Origin VS. Steam - Coming soon

Yeah am going to do it am going to review 2 digital distributors and give my adoring readers a verdict on which is better AND why. I have a good feeling I know who'll win ...

Project Zomboid - Not A Review

Since Friday i have had the privilege of playing Project Zomboid, and if am honest i cant stop playing. Project Zomboid is currently in pre-alpha and is being developed by Indie Stone probably the most unlucky developer I have came across. I really want to review this game but its unfair if I do so in its current state not because its bad simply because the developers state it that "It does not reflect the quality of, depth or feature set of the finished project." I hope it does.

With out giving to much away the story of the game is there is a zombie out break and you will die many many times, in many many different ways. I have died a total of 10 times at least 4 of them out of my own stupidity. Damn Oven.

What the Oven Did Initially (killed me)

Then all the zombies and began destroying the house!!!

 

The basic game play of PZ is this you craft/cook equipment/food from item that you salvage you find your self a safe house and hold up or you run round and take as many zombies out with you as you can it entirely your choice how you play this game. I was initially going to say how you die but i didn't choose to burn to death. Its not just the zombies you have to worry about in this game it fellow survivors who have come to raid your hide out and generally be mean, and the occasional fire. This is just in the pre-alpha, as feature are added ill expand this description but even now there is a lot you can do on this game regardless of what the developers claim (its not meant to be hours of game play).

Eat my Hammer Zombie

 Now i try to mention the developers of games in my review so ill do it in my non-reviews as well. I have to say Indie Stone team are dedicated, and i mean dedicated, I think most developers would have just cried and given up if they had the same run of crap luck guys have had here a quick run down. PayPal troubles, then Google Check Out troubles then Webhosting issues and most severely A Bomb SCARE!!!! Talk about dedication. They are also my current favorite devs not just because they listen to their community but they're open about everything that has gone wrong.

I would say go and buy the pre-order  for the game now but due to Indie Stones bad luck and Issues with pay pal and Google you cant. However you can get a project zomboid pre-order for as a bonus if you buy one of Indie stones other games now i haven't got a copy of any of them but i hear good thing about Droids and there seems to be a small modding community, it does look awesome mind. I was unlucky to pre-order before they released Droids or their other games , ah well back to Project Zomboid.

Sanctum - Short Review

Sanctum is a good game don't get me wrong but I am a little disappointed if am completely honest. No it not the fact that there is only 4 levels. It all the crashing i have experienced. For a game that has been released since April I was not expecting it to crash every time I want to restart a level or want to start a new game and not continue a previous save.

90% of the time will cause a crash on my system.

Ignoring all the issues i have had with it the first hour, the actual amount of time i played it in order to write this review, of game-play was frantic and fun and ill admit i will play this game for quite some time especially once they fix a lot of the issues and bugs people have been reporting.

During the planning phase this helps a lot.

Game play wise i do really like this game its a change from the standard Tower Defense game the waves are balanced quite well and the difficulty curve works in my opinion. I love the FPS aspect but i cant help feeling that you may be a little over powered as the only consequence for an enemy to hit you is the screen wobbles making it more difficult to aim.

Die alien scum DIE!!!!!!!!!

I really wanted to give this game a buy now award i really did but i cant i recommend waiting until they sort some of the bugs outs at which point i will re-review.I cannot fathom how a game with so many bugs can be released if this was a beta i would understand but even then i was playing Frozen Synapse in beta and Project Zomboid in pre-alpha the last couple of days and i have had less crashes in both of them than i have here. I will give details of my review to Coffee stain studios i do understand it impossible to test every system configuration imaginable and i am confident in their ability to solve the bugs as the are communicating with the community.

Frozen Synapse – Beta Review

My first review, you know I am a bit nervous. Well here it is, Frozen synapse, a game that basically is an updated version of chess. Well a much better version of chess with shotguns and rocket launchers. That still is probably an unfair representation, go me a big word, of the game it reminds me of the thing I loved about the original Rainbow Six, the planning phase.

I remember the thrill of executing a plan that I had spent time preparing to take down terrorist, then realizing, crap that won’t work an enemy has changed position so a rethink or the plan goes totally disastrous and bam my team just died so I would reload and try again.  The biggest issue with the campaign I had was I had no reason to replay it purely and simply because as soon as you have a plan on a level that work it always, in my experience worked.

That doesn’t work in the Frozen Synapse Single Player Campaign the levels are in the developers words “Semi-Randomly Generated.” When I read this I was expecting enemy positions to change as well as my own, this was not the case. After replaying a few missions i encountered a completely different game, forcing me develop new tactics to win. This adds a lot of replay ability which i did not expect.

