Recent reviews by The Gaming Archaeologist

I really wanted to like this game, but as I played it, the game felt a little like a shallow hole of what it could've been and with no real story I found it very boring so I couldn't even justify playing anymore for the story.

All you have in terms of gameplay is Tutorial, a few scenarios and a sandbox mode. Beyond this, not much else to talk about.

Your residents in the vault start out unassigned and you have to give them roles, however, you are severely limited because only certain people, via RNG, are able to do roles such as scientist (which does both research and medical), Worker (Who does mining, building, deconstruction stuff), Janitor (Meant for cleaning up rubble and such. Also cleaning up Molemen tunnels to stop more from spawning), Engineers (Who repair and maintain all of the buildings in your entire base), Farmer (Used to help grow food for those in the vault to eat), Chef (Cooking up meals, ready for whenever the dwellers need food.) and both the elderly and children are unable to take any jobs, often simply using up your resources until they die or, in case of the children, until they're adults and you assign them.

Since there are no stats, it's a pain in the ass to get more residents, which you do via use of the incubator where you grow new children. You can spend research points to pick what their job is and get them ready for it, but that's still quite a wait and will ware you down. It's especially annoying the older ones can't do anything, considering my experience with Rimworld, not to mention the flexibility in jobs in the game too so you can always make up for shortages. Here, you can't. You just have to hope you remembered to give out enough correct jobs or you'll end up losing all your buildings by having no engineers, everyone starving to death because of no chef, unable to build anything or dig because of no workers, place gets extremely dirty because of no cleaners and no research or medical help with no scientists and, as I said, you have to wait for the kids to reach adulthood and unless you chose their skills with research points, it's up to RNG if they have any of the jobs you want. Beyond this, you can research everything and then your research points are next-to-worthless.

When building a lift for the new floors, I was glad that you can go down to new levels, however, you cannot your power, oxygen or water from the upper floors to the lower floors, making it a pain in the ass as you have to now rebuild generators and such on the new floor too!

I'm sad to say I was pretty disappointed in this game.

So, just completed this and got the achievements so now's the time. What did I think of it?

Well I decided to put this into my offline games because I've been really itching to play a strategy sim for quite some time. Especially after seeing Undead Inc and thinking that it looks amazing! But I have to hold my cash back. Especially as opening reviews haven't been too...friendly towards it, but enough of that game what about this one?

The game is the story of someone who has an idea for a video game, however, he's unable to impress any investors and he has no money to make that dream possible, so he just goes out to get high and once he does he has the idea from his friend to get into the dealing trade! After this we are taken on a story where we deal in all kinds of illicit substances and keep getting blocked whenever we try to build up the cash to hire our programmers, artists and writers for the game as we get involved in a turf war, the police and even the biggest of all evils. Bitcoin!

The story has it's moments and can be a little funny, but I often found it not that funny, though the one thing I loved was the building up your group, selling/producing drugs to better equip your people before you start clearing up the map and taking everyone out!

I have my own petpeeves however. You are expected to get sales and depending on upgrades and such, you may not get that many sale a day where as the AI has no such restriction and merely by taking over properties, they have an increased income, allowing them to attack you and others with more people. They don't have to mess around with dealers to sell the stuff, producers to make the various products and take part in researching so they get a slight advantage there in regards to attacking since they seem to have no other actual function, which feels weird. It's like if an enemy in Command & Conquer had no harvesters, yet were still getting money to produce units to attack you with.

I still had fun with it though and I felt like some of the missions flew in the face of what you're taught earlier on, such as one requiring you don't sell anything, but have to produce to sell wholesale or how you get discovered if you have anything over $100 (most buildings and upgrades and units cost far more than this) which in these cases, I've had to look up solutions online which isn't fun. It makes you feel like it's your fault and that you were meant to adapt to these new instructions without being told how to deal with it...or maybe that's my Autism creating a block there...

Just checked it's price (as of 24/05/2024) and got to say, I think it's a little high for what you ultimately get. I've played cheaper and better RTS games out there. That said, however, there is a Sandbox mode where you can choose to have all kinds of buildings set up (though it's often random, only dictated by size) so you can truly play it endlessly if you want and set the AI to 3 so you can fight all the main villains in the game at once! There's also fun unique events that happen too, which are certainly worth a chuckle or at least gaining more money to keep expanding.

