Recent reviews by Urban Shaman

Having never really played a proper Mechwarrior title I find this game... somewhat odd. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I find it interesting and, surprisingly, a bit anachronistic (more or that later).

First, let me get the bad things out of the way first. The management UI feels a bit wonky. It's extremely far from being unusable, but it just doesn't feel smooth or intuitive, and it took me quite a while to figure out how and where I can slot stuff. Even now, with 6h under my belt (enough to learn the UI at least, right?) I occasionally fumble and don't remember if I need to double-click or drag the components and I end up having to re-do little actions. None of this is critical, but it's... there.

Secondly, the game seems a bit unoptimized. The visual fidelity on display isn't anything to write home about, yet and the game struggled with FPS on my 3070Ti until I turned DLSS on and RTX off. Granted, RTX is an FPS killed and DLSS is an FPS booster, but the visuals really didn't blow me away. If I didn't know any better I'd say I was playing a game from 2012.

Finally, and this is just my personal feeling and it's probably because I knew NOTHING of the Mechwarrior franchise, I can't shake the feeling that enemies are a bit spongy. I have this huge cannon strapped to my mech's right arm, and it sounds great, and feels great to fire... but then enemies take so many hits to take down... And the AI ain't anything to write home either. Basic enemy tanks will zig-zag towards you, air enemies will fly in a straight line at you and I'm yet to see any smart behavior from the mech enemies (they seem to only have a "run towards and around the player and shoot" mode).

But it's not visual fidelity alone that makes or breaks games, it's the gameplay. And here I quite like it! Despite the aforementioned "spongyness" of enemies - because it works both ways, it seems, as my own armor takes quite a long bit to break off. And that anachronistic bit? Well, it's probably because I've seen the gameplay of Armoured Core and those mechs in there just feel "that" much more futuristic and slick. This feels like a I'm piloting a literal tank on legs - slow and cumbersome (even if it's a "light" mech). Does it make it bad? No! Not at all. But it did make me go "huh" a couple of times. But then any time a map starts from inside the dropship I get a little shiver because it's fun to go through the boot sequence. And it's quite fun to manage a mercenary outfit, traveling around and building up reputation, picking contracts whilst trying to optimize a route through the galaxy.

Another thing I like about this game is that this is a nice, complete game. No BS MX, MP modes or anything of the sort. There's some DLCs, but those are "side content" - get 'em or don't the core game doesn't really change. There's co-op, as a bonus, but I've yet to engage with it. I suspect it can help with more difficult missions (since the friendly AIs are just as simple as the enemy ones), but thus far I didn't really need this help (at least not whilst playing on "normal" difficulty).

Is the game good? Yes. But this statement comes with a few caveats.

- The campaign is the main selling point, but it's very short. It's good, don't get me wrong, but REALLY short.
- The co-op mode (operations, not to be confused with the campaign which can also be enjoyed co-op) is fun... but is very grindy.
- The PvP is "meh"

All in all it's a fun game, but a bit expensive vs what's on offer.

PS. There's mod support, which eases some of the grind and / or makes the game flow more of a power fantasy (more enemies, less spongy hp)!

I honestly wasn't having much fun with the game. The slow unskippable initial cutscenes annoyed and the weird music aggravated. And I found the humor very "meh" (I get the jokes, but they didn't make me laugh).

If I had this back when I was a teenager on my GameBoy I'd probably enjoy it, but 30+ years later it's not really doing anything for me. :(

It's not a bad game, but when there are so many other great factory builders out there this one seems to lack "something" to make it stand out.

Most notably I felt that the level design, which relies on starting your base again and again on each new map, started to bore me significantly. "Why bother when I'm just going to lose it all again?"

About the only interesting bit about this title is that where most factory games have a "puzzle" element (as the player needs to figure out the math on the inputs and outputs of various production pipelines) there's often an additional layer of space management in this game - fail to do that and you may overextend to where enemies would attack or just plain run out of available space. On the flip side this often leads to "spaghettification" of the end designs.

Boxes lacks the quality and polish you can find the The Room series, but it has the same kind of murky style and puzzle design, so it managed to scratch that itch.

I've mixed feelings on this game, but on the whole, I liked it.

The story, while ultimately a rather simple one, is told in a convoluted and messy way to up the mystery. This... didn't work for me - the revelations weren't shocking and thus there was no reason to tell it in that strange way. It's still a nice story with some bittersweet elements, it's just cut into bizarre fragments that don't gel all that well IMO.

The bits that annoyed me the most where the parts where you play as the little girl, primarily because of the way she moves. She moves slow, and her part of the story revolves the most around exploration (the other character parts much less so - you more or less know where you need to go). So, one needs to trod, very slowly, seeking the trigger that will propel the story forward - with no real knowledge of where said trigger is.

On the positive side - the game has some really nice pixel-art animations, and I quite liked how it sets up certain encounter resolutions when it comes to dealing with enemies. That said, these setups expect the player to do a very specific thing - and occasionally one might try other things, which usually results in death. However, the save-point system is very generous, and this isn't really a problem.

Final note: as you might see from the play-time I've finished the game in 3h, start to finish. While I've not found all the hidden collectibles it's still a rather short game time! I'd recommend getting the game at a discount, not at full price.

Overloop has a pretty cool premise and a decent story.

Unfortunately it's a rather short title, and overall it's an easy title as well. There was not a single puzzle that gave me pause - and the ones that "halted" my progress the most were the ones which require swift swaps between clones to do right - which is a testament to the somewhat mediocre control scheme than the puzzle itself.

That said the music is OK, and the overall idea is pretty cool. And while I managed to breeze through the puzzles without much thought I still enjoyed the overall journey.

Would I recommend this at full price? Absolutely no. Would I recommend this at a discount? Hell yeah.

A creepy game with surreal setpieces, with a focus on platforming.

On a few occasions it may seem like the developers are taking the proverbial piss with the difficulty, but the game has really generous autosaves that help soften these blows.

Not worth the asking price when you have The Room series with FAR better gameplay and puzzles.

There's a redeeming quality here: the game's fairly long and if you can get it on sale then it could be a decent bargain.

I like space sims. I really do. Form the likes of Elite: Dangerous or Infinity: Battlescape through weird stuff like DeltaV and the odd Rogue Sector (may it ever resume development).

In Space Reign the general gist seems fine on paper, but in practice I found it... boring.

- Getting around is painfully slow. Yes, even with "Fast Travel".
- Perhaps it is my own fault for sticking with the bigger ship, but combat isn't really all that engaging.
- The visuals are very mid. There is nothing here that stands out.

Perhaps it was the FT being so slow that really killed the experience for me, but ultimately the game doesn't really seem to have a "gimmick" - something to make it stand out. It does not have the stylish combat of House of a Dying Sun, it does not have planetary and large-scale battles like Battlescape, it doesn't have the smooth visuals of Everspace.

That all can, of course, change as development progresses. And I do hope it does and the game manages to find something unique about it to make it stand out. But at this point in time I just cannot recommend getting it.