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Playing one of these 4x games again got me addicted. The Civilization games have always been fun playing long hours overnight, not knowing it's the next day. The joy of just wanting to click one more turn is still there and represents how addicting it can be. The real world lore and history combined with the anarchism of the gameplay is always thrilling to enjoy. Now Civ 7 feels like a different game kinda like Ara History Untold and Humankind, it feels they streamline the game to make it more simpler just not that simpler for fans of the series. They remove workers in the game and kinda feel like building districts with tiles on improvements of resources such as iron and food and economic purposes. The UI however is bad, it will take some getting used to with the details but there’s a lack of information for anyone not just newcomers and the fact that the technology tree is less and has less of a structure tier tree than the previous games. Another dislike is the lack of nations rather than just influential leaders like Ben Franklin, Harriet Tubman and Confucius, it just feels empty. They remove the loyalty system from the previous game when you make a settlement, it’s back to Civilization 5 where happiness matters whether or not your settlement revolts or not. They improved the influence system, it now relies on influence points which can be cashed by diplomacy utilizing for instance, open borders or some kind of festival that will boost happiness and others. The narrator they got is another fantastic addition, Gwendoline Christie who plays Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones and it's very nice.
Incorporating Disney Musicals into a cajun-themed Mature rating game is indeed magical, South of Midnight does it all. The musical cues throughout the game makes you immerse into the world and encapsulates the brilliance of the audio design. Like controlling your own character, moving and hoping in this 3D platformer cues notes to get into the rhythm of this game, its catchy musical scores feel like it's out of a Disney animation. What’s more great about the soundtrack is it’s memorable characters that you interact with throughout the game, the narrative just hits a high note into intriguing character design. You play as Hazel, a teenager swept up along with others in a hurricane that caused her home along with her mother to be washed away in the currents, prompting you to rescue her. WIth that you encounter a diverse set of memorable characters and great narrative. The 3D platformer itself is great, jumping and gliding as well as weaving objects to continue on through thorns and corrupted areas is just magical and exotic. Another element is the action which characterizes abilities and combat into a mashup of a great action platformer. One problem that hinders my experience of this game is the running away from the fog sequences, each chapter that involves an antagonist, you run away from a fog and do platforming which tends to be “edge of your seat” frustrating at times specifically later on.
Real time strategy games seem to be a rarity these days, so having Tempest Rising is a treat to play. The soundtrack from Command & Conquer: Red Alert composer, Frank Klepacki is just awesome, the vibes remind me of that game and it’s really catchy. The game also plays like the Command & Conquer games, you build power stations to maintain your power input and Harvest Refinery to gather resources in order to produce units. You can amass armies by building them and each unit has abilities to deal with enemies and micromanage its strengths and weaknesses. The campaign has two factions, the Global Defence Forces and Dynasty kinda like GDI vs NOD in the Tiberium games. The graphics look impressive, the detail on the world and atmosphere of this RTS game are sharp in detail and such. There are doctrines that improve your units and buildings that will benefit you in the battlefield. Like C&C Generals, there are special abilities like an air strike to deploy a signal to expand your buildings that are out of proximity from other buildings.
Unlike the previous Like a Dragon game, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii isn’t turn-based rather than action brawler like the older Yakuza games. Much like the other Yakuza games, they reused old assets from maps and such to contribute to the storyline. As an action brawler/beat-them-up, it’s still great, having Goro Majima do aerial combos and such against other pirates is just fun and neat. The fast paced combos and movements differ from Kiryu in those games. The new thing about this game is the sea battles with pirate ships, it's like Assassin’s Creed Black Flag and Skull and Bones but a bit better combat handling. While sailing on a boat, you utilize an arsenal of weapons such as cannons and machine guns. The handling feels much simpler than those other two games that I’m talking about. Like the previous games, there’s lots of minigames such as the cooking minigame where its like Cooking Mama where you timed your meter by blowing the fires to cook a meal and chopping a dish by using the arrow keys to match.
Remember that Outbreak mission in Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty, now put that into a full game like this one and call it a day. That whole mission is about survival, building your defences and economy up while surviving the enduring night until daybreak from an infesting horde of infested terrans and zerg. It also feels like They are Billions where you hold up against a massive horde of enemies but this one has more RTS style to it. There is also a rogue-lite aspect to it, after a long ordeal of the nightmare darkness when you overcome it, you will get a bonus on three choices that will benefit your armies and buildings. While you are collecting resources either from killing monsters or harvesting food, gold, stone and such from production buildings, basically building up your economy, you can venture across the map and find hidden treasures and such. It also feels like Warcraft 3 with utilizing hero units in the battlefield, you can level up your hero to gain more abilities and spells that will benefit you. Overall it is a good action RTS and tower defence that has some issues with the multiplayer and the frequent crashes but a solid survival RTS.
