Recent reviews by TheThornyKnight

It's just really boring for a Total War game.

I want to love it. I would have *Loved* this if it looked like this with Rome 1's / Medieval 1/2's RPG style of gameplay, but it's just a really barren, naked total war (literally. Most troops are various shades of naked dude in a loin cloth).

Anyways, it's at least made me appreciate Shogun Total War, so I'm probably gonna go boot that up. It's bad that a game that much older, feel so much better though.

Don't know how I didn't get around to doing this sooner. This game is the only modern game I can think of that truly deserves the price AAA asks for. Calling it AAA would be an insult, because it does everything right, that AAA does wrong.

I've played Zomboid on and off since alpha and it's really, really still a bloody incredible game. The modding community have made some amazing contributions and I highly recommend you check them out (especially for skills that need a little extra love, like Metalworking).

Instantly puts you into a tutorial before you can do anything (including adjusting any option settings) and comes without voice acting, which considering how much of a cash cow this wants to be, you'd think they'd put in that extra bit of effort to make the first impression as glossy as possible.

Once you do get in, the character screen UI just looks bad. It could be something to do with them being imbalanced or located in the top left corner, but it makes it look like the character selection is tiny, although the characters themselves do admittedly look fantastic.

Combat felt... chunky? A bit off/slow compared to similar Brawl games. I can't quite place it. It could be that Shaggy is just a really bad introduction character, but it felt very clunky to me playing it, with basic arenas on show.

I don't know how much money the game has been able to pump out of mobile gaming whale purchasers, so obviously, they'll be doing what they think is best, but I would have genuinely paid a one time payment of £40 for this with all characters unlocked, but there's simply not enough here to warrant sticking around or investing into it.

Stick with Rivals of Aether or Brawlhalla for now. This one needs some serious work.

Tutorial felt like a slog to get through. Far, far too much "Do this, do that, do this" without anything dynamic occurring to grip you into the game. I bought it for 95% and I was still (or rather, am still) considering refunding it, as without mod support, I can tell this is one I'll struggle to return to.

Biggest gripe? Why does the mouse movement feel like I'm swinging an anchor about? What's the idea behind that? Felt like a really, really strange choice.

Loved this game back during release, but at one point it stopped focusing on the ghosts trying to scare players and focused on the hunts, which I always found the least interesting element outside of the School/Prison maps with long, looming corridors.

Introducing new players, they often find the game dull/boring with the ghosts rarely actually doing anything horror related. It's such a shame because in the early days, the game really did have that special something for scaring us senseless. When starting equipment is as poor in quality as it is, new players miss out on actually being able to see the ghosts coming for them, so why stick around for further engagement?

Real shame, but at least there's tons of alternatives out there now.

Whilst missing a lot of that unique story, if you loved the PS1 Digimon World 1, you'll likely enjoy the way the Pals fight one another.

Really looking forward to seeing how this game changes the landscape of 'pocket fighter' games moving forward.

Just didn't really vibe with the game-play loop. Didn't experience enough of the content featured in the meme video, as a brand new player. Ran around a few tunnels, grabbed random crap, put it in a ship, got eaten by a giant, killed by bees.

I'll probably come back to it, but I didn't see the appeal this time.

So I was really excited about Gord. I've put countless hours into Kenshi and I really vibed with the idea of a tight knit group of villagers in a bleak, defenceless location.

With steam purchases, you've got two hours to make me confident my purchase is worthwhile. I need to know I'm going to really value my time spent here.

But beyond the very well acted emissary chap who is an absolute git, I really didn't vibe with anything 'Character' or 'Story' driven in the initial tutorial. My villagers, small in number thought they may be, aren't any different than Age of Empire nobody villagers. They can be retrained to do anything, so far they've not said a word. Maybe if I learned more about the Gord world, I'd be willing to stick around long enough to see if they show more, but with all of them seemingly having zero audible personality, I really don't want to.

It's a beautiful game that I'll likely come back to at a significantly cheaper price, but you're not offering enough story wise to make me shift here and now. Your tutorial is far too slow as well. I kept getting the vibe that because what I was being taught was boring, I could likely come back to a full tutorial from a content maker that'd take 10 minutes and be done with.

I dunno. I want it to be cool. It looked like a really cool idea, but it's odd for the tutorial to say "This will become relevant later."

Mate, I'm here now. Make me interested right now, or I'm bouncing off to other games I know are good.

TLDR - Gord is fine if you've never played an RTS before, but if you have, its initial showings show nothing new and gripping from the tutorial I played. Sanity isn't a unique mechanic and the way they portray it is incredibly mechanical and strips away the mystique a DM might portray that system as in a TTRPG.

Show, don't tell. That'd be my main recommendation. The second one would be 'Get on with it' for the tutorial.

It has its spots where room for improvement is needed, especially revolving around stamina usage (in its current form, it promotes players to tunnel vision down a cheesy method of play.)

That said, I love this game and I think the developer has done an amazing job with it.

I think the way to improve things in the future is just more and more customisation for how individual playthroughs will go in terms of balance. That might help to make everyone happy with the experience.