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Surviving the Aftermath is a survival city builder, where you explore, harvest resources, research technologies to slowly improve your towns living standards and defence, while protecting it from mutated creatures, bandits and other man-made disasters in an apocalyptic future. I found the game quite fun, it wasn’t too stressful on easier settings, and has some good ideas, however implementation could have been better. You do tend to spend a lot of time trying to find the right resource to unlock the next building, or skipping time while waiting for things to happen in the late game.

Story
There’s not a lot of story going on here. You have a very basic colony in a post-apocalyptic future, and the small band of survivors have decided to try and make a thriving colony, while trying to prepare a doomsday bunker that will survive the next calamity. This has you exploring the world map, researching the doomsday bunker and required technologies while taking care of enemies who are in your way or who try to raid your base. There are other scenarios, but that is the default. You do have lots of random events (like bandits demanding goods or items, random groups of people showing up wanting to join your colony), issues with colony staff and resources, and your choices affect if they stay or leave, town moral, sickness amongst other things. Because there’s usually significant time skips between when you are given a task and when you complete it, it’s fairly easy to forget the main quest and focus on just running the colony.

Gameplay
The game operates on two levels, the world view which is turn based and has your specialists exploring the map for hard to find resources, research materials and other colonies, while the colony view operates in real time and is focused on town defence, basic resource gathering and town layout. I found the most important resource to manage was food and water, they get trickier when every building requires them (to produce other items) and the colony has a higher population as the consumption rate is quite high. Easy to manage by itself, but can become a problem when the calamities hits, though nowhere as brutal as Frostpunk.

In colony mode, you are focused on keeping your population healthy (food, water, sickness), happy (entertainment and housing) while gathering resources (basic materials, energy) and defending your town. You have a decent sized town map to build on (which is unknown until you explore it), and workers are auto assigned to the best job for them, which can take the micromanaging out (but lead to some weird scenarios where you can’t get workers into the buildings you want them in, or they stay in buildings that aren’t actively required). Generally, there’s plenty of resources in town for you to scavenge, however higher technologies are required once some resources are initially exhausted. Pollution needs to be monitored otherwise citizens become sick and unhappy, which can have a cascading effect when a calamity hits. Villagers will leave if you don’t resolve the issues that are causing them to be upset, though the timer to fix issues is pretty generous unless it requires technologies you haven’t unlocked or resources you don’t have.

The world view has you using one of 4 specialists (Scavenger, Fighter, Scout & Scientist) to explore the map and plunder its resources. Each type has a different ratio of skills, from the amount of actions they can perform per turn, health, fighting & carrying capacity, and times taken to explore, scavenge, build outposts or research. Anything gathered need to be brought back to the colony before it can be used, and your specialists don’t heal out in the wilderness (they need to return to the colony). The specialists can also be directly controlled in the colony (unlike your general population), making them valuable when getting attacked or you want certain resources harvested.

Graphics
I found the UI fairly helpful, especially when in the colony mode. there’s an overlay for almost everything, and it really helps show where building placement should be for best coverage, any building affected by lack of required prerequisite resources, you can easily zoom in and see what the colonists are doing, though you generally stay zoomed out.

Achievements
You will need to purchase all the DLC to get 100% achievements, though most will come naturally, with only the difficultly based achievement’s being a cause for concern. You will need a few playthroughs for the different scenarios.

For more reviews please visit https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/31327216/

I don’t think I’ve played a game that feels so similar to X-Com, yet plays so differently. Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters looks like X-Com and dialup up to 11 with the breach sequences, but absolutely punishes you if you take a wrong approach to combat, and the errors compound quickly. Its base difficulty is fairly high, and with its unintuitive gameplay mechanisms and clunky UI can lead to frequent campaign restarts (or at least going back a few saves). Recommended for Warhammer 40K fans, or those who like tactical turn based combats who don’t mind frequent difficultly spikes.

Story
You play the role of a newly elevated Grey Knight commander, leading his decimated ship and forces back to Titan when an Inquisitor intercepts you and “requests” the Grey Knights assistance with stopping a demonic plague (the bloom), from spreading beyond the current subsector that it has been detected in. This is the start of a much larger story, and involves many well-known characters from both the Grey Knights and Death Guard, and what you think could be a major battle turns out to only be the start of a much larger conflict between the two opposing factions.

I found the story good, choices you make affect gameplay and squad readiness significantly, it doesn’t go against any of the settings established lore and having to manage relationships between the main characters on the ship (who are often at ends with each other) while constantly fighting running battles, random events and reinforcing you current squads gives the feeling of always being 2 steps behind the enemy and severely under resourced. The 8 troop types you can pick all have abilities that align to the tabletop game, and give you fairly free reign in how to develop your squads. Losing experienced squad members can be devastating (at the time), but at least you don’t lose their equipment and the game does have mechanisms to get you up on your feet quickly if you invest in the right technologies. If you are fortunate enough to have the right resources on hand, you can exterminate planets, which is very much in line with what the grey knights and inquisition would do.

