Prison Architect
by LepcisMagna

It’s like Sim City, only with prison!  Actually, I suppose it is more like Rimworld, since it uses the same tileset (I think).  I have to grudgingly put this into Tier One.  There seem to be too many bugs for a fully released game (my prisoners went to the staff room for food and ignored the mess hall entirely) and the tone of the missions within the game is a lot more grim than the cute graphics imply.  But…I really love sim/management games.  There are plenty of interesting features and management aspects, so I think that once I get past the initial learning curve it will be a bunch more fun.

Steam link

Orion: Prelude
by Chezni

I shot a dinosaur in the face today. What did you do?


 

ORION: Prelude. Wasn’t this that game that was so bad that en mass game purchasers demanded refunds in droves when it was released? And then, apologetically, the developers went into overdrive and fixed up their game to be semi-decent? Apparently I missed all that because according to my Steam purchase history, I bought this game 3 years ago and haven’t played it until today. I also payed $0.81 for it. Mk.

 

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Nosgoth
by Chezni

Nosgoth? Noooooz-goth. Nos. Goth. NoSgOtH?

Apparently this was an online game. Apparently I have it in my steam game list. WELL GUESS WHAT? It doesn’t exist anymore. Nosgoth used to be a PvP vampire somethin’-or-another game run by Enix, but Enix shut it down. A long time ago. I can’t even give you a Steam link because it doesn’t exist. There’s not even a community board anymore. At any rate, this one’s going in to my personal technical difficulties category. The only reason I bother to even write a review of it, is that I find games that have essentially disappeared from all of existence fascinating, and this may serve as but a small bit of proof that at one point there was indeed a game called Nosgoth. Noooosgoth.

Dungeon Siege (Series)
by Chezni

 

Did you play Darkstone as a kid? Shutup–no. Of course you didn’t. Why? Because get off my lawn and somethin-somethin’ kids these days and Darkstone is an ancient old forgotten piece of art that never got enough appreciation and was probably the best game ever made and… and… oh dear word. It’s on Steam. For a buck. Well if that don’t beat all. Everything’s on Steam these days, including my childhood apparently. *Ahem* Anyway, as I was saying… shutup.

We’re reviewing the Dungeon Siege series today. Sheesh. Stay on topic, will you?

 

 

DUNGEON SIEGE

 

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DLC Quest
by LepcisMagna

It took me 45 minutes to finish my first round of DLC Quest.  It’s a fun little game – reminiscent of Upgrade Complete, really.  It’s a game where you must upgrade everything to save the princess, including buying a menu.  I liked it, and I think it deserves a Tier One place.  It knew its sense of humor and was short and sweet enough to not get boring.  My only technical complaint would be that the key remapping didn’t quite work (the up arrow key wasn’t mapped to jump).  It almost slips into Tier Two because it doesn’t really commit to the joke of DLC Quest, but it was still an enjoyable 45 minutes.

Steam link

A Virus Named TOM
by LepcisMagna

I’m afraid I can’t recommend a Virus Named TOM.  It feels more like a portable or flash game than a full desktop game.  I also don’t have any screenshots, because neither Steam nor Greenshot would take one (and somehow I turned Windows into High Contrast mode while trying).  You play as the eponymous TOM, and you are used to infect the inventions of a Dr. X, who has been ousted from his company and wants revenge.

It’s a pipe puzzler, of which there are many on Kongregate and iOS.  There isn’t really anything to recommend this one over any of the free ones you could find online, and you could likely find a more intriguing puzzle game like TIS-100 that doesn’t have an annoying time-based element.  I am typically biased against time constraints in puzzle games, so perhaps I was doomed to dislike this game.

Analogue: A Hate Story
by LepcisMagna

Okay, I’ll be honest.  I didn’t finish my hour.  I just couldn’t get in to the text adventure here.  I don’t think it’s the games’ fault, so I’m not tiering this one.  But I likely won’t get back into it unless I have a bunch of time and no other games to play.

Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals
by LepcisMagna

Huh.  Another point-and-click adventure game.  While I’d like to say that I enjoyed my time playing Nikopol, three things prevented that.  (As a bonus problem: the game supports widescreen resolutions, but doesn’t actually render the game in widescreen – I’ve never run across that before.)

First was that the game was actually too detailed.  It’s hard to figure out what is a thing you’ll need and what is a thing that exists only for background.  This is made worse when the things you can pick up change as you go through the game.

Second was that the puzzles I encountered in the first level were… not terribly intuitive.  In fact, I think it’s the fastest I’ve looked up a walkthrough since I didn’t want to waste my hour. It turns out that was unavoidable.  The puzzles that exist, beyond being unintuitive, also don’t make a whole lot of sense story-wise.  For example, I was supposed to bring a portrait of my father, as seen above.  However, instead of just bringing the reel of film, I have to actually paint the portrait.

My third trouble was that the little story I did run across didn’t seem particularly engaging.  This game is apparently based on a series of graphic novels, so I would recommend reading those rather than playing this game.

So sadly, this must go to Tier Three.  It’s only a dollar right now, but I can’t even recommend it when there are games like Broken Sword 5 I have yet to play.

Steam link

 

Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse
by LepcisMagna

It’s a point-and-click adventure game!  I love point-and-click adventure games.  I’ve only played the first two Broken Sword games, but they were both pretty consistent and good.  Well, except for the goat puzzle.  This looks like another solid entry (as far as I can tell) with better animation and higher quality sound.  There’s a few quality of life improvements here and there, but it looks like this is another good way to spend a few hours.

Steam link