Recent reviews by Sconey Vandrayke

By now everyone has heard about dwarf fortress and its perilous learning curve. But is it worth the time to actually sit down and try? Absolutely.

Once you do, you find that Dwarf Fortress becomes both a game and an experience. So many moments and stories emerge while you try and guide your fledgling outpost to a sprawling city. A soldier single handedly killing a weredeer because it woke him up only to go back to bed immediately after. An elf somehow integrating himself into your society so well that he's elected as the fort's mayor. Helping your guards solve a series of murders to apprehend a rogue vampire who's been hiding within your population. Even something like bringing back the dwarves from the brink of extinction in a world teeming with evil lands.

Losing is fun is the mantra of this game and for good reason. Because Dwarf Fortress isn't a game that's meant to be beaten. You will lose. But that's okay as every time you lose its another chance to start a new story from the beginning, to see what interesting things your dwarves will get into. Playing dwarf Fortress is less about winning and more about the experiences you and the game create together.

I've sunk a decent amount of time into this game though not nearly as much as those from the ASCII days. So I can say with confidence that if someone as scatterbrained as me can learn this game then you can too. Give the game a shot, keep the Dwarf Fortress Wiki handy (you'll reference it *a lot*) and pull up some beginner tutorials on youtube. Once you start understanding how each system in the game fits together, you'll see why so many people refer to this game as a masterpiece.

Big thanks to Joel from Vinesauce. His streams of Dwarf Fortress are what finally got me to try.

glorious ducksu

But really, its a relaxing game that you can just kinda vibe out to and get hyped for the next duck drop.

Fun? Check.
Looks cool? Check.
Tons of bugs to squish? Check.
Dwarves? Check.
Rock and Stone? Hell yeah.

Hmm I should optimize my assembly lines...
[12 1/2 HOURS LATER]

Brutal and entertaining. Would highly recommend losing your sanity to this one.

Surprise out of nowhere, but a very welcome one. Great transition of the series to 3D, but now with 4 player co op and leaderboards. Seriously keep an eye on this game. Its going places.

Very fun and engaging addition to the Monster Hunter series. Even better now that it can be played on PC. Just be aware that DLC and other content updates are on a slower schedule for PC than consoles. If you are fine with that then this is a great game to get into.

Very fun collection of titles to play. While the option to go solo is there on a few this was made to enjoy with friends.

Plus, to those out there that like to stream on twitch this is a great title to play with your chatroom. All they need is the room code and a moblie/tablet to play on.

This game is hard. Like rip you out of your seat, throw you to the ground, and beat everything that more recent "Hold your hand" style games have taught you. You will die. A lot. Sometimes from enemies and sometimes from your own miscalculations. But if you give it a shot you'll find that there's a lot to love here. A parallel can be drawn between this and the Dark Souls series. In that beating the challenge of the game is a lot of what makes this fun.

I strongly suggest giving this game a shot, even if you consider yourself more casual. Just don't give up when it gets difficult. Keep trying, learn and plan carefully.

Here's the jist of how this game is to me. Buy it but keep in mind it'll truly shine when playing with friends.

If you haven't already heard or read; this game is about a bunch of criminals that go about doing hiests for cash. The game features a decent variety of missions to complete. In your criminal career you can expect to do everything from robbing banks to cooking meth to sell for information. You'll smash up a mall for protection money and rob a private military company blind. The missions strike a balance for those who prefer to stay in the shadows or those who go in armed to the teeth. Granted there are a handfull of missions that can be played only one way (Shadow Raid is steath only and Watchdogs is assault only for example). Overkill has been very nice to us as well, making a decent amount of DLC and extra missions available to the community. You don't even have to worry about not being able to do some maps. So long as the host owns the DLC maps his party will be able to do them.

Payday 2 also has a very extensive weapon system. Weapons are broken down into several stats (Damage, accuracy, stability, concealability to name a few). Attachments that you earn after missions can be used to further specialize a weapon to your liking. You can maximize a weapon's destructive power or make it highly concealable for stealth missions. Unfortunately you'll need to buy the weapon DLCs to access the new weapons they've added (sniper rifles is an example) but its still possible for someone without any DLC to be effective in a group with the right attachment setup.

Further customization is granted through skills. You'll be able to specialize yourself as a Mastermind, Enforcer, Technician, or Ghost. Mastermind is a team player, focusing on skills that control civilians, disarming cops (and making them cuff themselves), and helping his teammates back on their feet when they get downed. Enforcers are assault oriented, focusing on skills that enhance damage, shotgun potency, and the ability to wear the toughest body armor. Technicians can deploy trip mines, breach doors with C4, place turrets, and have more effeicient drills (though that's not saying much sometimes). Ghosts are stealth specialists. They have skills that allow them to get into a place, steal what they want, and escape with as little killing as possible.

It is true that the game is very soloable with the right setup (especially someone who fully specs into stealth). And while that may be fun for some people, after a while having some human controlled allies back you up is going to be several magitudes better than the wittless AI partners. So I strongly recommend that you play with others. Even if it means pugging in groups cause a lot of the fun of Payday 2 comes from working with a team. Espcially if you decide to go into Death Wish missions.

TL;DR Get this game. Soloing is fun but to get the full experience play with people/friends.