It's not a great game, but it did scratch that itch I had and would recommend it when discounted. It's certainly not bad, but it didn't really wow me much. Especially as your units can only equip 1 item, making things limited and often meaning that I NEVER choose certain items because, why would I bother with them when I can get a more powerful weapon?

This is a game I had fun with in the past after someone I knew got me into it. I admit, I wasn't too certain with an online game, however, I found myself having a whole lot of fun in this ARPG!

Styled after similar games like Diablo, you are at a bird's eye view and control a single character, chosen from a selection as that will be your class, however, you can branch out from that class into a few different ways, though I found that bit more complicated than it probably should've been.

I chose the witch and focused on summoning undead to fight for me, filling up the screen with hordes of zombies and skeletons after my friend had shown me the ropes, given me a few useful items and gems and explains what stats boost what for me.

The story is also quite interesting, being where you play as a ship-wrecked prisoner who was on your way to be exiled, but as the boat crashed you and other survivors start making up camp and slowly exploring this strange new island that's filled with dangerous monsters wanting to kill you all!

I admit I lost my attention with this game, mostly because I have so many games out there that I can finish and being a online one, this one will probably never be "completed" but I have it installed, ready to return to it whenever I would like to sometime.

As usual, my first part of this stream has dropped so here comes the review!

Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom was originally [kickstarted](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/438269196/shiness) to the tune of $139,865 which was just over it's goal of $100,000. Quite an achievement and with the game they delivered a very fun game that I enjoyed greatly! It ended up being one of those hidden gems that had been sitting in my library, begging to be found until I finally stumbled across it!

In the game, the magical energy that people use to cast spells and also govern their lives is called Shi. Due to wars and attempts of exploiting Shi for their own good, the planet has become fractured into many pieces, yet still manages to just barely hold on.

There are multiple story threads going on with many interesting characters. Starting with these two Wakis (short furry people, who aren't taken seriously as a race) who are travelling on a roughly made air ship of their own making that crashes and are looking for a mythical land, said not to even exist. That said, one of them has an invisible companion, Terra, who swears it's real and is trying to lead the two there.

A Shelk (tall furry humanoid) is escorting a human under cover of darkness to his people's home in an attempt to request asylum and escape from whatever she was being drawn into.

A ruthless mercenary is also chasing after this young woman to attempt to bring her back home to a family who are willing to pay handsomely for her return. Armed with a rose-whip he's considered extremely dangerous.

The gameplay takes place in the form of an adventure. Running around and unlocking new areas with the use of powers obtained from different members of your party that you unlock, similar to the many open-world lego games! The first two characters have their own abilities with Pooky being able to manipulate energy to link nodes to crystals and Chado (pronounced Shadow) can summon a huge rock that can be used to throw at enemies to stun them, throw into breakable walls to smash them apart and even use them for distractions or puzzles that often involve a pressure plate. Until you get more members of the group, old areas will have areas blocked off from you, making you want to revisit these areas in a metroidvania kind of style.

Combat is played more like a beat-em-up where you need to be aware for attacks if you're attempting to cast some kind of spells and to be on your toes for those casting spells directly at you. There are moves and combos that you get to learn as you travel, buy new techniques and pick others up as you level.

Combat is started when you make contact with a creature (apart from bounties as they often have their own little story attached) where you get thrown into an arena and have to fight them, not leaving until you've defeated them where, in typical RPG style, you obtain money, materials and items! It's a fun change from the usual combat being turn-based, as much as I do love turn-based combat it's fun to try something new like with this game and fight in a tense combat situation where not being aware of the game mechanics can really screw you up. Along with being potentially over-confident with how I was in some cases where an enemy looked just like it's weaker cousins and it'd end up smacking me around like I was nothing!

I had also found the story really engaging and after finishing the game I was hungry for more, however, it appears that the company closed down due to bankrupcy within three months after the games release so I'm afraid to say that a sequel looks like may never happen. It seems we may never actually get a conclusion to this and that's a real shame because there was a lot of potential with this game and the series that could've potentially spun off from this game, but for the moment we'll always have this game as a reminder of what could've been and maybe even inspire others in the future with ideas for their own projects! Until then, this is another case of a game with no sequel and the story will have to remain in limbo.

Gameplay/Stream: https://youtu.be/k_j-JX2fVj4

(Note: Bought and played this not long after release so my memory might be a little off)

I initially bought this in a splurge moment and it was fun for as long as I've played it, however, I did often find that I soon ended up with so much money I'm sure I could've run for president!

