Análises recentes de His Imperial Bodgeness

An impressive achievement born from the toil of 2 brothers, and a game with a refreshingly different outlook on survival mechanics for its time (before The Long Dark emerged). The cartography and mapping in particular is compelling, although occasionally fiddly. Core gameplay revolves around exploration and resource management, while occasionally stopping for a picnic to triangulate your position; it's really quite relaxing.

Unfortunately all this is overshadowed by the awful, floaty character movement - unforgivable in an exploration-centric game. Animations are wonky and frequently jarring, and unless you W + M1 at all times your step is staccato as you take a tumble down even the slightest slope, yet your character grinds to a halt every time you dare look sideways. This doesn't even cover the fact that you slide forward a few feet after releasing the keys as if you were on rollerblades. I cannot overemphasize how alien this feels, and how much it undermines the rest of the game.

Recommended, but with caution.

What a wonderful little game, bursting with charming art design and puzzle interactions. As a puzzle game, it is quite simple (and really quite easy) but doesn't outstay its welcome due to short length and varied environments. Bear in mind that a 3hr length (100% collectables) may not satisfy all, but for the price you won't feel too short-changed.

It achieves what it set out to do with an interestng educational slant: I appreciate that all the texts were optional so as to not obscure gameplay, as well as the fact that the levels always gave you a taster of what the history of that particular style would be. Throw in a pleasant soundtrack and there really isn't too much to criticize.

It's a charming concept, if a little too 1-dimensional to really be a fleshed-out game. A cute story is told through sailing through an enthralling setting, and whale-watching. Occasionally when you haul yourself up a building to complete the objective you might find the climbing system repetitive, and this does make the core gameplay loop stale after a while. Overall, the game executes what it set out to do, and doesn't outstay its welcome: if it were any longer, the shallow mechanics might begin to grate. A fine PC port, and a satisfying way to sate your wanderlust for a couple of hours.

This is probably the saddest experience I have had with a game this year. It had so much potential, so much charm...which all fizzles out after a ragged 2nd act. What makes it all the more tragic is that the 1st act is nigh on perfect: you're sucked into a cheesy B-movie romp as you flail paddles at windmilling enemies. Locations are exciting and diverse, the story and characters aren't taken too seriously, and you even begin to regard the (numerous) bugs and wonky animations with something approaching fondness - something I thought only Bethesda RPGs could achieve.

The game goes downhill when the 2nd chapter dampens the mood, introduces guns (which are eye-clawingly awful), and limits vehicle use. Even here there is good map design and some entertaining set pieces, but they are sparse, and frankly when you spend most of your time down in the bloody sewers there isn't much time to admire it. Even in co-op, we just found ourselves rushing through to the end. My advice? Admire it from a distance.

A charmingly cheesy game, mixing the oriental voice acting and art style of 80's/90's martial arts movies with incredibly tight controls to give you some brutal bite-sized levels. Super slick animations, satisfying combat, incredible variety, and tonnes of content - oh, and the soundtrack does this game credit. The devs took the concept of a 2-button fighter and perfected it - expect later levels to get to bullet-hell levels of intestine-pulverizingly tricky.

Buy it, that is all - a review as concise as the game it describes.

What a wonderful game - one of the only true successes of the emergent Rogue-Lite genre. Let me explain:

To examine where it triumphs, compare it to where others have failed - stale, boring combat with a lack of interesting options to spice up your play (whether that be through lack of enemy, weapon or environment variety). In Ziggurat the combat has been given centre stage and streamlined. The idea of using magical weaponry allowed the devs to create varied and satisfying weaponry in 4 categories, which are given to you at regular, consistent intervals at the start of each floor (as well as in challenge rooms and shrines on occasion) to give you plenty of wiggle room in deciding your playstyle - a playstyle which can constantly be changed by the excellent perk system, and amulet pickups.

Variety is really the strength of this game - 16 characters with wildly contrasting themes (which you can apply to other characters if you select the right perks on runs, a feature I love), rooms with 5 various themes and a wide variety of layouts to test your tactical flexibility on x, y and z axes (not to mention a decent variety of traps and trap rooms), varied enemies and bosses with interesting (if not particularly innovative) attack patterns and appearance, and finally the aforementioned perk system letting you melt different characters' attributes together and create crazily imba runs. It's a wonderful thing that every perk has a tangible effect on gameplay (almost...), and often I found myself picking interesting-sounding perks just to see what they would inflict on me. Why am I ranting about variety? The premise of rogue-lites is to make you play many, maaany times, embarking on slight iterations of the same thing and asking you to enjoy it like it was your first time - few manage to make it this fresh and addictive. This is why the game rewards you with new perks/weapons/amulets permanently at the end of your run even when you lose - you can still derive some fun from losing in a different way, knowing that you have made measurable progress.

