Don't Starve Short Review

Don't Starve is a game which I have been addicted to for the last week, the concept is simple as the title suggests, but the content is deep.
Klei Entertainment is best known for its platform games. Don't Starve is a completely different direction for the company, coming from a company who created the Shank series for example. Don't Starve should not be marked as yet another survival clone after the success of Minecraft, the game is unique in many aspects.
The visual style gives is unique, giving off a feeling of a world drawn by pencil. It's simple but effective, it fits in well with the simple, casual feel of the game. Survival is the key idea for this game, the aim is to try survive the longest amount of days possible. It gets rather deep and immersive when you begin to struggle to find food so you don't starve. Crafting is very important in this game, creating tools and stations which allow you to further increase the amount of items you can build. Each day you must keep an eye on time and return to your campfire before night, otherwise you will face certain death from the dangers in the wild.

Unlike Minecraft, every monster seems like a serious threat to your survival and are rather tough, it makes you think about every battle and assess the threat. Considering the game being relatively cheap on Steam, there is a lot of fun to be had with the game. The game is still in alpha therefore expect regular support for the game and loads of brand new features to expand on the all ready solid content.

Gears of War Judgement Review

Gears of War Judgement is certainly another Gears of War game. Created by People Can Fly, makers of Bulletstorm a fantastic game. It's a prequel to the first game with the player taking the role as fan favourite Baird, surely it's a recipe for success? Kinda.

To start the campaign has created an arcade feel to the campaign in the way of earning stars for your performance, these can be increased with the player using more creative ways of killing. The problem I have is the campaign is then split into sections because of this, the game truly suffers. It feels like I'm doing a series of challenges instead of trying to enjoy the game how I want. It also manages to put the momentum on hold every time you finish a section, at times I really struggled to become attached to the story at all. I really enjoyed Paduk though, his character did feel fleshed out. However the same can't be said about Sofia who I feel was the tag along woman in our squad who felt kinda left out at times in dialogue.

Judgment follows the tradition and treats its main villain poorly. General Karn's screen time is limited, his impact is barely felt, and his fight is kinda poor. He exists purely for the sake of a predictable and anticlimactic final boss fight. The squad AI is actually a bit better than previous games, I actually got saved from time to time and they actually killed the odd Locust.

Now onto multiplayer. It's a mixed bag really, I will start with what I liked. The attack-and-defend OverRun mode feels like an extension of  Beast Mode. Five COG soldiers do their best to keep incoming Locust from destroying their defenses and opening a new spawn point. If the Locust succeed, the COG fall back and try again until the timer runs out or their third and final base is destroyed. Then the roles are reversed.  The Locust classes add a variety of playstyles for people to play and learn to counter,  campaign-influenced skills for each COG character give it a distinctly Gears of War feel.

 

 

This mode is jut as fun as anything introduced in any previous Gears of War game. Now to the bad, the class system. For some reason every shooter now believes we need a Call of Duty style class system. Guns have been introduced and the weapon selection has changed for the worse, no longer can you have a shotgun and assault rifle. Options really feel limited and to say the worst, generic.

 

Final Verdict - 7.5/10 Overall Gears of War Judgment is a GOOD game, but it's far from brilliant. I praise games for trying to bring changes, but for the most part changes were made that were not needed. OverRun is a stroke of genuis and brings some really fun moments, especially with friends. But the campaign lacks any sort of badassness that the other Gears of War games had, making it he poorest campaign out of any Gears yet.