Recent reviews by valondar

I have played this game and it’s predecessor Worms 2 for over twenty years. There are few experiences I find more relaxing. Armageddon in particular has an admirable amount of customisation, you can tailor the gameplay and your teams in multiple different ways. Want all your worms to sound like you? Record your voice doing all the reactions and you’re in budd. I have a gameplay mode where there’s no time limit and everyone has unlimited ninja rope and the game becomes a finnicky platformer, and a map that is just lots and lots of mines and oil barrrwps so you can trigger massive casualties just by swinging around. This unending flexibility, goofy vibe and fun gameplay has kept me coming back for most of my lifetime.

This is an excellent example of a narrative platformer. The story progresses as you play and is built directly into the gameplay - it is a story ABOUT the platforming, with the different abilities of the blocks you move around informing their different characterisations. So far so good - but that it is a sweet and touching story (if it tapers off a bit with an inconclusive ending in a third act that doesn't feel as well written) so much the better.

Graphically, it is an excellent example of a very simple looking platformer whose simplicity has nothing to do with any retro affectations - just clear unambiguous shapes, but like nothing you'd see on a SNES. The primarily strings and piano compositions for the soundtrack suit the ambience perfectly and the actual platforming is fairly simple, just about frustrating enough to keep me engaged (so I imagine veteran platformers will find it all quite easy.)

This is a relaxing and well executed game, a standout among indie platformers. I recommend it.

It's frustrating. It's hair-pulling. It's a classic platformer that depends on precise platforming and correctly juggling the easy to learn game system - switching between Giana's two forms, each of which change the game world around her and give her different moves (the Sonic-like fireball of the dark Giana, and the precise pirouettes of the cute Giana).

And sure, it's a platformer that plays well, but it doesn't scrimp on the other features. This game's art design is gorgeous (effortlessly shifting the world from the cute and cuddly one dark Giana is in and the dark and sinister one cute Giana is in) and the soundtrack is perfect for a platformer - catchy and up-tempo.

Bottom line I've been stuck on levels in this game for months and played it for hours on end. I push and push until it gives. And when it doesnt? Hell, I just play it again. Want a platformer that doesn't forgive, doesn't forget, and is a bloody good time? Well, here is one.

The Banner Saga: Factions has in-depth unit management, turn-based tactical gameplay based around careful poisitoning and use of units that I can only describe as RPG chess. This gameplay is presented in a gorgeous hand-drawn 2D artstyle in an imaginative pseudo-Norse mythology setting. It's some of the most fun you can have on steam and that's with an asking price of nothing.