Recent reviews by SneakyFox

Did you play Theme Hospital back in the day, enjoyed it, and miss playing it? If so, play Two Point Hospital.

If you didn't play Theme Hospital, but enjoy a dose of dark British humour, management games, and isometric construction and planning, then this is a game you should consider playing.

Not worth the price, even on sale.

A game with a lot of promise, all of it squandered, and now left abandoned.

It has been over 2 years since the last piece of communication; do not expect updates or the game to change.

By this point I would be frankly amazed if you hadn't heard of the troubled history of Godus.

What this has resulted in is a game which is incomplete (but still being sold) which went from the beginnings of a solid game which could have lived up to at least some of the promises made and been at least the type of game that people were sold on to a game which with every update removed interesting features to pave the way for a mobile port.

Unfortunately, this left the game with all of the standard mobile time-sinks, but without interesting gameplay to go with them, and with no way to bypass them either.

Don't even get this on sale. It's not even worth the hard drive space to install or the bandwidth to download.

Please Note: I received the Special Edition due to previously owning Skyrim plus all of the DLC.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim was, and still is, a game with a massive amount of content to explore and a modding community that only expands on that content. The Special Edition still has all of the content (and the massive number of side quests) that the original had, although some of the mods have yet to make the switch between the two. It would almost be possible to argue that there is, perhaps, too much to do in the game. If you were to rank games on the sheer amount of time you could spend exploring them then there would be only a few that would rank higher than Skyrim.

Graphically the Special Edition is also a nice step forwards from the stock version of Skyrim and it's hard to deny that it is now very pretty. However, it is worth noting that mods for Skyrim had equalled or exceeded what the Special Edition manages. The Special Edition though does manage to strike a nice balance between performance on modern PCs and graphical advancement.

However, the content is not the only thing that has been migrated from the base game. Whilst rare, some of the glitches and bugs from the original also have come with it. Fortunately, on the PC version, you can at least fall back on the console commands to resolve most of them, but it can still be annoying.

Overall, if you own Skyrim already but didn't get the free upgrade then this may be one to wait for it to be on sale as the graphical improvements alone don't quite justify buying the story a second time, but if you didn't get a chance to play the original Skyrim and you enjoy fantasy RPGs, then this one is probably going to be worth a look.

Review written whilst game was in Early Access.
Features are subject to change, and it's always possible that this review will become out of date with future updates.

Don't be put off by the visual similarities to Prison Architect (something which gave me pause before picking up the game). Whilst a similar (or indeed almost identical) visual style has been used there are enough differences in the gameplay to set this apart.

RimWorld has an interesting core concept to it that will likely appeal to a number of different people. The default scenario starts with a small group of people marooned on a frontier world and having to survive in this hostile (and semi-alien) environment.

Before delving in a little further to the details, if you're going to pick this up in Early Access I would strongly recommend that you make sure you're happy with the idea of relying on the wiki and forums for information about the game. The in-game hints and tutorials are currently rather sparse and lacking in this respect. Hopefully, this is something that's improved over time (although with Early Access there are, of course, no guarantees).

A solid game for an in-development project, but which has a steep initial learning curve and few tutorial or hints in the game. Check out online tutorials and the Wiki to get the most from the game. If you can live with that, then this game might be something for you to at least investigate further.

After selecting your colonists (at least in the default scenario) you'll be dropped in to the first planet.

You plan out your settlement, set where you would like your colonist/survivors to dig or build, what to hunt, and leave them to get on with it.

It sounds simple as a first step, however, with the default scenario only giving you three to start with (each with their own sets of skills) it quickly becomes a delicate balancing act between creating the rooms for your characters to live in, the tools and equipment that they'll need to survive, and the food that they need to live. It's very easy to get this wrong and find that whilst you have created ample room for them to sleep that you've neglected to gather and cook enough meat to feed your characters so they're now starving and eyeing up your precious dog Scruffy.

However, this does create a slight problem for the game. It's most difficult when you're starting out, but becomes easier later on as you gain more colonists and already have some of the buildings constructed. To start with there's a desperate scramble to get a kitchen and sleeping quarters set up whilst trying to hunt for food, but later on when your freezer is stocked and you've got enough rooms to house an army of prospective settlers it actually starts to become significantly easier. The difficulty curve is (almost) reversed which gives new players to the game a rocky introduction to their first planet. (I really cannot over-state enough that reading the Wiki or watching some online tutorials is almost a must at this point; hopefully a lot of this information will be incorporated in to the game later in development).

