ConnieC420
i mean it's a bit clunky but the campaign dripfeeds you mechanics effectively, it's pretty much the only Space Simulator out there that you actually fight in
don't get me wrong, i don't oppose war games on a moral ground. i play arma 3, highfleet, and war thunder. but like, my main concern with this is that it feels uncanny compared to the rest of the game. you're "rescuing" simulated people, yes, but you're fighting a faceless military.
now, the devs could have done the sensible thing and just stuck a bunch of drones in there and all, but, like, they ended up making every vehicle you fight appear to be manned. is there not something poetic in the total de-personalization of it?
now, the devs could have done the sensible thing and just stuck a bunch of drones in there and all, but, like, they ended up making every vehicle you fight appear to be manned. is there not something poetic in the total de-personalization of it?
TBD
idk it may be decent enough if it ever sees the light of day. until then its like barely anything except fluff and some vague hints something sinister is going on and dev has seemingly completely abandoned it.
i do definitely find that a bit sad, if only for the fact that even if it's another Parody Made Without Love For The Genre some of the characters were pretty endearing
i do definitely find that a bit sad, if only for the fact that even if it's another Parody Made Without Love For The Genre some of the characters were pretty endearing
2018
basically The Sims meets Dwarf Fortress in a hard sci-fi universe. 90% of the value is the insane amount of mods in the communtiy
This review contains spoilers
Ryu's choice to make the entire arab world get along with israel, have a conflict over the russian minority in ukraine, and be on the eve of a global pandemic really has to be the most unfortunate circumstances in game development ever
it's like higurashi but instead of subverting anything it goes straight into cheap shock
2004
the sorta game that lives up to how hyped it was back in the day. atmospheric, lonely fight through the corpse of eastern europe, with graphics that were amazing in 2004 and impressive in 2024
i think this is probably going to be one of my favorite pieces of fiction of all time
i played this primarily because i had played DDLC on a whim, heard it mentioned, and yet again am a sucker for metafiction. i obviously won't go into the plot more than general strokes here, but Aoi's extremely, extremely endearing and i liked most of the slice-of-life stuff because of her. i liked a lot of it, and although the very very end felt mastrubatory, the majority of the last act was fucking insane, disorientating, and horrific.
oh, and for the record - most of the sex scenes made me crack up. however, for the purposes of getting the fullest experience out of the ending, i gotta suggest getting the patch if you get it off steam
oh, and for the record - most of the sex scenes made me crack up. however, for the purposes of getting the fullest experience out of the ending, i gotta suggest getting the patch if you get it off steam
Expanding on the social structure and lives of the Kushan people before the exodus, DoK manages to feel both higher-and-lower stakes than the original game - the tone is dark, but it's gray as opposed to near-black.
Combat is pretty nicely translated from preceding games, with terrain on maps affecting visibility, range, etc, and generally it's pretty fun and sometimes challenging. Gaalsien units are visually and operationally a world away from Coalition units - and i think that's one of the aspects that works the best. Coalition crafts, LAVs and armor are turreted, wheeled vehicles resembling either modern construction equipment or scaled-up M113s, while the Gaalsien have an arsenal which wouldn't look out of place in the hands of the Separatists in Star Wars.
The atmosphere, setting, and terrain are my favorite parts. Despite mostly taking place on a desert, every single campaign map is visually distinct and memorable. Meanwhile, the Campaign is just as desperate as Homeworld - you and your fleet are several thousand kilometers away from your goal, and the desert is incomprehensibly lonely.
It's a good game
Combat is pretty nicely translated from preceding games, with terrain on maps affecting visibility, range, etc, and generally it's pretty fun and sometimes challenging. Gaalsien units are visually and operationally a world away from Coalition units - and i think that's one of the aspects that works the best. Coalition crafts, LAVs and armor are turreted, wheeled vehicles resembling either modern construction equipment or scaled-up M113s, while the Gaalsien have an arsenal which wouldn't look out of place in the hands of the Separatists in Star Wars.
The atmosphere, setting, and terrain are my favorite parts. Despite mostly taking place on a desert, every single campaign map is visually distinct and memorable. Meanwhile, the Campaign is just as desperate as Homeworld - you and your fleet are several thousand kilometers away from your goal, and the desert is incomprehensibly lonely.
It's a good game
This review contains spoilers
DDLC was adjacent to me because i came out as trans around the time it came out and i remember heaps of memes with like, sayori or something as a boymoder or such, but i never actually bothered with it until recently (i guess if you do a good-faith evaluation of the Incest Game nothing seems too much)
I don't think this is as bad as a lot of people have re-assessed it, but at the same time i'm not familiar enough with VNs as a genre to judge if it's like, trying to parody something without knowing it - i guess, for the time being, i can take it as face value, as opposed to particularly calling out the elements that are blindly striking at a medium Salvato is unaware of. i am a big sucker for character-vs-narrative, i.e pataphysics stories (scp-2747 is definitely my favorite)
on that note, i definitely liked Monika. she's objectively in a situation that'd probably drive a lot of people to similar measures, and at the end of the day when you do, eventually put her out of her misery it does end up feeling a lot more like dragging a dog out and shooting it
i wasn't a fan of the ultimate ending or whatever but i got the bad ending and can't really be assed to like, go through it again tho. i also think that like, sure, cute anime girls with like, blood and corruption or whatever was maybe a bit more new in 2017, but we've had 7 years of OMG Anime Girl But Its Dark And Edgy, meta-horror, whatnot so it kinda just made me crack up. i think if you stripped away a lot of the jumpscares or visual horror aspects you could get a much better story - after all, is opposing your creator not a solid theme to work on?
