HIGH Robust roots meet new ideas!

LOW The artificial Intelligence is not so intelligent!

WTF The phrase “balance is key” comes to mind.

There was a time when strategic games were the new live service — back in the golden age of real-time strategy titles made by Westwood and Blizzard. Those days are long gone and those great names are either trademarks of another company or forgotten in the mists of time, but what if we could get another great like Command & Conquer the way they used to be made? The answer is Slipgate Ironworks’ Tempest Rising.

Tempest Rising is a love letter to those days of old, and the devs aren’t shy about it. Play is set in an alternate version of the Cold War during which the Cuban Missile Crisis, but instead of disaster being averted, the result is an all-out nuclear war.

Almost three decades later in a world covered in nuclear radiation, an ivy-like flower blooms across the globe feeding off the fallout. This flora called Tempest, and becomes a great energy source. Thus begins a new war between the Global Defense Forces (GDF) and the Tempest Dynasty for the control of Tempest.

As mentioned, Tempest Rising is clearly inspired by things like Command & Conquer, especially Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. The devs use both pre-rendered and in-game cutscenes as narrative devices akin to the live-action counterparts in the C&C franchise. but it tries to add to that formula by allowing players to ask questions during mission briefings and gather info about the history and the world.

The core gameplay loop is like many classic RTS titles. Players should harvest Tempest and expend it to build an army and complete objectives. The two playable factions each come with different units, but they don’t have dedicated buildings, special weapons, or upgrades like modern titles. Each side has eleven campaign missions that provide different scenarios, such as hit-and-run tactics, seizing control of an enemy base, and using stealth and special units. This variety in design is great, as it prevents repetition and often forces the player to switch up their tactics.

There are four different unit types in each faction — infantry, specialists, ground vehicles, and airborne units. The GDF troops were my favorite due to their flexibility and engagement options. Multiple GDF troops such as the Drone Operator infantry and Drone Control Unit aircraft are equipped with drones that can heavily hit ground and air vehicles. On the other side of the battlefield, Dynasty forces are more focused on high-risk/high-reward tactics in which units use the raw power of Tempest to gain a damage boost at the cost of their health.

Almost every unit on both sides comes with a secondary power. Some units can be garrisoned by the infantry and become a moving fortress, while others can turn invisible or become a mobile artillery station. This is where Tempest Rising combines the unit variety and class-based combat with more modern intuitive functions mostly seen in current strategy and tactics titles.

This structure as described is solid, but there is a downside — there’s a significant lack of balance, and that is no small issue when it comes to a RTS title.

The GDF forces have the upper hand when it comes to combat capabilities. They have multiple S-tier ground and air units that can engage with both airborne and ground targets, while the Dynasty troops are mostly focused on one target type each. The GDF’s Trebuchet tanks can also turn into artillery stations and effectively deal with ground targets from long distances, but there are no long-range troops among Dynasty ground units. The drones used by the GDF can be destroyed, but as long as the mothership/operator is alive, the drones will be respawned — essentially, this provides the GDF with an immortal army. Though Dynasty troops can be trained faster and is much more flexible when it comes to gathering Tempest, that fails to cope with GDF endgame tactics and scenarios.

Unit AI is also problematic when it comes to automatically dealing with a mix of enemy troops. When issuing an “Attack Move” to a group of different units, they engage with enemy troops based on distance, not priority. This leads to scenarios where anti-infantry troops focus fire on a tank in front of them, while enemy infantry is cutting them down while remaining unharmed because they’re places a few feet further away than the tank.

Tempest Rising is what I would call a neo-classic RTS — and it’s something we need and hunger for in the modern gaming landscape. The story, gameplay mechanics, and strategic diversity of engagement scenarios make it one of the best RTS titles of the past few years, yet, the lack of balance and problematic AI behaviors prevent it from becoming a perfect experience for avid RTS fans. However, with such a promising debut, I’m excited to see more from this developer in the form of DLC and stand-alone titles the future. 

8.5/10

Buy Tempest Rising: PC

Disclosures: This game is published by 3D Realms and Knights Peak and developed by Slipgate Ironworks. It is available on PC. This copy was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PC. Approximately 23 hours were spent in single-player and the game was completed. There game has multiplayer mode.

Parents: The game is not rated by the ESRB but there are scenes of violence, warfare and human conflicts, as well as running human soldiers over with military vehicles.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are present in the options menu.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are subtitles and visual options available in the game, all of which can be adjusted. There were no audio cues of note. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: The controls can be remapped.

The post Tempest Rising Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH What a journey!

LOW Rough edges during gameplay.

WTF Performance issues? Seriously!?

Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance is a real-time strategy game from Slitherine, the publisher behind recent RTS titles Starship Troopers: Terran Command and turn-based Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector.

Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance begins where everything is about to end; in the wake of Judgment Day. Players assume the role of Lieutenant Alex Church, a commander of a unit falsely marked as deserters by superiors called the Founders. The Founders are what remains of the U.S military after the events of Judgment Day and the story follows Church in his attempt to gather scattered human resistance groups under a single banner while trying to clear his name, with the ultimate goal of getting back to fighting the real enemy.

The story is the most rooted and well-worked part of the game. Not only is the setting — the very first days of resistance against the machines’ takeover — something never experienced before in the Terminator franchise, but Defiance also sheds light on the events that led to the creation of the resistance forces and other factions that were never previously explored. Players’ decisions to make allies or enemies of these factions will also have lasting effects in the story during later missions.

In terms of gameplay, Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance plays more like a real-time tactics game than a Real-Time Strategy, as there are two phases: preparation and deployment.

During the preparation phase, there’s a map of the world with various cities and faction bases to visit. From here, players manage their army or choose the next mission via two main resources. The first, “Provisions”, is consumed by the army when it moves around the world. The bigger the army, the more provisions it consumes daily. The other resource is “Goodwill” which acts as in-game currency to be spent on weapons, equipment, machinery, or hiring new military personnel.

With this in mind, the economy of Defiance is based on finding a balance between having enough provisions to keep the army supplied and then acquiring more advanced units to keep up with the pace of combat. While provisions can be bought with Goodwill Points, Goodwill Points can only be acquired by completing missions. This is where the economy gets flatlined because there’s no way for the player to calculate the income of Goodwill Points or maintain a constant influx of this vital resource.

In most RTS-likes, the main currency can be acquired through generation points (mines, etc.) or a trading system (selling harvested resources, and so on) but in Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance, if all the Goodwill Points are spent at some point, players can’t expand the army and must either finish the next mission with the same units and equipment or return to the beginning of the preparation phase and work a solution out with what little Goodwill Points they’ve got at that time. The lack of a base building/unit production mechanism coupled with the problematic economic cycle is the greatest enemy of the game, far deadlier than a swarm of T-800s.

In the deployment phase, players can control ranged units and vehicles. Some units, like snipers, are best at dealing with infantry while others such as rocket launcher squads are great at taking care of armored vehicles. Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance tries to have a realistic approach toward combat in that all units and vehicles have a limited supply of ammo and fuel, requiring players to manage their supplies even behind enemy lines. When the ammo or fuel of a unit is depleted, they can no longer engage with the enemy or move until they’re resupplied by ammo/fuel trucks. In contrast to the problematic economy, this feature is clever, and adds a deeper strategic layer by requiring constant awareness of not only the threats imposed by the enemy, but potential disruptions caused by mismanagement of supplies.

