Recent reviews by shattered fractal

I've spent 209 hours playing this game over the course of 10-ish years. About 3/4 of that time was active gaming (as opposed to ~1/4 idle - the result of life intruding on my gaming time... ah, we get older and it just happens...). This is how long it took to examine all of the options and (finally!) pop every achievement.

Dragonfall (the prior offering in the Shadowrun genre from HBS) was similarly excellent, but I didn't complete the achievements there... maybe I'll have to go back and look at that, since it was this game that interrupted that quest.

On the tech side, the game tends to be very stable and the only few technical issues I had were generally solved by restarting either/both the game, or Steam client. I think I also uninstalled and reinstalled once, and verified files a couple of times, usually right after Windows updates (Thanks, Bill and Gaben...)

There's a lot of character development here with PC races of human, elf, dwarf, troll, orc, in addition to encounters with other types, including a vampire queen!.

As to classes, shaman, decker, rigger, mage, physical adept, samurai are all general archetypes, but you have access to the whole skill tree based on attributes. So yes, you can be a buff mage, or a rigger-shaman, or tons of other hybrid builds.

Equipment progression tends to be somewhat linear because the gear database is static; you can see all of the gear that a vendor has from the start of access to that vendor, but as the game progresses you earn enough money to buy. There is no such thing as customization of gear; you equip and re-equip as you buy better gear. There is upgrading your body with cyberware, and those options are pretty static as well.

Additionally, if you're inclined toward metagaming and wish access to helps or walk-throughs, skill check guides, character building, and other useful stuff, there are tons of excellent guides available and the forum is a historical treasure trove of help for hung missions.

On that note, don't go for the cheats right away - it's a very good story and worth at least a play through just to experience the plot. Since different characters will have different stats and skillsets, I have found this game to have excellent replay value - and in fact, there is more than one ending... and if you're seeking achievements it makes sense to save scum, since choices matter. (And this is where the guides come in very handy.)

I hope this franchise continues to produce new products, given the quality of this storyline and production value; as a TBS combined with a linear storytelling RPG, Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition is a star in the genre and has provided more value than I could have hoped for in an era of games without plots.

Well done, HBS!

Retains its appeal and enjoyment even 15 years after release.

Excellent game; I don't see any reason to move to CVI6 after playing this game.

(Review written at 1116 hours played.)

Further review RE expansions - recommend all for best experience. This is a great game, and will be for a long time.

Tarkov + Rogue = Quasimorph

Great game, I am addicted!

tldr: Excellent turn-based card game with good value at full price; on sale it is a steal. This is a card game, not a deck-builder; think Mille Bornes, UNO, Lunch Money - not MTG or Pokemon. It's a deck that gives your options based on the cards you draw, but it's the same deck every game - though expansions are coming and may bring more options.

Before I go further: there are cards to this game and there are achievements. So far the achis are proving harder to get than I thought. If you're looking for easy-cheeveys you'll get a few, but overall I'd say this one is a skip for a wandering perfectionist.


All cards are either birds or bonus cards. Bonus cards are unique to the player holding them and give extra points at the end of the game if you've achieved the objective listed. Examples of objectives include "number of birds that can live in a field/forest/coastline" and "how many cards in your hand at the end of the game" and "how many birds that eat berries" and are typical of the bonus card.

Bird cards are the different birds (doy!), each with their own stats and characteristics: lives in forest/field/coastline; wingspan in centimeters; type of nest; number of eggs the nest can hold; point value; food cost to play the card; special abilities.

Birds are played into 1 of three environments/biomes, the aforementioned forest, field, and coastline. The forest is home to the birdfeeder, which gives all available food options that are available, and does so on up to 5 dice. When you get down to all the same die/dice or take the last food in the feeder you'll be able to refresh the feeder (or not - pay close attention to your bird abilities!). There will (generally) be smaller birds with food abilities (when you gain food, the cards tend to give you an additional 'gain food' option) or a hunting option. The birdfeeder action give more dice picks, the more birds you have played in the biome.

Plains is where your eggs are laid, and like forests with food, the more birds you have played in this biome, the more eggs you will be able to lay. (This is important because it costs eggs to bring out new birds after the first one in any given biome.) Plains birds tends to give access to the 'gain food' or 'lay egg' or 'destroy egg to gain [x]' options.

Coastlines will allow your birds to fish for food/score and engage in hunts (draw cards from deck and keep if under a certain wingspan, place as score marker under the card), and most importantly to draw new cards. The more birds in your hand, the more options you have, but after about 7 or 8 it starts to get hard to easily see them all.

While it is a card game and you must play cards to participate, there are actions that you can take that do not involve cards; as mentioned above, when you use the biome ability (forest is gain food; plains is lay eggs; cost is draw bird cards) each bird in the biome has a turn where their ability is activated. This is where the true abilities of the cards played gain their value. For this reason I find great replayability in this game, and that is to say nothing of the coming expansion for European birds (which I plan to buy at release).

