Recent reviews by duckman

Great ARPG with a massive variety of classes and mastery combinations.. Supported with a crazy amount of loot, the game will keep you coming back for more.

Developers just keep adding to this game. Forgotten Gods DLC recently released, and more updates in development

When this game launched, it was a barn find.. Just like the cars in the barns, the game was broken, either didnt start at all or coughed into life, and needed a complete restoration in order to see daylight..

To the developers credit, unlike many other developers on steam they didnt leave game a the junkyard to be crushed and sold for scrap, they towed it back to the repair shop, rolled up their sleeves, and have been working their asses off day and night to restore the game.

So where is it now?

To me the game is now more like a repair job that comes in to your shop for mechanical repairs than a barn find. On the outside, the body looks pretty good, maybe some banged up panels but nothing that cant be fixed..

When you look under the hood, everything looks like it has been replaced, and works as it should, but instead of being replaced with perfect new parts, everything has been replaced with reconditioned parts.

The car starts first turn of the key and will get you from A to B, but its more of a Katsumoto than an Echos Cobra.

This game is like your first car in real life.. The heater might not work, it might have a coat hanger for an aerial, and it might be a bit banged up.. But for all its faults, you love that car more than any other you buy throughout life.

That is what the game is to me.. Despite all its faults, it is still a damn fun game to play, and with each new patch the developers put out, it gets just that little bit better, and i am confident from what i have seen so far, before to long it will be that Echos Cobra experience we were all craving.

I left it to late heading back to the farmhouse, fell over ehausted on the side of road and got robbed..

Will fall over exhausted and get robbed again.... 10/10

At its core, Grand Ages Medieval is an empire building game. Found your own cities, and expand your empire through either peaceful negotiation, military means, or creating settlers. Each city location has access to strategic resources, and it is up to you to decide what is produced in each city, based on those resources.

Each city can manufacture up to 5 resources (out of 20), which are either consumed by your citizens, or used as trade with other cities. Whilst trading is a big part of the game, it is more important that your citiznes in each city have access to a wide range of products to ensure prosperity. Provide your cities with the goods they need, and your empire will flourish. Fail to do this, and watch your empire crumble.

The balancing act here is to ensure your cities produce a wide range of goods, and then establishing trade routes to pass goods through central hubs to ensure each city has a wide range of products available, and balancing production to ensure you have enough to meet demand, without creating excessive supply which can lead to financial hardships on higher difficulties.

The campaign acts as a basic tutorial, and while it explains some game concepts very well, it completely ignores other key aspects of the game, and if you try to follow the story to the letter, it will probably lead to bankruptcy and frustration. It took a couple of re-starts for me to finish the campaign, realizing what i did wrong and going back and doing things different to get through.

The tech tree appears pretty basic, but depending on what your towns can produce, will depend on what order you unlock things. Quite often, a manufacturing shortage can be solved by investing in a research that increases production, saving alot of money and resources building new manufacturing sites. Also, depending on your starting region, will determine how your military progresses, as regions have basic units they can all produce, as well as units specific to different regions.

The game also gives you a choice on what level you would like to micro manage your empire.. You can manually set your own trade routes, detailing exactly how much to buy and sell in each city on the route, or select auto to have the AI run it for you.. Whilst I am sure the AI does not run 100% efficiently, it does a pretty decent job of ensuring cities have what they need, as long as your hub has the resources to supply.

Overall I have really enjoyed the game.. I find it quite challenging to keep abreast of eveything, and finding the right balance is key.. Building 2 new sites in 1 city, could cause shortages of other goods in your empire, as the population growth leads to more demand for all goods.. It can be difficult to get into, but once you 'get it' I find it to be a fun game, and the devs have so far shown they listen to the community and respond, and are here to make the game better.

After over 50 hours in, I am still enjoying Victor Vran... Alot...

This game copies alot from ARPG's that came before it, but also adds alot, and does some stuff differently to make it stand out from the pack.. The ability to jump and dodge roll are great additions to this style of game, and really make combat feel more fluid.. I have over 300 hours in D3, and that has basically become a stand and DPS style game, a tactic which will simply get you killed in VV.

Hexes are a great way to increase the difficulty of the game.. I found the game quite easy without hexes on, but turning on hexes improves the difficulty and challenge of the game, and I think makes you a better player... You really need to understand the attacks and patterns of the enemies with hexes on, to have any hope of surviving!

The card system for character development is unique, and you can create a number of different builds through the configuration of cards. The game might not have different classes, but with weapon and card combos, you can basically build your own classes up and play different play styles..

Speaking of weapons, most ARPGs it is the legendary items that everyone chases, however in VV through the crafting system, with a bit of knowledge and good luck, you can make weapons that out perform their legendary cousins, which is a feature i love. Not everyone is running around with the same damn sword like most games, and the crafting system is not overly complicated, featuring an in game recipe list, however sometimes getting the items you need can be the challenge!

The inclusion of secrets and challenges has been a great addition! the secrets make you want to explore as you go, and combined with the jumping feature can make searching for all the secrets a great deal of fun! Each map also has its own set of challenges, some more challenging than others, some require different hexes, some require different weapons, some require multiplayer to achieve, but again it is something on each map to aim for, as opposed to simply running and gunning through!

The end game faces the same challenges as all games.. Once you hit the level cap, you gain renown instead, and completing bounties and treasure hunts, (in which you can find your own codes or share them in multiplayer) is a great way to keep going, and if you read the developer road map in the forums, the future of this game looks great!

Thx to Haemimont for making this game, i am really enjoying it, and hope to for a long time to come! If you enjoy ARPG's, I can not recomend this game enough! Have fun, happy gaming :D

game crashed on start up, tried all the work arounds - re-installing game and system files, running in admin mode, running in compatibility modes, nothing worked..

the only thin that worked was the Refund button :(

I was really looking forward to this when i saw it, gutted it did not work for me..

EDIT :

The developer commented to advise a patch should fix the issues i was having and game should work now.. As i am keen to play this game again, i re-purchased and fired it up and i am happy to report that it worked!

Changing this to a thumbs up now, as the developer has shown they are fixing issues, and the game is now playable :D

Thx for the update, looking forward to some fun with this!

I asked an NPC his 2 sons names...

Tango and Cash...

Sold.. 10/10