Recent reviews by Calamityardman

Fire the CEO of Hasbro.

The people who might care about this game have long since been laid off by the company in their efforts to secure continual quarterly profits. Other reviews mention bugs that have existed for years, wonder where the QA team went? Probably got laid off when the Hasbro toy division under performed.

This game is just an engine to deprive you of money and put it over to Hasbro. The people who made the elements of Magic that you like have long since been laid off to make sure that the company's investors are satisfied with the way the green rising line on a chart looks.

A short and charming action game. En Garde! is an action game centered on a fencing swashbuckler. Everything has a level of playfulness to it; the witty back-and-forth between the main character and myriad mooks she beats up, the fact that defeated guards groan and complain in funny ways, even the remarks when you end up dying. ("That didn't happen", "that's what I WANTED them to think") The game oozes charm, though with only four chapters in its campaign it manages to not overstay its welcome and become grating instead.

The gameplay is good, with striking, parrying, and dodging in combat feeling responsive. The environmental opportunities (kicking, throwing objects, starting fires or setting off cannons) are very fun and definitely needed as the enemies in this game don't bother with things like dueling rules. They'll swarm you, and using your environment to stop or otherwise distract enemies is a good way to keep yourself from being overwhelmed.
The game is short, with four campaign levels and five arena tiers to play through. I recommend buying it on sale, but honestly I've spent more money for less serotonin than this game gave me.

This game is an excellent detective game. It's a good immersive sim. It scratches an itch I haven't had scratched in a while.
It's got a solid foundation, but currently optimization and bug issues seem to be the major stepping stone. I hope this EA period accomplishes what it set out to do, because this has great potential.

This game is currently in a state of early access. It has a lot of bugs. I've had issues with quests not spawning, combat actions not being taken, crashes to desktop, and lord knows how many glitches I just haven't seen yet.

That said, this has the makings of something very special. This game scratches an itch I haven't had scratched since like, Dragon Age: Origins 10 years ago, which was itself originally a spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate games of the Infinity Engine Era. I think with time and some bug crushing and optimization, this could be one of the best RPGs I've played when it releases.
It also uses 5e very well, and even has made me take a second glance at certain abilities and elements of 5e. I play plenty of 5e with my friend group, and if there is a DM Mode coming to this like there was with Original Sin 2, I'll probably try and use it to run a bougie 5e adventure.

All in all, this game is rough but it has the makings of something really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good. I can't wait to see it succeed.

Post-Release Edit:

They sure ♥♥♥♥♥♥ nailed it.

I did not expect to like this game nearly as much as I did on first glance. This game has absolutely blown all of my expectations out of the water and it just keeps going and going. The game centers around Albus Bernstein, leader of a group of low-tier superheroes who work for profit with helping police fight crime, as well as helping out merchants and private clients. It's centered in a unique world where magic exists in the modern day, specifically the city of Valhalla, a city-state brought into being by the major world powers with the stipulation that it cannot have a military.

The game plays like XCOM with superhero units, though it outdoes XCOM in its methods of making the hit-or-miss attack percentage gameplay exciting and open to a number of alternative options. Characters have skills called Masteries which can be as basic as stat percentage increases to unique character actions and abilities that change what the character excels at dramatically. Masteries are achieved either through leveling character classes or doing things during missions, and can then be researched --feeding junk masteries into better masteries-- and applied to your characters. As well, each character has a single unique mastery you choose when starting which can dramatically change what situation they excel in. Further, each character gets two additional classes, each with their own masteries and new abilities to use in combat. All of this can be a little overwhelming at first, but with time and experience the system becomes easy to understand.
Both characters and enemies will have masteries that impact combat, which keeps engagements varied and exciting without veering into frustration.

The cast is lively and exciting, their designs are stylish in a way that lends to both practicality and aesthetic while avoiding conspicuous sexualization, and the side missions which expand on their characters are well-written and varied in their tactical demands.

The only thing I can say this game could use work in is the localization. However, this is a known area that the developers are working to improve upon and judging by the frequent update schedule this issue will be resolved over time.

On the whole, Troubleshooter is exactly my brand of superhero anime ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mixed lovingly into an XCOM gameplay format. The story is told creatively, the characters are fun and stylish, and the combat is equally just so. I wholeheartedly recommend this title.

It's got puzzles, it's got rpg fights, it's got good writing. I liked it a lot more than I expected to.

Rimworld is a game that can take a little getting used to. I had to force myself to try to work with the fact that it is a game where failure is sometimes an inevitability rather than something you have to be good to avoid. But once I was able to be comfortable with the fact that failing in this game isn't a player flaw and just part of the game, I was able to start becoming invested in the colonies I started. Some colonists become your favorites, some make bad decisions even while you're telling them not to make them, and some colonists you just hate.

But in the end, it's the story of these colonists that's kept me playing for dozens of hours. Because seeing flawed people try to make it through an awful situation and struggling with all their might is just good drama.

It takes a while to get over the hill to start, especially if you aren't looking to just use potions or other methods to rear your character in, but damn if it isn't worth it.

Great game, though mods are definitely a good way to cushion the graphics that definitely need the cushioning. For some reason the lady who does teleportation at the Balmora Mages Guild has Olivia Wilde's face but eh, better than what she did look like.

I've spent almost 24 hours trying to just get myself above the station of nameless soldier in a lord's army. 10/10 would continue to kill things for another guy again.

I got to shove a nerd in a locker at a convention. 11/10.