Campaign map. Looks can be deceiving.

You may be thinking, well it just sounds like a skirmish on randomly generated map, you are partially right but there is a story, a good one from what i have played of the campaign, to follow with varying objectives each with varying degrees of difficulty. I dislike escort missions, not because they’re bad I am just not particularly good at them at them.

If you are wondering how this planning thing works, to be fair I probably should of said this further up in the review but it’s my review and i have quite got the structure write yet. Lets have a look at the most common game played in multiplayer, I’ll review that further down, Dark Extermination, a death match of sorts.

Each player starts off with the same units at various points on the map. Both players can see where their opponent’s units start off and that’s it. From there each player plans their turn, each turn last 5 seconds but you have as long as you want to plan. During the planning phase a player can make a guess as to what their opponent is planning and see how a plan will pan out. They can then either change thier plan if the outcome wasn’t as desired or commit to it and see how the Turn actually plays out. Bear in mind after the initial start you will no longer know exactly where your opponents so it could end up being a game of cat and mouse.

A game I had with a friend:-

This game lasted 4 turns (20 seconds) but took longer to plan obviously this is was exported to YouTube using one of frozen synapse’ the included features the export button again I quite like it to be honest.

I must admit I have never used a replay function so much in a game, every match I played I have watched at least once to get a feel of how my opponents play so I can beat I can learn the movements and tactics and formulate new ways of bringing the hurt. 

Considering this game is in Beta it pretty much perfect in my opinion there are a few snags particularly with the interface if you’re using the built in IRC to chat with the community it seems to take either to be to small to read what’s going on or to big and in your face to see what’s going on in game. Again this is a small nag and doesn’t affect game quality in my opinion. Even though this is in beta I have never not been able to find a match often I have a few matches going on at one time another feature I like you don’t have to wait for your opponent to finish planning his move you can go and play other matches or even take a break, the game will notify you by email when your opponent has finished planning his move meaning in reality you don’t need a good connection speed to play.

I will not mention graphics as a major part in any games I review for a few reasons firstly graphics do not make a good game. I think this is proven by the fact one of my all-time favourite games is x-com by today standards it graphically looks like a wrinkled prune but game play wise it cannot be beaten. Secondly There is no way to compare graphics fairly. As such i will just mention if the graphic work with the game. Mode 7 have clearly put a lot of thought in to how Frozen Synapse looks the blue maps and colour coded units fit in perfectly how the game works.

Too small

Too in your face.

As for Mode 7, the developers, themselves I like them. I had an issue with my pre-order of the game they cleared it up very quickly, a lot faster than issues I have had with other games (Assassins Creed 2). Also when on the IRC channel I was able to actually have a talk to the developers and get a response and feedback about both suggestions and issues I had with the game. AS an indie developer I would say they’re hearts are in the right place and they want to make the community happy as well as make money.

For these Reason I recommend that you buy Frozen Synapse now, just do it you know you want to. If you buy before the official release not only do you get beta access and a steam key you also get one for a friend.  There are a few options to choose from when you do go to buy I have no idea why 2 of them are priced the same when clearly you get more in one than the other.

I wish to thank  Hdfisise for helping to improve my review.

The Way This Works

I recently read a few articles about the pointlessness of the score system some review site use especially review sites that give marks out of 10 but say a game with 5 isn't worth the time. I don't really believe a game can be given marks out of 10 for 3 reasons:-

Firstly a game can never be awarded, realistically full points because if a game does they should cease to evolve.

Secondly Time to understand, and prove, my logic is not flawed lets take a look at meta critic their current highest score is 96 held by Half life 2, while i am not denying this is a superb game i do not believe that it will be better than half life 3, if it ever comes out. As time moves on reviewers standards change. While Half life 3 may well score in the high 90s you cannot hope to compare it with half life 2 purely and simply for the fact we expect more and we expect better for a game to score 96 these days its going to have to do a lot better and be a lot better than hl2 was at the time. Lets take Crysis 1 and Crysis 2 both visually stunning games. Crysis 2 is technically the better looking game but reviewers gave it a lower score because wait for it it didn't push the boundaries like the original is it really worth a lower score because of that?

My third and final Reason is plain and simple i just dont like rating systems that well a better system would be a simple question of is it worth buying now later or never?

This is the system i will use.

I do not just take into account the games i also look at the developers in the indie world a bad game can become brilliant if the developers listen to the fans i think this is an important factor when buying an indie game.