Recent reviews by Horriblon

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I really enjoyed this demo. It reminded me of some elements of other games: Factorio and Satisfactory by having to make sure the wires don't cross in the same way you do with converyor belts in those games (think in 3d!!!), Spacechem from having the inputs and outputs and sending a signal from one to the other manipulating it in the process. It scratches that itch that you get from redesigning your solution over and over to get the most efficient version of it too in the same way Spachem did.

Of course the thing this game simulates the most is real life. The game features real chip designs and follows real world laws of electricity. If you have a basic understanding of those, you will get in pretty easily, but I found that the developer did a good job explaining the concepts in a simple language to get you going.

I really like the whole meta around the actual design process. Not only does the environment look really good, it gives a believable context to why you are designing the chips in first place. Making the culmination of every succesfull design process the fabrication of the chip, which lets you progress through the environment really gives you that "I'm doing it!" feeling.

The demo consists of the tutorial (the first chip) and some of the following steps with the more advanced game mechanics. As such it's a good slice of the game and should be enough to judge if it's something you want to stick with. Controls are mostly good and every mechanic is explained when it's introduced. I didn't really understand the concept of resizing when it first got introduced and had to try that level many many times until I realised that the output would get moved automatically if there is nothing between it and the other blocks. Apart from that I got on with it pretty well and even redesigned some of my chips after passing the level already, just to see if I can do it better.

All in all I enjoyed what I played so far. My problem is though, as the difficulty of the game ramps up significantly even in the demo, I'm not sure if I'd reach a level I'm just not smart enough to pass shortly after the demo content. With the price being just €15 in early access, I think it's worth the risk.

I love the Warhammer setting, but I don't know much about the lore. This game follows an expedition to an almost uncharted planet where an ancient threat is discovered.

The gameplay (tactical round based combat) is one of the best I've seen so far. The units are highly customizable to the point that I felt overpowered for the last third of the game. The enemy units are varied in abilities and attributes, which makes for varied battles. The weak point if you will, would be the difficulty. Like I wrote, you unlock a very big arsenal of abilities, weapons and gadgets as you play the game. Most of them can be used at the same time on high level characters. At some point I was able to fire off all weapons and several abilities with each characters every round, which made the game a bit too easy and the final bosses posed no challenge whatsoever. I can't say if it's very different on higher difficulty levels.

Still I enjoyed the game a lot for the setting, the lore, the presentation, the soundtrack (wow!) and the gameplay. Absolutely looking forward to the sequel that was announced not too long ago.

Do not skip tutorial if you want to see the game intro. That part of the story is only included in the tutorial for some reason and you will miss it entirely if you skip it. It is possible to skip the tutorial once you went through the intro from the pause menu within the tutorial if you don't feel like playing it.

I enjoyed this game so much, I completed it twice. You don't have to be familiar with the Marvel universe to enjoy the game, but it probably helps. The story has nothing to do with the MCU, except for some characters and locations that were in the movies/shows.

The game consists of three parts: There is a turn based deck builder strategy part. Then there is a team building/storytelling part, probably best described as Mass Effect with Marvel characters. And lastly there is also an exploration element for your base of operations and its immediate surroundings.

How much time you spend in each of those parts depends on your preferences. While playing missions and some dialogue is necessary for game progression, the exploration part while benefitial is mostly optional.
If you're not a big fan of running around and solving (easy) puzzles and/or listening to a lot of words, you should be okay with just doing the missions and the necessary research. The actual missions are 3d arenas where your heroes battle enemies by using abilities from their respective decks and hopefully some clever positioning. The rules and systems are easy to understand, but the fights get more and more complex as the game progresses. The game does a good job making you feel smart when you pick heroes that work well together and have their decks compliment each other.

Excellent: music, character customization, voice acting, characters/playstyle variety, ability animations.
Very good: Character and story progression, battle system, story, general animations.
Good: Most of the dialogue, exploration and team building part.
Not so good: Enemy types and mission variety outside of the story missions, some dialogue is just mundane filler, (rare) bugs during the missions.

DLC is worth getting in my opinion, although I would recommend getting the whole season pass during a sale. It includes additional characters, with lots of new dialogue and a bunch of new missions/story with new enemy types.

The second time around I played Game+ which was suitably challenging and engaging. The only weird part there was having all characters available right from the start, before I reached the parts where they actually joined the team according to the story.

Get it if you like Marvel, Mass Effect and turn based strategy games.

This game was a very pleasant surprise for me. A warning first: The game is very short, in my case it was 3 hours for the first playthrough. Still it was a wonderful experience as a game and as a bonding session with my kid.

This is a cooperative game. I played it with my 6 year old daughter, who only played a few touch screen based games before. She was able to use a gamepad to play through the whole game with me, without too much trouble. We used local multiplayer and I haven't tried the online functionality.