Cons:

• Even playing vs 4 bots, the turns can take half a minute or longer; given the time my turn takes, I expect this will mean fairly slow multiplayer games, though I've not tried multi yet. Perhaps not Talisman-length, but those first few games... best get to know the abilities of some birds and the flow of the game or they will be long games
• THERE IS NO "LET ME TAKE A FEW MORE TURNS!" OPTION! GAHH!!

Pros:

• Ambiance is just beautiful!
• birds are animated (though probably not to real life motions)
• average AI setting provides a viable challenge, and to play against the Automoton means to be very, very challenged.
• you're never playing against anyone, just to get your own objectives!

Though I have experienced 3 game crashes total in 70 logged hours (~65 hours of which were active gameplay, not idle), each time it was on my turn and the autosave prevented any loss of time or action. If every game crashed so gently as Wingspan, one might think that no one would complain ever again; you just restart the game and click the game you were just playing, and play resumes.

If anyone has additional information on multi, please make a post below.

Tales of Maj'ael... Ultima Online... the original XCOM... and, of course, Rogue.

Maybe you liked Divinity but thought it was just so darn long a game... but you liked the quest system?

This game touches all of these games and others in the genre they come from. Story is key; this isn't an action game. Turn based game is based on turns in combat, but you can wander the map and fast travel pretty quickly, and once you unlock a new travel location you can warp there from any exit.

This product has the feel of one I could put a hundred hours into, so some of the quick pros/cons and observations include:

• starting zones are fairly empty and thus boring; this is a good tutorial area and it passes quickly
• quicksave/quickload function are F3/F4, which is very useful for a first encounter with a new foe; there are a total of 20 save slots, with 1 being assigned to the quicksave, and another to auto-save
• the script for some encounters is very simplistic, which has a slight effect on immersion to the story; most tutorials and informationals can be banished immediately - it's a popup message, not an animation
• having too many followers means you can't use much magic in combat >:D
• always recharge your Essence & Energy when you find a well!

With 3 classes to choose from there is replay value in this product, and (even as a new player) I can already see that different builds will eventually work in the same way as Fallout does; if you're a fighter type you might not find some things that Shapers (magic users) can because you lack sufficient magical stats. That alone will have me on a second playthrough.

I find that this is a solid product all around at its sale price of $15, and I'm not sorry that I bought the Deluxe Edition for $20... but that's about the right value in my opinion. At full price, if you've got another game you're into... wait for the next sale.

@Spiderweb Games - well done, lads and ladies. My single request: maybe in a future update you would consider adding a hotkey to toggle running speed? The walk is already a pretty good clip, but when I gotta go, I gotta go FAST!! Even if the whole game speed increased with that hotkey (so the spawns/enemies/NPCs move fast too) that would be fine.

This game is Ikari Warriors, with a roguelike map; a not-quite bullet hell, though it can get dicey.

Multiple difficulty settings to increase the thrill, but it's playable with all difficulty off at ~60% intensity.

In ~10 legit hours of play I've never seen a bug in solo, but I have been crashed from 2 games multi (2 player max for co-op mode).

This is a solid buy at 50%, but unless you really, really like the genre. I'd expect a solid ~20 hour game in terms of interest for many people, with the exception that if you have a pal to lobby, maybe longer.

If you're in it for the achievements, this probably isn't your game simply because there's 4 classes, each with 2 archetypes, and there's an achievement for all of them reaching max level.

Has cards.

Overall, this is a very fine offering and product from Flow Fire Games and WhisperGames - well done, lads!

[edit: I touched this review in the naughty place for the 2021 Autumn badge. I feel dirty.]

So hot... want to touch the hiney...

10/10 touched the hiney.

The sheriff will not be your friend after you run him over.

10/10 will continue to run over the sheriff.

One day I hope to make it to the first mission, too.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2299260900

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2298328853

First off, this DLC is thumbs UP for me... but I advise that it is not worth the price, at any price; it's just a skin. Yes, like a CSGO skin... and it's barely visible... and it's not that cool.

It was only intended as a Kickstarter Reward, and it was intended that this skin be reserved as a special reward for the Kickers... but as the world goes, they now offer it for money.

1.) If you didn't Kick it, you shouldn't pick it.
2.) It's just not worth even a nickel; buying it wasn't ever supposed to be what it's for... but why not stick it to the fanboys just a little? ;D

As a Kickstarter bonus, thumbs UP; as a DLC... you actually thought of buying this? Go stand in the corner and strike yourself in the sacred place until I'm tired.

HBS... you guys should have left something sacred after the crowd fund. This just looks like the naked cash grab it is, and it's rather a black eye... but if you really want to sell some silly Shadow Hawk backer skins, announce that you will discontinue selling them, and cut the price in half. A TON of people will pay for a limited run skin for a decades-long favorite game, and many for years afterward will drool when they look at the forbidden candy.