Recent reviews by Djinn

I've always been interested in Dwarf Fortress for years because of the stories, but I never got into it because of its impenetrable user interface, controls and ACII graphics. The text graphics while charming to watch someone else play, were a barrier for myself to play. The Steam version of the game, with mouse support and lovely sprites finally makes the game easy to pick up and play and after 100 hours in just over 2 weeks (which is a LOT of playing) I find myself completely in love with the game. Oddly enough, I'm now lamenting that the new version doesn't have full keyboard control support like the older free game and I am patiently waiting for updates so I can minimize mouse use and go full keyboard which Tarn Adams and Kitfox have said is coming. This isn't to say the mouse support wasn't needed, but rather the mouse support on-boarded me into the game allowing me to learn its mechanics without the additional barrier of opaque controls which only come to make sense once you've learned the game a bit. Now that classic is released, I even find myself switching to ASCII text graphics when my fort is just humming along just because of how pretty the text graphics can be (though I still prefer the sprites for careful building and combat decisions).

Let's talk about the game a bit, but at the same time not talk about the moment-to-moment gameplay whatsoever. The game is on its face a "colony management game" a la Prison Architect or RimWorld, which makes sense as this game is the progenitor of those titles. And most of the moment-to-moment gameplay will be very similar. In fact, often those other mentioned titles will simply be more user friendly and have much more balanced game experience. In DF, you'll order around your dwarves and they'll build and do things. You'll try and keep them happy, drunk and safe and you'll fight off threats. But what makes DF special though and isn't found in other games of its type (or anywhere else really) is the commitment to putting complex simulations into the game which combine in surprising ways leading to unique consequences and outcomes. A good example is the health system. Rather than just having health points, characters have modeled anatomy with a brain, arteries, organs, skin, bones, etc... and thus when somebody takes damage, they get damage to their bodies in ways that make sense. Drop two elves down a pit, the damage they take depends on how they land. Death isn't taking some arbitrary amount of damage, rather death comes from the cessation of brain function however that comes about from damage to the rest of a character's body or the brain itself. This gets especially interesting because many creatures in DF are procedurally generated and may not necessarily be made of organic matter. Other simulated systems are like culture and history so that characters you meet will have huge extended families and have their own personal histories which you can read about in Legends mode. And the geology of the generated maps themselves which model things like drainage or rain shadowing because of mountain ranges. Weather and temperature are modeled as well do that seasons will freeze and melt rivers not because there's an arbitrary "it's summer now" flag which tells the river to thaw, but because it's warm enough on the map for ice to melt though currently buoyancy isn't in the fluid mechanics (yet another simulation in the game) yet so a body of water will freeze all the way through rather than more realistically freezing top down. The simulation and procedural aspects of the game are truly impressive. If you dig into the details, DF really feels like a living breathing world which goes about its business completely independent of the player. There aren't many games like this. There really isn't. STALKER Anomaly, a fan-made total conversion of the STALKER video games is probably the best example even if its simulation goals are far more modest.

With all of this said though, the player however doesn't directly interact with these systems most of the time. While the medical system is very detailed, you yourself don't directly control how your doctors heal people outside making sure they're well supplied. You only notice the weather system for example occasionally make rain and snow at your fort and you don't see that your whole region is raining or snowing or that these weather systems dynamically move around the game world. This makes a lot of the most interesting parts of DF something you can only catch brief glimpses of rather than interact with. Legends mode lets you see more, but even that is limited. A visiting elf might be on a century long journey to reclaim his family heirloom, but to you, they're just a visitor at your tavern who stayed for 20 minutes and left without you noticing. From your point of view, you're digging tunnels, making goblets to sell, farming reindeer, and totally miss when your engraver dwarf crafts a masterwork engraving of his deceased wife. Sometimes you do notice things, like for some reason the human kingdom to your North is completely populated with friendly goblins. How'd that happen? Then before you think too much about it, a dragon attacks your settlement. Turns out elvish settlers expelled him from his cavern home last year. If you check the map, his former home happened to be right next door so it makes total sense how he stumbled upon you.

I've spend a lot of time talking about all the stuff the player doesn't actually do or deal with. To that end, DF is a perfectly adequate management game with still many bugs and quality of life issues to be improved sitting atop of a truly unique game world you can't get anywhere else in video games. For that, I highly recommend it. Also, the soundtrack is a 10/10 banger.

