Recent reviews by Leben

Takes the "Hack and Slash" brilliance of the first game, makes it a bit deeper to play and then sticks a great storyline and mission structure for you to use them in. Not a fan of PvP personally (in general, not just this game) but the co-op Campaign and Operations modes are fantastic.

I now want to spend the vast majority of my time teaching bugs about democracy.

This game is superb and looks like its only going to get better with time!

I thought the original release was pretty close to a PERFECT game as you could get. It had its minor issues (like the Zero G movement) but nothing that could be massively improved. Or at least, so I thought:

I was so sceptical about this remake but I am so delighted to be proven wrong. This is, without doubt, an improvement on the original in almost every single way. The ability to be able to actually walk from one section of the ship to another makes it feel like a cohesive environment, rather than a series of "levels", without losing that claustrophobic feeling.

I'm on my first New Game+ run and I suspect I will do at least a couple more.

Its a good laugh!

Plenty of jank and its a long way from being finished but that feeling of being overwhelmed as the bugs swarm the base is fantastic and the guns feel great.

Im always hesitant to recommend Early Access games because they dont all get finished but this feels like its off to a really strong start.

When I initially reviewed this, I was very sceptical. How could it possibly match up to the complexity and depth of something like Factorio?

I was so, so wrong. The sheer depth and scale of projects that you can build is incredible. Its a massive open world with so much to explore and open space to utilise. There are threats to encounter (although that is toggleable. You cant turn them off altogether, but you can make them completely indifferent to you) and secrets to be found.

The important part though, is the building. The sheer scale of factories that can be built is incredible. Even just building on a vertical plain, the sky really is the limit. The game fully supports this as well, with conveyor belts, pipelines, power lines etc all capable of fully vertical transport, along with clever ways of hiding them, or passing through floors and walls.

The range of transport for both you and your products is also extremely varied. For yourself, this can be dirty buggies, tractors or even just humble factory carts (complete with flashing red beacon!) that can only be used effectively indoors. For the more refined traveller, hypertubes are the answer, firing you across the map at high speeds to whatever destination you choose. You can also turn these into super powered cannons that fire you through the air should you wish. For products, there are tractors, huge heavy goods vehicles, trains and drones. Setting up the pathing for trains and road vehicles is something I found very satisfying to do, although it can come with some issues when the networks become larger.

This is still in early access and they are still changing some features (including to an updated game engine recently, as of time of writing) and adding new ones. You WILL encounter bugs, especially if you choose to install the experimental builds. That being said, Coffee Stain Studios have been very open and honest about where they are up to and what they are working on with this game. This really is Early Access done right.

I cannot recommend this game enough to anybody that enjoys the factory/automation genre. Factorio is still being used as the standard bearer but I can see that changing once this game reaches full release.

Im a huge fan of the alien films (First 3 only) so this was a definite purchase for me and luckily, I wasnt disappointed. The game looks wonderful and is really well optimised for PC. I was getting over 200fps at 1080p with full graphical settings. The anti-aliasing options are.... disappointing. You will be better off forcing some proper AA through your graphics card driver because the ingame options leaved jagged edges everywhere.

The atmosphere is great. The bumps, hisses, screeches and creaks that the Sevastopol makes, all sound similar enough to the Alien that you live in a constant state of fear and paranoia. The music is lifted straight from the first film and sounds wonderful. The lighting is dark enough to leave you wondering if that shape in the distance is a threat, or just an inanimate object, yet light enough for you to find your way around easily. The shadows and light shafts thrown around the space station also look great as an added bonus.

The Alien is suitably terrifying, although not without its issues. When its crawling through the air vents, hunting you out of sight, but constantly alerting you to its presence with the sound of its talons scraping against metal and sheet metal bulging under its weight. The motion tracker adds to the terror, bleeping frantically as it senses the Alien rapidly closing on your location. Its a different story when the Alien is out in the open though. It stomps around the narrow corridoors of the Sevastopol, blocking your path and sniffing out your hiding spots. When its out in the open, the Alien is more of an annoyance than an object of fear, certainly in the early stages of the game. Later on when you have the tools to make the Alien retreat, this is less of an issue.

