Recent reviews by Snowmind

Airport Madness: Time Machine is the third iteration of air-traffic controller RTS games. Even though it holds its own well by introducing different eras and progressive mission-style levels, unfortunately it feels like a step-back from the excellent Airport Madness 4 version. Here's a short list to sum it up:

+ Yet another take on the Airport Madness traffic controller theme with its own unique flavour
+ Progressive difficulty missions (from a humble grass field to huge modern airports)
+ Three different eras with their unique backdrops and air-traffic patterns (gyrocopters anyone?)
+ Some limited injection of humor in the form of catchy newspaper article titles
+ Final year (2172) with 6 runways at max difficulty is seriously insane!
+ You could possibly squeeze 10 hours out of it if aiming to get all 3star levels

- Not enough content and little replayability value
- The main interface seems rushed and unpolished
- Lacks the finesse and fine-tuning of its predecessor, Airport Madness 4
- Some annoying bugs, inc the occasional landing and taxiway glitches
- There are no challenges on offer or even different game modes, e.g. scenarios
- Would only allow full screen mode
- No steam achievements or tradecards

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TL;DR: Airport Madness: Time Machine is a just above average RTS air-traffic controller game. If you were deciding to dabble into the genre, I would recommend instead its predecessor, Airport Madness 4, for a small price increase you'll get a lot more fun and replayability out of it.

Assassin's Creed was revolutionary when it was first released over a decade ago. To date very few games can hold their own as well, with a solid plot and graphics to rival many modern titles.

Having decided to play through the series again, I found myself enjoying Assassin's Creed much more this time around and spent considerable amount of time roaming about, exploring the cities and honing my battle skills on swarms of chasing guards! The storyline itself should provide 10-15 hrs of intrigue and fun.

In short Assassin's Creed has:

+ A brilliant storyline (into the protagonists' ancestors past)
+ Very detailed environment to explore (within cities)
+ Complex combos leading to satisfying combat results
+ Spectacular and very fluid movement across rooftops
+ Diverse sounds and voice-overs (mix of English, French, Turkish etc)
+ Each assassination assignment is unique
+ When Ubisoft was still decent (no external login hassles)

- Horrendous and overly complicated controls scheme
- Unfriendly and lackluster UI (no subtitles either)
- Extremely tedious finding all the collectibles
- A handful of repeatable mini-games/races across rooftops (boring after a single try)
- Final "boss" (no spoilers) was as easy as a well timed grab-push assassination
- The ending can accurately be described with the emoji "meh"!
- No steam achievements or trade-cards

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TL;DR: Assassin's Creed still holds its own quite well to-date, even though later iterations have improved the game considerably. With an intriguing and original storyline, fluid combat, exciting rooftop chases (influenced by the Prince of Persia classics) and a lot of assassinations, it is a gem worthy of a place in everyone's library. Highly recommended!

I bought Books after I got a 75% off voucher through steam and honestly after 1.5hrs I feel that I overpaid for it. Here's why:

+ Books is an achievement grinding game app. If you accept it as such and you like mindless achievements grinding then it is for you.
+ You learn some interesting and some otherwise funny facts about a small selection of animals and birds.
+ The UI is so simple, a four year old could use this app (assuming they could read). Perhaps aimed to younger audience?
+ At the time of writing this review, all 4,564 achievements could be unlocked in under 2hrs.

- Books is not a game per se, so it is a waste of unreal engine's power. There are many other apps/educational tools which are suited much better to this type of Q&A application and on top can provide stats and graphs for the progression of your learning.
- Each answer right or wrong regardless will net you in between 9-14 achievements! Often you have to wait before proceeding for the achievements to catch up!!
- Achievements are abstractly named and have nothing to do with the Q&A (except for a handful of miscellaneous ones). At the 4K mark, I could not keep track of which achievements were missing without a guide.
- UE4 glitches galore and erratic frame rate (locks to 62fps! Drops to 40fps for no reason on static scenes). It spawns the Oculus store when starting and exiting the app! (why use VR functionality?)
- Bad assets scaling on full screen (UHD mode, 4K mode or anything above 1080p); frequent crashes.
- Non existent/audible sounds or music; even when the volume is cranked up to extreme levels you can barely hear a pop sound here and there (at that level other games rattle the house windows). Bug?
- Quite a few spelling and grammar mistakes. Some questions make no sense at all (Google translate?). Best part of the app, seriously!
- No Steam trade-cards, backgrounds or icons

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TL;DR: If you are a completionist or on the hunt for steam achievements and don't care how you get them, then Books is made for you. You could be watching your favorite TV program while clicking away to earn 4.5K+ achievements on a $1. Otherwise, steer clear, as Books feels like a highschool project experiment at best with its elementary level of Q&A and it is not worth your valuable time.

