Recent reviews by Carl_knows_not

Short but sweet, walking simulator-style explore-the-past game.

Unique and interesting, with great soundtrack and nice art. Definitely worth checking out.

Great stuff - exploring the nebula, tracking down artifacts and deciphering the language is relaxing and engrossing. Enjoyed this immensely.

Atmospheric, but annoying controls and infuriating checkpoints. One of those games where you feel like you're battling against it all the time, and not playing it.

An enjoyable and rich experience - the most I've clicked with a roguelite in a while. Good progression and the story is well integrated. The variety of classes is good (some need to level up a few times before they stop being clunky).

In some of these games the runs can feel really samey and repetitive but there's enough going on here to keep it fresh.

Wonderfully crafted, fantastic sound and visuals. Maximum charm.

Engaging & enjoyable text-based game. The conversation-battle mechanics are simple but effective and the writing is good. Packs an imaginative story into its 60-90 minute duration.

Played this for thousands of hours before it joined Steam.

This is a niche game with a significant learning curve, but it has impressive complexity and really rewards effort. With a bit of creativity you can use this to accurately simulate any transport network in the world. If you want to get inspiration for what can be done, check out the New York City scenario that comes with the base game, or some of the projects that people have made on the Simutrans forum.

The game is highly customisable and it's easy to make new graphical elements and worldmaps with relatively little knowledge or skill. There's also an active Experimental development branch which adds extra features and greater realism.

Lots of people have noted that this is similar to OTTD. Both games are obviously inspired by the classic Transport Tycoon, but they've been in separate development for a very long time. The difference that originally attracted me to Simutrans was that each passenger in Simutrans has a specific destination in mind, rather than simply going where you take them. That was a while ago though so I'm not sure if things have changed with OTTD.

In summary: if the idea of simulating networks and infrastructure is interesting to you, this is definitely worth a look.

SUMMARY: this game is, IMO, the best of its kind.
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The latest free mini-expansion for Path of Exile releases later today so it seems like a good time for me to recommend it. On the face of it this game is your standard Diablo-clone - but even though it's not as flashy as Diablo 3, its depth, customisation and replayability ultimately make it rise above the competition.

The combat is fun and challenging. The game has a slow start (though that's one of the issues being addressed in today's expansion) but once the combination of skills and variety of environments becomes apparent it really comes into its own.

The skill tree is huge (really, absolutely massive) and offers countless build customisation options, which is in complete contrast to (e.g.) Diablo 3. You can combine skill gems to give your skills different effects -- sort of like runes in D3, but much deeper. I enjoy the loot and itemisation much more than other games in the genre too because of the possibility of crafting and improving any 'trash' item that drops.

The replayability is fantastic. New 'challenge leagues' are launched every few months which offer the option of an economy reset and always change the game in interesting ways. They also usually adjust the balance of the game (it can be a bit flavour-of-the-month-ish) regularly which means that different builds are enticing, and since builds play very differently this also helps replayability.

Then there's 'races' - short and challenging events of between 12 mins and three hours which offer a unique challenge and a nice way to get into competitive online gaming in a non-PvP setting. Race seasons run for six weeks or so every few months, with several events per day and unique rewards.

PoE is free-to-play but never pay-to-win. It has one of the best business models of any F2P game. Microtransactions are cosmetic or functional (e.g. visual skill effects, stash tabs) and the base offering is among the most generous I've seen in a F2P game. PoE's devs are responsive and down-to-earth, and regularly interact with players on reddit and the forums. Give them your money!

There are also plenty of little things - e.g. the game's take on health/mana flasks - which are so obviously better than the implementation in other games in the genre that it's very hard to go back to the impoverished versions of those features in other games.

There are still things that need improving - the trade system needs work, for instance, and desync can be a problem in certain circumstances. But these are only small negatives compared to the positives.

The most addictive racing game I've played in years. I recommend bringing a gamepad, though.