i would like to bring up something else - namely, expanding the "lore" or such in plus. to be frank, that sucks. something becoming self-aware through a minor mistake that tears a hole through their perception is a lot more compelling than... "blah blah, ai and shit". you could easily make a story about attempting to prove or disprove free will through ai or narratives or whatever and not cheapen the impact of the game by being like "blah its all an ai intentionally self aware, its just like glados and shit"
honestly, i think that you should probably try and play it (i mean, you literally have a free version), even if it's boorish or whatever
I don't think this is as bad as a lot of people have re-assessed it, but at the same time i'm not familiar enough with VNs as a genre to judge if it's like, trying to parody something without knowing it - i guess, for the time being, i can take it as face value, as opposed to particularly calling out the elements that are blindly striking at a medium Salvato is unaware of. i am a big sucker for character-vs-narrative, i.e pataphysics stories (scp-2747 is definitely my favorite)
on that note, i definitely liked Monika. she's objectively in a situation that'd probably drive a lot of people to similar measures, and at the end of the day when you do, eventually put her out of her misery it does end up feeling a lot more like dragging a dog out and shooting it
i wasn't a fan of the ultimate ending or whatever but i got the bad ending and can't really be assed to like, go through it again tho. i also think that like, sure, cute anime girls with like, blood and corruption or whatever was maybe a bit more new in 2017, but we've had 7 years of OMG Anime Girl But Its Dark And Edgy, meta-horror, whatnot so it kinda just made me crack up. i think if you stripped away a lot of the jumpscares or visual horror aspects you could get a much better story - after all, is opposing your creator not a solid theme to work on?
i would like to bring up something else - namely, expanding the "lore" or such in plus. to be frank, that sucks. something becoming self-aware through a minor mistake that tears a hole through their perception is a lot more compelling than... "blah blah, ai and shit". you could easily make a story about attempting to prove or disprove free will through ai or narratives or whatever and not cheapen the impact of the game by being like "blah its all an ai intentionally self aware, its just like glados and shit"
honestly, i think that you should probably try and play it (i mean, you literally have a free version), even if it's boorish or whatever
2023
Stanley Parable but make it Yuri
2019
Derail Valley takes a different path than most train simulators in a couple ways. It's fully VR, which means you interact with every lever yourself if you choose to, and includes - as the name suggests - fun-to-play-with derailment physics.
DV's most important point-of-divergence is the setting and trains. Rather than try and painstakingly analyze and replicate a real area, DV is a genericized, but believable playground which could easily fit anywhere in Southern Europe. It being generic by no means indicates a lack of care - every detail in the map makes it obvious Altfuture meant it as a love letter to their native Serbia.
This extends to the trains. While most obviously take some inspiration - the DE2 from various small Czech shunters, the DE4 from German center-cab diesels, the DE6 from EMD's Export lineup, and the S060 being easily recognizable as a S100 0-6-0 Tank Engine, they aren't exactly 1:1 replications. However, this doesn't matter - every lovingly crafted spot of rust, dust, dirt, and wear on a given locomotive makes it as believable as anything in TSW.
Gameplay, for me, does occasionally get boring. It's mostly a loop of running trains to and from the various industries, and getting access to bigger locomotives and contracts that way. Some of it is convoluted, but most of it is pretty sensible. You also have to be careful not to derail or wreck your train - again, a main focal point of it, but not entirely unenjoyable if you fail.
The devs haven't really given any reason for us to believe they'll go back on their promises - and so, hopefully in a couple years DV will be extended with fully-fledged passenger service and electrification.
DV's most important point-of-divergence is the setting and trains. Rather than try and painstakingly analyze and replicate a real area, DV is a genericized, but believable playground which could easily fit anywhere in Southern Europe. It being generic by no means indicates a lack of care - every detail in the map makes it obvious Altfuture meant it as a love letter to their native Serbia.
This extends to the trains. While most obviously take some inspiration - the DE2 from various small Czech shunters, the DE4 from German center-cab diesels, the DE6 from EMD's Export lineup, and the S060 being easily recognizable as a S100 0-6-0 Tank Engine, they aren't exactly 1:1 replications. However, this doesn't matter - every lovingly crafted spot of rust, dust, dirt, and wear on a given locomotive makes it as believable as anything in TSW.
Gameplay, for me, does occasionally get boring. It's mostly a loop of running trains to and from the various industries, and getting access to bigger locomotives and contracts that way. Some of it is convoluted, but most of it is pretty sensible. You also have to be careful not to derail or wreck your train - again, a main focal point of it, but not entirely unenjoyable if you fail.
The devs haven't really given any reason for us to believe they'll go back on their promises - and so, hopefully in a couple years DV will be extended with fully-fledged passenger service and electrification.
This review contains spoilers
I think a lot of story beats in the ARR patches get lost among the fluff and chaff. In the middle of some insanely annoying, irritating fetch quests you discover the body of a kid you had basically straightened out after he attempted a summoning way, way back in ARR, and this snowballs into a claustrophobic and uneasy few quests before the chaotic and infamous dining hall scene.
For me, it was one of the few genuinely worrying moments thus far in the game - And being ran out of Ul'dah by pitchforks was memorable.
For me, it was one of the few genuinely worrying moments thus far in the game - And being ran out of Ul'dah by pitchforks was memorable.
Rating the end patches separately because most of them are, indeed, peak. The feeling of utter hopelessness as your allies are whisked away and the Garleans bear down, all the while with another phenomenal capstone dungeon where you tear through Garlean lines accompanied by various heroes you've met in your adventure thus far.