Recent reviews by Lord Cochise

Still a better love story than 76?

But seriously, Fallout 4 had a lot of similar elements as far as sandbox gameplay of 3, but a bit more in the different factions you could be involved with and get sidequests for. Crafting is expanded, but can be clunky and face limits based on what platform you're on. DLC adds some more flavor to the world, but eventually there's not too much left to do. One of the most interesting differences is once you build all those settlements you can go back and raid them later.

But regardless if some of the systems don't flow 100% well, you'll get plenty of single-player action and see a bit more of the 'as the nukes fall' lore, just like in FO3 / NV. Now that it's inexpensive, if you played the previous entries, you'll get your money's worth here.

Orange is the New Black + Steam Sale = Sure, Why Not.

All in all, though, PA is a fairly solid sim with simple but high-contrast graphics (and the install is tiny), a fair amount of things to consider, and probably not enough guidance on some of the details of some key items / buildings, but you knew coming into a game like this you'd be going to take a few Mulligans before you get the basics down.

The tutorial does a decent job of showing you the controls and most of the daily flow of the prison, but not really enough about how to GET it there (but then, that's the point, right?); You get a glimpse somewhere in the middle of a running small prison's 'day in the life', and from there can start a prison of your very own.

You start out with a basic SimCity toolset, and over time earn upgrades, new staff, new abilities and structures as you service more and more inmates and deal with the logistics issues that come along with it. The game does a good job of automatically taking care of most of the lower-end micromanagement (e.g. a prisoner in a holding cell is enough of a security risk to warrant their own cell; once you build one and it becomes available, a guard will take a suitable prisoner to that cell to be housed from there). However, your idle staff will float around if they don't have a task to work on, so to optimize efficiency, you not only have to plan and design your buildings effectively, but manually place staff at key locations to squeeze every dollar you can.

There's a wealth of wiki information online, and you WILL have questions such as the details between door types, some of the key requirements of spacing, etc. There's a planning tool in-game to alleviate some of this, that allows you to place buildings and objects in a nonbinding mode to set markers for later builds.

Prisoners will fight if their needs aren't being met, or security is lax, delivery trucks will back up if you don't have enough worker staff or storage space, the canteen food trays will pile up if not enough cooks are present to wash them between meals, etc, so there are plenty of little things you have to get right, within your budget limitations, but then there's a sandbox mode so you can optionally build whatever you want without sacrifices.

Overall, a sim that feels right; giving you enough things to worry about, but not more than you can handle even without stopping the timer (save for those first few runthroughs). If you wanted fancier icons, more scenarios or other mods, this is a Workshop-enabled title, and there are plenty of resources in the community to extend replayability. This game will run on practically any modern PC with ~150MB of space, so at the right price, a worthwhile companion until OitNB Season 4 comes out ;)

*EA Review*

Following KF1, graphics / gore engine is much improved, core gameplay is very similar to the original; survival of waves of Zeds in a counter-strike-esque obtaining of $$ to resupply and upgrade. Up to 6 player co-op with 10 (currently 4 available) classes that affect speed, carrying capacity, available weapon prices. New perk levels go to 25, with more gradual benefits at each level, with special perk choices every 5 levels.

Voices / characters are different, but same British setting and humor, so far basically the same weapons as the original (though more are to be released). Look and feel is modern; expect to need a decent cpu / graphics card to take advantage of the improved effects, which are the reason you'll switch from KF1. Though you'll find yourself going back for pure nostalgia, it doesn't FEEL the same; the older Unreal engine, getting used to camping spots with a tight group; It feels like The Doctor regenerated; this one feels new and improved, but just won't be the same, until you give it a chance, give it some time, which by that time hopefully will be final release in the fall.

Some bugs have been cleared up, graphics performance with Windows 10 has drastically improved since the first few weeks, and there will be many, many balance changes, additions and skill resets to come. Drop rates are a bit heavy for normal, but enemy health and damage feel about right. Weld, prepare, Boom, reload, switch target, boom, backpedal and health stim, repeat. You'll soon fall into the same rhythm as the first game, the same bummer when you misjudge the pack to your left and get swarmed, the same tension at *barely* healing yourself, regrouping, finding ammo and scraping together a win over Patriarch 2.0, now with a gas attack and lifestealing.

