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To say that I adore 20XX is an understatement. It's one of my favorite indie games ever along with Subnautica. The only thing I hate about it is that I had this idea for a long time and never made it first.

Not without it's flaws, 20XX does get somewhat repetitive over time since once you've seen the most common level geometry that repeats most commonly, it gets... common. The lack of environments is also a bummer as it's essentially two boss-types per one stage. You have two bosses for fire, two for air, two for ice, and two for grass, as opposed to one fire, one ice, one air, one water etc.

There's a certain lack of interesting bosses, most notable offenders being Vile VIsage and The Perforator - Breaker of Combos, Mother of Bullets, Queen of the Angles and the First of the Bots. But there's also the flower known as Death Lotus and Twin Astrals that are on the meh side of things. Although Twin Astrals are the least offenders along with Rollster. The other three are just, really uninteresting. And I believe all three got nerfed over time. Both The Perforator and Death Lotus received a significant nerf with they now telegraph where they'll move to next making them much much easier than they originally were.

While the game is randomized, certain things seem to pop up more often than others. A great example of this would be my love for the Owlhawk Armor contrast to my beloved's love for Oxjack armor. While our early co-op games saw Owlhawk fairly often, once Oxjack came into the picture, that's all we started to see. Out of say, fifty games, we'll always get full Oxjack set while Owlhawk may at most get one or two pieces. Followed by Dracopent and Armature. Oxjack feels almost guaranteed every time we or I play alone to the point that I almost feel bitter and resentful whenever I see it ( unintentional, I just have that kind of voice ).

Another good example is how two secret characters are suppose to enable 'Secret Laboratory' rooms to spawn more frequently, yet you'll never find a single one because it's not guaranteed, it's just a higher chance.

Another negative is the effectiveness of certain armors as some are clearly just outright better than others. No one I know, likes the Armature Boots for example. The boots are inspired by X's Fourth / Ultimate armor Hover ability from the MMX series, but unlike that game, these boots completely kills your momentum in the air usually at the worst possible moment. To a certain extent, the Owlhawk boots does the same but at least with them, you can fly.

These are the things that may have somewhat of an impact of one's enjoyment.

The music is fantastic. There's some real gems here like Spark Engine, Endless Echo, Omega Model and Permafrost being my favorites. It certainly lives up as a spiritual successor to the Mega Man series in both gameplay and music.

Originally there were but two characters, Nina and Ace. Then they added the two secret unlockable characters that can effectively be called Hard Mode, and then two DLC characters well-worth the money known as Hawk and Draco. The only thing I find unfortunate is that there's no 4-Player Co-op with this because that'd been fantastic! Two player co-op is great still though.

There's a huge variety of items to increase your stats, reduce your stats, weapon upgrades, and more, leading to virtually endless possibilities of challenges like " I want to make a run where I don't shoot at all, and only let my pets do all the work for me "

While it may seem like I unloaded a slew of negativity at this game and not much positives, it's because as soon as you sit down and start playing it, you'll understand the positives so much easier just by playing it. It's a spiritual successor to Mega Man, if you ever played any Mega Man game, you'll surely know what makes them so good!

Recently the very-early Alpha demo for 30XX was released, the sequel to 20XX, and it's just fantastic as well. I highly recommend that you get 20XX now, while we wait for 30XX to be released.

This'll be a short review because the game ultimately feels hollow.

I'm sure the developers were passionate when they made this game, but I've never been able to get into it despite numerous of attempts to do so. Everything from collecting Lore that isn't well presented in terms of just what exactly you collected to the game play itself that puts emphasis on fast paced action over methodical strategy.

The fact that, your character will always be a rampaging powerhouse of absolute min-maxing and there's nothing you can do to change that is a point of contempt with me. All the colors of the world also feels extremely 'out there' for a lack of better word. It feels like they were attempting to copy the popular style of World of WarCraft but overdid the colors. Frankly, my favorite place in the game was the Sage Store because it was dark and cozy, and not filled to the brim with sensory overflow.

