Category: PC Gaming

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Heroes of Might&Magic VI

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date September 9, 2022

After many years, I decided to give another chance to Heroes of Might&Magic 6. When I first played it, it felt that the campaign was completely broken. And not only to me.

Enemy hero would come at you with a huge army, and even if you manage to beat him once, he would amass it again at an incredible speed. Not sure if that was balanced out somewhat. But the only way I managed to beat some of the sieges is by creating a bucket brigade of heroes passing armies from one another as quickly as possible. Obviously, this is extremely boring.
Also, there is still a problem that the combat is incredibly slow. Units are too sturdy, and you just spend turn after turn trading blows.

They did invest a lot into a storyline, but it is still a mess.
The story follows duke Slava and his five children, representing the different factions in the game. How one of his children ends up being a barbarian, another an undead necromancer, a third one a demon, and fourth a crazy fanatic (although this one is kind of obvious)? Well, that’s a long story. And it’s not told in any order.
For example the first campaign after the tutorial is Necropolis, playing as ressurected Anastasya. But her brother executes her for assassinating their father only in the 2nd campaign.
In the 3rd campaign we play as Irina, a magic user that is released from a cell where her husband put her by her brother from the 5th campaign. Confused already?

Tags Heroes of Might&Magic

PC Gaming

Hero’s Hour

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date September 3, 2022

Played a few more skirmishes, and I think I’m done with it for now.
There are two problems with this game.
First, there are no neutral towns. You see, in the Heroes of Might and Magic series, most of the map was neutral. The one that captures more neutral towns wins. In Hero’s Hour, every faction has exactly one town. And once your town is captured, you have a game week to recapture it, or loose. So, this is a case of total war instead of slow domination. You either win or loose. That’s it.
Second, the battles are fun to watch, but impossible to control. It’s just total chaos, aided by the fact that many units have random abilities, such as random teleportation. You can replay same battle twice with vastly different results without lifting a finger.

Tags Hero’s Hour

*.XLS NDS Nintendo PC Gaming

Completed

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date September 2, 2022

PC:

Amid Evil
Backbone
Dark Forces
Inscryption
Loop Hero
Modern Warfare (2019)
XCOM Chimera Squad

NDS:

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

PC Gaming

Darksiders 3

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 25, 2022

Feels Souls-like, but not entirely. Fury is much more nimble, and her default whip has a huge reach. Also, there’s no stamina. But you literally collect souls, which you drop when you’re killed. And there are replenishable flasks. Enemies don’t resurrect when you visit local version of the “the bonfire”, though. And do so only when you die.
There is a surprising amount of acrobatics involved, which is not common to Souls like games. You gave to jump over some of the attacks. And the first boss require you to climb up to her using your whip. And hit her in midair, no less.

Storytelling is weird. Apparently it takes place at the same time as the first Darksiders. Fury is told that War has started the Apocalypse, and she in the meantime is tasked with hunting the Seven Deadly Sins.

There are some recurring characters that we meet, like the Shady Trader and the Blacksmith. I don’t care to remember their actual names.
After beating the second boss, Fury is injured and is telephoned to Hollows, and in the Hollows there is a giant that releases angels and demons by destroying them… Like do I supposed to remember and understand what’s going on? Because I don’t.

Tags Darksiders

PC Gaming

Hades

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 25, 2022

Immensely enjoying it so far. Got past the second boss, Hydra. But my true love is the first boss, Megaera, or simply Meg. Well, not only mine. That’s why it’s even an option to romance that “tsundere”.

Got to the 3rd boss on my 3rd run, so I thought that maybe I’m getting a hang in it. But no, next two runs got wasted by the 1st boss.

I have the best runs with the ranged weapons in the meantime: the Spear and the Shield mostly. The Sword and the Claws require to get “in the face”, and take some damage as a result. And the Bow doesn’t deal enough damage.
Managed to beat the pair of 3rd bosses only on the 16th run or so. With the Shield, no less. But that’s because I got extra lucky. First, I got the extra-life refill from Patroclus. And then I smashed Artemis’ Call in the very last moment, when I was one hit away from final death.

Tags Hades

PC Gaming

Metal Gear character inspirations

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 22, 2022

Not sure how true it is, but love it anyway!

Tags Metal Gear

PC Gaming

Hero’s Hour

Clearly inspired by earlier Heroes of Might and Magic or maybe even Kings Bounty. And with impressive 12 factions, most of them taken directly from HoM&M3.

Visually, it is much more primitive than gorgeous Heroes of Might and Magic, though. Much closer to Master of Magic in the art style.