Gameplay
Gameplay is similar in most regards to X-COM titles, though differs enough that you can easily set your campaign behind if you play it like X-COM. There are a few instant game over conditions, which requires careful management and progression of resources and research. You can’t always avoid the events that cause additional damage to your ship, and need to keep a handy stock of servitors (resources used to upgrade rooms), and possibly planet destroying missiles if you don’t want to do the Morbus mission that seem to constantly appear. Failing a mission isn’t a game over, though the squad will be in recovery for an abnormally long time, and it can lead to the death of a marine, and is more likely to happen on a Morbus mission (where enemies are constantly reinforced) or during a bossfights where there are instant death pits and you have to choose between mobility and firepower.

The actual missions are where the largest departure from X-Com is felt. You have free reign to pick any 4 squad members before deploying, including their equipment and weapons. Gameplay has you generally performing 1 of a few mission types (these do get repetitive quickly, even if the terrain and layout constantly changes), which either involve killing 1 large well protected target, killing 3 wandering targets then surviving for a few rounds, or defending priority targets from multiple waves of enemies. Increasing levels of corruption increases the resistance found in stages, the available buffs enemies will have, and you are punished every few rounds by a debuff that hits your team or a spawn of additional enemies for you to fight, which is a kick in the pants as the games already difficult enough without handicapping you more.

The game doesn’t seem to know if you it wants you to play cautiously or hard and fast with your Grey Knights, punishing you every few turns, but also really wanting you to hug cover and avoid taking any damage all at (or at least only taking damage against armour that regenerates every turn). Enemy patrol usually consist of between 1 to 6 enemies, and they all activate together. You generally want to be stunning enemies to unlock a execute move (which then gives the entire squad another turn), or if killing the patrol isn’t an option using precision attacks to perform critical hits (which then allows you to remove an attack or inflict a debuff on the enemy). It’s another kick in the pants that enemies regenerate from these easily enough, undoing your planning. Overwatch takes you out of cover, making it practically useless (unless you are only left with enemies who will melee you), and the units you really want to overwatch with, can’t (Purifiers).

On the system map, you can control the routes to each planet to take on bloom missions. Each mission advises you of what your rewards will be (either in weapons, armour, new recruits, resources or requisition), as well as the mission type and it’s a fine balancing act between going for the mission that has the correct rewards vs what you can reach before the missions expire (the planets corruption increases). You can also purchase ship upgrades, research abilities (that either help in missions or help further the story), and upgrade and reequip your recruits and equipment. This is also where you will death with Death Guard fleet missions, random events, and receive your regular dressing down from your grand-master. Most of these events generally have a negative impact, which can start taking its toll on your campaign, but on a positive note it does fell like there are hundreds of these and they don’t seem to repeat (even if they are random).

Graphics
The game does a great job in animating the corruption of Nurgle across the stages, with increasing corruption warping each stage more. Enemies look great (though each enemy type is exactly the same), and battle damage is shown against the enemies. The execute (instant kill) moves are very cool, and the different bosses are varied, have vastly different attack patterns and offer a good challenge. Each Grey Knight is customisable, giving you a decent range of options to edit. Stage design is good (even if the missions are repeated frequently, and offer plenty of tactical choices). The animation of enemies and units busting through the environment is great, and the environment is mostly destructible (cover can become very rare in prolonged firefights).

Achievements
This is a nightmare to play on normal, you would have to be masochist to want to play this in the hardest settings. You require all the DLC, and need to play multiple playthroughs.

For more reviews please visit https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/31327216/

Unpacking is a casual, at your own pace game that has you unpacking boxes of household items and placing them in the correct locations around each house. It’s fairly simple and relaxing to play, has a very mellow soundtrack to listen to, but the game is quite short (easily finish in a few hours) and might be worth picking up on a sale if you don’t like paying full price for a few hour’s enjoyment. I’m not sure exactly who this game is meant to be marketed too, but might be worth a look if you just want to play something that’s short and relaxing which won’t tax your brain.

Story
For a story, there’s not much, you help unpack the un-named protagonist’s belongings for each of her major life events, moving away for college, moving in with her boyfriend, breaking up and moving back home, moving to a small apartment, moving in with a new partner and then setting up a house with a baby on the way.

Gameplay
The gameplay is quite simple, each room has a few boxes of items, and you have place each of the items in a location that suites it (eg dishes in the cupboard, books on a shelf, ect). If you get anything wrong (and it’s easy enough to do as there’s no description for items), then they are highlighted red and need to be moved to the correct place. Some items can be interacted with (which is where most of the achievements come from), but it’s all about finding the correct place for each item. Much easier than in real life, and slightly more enjoyable. Most of the time it makes sense, and it’s much easier than doing the housework I should be doing.

Graphics
The games low res pixel graphics make the rooms fairly easy to explore, items that need to be placed have a white highlight (so you can see them), and can be rotated or sometimes flipped or stacked on top of each over, rooms flash red if there are any incorrect items in them, and when everything is correct a golden star appears in the corner that allows for the game to progress. Some objects are hard to figure out what they are (dishrag looks exactly like a hand towel), and why would a diploma need to go under a bed?

Music
It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to such a mellow soundtrack, but it perfectly suites this game. There’s lots of acoustic and mellow chiptune tracks and the ending credits song couldn’t be more poignant about moving in with someone and placing of your life’s mementoes together and what that means. I especially like the hidden soundtracks in the game (that you unlock for getting every object in every room wrong). I can’t say I’d heard of Jeff van Dyck before playing unpacking, but I’d be tempted to keep an eye out for other games where he is the composer.