It just isn't a game for me, but perhaps you'd like it.

All your fun will be ruined by the fact that everyone runs around with cloaking devices.

I don't care to write a more detailed review that this. The bottom line is that this game is not as fun as Planetside 1 was.

For such a poor feeling game, a poor feeling review is all that it'll get.

You'll fight what feels like is nothing else than bots. You can run straight into the enemy army and they'll be powerless to stop you. The game feels extremely cheaply made, in the sense that if you put Mechwarrior 2 up next to it, Mechwarrior 2 would still be the far superior game and it was made back in the 90's. And that's not to even mention that htis game is completely outclassed by the likes of Mechwarrior 3 on the fact that MW3 actually have footprints after your mechs.

Go ahead and try this game if you're a mecha-fan like myself, but you'll quickly stop playing it due to a lack of interesting mech designs, slow and dull combat, and that the game is just plain boring.

I'll keep this review very brief.

I cannot at all, recommend this game. This is not Mechwarrior as you remember, this is Mechwarrior made by people who want to earn money from your love for the series before this.

There's numerous of issues that will end up bothering you such as how they utterly discourage you from Alpha Striking in this game by introducing a concept known as 'Ghost Heat', to the simple flaw that it's near impossible to hit someone's cockpit because apparently that hitbox is moving around. You can try this out in the tutorial by trying to find the Atlas' cockpit and blasting it until it actually shows up on the targeting scanner.

I wouldn't really say that this game is entirely money-grubbing however, though there's such elements to it for sure. On occasion, mechs will go down 50% in c-bills price which does help but then you have to realize the numerous of other things that you have to buy with C-bills and you'll suddenly understand the huge mountain that you must climb. To some, this is enjoyable.

To others, who lose 30 times in a row due to bad group-ups, it'll appear nigh impossible.

Despite what I just wrote about them not being money-grubbing, rest assured that there's more than one way they want to extort your money. Certain mechs can only be bought with real money, usually it's the Hero-or the Champion variant. The Champion variant tends to alos give you a 30% C-bill bonus while the Hero gives 30% exp, or if it was vice versa. You use real money to buy Mech Credits which is used for all these in-game purchases, kinda like Star Trek Online / Neverwinter's Zen system. You can by colors, paint jobs, stickers, attachments, and cockpit items for your mechs, or you can just convert the Mech credits you got for actual C-Bills. Want around 30 million c-bills, well, 120$ aught to pay for that.

So do yourself a favor and don't pre-order Mechwarrior 5 since it's the same team behind it. Don't play Mechwarrior Online, instead get Dosbox and play Mechwarrior 2, as well as Battletech: Crescent Hawk's Revenge.

And if you really wanna spite these people, get the Crysis' mod " MechWarrior Living Legends " instead. A fan made free mod, that's a hundred times better than Mechwarrior Online.

Dragon's Dogma.. A name that on mere contemplation brings forth theocratic contemplation.

When we look at the definition of a Dragon, the definition reads;
A mythical monster like a giant reptile. In European tradition the dragon is typically fire-breathing and tends to symbolize chaos or evil, whereas in East Asia it is usually a beneficent symbol of fertility, associated with water and the heavens.

And when we look up the definition of Dogma:
A principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.

The incontrovertible truth about is that there's a Dragon, and you are the prophesied hero of the hour to slay this Dragon, but what does it truly mean to be, Arisen?

In Dragon's Dogma, you live life as a fisher in a small village engaging in casual small-talks with your fellow villagers before your entire life is turned upside down, and you are forced to seek out a greater destiny - A Greater Purpose - in your life. Before you even leave the confines of your village however, a man drops down seemingly from the void, a place known as The Rift, and he presents himself as a Pawn sworn to follow the Arisen no matter where the road loads and how.

