paths make it easier to see where you've been (footprints) and which directions are completely explored (gold footprints). You can let the game autoattack for you, or you can speed things up and attack manually.

Your skills and equipment are represented as cards you collect. You can upgrade them, and they have different rarities. The rarer, the more powerful they are. You have a limited number of card slots in your "deck" to start, but you can unlock more slots with the gold you collect in the dungeon. You can also have multiple sets that you can switch between as the situation dictates. Weapon cards and armor cards you simply "wear" and you gain their effects. Spell cards and special attack cards you have to activate. The combination of cards you can equip and use is dependent upon how much mana you have. Mana is used for both equipping and spending on spells or special attacks.

The game is quite literally a dungeon crawler, and you just go further and further into the depths, triggering some special quests along the way when you get deep enough. You can choose how big of a dungeon you want to clear, and the game eventually learns fairly accurately how long it will take you to clear what size dungeon. So, if you have all afternoon, go for a big one. If you have just 15 minutes or so to kill, make it a small one. Larger dungeons competed give you more progress in the overall quest of clearing the dungeon of evil.

There's a great variety of evil monsters to kill, and the game has a bestiary and a running tally of kills of each kind.

One thing I really like about this game, other than the "dynamic" dungeon/adventure sizes is the art style. It's almost like 3D paper. It's REALLY well done, and rather unique in my experience of game playing. I personally haven't seen anything quite like it, and it really shines when it comes to ares of fire on the floor, for example. I'd call it cute, but if that turns you off, think of it as "bad***" instead.

So far, I haven't found it terribly difficult, but there is enough of a challenge that you can't just waltz in and click everywhere and survive. Especially with bosses, there is some strategy involved.

I'm also a completionist, so it's really nice to have the adventure tracker at the top of the screen, so you can keep track of monsters and undiscovered loot. With that, combined the footprints mechanic, you won't miss anything.

I'm having a LOT of fun with this one, and am looking forward to playing the other classes once I get good enough with the warrior to feel comfortable with the game mechanics.

Ok, here's the thing. I've always liked necromancer type games, and vampires, and mummies, and werewolves and all that Bela and Boris stuff. But, some of the real hardcore horror games don't appeal to me. I don't care for gore all that often, and I don't like true horror. I like the old campy stuff. And that's what this reminds me of... hear me out.

This has skeletons and orcs and humans and bears and scorpions and treasure chests and magical weapons and skeletal necromancers summoning the dead, and it's all done in a cute art style that I love. I mean, c'mon. How can you NOT think the main character is adorable? And during the first mission when I got undead bears, I was over the moon.

Mechanics are pretty simple. Move around, and you can face whichever direction you like while moving, so you could be moving backwards and sending your minions in an entirely different direction. Takes a little bit if you're not used to it, but if you've played games like Gauntlet or any other sort of top down or isometric shooters that play similar, you'll be fine. I use keyboard and mouse, but this could work really well with dual analog sticks, I imagine, like on the XBox360 for Windows controller.

At any rate, raise your army, point them at your foes, and let loose. It's not a game where you can control your minions exactly like in a true RTS game. I mean, they're mindless undead for Anubis's sake, so the best they can do is go in the direction you point them and murder things. Since they're mindless, they won't retreat, either, unless you tell them to. They have two modes: follow and attack. And that's all they need, really.

If they die-die, oh well. Just raise some new ones from the corpses of the recently deceased in the field. If, somehow, you run out of corpses, find a port back to the Crypt, and you can summon a new army from a selection of statues. See, when you kill enough of a certain type of enemy, be it a bear, or a bowman, or a squire on a horse, the respective statue in the Crypt unlocks, and you can go back any time you want for reinforcements (provided you find a portal).

When you level up, you have three basic choices. Focus on health, mana, or command cap. Each unit has a command score, and you can't go over your command limit. If you've played any of the King's Bounty series, you're well familiar with this mechanic. Example: your command cap is 50. The total command points of all your units added together cannot exceed 50. You can mix and match however you like, though.

