Fnord

Wasn’t that long ago since I made my last post… And I spent a worrying amount of time over the course of 3 days playing Rome 2….

South Park: The Fractured but Whole

0 hours, no achievements
Non-steam

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I got this one a while back, when it was 92% off on Uplay, and I beat most of it last month.

South Park The Fracture But Whole is the second game in the South Park RPG series. Where in the first game, you had the kids pretend to be fantasy characters, now they're super heroes. I was never a huge fan of the South park TV series, finding it to rely a bit too much on shock grossout humor, but I did enjoy the last game. While it did have its fare share of poop jokes, I enjoyed how the game played with the idea of your characters pretending to be in a fantasy land, and how they interacted with the real world. Fractured but Whole continues this tradition, and it's often unclear where the line between the kid's imagination and reality goes. Why exactly does a made up super power work against an armed cop? The game never says.

Here we do have a case of "it should have been a bit shorter" though. For an RPG, The Fractured But Whole is relatively short, but it still manages to outstay its welcome a little bit. It's not as bad as some other games, but shaving a few hours of the game time, making it roughly as long as the first, would have been for the better. The game is also a bit buggy. It mostly works well, but there were a few moments when it displayed some weird behaviour. Most commonly this happened during combat, when it was rather easy for a character to end up just outside where it was supposed to be, which confused the game, and you could get half a minute of the a character trying to figure out how to walk one step in one direction.

It's good fun though, and at 5€ off, the price was pretty good


Total War: Rome 2

32.7 hours, 25 of 188 achievements

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Rome: Total War 2 is a game I've had in my library for ages now, and I finally actually beat a full campaign (I've played it for a bit before in the past, but got bored). It's a Total War game, and it does not deviate much from the established formula. Pick a nation, lead it to victory by conquering nearby nations, and try to keep your people happy.

The Total War series has always had issues with their AI, and sadly Rome 2 is no real exception, the AI is kind of bad. This is the reason why I got bored last time, the AI ends up being too predictable. But poor AI aside, there's still quite a lot to like about this one. The large scale battles look really good, and the different nations work (somewhat) differently, with different focuses. Don't use this game as a history lesson though, or you run the risk of learning a lot of weird things. It's representing, rather than simulating its time period. Which is still closer to historical accuracy than Rome 1 :P


Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard

1 hours, no achievements

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Did anyone say review? Link at the bottom of the post!


Shovel Knight: King of Cards

0 hours, no achievements
GOG version

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Shovel Knight got yet another campaign, and this time it's focused on King Knight. King Knight wants to be king, and luck has it that there's a card game competition that might let him take the crown! Story was never Shovel Knight's main selling point, but it's still told with a surprising degree of charm here.

What was, and still is Shovel Knight's main selling point is the excellent platforming and level design. King Knight, much like the previous knights, has his own moves, and in this case it's a shoulder dash, similar to that which Wario uses in Wario Land. All the levels are built around this move, and you often need to shoulder dash in order to get to hard to reach spots.

This is just yet another excellent addition to the Shovel Knight family. I'm so glad I bought the game back when it was just Shovel Knight, on one of its earliest sales over at GOG. Because Shovel Knight has been the game that keeps on giving!


DarkEnd

3.1 hours, 2 of 26 achievements
SG win

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This was kind of bad. The store page talks about ever changing dungeons, but what that seems to mean is that every time you progress to a new floor, the game randomly picks between a few different pre-made floor layouts of a dungeon, which can result in you playing the exact same floor several times. The rather bog standard JRPG mechanics does not do the game any favours either. It's not the worst, but none of the elements stick out in a good way.


Frog Detective review

Spamlynguist

Man I love Shovel Knight, that is truly the game that keeps on gving. Even Showdown is really good!

Fnord

Yeah, I have showdown a try against someone who had it on steam, and it seemed really fun.

Arbiter Libera

Last real Total War game I dedicated dozens hundreds of hours into was Medieval 2, but even with brief excursions into modern entries you really can tell AI in general has never been improved significantly. Shogun 2 was the one that seemed like a step forward, but in hindsight it was apparently a lot of smoke and mirrors along with so few unit types that made in manageable for combat AI to work with.

Which is still closer to historical accuracy than Rome 1 :P

Come on, now. Next you’ll tell me screeching women aren’t authentic. :D

Fnord

There’s been a few steps in the right direction at least, you can’t just beast an entire enemy army with 1 unit of heavy cavalry and 1 unit of trash in Rome 2, unlike Rome 1.

I actually find Warhammer: Total War to be the “best” game when it comes to fighting against the AI, and it goes into the exact opposite direction, having a lot of very different units. But I think this mostly comes down to battles being less predictable simply because there are so many different unit types. The AI is not better, but you can’t use the exact same strategy against an orc army with a giant spider as you can against an undead army that spams skeletons.

I also liked how bronze age Egypt had been transported 1500-2000 years into the future, to fight ancient Rome in Rome 1! There’s almost as much time between now and when Rome: Total War takes place as it is between when Rome: Total War takes place and the era Egypt in that game is from!

Arbiter Libera

you can’t just beast an entire enemy army with 1 unit of heavy cavalry and 1 unit of trash in Rome 2, unlike Rome 1.

Aww. cavalry cycling was neat and you had to get good at it. :D

I would need way more hands-on experience with modern Total Wars to make any sort of call, though. You may be right about Warhammer. Definitely by FAR the most varied factions I’ve seen so far in the entire Total War series.

I also liked how bronze age Egypt had been transported 1500-2000 years into the future, to fight ancient Rome in Rome 1! There’s almost as much time between now and when Rome: Total War takes place as it is between when Rome: Total War takes place and the era Egypt in that game is from!

Pajama wearing Egyptians were silly as all hell even back when Rome was freshly released. Definitely one of the reasons mods were invented.

Fnord

You did not even have to cycle the cavalry :P Just place them behind something, and use your cheapo unit as bait. The enemy will attack, and then you just flank the enemy. Rinse and repeat, the AI never learns.