Drink & Industry alone is worth the price of admission. What a great song.

Exceptional experience. I recommned this to anyone who is a Metal Gear fan or a fan of the stealth action genre. While the main campaign is itself short (~2 hours), there is a lot of optional side content collectables and bonuses to do that players have to seek out. If this is a 'tech demo,' I can't wait for what MGSV:TPP will bring.

I sat on a hill overlooking the town of Электрозаводск, the firestation and powerplant were half a kilometer down the hill, the sun was in my eyes. I had recently found a Mosin Nagant in an office building further into the city. I was finally able to put my bipod and ammo to good use. I wasn't intent on killing anyone, I just wanted to watch the various people coming into and leaving the firehouse. If I saw any bandits kill anyone unprovoked, I'd act like judge, jury and executioner.

After waiting a bit, I decided that it was time to move on, I stood up from my concealed position only to hear two or three loud booms crack above my head. I didn't know if they were sniping at people in the powerplant or aiming at me, I ran along the hill behind a bush and sat for a good two minutes in absolute silence. I leaned from my bush surveying the hillside. The sniper must have been a few meters above me on the hill side. I slowly backed away from the bush using it to conceal me.

I see a head appear behind the bush, it's a the sniper with his Mosin aiming at me, the sun tracing his head like a halo. I aimed and fired three times strafing, he obliges and we dance around the bush as smoke fills the air. He ducks behind the bush and I run uphill, as I get to the top I see him flanking downhill, he doesn't see me. I fire two shots, the first hits him in the chest as he looks up seeing his fatal mistake. The second takes him in the head.

His corpse provides me with ammo for my .357 magnum. The gunfight interupts a robbery taking place at the firehouse. I decide to leave before anyone comes up on the scene. Then I notice as my adrenaline winds down that my leg's bleeding. I disappear into the forest to heal, I hear gunfire erupting in the far distance.

Здравствуйте и добро пожаловать.

This game is laughably bad. I still liked it, but it's a terrible example of a good game. Though it is no Trespasser, this game does terrible things with the Jurassic Park franchise the least of which being having a blatant Vasquez from Aliens ripoff. As far as story goes, the characters actions and events surrounded them seem to jump dramatically between being painfully predictable (The annoying shmutt with the flashlight's demise.) and utterly devoid of logic. (Raptor knife fight, sitting on a Rexy's face, you get the idea.)

It's really bizarre how downright bad the storytelling is though, considering Telltales recent endeavors with the Walking Dead and Wolfman series which have been excellent! They seemed to work out all the kinks in their story telling style here. This game is like seeing all the crappy 3rd grade crayon level drawings Leonardo da Vinci must of done before painting the Mona Lisa. On one hand, I'm glad they worked it out so that Walking Dead and Wolfman could be so good, but on the other I wish they didn't butcher Jurassic Park to do it.

I began by journey in 867 AD as the leader of Khazars in a land cradled by the Caspian and Black seas. From then I was invaded by Cumania and the Turks. To survive I led my armies into the harsh winter mountains of the Kingdom of Georgia in a war of desperation. This was wasn't my land or my people, I had no claims but the survival of my noble name and court. Over the next ten years, the King of Georgia was disposed off after crowining myself King of two different lands, one alien and one occupied by foreign invaders. The Georgian mountains offered me and my people much protection from the Byzantines and Caliphates to my South.

Directly South of me laid the lands of Armenia which was being picked apart by both the Arabic Empire and the Byzantines. Seeing opportunity I took the rich Northern lands of Armenia. After which Cumania fell into a state of civil war and rebellion, one of which was an uprising of my subjugated people. After putting down a quick Georgian rebellion I sought to reclaim my native lands from the Cumans through blood. My invasion was swift and complete. Revenge had finally come, but all the sweeter by thirty years of ripening. After which the rest of the Cuman empire fractured and split into smaller kings and would be conquerers. Several of these knew fiefs defected to my country recognizing my strength. After discovering a plot by my wife to put my first born daughter on the throne by assassinating my son, I plotted her murder and two of her supporters. I had let my court become complacent in my stability.

The cleansing of the court was swift and fiece, only the competant were to be given power and respect under my royal seal. I know set my eyes on the Arabians to my South, should they grow weak I will be their to strike and claim Judea.