Recent reviews by Yawanoc

Ah, Ideology: culture and government. This DLC was originally conceived as the idea of, "how can we let the players double-down on their unique playthroughs?" Ya know, sometimes, you end up making a militaristic group sealed away under a mountain. Sometimes, you want to go all-in on cannibalism. Other times, you just want a unique challenge to shake things up. Ideology is all about getting the mindset of the characters to agree with the mindset of the player.

Your ideology can either be as strict or as loose as you want. You can also develop and evolve it naturally through gameplay so that it grows organically with your people. You can either develop your own beliefs, or you can adopt the beliefs of another faction in your game; sometimes it's great to have that challenge, and other times it's fun to play as a rebellious (or simply different) off-shoot of some other religion.

The value in ideology is that each of your playthroughs have the potential to be more unique than they were before. You no longer need to cycle through random pawns to find ones that want to live underground, when you can have your pawns passively encourage each other on your behalf. Having scheduled holidays and selecting government officials also plays nicely into shaking up the pace of gameplay, as these bring bonuses to your people and give you something new to interact with.

While these core changes are the main selling points of the DLC, there are also a few additional pieces of content to sink your teeth into here:

• Slavery has been added for pawns that just aren't worth accepting as full-fledged citizens. Slaves work slower than regular pawns, but they do not have a recreation stat to fulfill. Slave rebellions are an added challenge (as are pawns who believe that slavery is wrong), but it will be up to you to determine if the pros outweigh the cons.
  
• Gauranlen trees (dryads) have been added to allow Plant-focused pawns to also delegate some of their responsibilities to nature. Playing around this automation can be fun, and you can even build entire playthroughs around it, but the dryads tend to get violent if they lose their designated nurturer.
  
• Dungeons are new places to assault that provide exactly the type of challenge you'd expect. You'll get points of interest on the map that you have the opportunity to explore. They'll be filled with all sorts of challenges ranging from dormant Hive, patrolling Mechanoids, pirate ambushes, or tribal worshipers who will all stand in your way. As you battle these threats and explore room-to-room, you'll find plenty of treasure to make your expeditions worthwhile.

The content additions to Ideology are nice, but you're really here for the core changes. If you've been playing for a while and you know what you want to get out of the game, and you want your characters to go into each new playthrough with the same mindset as you, this is the DLC to grab.

I like this one. Humankind presents a gameplay blend of the Civilization series with themes encountered in Crusader Kings. By that, I mean that it is a familiar 4X game presenting you with many similar tropes and systems you'd see in Civ, but with political themes more complex than Civ's and feeling similar to a Crusader Kings-lite. This includes more of a focus on long-term relationships between factions, passive-ish gameplay with a focus on long-term goals and schemes, and a greater emphasis on having a successful legacy than simply beelining for a specific victory condition.

To me, this focus make the game feel significantly better to play in multiplayer than the Civ games ever felt. If anything, it doesn't necessarily dive down the same political complexity as CK, or the competitive nature of Civ's mechanics, but it feels as if it was designed to be a multiplayer blend of both. I believe this game truly shines when played with friends as opposed to being alone.

My favorite features Humankind offers include the ability to change your faction every age (or not), the diplomacy mechanics (including the liege/vassalage system as an alternative to eliminating a faction from the game), the city state / barbarian mechanics that Civ6 later adopted, the ability to import/export your profile to let you and your friends play each other in single player, and the combat. These are each systems I see as unique improvements to the 4X genre. As for the combat, I know many reviews here criticize it for one reason or another, but I personally love it; it's the first time I feel the Amplitude got their combat right.

The real question for this game is whether or not it will be right for you if you already own and play Civilization and/or Crusader Kings. Personally, I still recommend it as someone who's played both. I find that this one is a lot more multiplayer friendly than either of those games, the base game offers an incredible amount of depth that the Civ games always seem to lack early in their release, and it offers a creative take on these types of strategy games that I haven't yet seen elsewhere. Here's to hoping it becomes even better with future support from the developers.

I can recommend it. It gives $17 worth of Silver (1,700) for $15, and then it gives you a free emote on top of that. If you were to buy $15 worth of Silver normally, you would only get a $16 value (1,600), so that already makes this a better deal. Plus, unlike normal Silver purchases, this can be gifted to Steam friends.

Let me break down what this Silver would be good for. Items in this game are priced (normally) as follows:
Season of the Lost - 1,000
Exotic Emote - 1,000
Ship/Sparrow Skin - 800
Finishers - 800
Exotic Weapon Skin - 700
Exotic Armor Skin - 600
Seasonal Ghost Projection Bundle - 500
Individual Ghost Projection - 200
Daily Discount Cosmetic - Around 500

Remember, all of the items listed, besides the Season of the Lost (which is DLC), are cosmetics. A majority of the cosmetic items can be earned by playing the game. This bundle is mostly for the impatient (like me) or those wanting to pick up retired cosmetics that cannot be earned anymore (also me).

Also, Festival of the Lost (Halloween), The Dawning (Christmas), & hopefully Crimson Days (Valentine's) will each be events during Season of the Lost. These will each include unique cosmetics, so this can be purchased as a gift to yourself or friends, but don't expect this pack to ever to go on sale.

I always have a fun time when Sayori is hanging around!

I don't want to give this game a thumbs down, but it certainly doesn't deserve a thumbs up either. I generally like little stories like these, and had low expectations going into a free game, but... this ain't it, chief.