On the other hand, Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance trips up again, this time on a smaller scale. The player is able to issue commands to units. For example, infantry can go to prone for reduced visibility, and most units are equipped with kit like smoke bombs or EMP grenades. While the idea behind these mechanisms is a nice one, the execution is confusing.

For example, selecting a specific squad in the heat of the battle and giving them special orders is difficult because of how packed the friendly infantry units are, as they tend to stand next to each other. Even if a specific formation is selected for a group, that formation is lost when the units move to a new location.

Other problems I had during my time with Defiance were in regards to its technical side. Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance suffers heavily from performance issues, especially in the final mission. Aside from long loading screens, even my RTX 4080 couldn’t run it in constant 60FPS, and it frequently dropped below 30FPS in more populated areas. Unit pathfinding is also troublesome. In some instances, single individuals from a unit fail to follow the same path as their fellow squad members and fall behind. In other instances, units are obscured by landmarks such as bridges or skyscrapers, and can’t be directly selected.

Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance is Slitherine studio’s first foray into developing an RTS-style title, so keeping that in mind (while hoping for future patches) does make me inclined towards giving them some leeway on the irritations. So, while it definitely has some rough edges in terms of gameplay, the narrative foundations and concepts are strong — on that basis alone, I think this is an easy recommend to Terminator fans and those looking for an RTS campaign with a few twists.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Slitherine. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via Publisher and 25 hours were dedicated to the single-player campaign. The game was completed. There are multiplayer options available.

Parents: This game has no ESRB rating. It contains mild language. It contains mild language and some violence. Robots and humans fight and kill each other in the game, but there’s no blood or gore.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can’t be altered or resized. There are some necessary audio cues in the game such as sounds made by each enemy unit that are not subtitled. The game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Controls can be remapped.

The post Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

This is a transcript excerpt covering the score awarded to Shadow Gambit: the Cursed Crew on the So Videogames podcast, episode 350: S.S. Minnow.

All right, So Shadow Gambit, The Cursed crew. I’ve been waiting for this one for quite a while. It comes from Mimimi games, which I believe is a German company, if I’m not mistaken. I think it’s German. They put out also shadow tactics, which I loved, and Desperados three, which I loved. So it makes a lot of sense that I was waiting for this one eagerly. All three of these games Shadow Gambit, Shadow Tactics and Desperados three are basically in the same category. They are isometric. I guess real time tactics, I guess, is probably the best label. Basically, I’ll just talk about Shadow Gambit for now, but, but understand that the other games are basically effectively the same. You start off with a group with a pirate, a pirate. Her name is Afia and she is undead. This has a very like Pirate of the Caribbean vibes to it where you’ve got like pirates but supernatural oil and you’re in like, you know, these tropical seas and you’re going after treasure and stuff like that.

[00:44:35] Just think like Pirates of the Caribbean. But overhead isometric and with some tactics thrown into it. So basically you take a fire, you get to ship called the Red Mali. And the red Marley has a special ability. The ship is alive just like you are an undead live person. A spirit is in that ship as well, and its power is the power of saving. Now, I got to back up a little bit and explain this. So mimimi they kind of make the same game over and over and over and that that is not a negative at all. That’s a positive because I feel like they’re basically one of the only developers out there who make these kind of games, these kind of like overhead isometric real time tactics, semi real time tactics. But they are the masters of it. Mimimi is a developer at the height of their powers. They’ve got a very clear vision. They know exactly what they want to execute on and they did an incredible job. So stuff that they started in shadow tactics where that was a ninja based game, but basically the same formula team of ninjas doing turn based tactical stuff. They went to Desperados three, which was Western cowboys doing turn based tactical stuff. Loved both of those games. They’re amazing. And now we’re doing pirates. So while some people might be thinking that seems like you’re just doing the same game over and over.

[00:45:51] And in a certain sense, they are. They’re iterating every single time and they’re getting better and better and they are improving. And Shadow Gambit is clearly the best game they’ve ever done. And they were already making amazing games. So in this particular style of game, once you get your extra characters and once you get out of the tutorials and stuff, you’re going to have usually a team of three or maybe five sometimes of people, and each person has a special ability. So for example, Afia has a sword that lets her warp so she can like do like these really quick strikes. And then you get like the ninja chef Toya, he can teleport, which really is helpful. You get like the ship’s doctor who can create cover. She has these magical seeds and she can throw a seed and little bush sprouts out and then you can take cover in that bush. So if you’re in a place where there’s no cover, you just create your own cover. There’s a guy that has a giant chest on his back like a treasure chest, and he has a fishing pole. And whenever he kills somebody, he can use that fishing pole to get rid of the body. Like he’ll hook the body with the fishing pole and stick it inside his treasure chest so that it stops anybody from finding the dead body.

[00:46:53] There’s no evidence left behind. Right. And so you mix and match. I think ultimately there’s like nine characters. No, that’s not right. Seven, seven, nine. Well, there’s a bunch. There’s a bunch. There’s a whole crew. Each one has their own thing that they like to do. And you assemble your team and then you go into a level and you’ve got to just figure out what your objectives are. Um, but the thing about these games is that saving and retrying is always like a key element of the game. And you know, a lot of people are like, Oh, I never save Xcom or whatever. And like number one, I don’t like the word save scum. It’s just like stupid because Like what? Like you’re tough if you don’t save. Like, you have to do everything perfectly the first time. If you mess up something, you’re going to like What? Or delete your save and go back to the very beginning of the game. That’s dumb. I just think that like people who like call it that, it just has a very negative connotation, which I do not appreciate. So I just prefer to say saving because, you know, I’m not an infinite vampire who lives in someone’s basement. I don’t have all eternity to play games. Like I’ve only got a limited time here on Earth and so I want to use that time effectively. And saving helps you play games effectively.

[00:47:57] So I think that’s a net positive. But basically in these games you have to save a lot. They really, really strongly encourage you to save try if it fails, retry like say like reload your save like that’s it’s just part of the game. There’s no way. Okay. Not no way. I’m sure someone’s done it, but like it would be very, very, very, very difficult to get through one of these levels without dying at least once, without making a mistake, because stealth is kind of a huge part of this. Like when you go into this game, let’s say Shadow Gambit, you got your pirates, you pull up on the beach, you got it like let’s say you want. You get a treasure chest that’s like hitting a castle or something. There’s going to be like 50 guards between you and the castle, and they’re on patrol routes. They’re looking one way, they’re looking the other. Some of them are talking to each other. Some of them are sleeping. Like you got to figure out the best way to get to that castle to get that gold. And along the way, you’re going to make mistakes because there’s always people who are covering each other. Like you may see a guard and you’re like, okay, cool. I’m going to use my teleporting pirate and I’m going to sneak up behind him and I’m going to backstab him. And then we’re going to keep moving.

[00:48:58] And you do that and then you’re like, Oh shit. I didn’t realize there was a guy in the balcony above. He saw me. The alarm is on and now guards are swarming at us from nowhere. You can power through that. You can kill all the guards and keep going, but you’re probably going take a lot of damage. It’s really difficult. You know, you might lose a couple people. It’s just like a hassle. And it’s just better to not get caught in the first place. So that is where they’re like, you need to save and restart. That has been true in shadow tactics. That was true in Desperados and it is definitely true here. So they know you’re going to you’re not going to spot everybody. You’re not going to pick the right route the first time. You’re not going to you’re not going to have the right approach the first time. Sometimes the timing is off. Sometimes the timing of what you want to do is very tight. For example, you know, maybe two guards are walking past each other on a patrol route and you need to wait for the exact moment when they’re both in the same spot. So then you can kill them both at the same time before either one can raise the alarm. You know, it might be a window of like one second or something like that, or sometimes even less than that. And so you want to save right before that because if you mess up your timing and one of those guys gets away, he sounds the alarm, then your whole thing is screwed and it’s just like a pain in the ass.