It's playing the same game of Baseball, only it's now in a less familiar, better-looking stadium with robo-trader pods and no pipebombs (yet). If you enjoyed the original, you'd already be in EA. If not, you may even want to wait for the Summer Sale and grab the first game for $5. If you have a few reliable friends to squad with, you can get a lot of nail-biting hours in, slowly build skills, and move on to higher difficulty for a significant replay value. Setting up a private server is even easier than it was in KF1, or if you have no interest (or infrastructure), there are plenty of servers available for randoms, or the occasional solo run. Friends help, though; KF's real value is as with any co-op title; the more the merrier, and your enjoyment will be far greater in the long run.

Bottom line, this is the same Killing Floor you know, with the same concept and mechanics, but it isn't; And that's OK, now that TWI has a game that is wholly of their design, paying in dividends of Bullets, Blades and Blood.

Never played the first game, but Payday 2 does offer some options making it playable enough offline (solo) or with up to 3 others for different heists or other mission types. There are a billion stealth games out there but not too many where stealth vs guns blazing are equally compelling or balanced options - P2 tries to get this right, but save for the best players, full stealth is often REALLY tough (one mistake and you're going loud) and it's relatively safe to assume you're going into a firefight at some point every mission, especially before you have access to improved skills. Then again, some missions have you destroying mall property or torching / stealing guns from cartels, and survival is the point from the get-go.

imo playing solo is totally viable, but the AIs only target enemy shooters and won't perform actions relating to looting, hostages, operating drills, etc so trying to do things like get 6+ bags of loot from a store to a faraway van or looting safe deposit boxes are far tougher. On the other hand, the AI players seem to be pretty much invincible unless enough cops are close enough to melee / apprehend them, so they can take all the bullets you need them to.

The diff curve is probably higher than most games of this type if you jump right in, but you can try out the Safehouse level to learn the mechanics. There are plenty of COD'esque unlocks as you complete missions and earn cash / XP, both in skills and equipment, some of which is just character customization. If you play enough to reach lvl 100+ you can open up the Infamy track for even greater rewards.

The random chatter by Bain and the other mission NPCs is pretty good throughout and does a good job of cueing you to events and changes in the mission. The music does an excellent job of matching the tension and action of stealth vs loud missions (though having more guard chatter / cues as to when they move around would add immersion and functionality), and there's a fair amount of randomness in things like whether doors are locked / placement of guards / vaults, which definitely adds to replay value but can be frustrating if you want to repeat a failed level to get it right with all the variables the same as before. I do like that occasionally a job will take an extra day to escape if you've taken a long time; it adds an extra feel of reaction based on your performance and helps mix things up.

P2 definitely needs some more mission types, but the difficulty options and built-in random elements will keep you playing awhile. If you can find a few friends and specialize up your skill trees you'll have the best shot at advancing through teamwork, once you begin working together as a unit. But inevitably you'll be doing plenty of levels over while you get the hang of things. Be prepared to be frustrated, but you'll have memorable moments of close calls and huge payoffs if you stick with it and master your skills.

Terraria is a sandbox game perhaps most easily described as 2D minecraft, but that doesn't really do either game justice, as there's different levels of things you can see and do in each title, and Terraria has its own sense of progression and feel.

The game is entirely what you make of it, but largely it's about crafting / building progression: you start out with some tools and weapons, go out into the world and dig, find stuff, craft better stuff, and repeat. But with every patch released, there's more and more wealth of both useful objects and vanity / design objects, so you can fight badder enemies and dig deeper to progress through the different armor / weapon sets, or carve out bits of the world to build and augment your own as you see fit (or any combination thereof).

NPCs populate your town as you progress (and you build places for them to live) and allow some key items to enable you to progress further through each of the world' biomes (e.g. grassland, snow, desert, jungle, blood, etc) each with its own sets of enemies, minable blocks, items and challenges. Over time, you can meet / summon different bosses who drop items you can use to craft better gear and eventually crush the Underworld boss, throwing the world into 'hardmode', which has more difficult enemies, new light / dark biomes that take over and convert some of the base world locales, and provide new bosses and minable ores to progress further.

You can spend as much time building your own castles, mining down into the ground, or exploring the sky islands, fighting the occasional goblin horde or other timed events as you like, on a world on your machine, or using the dedicated server tools to host a world for you and your friends to collectively explore (or both!).

This is one of the most fun 2D sandbox games you can own, and each patch provides new things to do even if you've done it all already, whether you want to kill everything that moves, dig up every treasure in the map, or build ridiculously complicated Frank Lloyd Wright palaces made of mushrooms.