So at first, you might've noticed the neat achievements on the tab. I mean, who wouldn't want to go through a complete playthrough, getting the "Chad" achievement and skipping the "Simp" one? But, despite that novelty, the achievements from this game cannot be used on your Steam profile. Sorry, no Chad/Simp profile sticker for you.

But on a more serious note, this game couldn't keep me entertained for the 40 minutes I played it. There are about a dozen days to play in total (they skip around a lot, so Day 160 isn't actually the 160th day), and I got bored after the second one. The problem is that this game, while offering a sorta neat way to select the message you want to send, doesn't have anything that would make it stand out from other games you've already played. Your protagonist is that typical "loser" guy who can't talk to girls, and the girl is clearly telling you she misses you, and you just don't get the option to reciprocate these feelings. Even when you think you've selected the option to attempt to progress a relationship, the protagonist erases his text and types something completely different. You do this for about a dozen days, and then the game ends. After you "win," you unlock the Realistic Mode, which is just the girl taking 3-12 real hours to reply to each message.

I'm not trying to say the game is bad, and it did get a chuckle out of me at one part where the protagonist texts a buddy of his to help him out, but the game is just so dry. The story isn't anything new, there is no soundtrack before the ending message, and the gameplay just isn't engaging. Some of you might enjoy this game for what it's worth, but it is not for everyone.

I can recommend it. It gives $17 worth of Silver (1,700) for $15, and then it gives you an exclusive emote on top of that. If you were to buy $15 worth of Silver normally, you would only get a $16 value (1,600), so that already makes this a better deal. Plus, unlike normal Silver purchases, this can be gifted to Steam friends.

Let me break down what this Silver would be good for. Items in this game are priced (normally) as follows:
Season of the Splicer - 1,000
Exotic Emote - 1,000
Ship/Sparrow Skin - 800
Finishers - 800
Exotic Weapon Skin - 700
Exotic Armor Skin - 600
Seasonal Ghost Projection Bundle - 500
Individual Ghost Projection - 200
Daily Discount Cosmetic - Around 500
Pack of Transmog Tokens - 1,000

Remember, all of the items listed, besides the Season of the Splicer (which is DLC), are cosmetics. A majority of the cosmetic items can be earned by playing the game. This bundle is mostly for the impatient (like me) or those wanting to pick up retired cosmetics that cannot be earned anymore (also me).

Also, the Solstice of Heroes (D2's anniversary) event will be held during Season of the Splicer, which will include unique cosmetics, so this can be purchased as a gift to yourself or friends, but don't expect it to go on sale.

EDIT: As of November 16th, 2021, the value you get from this pack just increased; transmog has been added to the game.


The pack isn't bad. It's not necessary, and, honestly, I don't think the cosmetics look that good, but it's certainly not bad.

For $7 you get a decoration for every slot on your in-game vehicle. You also get a set of armor and weapons on each character. Additionally, even though I can't find this anywhere on this Steam page, you also gain a unique cosmetic flagpole to show off your banner.

The vehicle cosmetics are sorta neat. They fit an infernal Cerberus sorta style, as you can probably tell already. Importantly, this isn't a "costume" like you might expect in other games; you get a collection of pieces. You can mix and match pieces with other vehicle sets as you see fit.

The flagpole matches the same theme as the vehicle. It's also a Legendary quality one, meaning you can include trims around your banners (important for those of you playing the true endgame: looking good).

The outfits and weapons are rather unique, and they take some explanation. The gear is found in the storage vault of each character. This is critical to note for 2 reasons: you don't need to pick which character you pull them out on, and putting them back in the vault after you claim them will cost you account-wide vault space. The gear is provided to you at level 10, meaning you at least need to be a level 8 to get it (on World Tier 5). Statwise, it's okay. It'll be replaced early, but it's a good boost to each of your characters so you can fill in any gaps you missed in Chapter 1. The weapons and armor are rare (blue) quality and each come with Tier 2-3 mods. However, you cannot dismantle/destroy the gear you obtain from this pack, meaning you are at no risk of losing them, but you also cannot buy this pack just to dismantle the gear and get free higher level perks unlocked.

At $7 you get a decent deal. Your new characters get a boost of indestructible gear start at (around) level 8, and you can always improve them all the way to the endgame. You also get a set of pieces you can use to customize your vehicle and banner. It probably won't be worth buying if you aren't invested in the game or if you don't like the theme these cosmetics are going for, but you'll definitely find value in the pack if you are invested in either of those things.

It's My Singing Monsters!

I'm so glad Steam gave us the opportunity to buy Skyrim again.

UPDATE: It's been announced that this game is shutting down November 1st, 2021. DO NOT BUY.

It costs $1 and has 3 hours worth of gameplay, or 9 hours if you want to try all 3 classes.

The game is being developed slowly by a single person. You can expect 1 major update a year, and 2-3 bug fixes in between those. As you can imagine, there is no community. In my 9 hours of playtime, I've seen a total of 3 other people - 2 were trying the game out again after the most recent major update, and the 3rd was a friend of the developer looking at some details in the live version to help the dev out.

The game doesn't have dungeons, PvP, or any other features you'd expect a modern MMO to have, and that's honestly fine. Bad for longevity, but fine for a game of this scope. The problem is that it has 4 zones (+1 empty area), and only 3 of the 4 have quests. You basically do the main questline, decide to wander into the 2 zones the quests didn't touch, and realize that there isn't much to show for the several years of development.

I'll still play from time-to-time. It does have an old-school browser MMO feel to it, and it's admittedly quite refreshing. However, the game ends at the 3-hour mark. There is no reason to come back after a break besides supporting the developer after he pushes out an update.