Recent reviews by Halatosis

Click download, boot up and got to 'Content'. 'Forgotten Love' is under the 'Add ins' section and can be enable/disabled there. It gives a couple of extra heros it seems. And its free :)

Sorry, but it's way too tempting to go postal and shoot everyone. For that reason, recommended.

Currently on humblebundle for a dollar with a couple of other titles. Whatever they are I don't care - I doubt I'll ever play. But this, oh yeah!

Yeeee-Hawwww. Nah aham a gonna git sum craaazi vahmit, etc.

Looked forward to this given all the hype at the time the following GCII enjoys today. Bought, installed, played, got bored, uninstalled, forgot I had. Basically, a bit of a disappointment - just rather dull :(

OK, so it clearly invites comparisons with Xcom and it clearly isn't in the same league. Nonetheless, its enjoyable and different enough to warrant your attention. These days it can be picked up for near Poundland prices and if you approach it as a cheap and cheerful budget option it's fine.

Oh, but the animations are an insult to anyone with eyes in their head. Whoever reviewed and passed the cut scenes should take up cold call PPI sales instead.

If 'He-Man and the Masters of the Universe' had a love child with the Civilisation franchise then Endless Legend would be the result.

Note I've not played any of the DLC so my comments are for the base game alone. Even in vanilla, it's awesome. A realistic learning curve and an immersive storyline this is a cut above the rest - enjoy.

As I write I am desperately heading a scavanging party out into the wild once more. It seems a blind foray hunting for meds, a dark sense of forboding as I know unless I track done a single dose of elusive antiboitics by the end of the day I join the hordes of undead. Yet despite this it all feels irrelevant somehow. Should I find that elixir I am still lost. I am surrounded by one time allies who have grown to hate me - sometimes through bad decisions on my part but more often than not due to the cruel hand of fate. With their ever growing sense of discontent they are sure to grow resentful and suspecious if I somehow buy another three days when so many of their loved ones have suffered the grim fate. It feels as hopeless as the end of the world...which, of course, it is.

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In short - I'm hooked. This is not a perfect game but nor does it deserve the large number of negative reviews. OK, I've only come on board post-'reanimated' release, but it still seems harsh. I suffer from the 'floating cursor' issues (note for devs - it is related to the graphics but not as simple as just the card - if I pull the interface to an old square VGA monitor the problem goes away; would also love to see scavanging without the main character to let them heal) but I feel compelled to try and work with it nonetheless...but only a minority seem to have this. But it is immersive - when I'm playing, I'm in the game world and I have a taste of the pressures. I feel the strain of the unresolved crisis - I know the right course of action but am unable to take it due to spent resources. Initially put off by the archaic weaponry I expected from screen shots I instead find a mix - you'll have some gunfire but blended with other options. So utilising everyday tools as lethal objects - as naturally they can be - is perfectly in keeping. Hit someone with a crowbar and it feels as though it hurt. The noise meter makes sense - a novel twist for an under utilised sense in turn based strategy. Yet there is more than this. There are characters which you will feel affection for and others you'll want rid of - just as in life. You'll regret bad decisions - neglecting morale too much, spending too many parts on repairing a wall before I upgraded it, allowing too many of my ranks to become infected being mine - and feel a boost when fate smiles on you.

As far me I realise that all is indeed lost...perhaps time to restart without the option to allow the main character to become infected. Three days in he picked up the strain and has gobbled meds ever since...to the detriment of colleagues. Now the landscape seems dry perhaps it is time to start over after all...

Picked up this game for a few pence in a sale. Sunk hours into it until I thought I'd exhausted it. Tried again after a few months with a new scenario, lost hours again. Doubtless I'll tire in a while and need a break. So take one, come back later and loose hours again. Rise and repeat.

Can't think of a few pence spent which have been so entertaining (despite the odd crash to desktop...at least there is autosave to help out).

Entire squad got wiped out on the second mission versus the crew of a light scout. Excellent! Would allow one of the local armed forces to go in and draw fire to absolutely no avail again.

Ragequit, restart one level of difficulty down. First mission. Two soldiers in a tricky suitation need some cover. Send in a shield dude to throw over a smoke grenader for cover. Confused smoke grenades for flash-bangs. Opps.

Kinda miss the cattle prod from the original X-Com. Tazering civilians to a senseless heap of jelly on the floor always seemed the most effective method of stopping them running into heavy alien plasma fire. Here you do get a a rather phallic truncheon of an object for all your stun-fun but don't try it on civies - they just die. Yep, found out the hard way. Ever if it did bring them down without taking them out I can't help but miss the double handed bovine bullier nonetheless.

In the meantime Xenonauts offers what seems to be a genuine challenge with an atomspheric sound track. More spartan and strategic than the Firaxis title this seems closer to the original in gameplay but more like Apocolypse in visual side (just exchange the retina-burning primaries for more earthy colours). Recommended, nice.

Meh.

If you're happy to wait (and pay) for DLC for a decent game then the building blocks are there. Personally, I felt Firaxis rather missed the point when the followed the market trend - deliver something incomplete and have a pay-again-to-play model. Personally, I think they got it right with XCOM - DLC was either entirely very much opional (Elite Soldier Pack, Slingshot) or an out-and-out upgrade (Enemy Within). The point is that base XCOM felt like a fully fledged game in its own right. But not Beyond Earth.

Not bad, just half baked.

Being a fan of turn based strategy - and still trying to find something which recreates the atmosphere of Master of Magic - I really wanted this to work. The combat aspect does but the problem is there actually seems to be so little else. There's nothing wrong with combat in an empire building game, of course, but the lack of other gameplay dimensions just leave MoA feeling rather unsatisfactory. With their being few options to win other than destroying - or at least dominating - the opposition alliances seem rather pointless, rather too obvious examples of marriages of convenience. Focus is so much on the 'home world', units continuously fed and gobbled up into the unending battle, that diverting resources to the alternative worlds is wasteful. Any serious attempt to move into such worlds requires such numbers that it inevitably leaves the flank of the home world vulnerable, often ensuring defeat. Sadly, this leaves the additional worlds feeling irrelevant and gimicky, as oppose to the desperately essential New World fat with resources Myrimor felt like in MoM. There seem to be rather rudimentary omissions too - after all my hours my victory is greated with a rather underwhelming still; there is no leaderboard to record the same after the disappointing image; there are no steam achievements; the choice of wizards somehow lack personality. It's seem polished at first, but somehow a bit by-the-numbers and rather unfulfilling. Shame - really wanted just a bit more, but the search continues...