Recent reviews by code

If you enjoy blackjack, this game was MADE for you.

It all really feels like you suddenly bought the last 15 expansion packs for blackjack that you never knew existed and are playing it all for the first time.


It adds so many new cards that add a whole host of new complications to your comfort in knowing the odds when you choose to hit or stand. There are negative number cards, there's a hand that can be activated by certain card effects and can allow you to play cards at the cost of an action point, there are straight 21 numbered cards which always is annoying because you either draw it first or bust, there are fraction cards (like 0.5 of hearts or the pi of hearts). The suits of the cards have certain effects too, that trigger when you get your max 21. Oh, you can also steal opponents cards, force them to draw, change the blackjack number to 20 or 22, and so much more.

You have health and deal damage based on the difference in card numbers between you and your opponent. When they tie, no damage is dealt. If one busts, it's akin to having a 0 score, and thus you take the full damage of the other's card number. This adds a REALLY interesting mechanic and strategy to blackjack as a whole, as staying at a lower number than your opponent would actually reduce the damage you take, if hitting would otherwise result in you busting. Sometimes you don't even need to go for blackjack, so long as your opponent busted (and you didn't) you'll do damage that round; as opposed to doing zero damage if you pushed for the blackjack but busted.

The ONLY gripe I have with this game is ONE PARTICULAR loop an AI got me in and forced me to slowly lose, with no chance of winning. In the game, you can lock a card on your opponents side to be there on the next draw, with a particular key card. I did not have the opportunity to grab one of these in my run, and what happened was an AI slowly locked my cards one round at a time until I was locked at 34. I couldn't draw anymore cards, I could only stand on bust, and wait for my health to slowly drain to zero, forcing me to lose all my progress. I was hoping I could draw a steal card to steal my opponent's key card, or even just swap over one of the 10's that was locked, but since I couldn't draw since I was locked on bust, there was literally nothing to do but hit Stand. Kind of infuriating, but I still love this game.

Pleasantly surprised by the breath of fresh air the mechanics in this game have given pokemon fans.

There are many things that cassette beasts does better than pokemon, here's my list, though there are bound to be MANY more quality of life changes that veteran pokemon fans will appreciate:

- HM moves and puzzles are instead powers possessed by the player character, unlocked after catching certain casettes. They don't need to be in the party and no move slots are used up
- More than 4 moveslots. Varies based on beast
- Multiple evolution paths, that you choose option 1 or 2 to evolve into
- It's local coop. NPC's exist as a dual teammate normally but friends can take them over.
- Fusion! All casettes can fuse with one another (making some really derpy designs) when an NPC is "friends" with the player
- All beasts have same battle level as the trainer who sent them out; they have individual exp for evolving. This also makes any new casette instantly able to be tried out, and won't be one-shot by the local casette beasts.
- Type advantages don't just do more damage, they also proc certain abilities. My favorite one so far is that a fire type against ice works super effective for a move, but then the ice type turns to a water type for the rest of the battle.
- Shinies are called "bootlegs" and also change the typing of the beast it's normally found as. Bootlegs of each beast exist for each typing I believe, I've found two so far of the same beast: one with astral typing and one with metal typing when it's normally air typing.
- Ranged versus Melee Damage and Defence. The special and physical damage types in pokemon are instead broken down into if the move is ranged or melee. Also determines certain "on touch" effects to trigger/not when normally expected to.
- Great music. The lyrics can be cringe, but there is funnily and thankfully a menu option to turn all in game music to their lyric-less version.
- Interesting Type-triangles. Astral is effective against the four cardinal elements: fire,water,earth and air; but is weak to all special types: beast, electric, plastic, poison, ice and metal
- The typing of a beast can change, also changing the typing of their moves, as almost all base moves are type-less and fill to be the type of the beast.
- Mythical typings. The first ice type you can get your hands on certainly feels special, since it is often more rare than others. I got a beast called Icepeck, that I have never seen in the wild again since catching, and it makes that beast feel REALLY special and one of a kind.

Eco is much more than first appearance. While it is an industry game that aims to have players balance their impact on the environment around them, it also is the most robust civilization simulator I've ever played. Imagine it as a minecraft villager simulator in a way. It's online only and everyone has calories from food and labor points they can spend on a specialization. No one person can supply all of the things their specialization needs, so there ends up a need for commerce and in time government. The government is great because the laws are open ended logical programming, mad-libs style. You can make it as robust and pragmatic or simple and stupid, it's up to the server you play on. I found my niche as a glassmaker and eventual lightbulb maker, but I've only played one cycle. Every cycle time the world is reset by a meteor, so it is infinitely replayable. Amazing game, more than I thought it would be when I put it on my wishlist and eventually into my cart.

As a child who spent endless hours both "studying" dinosaurs and playing Zoo Tycoon 2, these games scratch a primal itch in me I didn't know I had until playing these games.