[00:50:03] And they know this, They know it’s difficult. They know getting the timing is difficult. They know that nailing all these things is hard. And so they they beat you over the head with. They’re like, please save, please save and try again. If you fuck this up, reload the save, try again like they’re telling you. They want you to play it that way. And that’s really the only like sane and sensible way to do that. So in the previous games you just saved like, you know, quick save, hit a hit the start button or whatever. It was just it was part of the menu system. Like it was just the thing you did as the player. But in Shadow Gambit, they’ve really taken a look at this system and they’ve taken a step back and they’ve really done something incredibly clever with it. They have incorporated that method of quick saving die, reload, repeat, which you do a lot in this game. They have made it part of the actual story. So you’re Marley, the ship, the spirit inside the ship. Her ability is saving. And so she’ll tell you, hey, we’re successful pirates. And we’ve been so successful because I can use my power to reload time if you guys die or fuck up.

[00:51:01] So that’s how come we are the most successful crew in the world. Because every time we die, I just reload a save, you know, quote unquote, reload A save. She calls it like unleashing a memory is what she calls it. So she’s like, if you die, I just unleash one of my memories and you get to try again. And that way, every heist we do is successful. We never lose a crew member. We never get caught. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera. So the developers have taken the meta element of saving this game and incorporated it into the game itself. And it becomes part of the story, part of your crew is this whole thing which I think is fucking brilliant. It is so brilliant to see that they’ve used this system all these times to previous games and then incorporate it this way is just so smart. I think the story of this game is really cool. I’m not going to spoil anything, but basically her ability to save definitely comes into play later on in the game, so you have to contend with some of that. You also have to free your other crew members who have been captured in various places. You got to assemble the crew. Everybody’s got their own little side story, which is really cool. And the neatest thing is like when you are between missions, you go back to the Mali, your ship and you can just hang out with your crew, you can talk to them.

[00:52:06] It’s like your home base. You’re kind of just cruising in the Caribbean, I assume, and you’re just like talking to your people, Hey, what’s up? What’s your what’s your story this time? Hey, let’s chat a little bit and see a little bit more about you and find out little things. I think it’s just really cool. I love the crew. The crew is, I think, easily the best crew they’ve ever assembled. I mean, I love all the crews. I love the desperados crew, I love the Shadow Tactics crew. But I feel like they went above and beyond this time because each person is very clearly distinct. They have their own full backstory. They have their own little side quest. And spending time with each one is just great because they have little comments. They say during each mission, you can build up rapport with people, and it’s just really, really fun. I think they’re just the most well fleshed out, the most appealing. I had a lot of love for Quentin, the guy with the treasure chest on his back. He’s got a great voice actor. In fact, all the voice actors in this game are great. I think they’re all outstanding. Um, but just like the banter, the back and forth, the feeling of getting to know your crew and feeling like they’re friends, there were definitely certain people who I like spending time with more than others, and sometimes I would take somebody along even if I didn’t like their power so much just because I like them.

[00:53:12] And I thought it was cool. So I really appreciate the effort and time that goes into that. And the other thing that also changed about Shadow Gambit as compared to their previous games was they give you so much choice. Not only do you get to choose which characters you want to take with you on a mission, which wasn’t all. Was the case in the past. In the past, you would have your set level and they would say something like, Oh, for this mission you must use characters one, two and four. For reasons there would be like a story reason, like somebody was sick or somebody got shot or something. And so they had to take a break. And so it would kind of force you to use other characters to kind of use their powers in different ways, which I think is fine. And in fact, I like it. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. I enjoy it. It’s kind of like a developer is imposing a specific challenge, but in this particular game almost never do they force you to take somebody with you. You usually have the ability to choose from whoever you’ve got unlocked at the moment and you unlock them all, you know, I mean, you can get there.

[00:54:06] It’s like half the game is unlocking your crew. Once you get there and you’ve got your full crew, you just take whoever you like and whatever you know, if you like more direct combat, you’re probably going to want to take these couple people if you prefer to be sneaky or you’re probably gonna want to take these couple of people, you know, if you like possessing somebody and being inside the guard’s body, then you’re going to want to take this guy. Or if you want to take somebody and put them in a cannon and launch them out of your cannon, you’re going to want to take this girl. So they give you like these different abilities to choose, which I think is great. You can tailor your experience to whatever you want. I’m actually very curious to see now that the game is out which characters will be people’s favorite. I think the two starting characters, the ship’s doctor and the ship’s chef are both really strong characters. I feel like oftentimes I could almost even solo a mission just with either one of those two people. Excuse me? Those people, um, because they’re very competent, they’ve got a good range of skills and they’re just really quick, but everybody’s interesting. Almost everybody I thought, had a really cool use case. The only person that I didn’t really get along with was the Cannoneer, and I just didn’t find a lot of use for her particular ability of sticking somebody in a cannon and shooting them.

[00:55:11] But then again, I didn’t spend all that much time with her because I was busy like using my favorites, right? I mean, maybe if I had spent more time, I would find different strategies for her. So I’m not I’m not saying that she’s a bad character, just like in the time that I spent. And I did finish the game, by the way. I just she wasn’t one of my favorites. But I am kind of curious to go back and play with her a little bit more to see if I can find different ways to use her. The other major change and a huge improvement is that you have the ability to choose your approach for each level in this game. So let’s say you’re going to a particular island. You got to get to the castle, get the treasure. You can go to the north beach where it’s maybe shorter, but like denser packed with enemies. Or you can go to the South Beach where there’s fewer enemies, but it’s like a longer trek. So you might have more trouble along the way. Or maybe there’s like an east beach where it’s got like some other kind of obstacle where, you know, you might have to find a key before you can pass that one particular gate or something like that.

[00:55:59] So it’s up to you. Like depending on the crew you’re using, are you going to want to have more combat? Are you going to be sneakier? Do you want more, you know, interfacing with enemies? Do you want less? Like, what do you want? What are you after? And you can choose which way you want to go, which I really, really appreciate it as well. I love the ability to just choose and then go and leave it up to me. So it kind of seeing some echoes from black skylines where a lot of the choices in my hands. I feel like that’s true here as well where a lot of the choice in how I played, who was on my team, where I went to, that was really up to me as well. And it was up to me to develop the strategies that worked for me and that were the most fun for me to play. But there’s lots of options. There’s tons of options. So overall, I feel like, Oh, I haven’t even said the most important thing. Well, not the most important thing, But one of the other things is one of the other key things that Mimimi does is they have this ability where you get to certain situations where there’s just no way through for one person. So let’s say, for example, you get to a room, there’s like five guards and guard A is watching guard B.