One more extremely important thing: the game doesn't get in the way of letting you enjoy all this. UI is minimalistic, and was completely scrapped for weapon switching and pickups, keeping you immersed and maintaining the frenetic pace of the action. Perks are presented to you clearly in a simple pop-up menu. Downtime and (fairly basic) feedback on your performance is only given to you between floors, to allow you respite. The point is, the game knows its strength is in its manic combat and doesn't interrupt you when you're having fun.

A quick shoutout to the fluid movement system. It's not anything special but I appreciate the fast pace, especially in a game with fairly heavy backtracking at times and some extremely mobile and bullet-hell-like enemies. It makes you feel skillful and integrates perfectly with combat decisions (in terms of enemy and weapon design), without actually needing too much skill. In the words of Zac Efron, all you need is a caveman's sense of rhythym.

Visuals are not only appealling but clear - enemies stand out, weapon pickups clearly display the type of mana it will use, clipping is rarely an issue, and 'secret' rooms are really rather obvious once you recognize them. Pleasant soundtrack too.

Honestly this collection of solid design decisions wouldn't have me so blubbering in glee if it wasn't so damn charming. The devil is in the detail, and the minutiae certainly are devilishly adorable here: from secret rooms that esconce little optional nuggets of history about the devs, to the ridiclous enemies and weapons, to the drip-fed lore through cutscenes and text scrolls (which reward you with xp; recognizing that lore doesn't matter to some), to the hilariously unjust blessings system at shrines, to the uncertainty whether that mystery box will shower you with health potions or exploding carrots.

I'll try and make this review seem slightly less one-sided by offering some negatives, and there are a few.
-->While there is nothing necessarily wrong with imbalance in a single-player game, some weapons (*cough* Magma Rifle) and classes (COUGHCLERICCOUGH) are sick no they are sickening that's how disgustingly op they are. All this does is make other weapons seem disappointing, and really if you get a Frostbow you may just want to surrender.
-->As usual, you also have to put up with classic Rogue-like RNG bollocks. Your run can be instantly doomed by a bad blessing, perk or weapon and there is nothing you can do about it. The only positive is that your success relies more upon your combat skill than items, which makes this slightly less of a problem than in other titles.

As you can tell, I recommend this game wholeheartedly, geddit.

(Also come back and edit this is so bloody long)

A charming innovation on the CCG genre; part puzzle and part deckbuilding. Plentiful (172!) and enjoyable single player mission content ('Puzzle' levels are fantastic at teaching more complex mechanics, something Hearthstone later copied) with active updates to complement the interesting card mechanics. Single player bosses all have their own distinct playstyle and type of colour deck they prefer, keeping the encounters fresh and immersive - speaking of which, the game has a gorgeous aesthetic. Multiplayer is active and functions much like Hearthstone, with ranked and casual modes. I wish I could leave it there...

F2P players beware however - after a few introductory missions the single player content is locked behind insurmountable paywalls. You might receive 100 gold for a level up, but will have to pay 4000 gold for one of these single player 8-mission campaigns, and 2000 gold for an 'Arena' (Pandora) ticket!! It is worth mentioning that crafting costs, especially for powerful legendaries, are steep. This might not be a problem for those willing to shell out, but for all the fun I've had this is the end of the road for me and I anticipate many other F2Players as well.

Premium currency is available, and mainly useful for buying cosmetic upgrades (which can cost up to 10000 gold from what I saw). Pre-ordering the upcoming expansion (€9) grants players those cards immediately, while the rest must wait (CHECK COMMENTS).... suffice to say I am not impressed with the business model, and would hope the devs reconsider. I would love to return to Faeria someday.

Achieves the impossible in making most of a 3hr game feel like filler. Incoherent story and sluggish movement mean that isolated well-executed vignettes (sarcastic AVA and planet of the pillars) can't save this walking simulator.

Feels wrong not to mention the horrific, game-breaking pop-in: platforming segments and even general exploration are almost impossible when you cannot see the ground around you.

Rough and ragged, barely tolerable without mods, with the breadth of an ocean and the depth of a paddling pool. Yet despite all this it has that trademark Bethesda charm, and its flaws become almost reassuring. I liked Morrowind, and loved Oblivion, but I revere Skyrim.

Rightly loved by millions, with attention to detail and modding support plentiful enough to rival games to this day. Can't wait for the next one.

A really innovative walking simulator. On the surface you're just running down corridors for an hour, but Stanley Parable really squeezes out every last drop of fun from that idea, with some hilarious narration that breaks the 4th wall. Challenges the way you think about games, in the same mold as Antichamber.