Recensioni recenti di Um...Spinlight

Yo dawg, I heard you like civilizations so we put more civilizations in your civilization, so now you need a flowchart to figure out how the hell you are supposed to arrange districts in your cities.

My first telltale game. Do not regret it, even though it gave me nightmares.

Will inspire you to take short breaks to hug your loved ones.

I originally discovered this game because it was free on Playstation Plus. After getting hooked on that version I bought it on Steam.

As stealth games go this is one of the best. If you like turn-based games (I do) this is a no-brainer because it combines all the best stuff about turn-based games with all the best stuff about stealth games.

Great game, amazing replay value.

In this vast post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with wonders and horrors and the wreckage of my society's shame, I spent all of my time in Sanctuary; building, tweaking, re-building. Again and again and again I laid the foundations of the future of human civilization, only to tear it down when I realized that no one else in the wasteland could find a path through my carefully crafted fortress. I made walls, ramps, doors. I envisioned a window here, a screen door there, but no matter how much time I spent working and shaping the land I could never get it quite right.

I did not venture far from Sanctuary. I did not venture often. What I found out there only made me want to return and strengthen the walls, re-double the armaments. Some nights I could hear sounds coming from the woods across the river. Some nights I heard screams. On a few occassions raiders approached from the South, but they could only wander back and forth along the river until they finally came into the range of the turrets...

After hundreds of hours, I had finally re-built a ruin into the ghost town I had envisioned. A carefully planned community, perfect in every way. Clean lines at every corner. Solid walls around the perimeter. An impenetrable fortress. I stood standing on the roof of my highest tower, ready to power the beacon that would draw other settlers to join me, standing there looking out over my perfect creation. As my gaze drifted over the walls I saw a gigantic mosquito skewering a lone survivor near the river. A survivor dressed in rags, carrying some kind of makeshift pistol whose reports echoed across the river, but whose bullets did little to deter the monstrous insect.

I suddenly remembered some modifications that I needed to do on the bunker along the East wall. As I imagined the modifications a new layout for the entire bunker began to take shape in my mind. A new town to suit the new bunker. A new Sanctuary to restart civilization. I climbed down from the tower, took a sip of fresh water from my freshly-drilled well, and donned my favorite working hat. The remodels would take time. Better to get some rest now. I lay napping in my bed, reading a copy of Picket Fences by the light of a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, the jukebox playing quietly. The settler's scream were eventually silenced and I drifted off to sleep.

Finally, a WWII first-person shooter that ask the hard questions, like: “What, exactly, is the normalized value of eight M1 Garand rounds and a hand grenade?”, “How do I balance my esprit-de-corps against the operational cost of my grease gun?”, and “Can myself and a friend, riding a bicycle, outpace a 1940’s Ford truck?”

The answers to two out of three of these questions are addressed by a clever twist on a tried-and-true free-to-play mechanic known as “credits”. The answer to the other question is simply, “Yes”.

Each round players are awarded credits according to their performance relative to everyone else on the server. Each round credits are deducted a specific amount for every bullet you fired, every grenade you threw, and for “maintenance” of the equipment that you brought into the match. These are the “Heroes” in “Generals and Heroes”, apparently burdened with the cost of supplying and maintaining their patriotism-waging equipment.

I can only surmise that this must have something to do with the overarching concept that some general, somewhere, has to sign off on requisition forms to get bullets, grenades, and the WWII equivalent of hot pockets into the hands of soldiers every time they want to put boots on the ground. This mechanic is what puts the “Generals” into the “Heroes and Generals” of this game. Not really sure how that part works because I like to emphasize the “Free” in “Free to Play”, and putting on a General hat seems to involve either grinding away at this game for a very long time or handing over real life currency.

If you have ever wanted to a play a game where pulling the trigger was preceded by a momentary pause to consider the cost of taking a shot, or enjoy tallying the expenditures of a military campaign down to the level of individual bullets, this is the game for you.

It is otherwise a pretty straightforward WWII first-person-shooter.

This game feels like someone took several successful games over the years and frankensteined them together, complete with a Swedish Mad Max voiceover. The overall effect is initially disorienting, but smooths out as you embrace your new existence as a 3-person hive mind.

The combat mechanic is pretty straightforward hack-n-slash (think Torchlight or Diablo), with the twist that you need to try to manage the actions of three heroes instead of just one. After just a couple encounters, I realized that remapping my squad members' special abilities and treating the whole group as one entity was pretty critical to coordinating their efforts. Over time it became apparent that much of the game's value lies in this novel approach.

The navigation from town to town and much of the writing is very reminiscent of the first Fallout games. Random encounters occur when moving between known (and unknown) world map locations and the NPCs scattered around have hilarious problems that they need you to help with.

There is also a basic crafting system and everything devolves pretty quickly into a treadmill of quest grinding and gear looting/upgrading.

The world is mildly intriguing, if you are into post-apocalyptic mythos, and exploring it is the main reason why I continued playing after I wearied of inventory shuffling.