It is with a heavy heart that I come today without a review to publish. For the past four years I have managed to deliver over 60 game reviews and never faltered on my initial promise. No less than one game a month, played to the very end. The few times I did not "finished" a game was when I, as a player, was incapable of beating the ridiculous difficulty of some titles. Which is also a problem I am currently facing with This War of Mine, but I am sticking with it until I make it! Because that game is awesome, and I want to make through that war!
But that is not the only issue preventing me from making the review. The main issue is time! That ephemeral thing we all receive plenty and free of charge, every day, without really thinking about it. Currently going through some life changes including a second career change is directly eating my dedicated gaming time. Just like Maslow Pyramid of Needs, before we can play, we have to eat and survive. On the bright side, this will allow me to tackle huge deep titles like Dragon Age, Divinity, The Witcher and so on. And as I go professionally into Web Development I am hoping to revolutionize the blog with a more modern and interactive look! That is something I have been looking forward to, for quite some time now. =)
So I am officially breaking the cadence of reviews from "at least once a month" to "When I Can". The review structure is not changing, just how often they will be published. Thank you for reading this far, your interest in this work is greatly appreciated!
The Sims 4 is a simulation game that you enjoy creating and controlling people in a virtual world with no rules. Build their personalities, their homes, their experiences and their digital lives as you want.
Getting back from work to pay the bills...
The game itself plays from a third person perspective. You select which Sim (person) you want to control, and then click on objects and choose the interaction. For example, clicking on a book to read, on a stove to cook, on a computer to play some games. If the object is another Sim, then the interaction will get a response. If you are mean to someone, they will be mean back. If you are funny, they might laugh. If you are trying to be romantic, but haven't build up to it, you will probably get rejected. To spice things up a little, every Sim has six necessities (bladder, hunger, energy, fun, social and hygiene) that you need to satisfy, otherwise they might die. On top of that they also have moods. Just finished a work-out? They will feel confident! Are they starving without food for days? They will be angry! Haven't seen a living soul for a while? They will probably be very, very sad!
Progression for a game like this is a bit tricky, as it depends a lot on what your own goal is. Maybe you want to achieve the highest point in a career track. Maybe you want to accumulate wealth. Maybe you want to build a huge mansion. Maybe you just want to survive another day. Or maybe you just want to live in peace growing a family as generations goes by. To mention some of the most common. Regardless, the true progression from a simulation game like The Sims is making your own story unfold.
House Renovation Time!
In order to make all of this possible, you need a place to live. The house construction tool have come a long way, just like the game itself, since The Sims 1. The menus are very visual and quick to navigate. Modifying or building a house has never been so easy. You can now even drag the whole house around! Increase room sizes, turn single rooms around, among many other convenient features.
The Sims 4 is a very stimulating game. The character creation allows for a deep customization of each individual. The game gallery allows you to share and use other peoples creations, if you feel like the need for a quick addition. You can also dabble in a plethora of community mods that can enhance your game in more ways than we can talk about here. On top of all that, there are so, so many little secrets all around the game that there is no way we are spoiling the surprises for you. Our favorite part in all of it? It is not a game about violence, but about life.
Endless Legend is a 4X Strategy game. The term is a short for "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate". In plain English, it means it is a strategy game where your goal is to dominate something and everything. Be it through force, through resources or through sheer numbers.
Combat view
Gameplay is quite simple. There are two major management focus: City and Army. In your cities you will allocate your population into different structures in order to increase/decrease production of a resource. Be it science, food, troops, or even the city expansion itself. For army units you will move them through the world exploring the environment. In case of combat, you have the option to decide individually about what each unit will do in a turn based environment or just let the computer simulate the battle in an instant. Once the turn ends, you repeat until someone wins the game. If you have more than one city and one army, you just do the same process to each of them.
Science progress.