Achievements
All of the achievements are super easy to get, I’m surprised that this game doesn’t have like 80% of players unlocking the rarest achievement

For more reviews please visit https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/31327216/

Legends of Mana is a unique experience (for a Mana game), forgoing the strong, structured storytelling of previous entries to be a more casual, fragmented story with some puzzle elements. It has a lot of unique sub systems, like crafting, farming, monster raising, and the land placement system, however because there is little guiding the story a lot of these either only function as side games, or aren’t explained well. Only recommended for Mana fans, I’d highly suggest playing either Secret or Trials of Mana over this if you had to choose.

Story
While having elements of the Mana series, this entry doesn’t rely on any of the previous games (other than reusing standard mob enemies), and forges a new story. The Mana tree, which sustains all life on the planet, burned down nearly 900 years ago. This caused a war between the races, who converted the last remaining pockets of mana. The separate lands (and their people) were sealed into artefacts, to await a time where the land could be restored and mana flows freely again. You are charged to do this, and play as a silent protagonist, who slowly restores mana to the land while remediating the conflict between the races.

The game has 3 main story arcs focusing on 3 different groups of people (with numerous smaller arcs focusing on side groups or characters). You only need to complete one main story arc before being able to start the final arc and finish the game. Quests are started by talking to the townsfolk, and some can be failed (or missed entirely) if completed out of order. Completion of quests either gives new artefacts (lands to be placed), or just allows for the next quest in the story arc to be started. There is very little handholding in this, it’s up to the player to talk, search and explore through towns & stages to find the next part of the quest. Because of this the story is very light and very fragmented, which is a shame as one of the best part about the Mana games was the strong narrative, and any of the stories would make for a decent game if they were as focused as either Secret or Trials of Mana.

Gameplay
Gameplay is all over the place. The land system isn’t explained very well, and is crucial as it determines mana values for stages (which can effect what items shops have, available quests, enemy difficulty, and crop growth rates). While you can easily play with the map placed anywhere, you do have a very good chance to lock yourself out of certain items, or make some systems significantly more difficult if going for achievements. That said it offers endless replayabilitiy as every game will be vastly different if you select a different part of the world map to play in and place the artefacts in a different order.
The monster raising mini game is explained, though its left for the player to work out what food changes what behaviour and stats. The crafting system is briefly explained, and has a whole hidden mini game that can drastically make equipment overpowered if you know what you’re doing and can figure it out. The crop raising game (which produces materials for crafting and monster raising) is mostly down to random luck as to what you will produce (which again for achievements isn’t fun).

Stage design and combat has taken a massive departure from previous games. Every stages is now like a dungeon, with say 1-3 fights per screen. Some have shortcuts that might bring you to a fork in the path or bring you back closer to the entrance, but it’s mostly left to the player to wander around aimlessly until you find the right path to get to a boss. Very few quests or stages have pointers that you are going in the right direction, though only a few stages are really like puzzles (while most have a forking path or two, you generally reach the end quickly and can backtrack to the correct path).

I found combat to be really disappointing when compared to previous games. Now it’s just a matter of smashing light or heavy attacks until the enemies are dead, and you get a full health refill after every battle. The no real strategy in levelling up weapons, or choosing light\dark paths that the previous games used. The one saving grace is there are special moves that you can use (they are mostly useless in combat), but with the right amount of fights, and special moves unlock special abilities with each weapons, which can let you do some decent damage or dodge a major move by bosses. The enemy hit boxes are made so you have to be basically in line with the enemy (some weapons have animations that affect a wider range), and bosses take up the whole side (so you basically can’t miss). Magic is locked behind instruments you can purchase or create, and the weapon type you have equipped determines your character’s stat growth. The game is ridiculously easy- I managed to get almost to the end using equipment found from an enemy drop in the first 30 minutes of the game, and the only driver to craft some better weapons was to help grind experience levels quicker.

Graphics
Being a remastered game (and having never played the original release from 1999) it looks good. The game looks great in the standard 1920*1080 mode, the sprite graphics and animations look decent (though the stages aren’t as animated as previous games) and everything has plenty of detail. If you run the game at higher resolutions (either borderless, or full screen) however, it becomes quite pixelated or stretched. I’d highly recommend running at the lower resolution so it doesn’t turn into a mess.

The menu UI in my opinion is a step back from the old ring system Mana games used to use. Because you collect so much stuff (which can be used in the various subgames) everything is in the same 1 inventory folder. Nothing is sorted by category, and as there is no sorting function other than switching equipped items the inventory is always a mess.

Music
The soundtrack is fairly impressive, with a wide range of tracks that encompass piano, electronic and also a bit of rock, though I don’t think it’s as good as the Secret of Mana soundtrack. There is an option to pause the game and listen to any of the tracks at any time, which is a nice bonus.

Multiplayer
The game has an option for a second player to join, but it’s not something I tested, though its easy to enable from the menu.

Achievements
If you are aiming for 100% achievements this game is a pain. You will have to use a guide, grind pointlessly for weapon and experience levels, and farm items that are based purely on random luck. Not impossible (there are plenty of good guides), but it’s a commitment that needs to be made at the start of a play through.