Research, leading to new buildings and items, provides a progression as your settlement increases in size and we can only hope that as the game continues in early access there will be more content added to this (not that the existing content is lacking; but it could easily be expanded as well).

Later on in the game raids by other settlements, natural disasters, and more do provide some challenge for players who have gotten past that initial bump in the road. If you find yourself becoming stuck in the early stages of founding you colony, check out the wiki until a good tutorial/introduction is in place.

However, one of the few bug-bears that I have with the game is that you can only randomly generate colonists for the default scenario, each with strengths and weaknesses (or all-rounders). Unfortunately, there are certain skills which are almost required to start a colony (such as someone with the ability to haul raw resources around) so you will find yourself randomly generating until you have most of the key skills covered. Please, please, let me have random as an option for when I want that "hardcore" approach, but also let me just customise the skills and select attributes on a points based system! I'll get the same result by randomly generating them, but it just takes longer.

This is something that I feel lets the rest of the game down massively. It's something to perhaps expect from an Early Access game. The layout and design of all of the buttons that you're going to need to use feels un-intuitive and the hover-tips aren't always all that useful. It's an area where you really need to start to rely more on the Wiki and the forums to help understand how you get to the menu you need to (for example, to change which of your colonists will do which jobs).

If you've played Prison Architect and were happy with the visual style used there, then you're going to be at home in RimWorld.

The visuals used to represent the world, the characters and animals in it, and the elements of buildings are clear and distinct enough for you to tell at a glance what is going on. However, there is perhaps some work to be done on the icons used for certain buttons in the game to make them a little more intuitive (this is hopefully an element of polish that will be added).

However, it is worth noting that if photo-realistic graphics are what you're looking for then this probably isn't the game for you. The screenshots available of the game are broadly representative of what you can expect from the game.

I've had no issues in running the game. However, I am running with a PC setup that includes an i7, 16GB of RAM, and a GTX 980 Ti. I can't speak for how well the game holds up on lower specification systems.

I've encountered a few here and there. However, there haven't been any that have stuck in my mind as being particularly game-breaking or obnoxious. Again, with development in progress some bugs are to be expected.

This is one of those games where I really wish that Steam allowed for a numerical ratings system, or at least a "neutral" option for recommending or not.

If you've played the original Company of Heroes you'll know a lot of what to expect from the gameplay. Capture resource points, build up your forces, and use them to smash through the enemy lines.

For players not familiar with the first CoH game it is worth noting that the relatively low unit cap does mean that you'll be relying on micro-managing the positioning of your units, where they're taking cover, and which way they're facing far more than in some other RTS games. Tanks and crewed weapons are particularly notable for this, as tanks have different levels of armour on their different faces and some weapons can only be fired in the direction they are facing.

The single player campaign mixes things up a little with a slightly broader variety of missions, often giving you only limited numbers of troops to complete the mission rather than relying on you being able to build more.

One of the new additions to CoH 2 is perhaps one of the more controversial. Micro-transactions. Like the original Company of Heroes you can select your commander during a battle, and this gives you access to new special powers or vehicles to call in. However, in CoH 2 if you want more variety in the commanders you can select from (and, indeed, some of the ones with more powerful abilities) you'll either be grinding for a long time (read 40 hours or more per commander, and there's a lot of them) or you'll be paying out in micro-transactions. You also won't see this ahead of time as these commanders are not available in the Steam store, only through the in-game shop.

Where the commanders just provide variety to mix up the abilities you have this isn't quite so bad. Where they're a straight upgrade you can pay for to make you more powerful this is slightly harder to swallow.

The larger DLC available for the title has been a little more of a mixed bag, and it's worth noting that single player and multiplayer content has been split for the DLC. Where the original CoH tended to have a single player campaign accompanying the new forces as they were released, this one doesn't. Keep that in mind when eyeing up the DLC; the British forces can only be used in multiplayer and skirmishes, and the Ardennes Assualt pack is single-player only (you need to purchase the US multiplayer/skirmish pack separately).

