Report #37
Three quick games, one of them for the monthly theme. I played the other two before as well, but 911 Operator was already in the “beaten” category and Time of Shadows was under 30 minutes playtime, so they don’t count for the theme. Which I don’t mind too much, since I still took the theme as an inducement to play those games. I previously completed 911 Operator in 2017, however they added new achievements, so I had to downgrade it to beaten. When I saw Ninglors recent post, I decided to give this game another spin, which was very enjoyable. So: Thank you Ninglor :)
Reviews
Release Date: 2014
Planetary Annihilation is a RTS game set in an universe where mankind has perished and the only remaining inhabitants are giant robots waging an endless war against each other. The maps in this game represent whole star systems, ranging from 1 planet to serveral planets and moons. In contrast to your typical RTS game, you play on a 3-dimensional map as each planet is represented by a sphere. While this is an interesting idea, it suffers from confusing changes in perspective when moving the camera and especially from terrible pathfinding. Like, really really terrible pathfinding for a modern game. The gameplay is quite hectic and it's quite hard to keep track of things, since there is no real minimap, but still fun.
Achievements: Rather easy to get. No MP needed.
Verdict: Not recommended on account of being re-released as a newer version called Planetary Annihilation: TITANS.
Time of Shadows (a.k.a. Dawn of Magic 2)
9.2 hours, no achievements
★☆☆☆☆
More
Release Date: 2009
Dawn of Magic 2 is an all-around awful Action-RPG. The graphics are ugly, the voice acting is very bugged, the gameplay is boring and most of all the story is totally bizarre.
Achievements: None.
Verdict: Nope, nope, nope.
Release Date: 2017
911 Operator is an emergency service simulator. You act as a 911 operator and send a bunch of different police, ambulance and firefighters units to various emergencies. You have to choose the correct response teams for each emergency and (at least on higher difficulties) carefully prioritize them. Managing the different services and expanding your inventory of available units and personnel is very rewarding. Apart from standard emergencies, there are a number of scripted ones, which heavily rely on the way you react on them. My only criticism is a sometimes unhandy UI and missing some useful shortcuts.
Achievements: Finishing the game in expert mode is really hard, apart from that, the achievements are a bit time-consuming, but okay.
Verdict: Absolutely. The DLCs add further variety and enhance the replayability of the game.
Currently playing
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Wasteland 2: Director's Cut
6 hours playtime
1 of 46 achievements
Evilblacksheep suggested the game to me in Discord and since it also fits the monthly theme I’ll give this a try.
I already knew beforehand that Time of Shadows would almost certainly suck, so I’m actually really satisfied with my progress nonetheless. 911 Operator is the first game I was able to move from beaten to completed, which was a great feeling! In RL I had this week off from work, which gave me a lot of time for gaming, but unfortunately not all the regenereation I was hoping for. Well, at least there is still a weekend up ahead!
Happy backlog-clearing to everyone,
Vito
I saw both yours and ninglors post about 911 Operator, and it being one of the choices of my first PoP participation was just a great excuse to finally play it. I just played a bit but I have some questions that maybe you can help me with. I booted the game and it automatically asked what city I wanted to play and went straight forward to the tutorial. Am I correct in assuming that this is the campaign? Or did I just played a hour of a mode that is not supposed to be the campaign?
I wish I could help, but I can’t remember whether that happened to me when I first started the game in 2017. Do you remember which city it was? You actually have different sorts of campaigns, all under “Career”.
Well there was a big list of cities so I just choose the one I know more, Lisbon.
I guess I must’ve missed that “Career” menu, I shall check it later today. Thank you!
I just picked up 911 Operator and am looking forward to playing it! Good to hear that it’s fun and doesn’t take too long to complete :D
What an sheep for the recommandation :P Wasteland 2 is a good game but I think it needs some hours to get into it and at least one section in the game has a very weird sequence if you are going for the “good” ending. And achievement hunting (if you are into it) will lead to replaying certain parts.
As “tip”: You should decide very early on which role which of your characters will take. You can’t make all-rounders so you should assign them specific jobs like one character is leader/healer/persuasion, another one the mechanics/electronics/repair guy and then one or two gun-specialists. Otherwise you will run into problems in certain parts and have a very frustrating experience.
The 6 hours playtime are from a previous try in 2016, where I never really got into the game.
Fast forward to 2019: I’m now 4 hours in and quite enjoy the game. The fights are really difficult though. Thank you for your tips, there are really a lot of skills in the game to cover. And as far as I can tell from my limited experience a) it’s quite expensive to get them high and b) the bonuses on higher levels are really good. So I definitely see it making sense to specialize your characters from the start, as you say. I’ll try to get all the achievements and don’t mind replaying some parts as long as it’s not the whole game.