[00:56:57] Guard B is watching Guard C. Guard C is watching guard D And it’s just really well covered. There’s just like no way through without the alarm going off. This is a hallmark of Mimimi games. So you get your, your team three, 4 or 5 guys, whatever, and then you can program each one to do a specific thing. It’s very easy to use. The interface is really smart, really well done, very simple. So like you pause time and you go, okay, Hey pirate A, I want you to take out guard A and you kind of program. You tell them what to do while the game is paused. Pirate B take out guard B, Pirate C take out guard C And then once we kill these guys, then we’re going to go and kill Pirate D or guard D, and then the whole thing is frozen in time. You just take your time. You think about it, you direct them where you want to go and tell them what moves you want them to use. Melee or, you know, your gun, your sword, whatever. Like whatever it is you’re like you figured out. And then of course, save capture a memory right before you do that. And then you launch it off and then everybody attacks at the same time. That’s how you get through. A lot of the challenges in this game is by having coordinated attacks between two or 3 or 4 people, which I think is great.

[00:57:59] I love that It really gives you some stiff challenges to kind of think your way through. There’s always multiple ways to get through each challenge, and if you don’t like a particular challenge, there’s always another path to go like you’re never locked into really like doing any one thing. If something is really frustrating, you can go a different way. You can go a long way. The short way. The hard way. The easy way. The combat way, the stealth way. Like there’s always a way to go. So it’s kind of up to you which chart you want to go, which which chart you want to course for yourself, what course you want to chart for yourself. You know what I’m saying? Too much. Let go for me right now, which course you want to chart for yourself and then you just kind of just go for it. So I really love that. I love that approach. I love the the ability to program the different moves at once and kind of do all those things. It’s really satisfying to like, you know, you’ll, you’ll program the moves and you’ll see kick off the button and then one guy comes up with a sword, stabs a guy, one guy gets shot, the other guy gets thrown off the edge or something, and then everybody’s safe. No one got no one raised the alarm. None of your people got hurt.

[00:58:54] And this difficult situation got surmounted with with your cleverness, you always feel like a strategy genius when you’re done with it. So I really appreciate that a lot. Overall, the gameplay of Shadow Gambit is amazing — really satisfying and rich, and it succeeds in a space where there aren’t many games out there that can pull off this type of formula properly. There’s a couple on PC that I don’t know about, but if you’re talking about console, very, very, very few games try to approach this level of complexity, this level of strategy. I can’t think of anything that really feels like this at all other than the other Mimimi games. They’ve kind of cornered the market on this, at least on console. And if anybody knows games like this on PC, please let me know because I would like to hear about them. All right. So I have been singing its praises for a few minutes now. Is there anything to complain about? Well, sure. I can complain about anything, just about. But all of these things Let me, before I. Before I get into these nitpicks, let me just say that like, none of the things I’m about to say really significantly detract from the game. I think this game is wonderful. Definitely going to be on my top ten list for this year for sure, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it and I would like to complete the game all the way. I did finish it, I rolled credits, but there is some stuff after the game that I have to I had to put on pause to get to some other games, but I will come back to it.

[01:00:14] Basically, I’ll just say that sometimes I think the graphics can be a little small and they even call it out in the game. There’s kind of like a little joke about it, but you know, you’re on you’re on this overhead isometric viewpoint already. So things are a little bit tiny. I’ve got a pretty large screen, so it’s not that big a deal. But the graphics can get small sometimes. There might be some small detail that might trip you up because you didn’t notice it. For example, one thing that killed me a lot was I would try to be like making a getaway, right? And there would be like a little like a plank on the ground or something that my character got hung up on and it was pretty small. I didn’t notice it right away. So like, instead of getting away quickly, I got hung up on this plank and then I got killed because the guards caught me or something like that. Some of the corners are a little bit sticky. Sometimes it’s not a huge problem, but when it does happen, it does kind of stick out. But the graphics can be a little bit small. I think also there’s a lot of fiddling with the camera.

[01:01:04] You have to have a lot of dexterity to play this game because you’re managing moving the camera, rotating the screen. You’ve got like multiple characters to click through. Each character has a power like an ability wheel and an equipment wheel. So you’re kind of like you’re kind of doing like finger gymnastics the whole time. And when things are going smoothly, it’s no problem. Like you kind of get in the zone and you’re just like, click, click, click, click, click. It’s all fine. But every once in a while something would go sideways and it’s usually like a little panic situation, right? Like maybe a guard that I wasn’t expecting popped up and I’m like, Oh shit, I got to do something real quick. And then it would just like momentary amnesia would hit me where all of a sudden my fingers would stop working. I would turn the camera the wrong way or like I would click over to the wrong character and I would select the wrong attack. And the whole thing would just go like completely tits up. So there is there are moments when it just, you know, like you just lose your focus and all of a sudden your hands stop working. You get alien hand syndrome and all of a sudden it just feels like way too complicated. But you got to just step back for a minute, take a breath, come back to it, and then get back on the zone.

[01:02:05] And then it’s good again. But there are there are lots of fiddly moments, a lot of camera fiddling to get a better viewpoint. Um, and also, I do think along those same lines, certain things I think could be designed for better visibility. The levels look really great. When you get a close up look at them. They look amazing like these pirate shanty towns and these abandoned shipwrecks and the castles. They all look great, but sometimes there’s something on top, like a like a decoration, like, for example, a rooftop. Or maybe there’s like a flag or maybe there’s like a tree or something like that where it looks cool, but it kind of hampers visibility a little bit. It’s not a huge problem, but sometimes I would like not see something because there was like a little patch of roof that was blocking it, or sometimes I would think I could hide under something, but then I couldn’t because it looked like it was a hiding spot. But it wasn’t. I think you could streamline the visibility a little bit, like it’s not a huge problem in any way, but there was just a few moments when that happened. And again, like when it happens, like it’s really frustrating, but that part could be streamlined a little bit. I think some levels are a little bit too tight as well. There was, I think, two specific rooms I can think of where they were just like so packed with guards.

[01:03:14] They were so everybody covering everybody. And there’s double cover and there’s a guy on the roof and there’s a guy over there and there’s a guy on patrol. And I’m like, Oh my God. Like, you know, I could have gone a different route. Like I just said, I could have chosen to do something completely different. But, you know, like I’m already halfway through the level and it’s just this one room. And if I can get through here, then it’s fine. And I don’t want to restart the level. I don’t want to change course because I’m, you know, sunk cost fallacy. I’m too far in right now. I’ve got to keep going. And there was a couple rooms where I’m like, okay, you guys could have chilled out just like a little bit like 1 or 2 fewer guards in here would have been fine. Still would have been challenging. I didn’t need to work that hard for this, but it was few and far between when I really felt like like it was too much. Most of the time it was either I wasn’t using powers effectively or maybe I had a team that wasn’t optimal. If you choose a team that is lacking in powers, they will you will get a warning. It’ll say something like, Hey, with this particular team, you don’t have anybody who can make a guard move that might make this game or this level a lot harder for you.

[01:04:13] Heads up and you can either choose to proceed or you can say, Oh, no, wait a minute, hold up. Let me choose somebody with different powers. So they do they do want you to be well versed and able to handle any situation. But again, you have to figure out how to use those powers. The timing of those powers in conjunction with which teammate. Et cetera. Et cetera. So there’s a lot to it. And rarely did I feel like the developers went a little bit too far. But there was like two to maybe three rooms in the. A whole campaign where I’m like, okay, you guys went a little bit too far with this one, but still got through them. Although I will say the final level and the final battle, the final level is very awesome. I’m not going to say what it is, but the exact final battle was driving me completely ape shit crazy. I, I thought it was glitched at first. I wasn’t sure it was even able to be finished. And I was almost going to ask the developers for help because I was like, Wait a minute, I don’t think this is even able to be completed. But then I figured it out and then I felt like, okay, that was dumb and way too hard and that should be fixed. But I got through it.

