Recent reviews by GaMBiT

I felt compelled to come and write this review after playing the new Heroes of Might and Magic demo.

I've always been a fan of HoMM, especially II and I think it was V with the cartoonish WoW esthetic. This new one should have been right up my alley. However, I have bought and played Songs of Conquest like a month ago and it has surpassed my wildest expectations of what a HoMM clone can be and do to the point I'm looking at this new HoMM demo and thinking to myself how it pales in comparison to SoC.

SoC does everything HoMM do - does it better - and exiands on it. But most importantly it's THE STORY and the way it is told (in map mini events, dialogues between heroes, MYSICAL cut scenes, and the map progression itself).

Calling SoC a love letter to HoMM is a grave disservice. SoC is a MASTERFULLY CRAFTED narrative tactical strategy game that OOZES with detail. Seriously, just look at the map screenshots.

Made with a lot of heart, a true classic!

I love point-and-click games. This one is a whodonit murder mystery that holds up very wel.. until the last "5 minutes" of the game (plotwise). Therefor it is getting only 4/5 and not the full 5/5.
The other 4 points? Go towards amazing art and styling, incredible top notch voice acting, and honestly what I consider to be the evolution of point-and-click games (hard to describe.. but you don't try to combine objects at all, for example). You actually feel like you are slowly working towards solving a murder mystery, not just clicking at points of interest.

So instead of running animation the dev team adds a "press space-bar to accelerate" schtick. This game suffers from any other project dictated by a marketing team and business mindset - you think you can cut corners to increase profit, but that's how you make good games

Excellent follow up to the first

I feel compeled writing a review, after anylsing it a bit myself, and having read some negatives reviews that.. I fell just didn't get what game was trying to do.

I have watched all Mad Max movies. Seen the first two as a very young child. Seen the third one in cinema, and seen the latest one when just came out in cinema as well. The world of Mad Max has been increasingly deteriorating.
In the second movie, gasolin was so scarce, mad had just gotten out of his car after bashing into a rouge car, and as the bandit was dying next to him. gasping for air, max simply took his car's gasolin (according to he first movie, the world came to what it is not because of a third world war, but because the oil had run out..).
In the third movie we ;earn that water is rare now as well, most of it being radiated.
In the forth movie, people who have been born after the calamity are now young adults, and the world has spun itself into a mythos of cars, gasolin, engines. Gods of thunder have been replaced by gods of V8 hoarse power.

This game is trying to capture all of that. Your comodeties are gasolin, water, scraps (the currency), and the occasional maggot off of a rotting corpse. Max is batteling inner deamons, and just want out, and reluctently saving the world in the process (or at least this slice of earth in the game).

The game isn't trying to invent anything new here: You have a map, divided by regions. Each region has a "hot air baloon" post that allows you to scout the area for points of interest. In each area you have "looting" spots, camps (mini missions where you kill everyone and collect stuff), convoys (that if you success to intercepts will grant you loot), fortresses (each area has a fortress you can improve through scrap and parts, that will improve your abilities in that area), etc. etc.

We've all seen these before, in the Assasin's Creed games, Arkham Batman games, the most recent Spider-Man game, and so on.

This game feels rushed at points. You can tell the developers had A LOT of ideas for this game, and tried to cram ll of them, and shipped it at about 80% ompletion: An example. You have a flashlight that you can turn on/off. You don't tecnically need it (even at the darkest brightness setting, I could still see in the dark) and it makes no difference towards stealthing around (which this game doesn't have). Also, the battery never runs out. So why have it? probably because it was only partly implemented. Alongside this example I can also name numerous bugs (the car physics are very weird at times), or the fact that when you find a can of persrrved food (a specific brand of dog food) it is always the same skin.

The game is, in essence, too easy. You never find yourself desparate for water. Personally I NEVER had to refuel my car (even though the game lends itself to that behavior). The personal upgrades Max has include better fuel consumption, findin more water, finding more ammoe whenever he finds ammo, etc. ... but those just served to make an easy game an even easier game. The battle system makes it so that I NEVER lost a battle. Just have to wait for that "parry" button to appear above your enemy's head and press it. Also the car is practically indestructable. You suffer some damage, your companion fixes it. No consequences.

The game allows you to collect other cars you get into.. but to do that you have to drive it back to your fortress. This means if you areeeeeon your way to a mission, and stop along the way at loot points, but keep moving forward.. if you encounter a car you want to collect - YOU HAVE TO TURN AROUND which is annoying, but...

I read reviews o how the loot locations feel repetitive and pointless. That's because those players are goal intended. They want to cplete the game 100%, and everything is a mechanic for them. Sure, I get that. I'm here for the STORY. I also read players complaiaing the story is very slim, and that they didn't even bother with the "side quests".
There are wonderers sometim, in the wilderness. You can stop and give them water. There is seemingly no reason to. As far as I know, there might not even be a pay off since the game is 3/4 done. BUT THAT DOESN'T MATTER. The loot places are more then just a location on the map you pick up "scrap" (money). It is someone's derelict ship of a home, complete with a bed, cooking wear, and maybe a skeleton, clutching another skeleton in it's arms..
I also read people complaining how it's pointless long driving everywhere. But again, that's kinda the point. When you have to turn around midway to a mission to "collect" a car, that's the storytelling part kicking in. I'll wrap this up - the game is telling a story through it's devestaed land scenery, derelict human beings, and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up mansterous cars.


CONS:
- can be bugy
- too easy with no way to crank up the difficulty
- mechanis and features feel half baked at times

PROS:
- a very flushed out car driven mythos esque wasteland of a world, told through other means than just dialogue
- main charcter looks sounds and feels like Max. Other charcters might sound Australian, or even South African. Voice acting is top notch, and dialogues are very good and believable
- a lot of stuff to collect (the hardest part in each camp is not killing everybody, but it is then finding all the loot locations within), upgrade, explore and find.

If you like the world of Mad Max, and will go into this game knowing it is NOT an action brawel open wrold GAME, but rather a good atmospheric story with looting ad fighting in it, then you will have a mighty good time!

Really short and sweet. I love these puzzle within a puzzle that is meta, that makes you really imerese and makes you think.
The puzzles are CLEVER :)

As you can tell by the time I played this game - it is indeed a short game. I played it all thoroughly , and I took my time, and I found all the hidden items (not much of those BTW).
This game, IMOH, is one of the most important video game of the last decade and a half. If puts you in the shoes of a very grey, very controversial protagonist. You won't know the depth of the impact of the game until years later after finishing the game. This is a phenomenal piece of very careful put together art, that ought to receive its due credit, and be studied at schools.

Not at all worth the money. It feels like a pilot for a game, to exhibit potential and (some) mechanics.
Took me a whooping 20 minutes to run it through.
Plot is nice, and art is beautiful.
Buy through humble bundle ONLY

Who knew how much tense checking passports can be?
The moral dilemas in this game are phenomenal. You constantly weigh how good you want to inspect the current passenger's certifications against how many passports will you check before the time runs out (because each checked passport gives you money, and your son is sick and needs medicine, and the rent just went up, and your wife is almost dead starving..).
Plus, even though quite minimalistic, the art direction in this game is spot on to convey the grimm reality of a 1980 european state of decay. Two thumbs up!