Fun and funny stuff

Wolf Among Us is another one in the Telltale games series of  adventure games. It is set in the world of the Fables graphic novels in which characters from famous fairy tales live among us in the "real" world. You play BBB or the big bad wolf who is a detective. You are trying to get to the bottom of a series of murders which occur during the game. You will meet characters such as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Snow White and the Little Mermaid as you travel to various locations to uncover clues. The game plays out much like Game of Thrones and The Walking dead with  a lot of dialogue, some fights which rely on quick time events and exploration where you look for and combine various items. I enjoyed the sombre atmosphere and the choices you you have to make of which locations to search and who to talk to gives a reason to replay certain sections.  The game is overpriced at $25 dollars but worthwhile to buy on sale or as part of the Telltale games bundle. It i

I haven't played any sports games as part of this series- mainly because there's no real "finishing" them. You would have to set your on target for what is considered completing PES or Football manager or a NBA or MLB game. But Virtua Tennis has a 1 season world tour mode so that makes life easier. In it you move around a board game like map, using movement tickets to choose where to stop. There are training minigames, practice matches, various levels of tournaments as well as other events to boost your fame (which is basically your score you are trying to maximise. These all use up your energy so every once in a while you need to stop at hotels Training sessions give you points towards specific styles you can unlock and also improve your maximum condition which is important so you can play more matches and do more events without resting. They also give you some money to buy additional movement tickets, recovery tickets, agents which boost your fame gain an

This is the second of the Panzer general type games I played in the A-Z challenge. The first one was Frontline- Road to Moscow. This is a mobile game port and their aren't that many missions. Like Panzer general it's a turn based hex strategy where you have a certain number of turns to capture strategic locations (usually cities or towns) You play as either the Germans or Russians. In most you are searching for weakpoints so you can break through the lines, surround enemies if possible and then head for the objectives. In others it is a bit more open and you must rush to objectives but making sure you don't get flanked and cut off yourself. In the campaign you get points after each mission depending on how well you did. You can use these points in later missions to requisition additional units. I think the best thing about it is the supply system. If you are out of supply range then your units become less effective. After 3 turns they are comple

I'm going to do a short review of this and update it when Wood Elves expansion comes out. I've tried campaigns with all the races and found the Empire one to be the most fun. You have a decent combination of troops- infantry, cavalry, missile, siege and magice which is fun. You also have a central starting position which means games can go different way. If the greenskins start well they can put a lot of pressure from the south. You have the vampire counts to the East, Brettonians to thewest and other human groups around you as well. It is your quest to reforge the empire but you have the choice to do it either through brute force or diplomacy. Each enemy leader has different traits so this spices things up too. The hero characters in battle also make the game more fun than the historical Total Wars in my opinion- although some are a little overpowered. After gaining a few levels a Orc or Dwarf hero can defeat a medium sized garrison with no troops supporting him. There a

Next on my list was South Park . Got this on sale because I heard it was good but a little short and with little relay value. Obviously the more you like the show the more you'll like the game. The humour is the same and you run across just about every character, major (eg. Butters, Jimmy, Mr Garrison) and minor (eg. Mr Hankie, Mr. Slave, Goth kids, Gingers) from it which will mean more to you if you've seen it. The graphics are what you'd expect and the voice acting is done by the same people as the show so the quality there is good. The map is not particularly big- just the town and a quick detour to Canada and erm somewhere involving probes- but there is a lot to do in the houses and sewers from fights to collecting friends and items such as weapons armour and of course chinpokemon. Getting enough people to friend you allows you to pick bonuses. Levelling also allows you to upgrade skills in typical rpg style. Each character just has the 4 skills and you only

Recettear is a store management game with some optional 2d action dungeon crawling hacking and slashing thrown in to change the pace. You play a young girl who has been left a shop and a crippling debt to pay off. A fairy who wants to collect the debt teaches you the ways of capitalism. You will spend most of your time in your shop buying and selling various weapons, items, books and food. Most of these you will buy from other customers or from the town's guild and market. Over time you meet adventurers who you can hire to go into dungeons and collect items for you. The first is a fighter but later you'll meet the rest of the usual rpg hero classes you'd expect such as mage, thief and archer. These adventurers buy things from you during your normal work day but you can loan them extra equipment and give them consumable items to help them stay alive. You cannot carry a huge number of items back from these dungeons and the early ones don't hold very valuable item