The fights are real-time, and remind me of Lord’s of the Realm more than anything. With the hero participating in the fight as well. The control is indirect, with you just able to place the units (fighters at the front, archers at the back), and give them general direction of attack.

The real downside is, like with many other indie games, there is only skirmish. No campaign whatsoever. And skirmishes get boring very quickly.

There’s also treasure hunting and obelisks with hints, just like in HoM&M series. The artifact that you end up finding is not a game-changer, from what I could tell, though.

Tags Hero’s Hour

PC Gaming

XCOM Chimera Squad

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 18, 2022

Completed XCOM Chimera Squad.
As I thought, Progeny arc is much easier. At least you don’t have to fight a boss and another super-tough enemy in the same encounter.

A slight disappointment is that you cannot get all of the agents in a single run. I ended up not picking Zephyr and Claymore, and never got to see them in action.
Godmother’s “Untouchable” skill (which existed in XCOM 2 as well) is fantastic. Once she neutralizes an enemy, she gets invulnerability until the end of the turn. But other enemies don’t know it, and still shoot at her, wasting their ammo.
Another awesome skill is Blueblood’s “Faceoff”:

Story is a big letdown. So the entire game we try to “investigate” three different gangs in order to figure out which gang assassinated the mayor. But in the end – none of them. It all was the “evil mercenaries” plot, albeit we hardly heard about them the entire game. And the way we discover that plot is through mercenaries storming the city council in broad daylight. Because… why not?!

Overall, I felt like the game became repetetive far too quickly. Which is a shame.

Tags Chimera Squad, Xcom

PC Gaming

Cycle Frontier

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 14, 2022

Love the style, love how weapons look and feel, hate permadeath mechanics.

Would be great if it was a singleplayer game. But I got shot in the head by some random Chinese dude on my first run, and lost all of my equipment. Not fun. Actually, I got so frustrated by that interaction I almost went and shot another random dude myself. Stopped myself just in time, though.

Also, probably there’s an idea behind not having mission markers, but I don’t have patience for this.

Tags Cycle Frontier

PC Gaming

XCOM Chimera Squad

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 14, 2022

There’s a huge difficulty spike at the end of first act. At least if you decide to fight Sacred Coil faction first, as I did. First two fights are easy. But the boss attacks four times, inflicts status, and you also need to beat Gatekeeper, one of the toughtest enemies from XCOM 2. It all came down to luck, when Axiom, my melee brute, knocked down one of the bigger enemies on the first turn. Then Verge was able to “berserk” enemy flamethrower. And the boss simply got stuck on the ladder. Still, it was a very frustrating fight.

The situation with equipment is pretty sad. There is Regular Assault Rifle, Enhanced Assault Rifle and Mastercrafted Assault Rifle (lulwat?). And I’m not even sure those are different in terms of looks. The only bright side is that after completing Act I you start getting some missions with unique weapons available. Those not only look unique, but also have unique abilities.

Tags Chimera Squad, Xcom

PC Gaming

Hades

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 14, 2022

AI find it very befitting myself that I started playing Hades a while ago, decided to play Transistor first, and then never came back to it. Well, until now.
Hades absolutely deserves all the acclaims it gets. Characters are very British despite being Greek gods and whatnot. The genre, roguelite, is certainly not my cup of tea, but I’m willing to enjoy it for all the art and humor and voice acting.
The game turned out to be more about shooting stuff than what I had expected. Or maybe it’s just my play style. But since there are a few opportunities to heal, it’s best to keep away from enemies.

Tags Hades

PC Gaming

No Ghost Recon Breakpoint for me

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 14, 2022

I was absolutely sure I had both Ghost Recon Wildlands and Ghost Recon Breakpoint bought on one of the platforms.
But either I forgot where I bougth them, or I was mistaken, as they aren’t on Uplay for sure.
I don’t care about those games enough to buy them (again?), though.

PC Gaming

About Street Fighter 6

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 11, 2022

Juri is confirmed for Street Fighter 6:

That’s all you need to know to buy it now.

Tags Street Fighter

PC Gaming

Diablo Immortal

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 9, 2022

Guess who got 3 4 similar legendary helmets now…
On the flipside, Blizzard is surprisingly generous about some aspects of the game. For example, you need to get every legendary item only once in order to keep its effect. You can “extract essence” in Westmarch, and after that you can always imbue another legendary item with this trait.
I like comparing how character look evolves in Diablo. But after you reach maximum level and start accumulating Paragon points, it stops being interesting. Your character just stocks on all-legendary equipment, which defines most of their looks. You don’t look that way because it’s cool, but simply because you need a trait from that particular piece.

