Recent reviews by Miss McPingu

I'm torn.

There are weird choices, very good choices and choices that willl leave you pondering about what the duck where they thinking.

The game is fun even if some mechanics are over explained while others feel rather obscure (How does religion work i.e.? ). A bunch of things are weird decisions like not being able to click on banners to open diplo screens, the atrocious UI, not being able to keep on playing after ending a game, the thing that (I'm not mistaken) it will spawn you according to your leader and not your civ (or a mix of the two I gave up trying to play with Egypt as Catherine because it kept spawning me on tundra tiles)

Also everyone declared war on me out of the blue during the third age for some reason. But well as I've said the game is kinda fun if expensive (very expensive) 60 € for four civs and eight leaders seems excessive ( I couldn't care less about cosmetics)

I am going to give this a positive review because the gameplay loop is good, I consider most of my issues have an easy fix by hiring someone decent at UI and unlocking more customization options for creating games.

Also the game needs more feedback when purchasing things or ending turns for example, an auto explore button, more clarity (what do I need to conquer to flip the city? what are the yields of my tiles? I want more lenses? Where's the search function?)

I mean I'm having fun but the game seems unfinished. Imma recommend it with the caveat that be prepared for a sometimes frustrating experience.

The campaign is not very well thought out in my opinion.

You get punished for expanding as the more you expand the more chaos rifts you will have to deal with, and they are mostly a chore. The chaos realms are a good idea but I don't really like the execution as there is no way (barring deleting the other faction completely) of preventing someone else from winning so if you lose an opportunity to get a soul you are pretty much screwed.

Just let me play this game in conquest mode or as a sandbox and I will be happy, the narrative campaign does more harm than good.

Also how do you play Ogres I always have food problems.

Cheers

Also, the game needs mod support ASAP

It's maybe the pinnacle of the RTS genre, Tau are OP tho and remove the airships. Especially the Barracudas

While that might sound as very high praise. Darksiders II takes the worst things of both franchises to deliver on a bland, soulless, generic ARPG. While the premise itself isn't flawed, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Combat is in many occasions a chaotic mess and it's difficult to tell what's going on. Moreover, the animations feel clunky, as if there was a way too long delay between a button press and the move itself.

The story is unremarkable in general and the attempts at humour often fall flat. While the remaster gives the game a good enough look, both world design and game mechanics can't avoid but to feel old, samey and uninspired. It is too reminiscent of a PS2 era-game. Oh, and the map system is horrible.

It's basically Assassins' Creed Odyssey in medieval Poland.

This review was made the 1st of April 2018, comprising the contents of the Early Access launch version of Train Valley 2


Train Valley 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to Train Valley that we all have been patiently waiting for. And not only does this game improve on the concepts and gameplay basics laid down by its predecessor, but also manages to innovate and bring the gameplay one notch further thanks to the inclusion of new mechanics.


Fret not my concerned reader as the twists, bends and general polishing that the product has undergone have resulted in a substantially more satisfying game to play. In this 2nd installment, you can dispatch your trains yourself which I've come to notice turns the game from the tense, somewhat hectic gameplay of the original, into a markedly more puzzly endeavour. As now, there are several resources you have to deliver to the different towns and you have to really plan ahead as the space available and terrain features are rather constricting.

Your typical Train Valley 2 level, then, involves transporting people to different raw material producing stations (wood, iron or gold ore, coal, wheat...) and afterwards ship those raw materials into a secondary processing plant (that also needs workers) where they will be converted into "consumer goods" (Glass, rubber, bricks, cows and so on) for then to finally ship the end product back into the town. Sometimes this process iterates on itself and it can be complicated ad infinitum

Also, my memories are vague at this very moment, but I want to think I recall TV1 not having tunnels and/or bridges. So maybe these are also a newly addition. If so, they are a welcomed inclussion to the title as they open up more possibilities. Moreover I reckon terrain is too a new feature, again giving a little bit of nuance to the gameplay. There are small irks I have with them, but I will comment on them later on.


I am quite pleased both with the graphical style and the interface design, as they are approachable, cute and cheerful, maintaining the theme of TV. The game looks great, the trains change depending on what you're transporting not to mention the different maps have a lot of fluff to them to give them flavour. It definitely is an aesthetically pleasing title.


I mean, well, not on this game, as you can pivot a train 180º degrees on itself, but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief when it comes to it. However, I would like to make use of this review for politely asking maybe for a mode where you cannot do that? Or a challenge/star condition(we'll talk about this later)? I am aware there's an editor in the works (we'll come back to that, too) however I am not 100% sure of the scope of it and I don't know if something as a basic mechanic can be changed, or if you will have to program your triggers for Star conditions or there's a preset array of them to choose from. Anyways, please, let me not be able to pivot trains.

At the moment of this review I have beaten (with either 4 or 5 stars) the content that was available at launch, 20 levels, which is fair, however, because of the type of game and the previous record of the involved devs, I assume the title will continue to be worked upon until it releases adding more levels and the promised map editor.

