Ok, I'm actually reviewing four things this week, throwing caution to the wind and leaving absolutely nothing for next week.
Need for Speed World is my first victim. Well, my first review at least, because I actually liked it. Admittedly, I approached it as a F2P racing MMORPG, rather than a Need for Speed game. It borrows heavily from my favorite, Need for Speed Underground, with at least a good portion of the game world included (my memory's bad, but some of the more memorable parts are the same). It felt very familiar, but had enough unique stuff to keep me playing for a while. The car customization isn't quite as overblown as in some of the more recent games, but it's enough that you can tweak both the performance and look of your car to be unique.
Brink is probably the only reason I stopped playing Need for Speed World. It's really fun, even if it's uncomfortably short. My only hope is that the free DLC adds a few hours onto Brink, because while I love the gameplay, it lacks heavily in variety of maps. Admittedly, the maps are more deep than I had hoped, but would it kill Bethesda to put in Capture the Flag or King of the Hill or even a deathmatch? I know it would "break immersion/storylines" or whatever, but it'd add a ton to the replayability if I didn't have to do the exact same objectives on every map every time I played it. Why not have multiple possible missions per map, and just add them as "What If" options to the campaign, or even just freeplay? Lord knows that in this day and age such a thing is possible.
Need for Speed World is my first victim. Well, my first review at least, because I actually liked it. Admittedly, I approached it as a F2P racing MMORPG, rather than a Need for Speed game. It borrows heavily from my favorite, Need for Speed Underground, with at least a good portion of the game world included (my memory's bad, but some of the more memorable parts are the same). It felt very familiar, but had enough unique stuff to keep me playing for a while. The car customization isn't quite as overblown as in some of the more recent games, but it's enough that you can tweak both the performance and look of your car to be unique.
Brink is probably the only reason I stopped playing Need for Speed World. It's really fun, even if it's uncomfortably short. My only hope is that the free DLC adds a few hours onto Brink, because while I love the gameplay, it lacks heavily in variety of maps. Admittedly, the maps are more deep than I had hoped, but would it kill Bethesda to put in Capture the Flag or King of the Hill or even a deathmatch? I know it would "break immersion/storylines" or whatever, but it'd add a ton to the replayability if I didn't have to do the exact same objectives on every map every time I played it. Why not have multiple possible missions per map, and just add them as "What If" options to the campaign, or even just freeplay? Lord knows that in this day and age such a thing is possible.
Terraria is probably the only reason I took a break from Brink, with a beautiful world (well, there are a few times when it shows its origins as a low-budget game, but it looks good as a rule and the bad parts are an exception) and great exploration gameplay. My only gripe with it would be that it's an exploration game, but with too much focus on upgrading and delving and not enough on building. Once I maxed out health and mana, and get a full set of whichever armor I view to be the best, I found the game to lose a lot of interest, despite sitting on a ton of building materials with which to build interesting structures. All-in-all, for $10, it's a good value, and it's fun with a lot of people, but if there's nobody else to play with, it gets boring quick. Also, there needs to be a double click confirmation to use TNT and bombs or something, since I've had things of mine accidentally explode. Same with the magic mirror, I've seen a lot of people teleport home during a boss fight on accident.
Carmine is a d20 (not OGL) based steampunk with alchemy adventure tabletop game. As a full game, Carmine is interesting, but not particularly outstanding, with the setting being far more interesting than the system. It's a lot reminiscent of The New Epoch, only not really too closely related (both use their own unique d20 based system, which get about as different as d20 based systems can get). It's got some borderline horror elements, and religion is a major theme, and the world feels well thought out though occasionally only lightly covered.
The art's good as a general concept, though I may have redone the front cover (it feels low resolution), which is ironic because it really lowered my expectations for a game that actually showed a good eye to typesetting and art (as in other than that nothing made me cringe).
Worth a shot for the setting, but the system's nothing stellar. If nothing else, it's priced decently, so it may be worth a shot.
Carmine is a d20 (not OGL) based steampunk with alchemy adventure tabletop game. As a full game, Carmine is interesting, but not particularly outstanding, with the setting being far more interesting than the system. It's a lot reminiscent of The New Epoch, only not really too closely related (both use their own unique d20 based system, which get about as different as d20 based systems can get). It's got some borderline horror elements, and religion is a major theme, and the world feels well thought out though occasionally only lightly covered.
The art's good as a general concept, though I may have redone the front cover (it feels low resolution), which is ironic because it really lowered my expectations for a game that actually showed a good eye to typesetting and art (as in other than that nothing made me cringe).
Worth a shot for the setting, but the system's nothing stellar. If nothing else, it's priced decently, so it may be worth a shot.