Recent reviews by Scardicus

To be honest, I really liked The Dwarves. They've always been my favorite fantasy race due to their sheer colorful nature and industriousness, and this game is essentially the embodiment of that. However, it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, especially in the story department.
Pros:
+Gameplay is fun and cathartic. The challenge is balanced nicely, with the combat walking that fine line between easy to understand for the inexperienced and rewarding for the skilled.
+Voice acting is good all around, and helps to immerse you in the world. It has it's fair share of "Cor Bloimey oi've gotta pop doun to the ol shoppie an pick uup me pills" stereotypical cockney accents, but it works far better here than in other games.
Debatable Decisions:
=The story is a hot point of contention, since it really has it's ups and downs. On one hand, it has a few nice twists and turns, and there are points that I feel it is really well crafted. The highest point is honestly at the beginning, since the small amount of party members lets you focus in on each of them and their relationship to each other. On the other hand, the ending feels rather rushed and shoddily made, and much of the overall plot feels very "Hero with a thousand faces" standard and unoriginal. In addition, around the halfway point you get loaded with an additional 5 party members in a very short amount of time, and it feels like none of them get a proper payoff. Finally, it ends up in a bloody cliffhanger, meaning that any closure for this story is lost in favor of the ever despised "to be continued" that seems to be endemic of the modern games industry.
=The graphics are alright, but it definitely feels like it's going back to an older style. It looks like it's from that older generation of games where graphics were becoming more realistic, but were still tethered to the edge of the uncanny valley. It's not bad, but it's not exactly my cup of tea either.
Negatives:
-The Music is actually pretty good, but there is so little variety that it doesn't amount to much. I personally didn't get sick of it, but by the end I was getting kinda tired of hearing the same battle music for every encounter.
-The movement across the map is pretty bad. Like, not gonna lie, it's the worst part of the game. There's hardly enough stuff to make the world feel alive, and even when there is it's not like it matters for much. The game is almost entirely linear, and the only benefit you get for following side activities is gold and supplies which are all but useless in the grand scheme of things. You could get by fairly well without relying on buying anything but supplies, and you'll end the game with hundreds of supplies and thousands of gold which you can't spend anywhere apart from specific locations.
In summary, it's a good game. It's not amazing and it's not terrible, but it's just good. It's a bit flawed here and there, and there are certainly quibbles, but I want to at least praise it for having some heart to it. That being said, wait until a sale. There's hardly concern for the devs going hungry since this was a Kickstared project with enough backers to devote half an hour to in the ending credits, and $40 is outrageously expensive for a game that takes 3 days of on-and-off gaming to finish.

I'm decent friends with one of the developers, so when he mentioned a game he was working on with his studio, I was excited. He gave me an alpha build of the game, so I catagorized my impressions. Since it was an alpha, I wasn't expecting much, and first impressions were not great when the Menu sped up to 10000% because they forgot to disable Admin mode for the alpha build. However, after around an hour, I could give it a positive review because besides a few glitches, it's a fairly solid game with satisfying controls. Stretching across the galaxy might take awhile, but you feel like you're actually doing something either way, and the space combat is satisfying, feeling almost like a multiplayer version of Asteroid! While there are a few problems, like how the lazer based ships feel like pointing a lazer pointer at the enemy, it's a competent game, and is only going to get better as it is only in Alpha. I would pick it up, but don't play too much of it until the Beta, because then it will really start to shine!

