Mini Reviews

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I has this on the ps3, the above speak fact.

I think it's a bit of a confused game, somewhat burnouty but with more emphasis on the cars and racing than just twatting about.

[Legoshoes]

There's a wee game thingy that recently got on Steam through Greenlight called Receiver. It's more of tech demo than anything, made in one of those 7 day coding challenges but if you feel like dropping a couple of quid for it it has a really interesting mechanic. all the gun stuff, cocking (heh), loading, reloading, safety, etc is controlled by you as opposed to being done automatically. there are a few different kinds of guns you get given, randomly at the beginning of a randomly generated map, two kinds of semi-automatic pistols and one revolver. buggered if i can remember any of the details. The "goal" is fairly simple. there are 12 tapes scattered around the level which each give you snippet of the story and your main enemies are floating killbots and automated turrets. Both of which can be dispached with a strategic shot of either their battery pack or motor... bit.

It's fairly entertaining for a few quid, i think. As nothing more than an exploration of an area which most of the time is done in the background. Would be interesting to see this kind of mechanic in some kind of horror game i think. Constantly removing the magazine to see how many rounds you have left, reloading quickly in the heat of the action. Has a bit of potential i think.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Grid 2

Very good. Sits between arcade and simulation, nicely rewarding driving that still requires you to brake, steer and think for yourself. AI is challenging enough in single player and mp (if you enable it).

Multiplayer is ridiculously slick with the racenet thing that codemasters introduced with dirt: showdown. Completely replaces GFWL and has nigh perfect steam integration.

Possibly the pleasingest game I bought this year.

Fab will gush below, I'm sure.

[FatherJack]

I've noted before that there's quite a spectrum of racing games between the arcade and simulation, so would be interested to hear how you feel Grid 2 stacks up.

It used to be that one step down from actual simualators sat Forza (not Horizons) and Gran Turismo, with only PGR in that middle space before it got a bit arcadey - the 'arcadey' being the category in which I'd include the first Grid. NFS have taken steps to get into that middle space (as Forza Horizons lamentably did in reverse) so it'd be good news to hear Grid has made steps in that direction, as it always struck me as a game that took itself a little more seriously than it rightly deserved to, but which had real potential.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

it's nicely arcadey, very much parallel to the dirt series, has the flashback feature of most codies racing games, which is a breath of fresh air from my recent GT5 binge.

It's a strange one really, in the lower 2 tiers of cars, it's quite relaxed and arcadey, I suspect because you're not going too fast.

The cars from the top 2 tiers will bend you over, touch your private area and kick you out sideways with 4 blown out tyres and no hope of recovery.

All round very enjoyable, probably about 35% sim, 65% arcade, carries itself well with engaging driving, gives you enough to feel like you're a racing driver, but really allows you to fail from a bad choice.

[fabyak]

*gushes*

It's a shitload of fun, takes things seriously enough but allows you to do very daft shit as well without much thought. I managed to over take someone yesterday having accidentally mounted a wall which was was on a bend so I was able to stay stuck to it long enough to pass the guy in front. I then fell off and landed on my roof and fucked the car up but it was worth it for that one moment

[friznit]

Saw Citadels. I like building castles but wasn't convinced so swept it up to try it. Short answer: terrible in every way imaginable. I really don't know how they can justify charging full price for something that looks like a student built in his basement 10 years ago.

[friznit]

I recently bought Jagged Alliance Back in Action in a Steam sale. This is the one that made a move to real time pausable from turn based and caused endless fanboi rage from the JA2 nostalgists. I steered clear of it originally because I remembered enjoying JA2 and didn't want to sully the memory but I'm pleased though rather saddened (for the developer's sake) to say that it was largely unjustified criticism. Albeit I modded the game immediately (who doesn't these days), I've been thoroughly enjoying myself and it scratches all the itches that attracted me to the 3rd person tactical RPG shooter type games in the first place. Sure, there are weak areas and some let downs (sound is piss poor, AI pathfinding occasionally freaks out, there are some features that are done very differently to JA2 and can take some getting used to) but overall it seems to be a pretty well put together game which I would certainly recommend for a casual play through.

[Dog Pants]

I liked the idea of JABIA (oh if only it was Lack In Action), but I was put off by reports of no fog of war or stealth, and a poor strategic layer. Part of the appeal of the old games was sneaking about trying to ambush the bad guys, and it seems odd to not keep that in. However, I also remember all the bad guys being much better shots than me in the old games. Have I been misled, or can the bad things be modded out, or are these still problems?