You proceed through the game by completing quests and conquering human settlements in the name of the undead. I am having a BLAST so far, and it has quickly become one of my favorite games. There's a bit of strategy involved, but mostly it's a relaxing romp through undead-ville, and I love it. But, then, the theme is one of my absolute favorites, and it almost feels like this game was made just for me.

Verdict: 10Tons of fun. Would raise again. And again. And again.

UPDATE: months later, I still love this game.

A very fun game I've spent many hours on. I finished the initial campaign, and am working through the expansion, now. I've always wanted some kind of oil tycoon type of game, and while this isn't exactly what I had in mind, it does scratch the itch. It's a combination puzzle/strategy game that has you bidding on plots, then searching for oil, pumping it, and trying to sell it for the highest price possible. You compete against AI, but there are also leaderboards to participate in if you like.

Fun game, great art, good mechanics, and I haven't run into a single bug. I'd love to see this theme fleshed out into something more like an oil tycoon + city builder type of game, but until then, this definitely fits the bill for a number of fun hours.

I can't stop playing this game. I didn't intend to spend my entire week off work playing Two Point Hospital, but that's exactly what happened. Long story short, for those that may not be familiar, it's basically a modern take on the Theme Hospital type game... a hospital tycoon, if you will. Maybe Sim Hospital?

Anyway, the afflictions are funny, the humor dark and sometimes dry, and if you like optimizing layouts and staff, you'll love this. After I learned more about the game as I was playing, I even went back to previous hospitals and optimized staff and layout there to make them more efficient. It's kind of like a sandbox in that way, though there is no full blown sandbox mode.

There are a couple of bugs at launch, such as the patients sometimes just hanging around in the wards getting ignored by the nurses (can be temp fixed by picking up and putting down beds), and there seems to be a need for an inordinate amount of GP offices. I've had as many as 9 in one hospital and still had lines. I don't know if this is a bug, or the way it was intended. IRL, everyone goes to the GP first to get diagnosed before being sent for more specific diagnosis or treatment. At any rate, the devs are very active in the forums here, and have a place to specifically post your bugs. They're putting out patches as fast as they can be tested. They're here, they're paying attention, and they're fixing the few things that snuck through to launch.

I've been having a LOT of fun this week, as can be seen by my hours played. I played until 6am yesterday... I think I'm going to try to go to bed at a decent hour tonight.

UPDATE: Wards bug has been fixed. Copy and paste rooms has been added. More updates and enhancements and they're still coming. Stellar team.

I love this game so far. It's about time someone made an automobile factory strategy game. Constructing buildings, laying out cities, and planning zoos is a lot of fun, but I always wished for a game like this, and the dev has delivered so far. It was a bit frustrating to get started initially, as the Early Access version could do with a bit of a better tutorial. But, after failing and restarting a few times, I think I finally got it... well, the initially available stations, anyway. Now I find myself having to retool after upgrading, for instance, 'Paint' into 'Undercoat, Dry, Paint, Dry, Polish', etc.

I seriously gave it a go yesterday and I lost my whole day to it... and that'll probably happen with the rest of today, too. I've already got a plan to reduce defects now that I've got the smart junction research done, and I'm eager to map it out.

Gameplay is really good, keeping in mind it is still early access... I ran into a bug yesterday where every car that I assigned AirCon got 10 of them, and I was constantly out of stock at the Fit AirCon station LOL. It seems to have resolved itself later on down the line, though. Also, the art is actually really good. I can't tell you how many times I've thought a game sounded good to play, but the terrible art turned me off and became a distraction. No worries about that here.

Dev is very involved, constantly updates, and posts video blogs to YouTube which is a nice way of going about it, IMO. Cliff seems like a great guy, and he's obviously talented because he's kept me entertained for hours. I can't wait to see what the game evolves to.