Report #12

By cutting back on watching Netflix and surfing aimlessly on the internet, I managed to make acutal progress with my backlog already this year. The 3 games in this review included, I have finished 11 games so far in 2018. Some were good, some were not, and some, like the ones in this update, were nothing special, but still decent games. And most of them were from my list of started but unfinished games, which makes me happy. I really want to get to <100 started but unfinished games this year.

• Endless Sky
  

  15 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Just Cause
  

  9 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Tacoma
  

  3 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

Endless Sky

A space-trading-simulation. Or something like that. I like space. And trading. Oh, and it’s free! For a free game, it’s amazingly detailed, e.g. each planet you visit has it’s own little story, a short description of it’s spaceport and such things. You fly from planet to planet, either looking for contracts or as a free trader. Your first ship is really small, but after some time you can upgrade to bigger ones or even buy a second, third (and so on) ship to build up your own fleet. The latter part is not really fleshed out however, you cannot order your fleet to do anything but accompany yourself. The first few hours are amazing, but after some time, I got bored. There is not much else to do and waiting until you have accumulated enough money to buy the next ship is not so much fun. There is an optional campaign you can play, but since you have to fight a lot in it, it requires a completely different setup of ships than the normal trading game. As a consequence of that it takes additional repetitive grinding. All in all, it’s nice for a few hours, but in the long run it’s too repetitive for my taste. Still, since it’s free, there is nothing wrong with giving it a try.

Just Cause

Just Cause feels like it came right out of a 90s action movie. CIA agents scheming to overthrow the “presidente” of a Carribbean island, an easygoing attitude, some cool lines and nothing else but shooting up the bad guys. It plays like a mix between Far Cry 3 and GTA, a large open world, tons of vehicles to “borrow” and a lot of collectibles to collect. Unfortunately it feels quite empty and lifeless regardless. Of course it’s about 10 years old, but still. I was only interested in the story, not in exploring the world, and concentrated on the main missions. They were fairly easy apart from the last one, which had me cursing quite a lot. While you can have your fun with the game, there are better open world games of similar fashion.

Tacoma

Everyone and his dog seems to play this game lately, I guess because it was part of the February Humble Monthly. I read a lot of reviews about it, reviews that ranged from totally enthusiastic to mild frustration. Naturally I wanted to see for myself what all the fuzz is about and now I understand. And I understand both sides. It’s a nice walking simulator, good graphics, interesting story, some great moments in it. But there is not much to do, but watch the story. Someone described it as similar to a kinetic novel and I think that fits pretty well. I needed about an hour to get into the game, which is already about 1/3 of the game. It definitely was enjoyable after that, but on the other hand, I am not intrigued to try “Gone Home” now – on the contrary. In addition to that, I think the price is a bit steep for 2,5 to 3 hours of gameplay. Should you get it for less or win it in a giveaway, go play it, but I would advise against spending 20 bucks on it.

So long,
Vito