That also means that if you play Diablo Immortal enough, you’ll know which traits are equipped on each character simply by looking at them. I won’t mistake that bucket helm or that armor for any other now.

Tags Diablo, Diablo Immortal

PC Gaming

XCOM Chimera Squad

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 8, 2022

An interesting XCOM 2 spinoff. Events take place after XCOM 2. Humanity won, and now humans, aliens and hybrids all live in the same megapolis.
The game is slightly more story driven than the original XCOM.

Game mechanics are mostly focused around breaching. Different points of entry, each granting different bonuses, like extra damage for the first turn.

And we have aliens of all kinds in our squad, which is always fun.

Our squad is basically a SWAT team. So much more emphasis on close combat, and even on capturing enemies alive.

All characters are unique, and loosing one means Game Over. I got woman-snake as my first hire, not because she’s efficient, but because she’s fun to listen to.

The only annoying bit is that enemy reinforcements seem to be endless.

Tags Chimera Squad, Xcom

PC Gaming

Diablo Immortal

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 6, 2022

I love to track the evolution of my character in Diablo-like games:

Tags Diablo, Diablo Immortal

PC Gaming

Last Epoch

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 5, 2022

The game is in Early Access, but still feels pretty solid. It’s a mix of Diablo 2 and Path to Exile. Some Ancient Rome vibes here as well, and also huge skill trees for each skill.

But there are classes instead of a weird grid system of Path to Exile I don’t really like.
Was surprised that one of the first paladin skills is a “whirlwind”, which is also crazily effective.

Also, the health regeneration here is extremely fast, and you don’t even need special equipment for that.
Not sure if I’m going to continue playing it now, but maybe worth returning to it once it’s released.

PC Gaming

Inscryption

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date July 31, 2022

Completed Inscryption.
For real this time.
Act II is much more sane and enjoyable than Act I. It’s basically Pokemon, and now you have four classes (in Hearthstone terms). If you loose, you can retry immediately, no need to replay the last hour or so. And you can alter your deck as much as you want.

Actually, with the Painter boss, I had to alter it quite a lot. And that’s what I like to do.
Act III is still better than Act I. Nothing is as bad as Act I in terms of gameplay.

You get checkpoints, and you can edit your deck a bit by exchanging cards. Some fourth-wall moments actually made me chuckle: like a boss that asks you to pick your oldest file from your real filesystem, then threatens to delete it.
The ending sequence made me chuckle.

Honestly, I can forgive the horrible first act for how awesome the ending is.

“We don’t need to keep score” and a handshake from your nemesis.

And a glimpse into other Scrybes Worlds and Games.

Tags Inscryption

PC Gaming

Backbone

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date July 28, 2022

Completed Backbone.
It’s quite short, just 4 hours, and since there are almost no puzzles, it’s mostly just story.
We follow the science lead. Get into the lab. The Artifact is kind of a black goo that is able to create hybrids. Also, this is a postapocalyptic world where humans are apparently long extinct. The Artifact gets into us. That’s… unexpected.
From here, game turns into Weird.
There’s a fantastic scene where we walk through a crowd during a festival.

We meet our friend, Anatoly, the taxi driver. And that thing kills him.
We lay low with the homeless people. But the mafia finds us eventually and captures us, to experiment on the Artifact. There is a bunch of pointless inner dialogues, after which we escape. And… suddenly, that’s it. We are told that the mafia boss plans a revolution, our partner decided to work for her, and our hero either dies beyond the Wall or mutates beyond recognition.

Well, that’s a depressing turn of events.

Tags Backbone

PC Gaming

Backbone

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date July 27, 2022

Yet another detective noir adventure with furries. Not point-and-click though. At least not entirely. And with some elements of stealth.

We play as a private detective, of course, who’s hired to follow a husband that frequents a certain nightclub, so his wife could get a divorce. We find the husband in the basement of the club, not only dead, but also prepared to become someone’s roast.

We pair with a reporter to follow the suspicious trucks that have been seen around the nightclub. The meat is being delivered to a wealthy ape, who happens to be Minister of Science. Are rich people eating poor people?

We follow some leads on the missing prostitutes from the nightclub. Turns out one of them was spying on the wealthy clients for the nightclub owner, Bloodworth. Science minister and one of his employees mentioned “Project Artifact” a couple of times. We also get a visit from Bloodworth, and some beating from her henchman.

Tags Backbone