Anyway, I do love these turn-based games and I was expecting this game to be like the VERY old game, Gangsters, however, it seems that unlike that game, the city map and the combat map are very different. This isn't a bad thing, but just not what I was imaging, but it kinda makes sense anyway.

You can set up your own little businesses, both legitimate and illegitimate, like producing alcohol during times of prohabition, running a lottery (which you can choose to rig or not, I don't because I believe everyone should be able to get the money to spend) and I remember having your own law-firm where I ended up paying them so much that I struggled to have any dirty money to use on anything and only had clean!

The combat is a lot of fun and your melee characters are actually very useful, often delivering some very nasty blows to those you're up against.

There's a lot of new DLC for it now and I am certainly considering revisiting it at a later date when I get that DLC to see what I may or may not have missed.

(note: Not played this since 2015, so apologies for any mistakes.)

A game that launched hundreds of memes with Vaas, who turned out to not be the main villain. He's like the first major villain and is the one who kidnapped you and your white-bread friends to ransom off. That said, his sister is also crazy and crazy for you! Depending on your choices at the end though, she supports you all the way through, seeing you as a kind of chosen one for her people.

The game itself is a very fun FPS with a strong focus on stealth as not only do you stalk animals for skinning and materials, but for upgrades to your equipment and to use these abilities to stalk the bad guys, revealing the maps in, you all know it by now, radio towers!

At first wasn't too bad until you started seeing this in EVERY DAMN GAME that you've come across from this publisher! In here, each tower is a little different, requiring a little parkour here and there to eventually get to the top and then restore communications.

I quite like the idea that, as you're working with these people who have deep tribal traditions, that your upgrades come in the form of ever expanding tattoos all over your body each time to level up, regardless of if it's from passives or not.

The ability to mark targets is extremely useful when you want to take time to take out your opponents or plan on how you are going to approach this camp. Including releasing the tiger cage and letting them take full attention before you start your attack or even let it wipe out everyone, which happened to me and was hilarious.

There's a lot to do and Vaas being your antagonist for quite some time is a very entertaining character. Much like Trevor from GTA V, you'll always remember them the most, even if you don't remember the game all that well many years later.

I had avoided the hype and it was a good thing I was because this game was not all that! You play as a guy who, after losing a member of his family and another becoming mute after the experience he starts to take the law into his own hands, despite his own criminal past it seems that the police has a real struggle trying to track him down and arrest him. Despite looking very suspicious and (according to Ubisoft) iconic. Even more unbelievable than Agent 47, a muscular bald-guy just walking by and not being suspected by anyone. He actually chances his outfit whilst Aiden here keeps wearing suspicious clothing.

Using your magical hacking skills (let's be honest, it works more like magic than not) you can steal money from random passer-bys (with no meaningful consequences to those actions. Regardless if you steal from someone who is poor or someone who is rich and works with your enemies) , hack traffic lights for your advantage when escaping the police, entering secret cameras and getting a look in all kinds of people's dirty little secrets (yet not reporting them with said evidence or even using that info) and even getting involved in some vigilante behaviour, though that bit was always a bit annoying as you had to wait for the person to commit the crime first and not attempt to prevent it. It was fun to investigate murders though, making me think of Batman Arkham City where some of the killers were leaving clues you need to track down. That said, there were many moments I felt he had a real chance to end things, but didn't.

I don't know of it was on purpose, but the main character also refuses to see his current living child, who is still traumatised from the entire experience! Maybe they were attempting a deeper narrative as he is focusing on those who are dead and withdrawing from the family member who is still alive as pointed out by his sister who is currently taking care of him. There is a discussion here about the path of revenge and as a quote one said:
"Before going on the path for revenge, dig two graves." often because despite how glamourised it is, you can wreck yourself and fall down into all kinds of dark places and do anything to get your revenge that you are not the same person afterwards. However, the game paints his sister as just an annoying family member that "Doesn't get it" and is suggesting to just forget what happened to him so I could be reading FAR too much into it!

The game courted a lot of controversy with hidden settings on the PC version, in a folder that was literally marked something like "E3 demonstration effects" or something similar where they tried to convince us that the graphics of it were going to be next-gen and pushing your system to it's limits for all the beautiful look, but what we got was something dumbed down to "make equal to the console version" which just spurs on this hatred between console and PC gamers and is a terrible excuse for not wanting to work harder on either versions.

Another event Ubisoft weren't prepared for was, as they decided you must have a Uplay account to play their games from now on, on the first day of sales their servers crashed demonstrating that their anti-piracy measure here actually stopped you from playing your legitimately bought game. Even if you want to play it offline.