In the end, my decision to recommend this game was a difficult one. When the game was first launched at a more expensive price, with the amount of content that was locked off, it would have been easy to not recommend it at that time. However, with the drop in the price of the base game this isn't quite so bad, but with the cost of the micro-transaction commanders not insignificant it still feels slightly like you're buying part of a game to start with, then being nickel-and-dimed for the rest of it.

If you're a fan of WWII RTS games and you see this on sale (or if you're going to be happy playing skirmish or multiplayer with just the limited selection of commanders) then definitely pick up the game. If you're after the single player content, then you'll want to grab the game and some of the DLC packs.

I wanted to like this game, however, in the end I just cannot bring myself to recommend it (certianly not at its current price).

A billion planets to explore, all slightly different, on which you'll be doing exactly the same thing as you did on the planet before (and on the planet before that).

Broadly speaking there are two types of planets; safe planets and hazard planets. On a safe planet you can run around to your heart's content pressing X to collect some resources, and pressing RT to collect others. On a hazard planet you'll be doing the same thing, just slightly slower as you return to your space ship every time the hazard bar (be it cold, heat, or radiation) gets too low.

This epitomises the problem that No Man's Sky faces. It's an exploration game with a nearly endless number of planets, but the only difference is in the visuals and names of those planets (and indeed, in some cases such as Plutonium and monoliths, not even in the visuals).

Sure I came out of hyperspace once to be faced with a massive planet that makes me go "wow". The first time I encountered an alien race and had to learn its language, that was kind of cool. But once you've had that experience for the first time that's it; you can come out of space to a massive planet in your view-screen and you've already seen it.

But then... Plutonium is always a red crystal structure that you press RT to destroy and gain some resources. On every planet. Never is it sometimes buried in a rock face you need to excavate and process with a machine you need to choose between taking space when you move on or leaving behind. Thamium-9 (or should we call it Same-ium?) always seems to be a plant that you run up to and press "X" on. Sure, sometimes that plant is blue, sometimes it glows, but it's never different enough to make me stop. You meet a new race and spend the next hour searching out monoliths, just like the last time you met a new race (or going through identical sets of ruins).

The same short loops repeat time and again; find a planet, find and fetch the resources, find and activate the monoliths, maybe aim at some rocks to scan them, move on to the next planet. Everything you do is effectively a fetch quest.

I'm sure there's more to see; that I could go to another planet and find a four-legged dome-topped animal instead of the tentacled dome-topped one I've already seen. That I could find the yellow iron rock instead of the brown iron rock. I could probably find a purple Thamium-9 plant to go with the red and blue varieties (and maybe it'll glow). But I'd still just be running up to it and pressing a button before running back towards my ship.

For an exploration game the idea of having billions of planets is great (and I'm sure there's ten minutes of amusement to be had naming them after Monty Python references).

However, you need new things to do when you're exploring; new challenges to overcome. We need the ice planet where you have to construct a sled and tame some local animals to pull you around. We need the radiation blasted world where you have to dig a tunnel network. Encountering the same set of pre-fabricated structures and red crystalline formations of Plutonium over and over and over on every planet... Just doesn't do it for me.

Summary:
Such a waste of the Warhammer 40,000 IP.

Whilst the game is in Early Access and improvements may happen it seems like core elements of the game (such as the game mode and gameplay) are very lack-luster.

Performance:

• Runs badly on a PC with an i7, GeForce GTX 980Ti, and 16 GB RAM.
  It may be an Early Access game and further optimization may happen, but that's a pretty beefy rig that's struggling with framerate drops.
  
• Input lag. The game has it. Very noticibly. Want to move right? Prepare to have to think about this and start pressing the button a second before you need to move.

Game Mode:

• No safe zones mean there's no chance to spawn in safety or buy items. You will be killed (repeatedly) as you're spawning or attempting to purchase items.
  
• Prepare to struggle getting in to a match that's any fun - the game is quite prepared to throw you in to an in progress match where you are the only player against a full team on the other side.
  
• There's no strategy. You hope to hell you spawn near a team mate and that you run in to an enemy who's spawned on their own. The maps are too small to allow anything but the most rudimentary of tactics and there are not really any pinch points to defend. The game basically turns in to TDM.
  