Stop if you heard this before, an amnesiac wanderer with a mysterious past, it sounds a cliche to me and now it's in a Dynasty Warriors game. The Dynasty Warriors games have always been decent as you slash and bash hordes of soldiers, use your special abilities and ultimates to effectively wipe out hundreds if not thousands of soldiers in fashion and also Lu Bu. As the name implies it is the prequel to the Dynasty Warriors games, more specifically the first half of the Romance of the Three Kingdom which the game is based on and starts off the Yellow Turban Rebellion as appeared in the second Dynasty Warriors game. Now this game has an open world section where you go to different places as a wanderer. This game, while not having that many new features in the consolidated quality of life, features different combos, skill sets and moves to devastate armies and bosses. What puts it apart from other Dynasty Warriors games is some features like bonding of your officers and friends is similar to games like Fire Emblem and there is some light RPG to it. You can utilize different weapons at your disposal that will turn the tide for you in the battlefield. There is dialogue in this game however not branching dialogue that will differ outcomes in the future. The problem with Origins which lacks in other Dynasty Warriors games is that it just feels boring and lacks enjoyment of playing it even more. However it is nice that they have a Mandarin Chinese dub for every character in the game, making it authentic to some.
When I first saw this trailer for this game, I was skeptical thinking its Fallout Shelter and This War of Mine, generic type games that I’m on the fence for. However after playing an Act of this game, the emotional and mechanical tension of creating alternate versions of yourself just displays a sense of remorse in this management simulation. Yes after the first Act, you can create what is known as Alters, which are alternate clones of yourself based on the decisions you made in the past by via quantum computer and you can merge with them with rapidum to fuse a new alternate clone that possesses an arch of Jan’s emotional journey through his timeline and can be remembered the past and conversation about it through some of the most captivating narrative that it delivers on. Although, the resource gathering is tedious at times, primarily focusing on one resource and the exploration just is bland and boring.
The wait is finally over through the perilous leaks and rumours, Oblivion Remastered is finally out. They drastically changed everything about this game compared to the original, while not a remake, its graphics, gameplay and other quality of life features improved to those who enjoy it. First the graphics, the world of Cyrodiil is now detailed, coloured and features the vibrant and shiny feel to it as well as the atmosphere and the lighting. The new graphics engine, the current unreal engine utilizes the world and its characters with the sheer sharpness and quality. The combat and gameplay has its quality of life features meshed up with the Skyrim combat, though it retains elements of Oblivion combat, they modernize it to great effect. Since the original game has not much space for unique voice acting, this one diversifies its voices, making everyone unique and immersed in their own way. This game includes all of the downloadable content the original game has; Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles. It also includes if you brought the deluxe edition, the controversial horse armour. They still preserved that Oblivion jank for comedic purposes and while the graphics are great, the facial features look scary and weird. Also the PC version of the game has crashing issues as it demands more ram and other pc specifications in interest.
How would you feel if This War of Mine was mashed together along with a zombie apocalypse, Into the Dead is what you get if you mix them together. While there’s no main storyline other than escaping the zombie-ridden town, the basis of this game is basically like This War of Mine, you scavenge locations and buildings to find resources and components that will benefit your safe house as well as find valuables like weapons and such. In the safe house, you generally board up your house with barricades and while scavenging, finding food, cooking food, crafting a communal sitting area where you relax to raise your morale as well as crafting weapons and dismantling them. Even though it's a zombie apocalypse, it feels like a bland experience, it also reminds me of 7 Days to Die where you primarily search buildings for gear and resources to improve your chance against the zombie horde. You start off selecting a pair of survivors and each of them have different stats that will help you from a survivor knowing how to shoot to a runner that can maintain their stamina. It doesn't really matter anyway but it will be beneficial. You can also find other survivors hiding in locations and recruit them to your cause.
Between this and Ghost of Tsushima, I chose the latter because it executes so much better than Assassin’s Creed. Furthermore, Ghost of Tsushima out performs the combat and its mechanics better than an assassin’s creed game. One major caveat however, is that Shadows have two characters that you can play with different playstyles. Yasuke, a foreign samurai who was recognized by Oda Nobunaga, plays parallel to Naoe’s playstyle. Rather than being stealthy and resourceful like other assassin’s before her, Yasuke is basically brute strength, meat shield and can burst open doors like the Kool-Aid man and that alone is funny. One additional feature is your hideout where you can base build your place by building, buildings that can boost your stats and what your hideout seems more livable. You can pet pets and can place them in your hideout base as a cosmetic option. The story however feels like a revenge story but sometimes lacks input in the case of addition of Yasuke being there in support of Naoe and doesn't have moral dilemmas that could affect the storyline to an extent. One annoying feature that has been in other Assassin’s Creed games is guessing your objective and utilizing the scouts to pinpoint where it is, granted it’s a small puzzle to deal with but it gets annoying everytime you want to find a location. The world and atmosphere of Shadows is very beautiful and echoes how Ghost of Tsushima’s art style flourishes as much as this.