Overlord II is another great game in the Overlord franchise, and the second of 5 games in the series, and the only other game besides Overlord 1 that actually matters. I have a feeling that Triumph Studios, the developers of this game, didn't realize how successful the first game was going to be, so for the second game decided that they were going to make it better than ever, and it really shows, with a new plot, new graphics, and new mechanics. The problem is, it doesn't really feel like they added too much to the base game, just tweaked a few things here and bugger all else has changed. I'll be comparing this game to the first quite a bit, so if you haven't played the first, go and play it! Do it now!
TL; DR: Another Great Game, Improvements on the first, don't buy unless you were a fan of the first.
Pros:
*Controls- The controls are about the same as the first game, with L Mouse sending Minions, R Mouse recalling minions, Space attacks, and L and R together "Sweep" your minions, letting you path them directly. About the same as the first game, but they've improved the actual combat of the Overlord, so now he's not just a wimp hiding behind his minions.
*Pathfinding/AI- One of my biggest gripes about the first game was the dreadful pathfinding, and thankfully they've fixed this in the new game. Your minions don't act like recent lobotomization patients anymore, so you don't have to constantly babysit them. Couple that with improved AI, which means your enemies aren't just going to charge straight at you, in fact the main enemy in the game, different varieties of the Legionnaire, will group up into clumps and raise their shields, while captains, fat blokes with shiny armor, boss them around and make them harder to kill.
*Spells- The spells in this game come in three varieties, a beam spell that enslaves or kills villagers, and then two other spells that I never ended up using because both seemed as useful as a dish sponge in draining the entire ocean. That being said, the one useful spell deals damage overtime to enemies, and villagers or townsfolk that aren't usually combatants can suddenly be hoisted into the fray to fight your enemies for you, or you can eradicate them entirely.
*Plot/Moral Choice- The plot is another aspect that they improved upon from the last game, with the new plot centering around "The Glorious Empire," a Roman Empire wannabee that forbids all magic, and hunts down any and all that use magic. It makes for a more centralized focus, rather than in Overlord 1 where you were schizophrenically darting around the land and fighting enemies that you had never even heard of or seen before. They also improved the Moral Choice system, which in the last game made you "Nice Evil" or "Bastard Evil," and ditching that for the two different flavors of Evil, Destruction or Domination. The spell that I mentioned earlier ties into that, with certain times in the plot being influenced by this spell, and reversely improving the spell by either making it easier to dominate, or easier to destroy.
*Music- The music is actually somewhat memorable in this game, most notably the opening menu theme.
Cons:
*More Poor Voice Acting: So, my biggest gripe from the last game was the horrible voice acting, which gave me a conditioned hatred for anyone with a cockney accent. While it's not as bad in this game, it's still rather dreadful, especially near the beginning with the Nordberg Citizens and hunters. Again, exceptions were the Minions and Mistresses, especially your first mistress, Kelda, who is voiced by Sarah Hadland from Leap Year and Magicians. They also brought back Marc Silk, who had a great performance once again as Gnarl the Minion Master (fun fact, he also performed on and off as Bob the Builder from 2006 to present day, and Sir Daniel Fortesque from MediEvil II, so I suppose Evil is just something he does.)
*The Variety is Gone- One of the things I loved from the last game was the variety, and while it's still there, it just doesn't feel the same, with nothing new really being added to the equation, and not feeling as tight as the first game.
*Humor is Gone- Another thing I liked from the first game was the humor, but that also seems to be missing. I never found myself laughing or even chuckling, and Gnarl's constant banter, which started out decently enough, soon turned out to be annoying, then excruciating. I'm not sure what exactly went astray with the writing, but my hypothesis is that there were no sheep, resorting to the next best fluffy animal, baby seals. I'm sorry, but brutally murdering sheep was fun, and clubbing baby seals isn't so much fun as a little disturbing.
*Useless Mechanics- Many mechanics got added into the game to try to give it some spice, but they just ended up being used a couple of times and thrown into the bin. There were Mounts added into the game, but they only spawned in certain areas of certain zones, and disappeared whenever you went into the next area. The salamanders in particular seemed really useless and rushed, being used all of one time before being thrown to the sidelines. Minion possession was another mechanic they used all of four times, none of which seemed all that necessary. The last one was Minion Disguises, which were the most useless of the three big new mechanics, being used to let your minions fool the locals into thinking they were guards. I guess the stupid virus that the minions had in the first game got transferred to the NPC's, because the flimsy disguises for knee-high goblins end up fooling them, but they're only used three times in the entire plot. Oh, and they made it so that minions had their own names, but they're made to be cannon fodder, so one wonders what the point was.
*Flat-Out Rage Inducing- I put the fact that Overlord 1 was unforgiving in certain spots, but those feel like mere annoyances compared the massive amounts of scumbaggery displayed in this game. From Roman Ghostbusters that suck up any minions in their path to two bosses that have insta-kill attacks, one of which is rolling so fast around the area that you are bound to lose most of your health and/or all of your minions with one attack. But the biggest Richard Relocation that I've ever seen was the section where you have to rescue your Blue Minions in the arena dungeons, sneaking by vastly overpowering guards and rescuing around 4 to 5 at a time. What bugs me so much about this section is that there is a puddle of water in front of the area you're supposed to go into, so the rest of your minions can't go in with you. EXCUSE ME, BUT WHAT? You pit an angry suit of metal against Roman Centurions whose attacks make your health bar disappear like a presidential candidates E-mails, then give him little goblins that CAN'T EVEN ATTACK! They had to add in the ability for your blues to become invisible whenever they are being swept to finish this section, but that just outlines how useless the Green Minions end up becoming, since they were the stealth minions!
*Not Enough Autosaves- I was going to add this into the previous section, but it's already looking like an argumentative essay in and of itself, so I'll just add it in here that there aren't nearly enough autosaves. When learning the ins and outs of Green Minions, the mission to rescue the Green Hive takes roughly 20 minutes to complete, with absolutely no autosaves in between. So if you quit the game because your minions were busted by Dr. Pertinax Venkman for the 5th time, then you have to start the entire section again.
*The Ending Twist- Overlord II has a frankly stupid twist ending regarding the Emperor Solarius, the main antagonist. (Hint, why do you think he never spoke or took his mask off?) While it wasn't on the same level of stupidity of Overlord 1's twist ending, which was like the end of an M Night Shyamalan movie, it still felt like the end of an episode of Scooby Doo.
It's more Overlord, which I love, but not much of an improvement.

