Recent reviews by Zane

Old but pure gold. Definately when it's on sale, even at full price!

Nomated for the "New But Still The Same Game Than Last Year But WIth 3 Different DLC" Award.

I genuinely enjoyed this DLC, smiled many times while watching the cutscenes while admiring how good of a story the devs have build. It's difficult to explain while not spoiling parts of this DLC. Nothing is what it seems in this story and it kept me captivated throughout all of the quests.

In other words, they had great ideas, gave them form and executed them flawlessly. They created an unpredictable intriguing story, better boss battles than the main game, new additions to the gameplay, beautiful world creation, and more.

Buy it, sale or no sale. No regrets guaranteed.

Nominated for the "We didn't think of everything" Steam Award 2016 for the category: Best Lifetime Support by a Developer.

I think SCS Software deserves this recognition for the continued support of this game ( and american truck sim) during its lifetime so far through patching, quality non-overprized dlc and the many news updates in their development process.

- An open world action game à la Grand Theft Auto, only this time you're not the criminal but the cop. Follow the storyline, engage in side activities and explore the city of Hong Kong in all of its beauty with the updated graphics from the Definitive Edition equaling ensured entertainment.


Review score: Essential Purchase


⇓ Personal Review ⇓

• Beautiful world design & atmosphere
  
• Good story
  
• Updated graphics
  
• (Limited) character customization
  
• Plenty of side objectives/activities
  
• Includes DLC

• Vehicle handling
  
• Weapon combat
  
• Small visual bugs from time to time
  
• Some DLC parts might not have received the full graphical update

Set in the beautiful city of Hong Kong officer Wei Shen is tasked to bring down the local Triad gang Sun On Yee as an uncercover cop. He gets introduced into the mafia by his old friend Jackie Ma from where he starts working his way up to the top of the criminal circuit. Wei Shen is a loyal person, that loyalty brings him into trouble in both sides of the law because trying to do good takes it toll and possibly his sanity.

The story is well written and ensures that the protagonist doesn't climb up in the ranks too fast in an unrealistic manner. Obviously you shouldn't expect the drama, character relations and humor known from the GTA franchises in this game. Simply because this game depicts how it feels like to survive in a triad gang, not how to save your marriage or how to setup your own drug empire in the middle of a desert.


With the Definitive Edition this game received a graphical update and boy does it show. If you ever want to visit Hong Kong, play this game first. Not that it will be a perfect tour guide, but it really captivates the atmosphere of this asian city with its many districts. Clean and modern looking in 'downtown' area, flashy neon signs and dense ugly looking high-rises in the poorer parts of the city and the many houseboats docked at the docking area. While playing this game I often felt like I was playing in a living, breathing world. That's something I didn't always have while playing a GTA game. Sure I've never been in Hong Kong or any asian city, but after playing this game it kinda feels like I did.

The graphical update also shows during cutscenes where it looks like this game is actually just two years old instead of the original four. There can be some graphical glitches here and there, i.e. npc's popping in/out of screen in front of your face and certain visual effects not always appearing while driving vehicles. But nothing too troublesome.


I only played this game with a controller so I can't give any input on how it feels with mouse and keyboard. In general I'm very positive about it although there are some points which did annoy me. First off the driving mechanics could be better, even while playing with a controller I have to tab my stick constantly while making larger turns instead of one fluid movement. Bikes have a larger turning radius than cars and driving a car backwards is like driving on ice. But you'll get used to it eventually and thus won't be as big of a problem than in the beginning.

The combat in this game is clearly pointed towards melee combat. Reason being that in the triad culture most fights are fought with bare hands and less with fire arms like we're used to in the west. There are a lot of fighting moves to learn and they all transition perfectly with each other when fighting. The downside to this is that the weapon combat not as refined as in other games.

- A lovely platformer with beautiful art style, visual pleasing but a tad repetitive combat at times and a main plot that will keep you interested till the end.

Review score: Recommended Game


⇓ Personal Review ⇓


You play as Dust, a warrior who got woken up in a forest by a magical blade named Ahrah and its guardian Fidget who from there on are your companions throughout the rest of the story. In short; Dust must work towards retrieving his/its memory in order to bring Justice to a land terrorised by monsters, war and other events you'll encounter. In the beginning and mid game the story was not really something to write home about BUT it was interesting enough for me to keep playing the main plot line and it got more interesting as I progressed towards the end. I can't comment on side missions, didn't play them.


Each area has it's own unique environment and beautiful art style with accompanying enemy mobs. None of them are in my opinion dull or generic. Aside from the beautiful 2d graphics the combat graphical effects are pleasant to watch at and fit right in.


Combat itself was interesting for me due to the variety of enemies encountered. There are enough guides to explain the easy to remember combos for you to use. There could have been a bit more complexity on that part but that gets balanced by the enemy's difficulty as you progress through the game. In the beginning and mid game most of them are easy to beat (depending on difficulty mode) but towartds late game I died a lot =).