For more reviews please visit https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/31327216/

Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales is part deck building battler, part puzzler, all bad choice simulator set in the world of The Witcher at the onset of the Nilfgaardian invasion. I found this an amazing game to play, I highly recommend it for those want a game with a decent story and hard choices, or those who love the world of The Witcher.

Story
Thronebreaker follows the adage of “sometimes life gives you lemons”, but with the added addendum of “and no matter how much lemonade you made, it still tastes bitter”. You play as Meve, Queen of Lyria and Rivia, and shape her and her companion’s experiences and choices as her realm is invaded and conquered, her journey in seeking allies to reclaim her lands and fight the Nilfgaardian invasion, and punishing those who wronged her. The story choices are excellent, and often leads to results that aren’t readily apparent, or can change the destiny of characters or the ending. There’s no easy choices, and while it’s easy to start off idealistic with answers, it’s very difficult to not become jaded or vengeful with some of the choices that are offered.

Gameplay
Gameplay is split between exploring the realm map and heading towards your objective in each chapter, managing your forces in your command tent and the actual battles. Each map is expansive, with many resources to collect (used to purchase new units), scripted events (which can affect army moral, reward or lose resources and unique hero cards or affect future events), unique profiles for multiplayer, and have plenty of puzzle battles that are optional but teach advanced gameplay tactics and provide other rewards.

The card battles can either be standard battles that follow a customised Gwent ruleset from the Witcher series - best 2 of 3 rounds with highest score wins at the end of each round, or can be singular rounds with unique objectives (destroying a certain card, highest score in 1 round and do certain actions) and might use preconfigured decks. Cards have different effects depending on what row they are assigned to or what they are placed next to, and can have set actions when they are placed, when Meve uses her loyalty move (dependant on what weapon she has equipped), or on death. There’s great flexibility on how you can setup your deck, and you are encouraged to constantly change as most battles change the type of enemy commander (which changes the enemy deck composition).

The command tent lets you spend resources to upgrade rewards after battles, unlock new tech trees or upgrade previous units, or allow for extra trinkets and special cards in battle. The mess tent allows you to converse with your heroes (unique characters) which provides additional lore for the characters, and the barracks allows you to create more units and change your desk if you have the required amount of spare resources available.

Graphics
The world looks amazing, with everything being done in the cell shading art style. The game takes place in a lot of countries that are mentioned in the Witcher series, but haven’t been explored previously. The world is varied with maps having you trudge through farming landscapes, swamps, forests, Icey mountains and war ravaged townships. The cut scenes are animated, and small things like having the characters talking just sway a little gives the scenes a lot more life than static portraits would.

Music
The voice acting is superb. They really nailed it for all characters, the script is that well written depending on what’s happening you can hear the anger or exasperation from characters. The music is great, from tracks with heavy drums with a good dose of vocalization to sombre string based melodies.

Achievements
Only one playthrough is required to get 100% and it’s easy enough to do, but you will be using a guide as there are many achievements that are locked to set decisions that wouldn’t be readily apparent.

For more reviews please visit https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/31327216/

Chaosbane is a isometric hack and slash ARPG (Diablo clone) set in the Warhammer (The Old World) universe. It has a modular skill tree which has a fair amount of customisation, but suffers heavily from reusing environment assets, mostly linier stage design, lack of enemies and holds back too many of its gameplay features until too late in the game to be useful (or interesting). I’d only recommend purchasing for diehard Warhammer fans (or for a super discounted price). This would comfortably sit with a average mark (for solo play) if steam supported it.

Story
Set 200 years before the end days, Chaos Everchosen Asavar Kul has been defeated by Magnus the Pious, and his chaos hoards scattered through the Empire. After a chaos sorceress curses Magnus in his throneroom in Nuln, you track down some of the cultists and start your adventure in the cities sprawling sewers. The story has you fighting champions of the all 4 chaos gods who are trying to unite the scattered hoards and become the next Everchosen, with each chapter being dedicated purely to one god. There’s a 6th chapter (the 5th is DLC) that has you investigating the gunnery school that has been taken over by a chaos cult (and is ½ the length of a regular chapter). The story does have some interesting turns (the Khorne semi boss) was memorable, as was the outcome of the Slaanesh boss fight, though the ending of the Thzeentch boss fight felt really rushed.

Gameplay
While being a diablo clone, the gameplay does significantly diverge from it and is based around casual, short missions where you have a set target, entry and escape path which take around 15-25 minutes to complete. While most of them are standard seek and destroy (eg kill a boss), there are a few timed rescue missions or mission where you have to find items to mix things up. As each chapter is set around a particular area or god there is significant environment asset re-usage, and the stages are fairly liner with usually a few paths for you to explore (usually with a treasure chest at the end).

Each character has a expansive skill tree, which is locked at the beginning but expands as levels are increased. There are multiple skills that generate energy, and other skills that consume energy. Each skill has 3 mastery levels (which provide different effects and damage outputs), is categorised as either a active or passive skill and costs points to equip. I found myself chasing certain skills and always being a few point shy of what I wanted to equip, or having too many passives and not enough active skills equipped, but it keeps gameplay interesting as you are constantly changing equipment and skills.

