Recent reviews by ekolis

I've been playing for a little while, just getting my teeth wet on the puzzles to learn how to play - there's no tutorial besides a barebones explanation of the rules, so you have to figure all the nuances out on your own. But that makes solving the puzzles so much more satisfying when you finally do! Sometimes you just have to guess at the right move and then you somehow solved the puzzle, which is kind of annoying, but then you get to study the boards carefully to figure out how exactly you checkmated the opponent's king, and learn something new about the game. I would like future time travel and I hear the game doesn't have asynchronous multiplayer, unfortunately, which such a game sorely needs. But it's still a lot of fun and I look forward to graduating from the puzzles to a full fledged game versus an AI!

Four more classic Megaman games. They're all great with the same Megaman action you know and love. My only complaint is that Megaman 7 seems to lack a save feature outside of the stages - you can only quicksave in a stage, not from the stage select screen, or you can use a password, but those are archaic and clunky. But here you can see where things like the energy balancer and shoulder button weapon switching came from, that became essential parts of Megaman games henceforth.

Four classic platformers, the better half of the Megaman X series. If you really want to try 5-8, you can get the Legacy Collection 2. The challenge mode where you fight two bosses at once is a nifty gimmick. These games feel a bit more polished than the first few classic Megaman games; Capcom had to hit its stride - things like starting with the energy balancer were sorely missing in classic Megaman 1-6!. I like that there is a save feature added to the games that used to use passwords. If you're a fan of Megaman X or platform games in general, definitely pick this collection up!

It's classic Megaman, updated for the real-life year 20XX. Fight a new set of 8 robots in any order you like, taking into account weapon weaknesses, and then go after the evil mastermind Dr. Wily. There are some cool new features like the Double Gear system which lets you supercharge your weapons or slow down time around yourself, and a handy right control stick flick will switch between weapons on the fly. I would highly recommend this game not only to veteran Megaman players but also as a player's first Megaman game; there are four difficulty settings, the easiest two of which give the player significant advantages such as more lives and rescue from pits, but on the other hand the hardest setting is just insane!

It's the first six Megaman games, faithfully recreated for your PC. Though, there is an option to give the games extra CPU cycles to avoid sprite flicker and slowdown, which is really nice. If you liked Megaman but missed out on some of the classic games (or just want to replay them), buy this collection!

I don't know why everyone's hating on this game; it combines the best features of Civ4 (the civics system) and Civ5 (most game mechanics) with some original ideas such as districts.

Please ignore my low play time; I've been playing this game since it came out in 2001 or thereabouts and just now bought a copy on Steam! So if MOO2 is the gold standard of classic 4X games, then SE4 would have to be the silver. The graphics scream out "late 90s" but then it was an indie game from shortly after that time period so that shouldn't be too surprising. There is so much you can do in this game - you can blow up stars, create new planets, build ringworlds and Dyson spheres... It won't run in a resolution higher than 1024x768 but there is a tool you can find online to force it to run in a window rather than fullscreen with black borders. If you want 3D graphics you might want to try Space Empires V instead, but SE4 has a ton of custom shipsets and mods out there, while SE5 doesn't have quite so many, being a newer game and requiring 3D models for ships. But if you don't mind the graphics being mere renders, you'll find that SE4 will scratch your 4X itch.

Imagine if Super Metroid were a roguelike. That's this game in a nutshell. The random levels don't work all that well because they're just made up of the same repeating pieces, but the powerups you see on each playthrough can vary, and you unlock more powerups by earning achievements, and there are a lot of those! One game you might unlock something akin to the morph ball, another game you might unlock the "Up Dog". What's Up Dog? Nothing much! No seriously, it's basically Rush from the Megaman games. Some things in the game seem to be lifted directly from classic games, such as the Megaman X style health bars and the Super Metroid style jump sound effects. Yay homages!

This is a fun little game, kinda reminds me a bit of Space Pirates and Zombies but kiddy instead of gritty. The coolest thing though is that you can cannibalize enemy ships after destroying them if you're careful to leave some components behind - a handy little targeting reticule will even appear over the enemy cockpit once it's exposed so you know where to aim for maximum salvage capacity. You start off with a really basic ship but you can unlock other starter kits by reaching certain levels in the game, so there's always something to aim towards your next playthrough.

Please ignore my low play time; I have actually played Space Empires since it came out in 2006 and just now bought a copy on Steam. So this game is great but flawed - compared to SE4, I'd say it's more mod friendly, but less player friendly. You can do cool things like have formulas in your data files, but then the UI is a huge step back, trying to go into 3D and just making a mess of things. It's still a fun game though, so enjoy!