Recent reviews by GeekDadRoo

I've never been huge into Roguelites/Roguelikes/die-rinse-repeat games. Until Slay the Spire. I came hearing from hearing the glowing reviews for the physical deck builder adaptation of this. It was lauded so highly and described as a perfect adaptation, it required me to come purchase and give this game a shot. I do not regret it for a moment. It is SUCH a good deck building game. The Rogue-y aspects of it are not as punishing as I've seen in others, and the unlocks interesting enough that I don't mind playing 'just one more run'.

Ok, so updated review after giving it a bit more time. I started over and things made sense a bit more quickly this time. Not sure if it's because I'd been putzing around yesterday or what. Anyway, it's a promising little survival game. I don't know that I'd say it's exactly ground breaking, but if you're interested in a top-down Terraria, it might be worth checking out.

Could still stand to have some kind of tutorial. I got this beard oil that says if I put it in a habitable place, a bearded guy might come live there. Except at no point does it give you any indication of what 'habitable' consists of.

There may not be anything wrong with the game, per se. However, it isn't a Glass Masquerade game to me. I feel like the entirely pulled the heart of the series, the glass mosaics and the maps. The honeycomb shapes (even in 'Shard' mode), lack of actuall glass-like puzzles, etc. make it feel like a completely different game. While it may be a decent jigsaw puzzle game, it really doesn't feel like Glass Masquerade at all.

If you're a fan of life/farming sim games, particularly Animal Crossing, this is a great choice to buy. It has the cuteness of Animal Crossing. Frankly, the graphical style might as well be a direct clone, but there's nothing wrong with that as long as the game is fun, which it is! From fishing, to farming, to designing and building your own furniture, this game has it all! You can also go to the big city to upload your custom designs for contests or download designs from other players (the only interaction in the game between other owners of the game).

The full release is still fairly recent, so time will tell how often it gets updates or new events to keep the rotation from becoming stale. I don't regret grabbing this game at all!

A so far review from someone who loved the original way back when, but who isn't a current 4x fiend.

**UPDATE** While the below review still stands, I have switched from doesn't recommend to recommend because once I DID find the flow, everything kind of just clicks. I still think it could do with a proper tutorial, but after starting fresh again today, I've really started to enjoy it!

The game looks amazing. The art is fantastic, the graphics are quite good.
It does FEEL like Master of Magic. I remember building my wizard and assigning spell tomes in the beginning to sort out just what type of wizard you will be, and what kind of creatures your initial minions are.

HOWEVER, I don't remember the last time I played a game that didn't have SOME type of tutorial other than pop-ups when you click on random things. Most sim-type games I've played in recent years has at least had a tutorial map to teach you the flow of the game.

Noting that, I set the mode to easy, just to try and get a feel for it. It didn't work, at least not yet. Every game I start out, I'm surrounded by forces that wipe me out instantly if I go near them. The only time this didn't happen was when I'd summoned or built so many forces that it was sucking my kingdom dry. I'm sure there is a way to do this properly, but I haven't found that balance yet, because the game has no desire to help you understand how to play it. Maybe that's a feature and not a bug, but it isn't an aspect of a game I look forward to as an adult who doesn't have hours to spend figuring out what everything does.

I don't want handholding, but an actual quick tutorial level that let's you feel what the pace of a proper game will be would be awfully nice.

It's hard to say if I recommend this game or not. I'd recommend it to people who like to dive in and figure out every system pretty much hands-free. I wouldn't recommend it for people like me who don't want to start a random game without any idea of what's going on. I may change my recommendation and the review once I actually get the flow sorted out.

This is my initial review of the game after a few hours in. Please note, I haven't suffered any of the queue issues that other people seem to be having, so that will not be factoring in to my review. I will update the review as I get further into the game.

First, the look. This game is gorgeous, especially considering it's an MMO. I don't have a super high end graphics card, and even still the scenery and characters are beautiful.

My couple of complaints on this front, I suppose are:
1. I wish that there were more visual options to choose from during character creation.
2. The jumping animation is ridiculous. Your character looks like they are tripping.