[01:05:11] So there’s a handful of places where I feel like even me, who is a vet of their series, who is experienced in these games, felt like it was pushing me a little bit too far. But that’s pretty minor. Pretty minor. The only other thing that I will say sucks. So this actually sucks. This actually does Full on suck is once you roll credits on the game, there’s one extra character that you can unlock. And I was really excited. I was hoping he was going to be able to be unlocked. Fingers crossed. And then you finish the game, you roll credits and was like, Oh, hey, you can unlock this, this guy. And I’m like, Oh, nice. I really want this brand new character. It seems like I’m very curious to explore his powers and see what he can do. But you have to have at least 85% completion to unlock that guy. I rolled credits and finished the game after, I don’t know, like 40 hours. I was at like 54% and I’m like, Oh, dude, like what? I don’t even know what is what’s happening here. So there’s a couple missions I can go back and finish, but I don’t think that’s going to get me to 85%. I suspect what they want you to do is to go back and do like little individual badges for each island. And I’m just I just don’t give a shit. It’s like, oh, walk across every bridge on this island or kill every single person on this island or get your objective without ever being seen or, you know, like, like whatever.

[01:06:31] It’s like little challenges like that kill three people with environmental hazards or something. And I just. I just don’t care. Like, I don’t need that much gameplay out of it. I feel like going through the levels once or twice is totally fine and being able to pick my own team and pick my approach is good enough for me. So I feel a little bit depressed and sad that I probably am never going to get to 85% and I’m probably never going to unlock that character because I feel like that is asking too much from me as a player. I feel like only the most dedicated, only the most extreme players are going to get there. And that makes me a little sad because I love this game so much and I feel like it’s this one that I really, really enjoyed. That felt like a little bit of a kick in the nuts at the end, and I wasn’t too happy about that. Me, me, me. If you’re listening, please adjust that. Just just give us the character or make it more reasonable because going after those badges should be, in my opinion, a completely optional thing. And it is optional because you can finish the game without doing it, but like dangling that character in front of me and having it feel so far away, that feels bad.

[01:07:31] I don’t like that at all. I wish I just had him and I would play through the levels some more and do some other stuff, so that sucks. So please fix that. Please unlock that guy. Don’t make it 85%. You’re asking too much. That’s that’s unreasonable. But again, that’s an optional thing. You don’t have to do it. It’s just like an end game thing, whatever. Take it or leave it. But overall, I feel like Shadow Gambit: the Cursed Crew is a masterpiece — it’s just so good. The story is great, the characters are great, I love the choice and new approach to design, I love the incorporation of the meta elements of the saving into the storyline, your ship the Red Marley… I love everything about this. It’s so fun to have these undead pirates running around with all their powers and in another game they might be really OP and really out of control. But here it’s just really fun. Like I feel like they want you to have fun and just use these powers and really fun and engaging out of out of hand ways. Just really interesting stuff. I love it. I love the crew. I love this thing. I love. I loved all of it. Once I started playing, I couldn’t put this game down and I poured 40 hours into it just like in the blink of an eye.

[01:08:36] So for me, this one is a huge win. I, as I said, I finished it, rolled credits, everything, did almost everything that I wanted to do. Not that that was enough, but for me, I definitely feel comfortable giving this an official SVG game score. And that score is nine out of ten. A solid nine out of ten. This one is amazing. Very well done. And if you’re even remotely interested in this kind of content, it’s just it’s a no brainer. It’s a must buy. It’s super, super good for games like this. This is how you do it. And this should set the set the bar basically for everybody who comes after. So good job. Me, me, me. And if you do make that guy available at less than 85%, I will just love you even more. Nine out of ten. Shadow Gambit: the cursed Crew. That is some good ass shit.

Rating: 9 out of 10

So Videogames Official Score: 9/10

Developer: Mimimi Productions

Publisher: Mimimi Productions

Code Source: Publisher

Platform Reviewed: PS5

ESRB Rating: T — Blood, Language, Violence

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are present.

Subtitles: All dialogue is subtitled but text cannot be resized or altered. No audio cues are needed for play. It is fully accessible.

Controls: Controls are remappable.

The post SVG REVIEW Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

Frank Herbert’s Dune is a masterwork of science fiction — an epic tale entwining war, politics, and religion as space-faring feudal houses compete for control of the planet Arakkis and its primary resource, the spice Melange.

“He who controls the spice controls the universe” goes the mantra.

Dune: Spice Wars puts the player at the head of one of those factions to scheme, slaughter and swap their way to planetary hegemony. It takes some basic ideas from the lore – the spice, giant sandworms, intergalactic taxes – and uses them as foundational components for a solid 4X strategy.

The game is still in early access but is currently in a very playable and polished state – base mechanics seem to all be in plac,e and I only encountered one bug in my 10-plus hours of play. 

The hustle goes like this — players use ornithopters to scout out new territories and villages to conquer, typically through military might, that can be used to construct buildings for the production of things like water, intel, or money. Any village will be fertile ground for construction, whereas only some territories will have spice fields for harvesting, giving the hallucinogenic narcotic the central importance one would expect.

This exploitation and extraction goes along with managing research along a tech tree, building a spy network and throwing influence around in the galactic parliament known as the Landsraat. 

Players can currently select from one of four factions – House Atreides, House Harkonnen, Smugglers, or Fremen – each with their own unique bonuses and mechanics. There are multiple avenues to victory, including ascending to governorship through the political spectrum or simply destroying the capitals of all opponents. The system is quite standard for a 4X, taking cues from Dune mostly in reference and only occasionally in mechanics, like how sandworms will attack harvesters, or can be used offensively by Fremen.

Apart from the theming, I think the real strength on display is how easy Dune: Spice Wars is to learn, relative to the genre. The game does not yet have an in-depth tutorial but I was able to pick up its major systems easily enough with a few prompts and some play. Developer Shiro Games should be lauded for crafting a user interface that makes all these many, many systems navigable.

I should also mention the combat for players who prefer kinetic action over a carefully-planned economy.

Although Spice Wars is ostensibly real time strategy – meaning that it’s not turn-based, but players can still hit pause on the clock – I would never mistake it for something like Starcraft or its own late ’90s predecessor, Dune 2000. Combat takes place on the main map, and while terrain does affect unit travel and different units will have different attack patterns (melee, ranged, etc.) engagements don’t really require the fine micro skills of a typical RTS. It is first and foremost a 4X with some RTS complications to keep players on their toes, and of course, watch out for sandworms.

With multiplayer dropping this summer and even more to come – I know the road map promises ships, heroes, and another faction – this is one that I’ll be checking in on as it progresses. But, even in its current state, Dune: Spice Wars should be a solid experience for genre gamers with just enough of the spice to appeal to hardcore Dunekopfs.

Dune: Spice Wars is currently in Early Access on the PC

— Stephen Cook

The post Dune: Spice Wars Preview appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH An interesting take on city-building gameplay with roguelike features.

LOW It might take a while to get the various mechanics down.

WTF Don’t get distracted or your city might burn to the ground!