Throughout the game you can expand your empire by building new cities, research new science that will give you "world wide" bonuses, destroy or conquer enemies through military power, explore the map, trade goods and the list just keeps going. There are basically six main progression systems in the world and each can give you the victory if advanced enough. City, Army, Science, Quests, Politics and Commerce.
Strategic resources Market
Just like the real world, a lot of importance is given to the currency and all systems connects to it. The more money an empire have the more access it has to other resources, effectively converting money into power. Lacking a specific resource? Buy it! Too much of something? Sell it! Small, but rich empire? Make your units so strong through financial means that they will rival the mightiest army out there! A savvy trader can be a deadly force in the game, by understanding other empires needs and anticipating enemy moves, one can effectively lock the goods into a price so high or so low that they will have no choice but to bend to your will. Starving an army or a whole empire is as effective as bleeding it!
Unit equipment screen
We have just started describing Endless Legend here in order to keep our post manageable. There are so much depth and interconnecting mechanics in this game that we could make a whole series on it! From the nuance of hero choice, the peculiarities of each race, the consequences of boosters optimization to the smooth population system and city development. Endless Legend is a very daunting game with a steep learning curve and pages and pages FULL of information to process at once. Fortunately just knowing how to build a city and battle units is plenty to enjoy the game. Both of which are taught in the tutorial.
The empire grows!
Our favorite aspect of the game is that every little detail that you learn how to master gives you an advantage all around. For example: Learning how to better expand your cities to use the land resources will give you more resources to use. Learning how to better equip your units will make your army stronger. Learning strengths and weaknesses of other races will make you more efficient against them. And so on. There is no optimal strategy in the game. The more you learn about its connected systems, the more you will understand that every scenario, every enemy, every play will be different with different factors to consider under different circumstances. All that with beautiful eye catching graphics, delightful music and rich possibilities.
Book of Demons is a deck-building hack and slash adventure game. In plain English, is a game where you will obliterate hundreds of weaker enemies with your mighty power provided by cards. Your goal is to slay the Archdemon and save the world.
Things seem quiet enough...
Gameplay is quite simple. You move through a set path in the dungeon and activate up to ten equipped cards. Despite the simple controls, the game can get quite complex when you layer multiple opponents with different skills. That is one of the things we really liked about this game, it is not hard to play, yet it offers a significant challenge if you wish. (Easy mode is always there for simple Hack & Slash.)
Leveling up a common card.
Progression in the game happens in three concurrent ways. As you progress through the floors, you will get closer and closer to the Archdemon and your final battle. As you explore the dungeon you will find cards with powers that you can equip. You can find multiple copies of the same card, with slight additions depending on the rarity (common, magical and legendary). Third and last is your own level. The more creatures you slay the more experience you rack up. Every time you level up you get 1 point to distribute either in health or mana. Attribute points also drop as loot in the dungeon itself, making leveling up not the main source of attributes.
Cauldron sample.
As you dive deeper in the dungeon and slay many demons, you will acquire riches. Such wealth can be used to upgrade cards and buy the contents of the Cauldron. It holds extra loot from your pillaging and one attribute point opposite to the one you choose when leveling up. Basically the same stuff you find in the dungeon, but in one big pot of boiling goodness.
Book of Demons is a very enjoyable game. The paper theme is superb, with great visual effects, amazing soundtrack and an overall lighthearted theme. If you played Diablo I you will catch some funny references. On top of that, the developers did brilliantly in adapting controller support in-game. Specially the Steam Controller. Last but not least, the game has a splendid mechanic called "Flexiscope", which allows you to change the length of your play session.
Fallout 76 is the online prequel where every surviving human is a real person (player). Working together, or not, to survive. Twenty five years after the bombs fell, you and your fellow vault dwellers emerge into post-nuclear America.