It's pretty funny that the villains here are rich groups and organisations who deliberately exploit their public and that's exactly what Ubisoft have been doing! Guess it's true that you should write what you know about and if you're a company that has abused your workers sexually, then you know all about causing abuse to make your workers feel terrible!

I did have fun with it for what I played, however certain things didn't work too well as due to the horrible pop-in I had trouble using the ability to make sewers burst as they'd appear too late for me to have used them when in a chase. Often only appearing when I'm just about to run over it myself! Unlike the trailer which makes it totally possible to do. As a typical Ubisoft game it can be fun, but I'm not interested in supporting this company and there was too much false advertising around this game for me to give it a positive view.

I had fallen in love with this game immediately. Especially as similar games have not existed on the PC before, but now many new and fun versions have popped up and I'd like to think this helped start that!

I agree with what one reviewer said about how these kinds of games are a power fantasy for adults since your only worries during the day is to farm a little, throw food into a mass-sale bin that pays off your taxes easily and settle down and meet up with people in the town. The kind of life we're advertised is possible in the real world, but more than not isn't the reality...but that's going to lead off topic.

That said, Jojo Mart. You can choose to become a sell-out to corporation and make your living for this company. It's interesting to have this choice and personally went against them due to how your character did work for them in a dead-end job and now with this farm you have freedom! Not to mention, I'm totally on the side of "♥♥♥♥ Corporations" as they are overly bloated on their own money and like to step on everyone.

It's a great game to use to escape reality, focus on your farm, exploring the caves and meeting up with all of the many different interesting people about town and even getting married to the man/woman of your choice!

A lot of time has passed since it's release and though similar games exist, this one has still gotten updates and I'm very eager to return to it, see what's new and just have a whole lot of fun with it again!

My first experience wasn't so good as Fallout 3 had trained me to not look at anything beyond that stupid navigator in the corner and not actually think about what I was doing, but as I dug in I found that the choices in this and how you can have to navigate yourself in this harsh environment, not to mention all the different factions that you can side up with, without them being black and white like Fallout 3.

It brought be back from great memories of Fallout 2 and even had brought back many characters from that game and such like Marcus or the references to the previous games with the vault 13 canteen.

The game is buggy, which is to be expected from the outdated engine Bethesda keep trying to claim isn't falling apart with age and how Obsidian were forced to use it and create a game, based on this engine they knew nothing about, within 18 months (which is an unusually short development cycle) and had their bonuses tied to meta-critic scores, yes they managed to produce this! I'm surprised it works as well as it does and doesn't just fall apart when you try to start it up! I certainly couldn't make anything of this quality in 10x the time!

Caesar's Legion are often viewed as the evil group and whilst they are the most, in my opinion, morally bankrupt of the groups. They are also providing a more stable social system than the much larger NCR who have spread themselves too thin with all of their expansions and attempt to take over everything. They can be viewed as a alternative depending on your morals and if you really hate the idea of the NCR that much.

North Carolina Republic are a group that found their origins in Vault 15 in the first game and had moved to create their own little town. Shady Sands. During the events of Fallout 2, they had become a massive military group who on the surface advertised that they were bringing law to the wastes, but at the same time they allowed slavers to keep slaves outside of their city limits and would create attacks on other successful cities who they wanted to take control of, but can't attack directly as it'd look bad to do so. They have a fairly weak hold here, being so far from home and that's why bandits have been able to rule with little to no issues.

The idea that you even get a choice at the beginning to either side up with Goodsprings who are a small farming community just wanting to survive and the Powder Gangers, being a group of escaped convicts who are after a place to live and they only know of using violence to make their way. There's arguments here on who to support, of course, though I generally side with Goodsprings since they helped you get back on your feet and I'm not certain the Powder Gangers would've been as helpful if they had control of the town, but that's up for debate.

Even today, this game still surpasses Fallout 4 and 76 despite the many years difference, demonstrating that Bethesda don't know how to make good stories anymore and the community at large are getting sick of their antics and refusing to fix fundamental bugs that modders fixed many years ago. It's existence and loved status has been a hindrance to a company who keep attempting to go bigger, but trip over all the smallest hurdles.

A extra way for them to squeeze money out of you. Even altering the game by allowing you to have the chance to not use up any items when making a bandage being a clear gameplay advantage. Where's the line between commercial game and a free one?