Recent reviews by Shalandir

Just as good as Mini Metro, different in all the right ways, and relaxing yet stressful in the best way. 10/10 +1 for new maps like Wellington constantly being added

Eerie puzzle platformer with ambiance and a weird story. If you liked LIMBO or INSIDE you will probably enjoy this partial 3D game (3Dish?), albeit the depth jumping and camera angles can get frustrating.

This is your standard idle number-crunching game, but with a lot of layered systems, gag jokes, and some plot. It feels very rewarding to unlock new parts to the game, as it changes quite a bit the deeper you go. Also, challenges unlock crucial bonuses to the game, making it a true accomplishment to deal with Troll Challenges, 24-hour Challenges, etc. and you are compensated with highly lucrative perks.

Cannot wait for research update, these guys are implementing all the systems of the board game and providing QOL tweaks to make this game better.

This is one of those games that I don't understand why people liked in the first place, or why they clamored for it to be updated and added to Steam...it is frustrating, stupid, and immature in all the wrong ways. Instead of bringing out the inner child with it's silliness, it brings out the inner demon of loathing as you attempt to complete basic, menial tasks over and over again.

It does run smoothly, no crashes, and I can give it solid compatibility ratings for allowing co-op, remote play, and controller support but the core gameplay loop is tedium incarnate.
4/10

Western-themed XCOM, with ricochets and a few other innovations.

Step 1) Create one of the best strategy games of all time.
Step 2) Give it away free during pandemic to save lives.
Step 3) Get downvoted because free players are scum.
Step 3) Get downvoted because free players are scum?
First off, I loved the original and this sequel is part of the reason I finally sold my soul to Valve/Steam - between this and Civ5 I was forced onto the platform but over the last decade Steam has become much better than those early years. As for the game itself, it's always been a joy to run around feudal Japan, conquering in the name of your Daimyo to establish the next Shogunate.
To address the imperfections, no game is perfect. There are nitpicks like poor sea combat, slow turns, time consuming battles you can't auto-calc, or frame-sucking GPU-guzzling optimization especially for AMD cards if I recall. But having played this off and on for a decade, it is the sum of it's parts that continue to make this one of the best entries in one of the best franchises of all time.

Some reasons the rating is dropping:
1) Free players statistically have a higher likelihood of shoddier computers, so the game runs worse for them.
2) People just now getting the game are not necessarily strategy fans, so with the barrier to entry now drop to $0 you get an influx of gamers that would never have liked it.
3) Fall of the Samurai owners are whining they are having trouble adding free game to their account - and can't be bothered to take 5 secs to Google or check forums for the workaround (switch to Steam Big Picture, add Shogun 2 from store page), instead opting to leave a negative review showcasing their laziness and stupidity.

Contrary to some major review sites, this was a perfectly serviceable space-themed city builder that had a fun campaign, decent story, and quality balance - it's not the easiest city builder nor is it the hardest even on Insane difficulty, but some of the achievements are a legitimate challenge. For example, the speedrun to beat Vanaar in 5 sols I had to restart 4 times, the 5th time I finished in sol 4, fall 20 with 1 season to spare (barely). As for price, I believe I waited for a 50% sale and bought outright, no bundle and it was definitely worth that.

A simple black box recovery mission to a space station unearths a few mysteries in this story-driven short game. Nice diversion for a couple hours, you can listen to a lot of dialogue and read a ton of detail about the crewmember's lives. Also, there is a cat.

Two gripes, 1) some of the objects in the game and/or walls have collision detection problems, as an essential item for an achievement clipped straight through the walls of the space station and drifted off into space, never to be seen again. Had to replay entire game to get it, ultimately. 2) load times in the elevator shafts were a bit long, even on an SSD, and fps tanked every time in the elevators and a couple other times loading major scenes or recalling crew memories. Both bugs should have been patched by now, but it didn't ruin the game.

Solid 7/10 - not essential to play but still fun nevertheless; plus would probably be quite good in VR.

This is a solid puzzle game in the same vein as Portal or Antichamber or The Talos Principle, albeit much shorter than Talos Principle. As for difficulty, there's about 6 puzzles per chapter, 13ish chapters, so maybe 80 total and only 3 stumped me enough to go make a cup of tea or grab a glass of water, come back, and solved it second time around. Definitely nowhere near as tricky as any of the other 3 I named, but that doesn't make it bad. When Lost Orbit and Aftermath go on sale I will happily play them too for an afternoon.

Stability: no problems. Resolution: 4K. Supports Ansel screenshots and 360 photos. Left me wanting more, 8/10.