Recent reviews by Hawk

Bought this after watching Wanderbot play it in a video. It looked like fun and different then most incremental games I've tried so I gave this a shot.

What this is, is a fun little game that isn't wasting your time with having to idle or click a bunch to make progress. There's really never a "need" to grind for money as you can unlock things as you go and each cycle you can speed up your progress dramatically meaning there's very little downtime. The mining aspect of it adds a fun bit of interactivity to the progress of the game, but by the end you'll be destroying blocks so well that it becomes kind of an after thought. There's very little need to plan out your strikes when you destroy nine tiles in a block formation everytime you strike.

The minimalist graphics get the job done and are cute. As you level up your pick and pick area it's fun to see the little blocks get splattered all over the place. Each area has it's own little identity and while nothing is ground breaking visually in the game it's all pleasant enough.

But I have to add that while I'm happy with my experience with the game, if you're a hardcore veteran (if such a thing exists for the incremental/clicker/idler genre) of these games and are expecting limitless replayability this probably won't appeal to you. This is very much a self contained, fun, little package and it's not aiming to compete with bigger names in the genre.

I'd definitely recommend this to anyone casual into the genre and anyone who just wants a good time for a few hours.

PSA: DO NOT BUY THIS GAME - Dev is throwing a hissy fit and currently threatening to end all future support for the Steam release.

I was a big supporter of this game; hyped it many times in Reddit threads to get it more attention. I always thought the game was great and I can't say I ever regretted playing it.

Was just shadow banned by the devs for calling out the type of people they're associating with in their current meltdown about lack of moderation "against" their game. The type of people who are siding with the dev are insulting Jewish people and calling others the F word to give you some idea of the people they are comfortable being on their safe space. The dev has also thrown in comments about anti-trans issues in their patch notes in the past.

It's a real shame. You can have your politics, you can have your opinions, but don't cry when your militant anti-anything liberal or decent stance causes push back on your game. You could make a true masterpiece and your opinions can cause push back. That's life. That's what a true exchange of information and ideas is. And then you whine about people being unfair or making things up and then shadow ban someone for having a different take them you? Well done on hypocrisy.

This isn't the first time I've seen a independent game maker find out the consequences of their words or actions but it's always sad to see. Maybe the dev can get a few sales on Truth Social until he says something they don't like and the dev gets shadow banned themselves.

Really enjoyed my time with the free trial but there's two reasons I didn't purchase (besides being low on money).

I severely dislike forced (or semi forced) stealth mechanics. It's personal choice. The gameplay of Dying Light is amazing but it takes it away at night forcing you to stealth to avoid OP monsters. From what I understand avoiding night is possible after the introductionary mission but it soured me on the experience significantly. Even the logic issues of that particular point of the story (I HAVE to return to the tower at night? I can't just rest in one of the safe houses I've claimed?) made no sense.

And the other was the story. The story is going for a super double agent thing. The double cross seems inevitable and you not disclosing the mission with your allies makes no sense given the situation. Once you've gained their trust why not enlist them for your cause except to set up a future situation where you betray them or the GRE betrays you or both.

The mechanics are amazing though.

(Made June 29th, 2019)

Stellaris is a grand strategy 4x hybrid game. It takes the concepts of games like Master of Orion and wraps it around the shell of Grand Strategy like Europa Universalis. Unlike Paradox's other offerings Stellaris is easy to pick up if you have any prior experience with the 4X or GS genres. The game doesn't do any one thing particularly fantastic but the overall whole works very well.

The DLC is all extra bits and bobs and are in no way needed to experience the game fully. This isn't a typical DLC situation where you'll be missing key major features without them. The base game and it's patches include all the major gameplay features. The DLC only adds in new race types, galaxy features, cosmetic items or stories.

Stellaris as it is right now is perhaps in the best position the game has ever been. The sweeping changes made by patch 2.2 in December have finally been ironed out, are working as intended, and great lengths have been taken to make the game play better as each game wears on in years. This means the game still plays well even after a hundred years instead of stalling to a crawl. Or worse as with 2.2 where the game barely functioned for large amounts of players.

That all being said, you'll still see people complaining about changes made to Stellaris from 1.9 and 2.2. Those changes fundamentally changed how the game plays and works and are still quite divisive to a large majority of players. If you're new to the game then you can pretty much discard those opinions. They aren't *wrong* opinions but they have no merit on your decision to buy the game or not. You won't have the prior baggage of having experienced those versions of the game to cloud your judgement on where the game is now.

If Paradox hadn't put in so much work trying to salvage 2.2 I'd have told someone just a month or two ago not to buy Stellaris. But there's been enough work and effort put into the game to save it that I think it's back to being a worthwhile purchase. What had become an unmitigated disaster from both a product and PR standpoint has been turned into a little bit of a victory for Paradox. It took awhile but their vision has paid off in the long run.

A unique take on the ARPG Formula with some caveats.

The game plays as a mixture of a card game and an ARPG. The usual ARPG formula is there; monsters to kill, loot to grab, money to collect, levels to gain just to kill more monsters to get more loot to gain more money for more levels. But the game uses a unique system of cards and slots instead of actual equipment that you place on the character. Each piece of "equipment" takes a certain amount of mana which means that even as a warrior you require some amount of mana to effectively use items. Attacks are also cards that you activate to use their abilities and as you go on you'll gain more cards and have to pay gold to unlock additional card slots.