As a re-imagining of Fallout 4 with a multiplayer approach, Fallout 76 plays very similarly with Fallout 4. In fact, you will see that there are more similarities than differences, so you can read in full about the gameplay on Fallout 4 Review. Let's highlight the two biggest changes: A first person shooter like any other game, the the first big difference here will be the real time VATS system. Whereas in Fallout 4 time would slow to a crawl, in Fallout 76 you get no time bending abilities. Everything happens in real time, all the enemies will keep shooting and swinging at you. Equipped with the appropriate perk, you can target different areas of the body and use those critical shots for some really critical moments. Believe us, starting a fight with a critical head shot is a sure way to survive!
Food and mutation effects.
The second biggest difference will be the "light survival" aspect of the game. You have hunger, thirst and deceases that you have to manage. They are a soft reminder that you are still human and surviving requires nutrition and care. In the starting area of the game you will find plenty of water and food laying around. As you dive deeper in more dangerous territories you will feel the lack of resources when your hunger/thirst bars start hitting red and you've got nothing to consume. For the decease part, being bitten by wild animals, or even swimming in waste water carry a chance of contracting some sort of condition that will debilitate you. Your choice of just waiting until your body naturally heals from it or, like most things in America, popping up a pill will make you good to go.
Strength Perk Card
Speaking of survival, the progression system for Fallout 76 is still based on the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. status. This time, from level 1 to level 50, you will get one point that you can distribute in any attribute up to the cap of 15. And on every level up, which is infinite, you will get to choose a perk card. You can equip as many perk cards as you can afford based on your S.P.E.C.I.A.L.'s. Having 15 points in Strength allows you to allocate 15 points worth of Perk Cards into strength. If you have only 1 Charisma, don't expect to be the wasteland most eloquent survivor. As in previous Fallout games, perks will range from giving you plain damage bonuses to special and/or convenient abilities. For example, reducing the weight of certain kind of weapons, allowing you to breath underwater or even to prevent mutations (more on this soon). Of special attention is Charisma, as it is the one attribute related to social play. Under the Charisma tree you will find many perks that work towards others, like "Team Medic", which will heal your team mates for some of the health you heal yourself.
Full Build.
Another interesting addition are the mutations. Receive enough radiation and you might find yourself developing some sort of "super power". These are mostly small changes that gives you an advantage somewhere, while costing you a disadvantage somewhere else. One of our favorites is the "Marsupial Mutation", where you get 20 pounds increased carry weight and your actual jump height triples, at the cost of 4 points of intelligence.
Weapon scrapping for material and mods.
To wrap things up, in Fallout 4 we had the CAP system serving as an easy way to transform unwanted loot into resources that you lacked, while the scrap/junk system was more oriented to building. In Fallout 76 we have the inversion: CAPS are much harder to come by and now weapons and armor have durability. Once they break you will require materials to repair them. Materials are also needed to modify equipment and to build your CAMP (a mobile version of a settlement, which we could make a whole post about). This way gathering junk from the wasteland is an essential part of keeping up your gear in top condition while vendors have very limited supply of wares and CAPS. And in order to learn how to modify your equipment you will have to disassemble similar gear. In order to learn how to make something, be it a weapon, armor or a construction you will have to find the plans for it. Nothing comes free in the wasteland... Except radiation, that's free.
One of our favorite pictures!
Fallout 76 plays very similarly with Fallout 4, but the multiplayer aspect brought changes and challenges that make for quite a different experience other than gun play. The map itself is gigantic, offering a level of detail and allowing for a much more pronounced change of environment. The material system is now properly integrated to the main loop of the game while the currency takes a step back. The light survival aspect is a great addition to spice things up while making for interesting opportunities of character builds. The camera mode allows for some great pictures and the lengthy quests can keep you entertained for a while. Unlike most online games though, it can still be fully played and enjoyed solo. While we keep a positive light, there is a lot that can improve and we are looking forward to what Bethesda has cooking up for us!
This became a much longer review than we intended, even only touching upon many aspects of the game. Thank you for reading this far!
May the wasteland provide all you need, Vault-Dweller!