Here are some things that really made me NEED to write a review about this game:

= Danger
- Unlike Zoo Tycoon for the most part, this game makes a big deal of you needing to please your dinosaurs otherwise they will break loose and eat your guests. This obviously has effects on your parks' ratings, separate from the other channels that may be setup to sustain them; i.e. you could have AMAZING park store sales and no customer is without a restroom but if people are being eaten by dinosaurs, that no longer matters. I like the many layers of influence each property of development has on others
- Tropical storms are also a passing occurence, reminding me of the danger that tornadoes imposed on SimCity. This may damage buildings and let dinosaurs loose. Or it may piss them off enough to break the walls themselves.

= Dynamic
- This game has many different people you need to please, such that there is never a dull moment of time wasted that couldn't be allocated to another development.

-You must please:
- The Guests: They are pleased just like Zoo Tycoon,, except no worrying about trash, the focus is clearly meant to not diminish from the dinosaur park. The things you can build to satisfy them are stores, bars, restaurants, bathrooms, storm shelters, monorails, etc. In this game, you can also do the ball thing that we see in Jurrasic World 1 I believe.

Guests also get bored of the same dinosaurs, which feels like a real thing a park like this would need to worry about. So you have to go send researchers to find fossils in the hopes of finding enough new species' fossils to gather enough DNA to recreate it at your lab at the park. This could require MANY visits to the same place with little to no desired fossils (another tedious gameplay mechanic explained expertly as lore-based necessities). This all forces you to get new dinosaurs which, once synthesized, have new needs that must be met specific to that species, which is the next party you need to please:

- The Dinosaurs: Like I mentioned previous, dinosaurs may get angry and break their walls if not comforted enough. This anger derives from specific needs to each species, which feel real to what these species would most likely need in real life. Want a Spinosaurus? well make sure it has at least 40% or so water in it's cage and a fish food source, or else it will get pissed.
Want Triceratops(iidek if there is Triceratops specifically, but there are other ceratops in this game to make up for it)? Well make sure there are enough other Triceratops in the enclosure, or else it will obviously feel lonely and want to escape. They didn't have to make that a thing, the developers didn't have to know that Triceratops were heard animals, let alone code in a mechanic that represented this scientific understanding: and yet they did it anyways. That is why I love this game: it's clear there is love put into it from the developers' side as well. Nothing is more evident than in the expertly balanced admin side of the park:

- The Park Admin: There are three sectors of administration your parks' development must please to a satisfactory level or else they may sabotage the park. Every action taken to help one sector will most likely upset another in some way, so there is a real balancing act you must attone to, which comes with many interesting moral conundrums, as the series is best known for. The three sectors are: Science, Security, and Entertainment.
- Science: Science is altruistic and only wants what's best for the dinosaurs. They are neutral to actions taken for other sectors up until the point in which the dinosaurs are put in harms way.
- Security: Security thinks about how tough those walls are between the dinosaurs and the guests. They can be upset by dinosaurs getting loose.
- Entertainment: The morally corrupt agent of the bunch, this POS will ask all sorts of things of you that disregard the dinosaurs if it means pleasing the guests. This could be harmless like wanting more dinosaur variety, or it can be heartless by wanting more dinosaur fights, especially if one kills another.

Overall, this game is an amazing breathe of fresh air, not just in terms of gameplay, but also for the franchise as a whole, which as a life-long fan, whose movies have seen better reception. This game makes up for it in full-swing and if I haven't convinced you yet, let me throw out some other stuff:
- This game adds flying dinosaurs and water dinosaurs, something the first game lacked.
- You can take FPS control of the helicopter or jeep tranquilizer sniper rifle and aim and shoot the dinosaurs. The mechanics are surprisingly perfect.
- You can take control of the Jeep and the Helicopter and drive it around too, with also perfect controls, which I was not expecting given all of the other things that needed development in this game, you'd assume there was just no time to work these small mechanics out and yet they are P E R F E C T.
- Dinosaurs sometimes do fight and eat other dinosaurs, which you can zoom in on and watch like a pokemon battle unfolding
- All the dinosaurs can be customized by altering their DNA strands, with surprising scientific parallels. When I played the first game, I thought that was new for the series, but no, it has always been about the morality of genetic splicing from the very first movie. Love the incorporation of these themes which seemlessly lore-wise allow for you to customize your dinosaurs with different colors and patterns, which are found by completing the DNA from collecting fossils, bringing this whole review full-circle.

Yeah, I love this game, and as I'm writing this during the summer sale of 2022, it is 29.99 USD, off from 59.99 USD, which I hope you will recognize as the best deal of your life. If you love dinosaurs and zoo tycoon like I do, you'd genuinely be daft to skip playing this game.