Now considering this is a title in progress I would like to comment on a couple of problems I have faced within the game:

- The framerate tanks a lot when building either tunnels or bridges,for as long as you are using the respective construction tools, and you can build them with the game paused, so it does not necessarily affect you much. However, sometimes it can take a little bit for the tunnel/bridge to appear and there are a bunch of weird tunnel spots that lead out of the map and completely wreck my FPS. I must say that the game does not suffer from this when either using the Build Tracks or the Railroad switch tools.

- The tutorial prompts look like placeholders to me, as they are rather plain, difficult to dismiss and, to be honest, they kind of clash with the aspect of the rest of the game.

- This might be that I am bad at the game, but sometimes I found there's not much leeway for error specially when you are starting the level as a misplaced rail might mean restarting the level because now it's unbeatable. It's the Dark Souls of Train Simulators.

- Some of the mission Star conditions are, not wanting to be rude, a tad nosensical? I mean, I get the one that you gotta take trains to the wrong station, and I can work with that. And I can work with overspending money for the star even if I don't really want to, or having to send more trains than what's optimal. However, the one where you have to crash 3 trains, I definitely do not like that one one bit, as it goes against everything, and unless you purposefully crash 3 trains near the very end , it's going to set you back a lot, considering tracks explode and leave debris and you have to repair the engines.


In a nutshell, I recommend buying Train Valley 2 even at it's current unfinished state, as it took me around 8 hours to beat it which I consider a rather fair amount of content for the 7$ price tag. It has some minor issues, but it's completely playable, and, in my opinion, an enjoyable experience that has a lot of good prospects going forward.

This game is neat.

Ok, it's fine, it's just not the perfect game.

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This is the second installment of the Total War:Warhammer games, set in the tabletop franchise universe. As opposed to Game 1, this product explores the jungles of Lustria, the icy lands of Naggarond, the Isle of Ulthuan and the Southlands.

The game feels already like an improvement over its immediate predecessor. Even if I am not the biggest fan of the new campaing mechanics and I patiently wait the date the combined campaign (Mortal Empires) or a sandbox campaing is released, Warhammer II is more enjoyable to play, offers higher graphic fidely, and portrays a much better characterization than the earlier title.

Some peet peeves of mine have been resolved with this standalone expansion. For example now you will actually know why your lords keep getting traits, and the events that trigger them seem to be much more sensible this time around. Bigger settlements have more building slots, and the economy and military planning of the different factions strikes me, at first glance, as somewhat more complex and with more decisions to be made. Now you can settle anywhere if you are willing to endure the penalties for doing so. And every "faction" or Legendary Lord, has a unique (or at least different enough) starting position and situation.

Even if it the end most playthroughs will resolve on controlling enough [ritual_resource] and, for what my very first campaigns have shown the Vortex event will be over a tad before you would like it to be, the playstiles and themes of the game are very alluring and with several more degrees of complexity than WHI had at launch.

Some issues with the game are still there, as long load times, overly priced DLC model, somewhat retarded ai (specially in choke point battles) and the inability to have an army without a captain, which inevitable leads to the imperative of having to construct walls on, every, single, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, settlement unless you enjoy having random cities razed because the Spawn of Chaos spawned next to it and felt like torching everyone.

I have had some difficulty with the Food mechanic when playing as Queek, but I think that's a little bit more to blame on my incompetence than a game flaw, it should be said, however, I wasn't able to find a single building that produced food.

Anyways, my final thoughts would be to encourage to get this game if you are really not tight on cash and don't really mind having to pay over the price of it on DLC during the extent of its lifespan, and if you either like 4X or Warhammer as a pastime.

S T O P W I T H T H E P A I D M O D S B E T H E S D A.

The Fallout Creation Club's garbage. Also this DLC is kinda bad too, but that's not relevant.

When are we getting Skyrim on LG fridges?

Also bring Prey controller support back you dumbdums

I tried continuing my completely single player MyCareer save file and I wasn't able to because the 2k servers were offline.

This game has an expiration date on it. And it's not too far away it seems.

And well, now that 2k have triggered me into writing a review I am going to rant a bit about some problems the game has.

-Unskipable cringy cutscenes, the story of MyCareer is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ garbage, full of clichés, more worthy of a Sunday afternoon regional TV movie, than a 60 papers videogame. I wanna play ball, I don't care if my dog died or what some rando thinks of me on twitter or answering stupid IMs. I would, if the content was somewhat interesting or engaging, or immersing, but it's eye-rollingly bad.

-Obnoxious implementation of the 2kCoins or whatever they are called, (VC coins?) Why is my multiplayer progress and single player progress tied together? Why so many things share the same currency? Why can you buy packets of coins for my single player content? Why is MyCareer mode a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ grindfest that makes me wonder if I'm playing a Korean MMO?

I don't know, so many questions unanswered, such a lazy overly monetized product.

Don't buy this, I know it's the only bball game, but this game's a dumpster fire.


PS: The gameplay itself is ok, but it kinda plays like 2k14 or 2k13 or I dunno, it's just a roster update with 2kCOINS everywhere.

EDIT: I kinda weeded some typos out.