There are other threats to contend with as well. Human survivors protecting their territory, or defending their supplies from looters. Wonderfully, there are also some humans who dont know why people are dying and assume that there is a serial killer on the station and that you could be the threat. Unfortunately you cant always tell if the humans you encounter are friendly or hostile until you are right on top of them, at which point they have shot you in the face. You cant pre-emptively take them out either because killing a civilian is an automatic fail state.

The androids are also fantastically designed. The look like crash test dummies with glowing red eyes and can be absolutely horrifying as they walk towards you in a darkened corridoor. Unlike the humans, the androids have no ranged attack, and unlike the alien they lack the speed to close the distance should you run away. They will try to overwhelm you through sheer numbers though and if they manage to corner you, a horrific bludgeoning and/or choking death awaits.

Overall I was really pleased with how this game turned out. The pacing of the story can be a little bit strange at times, going from "abject terror" to "leisurely stroll down a hallway" with only a loading screen separating the two. The content of the story is great though. The story of the Sevastopol and Seegson is brilliantly realised and is, in many ways, the true star of the game. Until you actually play the game, it can be difficult to believe that the space station and the company that runs it is the most compelling part of the game, but it really is. I cared about Seegson and the people that worked for them far more than I cared about Amanda Ripley

Overall I found it well worth the purchase and a worthy addition to the Alien franchise. Frankly, if Aliens: Colonial Marines is now part of the official Aliens canon, then this should be too. Its the best Alien story Ive seen since the original 2 films.

I bought this long before it appeared on Steam and whilst it can be a lot of fun, it does have its share of problems. It can be difficult to learn what areas to dedicate your development process for certain types of games and whilst they have improved the feedback on why a game fails or succeeds, the information provided is still very sparse. Theyve got a good basis for a game here and hopefully a sequel will rectify the problems with this game. For now, its extremely addictive for a few playthroughs, but theres little reason to go back to it when youre finished. For the money, its a good game but dont expect simulation on the scale of RCT3 or the old Sim City games.

Its not that Tomb Raider is bad game, its just not a very good Tomb Raider game. Tomb Raider as a series progressively got worse as the developers added more and more combat to the game, with less emphasis on the actual exploration and puzzle solving. This latest incarnation features tombs that are only used as hidden side quests, where the majority of the main game revolves around cover based shooting. Theres no real exploration to speak of either, as areas are fairly small, with hidden items being revealed with a single button press. I completed the game with 100% completion in around 14 hours of gameplay.

On the plus side, the graphics are stunning (although I feel that the game engine has not been properly optimised for PC. FPS drops with no obvious reason were a fairly common occurrence) and when the game does rely on its exploration and puzzle solving elements, it does so very well. There just isnt enough of those elements. There are something like 6 tombs in the game and each can be solved in about 5 minutes before its back to more cover based shooting.

Its worth a punt, but dont pay full price for it unless youre actually looking for a 3rd person shooter.

Well worth a couple of quid. Genuinely funny in places and absolutely full of references (Thats the joke). Actually a decent platformer as well.

Not so much a game as it is an interactive story. There are puzzles and action sequences to work through, but neither is particularly difficult. In the few shooting sections that the game has, you dont need pinpoint accuracy to kill zombies, just aim in the general direction and the game does the work for you. A lot of the other combat sequences seem to consist of mashing the "Q" key on your keyboard.

That being said, none of that is really the point. The game is trying to tell you a story and what a story it is! For the record, Im not sure if this is based in the TV series universe, or in the comic series. A character called Lilly features heavily in this story and whilst she hasnt appeared in the TV series yet, she has appeared in the comics and is the subject of her own novel.... but the details surrounding her are very different: For one, in the novel her Dad is called Everett and he was killed by zombies, in this game her Dad is alive and a major character in the story. So not really sure what they were trying to do there. Shouldnt matter too much if you havent read the comics though.

Inconsistencies aside, the story is fantastic and really draws you in. You not only care about what happens to your own character, but also to the other characters around you. Whilst your decision making only affects the story in relatively minor ways, you still feel like you are really effecting the direction the story is taking. There are points where if you dont have a lump in your throat, youre not human. It really is that good.

One last note, I found episode 3 to be quite buggy. Its not game breaking (If you ignore the point the game crashed and I had to replay about 10 minutes of the game), but it can break immersion and be an annoyance.