You control two unlikely companions on their journey to reunite with their families. That's about it for the story, but the game does a wonderful job presenting you with real looking places, realistic problems, character development, unexpected encounters and more. It fully utilizes the "show, don't tell" storytelling approach. Almost all of it is done strictly with sound and visuals. The protagonists are wonderfully animated. There are lots of tiny animations that make the characters lifelike and also convey the emotions they are feeling at any given time. The characters also interact with each other and with the environment.

I was very impressed with the game design. The visual cues and the well paced introductions of new mechanics made sure, that we always knew what to do next. We only got stuck for a little while in one of the final scenes of the game, your results may vary of course. My daughter was playing the wolf, which I would recommend for the first playthrough, because the wolf often needs help from the deer to be able to continue and it could save some potential frustration, when waiting for the deer to get to the right place. There are also some puzzles that require help from the wolf for the deer to proceed, but those are much more rare.

The sound design is great. Next to realistic soundscapes, the sound cues and from time to time utilized musical pieces fit the mood of each scene perfectly. You only ever encounter animals in this game and they all sound realistic and at times delightful.

We didn't encounter any technical problems., except it initially wanted to be played with the steering wheel that was connected when I first started the game. That was easily solved by disconnecting the steering wheel, even though there might be more elegant solutions.

The game run smoothly and looked great otherwise. The only real critique I have for this game is the camera. While it is very impressive in its ability to keep both characters on the screen at all times, sometimes it fails at doing that. There are a few big setpieces and also some cases, where the camera turns to present the scene from a different angle at a certain point. There we had a few occasions where one of the characters ended up either being off screen or hidden behind the scenery (you can see its silouette still). When it happened it wasn't immediately clear, how to get both of us back into view. Just a side effect of a game that lets both characters move pretty far away from each other at any given time.

In conclusion, this is a short, but very beautiful game. Get it if you want a heartfelt story, some light puzzles and an opportunity to bond with whomever you play this with.

I waited with the purchase after the initial release disaster, but kept following the game, because the original vision was something I desperately wanted to play. What can I say, we're not there yet, but with each update the game is coming closer to it and by the looks of it, the dev team is dedicated to keep making the game better and better!

The devs managed to win me over with the NEXT update, that's where I finally bought the game. Since then I put a considerable amount of hours into it. The game is not perfect by any means, but it's one of the best exploration games I've played lately. I often play it with my son watching, it's the perfect game to explain space, galaxies, star systems and planets. Yes I'm aware it's not actually simulating all that, but it's great for the visuals and introducing concepts.

It's a beautiful game that wants you to keep going. I'm sure that there are still some surprises waiting for me, as even with 100 hours into the game, I barely moved from where I started (maybe 7 star systems or so). I barely looked into building a base, I don't have any exocraft yet, I'm only on my second starship and only have 3 fregates for my freighter.

Most of my problems with No Man's Sky are found within the UI, NPC interactions and the inventory management. Some of the choices there are pretty bewildering and seem to forget how many keys a PC keyboard has. I can only recommend to look into the shortcuts function and to set some of them up to your liking. I'm sure we can expect some improvements in that area in the next updates.

The devs already have my money of course, but it's nice to see that the free updates keep on coming even in that short time since the NEXT update. I nominated the game for the Labour of Love category. If you love exploring for the weird or crazy or beautiful views, this is the game for you. It offers much more than that, but that's my primary motivation for playing it.

First of all, the game is very short, especially if you don't replay it to get the huge amount of available achievements for fun. If you are the kind of human who complains about games being short, make sure you are getting this in a sale.

That said, I had a lot of fun with this game. The graphics style is unique and interesting, the dialogue is witty and charming, but the strongest point of the game are the tools that are at the games core. This is a first game that I am aware of, that gives you a tool to cut up 3d blocks in realtime. You can also interact with most of the environment and basically destroy most of the level that way.

Cut up, pull or push blocks as you are trying to cross over multiple beautiful levels in this game while following a quite silly story of the game. You are on a quest of retrieving the pants that your grandfather left you as a heritage. Sadly your big brother stole them and run off to some desert.

Look, the game is weird, but that's what's great about it. I totally recommend it for a short fun experience. I hope the developers do more with the technology they have at their hands.

Ever wanted to nuke them from the orbit, just to be sure? With this game, you kinda can.

Also it's about zombies, guns, weird characters, strategic positioning, global strategy... no wait. Above all, this game is fricking hard. I've yet to win it, which is how zombie games are supposed to be. The survivor AI is perfectly simulated, with them tending to run where the zombies are, so it's also very very realistic.

GET IT!

You will hate this game, but then you will love it. A gamepad is probably needed, but I am screaming at the screen with or without a gamepad, so your choice, basically.

Remember the old times, where you could only win a jump and run trough trial and error? This is basically as if the most sadist developers of those games got together, then got really really drunk and decided to make the hardest game possible.

I'm bad at it and I reccomend it! :)

Feeling as cool as a poker player, while being as much of a geek as it gets. Best combination of all!