Recent reviews by Eusebio

If you're trying to decide whether to get this game and you have watched the Witcher TV series, ask yourself - would it be fun to give it a try to the obstacle course at Kaer Morhen? (the training grounds where Ciri retries several times until she can pass without getting struck and knocked down to the floor)

In Venture's Gauntlet you will need to maneuver across various obstacle courses, climbing walls, ropes and ladders and avoiding many obstacles. From time to time enemies will shoot at you, and other times you will be the one shooting. This game crosses multiple genres but I'd say that at its core it is a platformer. The difference with traditional platformers of course, is that this is in VR. Instead of using a controller to move the character across the platforms, it is you who will become the character and use your arm and body movements to get to the next platform. The big plus will be that instead of being a "couch potato" activity you will get a bit of exercise from all this pulling, squatting and ducking. From a fitness perspective, if you challenge yourself to complete the various running courses as fast as you can, it may be comparable to the amount of exercise you can get from some VR rhythm games.

Something to note regarding VR support is that for some obstacle courses you will want to move your hands above your head. If your system uses inside-out tracking and your headset doesn't have cameras pointing up, it will not work well. This happened to me at first with an HP Reverb G2 with its original controllers. Later, I got outside-in tracking, with Index controllers, Bluetooth dongles and lighthouses (for a hybrid HP headset + Index controllers VR setup) and it works like a charm. I would recommend Valve Index controllers for this game because of how natural it feels the action of grabbing an object by closing your fingers on the controller itself (instead of pressing a "grab" trigger)

The game does have quite a bit of content. It is divided into stages, and each stage has many segments. When you fail you go back to the beginning of the segment, and from the menu you can also go to the beginning of the stage (note: you may need to look back to see the menu with stage choices). Completing the various segments requires a little bit of observation (don't miss any buttons!), some planning and a good sense of timing, but I haven't come across any "puzzle" that needs too much thinking, generally the challenge is in getting the timing right. In the early stages there are many segments that can be done on the first try but it gets progressively harder, often needing multiple attempts to complete the segments in the harder stages. It is reasonably replayable. Even after figuring out how to get past a certain obstacle it is still fun coming back and trying to do it faster.

The scenery is inspired on the Highlands and it looks beautiful in VR, with titanic cliffs, scenic coastlines and massive caves.

Disclaimer: I first came across this game during pre-release. There was a Demo, which I tried and I liked it, then I joined the public beta when it became available and submitted feedback and bug reports (the developers are quite responsive, and the game that was already good at the time of the beta it is now even better). I am receiving a complimentary copy free of charge, but I am not receiving any money for writing this review.

If you have played the boardgame and like it... what are you waiting for? This is a great adaptation. I can't resist chanting "toad!, toad!, toad!..." every time someone has to roll and may get the infamous one. An "advantage" of a digital version over playing with board and pieces is that it resolves the "rules lawyering"; no more arguments over taking the doppleganger as a trophy or which spells can be cast together. In some cases the reading of the rules may be a little unexpected (deducting the base craft instead of the current craft, for the ninja's secret strike) but I think in the end the designers achieve a good game balance.

If you don't know Talisman but you like turn-based fantasy boardgames that are easy to learn, with games taking a couple of hours, then this is a great choice. The game mechanics are: you compete against 3 othe players, each with different stats and abilities (RPG-like). Move around the board where different events happen, building up your character's abilities. When your abilities are at a good level, try to get to the end game (this is the "inner ring" on the board, for the base game, or it can change depending on expansions). Like the original boardgame, you can add much variety with the expansions, it does not get repetitive. The events are fun and well balanced. Generally you will make progress by making the right choices but... don't get too complacent! Even for the strongest character there is a small random chance of a minor "disaster" that brings your stats down a few notches. By the way, the base game does provide plenty of fun, the expansions are very nice, and I do recommend getting them if they fit into your gaming budget, but the base characters and cards should also provide with a good dose of variety before you need to spice things up. Also regarding the expansions - they are selectable from the options screen, you can try them out and turn them off (e.g., if you want to show the game to a new friend and want the "simpler" game, or if you feel the expansion makes a game longer and you want a quicker game today). For the character packs you can turn them all on or all off.

In terms of bugs the game is quite stable; very rarely I've come across a situation of a missing "continue" button or a seemingly endless loop of questions but it was easily solved by exiting and restarting.

Overall - A great game, and after getting it for myself and playing a couple of games I also bought additional copies as gifts for my friends who I used to play the boardgame with :)

11/2017 update - I recommend getting the season pass. A typical concern with purchasing "lifetime updates" is that sometimes the company decides to stop development and doesn't deliver on their promises (Gibson, you should be ashamed for the "lifetime updates" to Cakewalk Sonar). There was a minor hiccup when a character was part of a charity deal and not included but overall Nomad Games has been consistently delivering on updates that do add to the gameplay and improve replayability

I just finished playing the standard campaign.

The good: I quite enjoyed it and I think it is a great game if you like boardgames and turn-based computer games. It is tactical, not strategic (in other words, you control individual marines and have short-term goals, instead of managing an empire and setting long-term goals). To me it captures very well the atmosphere of the Space Hulk boardgame and the challenges of surviving and completing a mission with limited resources.

The "can be improved": Mission selection can be confusing, I initially thought that the game only had 3 missions!. The "Continue" button does not advance to the next campaign, just to the next mission in the campaign (there are 3 campaigns and the first one has 3 missions). It is necessary to go further back and selecting the other campaigns.