Recent reviews by Nikopolix

The best fighting game to play online on Steam, with tons of content.

+Great artstyle.
+Interesting story.
+Cheap
-Short
-Can't skip or ff dialogue

One product from the time when publishers wanted "the cinematic experience" that still plagues the industry (short, pretty games that don't offer much in the way of replay value), and one of the better ones from that period.
It's a good game, but I can only recommend giving it a shot if you got it discounted from somewhere, because watching it on Youtube takes away part of the experience.

There's been a sort of card game boom for a couple of years. Streamlining mechanics, having the most impartial judge (the cpu itself) and making things simpler have been a huge boon to game developers investing in this genre, making it really popular. Shadowverse is one of those games.

But Shadowverse's greatest asset has become its biggest problem in that there is no way to truly interact with the other player during his turn. There's no blocking, no instant cards, activated abilities, no trap cards, etc. This has made way to a matchup based gameplay (side decks aren't a thing in SV!) that discourages actual deckbuilding, and where matches are in the end short by design.

Far better than expected, but it could be better. At the very least it looks way, way better than "gems" like Berserk or that rooster teeth show.

Also it has a neat version of 99 kyo's theme as the credits music.

The Good: Everything you love (save for the game itself being able to run on any computer) is there and more.

The expansion is pretty good and the campaigns' difficulty picks up after "The Conquerors", so they are fairly challenging. The new civs are very interesting and the balance changes are welcome. I only miss the lack of voice in the missions and that they didn't add them in contrast to the fully voiced "African Kingdoms".

The revamped AI (which comes from "the forgotten" mod) is ruthless and plays closely to how many people online play. It has certainly helped me to improve my level skill in skirmishes, and while it is also vulnerable to some cheese (tower rushing will shut it down, doesn't use transport ships...), the old AI is nowhere as capable of being such a powerhouse in most random maps.

It also has Steam Workshop support, it makes tasks like using mods and maps something easy and safe.

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The Bad: Poorly optimized. I just don't know how they manage to do that to a 15 years old game that not even when it was released was hardware intensive.

Compared to the HD version of a certain castle simulator Age 2 HD is a complete joke. If you are only inclined for single player content I'd recommend you to get the original games and apply the widescreen patch + the free version of Forgotten Empires. If you want to play online there's a huge community at Vobbly that doesn't require to have this specific version of the game.

And for some reason they also switched the default hotkeys, making it a bit difficult to adjust, but one can just edit that so no biggie.


tl dr: Still great, but only buy during a sale if you have no means of getting the original game and its expansion.

Better than Getter

-The game is based on the 2000ad Dredd strip, NOT on the movies. So expect a lot of the cheesy dialog, one liners and the satire usually found in the comic. What you should not expect are high production values, the game not being a very consolized shooter or a long single player campaign. I found some (mostly from melee based) enemies just stand between obstacles like pillars and irregular terrain without reacting to the player. Same thing if you stand on high ground or similar situations, so the AI isn't a high point either.

-The enemies are varied at the start but in the end you'll fight pretty much the same type of bad guys in the last 3 levels making it a bit boring if it wasn't for the ammo constraints due to the fact that in story mode you can only choose your secondary weapon and all the Lawgiver modes share the same ammunition.

-On the good side it has a lot of references to the strip and its many iconic stories and characters, an arcade mode with short levels you unlock as you complete the story mode (with some interesting cameos) and a funny, but really short campaign. The game is fast paced and doesn't pull any punches when it comes to difficulty unlike most modern shooters released during these last years, containing also enough flavor and variety to compensate for its flaws.

-I recommend it if you have nothing else to do with the "hard earned" money you got selling cards, and I strongly recommend it if you like the comic strip Dredd. Stay away if you only watched the movies or if you don't really want to play what it was a budget game when it was released.

LET'S GET SCRATCHIN'

On my defense it was on sale.