Dice are the bread and butter of any serious RPG player — one wouldn’t dare to leave the house without a bag full, for fear of getting caught without them for a quick D&D match! Jokes aside, dice have also been appearing more often in videogames lately, sometimes in cartoonish form (Dicey Dungeons) or in more serious ones like Hand of Fate and its sequel, but in Dice Legacy, they are the backbone of our little kingdom.

In Dice Legacy, the player interfaces with the world from a disembodied ‘god view’ perspective and is tasked with building a colony on a strange vertically-oriented, ring-shaped world. They must provide food, collect resources and build shelter for all the inhabitants of the land, all in real time. This is easier said than done, since everything relies on the luck of the dice — each one represents a character that can be sent to work, and their ability depends on the face they land on after a roll. Rather than the traditional numeric 1-6 pips, each die has skills.

At the start, there is only the basic class (Peasant), which mainly does manual labor. Upgrading it further (to Citizen, for example) can also unlock schools, universities and a whole different set of economic buildings. One twist is that a die can only be rolled a limited number of times before it’s depleted. More can be created (born?) but the player has to always try to keep ahead and make more than are being used up.

Dice Legacy seems simple at first — roll some dice, place the ‘workers’ in slots where they will do their jobs, and repeat. However, there’s a layer of complex mechanisms with a hint of roguelike gameplay hidden underneath, since rolling dice is also the only way to defend the city from attack. Seasons also play a part, and winter can be punishing on our dwellers — they may end up frozen while working in the cold.

The gameplay in Legacy can be addictive, but it suffers a bit from having to constantly balance the durability of the die and the need to have different classes and faces available. There’s also little automation at play — each resource must be gathered manually, and when faced with so much to tend to, I wonder if perhaps having the option to play turn-based might have eased some of these rough edges.

Graphically, Legacy goes for a pseudo-medieval steampunk RTS look, which is solid despite there not being much to look at outside of some well-done environmental and weather effects. I am still in the dark regarding the choice to employ a ring-shaped world, though. Basically, the player can see the rest of the world in the distance shrouded by fog and everything is on a slope curving upwards, it is indeed like climbing the inside of a ring. It’s a neat visual effect, but that’s all it seems to be since it doesn’t come into play as a mechanic.

In the end, Legacy is an odd little title which might end up disappointing both fan of RTS and those looking for something more casual, since it sits right in the middle of these two flavors. That said, I do recommend it to those not afraid to try something a little outside of their comfort zone.

Disclosures: This game is developed by DESTINYbit and published by Ravenscourt. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PC. Approximately 3.5 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode and a single run of the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: The game is rated T by the ESRB for Alcohol Reference and Fantasy Violence. Its violence mainly comes into play when invaders raze our buildings to the ground while attacking our die, but even so, I think it can be easily recommended to the teen audience.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game features little spoken dialogue, while the rest of the game is text based. No audio cues are needed for gameplay. Text cannot be altered or resized. In my view, the game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: The game is controlled via the mouse with some additional keyboard shortcuts, and it is not possible to remap the controls.

The post Dice Legacy Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Using air strikes to absolutely crush a monstrous boss.

LOW Getting the same convoy defense mission for the 20th time.

WTF Oh, so the zombie biomass is thinking now? Fantastic news!

Putting characters in a hopeless situation is a perfect way to establish stakes. People who desperately need to win but knowing they likely won’t make it is a strong way to hook an audience, and this is exactly where Red Solstice 2 starts.

The opening is one of the most dramatic tutorials I’ve ever encountered. The Martian province of Tharsis is completely overrun by mutant zombies. The player takes on the role of the Executor, a genetically-engineered cyborg tasked with leading a team of soldiers on a suicide mission to activate the solar cannon, an orbital weapon that will destroy the colony, killing millions of people and tens of millions of zombies. While the player is learning how to control their squad and interact with the world, they’ve got a horrible countdown in the back of their minds — each completed objective brings them one step closer to the end of this suicide mission, and the Executor doesn’t have an escape plan once the solar cannon is triggered.

After the colony is gone and the tutorial ends, the game opens up and reveals its main influence. RS2 owes a huge amount to the original XCOM — from the globe with different regions where missions can crop up, to the research bay where weapons are developed and corpses are dissected, to the main authority that periodically refreshes their resources, everything outside of the combat missions is a loving tribute to one of the best titles ever made. Instead of building a base, the player is equipped with a giant land ship that serves as a headquarters. It can move slowly around the planet, unlocking new regions where missions can take place, and building outposts to improve the various items they receive during the weekly resupply.

Most of the story in Red Solstice 2 is told via documents in the world map’s archives section, or through NPC conversations that the player — a freshly-built Executor taking over for the one who got cooked in the tutorial — eavesdrops on via the communications systems. While it’s a fairly rote tale, the game manages to keep the bleak tone going without becoming too oppressive. There are even a couple of moral decisions they’ll have to make over the course of the campaign, in which they’re given the opportunity to gain an advantage against the endless hordes of zombies at the cost of many human lives. There’s no easy answer or obvious reward for prioritizing survivors over winning the war, and in fact, the Red Solstice 2 often makes the argument that being kind is a fool’s choice, since losing the war means the complete extinction of humanity.

Red Solstice 2‘s tactical combat mechanics are well-designed. The player uses a mouse to move the Executor and their team of up to three marines around the map. The marines automatically fire at any threat to defend themselves and the player can decide between letting the Executor fire freely, or manually controlling shooting themselves. This isn’t just a question of playstyle preference, though — manual shooting has an increased rate of fire over automatic, so in hectic swarm battles or boss fights, jumping in and controlling the action is a huge advantage.

The Executor is extremely moddable. As the player levels them up, they’ll unlock a variety of powers that can be mixed and matched in the pre-combat loadout screen. This lets players decide whether they want to focus on defense and healing their troops, or to put all their focus on becoming a grenade-tossing creature of vengeance. This feature becomes especially useful in multiplayer. While someone playing solo can only bring three AI marines on missions, playing online raises the squad cap to eight, giving seven other players the chance to help out and grind a little experience for their characters. Neither way of playing is an obviously better one, though — team players will find that missions are much easier with a few extra hands, while solo players get a huge advantage in that AI marines have unlimited ammunition.

Red Solstice 2 only has one significant flaw, but it’s a pretty big one — there’s not enough variety in missions. There are plenty of story missions, but the vast majority of missions the player will take on are randomly-generated jobs where they grab supplies, lower planetary infection levels, or recruit new specialists so they can build enhancements to their landship. The problem is that there aren’t enough types of missions, and they get repetitive incredibly quickly.

The mission types basically boil down to search locations, escort VIPs, or blow up an area. Red Solstice 2 tries to mix things up by changing where the missions happen on the map and by having optional side-missions pop up while the player is busy doing something else, but these tweaks are incredibly limited as well. By the time I was ten hours in, I’d seen nearly everything the mission generator had to offer. I kept playing because the story interested me and the play is solid, but the only innovations that crop up before credits roll are a few new enemy types from time to time.

