Recent reviews by AmrothDin

Slava Ukraini! Heroyam slava!

Having played the campaign and the Challenge Mode of the WotC and the TLP missions in XCOM 2 it hardly came as a surprise to me that Firaxis chose to further develop shorter missions with preset soldiers that throw you right into the action. And honestly, after having played so many campaigns in XCOM 2 on higher difficulties I grew to dislike the monotony of every mission: the constant outfitting of six soldiers so they have the necessary weapons, armor and equipment, the overwatch creep, the absolute need to alpha strike the enemy so your soldiers won't get killed or be out of action for several weeks. And after you take out the pod you creep forward again while being careful to engage no more than one pod at a time. Rinse and repeat for every single mission. Oh, and sometimes you have to search the map for the last enemies (but this was more of a problem in XCOM EU) which can take dozens of turns.

XCOM Chimera Squad is a breath of fresh air after playing these kinds of campaigns for several years. Every mission puts you right into action with the breaching being the only preparation that is needed. The interwoven turn orders feel like a natural progression in the series and I hope they’re here to stay, as they eliminate the constant need to alpha strike each enemy pod. Instead you have to come to terms with the fact that not every enemy can be dealt with before they can deliver damage to your units and have to work around that. Your soldiers come with some fantastic abilities like Cherub’s shield ability that he can use to lure an enemy to waste their turn on a shielded ally, Terminal’s suppression that bumps down an enemy in the turn order, or Torque’s bind that can incapacitate the strongest enemy on the map. The game can also be pretty unforgiving. I’ve cleared quite a few maps with ease thinking that I could take it slow and take down reinforcements non-lethally to get the intel bonus, only to get swarmed by enemies that jump up in the timeline when they arrive, leaving you with soldiers with scars. And oh boy, the first urgent mission in a district with full unrest. Having grown used to the mission description Very Difficult not meaning anything in XCOM 2 anymore I took whatever units that didn’t have scars and equipped them with what gear I had. Torque went down in the second engagement and was replaced by an android and the last area had more than double the amount of units I had, including an Archon and a few Codexes and Acolytes. Cherub and Axiom survived by the skin of their teeth thanks to their abilities and the fact that the last enemies escaped. The mission was (barely) accomplished, my heart was racing and I felt the good old feeling XCOM gives you when you’re put in an impossible situation and you’re able to claw your way out of it.

As for the lore and story, I don't think it’s important in an XCOM game. Goofy aliens invade the Earth and in EU and 2 your scientists discover a magical macguffin that can stop them after working hard for a couple of months and delivering their solutions with technobabble. The lore and story have never been the strongest aspects of the XCOM series, so I don’t see why that should matter now. They’re there mostly so you have a reason for why you should go out and blow things up.

The game does have a lot issues though. In my 30 hours long campaign on Expert I encountered reinforcements bug which causes the game to crash 3-4 times but there are so many more bugs and glitches. Just to name some: midway into the campaign my ordinary shotguns disappeared so I couldn't swap the rare shotgun I'd put on Axiom to Godmother who had to do missions with the base weapon, floating soldiers, wonky UI with notification symbols not going away or showing wrong information (like Verge taking damage when doing mindflay), wrong description of abilities, soldiers performing an action just for the game to realize they were breaking the game's rules so they're reverted back to their original positions on the next turn, the icons in the base for going back to the main overview changing or disappearing. And I’m a bit disappointed with the voices not sounding alien enough, but it’s not a deal breaking thing.

My biggest criticism of the game, though, is the mediocrity of your soldiers in the late game. I mean, some soldiers have some really fantastic abilites, but when the endgame weapons deal a measly 6-8 damage against basic enemies that have a large health pool and a point or two of armor on top of that it gets a bit frustrating. Axiom deals a low 3 damage with his smash (when he manages to even hit the target) and Verge does the same with his mindflay. It gets a little underwhelming. But I get it. The focus of the game isn't to wipe the map in one turn but to manipulate the timeline and prioritize targets in such a way that the damage you take is minimized rather than non-existant as in XCOM 2. I just think a better way of doing this would be to swarm you with low health trash enemies (on top of the serious threats like praetorians, ronins and the like) that can chip away the health of your soldiers if you're not careful rather than upping the health pool of basic enemies and locking the damage output of your soldiers at a low level.

All in all it’s a great spinoff that has a lot of issues, but it’s well worth the money. In fact, even for the full price this game is an absolute steal. I play some games that get regular DLCs every year and those cost about as much as CS, but offer waaay less content. I’m glad that there still are AAA studios that release smaller games that cost less instead of every game having to be a service with a large price tag and if XCOM 3 is still years away I would've nothing against having a new smaller spinoff annually to quench my thirst for more XCOM. How about a strike force hunting down the last Chosen in some remote corner of the Earth in the next game, Firaxis?

Just be prepared to troubleshoot a lot, but that shouldn't be a surprise when it comes to new releases by Firaxis.

For a game that's almost a decade old it holds up really well when it comes to graphics and controls. It has lots of different modes compared to other racing games like ordinary street races, time trials, battles, cop pursuits, dispatches etc.

But it's more of an arcade racer rather than simulator, so realism and car physics aren't it's strong suit. You basically drive a nearly indestructible brick glued to the road. Compare this to a more realistic game like GRID 2 (which has sadly been removed from Steam) where you're driving a cardboard car on roads made out of soap. That's basically how it feels driving in NfS: Hot Pursuit and then switching to other racing games.

Of all the racing games available on Steam this is probably my favorite and the one I come back to the most. Highly recommended.

I'm on the fence whether I should recommend this game.

If you're a fan of the early entries in the Diablo franchise and of isometric aRPGs in general this will be a game for you. If, on the other hand, you're bothered by the datedness of some older games, then you'll get frustrated by this game. Because it is wonky. You're casting fireballs that travel with the speed of a birthday party balloon through the air. Your spell will bump into the smallest incline in the terrain between you and your enemy. Your character wears armor that looks like a barrel with holes cut in it. Bugs and glitches galore.

Get it if you played it back when it was released and want a dose of nostalgia. Or if you're a fan of classic isometric aRPGs. Otherwise, proceed with caution.

I've owned this game since december 2016 and up until 1.0 it has worked fine everytime I started it. Now I can't get past the first loading screen. It takes a very long time to load, culminates in some of the most insane memory leaks I've ever experienced in a game, and finishes with my computer totally freezing up. Only a manual reboot fixes this.

So until these problems are fixed I can't recommend this game.

Probably the best Telltale game. The story is great, the humour better than in the other Borderlands games, and the cliffhangers make you want to start the next episode right away.

It doesn't beat Jedi Outcast as the best Star Wars game, but Jedi Academy has the better lightsaber fighting. The story is predictive, but the missions are varied, as are the enemies you fight. Well worth the buy.

You fight a Dinosaur sith lord and his emo girlfriend with lightsabers. Best Star Wars game of all time.

Short, but the most realistic space combat game I've come across. If you've played Kerbal Space Program you'll already be familiar with orbital mechanics, but COADE has N-body simulations instead of patched conics so planning orbital maneuvers can quickly become complicated.

The graphics are not the best, and the fairly limited missions make it more like a puzzle game, but even despite those nitpicks I'd still recommend this game at full price for hard-sci-fi nerds.

Torchlight II scratches that age old Diablo 2 itch.