An absolutely amazing game for RPG and Real Time Strategy fans. Control a horde of minions across five worlds to assert yourself as the ultimate overlord. While you're out, you will find a mistress to call your love, investigate a zombie outbreak, and defeat seven fallen heroes that destroyed your tower and killed your predecessor.
TL; DR: Fun Game, Awesome gameplay, godawful voice acting and story.
Pros:
*Simple, yet tight controls- Controlling minions is as simple as selecting a target and clicking the mouse to send them on their way. Your own combat skills are not as prevalent because you have minions to fight for you, but using yourself to soak up damage and dishing some out while you’re at it feels satisfying.
*Good Variety- The usage of four different minion types keeps for a large variety of possibilities in the game. Keep your Red Minion's in the back as they throw fireballs, sweep your Green minions onto the backs of larger foes and watch them fall, and let your blue minions come and sweep up the mess, resurrecting dead minions and conserving valuable resources.
*Interesting Puzzles- With each minion having a special skills and abilities that mean only they can do specific tasks, it opens up for a huge amount of puzzles, many of which will give a sense of satisfaction upon completion.
*Humorous- I wouldn't say that Overlard has the best humor at all times, but in between your elderly minion master being rejected by just about any female that he comes into contact to, and the antics that your minions get into whenever sheep are involved is enough to brighten up anybody’s day.
*Simple Story- Not exactly an Oscar winning story, but a simple and satisfying story about a man with control over a massive horde of minions invading the world. It has good pacing, and you feel like you're making progress with the semi-open world filled with things to do, and kill.
Cons:
*Short- I blew through the campaign (Goody-Goody run, more on that later) in about twenty hours. I went back and played the game as an evil jerk, but that ended up being even shorter, only around ten hours.
*The Voice Actin' Guvnuh!- The voice acting is bad. Like, unbelievably bad. I can understand that they only had eleven credited voice actors, and admittedly some of the voices, such as those for the Minions and the Mistresses, are rather good, but the peasants and the fallen heroes are just cringingly bad.
*Pathfinding- Gnarl, your minion master, regards rather late in the game that your minions have small brains. However, the player could have guessed that by then due to the horrible pathfinding, where minions will often go up to a ledge, stop for a second, and come back without even looking at the ramp right bloody next to it!
*Unnecessarily unforgiving- There were many points in the game where I almost gave it up, most notably near the end. One enemy, a sand worm that pops up from the dirt and devours anything that is standing nearby, made me quit the game around 5 times because it ate 35 of my minions without so much as a chance for me to get them out. When it takes forever to grind enough minions to either upgrade an item or to proceed in the story, it's easier to just leave the game and start at the last save point.
*Ending/Moral Choice System- In Overlord, how evil you are depending on your corruption level, which you can increase by killing innocents and being a general ♥♥♥♥. It really only changes the function of a few spells, so having two runs through is kind of useless. That being said, it also changes the ending that you get after you kill the final boss, and both endings were absolute tripe! You're either Pope Magnificent the still somehow "Evil" or Darth Sidious and Godzilla mixed together, both portrayed in a two-minute cut scene and neither of which felt like it did the game justice.

With all of the pros and cons listed, I still wholeheartedly suggest looking at Overlord, as it's some of the most fun with an RPG that I've had in a while. It's where you want to go for pure catharsis and cruel glee, not where you want to go for a good story.

10/10 Would become emotionally attached to a character just to see him murdered at the hands of a foreign count, decending your empire into a firey hole of rebellions and assassinations

Europa Universalis IV is a grand strategy game made by Paradox Studios, a group of rabid Swedish nationalists who just so happen to make a lot of really cool games. In this game, you oversee a country in the time frame of 1444 to 1820, and you get to explore basically the entire world, with Asia, Australia, and the Americas up for grabs for your mighty empire. In EUIV, you have to balance money, manpower, prestige, and other variables as you dominate the world with might, money, or diplomacy. While this game has its flaws (****ish AI, and some stints where you are just waiting for annexation or manpower recovery,) they can be overlooked because of how amazing the game plays, giving you hours of entertainment with ONE country! There is enough gameplay for about 3 completely separate games, whether it be Battling with your armies in France, Conquering the New world as Portugal, or uniting the warring shogun nations as Japan. All in all, I would definitely consider giving it a try, along with any other Paradox games that might seem interesting to you.