Pawns, said to be soulless but not mindless creatures who walk eternally in the Rift between worlds. The Arisen, the one chosen to slay the Dragon. But what does this all mean? It's a mystery you're going to have to find out for yourself...

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Dragon's Dogma is a beautiful game that I like to compare to Dark Souls II and vice versa. Both of the games share a sort of visual similarity to each other although they play very loosely alike. Dragon's Dogma is more based on ideas of old-school Fantasy and Dungeons & Dragons while updating the look and feel of it. You'll fight Beholders, Chimeras, Goblins; Bandits, Dragons and more while exploring a beautiful small part of a larger world.

You'll explore a scary forest, you'll admire the seaside view, you'll have a breathtaking view from a mountain, you'll see a ruined tower in the distance and eventually reach it and explore all it's nooks and crannies.

If I would describe Dragon's Dogma with one word, it'd be Magical.

Dark Arisen, the Subtitle, is the name of the expansion which features a new end game dungeon that you can visit directly at the start of the game if you so desire where you'll face the toughest of enemies - Including Death itself - while uncovering what happens to an Arisen who refuses his fate ...

If there's something negative to say about Dragon's Dogma, it's the forced romance that unless you know beforehand or really look into, will take you completely by surprise. And while that was surprising, I found myself terribly amused by it as well since I seemingly had no say in it and just decided to ride along, but I can see others finding it silly.

Likewise the Pawns, the lovable frustrating Pawns. I equate them to that of Puppies. Before they gain adequate Enemy-fighting experience, your pawn will be absolute garbage. Constantly jumping into battle and then needing you to pull her out of it. But just as a puppy, while you'll scream at the top of your lungs when they make an accident somewhere for the 50th time, you'll apologize and hug them because they're just trying to be a good boy / girl. You'll be quoting what the Pawns say endlessly to your friends after playing this game.

The game does have a multiplayer component to it. Just like Dark Souls, you can summon your friends to help you - but it's not your friends you summon, it's their pawns. Likewise they can summon your pawn to assist them in their world. Later they can send your pawn back home to you with a rating of three categories up to five stars each category, a pre-set comment and a gift if they chose to send one to you.

I cannot recommend this game enough.
My friend got me this game years ago.
I got this game for another friend.
Together we influenced a third friend to get it.

A great game, a great story.
Minor flaws, many hours of fun.
New Game+ mechanics that you can access at will by changing your difficulty setting.

Get this game now for you and your friends.

Strength in Numbers, Arisen.

This will be a short review. More so a warning.

It's not worth the money, not even with all the modding possibilities available.
The game has randomly crashed for me just by moving my mouse.

The only positive thing about this version is the highly detailed enemy combat sprites, and some parts of the world sprites, but the rest is pretty darn awful. And that's not even going into the player sprites which looks like it was made by a teenager new to spriting. It's really really bad.

Even with the modding scene for this an FFVI, I simply cannot recommend this to anyone.

I love the Ocean. I love water. I love to swim, crawl along the ocean floor, look at documentaries about the ancient times when whales walked on land before returning to the sea. Due to personal reasons however, I've not swam in a pool or the ocean for the past 13-14 years of my life, but I dream of when I will be able to again and I want to take a diver's license.

Until that time however, I have Subnautica.

In various science fiction, the idea of a Waterworld is intriguing to many. From the 1995 movie with Kevin Costner, to Star Trek Voyager's episode " Thirty Days ", to even the recent movie " Interstellar ", and that's not accounting in for games like Master of Orion that allows you to both colonize and state that your alien's race is an Ocean planet -- the sea intrigues us all. All ages, all people. Be it for fear, exploration or entertainment. Anyone remember when they showed off Spore the first time on E3 and showed the Aquatic stage? Or how many here have played " 46 Okunen Monogatari the Shinka Ron " - or the Snes spiritual successor/remake EVO The Search for Eden ? All Aquatic stages, and all most fascinating.