The initial difficultly level should be renamed from normal to cakewalk. All enemies (including bosses) barely put up a fight, and get destroyed fairly quickly as they rush to mob you. Combat can feel lacklustre, as you are essentially just holing down the attack button, and pressing one of the other buttons when required to use a energy consuming attack. It gets much more fun at the chaos difficultly levels, which is actually a challenge and required proper skill usage. The level limit is 50, however then you unlock legendary skills (which add a % to a buff you can freely select from).

Many of the games features come too late to the game, which is a major drawback. You can trade (sell) items to the vendor fairly early on, but don’t get to enhance equipment, use gems or trade gems until far too late into the game, at which point it makes little difference, and can’t purchase equipment at all. This include invasion modes, relic hunts and boss run fights, which would have been more fun if available earlier. These modes can be used to try and find better equipment (the game is generous with loot drops), though each mode costs gold coins (these are lost if you die in that mode).

Graphics
The not a lot to do in the hub areas, other than talk to a quest giver, drops items in your chest, or trade with the merchant (or enter a different game mode). Stages look nice (with tentacles and fleshy growths coming out of buildings), but are heavily reused and linier. Enemy skin re-usage is also rampant, and though each enemies has a few different skins, with the amount of enemies that mob you it doesn’t feel like enough. The enemy designs are good, and follow the tabletop game well- the towers of chaos (where every type of enemy exist together) makes it much more interesting. There is a 4K texture pack with does drastically improve the visuals for those running at higher resolutions. The character animation is good and everything you equip on your character’s changes. As you unlock rewards with the merchant, you get the options to set visuals for your character, which was neat.

Music
I thought the voice acting for the main characters (high elf Teclis), witch-hunter Voss, and in my playthrough Dwarf Slayer Bragi was ok, though there’s segments where I think it could have been slowed down. This seems especially noticeable for the narrator that sets the initial scene. Because of the small amount of enemy types you fight, most of the sound effects are demons screeching, or your hero constantly yelling their skills. The music is orchestra based, with lots of aggressive tone which suit the setting, and loop in the background.

Multiplayer
Supported, but not tested. I think the game would be quite fun with a party, and cranked up to a much higher difficulty.

Achievements
100% achievements requires a play through with each character (around 10 hours each), a significant amount of relic runs and a boss fight at harder difficulties. Not impossible, but does require some investment of time and maybe a party for the chaos 5 boss fight.

For more reviews please visit https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/31327216/

Hardspace: Shipbreaker is a casual, single-player space salvage game where you are tasked to deconstruct spaceships and recycle various components to pay off your crippling debt. It offers both a campaign and free play (where you can get in and just start carving any ship to pieces), speedrun challenges and multiple difficultly modes so the game can either be a pressure cooker where you are on a 15-minute time limit, or a more causal experience. It’s a game I recommend playing, even if only for the somewhat relaxing soundtrack.

Story
You start the game as a debt-riddled individual (known as 52), who signs up to be a shipbreaker for the monolithic company Lynx. The story progression starts off slow with Weaver (your team leader) slowly introducing you to the different techniques and tools used to salvage ships (you have to earn the rights to equipment from Lynx), and other shipbreakers. It’s not long before it picks up however, with the campaign focusing around meaningful questions around workers’ rights, lack of government controls, invasive and dangerous business practises and a boss that seems determined to make sure everyone knows he’s in charge, even if he doesn’t know the job. The last chapter of the game’s pace seems to slow down as you aren’t really learning anything different at this point, just doing the same to work off your debt and the final mission seems to be locked behind a set shipbreaker level or entering the hab enough times to trigger the conversation.

Gameplay
Gameplay seems simple, but can actually be quite complex. Each ship is comprised of multiple components that need to be salvaged and placed into the correct sorting platform, with incorrect placements costing the player the value of the item. There’s typically a order you need to go about before you can really get into slicing the ship apart, such as flushing fuel lines, removing coolant from pipes, decompressing sections, or removing reactors, with the more complex ships having larger systems and requiring more steps. The game is really good at teaching you how to use the different tools at your disposal, how to minimise the different hazards and overcome the more complex ship systems you have to dissemble. It’s likely one of the better tutorial systems I’ve seen in a game.

One of the joys of the game is floating through space while you go about your business, and that’s also where one of the challenges comes in. There’s a strong physics element to the game which is core to the game, objects hitting you at speed that can crush you, break your helmet, or fly into other objects that change their trajectory, or damage them and turn them into scrap. Trying to push objects heavier than you can push you away, and the areas where the parts have to be placed cause instant death.

Each ship has different pre-determined cut points (which don’t negatively affect your credit score when destroyed), however other sections might comprise of materials that need to go into separate collectors and need to be manually cut apart, and each panel has a different “health” rating before being destroyed.

Graphics
The games HUD is minimalistic, only showing you the most important information -your suit integrity, health, O2 levels and fuel, as well as the shift timer. Your vision can be switched between unenhanced (your normal human vision), and 3 scanner modes. Structural, which shows the layout of the ship (different types of metal and cut points, and description of the part of a ship), systems (which is fuel and coolant lines, reactors, thrusters and other hazards) and objects (which is everything else in a ship like computers). While not being friendly for those who are vision impaired (its uses red/green for lots of objects) it’s clear how to operate once you know how each mode works.