Transmissions: Element 120 is a single player third party mod, which is set somewhere within the Half-Life Universe. Without trying too hard, TE120 provides a short but satisfying experience (about an hour and a half) full of action and impresses with the very well thought out progression and creative sequences; it really feels to par with the original Half-Life games.

Especially impressive is the usage of light and darkness, an example being enemies can't see you in the dark, making them as vulnerable as you!

Being a free to play mod which also includes Steam achievements, Transmissions: Element 120 is a rare gem that ticks all the right boxes. The only shortcoming I can think of, is that there is no more of it to enjoy. Highly recommended.

VR Ready: Quality 11
Rendered: 99.6% GPU / 0.4% CPU (20447/94 frames)
OS: Windows 10 (Home)
CPU: Intel i7-7700K OC
GPU: RoG Strix GTX1080Ti 11GB OC
USB: Not tested

Hope it helps others.

theBlu is a VR technology demonstrator created through the Wevr Transport. It contains 3 different underwater experiences with some very basic interaction to the marine life shown in each environment. These are, The Whale Encounter (~2min), Luminous Abyss (~6min, night) and Reef Migration (~7min).

These 3 mini-experiences are incredible in themselves, with highly detailed enviroments and beautiful marine life. theBlu is the very first app I will show to anyone new to VR and it always returns that "wow" sensation factor from young (or stubborn old) alike. And that's it, as no further content is planed to be added in the future, what you buy is just 15mins of thrill.

Is it worth the high asking price? Difficult to answer that, for an app which you'll experience perhaps twice at most. As it stands and despite its very high quality production values, I could personally only recommend theBlu to be purchased on sale (unless more content is added, as more VR demonstrators are coming out to steam for free).

Refunct is a casual puzzle platformer, which provides a ~30min fun relaxing experience. The minimalist visuals and ambient soundtrack give the player a sense of accomplishment, as the world dynamically expands after each push of a button, revealing more of the map with your next location (platforms initially are sunk under the water). Surprisingly there is even a day and night cycle to complement the game but sadly no story to follow.

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TL;DR: Refunct provides a nice little distraction from the norm and for the price of >£1 (sale) it will not dissapoint.

Pillars of Eternity is a great game, so much so I was about to gift a copy to a friend while the steam summer sale is on. To my surprise Paradox seems to have raised the pre-sales price and now the price with discount is the same as without discount before. This non-sense is absolutely disgusting and cannot be condoned.

As such, like so many others have said, I could not recommend buying Pillars of Eternity (or any of the DLC) due to Paradox Interactive's shady business practices.

In the end I chose gifting a copy of Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition by Larian Studios and I am much happier for it.

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PS: As some probably remember, in UK 2013 Tesco and a number of retailers (DFS, Dreams, CarpetRight etc) were found guilty of tricking and exploiting customers by inflating prices pre-sales (bank holiday) season and were fined by the OFT for millions of £££ collectively. Why should Paradox get away with it??

An interesting new form of story telling, following Con Man's paving of the way two years ago (Nathan Fillion & Alan Tudyk from FireFly). Hakka is the first instalment, a brilliant preview or rather an extended trailer of what to come in a feature film (Sigourney Weaver).

Running at just under 22mins, it was captivating and suspenseful, bringing back memories of the popular series "Defiance", topped with some "V" and rinsed around with the suspense of "Falling Skies". I would definitely recommend everyone watch this little taster of a sci-fi short film, while it is offered for free.

As for the Volume 1 Assets (optional DLC) and additionally planned content for Hakka, in my opinion on the whole they are a bit on the expensive side (3 parts @ £4?) and not really of interest to me. I base my opinion on current AAA film release ticket prices (or DVD/BD), which is the part of the Hakka project I am interested in (film). I would certainly pay to watch it in the cinema with friends or buy it in a medium form I can use freely but not so much as per steam locked release which I need usage of my personal computer.

Having said that, I am certain there are a lot of people which would be very interested in the 3D models, high res videos, concept art etc which makes the DLC offering a bargain at its current asking price. In addition, I would wholeheartedly encourage everyone to purchase at least volume 1 to support the creativity, effort and future ideas of Oats Studios. Looking forward to see what comes next!

CAYNE is a free point-and-click isometric horror adventure, set in the STASIS universe and revolving around an ethically corrupt corporation. You play as the anxious (and heavily pregnant) Hadley trying to escape from the nightmare she woke up in after a brief hospital check-up.

What follows is a gritty adventure, filled with excellent voice acting and puzzles full of gore, atmosphere and suspense. Not all puzzles made sense to me but I assume for experienced people of the genre, should easily be an afternoon's work start to finish.