IMO the most controversial aspect of the game is the movement. Instead of the usual free-range style of movement in ARPG's, Book of Demons uses a cardinal direction system. You can only stay on the path and are limited to north, south, east and west movement. No diagonals or choosing your own path which makes things like dodging significantly more difficult. Further enemies can get on the path and physically block you from moving in that direction which makes wading into battle very tricky and dangerous. If you've played ARPG's as long as I have (since Diablo 1 in my case) this is exceptionally tricky to get the hang of because your first instinct is to move and gain tactical advantage but you can't move the way you want/need to move in the heat of the moment. I'm sure the longer you play the better you get at using the system but it's quite the culture shock.

Another major issue is the fact that you can't map skills or abilities to left or right click like you can in virtually every other ARPG. The developers readily admit this is a fault in their engine but it's something they can't fix in the engine. If you have a mouse with extra buttons you can map to those easily enough but again, it's something of a culture shock to be limited in that way.

Despite those gripes I do enjoy Book of Demons and think it's a good purchase for anyone wanting a different take on the ARPG formula.

Edit: Upon playing the game further I actually want to taper the review a little. As I've progressed the game has become more and more frustrating with enemies that inflict status aliments, groupings right when you enter a level, or masses through doorways. Not to mention an abundance of archers who can attack from off screen where you can't actually get to them due to the way the pathway system works. It doesn't feel challenging but instead frustrating and at times cheap.

A solid game that doesn't really live up to its Fallout lineage. They spent far too much effort on the Settlement parts of the game to the detriment of everything else. The settlement/building not only doesn't fit the Fallout universe, it completely breaks immersion when you can instantly take apart a car that's been sitting in the wasteland for the last two hundred years.

FO4 is still a fun game if you're just looking for adventure and exploration. But if you're looking for something with more substance then that I'd steer clear.

The definitive Fire Pro game. But despite that as of (June 2018) the game still has massive flaws with its online functions and workshop support. Specifically you still get desyncs in multiplayer against other people which is unacceptable and the workshop is completely broken in it's implementation. Good luck if you want to delete a guy you've downloaded. Not only do you have to unsubscribe from the mod in Steam but then you have to go into Fire Pro and manually delete the wrestler in question. The game doesn't list edits in any alphabetical listing, nor does it make this a speedy process. If you have 800 edits you've downloaded you're in for a very "fun" time.

There's also the issue of not delivering promised DLC content when they were supposed to. No Management of Rings mode despite being slated to be released in January 2018. Hopefully the Steam verison is updated when the PS4 copy is released later this year.

Fallen Enchantress Legendary Heroes is one of the most criminally underlooked 4X strategy games out there. It doesn't help that Stardock itself doesn't understand the franchise and radically changed the game's structure with the inferior Sorcerer King games.

What sets FE:LH apart:

- A unique world setting. The gameworld is ruined at game start. All civilization has been destroyed by the Cataclysm and you are tasked with rebuilding. Most of the world is uninhabitable with only select places on the map being suited for colonization and wild enemies roam the map. You'll encounter quests and events from those surviving and those regarding the history of the world and its twisted creatures where even living gods were perverted.

- Many victory conditions including your usual 4X conditions such as conquering, but also an ascension to god-hood and a master quest to redeem the world itself.

- Each faction in the game can be used by different leaders and each faction plays differently allowing for quite a bit of replayability and roleplaying.

- Strong creation tools and modding allowing you to create or change the game significantly. The modding scene has dried up but many mods are still compatible.

Negatives:

- DLC is pretty lackluster with Stardock clearly trying to mine the fans of the game for more money. Among the more damning is The Dead DLC where the AI is completely inept at playing with the new faction's unique mechanics.

- Tactical combat isn't the strongest but functional. It's not anywhere near the complexity of something like Age of Wonders.

- Stardock in general. The game still has issues that they never fixed or modified and it's become clear over time that Stardock has abandoned what made this game good in order to repackage and appeal to new customers with the more limited "streamlined" Sorcerer King games.

While not a perfect game, Fallen Enchantress Legendary Heroes is a great 4X game taking place in a unique world. I highly recommend any serious TBS fans give the game a look.

*Written without Enemy Within*

A good attempt to modernize X-Com for a newer audience, but one that suffers from many of the pitfalls of today's gaming mentality. The game is full of cute additions that quite quickly become incredibly annoying. The constant talking heads (some of which can be disabled in the expansion apparently), the little cutscenes, the soldier voice acting; they simply make the game less enjoyable as you go along. You can disable them, but you'd think they'd make "fluff" less aggrivating. There are other "features" that I found offputting, useless, or hindered my enjoyment. The entire "Ant Farm" base being a good example of something that serves absolutely no function.

Gameplay is simplified from the original X-Com quite a bit, sometimes with artificial limitations that don't make sense when looked at critically. My honest opinion about the game was that the AI cheated, or the game had no idea how to computate odds for various actions. Which is odd, given that the original X-Com; a very difficult game never felt like it cheated. It comes down to the difference in presentation: One soldier in X-Com means nothing. In Enemy Unknown it means everything. That one soldier can be the difference between failure and loss; making the AI "cheating" or being "cheap" incredibly frustrating.

Also has to be mentioned that 2K promised mod support prior to release, but then changed their tune once the game came out, including making the game "call home", which nukes mod support unless you run it offline or without autoupdate. Not a cool move. There's also the bugs, which last I played were quite bad and patch support was very slow.

Despite that, it's still a solid strategy game. In no way do I think it is anywhere near the original game, but it's a solid attempt. For me, there are enough issues and questionable design decisions that I don't know if I'll ever get the enjoyment I could have out of it. If you don't have any illusions for X-Com, or just want a solid modern strategy game, it's worth a look. I'd still recommend the original over the remake.