Recent reviews by Suspicious Turtle

I love the setting to this game. Most other aspects are decent but unremarkable - fairly typical western RPG gameplay, acceptable graphics but nothing to write home about, interesting character concepts but not very fleshed out. But the struggles between different groups on a future colonised Mars make for a great backdrop.

The sequel (The Technomancer) came out in 2016 and is a major improvement in most ways. I'd probably recommend playing that first even though it does make a bunch of references to this game. But if you enjoy that one and want more from the same setting, the original is an enjoyable follow-up.

An excellent game and very addictive - I found it very difficult to put down. There were several times I decided to just make some small improvements to a factory's supply chain and found myself playing into the early hours even with work the next day.

Definitely worth buying/playing overall. The concept is great, and the gameplay takes the parts that Pillars of Eternity does well and adds a fantastic flexible spell-design system.

BUT...

I read a lot of other reviews where the writing and the story's flexibility is getting a lot of praise. That wasn't my feeling at all. There were large parts of the story where I felt completely railroaded, and a bunch of times after I chose not to defect to the rebels when all of your options are cartoonishly evil. Most obviously in the Stone Sea towards the end of the Disfavored quest-line, where there's no way to go against the plan to poison the land to starve out the Scarlet Chorus. I get that I've decided to stay with the bad guys, but it seems completely out of character for a loyal agent of Tunon/Kyros to take an active role in that - even if you don't care about the peasants it's a criminal waste of resources.

It's not something I would usually complain about, but in a game that's supposed to be all about morally grey choices (and where most of the reviews are praising that aspect of the game) it left me pretty disappointed.

A good game on the whole, especially with friends - hacking your way through waves of skaven is great fun. Playing solo with bots isn't quite as good (especially as they ignore mission objectives like collecting sacks or destroying pillar supports) but still perfectly possible.

The biggest flaw, though, is the always-online element. I guess it depends how good your internet is but it's not at all unusual for a mission to end with you getting kicked out of the game and losing all your progress because you lost the connection to the server, even if you're the host or even playing solo with bots. I previously wrote that it happened one time in ten, which was probably a bit of an exaggeration, but it's not rare either and can be completely infuriating when you were making good progress on a difficult mission.

Another classic game I recently got around to playing after owning for years. It absolutely deserves the hype. The game adds creative new elements to the ideas in the original; the puzzles aren't especially difficult but they do force you to think. And the story is well-told with world design that complements it perfectly.

Fairly decent point & click adventure game. It's a bit on the short/easy side, and the plot takes a sharp turn into weird/psychological towards the end rather than sticking with the detective genre that the subtitle suggests, but overall nicely written and acted with some funny moments.

Biggest gripe? Always having to choose an action after selecting an object. I'm pretty sure Monkey Island had the "right click for the default action" idea figured out back in 1990.

Very dull repetitive game. Sneak around the same level every time, find a bunch of items without being seen, then make a contrived choice between three options to prioritise: the husband's novel, the couple's relationship or the child's happiness.

But it's all about the story, right? I wasn't impressed by that part either. The title character is a litfic cliché, the middle-aged alcoholic writer in an unhappy marriage, and the other two just react to him in completely predictable ways. To be fair I abandoned the game on the 4th level (identical to the first three except that this time some of the lights are turned off) so maybe something interesting happens later on, but I don't care what happens to these characters and can't be bothered finishing their story.

Weak positive on this one: worth playing but it didn't live up to what it could have been.

On the plus side the Memory Remix mechanic is really innovative, the worldbuilding is very good, and there's a great plot twist half-way through the game that I never saw coming. On the other hand there are only four memory remixes in total, the exploration parts of the game are disappointingly linear, and after you finish the game and look back on what happened there are some pretty big plot-holes. Combat is OK but nothing amazing; the "make-your-own-combo" feature is a nice idea but doesn't really add much to the game.

Great game. It's still a direct conversion of the board game so there are very few gameplay changes from Blood Bowl 1 but the graphics are greatly improved. It relies heavily on dice rolls so sometimes things can be very frustrating - but that's all part of the fun.

I enjoyed the campaign mode too - some other reviews call it pointless, and it's true that the AI is pretty easy to beat, but I found it well worth playing and I'd particularly recommend it as an introduction to the game for new players.

The biggest negative is the amount of commentary - what exists is good, but you'll notice repeated lines even in a single match let alone over the course of a season. If I had one recommendation for Blood Bowl 3, it would be to multiply the number of commentary lines by 10.

Having said that, I still love the game and would recommend it as a worthy improvement over Blood Bowl 1.

Decent open world RPG with a fantastic setting. My only real complaint is that it involves a lot of backtracking, so there are a lot of repeated fights with respawning enemies.