Recent reviews by Feix

This is a story book. If that’s the genre you like, I’d recommend it. It doesn’t drag, and the few puzzles are easy and logical. Still, a story book isn’t quite a ‘game’, especially when it’s completely linear. Dialogue options don’t change anything. Narration techniques are similar to a detective movie. The story isn’t long. I liked the atmosphere.

This is a game where, even after watching an unexplained walkthrough, I still don’t understand the why, even if I now get the how to proceed. It’s essentially a fetch quest: go here, do that, repeat for five hours.

The controls are poor. It feels like a port from PlayStation, with mechanics clearly designed for a controller, not keyboard and mouse.

After 50 minutes of play, I’m convinced there’s no save function. If it exists, it’s buried somewhere unintuitive. For this genre, not having a visible save option is simply not feasible, as it is too tiring to complete the fetch quest in one go.

The only redeeming quality is the visuals. It’s like watching an anime. But if that’s all it offers, a YouTube walkthrough is more enjoyable, and even that lost its appeal after two hours.

The game doesn’t look like a card game, but it is. It is a card battler. You build your best hand from available cards while trying to counter your opponents’ hands.

The core mechanics: your avatar duels seven other player-controlled avatars, one at a time, across roughly 20 bouts. Between bouts, you select modifier cards from a randomized pool to enhance your avatar. Both your card choices and avatar stats are visible to other players.

Duels are automatic, the game is an autobattler. Gameplay centers not on the duels themselves, but on selecting modifier cards to maximize your avatar’s dueling abilities. The randomness of the cards adds unpredictability, and their effects are amplified when they synergize.

Each match lasts about 30 minutes, with each duel taking around one minute. Card selection phases are also brisk, keeping the pace tight. The game flows nicely overall.

Bioprototype revolves around designing what look like viruses to eliminate other viruses. While most games allow the avatar to equip standalone weapons, Bioprototype introduces chained effects: if one weapon hits under certain conditions, the next activates, creating a cascading sequence. The chains are built using two elements: weapons and conditions. Weapons resemble boomerangs, guns, swords, poison, bombs, and more. An example of a condition is ‘if a virus is killed outright.’ Although the variety is limited, the combinations multiply rapidly.

The game is about four players defending wave after wave of increasingly strong zombies and monsters. The addictive part is that players can build walls and turrets during each match, and I’ve spent many hours playing it. There's not much variety in maps, and the visuals aren’t spectacular or particularly atmospheric. It’s a "simple" game, but quite fun.

I call the game simple (even though it’s by no means basic) because, in older groundbreaking games, this wave invasion gameplay is just one mode alongside PvP and the main campaign. Even though I got it for free during the summer sale, the normal price is really fair, and I would recommend the game. Other than improved visuals and more atmosphere, there's not much I would suggest for improvement, because the gameplay is that perfect for its genre.

The camera shake in this game causes motion sickness for me, and there is no option to disable it in the settings. I manually edited the config file to remove the effect, but after taking a break, the game would not launch anymore. Since my playtime is under 2 hours and I am unable to enjoy the game, I requested a refund. I usually avoid first-person games due to motion sensitivity, and I expected a top-down-shooter title like this to be more comfortable. Unfortunately, the camera shake is intense.

From my limited playtime, another aspect I found frustrating, especially while feeling queasy from the shaky camera, was the simple but redundant task of searching the map for keys just to unlock doors. It is not a bad top-down shooter, but I wish it were more player-friendly, with streamlined navigation and the option to remove camera shake.

Playing FTL is like learning to ride a bicycle. At first we fell off the bicycle after a few meters. After tries upon tries we learn to go further before falling off. Each time we fall off we get a score and we have to start over from the starting point. There is no save to continue on where we fall off. This game’s plot/storyline, graphics, and audio/music are minimalistic. It is challenging and interesting but isn’t very entertaining. If only the graphics and music are top-notched, it could have been a masterpiece.

This city builder game is visually beautiful. The visuals are sharp, the buildings look organic and apt individually and collectively, and the color palette is vibrant. The scenic mode is an excellent feature where only the middle of the view is in focus, creating a dreamy toy land visual effect. I'm giving a thumbs up simply for the aesthetics.

There are a few cons. First, in certain towns like the one next to a cliff, from a certain angle our view is blocked by the cliff. Adjusting for the optimal view angle can be difficult. Second, the view is always isometric, there is no top down view. Hence, often it's difficult to click on the building that you want because it is behind another building. Third, I had thought that there is a view mode where I can ride a horse through the street in first person so that I can take in the splendors up close; it turned out that that the view is still isometric only slightly bigger. Fourth, any movement of the view frame in the scenic mode isn’t smooth. I.e. floating your view frame over the town while in scenic mode will result in a bumpy view.

The game’s gameplay and music aren't considered in this rating because they are quite average to games of this genre. The game's aesthetics however is one of a kind while in scenic mode.

I gave this 9 year-old game a try a few days ago. It's excellent. It's a copy of Diablo but the student surpasses the master by a convincing margin.

All in all a pretty amazing game for the price.

Pro's:

1. As internet poker goes, this one lets you see your opponents' body language better than others.
   
2. Cool appearance customization.

Con's:

1. Except for weekend peak hours, there are not enough or it takes a long time for players to start a ranked match.
   
2. The pacing of the game is too slow. For example, to finish a ranked match, it takes more than an hour easily.