[friznit]

Judging from screenshots of vanilla, the mod I'm running hides all NPCs from the map so I have to find them and listen for sounds to locate them if they're out of LOS - I guess that's what they mean by fog of war, so that's certainly moddable. Stealth is possible, just bloody hard - your dudes have to be highly skilled plus you need to ensure they're wearing the correct camo for the area, which can get a bit micro managey, especially given that one of the key feature changes is that only weapons can be repaired, so clothes/armour degrade and need regular replacing. I have a good deal of success picking off patrols with long ranged silent sniper rifles though and the bait/ambush technique works very well. Not sure what they mean by strat layer - don't recall much of one in the original either. The big map view seems fit for porpoise. And yep, some of the bad guys are fucking ninja shots, but then so is my epic $75k sniper dude

[Dog Pants]

Ref the strat layer, it was something about how utterly useless militia are when you place them guarding a town. Which I think is pretty much about as strategic as the old games got too.

[friznit]

Yeah there is that, and the enemy patrol AI is just as shit - they'll always go to the same place so they're easy to mine and smash with a small ambush of two dudes with MG.

[Dog Pants]

Sid Meier's Ace Patrol.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Train Simulator 2014: Still no explosions. Maybe next year

[Joose]

Batman Arkham Oranges

Hrm. Odd one this. If you havent played any of the Arkham games, I would definitely suggest playing the first and the second one. If you find you have finished the second one and fancy some more Batmanning, then go ahead and get this one too, as it is basically just more Arkham City. Its a deeply weird beastie: if I didnt know better I would have thought this game came out before Arkham City, as it basically the same but slightly less polished. Theres a bumload of bugs (but to be fair to them they are squishing them pretty rapidly), the fighting isnt quite as smooth, the puzzles are less well thought out. Like Yahtzee said in his review, im not sure if they have directly copied large chunks of the city or not: if they have they havent done a great job of it. If they havent, then I dont know why not as it really looks quite similar. It also somehow feels like a smaller area than City, even though it is apparently about twice the size. This is possibly because they have removed a bunch of the more interesting elements of Gotham that is in Arkham City and the new bit is the worlds most generic warehouse district.

Then there is the fact that theres a huge number of things that make fuck all sense. Individually you could get away with any one of them without stretching suspension of disbelief, but all together they end up making the whole thing even more absurd than dressing like a bat to fight crime already is. This is a prequel, but you end the game with more gadgets than you start the previous games with. What happened to them all? In the previous games you were in an asylum for the criminally insane that had been taken over by the inmates, then you were in a city sized prison where the crims were left to do what they liked. Seeing almost nothing but people you can beat on in those situations makes a kind of sense. In this the reason theres no one but thugs is "its a bit cold". Seriously? Its cold enough that absolutely all the civvies stay in their homes, but there are still literally hundreds of thugs just milling about talking vaguely criminal talk at each other? Then there is ludonarrative dissonance by the arseload: I must prevent the crime of people having a fight. Lets do that with fighting! I must get to that objective before the hostage gets killed or the bad guy escapes, but lets spend half an hour on the way picking up collectables and looking at the view! Then there is the fact that the bad guys are either returning characters from the other games or people you probably have never heard of.

TL;DR: Its not shit, its just not as good as the previous games. Worth getting on sale if you have already played Arkham City to death.

[Pnut]

In this the reason theres no one but thugs is "its a bit cold".

I'm pretty sure that the tannoys around the city keep blaring out that there is a curfew in effect.

[FatherJack]

It sounds like a bit of a cash-in on the previous game's popularity with less care and thought taken about the execution, how and why. The meeting went something like this:

Publisher: We want you to make that game again, the one that everyone liked.
Developer: Er, okay - what should we do better, to improve on it?
P: What's cooler than a sequel? A prequel, that's what. All our stats point to this.
D: Okay, so what's different?
P: Make it bigger.
D: But that will make it less detailed.
P: Just cut and paste the old game a few times. That will save money, too. Add more gadgets and stuff, they were cool.
D: More gadgets than you had after this game takes place? What's the scenario - should it be in a city-wide prison like before?
P: Just throw in something random to explain stuff, people just want to beat everyone up like the last game, they'll be so impressed by all the new bigness they won't even notice.

[buzzmong]

This one was done by a different dev though wasn't it?

[Pnut]

Yep, first two are by Rocksteady studios, Arkham Origins is by WB Games Montreal and Splash Damage.

[FatherJack]

That perhaps explains a few things.

D2: We can do it quicker and cheaper than D1 and we won't have any sentimental connection to design or canon.
P: Excellent! This plan cannot fail.

I'm only speculating on what it sounds like. I own the first two games and have played less than an hour in total, trying to learn button mashing combos put me off early in the first, and in the second the gliding-around-exploring didn't offset that I still didn't find the fights any fun.

I think I got them both free with graphics cards, so can't complain, especially since the GfWL removal the GOATEE versions have been added to my Steam account.