Aside from enemies there are some environmental dangers to be dealt with in certain areas, each specific to the level you're playing in. They're not super unique but it does give more depth to the gameplay.

Summary: Fun little Mad Max themed game at first but a (minor) imbalance in the game and hard AI makes this game very hard, even frustrating when you're first starting out.


⇓ Personal Review ⇓


This is a Mad Max themed game where you drive your upgradable vehicle towards the destination 7km away. On route you will encounter enemy vehicles which can be destroyed with on board weaponry and you shall stop at each village/checkpoint to endure a wave of enemies in order to liberate them so you can purchase your vehicle and personal upgrades there.


This game is difficult, very difficult, even unbalanced maybe? I'm able to reach the first village without problems but the rest depends on RNGesus and which enemies he spawns. I've had times I barely made it to the next, other times I got killed early on cause I either ran out of fuel or didn't have enough armor to protect my health. In all those scenarios I had around the same amount of cash, just a different upgrade.

You could say that you need to find which upgrade is best at which checkpoint and dependent on the amount of cash you have. While this is true, I must admit the gameplay is rather repetitive if you die many times. Therefore finding the commitment/motivation to try a next time decreases drastically with each death on the record.


I bought the game while on a -40% sale resulting in a price of € 0,59. Even though the full price is € 0,99, which is not that much, my opinion is the following:

If you're a person who likes a challenge and who won't give up easily then:
Essential | Recommended | Average | Bad | Avoid

For all the others:
Essential | Recommended | Average | Bad | Avoid

A very enjoyable game for me personally. You play as Passepartout, a valet of his master Fogg. The master waged a bet that he could travel the globe in 80 days or less, so off you go, travelling from city to city in a steampunk world, discovering new routes along the way and trying to figure out the most effecient route while managing your finances and hoping you won't get any obstacles on your way - which you surelly will get!

In the beginning I had the urge to finish my trip as quickly as possible - which is obviously the intention - but because of that I was more focussed on moving along and thus missed out on some exploration/background story in various cities which might have resulted in discovering better routes or learning more things. Luckily this game has a high replayability value since the world is randomly generated and has a lot of cities to visit and many routes to use. So my advice, don't go for a record run on the first try but rather enjoy the world a bit more, play relaxed and you'll gain more satisfaction from playing.

The pro's:

• Story rich world
  
• High replayability
  
• You can see how other players did on their journey compared to you and which route they followed while you're travelling. It gives a positive sense of competition because you can see how far in front or behind you are from others by seeing the amounts of days travelled so far.
  
• Nice art which suites the setting of the world

The Con's:

• Sometimes background music doesn't loop fluently.
  
• When in conversation with characters while traveling/'on the road', their answers to some of your questions seem odd to me

I did my first run in 82 days which took me about 2.5h playtime. Knowing the replayability you can get your money out of this game easily. Started in london, took mainly the train through central Europe towards Moscow to then take the Siberian Express. I planned on using the train till Vladivostok but I heard only Military personnel was allowed there so I got off early. Encountered a group of Mongols and traveled through the mountains on horseback which wasn't really comfortable for master Fogg. Once arrived in a city in Central Asia I mainly took aireal rides in mechanical birds towards Japan to end up somewhere in the Pacific. There I took a titanic-like looking ship (which also had the posibility to submerge) towards the US. Due to a storm the ship had to divert to central America. We attempted a munity to regain control on that trip but failed miserably. From Central America we crossed through the Amazon on a large digging machine to the east coast. From there on we took an air ride towards Africa to then travel north back to London. Despite not succeeding in the 80 day deadline I was satisfied with the various little adventures that made up the big one.

This review is more aimed towards the experience you might achieve rather than the various gameplay mechanics and whatnot.

If you ever wondered how it would be like having to survive in a war/conflict zone then I think this game will give you a quite good idea about that. Survival is not just about physically surviving a war, it's also mentally challenging and realising you're not alone. Those three aspects are very well represented in this game, rather than just one or two of those like in other games.

Each person you meet, kill or rob from has their own story prior and during the war. With the exception of certain encounters to help other citizens or notes and writings on walls in the various locations you don't get to know those stories because game-wise they simply don't exist, they're not scripted in. But due to the immersion I have and the vibe I get from this game while playing I often imagine what those stories could be like.

Each action you do at the locations you visit can have an impact on your characters mental and physical health. In other games the decision whether or not to kill or go fully stealth defines the way a player has fun in that game. In This War of Mine it defines the player's personality. Sure enough if you play multiple sessions/runs in this game then after a while you might play more objectively/rationalised, but I'll never forget the first time I played this game and how ♥♥♥♥ I felt when I killed and stole from other people from the first time because I had to survive.

This game is perfectly excecuted in every way and presents very believable scenarios that could have happened before and will happen again in times of war.

Played and followed the game for a long while now. V 1.0 adds more stuff to an otherwise already complete game. A must have for builders & managers. Not to mention they'll keep updating this game with new features for at least the next year to come. What more do you want?