Recent reviews by Yamsha

First impressions are encouraging, but soon you begin to notice repeating tasks, tedious and sometimes random run execution, unfriendly interfaces, unclear food processing procedures, extremely complicated programming machines and features which feel incomplete or barely matter. Do not advise, unless you really need a new automation game and have tried or got bored by all other, much more rewarding games.

A genuinely unforgettable game experience. If You haven't played this, do Yourself a favor and don't watch any let's plays of this game. It is meant to be experienced by playing, because the unusual game mechanics tie in with the story; they blend together perfectly and You have to go through it - sole watching will not achieve this. The story makes You traverse through all of emotions without speaking an understandable word, yet You get all of this through clever camera angles, environmental cues, body language of the characters and the manner their gibberish language is spoken. It is an example of what the games can be if developers play with the strengths of this media, instead of trying to mimic films or television.

Highly recommended.

To me, this is the pinnacle of turn-based 4X strategy games. I seriously can't count all the different aspects of this game. There is exploration, researching new technologies, diplomacy, trading, creating new settlements, developing existing cities... the list seems to have no end. You can either lead as friendly merchant, whose civilization is drowning in wealth, be a dictator with such an army that noone can feel safe, a religious leader spreading his sacred beliefs with missionaries, a patron of the arts, whose culture will conquer the world, or any combination of those. There is so much to it, it feels like adding anything more would spoil the perfection. You will never get bored with so many civilizations to choose from and with each you can go whichever path you wish to - be it technology, diplomacy, religion, culture, wealth or army. However, development requires many commitments, you have to cope for the wealth, food, happiness, cultural growth of your cities and military security of those, since an utopia with no army is as vulnerable, as a powerful military country with debts and low morales. And every game is different, which is what I love the most - you will never get bored. Although to fully enjoy the experience, I strongly recommend getting the expansions - Gods and Kings & Brave New World. And the best thing is the multiplayer - the "End your turn already!" shout-fest with friends :)

Now the trick question: can the next Civilization beat this?

At first a mod, now a stand-alone game. Has great potential, but needs a lot of dedication and time to create something decent. Had its significant contribution to machinimas, for instance - DasBoSchitt's GMod Idiot Box. However, it's based on Source - an engine created more than ten years ago. Once an example of the future of gaming, but has aged since and it's noticeable.

For me its a fun little sandbox to hang out with friends doing everything and nothing. But there are so many addons/modifications/gamemodes, I can't wrap my head around this. On one hand, a more focused and restricted gamemodes set would be better for some players, but isn't it too much to ask for the exact opposite of the ideas behind GMod - freedom and experimenting?

This game is the best team-based tactical FPS you can find, yet could have been so much more. Had it not been for CS 1.6 or CS: Source, I would have only a few complaints, but one can't not take those previous games into consideration. The perfect game to me would be taking CS 1.6 shooting mechanics and combining them with CS: GO or CS: Source UI and maps. It aims to be the best competitive tactical shooter there is and has little competition. This may be the exact reason for its many flaws. But I would say that the flaws' origin is not the game, but Valve itself, since the fans of this game have found and provided answers to its many problems or proposed solutions and ideas, but the updates we get couldn't be more of a far cry from those. For example, a simple fix for ladders on de_train was ignored by the developer. We want less accurate jump-shots - we get a new skins case; we want to revert the awp nerf - we get new weapon sounds, new gloves, and so on. Had Valve not been so disconnected with the community, I'm sure it would be a much better game. Still, if you are looking for the best competitive team-based first person shooter, there's only one answer - whether it's good for us or not.

Firstly, I'd like to say that I am no hardcore fan of the series, although I truly enjoyed Thief 3, despite its flaws. This iteration in the series is much more polished in terms of visuals (textures, models, especially animations), but far inferior story- and gameplay-wise and has a few bugs - not game-breaking, but still noticeable (I'll elaborate below). The game itself is really linear (apart from the mission hub), which stands in striking contrast to the previous games. The main character isn't memorable. Non-guard NPCs are basically placeholders - after they say their lines they walk around in silence, acknowledging Garrett's presence just by looking at him (take his appearance into account). If you block their path they simply try to walk through you with obviously poor results. To enter most interiors or to get through to another area, you have to mash the 'use' button repeatedly, to let the game load the data I suppose. Why, though? The repeated animation is useless and annoying. To me, this would be of no importance, if the core gameplay met the expectations. I played on Master difficulty (hardest) with additional crutches to enjoy the game better, but the guards were still broken. The key part of a stealth game is broken. That's unacceptable. Let me develop this topic:

Guards' flaws:
1. Most game-breaking bug: they stop following their normal patrol routes. I simply don't know how, but I've read that saving/loading may cause this. If the guard has a pause on his patrol route, he may somehow refuse to resume his patrol. I've noticed that many times, sometimes it helped me, but mostly it annoyed me, cause I tried to play ghost and be unnoticed at all times, even avoiding taking them down with the blackjack. That would be possible if they had their scripts/AI written well. Sometimes saving/loading again fixed this issue, but not always. This should not happen in such a big-budget game.
2. Blind as hell until they acknowledge you, then they are perfect at seeing you from thrice the distance, from which you'd be unnoticed had they been not alarmed, even if looking straight at you.
3. 5-second memory - if you get caught, they will go after you, but once you disappear from their sight for a couple seconds, they stand in one place, looking around or go back to their patrol routes, being mildly alarmed. After some time, they simply forget any threat was around there. Hiding in a one-entrance room was never that easy.
4. Fighting - I know it's a stealth game, but bear with me - if you get into a fight with a single guard armed with a sword (not a crossbow), it's stupidly easy to avoid every hit he aims at you. The time-window to press the dodge key is so big that anyone is able to avoid each and every attack with just a single click of a button. After each attack the guard recovers his strength for a second or two and attacks again. It's so pointless. In a stealth game it should be very hard to survive a fight.
5. Sleeping guards are a joke - they wake up from a bad step in glass or a failed lockpicking try (sure, I suppose Garrett makes such noise when he misses a pin), but ignore a fight two metres away, even with the other guard shouting. What?!
6. Some guards are looking at loot to steal on their patrol routes, yet refuse to acknowledge the fact that at some point in time it has been stolen and they are looking at an empty counter. Come on, really?

Given that the game is meant to be a reboot, a fresh start of the series, a step in the right direction, a demo of what's to come, I am afraid that's the last Thief for me. Pretty graphics on the outside, but the insides are far below expectations of a modern stealth game. Fools' gold. And this game came out AFTER Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dishonored...

Amazingly fun to play in coop with friends online or on a single screen, though it requires X360 gamepads for other players (max 4 players either on- or offline). Great challenge when going solo, especially with the additional task of collecting all the loot. The game may look simple at first, but give it some time and you should find it interestingly challenging. Definitely for people who like to max out the levels. There are eight characters to choose from (4 during the first missions); each has its advantages and drawbacks, thus each of them requires a different approach and strategies, but in coop they complement each other. Time spent on each level can be compared with other players via the built-in leaderboards. Not to mention the great, full of twists story, the built-in map editor (steam workshop), good humour (guards' voices), good replay value, additional zombie mode and the free expansion which closes the story. There are a couple of flaws, but they are outnumbered by the sheer fun when playing this. It seems like the developers really loved creating this gem. At least that's what I felt while playing it. Vous allez adorer, monsieur