Subnautica places you in the role of a guy on the Aurora that for reasons unbeknownst to you crashes into a planet. You manage to have the good fortune to strap yourself solo into a lifepod and eject out, surviving the re-entry, landing where life is flourishing and whatever land there is underneth the ocean is not too deep, and it is here what Subnautica does amazing what most other modern games fail at. It does not hold your hand at all. At most it will do is to give you directions of what you - should - be doing to increase your survival like suggesting that you create a Scanner so you can go out and locate resources, but the rest is left entirely up to you.

If you want, you can pick any direction you'd like and just swim til you get eaten or find something interesting to explore. This game allows this freedom and the only thing that holds you back is yourself, by playing with your fears. The first area you explore will terrify you for one thing, until you learn how to avoid them or treat them as dogs. The second area is so open it frightens you until you realize it's nothing really that dangerous. The third may be annoying worm creatures that bite your behind but soon enough you're dodging them as well. And then you come to an area that's completely dark - Do you have the courage to explore this area as well, or will you avoid it until later?

This is absolutely expertly crafted in this general way. Even though I have completed the game, it absolutely terrifies me to visit certain locations even though I know there's nothing in those places that can harm me, but the look and feel of it invokes a fear so deep that I'd rather not go there unless I absolutely have to. The last quarter of the game I had to quite literary force myself to play because I wanted to complete the game, I wanted to 100% it - and so I did.

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Pro:
- The game has some very beautiful environments, and some less interesting ones.

- Freedom to go anywhere, do anything, right from the start. Opens up the possibilities for replayability.

- It will peak your curiosity to the max, to explore just beyond that next ridge.


Con:
- No weapons allowed policy. I understand, but I do not like Reaper Leviathans. Their bark is just as terrible as their bite. Unlike the others who have a worse bark than their actual bite - And that's not to mention how they all are fond of clipping through walls, ambushing you in caves as my friend has experienced.

- I don't care for the music. I don't like it. So I personally put the music on mute and opted instead to listen to Super Metroid's Maridia theme and similar old classics.

- One of the most useful technologies are only acquired at the absolute end of the game where the need for them are virtually non-existent. This in my opinion, was a mistake and you should had been given this much earlier as it would had encouraged further exploration.


Nitpick:
- The game is not randomly generated. I can understand their desire to have one set world to be crafted with great intent, but I think that a mode that randomly changes the world's layout would gone a long way in increasing this game's lifespan.

- No Multiplayer mode. The argument for that it wouldn't be scary I find is a weak one. On the plus side, the modding community is working on this and they have the developers blessings and that is nice.

- No ingame map. I love building scanner rooms, but I wish that there'd be some way to access all of them you've built to get a clearer idea of the world as it would make it an even greater incentive to keep building them all over the place.


Warning:
- If you suffer from Hydrophobia, Submechanophobia, Selachophobia, or just general anxiety. This game can give you terrible episodes of it, but it is also in a sense, great at having you face your fears and coping with them.


Tip:
- Make a lot of bases the first time you play this, bases everywhere. And along with each base, make sure you make a Beacon. Beacons can be renamed and recolored for your Hud allowing you to in essence keep named bases that you always know where they are, so that you do not get lost. I named all my bases after places from the Metroid Series such as Crateria, Brinstar and Norfair. And as per standard for me, I also named all my vehicles after Tiger-related names, like my Cyclopes I named the SeaTigur DST ( Deep Submersible Tigur ), named after SeaQuest DSV. Keep duplicates of vehicles and tools if you are the kind that likes to take great risks.

It shouldn't come as any surprise that I highly and warmly recommend Subnautica to anyone and everyone.

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“ I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea - whether it is to sail or to watch it - we are going back from whence we came. "
--- John F. Kennedy

Zone 4 on Steam will be remembered as the perfect way on how to not bring back a dead MMO.

