Fnord

It’s been a little while since my last post, but I managed to beat some more substantial games this time around. Well, the most time consuming one was actually a DLC for an ancient game, but still.

Age of Empires 2: The African Kingdoms

20 hours, no achievements

It's impressive that a game this old is getting more expansions, but African Kingdoms is a relatively recent one, that gives you 4 more campaigns and 4 more civilizations. And this is good stuff actually! The two sub-sharan civilizations are among my all time favourite AoE 2 civs, as they're both flexible, but in different ways.

The 4 new campaigns are generally quite strong. They're better than the campaigns in the base game, and I would say that they're better than the campaigns in the first expansion, if not for one thing: They seem to be rather poorly tested. Conceptually many of the levels are great, but I found spots where units can get stuck, I found what I guess is leftovers from previous iterations of the levels and so on, and that's clearly not great. They're still well worth playing for anyone who has an interest in AoE 2 though. And it's nice to finally see a game deal with sub-Saharan Africa without it either being set during the modern or colonial era.


Kult: Heretic Kingdoms/Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition

13 hours, no achievements

Kult: Heretic Kingdoms or heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition, depending on where you're from, is an old ARPG with an interesting twist. You're playing as an inquisitor in a fantasy kingdom, only you're not really an inquisitor in the traditional sense. Your job is to prevent any religion from taking root. And the game makes comments on this. It's refreshing to see a game actually talk about religion and religious views in a way that's actually rather sensible. Because this game does take a stance. It does not like dogma, and it's also critical of those who try to force their views on religion on others.

The game has two neat gimmicks. The first is that you can travel to the "spirit world" with the press of a button. The spirit world is simply mirroring the regular world, but most creatures in the regular world can't directly interfere with the spirit world, and the reverse is also true. Some creatures are able to exist in both at the same time though. The spirit world becomes a useful tool for dodging enemies, and in some battles you're encouraged to move in and out of it frequently.
The second gimmick is the "attunement system", which basically works like equipment did in FF 9, in that each piece has a skill attached to it, and by fighting while wearing that equipment you'll permanently learn that skill. Then you've got a limited number of slots for those skills, and you're encouraged to experiment a bit to find good combinations. By the end of the game I had managed to create a combination that was completely broken though. No armour (makes you attack faster), with a powerful bow, a skill that made me crit more often, a skill that made it so that I had a chance to stun enemies that I crit, and a skill that made it so that if I crit, I have 100% crit chance until I miss. This kind of broke the game…
I liked Kult. It's not a flawless game by any means, but it's fun. Well worth playing for ARPG fans at the very least.


OPUS: The Day We Found Earth

1.5 hours, 19 of 31 achievements

OPUS is a cute and rather short puzzle game, where you're playing as a robot who needs to scan solar systems in order to find Earth. You've got a bunch of candidates, and as you complete one a new one gets unlocked. And these all come with a clue, that gets progressively more vague as you go along. Early on the game might say "Look at these coordinates" and towards the end you get relative positions. It's never particularly challenging, but the game also tells a compelling story, which really makes the game worth playing.


iBomber Defense Pacific

4.1 hours, 17 of 25 achievements

It's a tower defense game. You know how these work. Enemies wander towards your base, you build towers along their path, and try to kill them before they reach your base. Rinse and repeat. Each level is basically a small puzzle, and you need to be efficient with your towers. There's nothing particularly great about this game, but nor is there anything particularly bad. It's just yet another tower defense game.


The Walking Dead: The Final Season

0 hours, no achievements

It's a massive bummer that this ended up being Telltale's last game, as they're showing some great improvements here. This is the first game since the first TWD that actually innovates. You've got some more interactive gameplay segments, you've got more exploration and so on. Don't get me wrong, this is still very much a Telltale game, it does not change the core gameplay, but it does tweak it. There's one thing I don't think was good about their changes though, and that's the introduction of collectibles. While collectibles is not inherently a bad thing, the implementation actually spoiled parts of the game.

This really is the final season, at least for Clementine and co. You get an ending, a proper ending that does not feel like it's building up to something else (unlike the last game, which very much felt like it). Clementine is 16 here, she's been caring for A.J since the second game, and he is starting to grow up a bit. So this game is focused on that, it's focused on who A.J. is becoming, and the effects of raising a child in such a harsh world. And for the most part it does a very good job at it. I can believe that A.J. really did go through a lot, he did learn different values than those who got to experience the world before the zombies, and it's interesting to see how others react to it.
This story is also more focused than Season 2, and that's a good thing. Geographically this game covers a very small area, and you get to know it in a way that you never could in Season 1 or 2. And this also means that characters are not really introduced and killed at a rapid pace either, instead you get to know a few key characters, and you get to see what these last 8 or so years have done to them.

This is a top notch game, a must play for those who liked the previous TWD games


Maybe I should give the TWD comic a try? I’ve got a few issues of it on humble.

Cece09

Oh ive also considered trying the walking dead comics but i need to finish the final season which was kinda a problem since i sucked so hard with the end of episode 2

According to my google homepage walking dead ended with issue 193 so actually perfect time to read them

Fnord

I downloaded the first few issues from Humble and sadly I can’t say I’m enjoying it all that much. Granted, I’m not really a comic book person, but still.

aonrao

How did you enjoy Opus? Would you recommend? =)

Fnord

Dang, forgot to mark them as clicky :P You can click on the Opus one to to see my thoughts on the game. But the short of it is: Yes, I would recommend it. It is really short, mind you, so might be worth waiting for a discount.

aonrao

Oh, I didn’t realise that. My bad! And thanks, I’ll keep that in mind. =)