Som brukligt kommer här ett gäng korta paragrafer om spel jag har spelat nyligen. Texterna är på engelska eftersom jag även lägger upp recensionerna på Steam. För omväxlings skull har jag lagt dem i ordningen sämst till bäst. Håll till godo!
Anno 2070
Visually impressive city builder/resource management game with RTS elements and a decent attempt at a story. There are three factions but rather unusually, the single player campaign lets you play as all of them at the same time. The soundtrack is great. What brings this down for me are the bugs, which are numerous (I also had issues with the DRM which seems to be the reason for 95% of the negative reviews on Steam) and the laughably easy campaign. I get the feeling that there’s a lot of complexity and depth to this game that you end up never getting to explore. Maybe it’s just there for multiplayer?
Mitt betyg: 4/10. Läs mer på Steam eller hemsidan.
Mad Max
It’s Australia after the apocalypse, and you’re a mass murderer with a heart of gold. Travel the wastes, kill bandits, help some common folk just trying to make a living (usually by killing bandits), race through the remains of civilization, improve your car (so you can kill bandits faster), repeat. This is the tried and true open-world combat-focused adventure game formula (see also: Shadow of Mordor, Assassins Creed, Rage) all over again, but with a Mad Max flair – and it works really well, for the most part. Environments can be a bit samey and driving through them feels like a chore at times, but hey, it’s a desert – what do you expect?
Unfortunately, the game is brought down by the frankly absurd amount of padding and busy-work required to “clear” an area, and the story, which ends in the most disappointing way possible. A game that has so far let you make the choices for Max ends by railroading you into doing something incredibly stupid, breaking any investment into the character that you might have had at that point. Idiotic move by the writers. I guess they had to make the ending terrible to be consistent with the movies.
Mitt betyg: 5/10. Läs mer på Steam eller hemsidan.
Duskers
Rouge-like space puzzler where you use remote-controlled drones to explore derelict ships and stations that usually contain loot that you need to survive, as well as nasty monsters. Drones are controlled by console commands, an interface which manages to be innovative and old-school at the same time. While the game comes off as having very simple graphics, they actually fit perfectly with the theme and add to the tension, as does the soundtrack.
Despite all this, I got bored after a few hours. There’s almost no story, no sense of progression and the limited save system means you can get stuck with no choice but to start over from scratch (bonus points for the difficulty settings, though). All in all the game has enormous potential but the last 10% to get me hooked just aren’t there. Good effort though, give it a try.
Mitt betyg: 6/10. Läs mer på Steam eller hemsidan.
The Witcher
The game that kicked off the very successful Witcher franchise is not the best in the series, but manages to get things off to a good start. It’s a classical action-adventure RPG with a compelling story and considerable complexity, let down somewhat by the clunky interface. Different swords for dudes or monsters, different fighting styles, potions and oils, spells and runes, oh my! The graphics have aged quite well, but the gameplay hasn’t; I mainly enjoyed this for the extremely strong story and atmosphere, which tie in with the sequels. Oh, and the romance cards.
Mitt betyg: 7/10. Läs mer på Steam eller hemsidan.
Dungeons 2
Clever, addictive and hilariously narrated take on Dungeon Keeper with a hearty helping of Warcraft III thrown in. At only 15 hours for the single player campaign I suggest picking this up at a discount, then the length feels just right, and the game does not end up overstaying its welcome. Possibly a bit too easy, the enemy rarely attacks your dungeon outright and so much of the challenge is timing your attacks on the overworld so you don’t end up having to take your horde back in a hurry. Even so, I love the dungeon builder/RTS combo, quirky style and many surprises that this game has to offer. Strongly recommend.
Mitt betyg: 8/10. Läs mer på Steam eller hemsidan.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky
I was never a huge fan of Japanese-style RPGs since they tend to be grindfests, with terrible interfaces and stories told through walls of text. Thankfully, Trails in the Sky has all that but also an immensely captivating story with amazing characters in a very Ghibliesque world to keep me interested and forgive the flaws that come with the genre.
Good thing that, because this is not a short game – I’d say it’s a bit too long – and since the story is broken up by long segments of repeatedly fighting a few types of monsters, it’s certainly not for the impatient. Gameplay is very standard as JRPGs go, which is to say functional and easy to learn, difficult to master – and you will need to master it, because this game can be quite gruelling at times, especially if you go for all the optional quests (I didn’t).
In summary, this is probably a must-play for JRPG fans and anybody else who is fond of story-rich games and has a lot of time on their hands.
Mitt betyg: 8/10. Läs mer på Steam eller hemsidan.
Det var allt för den här gången! När jag läser texterna så inser jag att det ibland är lite svårt att förstå varför jag satt ett visst betyg. Jag lovar att det är noga genomtänkt och inte bara slumptal jag tagit ur… ahem… men om du vill diskutera saken finns jag på ett socialt medium nära dig!