Premise: [5D/5D]
Execution: [5D/5D]
Optimization: [5D/5D]
Fun: [∞D/5D]
Lasting Impression: [∞D/5D]

I'm surprised someone was able to make this work. It works EXACTLY how you would imagine 5D chess would work. You can move vertically, (multiverse hopping), and horizontally, (time) but only in reverse if no future has been created yet, which is determined by your most present game. It's also dependent on the piece you;re trying to move, as each have unique ways they move through time just like in the space of the board. For example, a rook can only move in a straight line through timelines perpendicular to it, and bishops can only move diagonally if it wants to move the same way, etc. You play multiple games turn by turn, kind of like Civilization where you have to make sure all your moves are made for all your parallel timelines before readying for the next turn to play out. You could theoretically play regular chess, as you start with only one board, and if you dont move to a new timeline (by changing the past) then you could play normally; but the AI always go back and change things in the past when they're in a bind. You can be one move away from checkmate and they'll run to turn 1. You can hop timelines, creating a timeline where this is no king to checkmate. You can be on move 100 and hop back to move 3 and split off a new reality that must play to move 100 to allow you to resume your initial move 100 move. But beware; so can the AI. Even the beginner bot has more intuition about (3+4)d travel than I do [see the second to last image for what I mean]. Never before has an AI truly intimidated me this much; it saw things I could only wish to have seen myself (Like a checkmate coming ONLY from other times/timelines' boards, so moving my pieces on the board in my dimension board didn't lead to any resolutions, so it was somewhere in the multiverse), but it knew it could set that up. So for that reason alone, I could not recommend this game more. Matrix math put to the best use possible: making my brain hurt, with friends!

When I was a kid, the TV show Ghost Adventures was a favorite of mine. I loved the idea of these experts coming in with their specialized equipment to collect data that no one else was willing to collect. I realize now that ghosts don't exist, but I wish they did. Luckily this game is very well made and allowed me to genuinely feel like a paranormal investigator.

Here are my favorite aspects of this game:

• Every ghost is different. There are 6 or 7 types of ghosts that could show up on your trip, each acting distinct. I was afraid when I first started playing that each of these ghosts would all play the same but just be reskinned, but that is absolutely not true. Ghosts who are said to "guard a room" will guard that room, and become more aggressive specifically when you walk into their room, for instance.
  
• When using a spirit box, and asking questions into your mic, the ghosts recognize what you're asking and answer appropriately. It's not 100% but most of the time if you were to ask a ghost if they were a boy or a girl, they'd answer appropriately. There is something insanely spooky about intelligent responses to questions you ask in your mic; you'd have to play to understand what I mean, but it really makes you feel like you're in this room with this ghost.
  
• Ghost will hunt you when it gets mad and kills you if it gets you; heart-pounding to say the least
  
• Become a ghost when you die and throw props around at survivors
  
• Updates frequently with new maps and ghost types

Hopefully this helped someone, it's no wonder why this game is rated Overwhelmingly Positive

Playing this game was a legitimate blast! Ever since I heard that Star Wars was getting a dark-souls-like game, I was skeptical as to whether or not the difficulty would truly be as I expected. I can tell you, however, I was not disappointed in the slightest. Fighting the Sith bosses was a real treat as you would turn a corner, and all of a sudden it'd be go-time. It legitimately took me hours to beat each boss, which I was a little skeptical would not be the case as Star Wars has been more family-friendly as of late and I expected my hand to be held most of the game, but this NEVER happened.

As you go along, you learn more force abilities throughout the story allowing you to revisit levels and go places not possible before. When learning new force abilities, you would flash back to your padawan days as you were learning how to do it, which was always seemlessly transitioned and actually fit into the lore. It felt more like just another part of the game than a tutorial and I absolutely loved the freedom to learn this game allowed me to have.

Collectibles are awesome as they're either a skin for your droid, ship, outfit or parts for your lightsaber, which has an amazingly indepth customization ability whenever there is a tinker's bench to use for it. Along with this, you have access to multitudes of colors, especially near the end, as well as a two-bladed lightsaber that you can transition to mid-battle that you also gain near the end.

This game felt like what star wars always felt like: a good versus evil battle set behind a grand space fantasy setting. There are many planets you can go to, including kashyyk, which looks very different now that the Empire has set it's feet on the planet for industry.

I genuinely have not had this much fun playing a game in years and everyday after school I could look forward to having an absolute blast in the star wars universe.

I am genuinely surprised more people on my friends list never gave this game a shot, because they are legitimately missing out on one of the best games of the last year, if not the last few years.

The storytelling was amazing, captivating, and brilliantly paced, with you returning to the planets you travel later on in the campaign but for various different reasons. I was so so so happy that a star wars game as creative and out-there as this idea was was actually followed through with and not cancelled like most star wars games end up becoming.

Honestly, if you're a star wars fan, this game will reinvigorate your love for the galaxy far far away, especially as the movies have not done the fans justice as of recent.

This game, however, especially with the difficulty and hands-off approach to story telling worked on so many levels, and I cannot recommend this anymore to ANYONE who is just looking for a good singleplayer game to play, especially if you have found singleplayer boring as of late.

I can't think of a better use of my time. The art style and design put into this game is, in my opinion, better than DayZ, mainly because it takes the open-world zombie survival genre, and gives it a fun, less serious twist. If you are looking for a zombie survival game to play with a bunch of friends, don't bother paying 30 bucks for DayZ, but rather get this game for the very affordable price of free. It's also perfect if you are a parent and your kid wants to play DayZ. 100/10

Garry's mod.... Where to begin... A sandbox building mode for half-life. Yup, that about sums it up.