Recent reviews by InfiniteArray

Dredge is an okay fishing simulator with some fun Lovecraftian elements, rather than a good Lovecraftian game with some okay fishing elements. I was hoping it'd be the latter.

There are some really, really cool elements. I loved that rocks can just spawn in the fog at night . It really confused me the first time and had me thinking "wait, I don't remember that being there". Perfect start to Lovecraftian horror. Then you catch your first odd looking fish and you realize something is really wrong with the ocean. Then a little later you float above a massive abyss in the ocean floor with a massive octopus below and it makes you feel small and fragile. A+!

But then that's it... The spooky elements stop being scary halfway through the game once you realize it's mostly just a visual effect and occasionally you need to dodge a large fish.

What's frustrating is that there is so much potential.
* They've demonstrated that they can have large creatures that make you feel small and insignificant but they're relegated to set pieces or only show up if you really try.
* You're given a skill to instantly fish a spot which had me thinking that I might eventually have to catch some fish while under time pressure. Perhaps because some large and scary creature would be hunting me while I was trying to make an important catch. But it's just there for convenience.
* They could have implemented some landmass that only shows up at night and when sufficiently spooked. Humming stones were nice and eery but imagine if they had pointed to a cursed island, lost in the fog, only visible to those on the precipice of loosing their sanity.

Anyhows... Rambling at this point. It's a pretty game. It's got the making of a great game. But, to me, it didn't live up to its potential.

For only $5 you too can have your dopamine receptors go BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Dyson Sphere Program is amazing!

The factory has a good amount of different buildings that are interesting to set up, a number of cool belt mechanics (proliferators, stackers, and stacked belts!) and of course a whole cluster of suns and planets to explore! Things start off pretty mundane but before soon you'll be visiting far flung planets orbiting Black Holes or Neutron Stars, mining Lava planets, or pumping out Oceans of Sulfure for your various factories.

And throughout all of it you can build Dyson Spheres! It's gorgeous. And the scale of it breathtaking. Honestly my favorite factory sim. AND IT'S CHEAPER THAN FACTORIO!

My only gripe used to be that the early game is slow but I realized that the game has a whole meta-aspect where you can carry research between saves. So you can skip that early grind after the first game and get right to the good bits.

It's a great game for quick 15 minute runs. The wide variety of guns keeps things interesting and there's always more stuff to unlock.

Relic needs to get it through their head that really all we want is a more in depth Dawn of War 1. Dawn of War III still doesn't reach the carnage that the first title did. Maybe a little better than the second one but it just doesn't scratch that itch.

Noita is like an onion; there are lots of layers and it makes you cry.

I am about 150 runs in and I still find new ways to die. Different interactions between enemies, different synergies between spells, different synergies between perks, it all meshes together into a unique experience every time you enter those mines.

It does suffer a bit from being a roguelike in that you end up replaying earlier levels a lot and sometimes, despite your best intentions, you are just dealt a bad hand. But when you do get those elusive runs where everything just lines up and you start tearing through enemies and the environment alike it is such a rewarding sandbox to play in.

BABA IS MINDBENDING
Baba is you is definitely not for the weak of heart. It's hard but fair. Every solution so far has been immensely gratifying to figure out.

Coming back a few years later: It's a great game but not worth 32€ in my humble opinion. Dyson Sphere Program or Satisfactory scratch the itch just as well at a much better price.

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Imagine if you will...

You are standing in the middle of a giant factory, your factory. Next to you assemblers are feeding steel bars and circuits into a row of assemblers tasked with creating solar panels. Those solar panels are automatically carried off by construction bots, tasked with building a 100 MW power plant. You hope that it will be enough to power your upcoming Refinery.

However, demands of your solar panel production uncovers a deficiency in your steel production, so you tear down your steel smelter and re-design it with twice the capacity. That then places too much of a draw on your iron production. Your factory is starved of iron plates as your new steel smelter commands a lions share. Ammunition production grinds to a crawl just as a horde of insects besieges your walls. The turrets can hold them off for now but you know that eventually their supplies will run out.

