Do individual Pinball FX 2 tables qualify? If so, I'd expect a few to show up, or at least get a mention.
Tom I find I often disagree with your opinions. You give far more credit to military manshoots than I ever would for one. That said don't change. I appreciate your well though reviews, even if I think you're wrong. Besides I love a little fanboy rage, and no reviewer gets it better than you. The frothing you inspired over Uncharted 3 made me chuckle. The fury from the Skyrim fans over a GOOD review (c'mon a 7 makes you mad, really?) certainly was entertaining. Keep pushing because thinking gamers appreciate your honesty. Hopefully one day reviews like yours won't be shocking.
That said you hit how I feel pretty well. Sure I'd dump NFS, Rift and Dead Island. I'd add in Minecraft, Zelda, and Pride of Nations (the crisis stuff is brilliant). That said Bastion deserves every ounce of praise you've given.Now how did that song go again.....hmmm, hmmm, hmmmAh that's it"I dig my hole you build a wallll.......'
Hey, you picked two games I haven't played! Time to go look into Fate of the World and Gemeni Rue. Can you say a bit about what made them so good?
As for Witcher 2, it can be a demanding game. It's very plot heavy, but I'm sorry to hear that you didn't finish it. It's one of those games you can't really appreciate without getting the payoff. And also, it's one of those games you really need to power through all at once so you can keep up with the plot threads. It's really not a play-for-a-while-and-then-come-back-three-months-later sort of thing. Unless you're willing to read through those bard notes.
Which, come to think of it, are pretty good, so maybe you can come back after three months...
Tom you are wrong about the 20 vs 1. I imagine there are plenty who would have counted themselves on your side. Happy holidays.
Heh, I actually thought about mentioning this, but my pick would be Paranormal, and that came out ages ago for the PS3. But, yeah, Pinball FX2 is a gift that keeps on giving. Those guys at Zen deserve some sort of award every year!
I don't know about the sewers themselves, but certainly the treat waiting underneath them. That was one of my favorite parts of Arkham Asylum.
Regarding FotW, I played it a lot when it first came out, and even though it was somewhat buggy back then, I really liked it. I was primarily interested in it because of the theme and environmental focus, and although it's difficult, I enjoyed trying to figure out how save the world. Unfortunately, that requires quite a bit of trial and error, and I don't think it's for everyone. I suspect that there are only a few viable strategies to win (depending on the scenario, I haven't played them all), but I liked seeing how the world reacted to my actions. It has a lot of choices that affect the world quite seriously: do you ban drilling for shale gas which risks contaminating the water table, or deal with a global shortage of gas? Do you pump aerosols into the stratosphere, gaining a global cooling effect in the short term, but potentially resulting in erratic weather conditions? There's always a lot of stuff that you feel you should be doing, but a very limited amount of money to it with, so you'll have to prioritize. In most of the games I've played, I've had to essentially perform triage between the different regions of the world, usually resulting in disaster for India (there's just too many people, and not enough food). I picked up the Tipping Point expansion a while ago, but haven't had much time to play it. I'll probably put some time into it during the cristmas holidays.
Gemini Rue was just a good old-fashioned point and click adventure game, with pretty good story and setting, which reminded me of a cross between Blade Runner and Beneath a Steel Sky. I got it in some indie bundle and was pleasantly surprised. It's pretty short and can be played in an evening or two, so it doesn't require a lot of commitment, and it still felt quite satisfying reaching the end.
One of these days I'm going to have to finish Witcher 2. I've been reading the books, and although they're not great, they're pretty good as far as fantasy goes. Anyway, I think my main problem with the game is probably the combat. It seems to alternate between being a bit on the easy side, and being way too difficult. It's quite possible that I'm just not very good at it. I'm not a big fan of the levels either. I really liked the Vizima part of the first one, and I'm a bit disappointed about not having seen any cities in the game so far, except the fishing village in chapter one. It's mainly forest and plain, and not that interesting, in my opinion. Still, there's a lot about it I do like, but it just doesn't capture my attention like I hoped it would, which is too bad, since I like RPG's, and the Witcher games are making a very commendable effort at not falling into the usual fantasy cliches. I guess I'll try picking that up again, too, during the christmas holidays.
I'm a fan of the Riften sewers in Skyrim. They're pretty classy, by sewer standards, too!
I've been looking for a good Imperialism 1&2 replacement for quite a while. How does Pride of Nations compare?
Not very well, in my opinion. I love the Imperialism games, and I really do like PoN, despite of its problems. But they play very differently: Imperialism is very streamlined and somewhat abstracted, whereas PoN is based on a game engine that was designed for wargames, plays very slowly compared to Imperialism, is quite a bit more complex, and puts more importance on historical accuracy. So apart from the similar theme, the games are totally different. I like both, but a lot of people probably won't.
I think there's a demo of PoN, though, so I'd advice you to check that out before buying.
What Nicolaj said basically. PoN is a VERY niche title. a single grand campaign will probably run you over 100 hours to completely finish. It has it's problems (much less so now than at launch) and has limited appeal, but if you like those big fiddly 4X games give the demo a shot.
For an Imperialism replacement, Europa Universalis maybe. It is quite different, but hits some of the same points.
Give the 3 Moves Ahead podcast a spin, they're great for finding these kind of games. Here's their discussion on Imperialism
http://flashofsteel.com/index....
Egad, yeah, I have to agree with Mr. Miller and Nikolaj. Pride of Nations does some cool stuff, but it's no replacement for Imperialism. In fact, I'm not sure why anyone would ever even want a replacement for Imperialism! What's the matter with you? I expect more discriminating taste from the guy who directed Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle!
Ah, right, I remember reading about Fate of the World. Hmm, I'm skeptical but intrigued.
However, you've sold me on Gemini Rue. I'll have to give that a shoot. Did you try that Straight To the Moon thing? That's another short game I've been meaning to make time for.
I loved Space Pirates and Zombies as well, but found the game to be too hollow between the high points in the narrative. Somehow I think they could have compressed the game and still retained mostly everything that made it great.
Ultimately I think the high level requirements towards the end got to me a bit. At a certain point it didn't really matter how well I worked my fleet and technologies -- I was so severely underpowered in every encounter it didn't really matter. That's when grinding for me went from being optional to mandatory, which put me off a bit.
Anyway, fantastic game overall. Loved the whole fleet aspect, putting my ships together, figuring out the different synergies and experimenting with builds. I really hope MinMax follow up with what they said on the podcast about new crazy ship designs and stuff to collect and toy with.
Totally agree with Bastion. Played it one month ago and i'm still singing that song
Indeed. I'd much rather share a toilet seat with Tom. :)
EDIT: wow, that sounds so wrong.
I've come to expect that the picture at the top of these articles is irrelevant but I'm a little surprised neither Marvel vs Capcom 3 or the Sims Medieval were on this list considering they were at the top of the half year chart.
Is this because they've changed in some way since then or have you simply reevaluated them?
The sewers in inFamous were great, I've heard some people say that they were some of the best bits in the game.
That said, I'm with you, Dead Island is one of my favourite games of the year despite some of the flaws in it...
I don't know how any self-respecting reviewer can leave Skyrim out of the top ten...
Because Skyrim is a polished turd?