Recent reviews by pc617

I try not to expect too much from "kinetic novels" like Event-D. These stories can be amusing, but are rarely thought-provoking and usually forgettable. This one surprised me. It's actually solid science fiction! Not the best I've read, but certainly better than many hard copy novels I have suffered though. Event-D is not hard sci-fi, but not space opera either; it's somewhere in between. This story is worth a look. I enjoyed it while reading and it left me with a couple things to keep thinking about afterward.

These are my first impressions, including some time playing the temporary demo this summer. I'll update as I get more play time.

This is still pretty early access but there is enough here to enjoy. This is more realistic than War Thunder or World of Tanks so it may appeal to a narrower audience. However there have been few decent modern armor sims with any emphasis on 'simulation' since Steel Beasts a couple of decades ago. There is lots of attention to detail such as tracking not just the total number of main gun rounds carried, but how many are in the ready racks and how many are in reserve stowage. Fire control for the various vehicles looks to be pretty well modeled already, including the ability to set (and dump lead), correct sight reticles for specific weapons, and even the T-72's 'delta-D' range compensation system.

I am still getting used to the need to jump between tank commander and gunner positions to effectively engage. Right now I feel like a French tank commander in a 1940 one-man turret, but I think I just need more practice! It would be nice if the developers eventually add the option to have an AI gunner engage targets identified by the player acting as an unbuttoned TC, but for now the player is pretty much a "one man band" running the tank.

Engagement ranges seem pretty plausible, with tank guns being able to potentially reach out to targets that are barely visible without magnification. However the German terrain tends to cut down on sight lines and opens up possibilities for short range ambushes and surprise contact.

Overall, I'm glad that I played the demo which encouraged me to take a chance (rare for me) on early access. I wish the designers well in continuing to develop this game's potential.

Overall score 8/10. This is a solid tactical modern wargame for platoon and company level actions. It models a variety of weapons systems in detail and includes some important human elements such as morale, troop quality, and (to an extent) command and control. I found this game better optimized than the earlier Combat Mission Shock Force and the scenarios far more plausible.

At the time this is written, the real world's Ukraine War is in its third week, and the subject matter of this game is of heightened interest. If the American units are ignored, Combat Mission Black Sea can give some useful insight into the tactical aspects of the today's tragic war. I found it helpful for learning about Ukraine-specific equipment. However, this game was released (I believe) in 2015 and depicts fictional events set in 2017. The engine has seen a number of patches, but other parts of the game have not been updated, so it's still set in a fictional 2017. The scenarios, unit organizations, etc. are therefore close to current real world, but somewhat out of date. The CM: Black Sea also gives more credit to Russian units than they have generally demonstrated in recent real world combat. This is a good game, but it is not going to replicate exactly the tactical actions we are seeing on the news.

There are also some aspects of the game of which players should be aware. CM: Black Sea can be a challenge to understand, and it will take an investment of time to beat the AI consistently. Experienced wargamers will be able to adapt reasonably quickly, particularly those who have played other Battlefront games. However, this is not a mass market real time strategy game, and the learning curve will be steep for those who are only accustomed to spamming tank production or building invincible super units. The user interface is also not the most intuitive. This is unfortunately familiar to niche wargamers, who often have to suffer through difficult controls in their games, but it may be frustrating to those accustomed to more streamlined and accessible UI's common in other genres.

A new nation pack after seven years? Now that's a nice surprise. This is an entertaining RTS game with a modern combat feel and graphics that are still very nice after all this time. Its a dreadfully unrealistic simulation, but much fun if you take it for what it is.

I wasn't expecting much from this free little game with 1980s style-graphics, but I enjoy the topic and so I thought I would give it a shot. I was pleasantly surprised! Its both unexpectedly entertaining and quite well thought out. The designer clearly knows his WWII armor. This is a more realistic depiction of driving an M4 medium tank around France than many much flashier titles. Lots of nice details like limited availability of HVAP, only some ammo being in the ready racks, and far more HE and coax ammo to be expended than AP. If that last sentence doesn't make any sense to you you might not pick up on the game's attention to detail, but its still a fun little marriage of armored combat and roguelike gaming. I am looking forward to trying out Armoured Commander II.