When not ripping ships apart you can change the posters in your hab, decode any messages you have found aboard ships, maybe fix up your car/ship with spare parts, which can act a nice break.

Music
The music is really relaxing to listen to, and it’s one of those soundtracks that loops endlessly in the background but is great to listen to in game. It’s all guitar driven country (no vocals) that seems to really fit not only the game but the setting. The music does change to a much faster paced synth based soundtrack when you are in danger or create a hazard. The voice acting was really good, there’s only a few characters, but you can easily identify with all of them and hear the anxiety, loneliness and emotion from the other cast as their situations devolve due to Lynx’s corporate demands.

Achievements
All achievements are easy enough to get with regular gameplay, and there’s only 1 point where a copy of your save file would be required to make a different choice (otherwise another play through would be required.

For more reviews please visit https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/31327216/

GreedFall is 3rd person ARPG set in a 18th century like world, with strong focus being on the exploitation of the natives of Teer Fradee and destruction of the environment. If you have played a Spiders game before you will likely know what to expect- a game with a strong story once it gets going, plenty of options for character development, slightly janky combat and stealth and a rich environment to explore. I’d recommend it for those who are happy to be on the “bad” side, and who don’t mind having to spend a few hours in a game before it really picks up.

Story
GreedFall follows the adventures of De Sardet, as they embark upon a journey along with their cousin who will be the next governor to Teer Fradee, a island where magic exists, the natives worship strange creatures and where there might be a cure for the Malichor plague which is ravaging the continent. As the appointed legate of the Merchant Congregation you have the ability to help and hinder not only your own countries interests, but those of your “allies”- the science focused Bridge Alliance, and religious worshiping country of Theleme (who are at war with each other), but also the coin guard (a faction that provides security for all 3 countries), the Naut’s (a faction who are the only ones capable of sailing the seas and keep many secrets) and many different Native tribes as well. The RPG and storytelling are the games strongest suite, and while completing main missions can cause the game’s story to leap ahead suddenly and abruptly there’s plenty of party side quests to fill in all the lore of the world. Greedfall doesn’t let up that you are essentially the bad guys no matter what choices you make (the 3 nations have invaded Teer Fradee), your country only really cares about what resources it can harvest, while Theleme actively wants to convert to natives to their religion. I thought it was going to be hard to top the inquisition style witch burnings that Theleme practise, but then the Bridge Alliance steps up with the experiments and then you realise that maybe the natives are justified in the hatred they show towards outsiders.

Gameplay
While the character creator is limited (the ability to change sex, skin tone and a few pre-set faces and voices) the game shines with its character development. You have a fairly robust choice in building your character in how you want to play. There’s are 3 base character classes (warrior, spell caster, and technical). Every Lvl up give you the ability to purchase an additional skill from either of these types, and focusing experience either strengthens your existing abilities or grants access to new ones. Nothing stops you selecting abilities from other tree’s so you can make some interesting combinations. Attributes are a separate bonus you can apply to 6 different options, with 2 typically matching to the above classes (endurance helps everyone wear stronger armour, marksmanship improves aim and damage with guns ect). Talents are a another separate skill tree, which offer more choices to any character and are typically used outside of combat. They can affect dialogue choices via charisma or intuition, the ability to be able to craft potions or/poisons or enhance armour and make ammo. All are useful, and can save you from un-necessary fights, change quest outcomes or help you find hidden items and treasures.

You have free reign on how you equip your character (it really depends on how you want to play), with the only real limits being if you have the necessary talents to wield the equipment you purchase of find along the way and if you can carry the weight limits. This goes for your party companions as well (though they are fixed in what abilities and talents they learn). Because of this there’s a fair amount of equipment management required, and because a few items can boost talents it sometimes becomes easier to carry a few items and change out to the correct boosting item when required which can be immersion breaking. The good news is whatever you are wearing is reflected on your characters. The Equipment enhancement and alchemy skills are likely to be ignored at lower difficulty levels, but become really important to boosting damage/survivability for harder settings. Relationship management with party members and factions is also very simple, with actions having a set positive or negative impact, which can affect quest outcomes, and romance options seem to have been tacked on as a afterthought.

Combat has a few different options. All enemies have a health bar, armour which needs to be broken first to get good damage in, and can be staggered or interrupted. Every weapon affects all of these in different ways, with guns doing massive damage against armour and decent damage (but having limited ammo available in game unless you make your own). The good weapons and armour are locked behind Skill and attribute gates (so you can’t just rush the get the good stuff straight up.) Enemies are stupidly tough and do decent damage through-out the game (even on easy), the parry move was very handy (at the right levels you get an automatic riposte). I found the kick (for staggering enemies not very useful, and being prepared for fights (with poison or traps) can make or break fights. The AI seems simple, with enemies targeting the closest unless it is aggro’ed towards someone else. I’d like to say combat is slightly janky, some of the timings seem a little off and sometimes you swing and seem to miss the enemy right in front of you. Stealth is really simple, with enemies only having a cone of vision in front of them, and it’s just a matter of being in stealth mode and pushing a button when within range for a stealth kill. You can hide in grasses or behind objects which starts reducing the alertness values of enemies. Enemies do have a set engagement area in which if you leave they will return and instantly heal to full health.