To save your Factory you rush to explore the area for new Iron deposits to tap. You find one and drop your optimized blueprint onto the patch. As your robots build it for you you set up a train to ferry the newly mined resources to your factory. This new outpost generates 5000 iron ore a minute. You know that you'll eventually need x3 more.

This is what it's like to play Factorio. It is a constant dance between expanding your factory and feeding this behemoth you've created. It's about permanently battling bottlenecks. It's about meticulously optimizing every production line.
There isn't much of an endgame beyond launching a rocket; it eventually boils down to how many you can launch per minute. But considering that only 14% of players have actually gotten to that point and what it takes to get there I wouldn't let that put me off.

Overall, it's an incredibly fun game for people who enjoy design optimization.

I know more people that have played Company of Heroes than Men of War, which is a shame because Men of War is to Company to Heroes what Arma is to Battlefield. First off: Men of War is a squad based WW2 Strategy Game. The game does not offer any base building but is centered around capturing command posts, which give you points, that you can then use to request squads of soldiers, tanks, airstrikes and the likes. Every soldier in Men of War comes with his own inventory and his own weapons, which makes micromanagement a must. Troops need to remain supplied with ammunitions, bandages and grenades throughout the engagements which can either be scavenged from fallen enemies (or friends) or vehicles. Furthermore every weapon has its own advantages: SMGs are for medium and short range engagements, rifles for long ranges, LMGs to supress areas, sniper rifles, flamethrowers, pistols. You can move units individually or group them together in a squad depending on the situation.
Like infantry tanks have an inventory too. Unlike infantry, tanks also have different armor levels on all sides. Distance to tank, angle of shot, projectile used, and where the shell hits all make the difference between an AT shell that deflects off the tanks armor or disables one of its critical systems (turret, main gun, left or right tread, hull or motor). Remember that scene in Fury where the crew outmaneuvers a German Tiger? This game lets you do that.
At any point in time you can push E and personally control a unit from the strategic view using WASD and your mouse. I personally wished it was in third person, but whatever. So if tank-mc-gee isn't doing what you want you can just take him over and position him yourself. Which brings me to my next point:
Men of War features very detailed countrysides, cities, and industrial maps which are all completely destructible. Tanks can drive through walls, explosions will destroy windows, vegetation can burn to the ground. A house can shield the flanks of your tank until a cannon lands a shot through the kitchen window. All vehicles, whether destroyed or not, can serve as cover to your units. Same is true for trenches, trees and sandbags (which will provide cover until they're blown apart).


Overall I think Men of War is the best squad based RTS out there. The level of realism is insane, the campaings are fun to play with friends (up to 8 player coop). Men of War 2 is more of a re-make of Men of War 1 but definitely adds some things like shared ammunition among squads and new scenarios. I can only recommend this game.

Mordor is a bad place to be. It's hellish, there's Orcs everywhere and you're about one ocean and a landmass too close to Sauron. But thanks to elven master-smith Celebrimbor visiting has never been as much fun. Combat and Graphics wise it runs right into any of the recent Batman games - lefty slashy, righty blocky - what makes the game unique are the Orcs themselves.
Seriously... if it wasn't for them this game might be a solid 2 hours, and not just because they make up 99% of the enemies you fight. But what makes them so good are their personalities. Never have I wondered what the henchman's name may have been as I'm beheading him but Shadow of Mordor makes you want to know. Their internal struggles, their quabbles with the meaning of life is really what makes this game interesting. Even if you don't do anything the ranks will get a good shakedown every now and then, which is almost as good as watching regular Television drama.
As your powers scale the orcs unfortunately don't as well. There's a few new types that get introduced throughout the story but by the end of it all you're basically a demigod walking their ranks. Some people are fine with that. I don't mind being a power crazed ranger out for revenge but some people like games to be punishing.
I had fun. Played through the main campaign and the occasional sidequest. I guess there's more to grind out but I feel like I got my money's worth out of it. I highly recommend it.