Very short, surreal, and thought provoking. Includes a beautiful song from a singer I had never heard of, but who will shortly be added to my music collection.

Worth playing. This is walking sin is a nice change from the standard action or puzzle based game. Really more of an interactive story than a game, player actions are limited to exploring the environment to reveal that story. What makes this approach work in the case of Gone Home is that the voice acting is excellent and the story is well written.

I'd like to give a neutral review here but on the balance, I'll have to say negative. As other reviewers have commented, this is more of an art project than a game. I could have been an interesting one, but I think an opportunity was passed. The use of drones is a morally complicated issue and Killbox which doesn't really give any serious attention. The message is simply "Killing is bad!". Not much to learn from that narrow point of view. It would have been more compelling, and realistic, to give the drone controller information on the target. The targets of drone strikes tend to be insurgent leaders or technicians who have deliberately targeted civilians. During preplanned drone strikes like the one in the game, the drone operators often know quite a bit about their targets, so they are not just faceless blobs. By any reasonable assessment drone strikes in the real world have both killed some innocent civilians, while saving other innocent civilians (for example by killing skilled builders of IEDs). Whether the practical and moral benefits of these strikes are worth the practical and moral costs should be a matter for reasonable public debate, but Killbox provides none of that. Disappointing. SPOILER FOLLOWS - I have one other specific criticism of the game and that is that the drone operator actually has almost no control over what happens. This "game" gives the illusion that the player is doing something, but the only real choice is when to fire. There is no option not to fire, there is (desite appearance) no way to select where the drone's missiles are aimed. They will always hit the same spot and always do the same damage. It would have been more interesting, and not much more difficult to give the drone player some options. The seond time I played I tried to "aim off" in an attempt to limit the number of bystander deaths while still killing the target. Nope, not an option. Even better would have been the possibility to choose not to fire because of excessive civilian deaths, a choice that is often made in the real world. Players could then see the concequences (good and bad) of making that choice, but players don't even have the option to not attack (the game just sits there enlessly circling the target). For that matter the civilian player has no real choices to either, other than whether or not to hang out next to the taget, but I can more easily forgive this given the basic design of the game. I that this SORT of game has real possibilities, but Killbox misses the target. One and a half stars.

This is a strange one. Perhaps the setting is familiar to those who have played other Rusty Lake games, but this was a first for me. The characters are all anthropomorphic critters but this fact can largely be ignored, e.g. Mr. Boar looks like a boar, but the story proceeds as if he were human. I say largely can be ignored because the fact that the hotel guests are animals does play one important part in the story, the details of which would be a spoiler. Suffice to say that the player is going to be doing some . . . unpleasant things to complete the game. Quirky setting and artwork aside, this is a point-and-click adventure game based around an episodic series of puzzles. I found it entertaining enough, though not outstanding. It is quite short and can be completed in a couple of hours, plus another hour to wrap up the optional puzzles. My game time is misleading as it includes 10-11 hours that the game was left running.

Toy soldiers is an enjoyable merger of tower defense strategy and arcade action. Not a deep game, but good light entertainment. As a kid, I loved to play with plastic toy soldiers and this game may be thought of as seeing those childhood games come to life, including the embellishments of a child's imagination. In contrast to some other reviewers, I found the Cold War missions to be generally bug free and stable. There is the very occasional crash to desktop, but otherwise Toy Soldiers functions well. For those of you who have played the original Toy Soldiers, the Great War missions in this version are similar, but not exactly the same. The ability to earn barrages (one-shot area effect attacks) is a nice addition, but I think that the balance is off on some of the missions compared to the original. One difficulty that affects both the Great War and Cold War parts of the game is that control of fixed-wing aircraft almost requires a gamepad or joystick. The original Toy Soldiers worked just fine with keyboard and mouse, but this version does not use keyboard input, making planes almost unplayable with a mouse only. I found it possible to complete the missions without using the jets or biplanes. Helicopters work just fine.