Graphics
I found the graphics of the world looked really good. While every area isn’t open (most maps have paths you can follow) the game is friendly enough to point out what you can collect (with the right talents), and there’s some fairly nice environments to trudge through. The cities look like massive squalid edifices, in comparison to the native’s mud huts, and equipment is correctly shown on yourself and companions.

Creature design is good, with there being lots of different creatures, and while different you can see similarities between the different variants. The guardians are well designed, and make a lot more sense as you progress through the story.

Music
I found the voice work to be good, though I wish there NPC dialogue was tired to your relationship value for some of the conversations. Its jarring to have your characters end a conversation all friendly, when 10 seconds ago they were having a very angry discussion with the same person. It’s also interesting that the natives actually speak a proto-Celtic language and a lot of the times it’s not converted. It can take a while to remember a lot of the terms and who they reference in game (being a group of people, a job/role, caste or belief). Music in the world is good in the way if there’s danger around it slowly changes into what’s played when fighting, so if you’re paying attention you can figure out there might be a fight upcoming.

Achievements
100% achievements requires at least 2 different playthrough’s, one on the hardest difficulty and as different sex for the romance endings. You also need to purchase the DLC. Not impossible, but a fair time investment.

For more reviews please visit https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/31327216/

Hero’s Hour is a pixel based, procedurally generated turn based strategy that has very strong Heroes of Might and Magic vibes but with real time combat. For its asking price it fun to play if you like the formula and offers plenty of replayability and challenge though battles seem un-optimised when you start getting 1000+ figures fighting each other. I’d recommend picking it up when on sale.

Story
There is none, every battle is procedurally generated. You have to dig through the games wiki to actually get any info about where the races live, what units actually are or why they are fighting.

Gameplay
Gameplay while simple is fairly engaging, with a heavy focus on hero and resource management and also map exploration. There are so many customisable options for any playthrough, and a large selection of playable races (each with 6 heroes with their own skill tress) that you are spoilt for choice. You can edit the difficultly, team members, resources, randomise skill trees, the types of buildings and NPC as well of the rate of encounters to name a few (there’s 3 pages of options).

The premise is simple, but you can easily back yourself into a corner if your resource management isn’t great. Towns control what units you can build, provide a base gold income and other features (depending on race selected). You can only build or upgrade 1 building a day, and can only recruit a set amount of units each week (which resets at the beginning of each week). Buildings can be upgraded (which can produce better units, more gold or grant other abilities), and towns can teach Heroes magic spells that can be used in combat.

Heroes (and their armies) travel the map, liberate mines (which all produce a different type of resource when captured), visit neutral buildings (that grant bonuses, artefacts or additional units) and fight NPCs and opposing armies for artefacts, resources and experience. Heroes gain XP from every battle (even if they are killed and the army destroyed) and gain new skills upon every level increase, which gives them additional abilities both inside and outside of combat. If they die, they return to the closest town, so it can be worthwhile throwing heroes at fights constantly so they get XP (and better skills). Each Hero has its own inventory where they can equip artefacts (which grant bonuses to skills or stats) and its own spellbook, which can be used in combat. Additional Heroes can be purchased (and i didn’t find a limit to how many Heroes you can hire). Interestingly many of the Heroes you hire are of different races, and you can use this to convert towns to that race.

Combat is real time (which is where this differs from HOMM or Age of Wonders), and you have very little control of the units on the screen. Units can be roughly split into close combat, ranged, or casters and will generally rush as a mob and start pummelling each other. You can kind of direct the army by putting a focus point (which they try to fight towards but generally ignore) or flee. Your biggest contribution is actually casting magic spells (via your hero) and depending on what the Hero knows can totally turn the tide of a battle.

Skirmish mode is a challenge mode where you have set amount of gold to spend purchasing an army, pre-selected units you can select from and set enemies to defeat. It’s a straight battle, and removes all of the other gameplay elements.

Graphics
Everything is pixel based (like the 8 bit style). That said, everything is clear, the UI is clean and not overwhelmed with useless information. I didn’t find any areas where I couldn’t see what was on the ground, and the game is fairly helpful when plotting hero movements (it shows if a move will lead to an encounter of not). Combat is wildly chaotic, with mass mobs of units smashing into each other. There isn’t a lot of graphic options (like hardly any at all), but you can increase the UI scale if required. That said, when battles have a large amount of units the game slows right down.

Music
I can only remember one music track from the game though there must have been more. Honestly you’re not likely to be focusing on it, it just plays in the background while you do your thing. There isn’t any vocals, and there are few sound effects.

Multiplayer
Only local co-op is supported

Achievements
Interestingly many of the games achievements can be ♥♥♥♥♥♥ with 0 effort (a 0 turn victory is entirely possible with tweaking some of the settings), while others are purely down to RNG luck like collecting artefacts. You will likely be spending most of your time working on a few achievements hoping for the random item to spawn if you are going for 100%.

For more reviews please visit https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/31327216/

Mortal Kombat 1 is the 12th entry into the series, functioning somewhat as a soft reboot and yet a direct continuation from past games. It removes a lot of the gameplay options of past entries (no Kustom Variation for Characters, no stage fatalities, Friendships, Qualities or Mercies), has a slightly smaller starting roster (22), and is heavily focused around its new mechanism of Kameo fighters, and the new gameplay mode of invasions (and is incredibly grindy for the unlockable content). I had great fun with it for the single player story and the tower battles, am indifferent about the invasion mode, and think the multiplayer would only be good if you have a group of friends playing it casually. I’d recommend picking it up when it’s on a significant sale.

