Recent reviews by claptrap22

I rarely write reviews for games, but felt compelled to for Hob. Hob is the rare game these days that exhibits true vision and artistry. The Metroidvania formula is tried and true, and combat in Hob leaves a lot to be desired, but where Hob shines bright than almost any other game I've played recently is in the pure imagination of the world. The constant sense of discovery when you make the landscape shift after you've solved a puzzle will keep you grinning ear to ear all the way through. Hob also eschews a tutorial and easy guidance. Finding your way through can be challenging at times, but it's never unfair. Hob respects the minds of its players and as a 20+ year gamer who is tired of games that are basically 10 hour long tutorials, I appreciate developers confident in their own game design and the people who will be playing it.

If I had paid twice as much for Hob I'd still be very happy. The game is a pure job to play.

I don't write a lot of reviews but I'm doing so pretty early on for Judgment because the game is immediately impressive and is quite polised for an EA game, of which I have and do own many.

I landed on Judgment after taking a chance on EndCiv which is nowhere near as polished (yet) or interesting (yet) as Judgment. In Judgment, you constantly manage tasks in order to make sure your people have adequate food, water, and crafting supplies. This entails chopping wood, visiting the water well, and farming. These activities take place on a local 'town' map.

But eventually you will need more than you can initially supply so will then visit the world map and send teams to forage for food, medicine, and other supplies. When you visit various locations you can only secure the loot after successfully defeating all the enemies at that location. So this means you must forge weapons and armor.

The game additionally has an already extensive tech tree. In all, Judgment has a good flow of the usual gather, craft, survive loop that has become so common in games. What makes it interesting here are two things: 1) the town mangement makes you really feel like you are overseeing the well-being of your community. 2) much more interestingly, Judgment's backdrop is occult as compared the to the now standard zombie fare. You will eventually research occult tech in order to unlock mystical weapons, etc.

In all, Judgment is making a stellar first impression. i will update this review as I plug in the many more hours I know the gmae will draw out of me.

Many games claim to be easy to understand but difficult to master. The Oil Blue appropriately earns this description. I've been on Steam a long while and I rarely write reviews, but I am taking the moment to commend this game for being original and compelling in its mechanics. Do not let the screenshots and video fool you - this game is engrossing and rather tense yet never feels unfair. Your main aim is pretty simple: find oil, pump oil, transfer oil, sell oil. But in the midst of doing that you must manage your machines' efficiency and stress. I hesitate to say these play out as minigames since that always sounds to me cheap or cheesy but in this case the mechanic is apt. The game's main skill demand is not coordination but rather time management and timing. You can probably not do better for the price. If I had paid $10 I'd still be quite happy.