Overall, I give the graphics a 4 out of five.

As to the game itself, it's been a blast so far. I haven't flagged myself for PvP at all yet so can't speak to that aspect, but the PvE has been nothing but fun. Gathering and crafting has been a good time and I can see myself setting my character up as a crafter/tradesman.

Combat is not overly complex, but still satisfying with abilities based on weapons equipped each having their own flavors and bonuses as you level up each weapon.

So far there has been a decent variety in enemy types and nothing is quite so fulfilling as taking down a wolf and skinning it for mats.

Questing is fun, if a bit of a slog due to lack of a mount system and the difficulty (at least at this point) in fast traveling to places. New World definitely needs a more accessible way to travel quickly. I've had to make the same run back and forth to Hilltop a couple of times and by the end was groaning.

Gameplay I give a 4.5/5.

Character Creation
This is probably where the game will get my lowest score. There is no class syst, so character creation really just consists of setting what your character looks like. Considering that fact, Amazon really should have gone further to give us more customizations to work with, especially since there are no race choices. I can see that there are more visual options regarding gear skins, but still.

That being said, it's nice being able to not spend a full hour making the perfect avatar so I can right to the game.

Character Creation is 3/5.

Overall, I can see myself playing this game for some time. It's a wonderful hybrid of classic MMO with the fun aspects of a more "survival"-y type game. If you're looking for a new MMO to check out, I think so far New World is certainly worth the investment, especially considering the lack of monthly sub fees.

Overall Rating: 4/5 (so far)

I really wish this came had a sideways thumb, but since it doesn't I'll err towards the team behind it making improvements.

Don't get me wrong, Dwarrows is a LOT of fun so far. You play as a dwarf, who is your resource gatherer, a halfling who can find treasure with a divining rod (and also has the ability to run), and an...elf(?) who can build up the settlement and fix things with her hammer. You switch between the three characters and roam around the world, doing puzzles, platforming, finding citizens to invite to your village, and building said village out. Ideally, this is the perfect kind of game for me, especially on a lazy streaming weekend day.

The downside:
I feel like this game should be in Early Access. The cute graphics have clipping issues (half the time, my characters' feet are below surface level), and if you haven't pressed yourself right up against the resource you're trying to mine, sometimes you'll whiff and chop/mine at air.

Basically, the core mechanics work great, but there a bunch of bugs that should really have gotten worked out before they called this a full release. At the moment, I'm not sure I could recommend paying full price for it, but if you really want it and you don't mind the occasionally annoying graphical hiccups, you may well get your money's worth from it.

I grabbed this game for two reasons:

1. Elder Scrolls Obssession
2. It Was Free

I was very pleased to find a game that, so far, I haven't had to spend money on to be able to play. You can purchase booster packs with in-game currency. The game itself is simple and elegant. Pick two colors to base your deck on and go to town. The single player tutorial/story mode is pretty good and so far the people I've come up against have been good sports, win or lose.

The Prophecy mechanics are really wha separate this game from other TCGs. you have 30 life. For every 5 life you lose, you draw one of your rune cards. These are random cards from your deck. If a rune card has the keyword prophecy, it plays for free. I haven won (and lost) several games that seemed certain to be about over based on someone's drawing of a prophecy card.

Overall, I'd say 9/10.

5.1 hours. 5.1 hours of waiting in a queue. Then, after I get to position 57, it boots me. I log back in and I'm back at a probably 5 hour queue. No thanks.

I'm playing this, because it's an adventure game. But I've never played a game so full of bugs. Clipping issues, falling through the floor constantly in one climactic scene, etc. I'm honestly surprised they came out with a sequel considering they haven't even worked the bugs out of the first one yet.

The concept is ok and while it's working properly it's pretty fun, but when it isn't you want to have an exorcism performed on your PC.

However, there isn't much actual story. You get assigned someone to kill, you kill them (and have exactly one way to do so), and then it fades to black and the next "mission" starts. I was really expecting more of a sandbox.

If you are patient with bugs and like the idea of basically being the kid from the Omen, then this could be recommended. For everyone else, spend your money on a telltale game or something.