Story
The good thing about soft reboots are you kind of know what’s going to happen but not quite how, and then get to watch a spectacular train wreck unfold right in front of your eyes, and MK1 doesn’t disappoint. Its similar enough, but yet completely different while still having lots of little nods to all of the previous games. Scorpion is actually Sub-Zero. Baraka, Melina and Reptile are not mooks but main characters. Reptile even has a name!

After the events of aftermath in MK11, Fire-god Lui Kang has created his own timeline, manipulating events so the realms are at relative peace, and has given up his titan powers to resume being Earth realms defender. The game opens with the start of the new MK tournament, and while relationships are friendly compared to previous games, events rapidly spiral out of control. There are some seriously good plot hooks that take the story in multiple directions, and the “end” chapter has some very interesting versions of characters fighting, which are randomised (so each play through is different). There’s some wild character mixes in there (mime Johnny cage was cool), and it leaves the story in a place where it can go anywhere (which allows for the tower endings and invasions). There’s a solid mix of characters from the original games 3 games with a sprinkling of other from later entries (though Onaga, Daegon, Taven are still no shows) and any of the newer characters from MK X and MK 11 are missing - it’s too early for them in the timeline but a few are being added in the kombat packs.

Gameplay
I’ll preface this bit by saying I had lots of server connectivity issues in all game modes. There’s nothing enjoyable about losing progress or items in the invasions mode or having movies sequences stop playing advising there was a server connection problem. This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.

There’s a few major changes (mostly good) from past entries. Unlockables (different colours armours and items) are purely cosmetic now, and offer no advantages (other than looking good). The fatalities and brutalities are locked behind character progression, but if you know the combination you can still use them. These do take a long time to grind, Kameo XP is especially hard to acquire, but at least you don’t need to spend real world money on them. There’s an array of currency to use in the game, two that are persistent, and two others that are locked to season content (cosmetics) or item in invasions. Kameos are the other main drawing card, which allow you to select a second fighter with their own limited move set. You can call these into battle as long at you have enough of their bar filled to do so, and while they aren’t game breaking, they can help catch an opponent unaware and offer at least a glimpse of characters who aren’t likely to get a fully developed spot on the playable roster.

The Story mode is more like a animated movie (this is not a bad thing). The fights generally have limited move sets until certain events happen and there aren’t any fatalities. Each chapter has fixed fighters (with their Kameo partners), and the last chapter does something different and allows you to select who you want to use (which leads to the tower endings and invasion mode). Just like the currency there are multiple XP bars the keep track of. You have your main profile (which seems to reward artwork and other bits) while each fighter and Kameo have their own progression bar for unlocks. Invasion mode has its own fighter level that caps at 30 for stat increases, while ranked multiplayer again has a separate progression mode for more skins and unlockables.

The invasion mode replaces the Krypt and challenge towers of previous games, and is likely the place you spend most of your time grinding out some achievements, and equipment, and then repeat as its all reset at the end of a season. The mode itself makes a lot more sense once you have finished the main game, and consists of about 500 single round fights or challenges. It has slight RPG elements, with you being able to allocate stats on every level up (say either make special moves more powerful, more health, standard attacks more powerful ect), use items, equip talismans (unique moves that require a charge) and equip relics (items that give bonuses and debuffs) for fights. Each fighter has one or more element types, which has strengths and weaknesses compared to others (think like pokemon). The bosses (and season boss) fights are different and multiple phases, and actually require skill to complete, though again they can be cheesed with the right setup. There’s also a limited time boss fight that offers unique outfits when beaten. It’s a neat idea for extended replayability for those who aren’t into online mode, but I don’t think it’s been executed in a way that makes it enjoyable and having to wait 60 days for a new season to start as you missed the 4-day window that the fight is available is really crappy design.

Moves are very fluid and forgiving, nearly all special moves (including fatalities) are 3 directions and a action move. It’s easy to button mash special moves with any character, but stringing a combo together can take a bit of practise. The tutorial is quite good, and gets into ideas like frames and timing, if you really want to get into the mechanisms.

Multiplayer
Multiplayer has all the ideas to be good, but is disappointing. It has unique modes for ranked play (one that still hasn’t been released even after months of release), and rewards progressing up the ranked ladder. Matches are played in sets and are the best 2 out of 3, there you can continue to play the opponent in friendly matches, or play a new ranked opponent. For some reason match making seems to be blocked by antivirus programs, but when I did get a match I was hopelessly outclassed. Soon as I got a win for a set, I’d be matched with someone who has 1000+ games on their profile, and get to watch my character be juggled like a clown juggles balls. King of the hill returns for those who like to try their luck at consecutive matches, however it’s hard to find opponents for it. If you have a good group of friends who you could invite, I think the multiplayer would be quite fun.

Achievements
If chasing 100% achievements, then most are really easy, but some require a online guide to unlock (secret fights), while others require a fair amount of grinding and others are time sensitive.

For more reviews please visit https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/31327216/