Red Solsitce 2 is a bleak ordeal, but it’s not without its charms. There’s a real sense of frantic desperation created as the player scrambles desperately from one mission to the next, helplessly watching the global infection meter always climbing. Whether it’s zombie biomass, sinister corporations, or environmental catastrophe, for the entirety of Red Solstice 2′s play time I was sure that we were only ever a hair’s breadth away from extermination — which only served to make fighting against it feel all the more satisfying. If the developers could ease the repetitiveness from their random mission generator, this would be one of the best successors to XCOM’s legacy, but in its current state it’s just an extremely solid squad-based RTS.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Ironward and published by 505 Games. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 45 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. Two hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: The game was not rated by the ESRB, but it contains Blood and Gore and Extreme Violence. This is a game about space marines blasting former humans to pieces. Not safe for kids at all. Also, there’s plenty of mass murder (for a supposedly good purpose) and human experimentation in the story.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. I played most of the game without sound and encountered zero difficulties. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: There is no controller diagram. No, this game’s controls are not remappable. The game is played with a mouse and keyboard, with the mouse selecting options and directing troop movement, while the keyboard offers shortcuts to speed up certain actions.

The post Red Solstice 2: Survivors Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH A great twist on the Tower Defense formula!

LOW One of the later challenge missions had no margin for error.

WTF The story.

Full disclosure, I’m not a huge fan of Tower Defense games.

I like the idea of setting up a base and protecting it from attack, but the classic formula — place towers, watch enemies stream in, hope for survival — leaves me unsatisfied since players don’t usually have many options once the action kicks off. TDs are largely about ‘good’ planning and then watching results of said plan play out, but getting hit with unpredictable curveballs and being unable to respond is a recipe for frustration.

With this in mind, I tend to stay away from vanilla TDs, but I’m always curious about the offshoots and I randomly stumbled across a pretty significant outlier with Steampunk Tower 2 on the Switch eShop.

What makes it stand out? Where most TD titles ask players to install rows of towers along enemy routes, this one offers just one tower and every enemy makes a beeline for it! It’s a pretty big flip of the genre’s conventions, and it absolutely works.

Steampunk Tower 2 takes place on an alternate Earth, and mostly in Europe. There’s a talky story about an evil empire using poison (or maybe it was brainwashing?) to take over the world, and the only people who can stop it are some steampunk scientists who have a high-tech tower they dispatch when conflict is erupting. Honestly though, the plot never amounts to much, but the action is good.

Players can choose from dozens of battles across a map of faux-Europe, and before the selection is made, the game will let them know what kind of enemies will be present — infantry, tanks, robots, flying units and more.

At this point, ST2 will ask the player to load their tower up with various kinds of turrets. Gameplay happens on a 2D plane, so we get a horizontal view of things and both the left and right sides of the tower can equip up to five turrets, for a grand total of ten.

Each kind of turret is strong against a specific type of enemy and they fire automatically, so choosing a loadout carefully is important — shotguns clean up against troops on foot, but mortars firing dumbly at the ground will do nothing against incoming helicopters, for example.

This is not a bad start, but what put it over the top for me is that the turrets can be repositioned around the tower as needed in real time, and retracting them inside the tower helps them reload faster. This means that as a player who likes to take action, this Tower Defense game gives me options in the moment.

A battle might start with the tower having shotguns on the left side, but if footmen come from the right, just retract a turret, reposition the shotguns, and mow them down. Robots coming in from the left but the tesla ray is on the other side? Relocate the anti-air cannons and shift the tesla over to fry some walkers. Guns running dry up top? Pull them in and fill ‘em back up in a hurry because the next wave is coming.

The moment-to-moment management of moving turrets around while keeping them loaded never gets too overwhelming since the guns’ operation is handled by the game itself — the meat of the player experience is managing which gun goes where (and when!) and restocking the ammo. It might not seem like much on paper, but it’s exactly the right kind of busy and I had a blast operating this lone tower standing tall against entire armies.

The icing on the cake is that the turrets can be upgraded with resources earned in battle, and there are even diverging tech trees. It’s not a mind-boggling amount of depth, but it was enough to keep me experimenting with loadouts until the end. Is it better for a cannon to shoot further or to shoot faster? The answer is… it depends!

Steampunk Tower 2 offers a spin on Tower Defense that I’ve never seen before, and not only was it different, it was great! Both the ideas and the implementation are on point, and this unassuming, random purchase ended up being an unexpectedly clever and delightful surprise.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Dreamgate and published by Drageus Games. It is currently available on PC, Switch, PS4/5, and XBO/X/S. This copy of the game was obtained via paid download and reviewed on the Switch. Approximately 12 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood and Violence. This “T” feels like a bit of a stretch to me. Tiny little human-shaped silhouettes do get destroyed by the tower in addition to a number of vehicles and robots, but it’s so abstract and unrealistic that I find it hard to worry about it too much? I’d have no problems letting a kid play this. There’s no salty language or any sexual content.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: I played the entire game on mute and had no problems. Text cannot be resized or altered. there are no sound cues needed. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. The left stick moves a cursor, A confirms, B cancels, and the L/R buttons are used to flip between tabs in menus. The Switch touchscreen can also be used at the hub or in battle.

The post Steampunk Tower 2 Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

Red Solstice was a high-quality squad-based mouselook shooter set on Mars, in which the player controlled marines attempting to survive a monster apocalypse. They had to explore a fallen colony while teaming up with AI marines to battle zombies and mutants while securing technology and making good their escape. In addition to a stellar solo mode, it allowed up to four players to team up online in campaign or skirmish modes together. In developing Red Solstice 2, the developers have really dug in on the multiplayer aspect, refining the hybrid shooter/RTS.

When played alone, the player is put in charge of a squad made up of a specialist (the main character) and a team of three other space marines. They can fight on their own terms, or positioned in real-time, depending on the player’s preference.

In the mission I sampled, it reminded me of Starcraft missions where a team of soldiers had to work their way through enemy bases while setting up chokepoints to take on enemy swarms. It’s satisfying — the AI teammates are smart and effective once put in place, and watching zombies getting torn apart by futuristic firearms never gets old. I’m psyched to get some time with the actual multiplayer as well, since up to 8 players will be able to co-op missions to make harder difficulty levels more manageable.

Another big selling point for RS2 is the world map, from which the player’s campaign is planned. Taking a cue from classic XCOM, players are giving a diagram of Mars and presented with random events they can choose to intervene in. Sometimes they’re just a matter of a text box popping up and describing the resources players discovered, and sometimes they’re hordes of monsters which need to be destroyed. This map gives players a chance to see the alien infestation spread across Mars and choose the best way to fight back against it. Likewise, they’ll be asked to develop new tech and to train their soldiers to ensure that they’re constantly upping their fighting abilities as the story marches forward.

With a huge variety of character classes, weapon variants, and mission types, Red Solstice 2: Survivors has pushed the series fully into the strategy genre. While players will still be able to get that classic mouselook shooter action any time they want by jumping into the shoes of the main character on their own, the heart and soul of the experience is now building a fireteam, working out a strategic approach to a situation, and managing characters to make sure they’re fighting at the highest possible level. It’s going to be very interesting once the finished version is available!

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HIGH The art style. The stripped-down formula.

LOW Not figuring out certain things until nearly the end of the game.

WTF Getting rocked in the blink of an eye playing Demon mode.

When I first saw Death Crown, I had no idea what kind of game it was, but I knew that I had to play it. Just one look at any screenshot and it’s obvious why. Rendered in stark black and white with a refined, uber-detailed pixel style that strongly resembles pencil sketching, it looked like nothing else, and I needed to know more.

After sitting down with it, Death Crown was revealed to be a fast-paced and hyper-streamlined Real-Time Strategy (RTS) in which every aspect is as minimalist as the visuals. Not what I expected, but it didn’t matter — I was in.