Qvadriga is a chariot managment/simulation game developed by Turnopia and published by Slitherine. Although not very complex, it's one of the most addictive games I've played in quite some time. You start off with 3 teams of aurigas (chariot riders), chariots and horses and you enter races to build up your reputation and bank balance. As your reputation increases you can move to higher ranked arenas where the prize money is higher. As you make more money you'll sometimes find aurigas, chariots and horses that are better than your own to purchase. You also need a healthy balance in case your aurigas and horses are killed or your chariot broken. There are 6 different attributes in the game which can be upgraded- two each for aurigas, chariots and horses. Aurigas with higher skill take corners better and are better at crashing and whipping opponents. Aurigas with better constitution have less negative effects after taking damage. Chariots have quality which improves acce

I haven't done a review for a while because I've been playing this for a while. I'm near the end of Act 2 and think I'm going to take a break from it until the expansions are discounted and then play through those and act 3 and 4. Anyone who has played Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale will find the look and feel of the game very recognisable. Instead of playing the child of a God you are (or become) a Watcher- one who is able to look into the souls of the dead and living and get a glimpse of their past. The story is set in a time where for some reason children are being born soulless (hollowborn) and usually die soon after. You are trying to discover why you have the powers you do and also what is causing the hollowborn problem. Pillar of Eternity doesn't use the DnD rules so had to create their own classes, spells, rules etc. Like most modern crpgs they use a d100 rather than d20 system and I think the choice to use grazes- 50% damage and duration on spells at

Of Orcs and Men is an action rpg in which you play Arkail, an orc berserker and Styx, a goblin assassin trying to kill the Human Emperor who is seeking an alliance to destroy your people. There is a decent variety of areas you travel through, from open areas like city streets and islands to large buildings like temples and catacombs. You don't have too many attributes- just four for each character- which you choose which to increase with each level up. You also get a skill point to either learn a new skill or increase a skill you already know. These are offensive, defensive and special for Arkail and melee, ranged and special for Styx so you can level them to suit your play style to a certain extent. Some skills are a lot less useful than others though so you might want to look at a game guide/walkthrough if you want to play on a high difficulty level. You also have a bit of loot which you find along the way. They can all be upgraded by armorers too. The

In Nexus you play Marcus Cromwell, a ship captain who gets brought into a interstellar war. You start out with 1 ship and over time control a larger fleet which you can upgrade with a number of different types of weapons and other systems -shields, ecm, engines,  energy batteries etc. You will meet rogue corporations, alien races and rogue A.Is during this epic journey. This seems really fun but unfortunately some types of weapons seem underpowered and because you don't get resources refunded when you remove parts you cannot change strategies quickly. For example light lasers only destroy systems when shields are not existent or down. In most missions you are fighting many enemies so destroying individual weapons systems is pointless when it takes fairly long to take down the shields and much less time to destroy ships hulls. There are also missions where you need specific systems or weapons but the briefings don't give any indication of this. You therefore need to ei

This is such a well known game that it doesn't seem necessary to review in detail so I'll just give some quick views. The upgraded graphics are of course very good although I was much more impressed with the backgrounds than the character models. The sound and atmosphere was beautiful. It was enjoyable to have such different areas- the dark abandoned tunnels, stations teaming with activity and the eerie post- apocolyptic Moscow aboveground. There are a fairly large number of weapons to choose and customise- from revolvers, shotguns, rifles, flamethrowers etc. You can also use grenades and throwing knives. I enjoyed fighting the human enemies where using stealth and headshots was common. Shooting charging hordes of mutants with shotguns was less fun. I also preferred the parts where you were fighting with allies which made a change from all the time you spent alone. I wouldn't say it has been one of my favourite FPS games but I enjoyed it enough to play La