Originally an asian MMO from Korea I believe, it was eventually brought to the west through the same company that held other similar MMO fighting games, and things were good for a while. It seemed to be a thriving game back then but it was flawed, specifically in the way you leveled up skills using Skill Strengthening & Superior Skill Strengthening Coupons. Let's just say it was enough to give you PTSD with those damn things. It had a reliable, not too expensive cash shop with enough stuff to make anyone happy. However this was not to last as it was announced that the servers would get shut down. The only place left where the game was still thriving was in Brazil ( of all places ) until it's eventual demise as well.

Fast forward to a year or so back when it was announced that they wanted to greenlight Zone 4 on steam. A lot of old Zone 4 fans flocked to get it through and it did.

The first sign of problem was that it was delayed for sometime ( a week? I don't remember ).
The second sign was that once in the game, the new cash shop was ludicrously expensive. Things that, before had costed say maybe 1$ was now 10$. And then there was the whole upgrade skills system that had been revamped... for the worse. I don't even remember how it was handled in the steam version but I think you had to invest money into it.

Aside from these problems, there was also the problems on the forums - People being outright hostile towards Brazilian people, and others complaining about the server issues regarding that Europeans had crap latency. Being European myself, I can't really say I experienced that bad of a latency issue, but there was some issues certainly. They never fixed this of course.

So to recap:
- Very expensive Cash shop.
- Latency Issues.
- Significantly worsened skill upgrade system.
- Lack of care from Infovine.

They clearly showed that they had learned nothing from why Zone 4 died before.
I remain convinced that this resurrection on steam was solely to line their own pocket with money.

The game remained online for about five to six months.
And then, it died again. A shame really.

A long overdue review.

tl;dr:
You'll have a fun time.
Avoid Multiplayer unless with friends.
Wait until it goes on sale before buying it.

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Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes takes place circa 30 years before the events of Heroes of Might & Magic 5 ( I probably have the time passed wrong ). The families of all main characters meet when suddenly demons attack and each of them get separated throughout the world. The game starts you off playing as the Rampart faction ( using HoMM3 Slang ) which is the Female Elf whose name eludes me, who has to chase off the invading demons of the Forest.

After that scenario, you'll take control of a different one and then a different one and so forth. Until you've played all the five factions: Castle, Rampart, Tower, Necropolis and Inferno. And by far, Necropolis is the one that's an absolute joy to play that had me laughing out loud at parts, along with Inferno on a second place ( although your mileage may vary due to subjective tastes of course ). By far the two worst ones in my opinion was Castle which just felt dreadfully long, and Tower, which is more endurance round and as friends have told me - the point where they almost quit the game outright.

It's clear that they either ran out of time, or ideas, during the Tower campaign.

In terms of general gameplay, you line up your units in a vertical row of 3 in order to send them to attack your opponent. That's the most basic gist of it. Alternatively you'll line them up horizontally to create a walls instead, and then there are Champion, Elite and Special units that require you to use lesser units in order to charge them up and they are usually the game-ending units. Some are ridiculously powerful compared to others such as the Dreadknight. Others like the Wraith can one-shot kill the enemy if it'll hit the edge of the board, or some are more utilitarian like the Magician who can destroy all idle units with one swoop. There's a lot of planning and tactics going into battle and while perhaps not as deep as the classic Heroes series, can provide an interesting mental challenge.

Regarding multiplayer however, my suggestion is to not do it at all or only play with friends. You'll meet people online that have impossible high win ratio of like 500 matches won and zero lost - and that's because whenever they're about to lose, they just pop their connection forcing you to restart your game entirely because it'll end up in a softlock. Furthermore there are zero repercussions for disconnecting making it a further frustration as you'll very often find people who attempts to use "cookie cutter"-builds online, and while that's not an issue in on itself, it gets really boring when you fight the fourth person in a row who fights in the exact same way as the three previously did.

Overall however, this is a rather entertaining game, but I'd wait for it to go on sale before buying it if I were you.