There are a few other modes available, but the core campaign tells of a king who’s been so successful in subjugating the land and cementing his rule that he can’t bear the thought of succumbing to old age and leaving it behind, so he steals Death’s crown in a bid for immortality. Of course she won’t stand for this, so she marshals her army of the undead to punish his impudence.

The campaign begins with the player in Death’s role, and there are only three structures that can be built on the battlefield — mines (the Y button) produce resources used to build more structures, crypts (the X button) produce skeletons which attack and destroy enemy buildings, and towers (the B button) enlarge the player’s territory while also attacking incoming enemies with projectiles. It’s all smooth and reflexive, and everything the player needs to know can be seen at a glance.

From this point, Death Crown delivers the expected RTS gameplay — generate resources, build as fast as possible, overwhelm the enemy — but it’s appealing in its simplicity and aesthetics.

Each level is the size of a single screen, and the visual tone is barren, abstract and nihilistic. As the player frantically directs their forces throughout each skirmish, they’ll advance across each landscape and topple enemy castle after enemy castle until there’s nowhere left for the king to run. Eventually, Death will reach ‘boss’ fights against enemies that have special powers, and each win rewards another small chunk of story.  

With so few elements to manage and absolutely no fat or padding, the gameplay is hyper-focused into an RTS in its purest form. I loved not having to dip into any menus, and keeping everything simple kept me engaged — it almost felt like an action game at times, more about fast management than long-term strategy. And again, the graphics. This art design whispers desolation, decay and ruin. It’s perfectly on-point.

While I adore Death Crown‘s extreme minimalism, I will say that the team hasn’t quite nailed it.

For example, the story is told through dialogue-free cutscenes that are striking in their presentation, but they’re not as clear as I’d like. With such a cool world, I’d like to know a bit more about the bosses I’m destroying, or about how the king got to where he was. I was hoping that the “Human” campaign available in the menu would offer some answers, but it only raised more questions.

I’ll also say that the difficulty can be brutal on the normal mode. I fully admit that I’m a greenhorn when it comes to RTS titles, but I found the margin of recoverable error to be razor-thin and I was overwhelmed and overrun often. Luckily, there’s an easy mode that’s manageable for genre lightweights like me.

With so much emphasis on the despair-drenched visuals, one might assume that Death Crown is a case of style over substance, but that’s just not true — the gameplay is frantic and gripping, and the developers’ ability to cut away anything except what needs to be here is admirable. The fact that it looks absolutely fucking metal is just icing on the cake.

Disclosures: This game is developed by CO5MONAUT and published by BadLand Publishing. It is currently available on PS4/5, Switch, XBO/X/S and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately four hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the Normal and Human campaigns were completed.  No time was spent in co-op or versus multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood and Violence. Most of the game is about sending tiny characters across a map, but the visual style of the game is fairly creepy and some of the cutscenes are a bit gross. I’m pretty sure I recall a beheading or two. There’s no salty language or any sexual content.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There is minimal text in the game, and what’s here is not resizable or alterable in anyway. There are no audio cues needed for play. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. There is no control diagram. The left stick moves the onscreen cursor, the X button deploys crypts, the Y button deploys mines, the B button deploys towers, and the A button is used to set destinations.  

The post Death Crown Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Launching a nuke at an opposing cruiser.

LOW No multiplayer.

WTF What do robots need battlecruisers for anyway?

It’s the 22nd century. Earth is flooded, all of the humans are dead, and the robots that are still around are reckless, trash-talking megalomaniacs. The player takes the role of Charlie, a utility ‘bot that decided it would be a hoot to steal an unattended battlecruiser and take it for a joyride. Unfortunately, the cruiser he steals belongs to the world’s foremost military power. Hilarity — and lots of robot-on-robot violence — ensues.

The Battlecruisers campaign plays out as a series of one-on-one battles. It’s a Real-Time Strategy (RTS), but a fairly simple one. Instead of gathering resources, the player assigns drones to build or repair parts of the ship. Each cruiser starts with four, and building more drone bays provides two more drones per bay.

Like any RTS, economy is key. As such, building drone bays right off the bat isn’t a bad idea, but it’s not the only strategy. Whatever the player decides, they’ll have to allocate drones to build things when they’re not repairing damage to the ship.

Some buildings only take a couple, but the more advanced stuff can take up to ten drones. Multiple projects can be built at once if there are enough drones available, and allocating more to any project will make it go faster, but that means they’re not available to help with anything else – it’s a tradeoff that’s risky, but well worth it for some of the stronger, more time-consuming buildings.

Initially, the options are pretty limited — the payer only has the battlecruiser that Charlie stole, a few defensive turrets, an air factory, a naval factory, and some artillery. Soon, they start to unlock more buildings and units, and then things really open up.

Some of the unlocks are fairly logical — shield generators, boosters that supercharge the buildings next to them, better turrets — but others are insane. There are lascannons, floating laser batteries, cannons from actual battleships, and of course, a nuke that immediately ends the battle should its six-minute build time be completed. I managed to do it once, and it was awesome. 

With all this in mind, it’s clear that the real trick to Battlecruisers is managing slots.

Each cruiser comes with a certain number of slots. Drone bay slots can only house drone bays, but the rest are split between other options. Thinking about building an air factory? Go ahead, but that platform won’t be available for an artillery unit unless the player blows it up and rebuilds. Spending a deck slot on a turret? That means a shield generator can’t be built there. Deciding what to build, where, and how many drones to allocate are important for success and a large part of what makes Battlecruisers engaging.

Naturally, what the player should build kind of depends on what their opponent is building, and everything the opposing battlecruiser builds is visible by default. Battlecruisers’ AI is pretty snappy, and it will react to the player’s choices on the fly, though it also has its own plans that it will try to execute independent of whatever the player does.

In terms of production, everything in Battlecruisers is a silhouette. It’s an understated look, but it works surprisingly well. The only time it doesn’t completely work is for aircraft, as it’s not always immediately obvious who said aircraft belongs to. Still, I’d say Battlecruisers’ visuals are a win, as is the game’s soundtrack, which matches the action perfectly. 

Battlecruisers can be tense, and in a close match, the player will be doing half a dozen things at once. It’s a great experience overall, and my only issue is with its length.

There are only 25 missions, and most battles can be won in a few minutes. I played on Hard, and it took me about six hours to complete… but I also messed around quite a bit and had to play a few levels a couple times when whatever nonsense I’d cooked up didn’t work. For someone less interested in experimenting or playing on a lower difficulty, I imagine it might only take a couple hours. Unfortunately, Battlecruisers doesn’t have multiplayer, so once the campaign is over, there’s not much to do except play it again. 

The story is funny and the gameplay is engrossing — Battlecruisers is a great experience overall, I just wish there was more of it.

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Mecha Weka. It is currently available on PC, iOS, and android. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game is not rated by the ESRB, but in my view it contains violence and mild language. There’s not much to worry about for parents. The graphics are in silhouette, so while there’s some destruction, there’s no blood or gore. The characters are all robots so there’s no violence against humans.There’s some mild language and the odd innuendo, but the tone is pretty light and goofy overall.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game does not offer subtitles. Several in-game audio notifications do not have visual components, such as having insufficient builders, when a building completes, and when the opponent builds structures. This game is not accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

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