• NPCs/grunts/etc. don't seem to serve any purpose. Instead they just run around and attack anyone and everyone. They don't count towards currency, victory, or indeed anything.

Tutorial/Learning:

• There is none, other than a few lines of text about the general game mode. Prepare to suffer trying to learn how to play as you can (and will) be thrown in repeatedly against full teams of experienced players.
  
• What text there is as a part of the 'tutorial' doesn't explain more than the very basic controls and the vague idea of the game mode. There's no more in depth information about the use of abilities (such as which ones are instant use and which ones are targetted).

UI:

• The menus aren't too bad. Other than the fact that the game mode description of what you need to do is hidden in the options menu.
  
• In the match though... It's awful. There's very little indication of when you're attempting to trigger an ability, what difference it's making, whether it's worked, or in actual fact anything which would be useful. Combined with the lack of tutorial or a mode to actually learn the game (such as against bots) expect to be confused a lot of the time.
  
• Feedback to the user is just missing. Want to know why you're taking damage, what the effect that's hit you is, why you just died? Good luck as you're completely on your own.

Visuals:

• Character models feel like they've been ripped from the original Dawn of War - a game released 10 years ago now. The animations that go with them, however, are below the standards of Dawn of War and just look clunky.

Balance:

• There is none. Always go for the melee characters. The arenas are so small, the ranges of the ranged weapons so short, and the speed difference between ranged and melee characters pronounced enough that the ranged characters will lose out.

This is a good game - far better than EA's latest contribution to the city building franchise.

However, the game isn't perfect by any means. None of it's flaws are unsurpassable, especially with some prior thought, but they are worth keeping in mind.

The lack of an "undo" feature is painful at times, for example when you're working on a massive highway system and suddenly realise you built part of it backwards. This is especially annoying as there's no way of changing the direction of sections of highway or one-way streets once they're built - you have to demolish and rebuild them.

But the fact that I'm describing flaws such as the one above should give some idea of how solid a lot of the rest of the gameplay mechanics are. There's nothing so hidiously awful that actually breaks any serious enjoyment here.

If you want to keep your city running in the intial stages do keep in mind you'll need to fiddle with the funding sliders for your services a bit - you might be able to produce a billion megawatts of power, but until your city needs that much turning down the funding for power might be a good idea to keep your city budget in the black (and your citizens in the light).

The short version: Call of Juarez Gunslinger is a lot of fun to play.

If you've played the previous Call of Juarez games you will find that Gunslinger has more in common with the first two in series and very little (if anything) with The Cartel (which is definately a good thing).

As the name would suggest Gunslinger is more action orientated than the original or Bound in Blood. This is not necessarily a bad thing - as anyone who remembers the section in the original Call of Juarez where you had to flee through the forest will probably be able to tell you.

Gunslinger is told as a series of interconnected short stories, narrated by the main character, and this has allowed a number of liberties to be taken without breaking immersion. You're not playing a game of this characters life and exploits, but instead you are playing out the re-telling of them.

Overall it's a fun game well worth the price.

I picked this up in a multi-pack with several other games as I had played previous games in the series before. Honestly, I think I might have been better off paying more to buy the rest of the pack separately without this one.

Avoid this game and here is why:
The graphics are at best mediocre. However, despite this expect to find the game stuttering and struggling to keep up (especially when turning corners). This quickly becomes more than a minor annoyance when you find yourself losing control because the game has stuttered on a corner. Textures applied to the walls around the track (such as graffiti on the concrete) will flicker. (Keep in mind this is on a PC with an i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 670).

The car handling is distinctly fishy. Half the cars will stick to the road like glue. The other half will be sliding all over the place. There is nothing in between.

The AI is even fishier. When they go around corners expect to see carnage as they drive straight in to walls. To make up for this the AI will quickly catch you on the straights – passing your car with no problems even when you’re burning nitro.

The damage modelling on the cars is all or nothing. Where Flatout Ultimate Carnage slowly added damage to the cars depending on the impacts in this game your car is either brand new or has been completely crumpled. There is no damage in between these two options. As soon as your car scrapes against anything expect to see the whole car appear as if it has been squashed by an 18 Wheeler.