Recent reviews by GameMaster

First off, this is NOT Alpha Centauri. I've played many hours with that game and this is NOTHING like Alpha Centauri other than the basic premise.

With that out of the way, let's get to the meat of the review.

First off, Beyond Earth is based on Civ 5, the last of the 'old school' style Civ games. What I mean by that is before the District System that has been introduced in Civ 6, Civ games were less interesting overall visually. You've got your city, you've got your improvements, you've got the units going about, and that is about it in terms of map visuals. Everything is built in the city and outside the wonders, you don't see much of what you have built within the cities.

In addition, the engine has similar issues to Unreal in that it takes a while for the graphics to 'get to spec' and lags in terms of rendering landscapes (especially when a lot is going on in the 'background').

With that out of the way, the game plays like Civ 5, but in space. This is similar to how Alpha Centauri played, where it was Civ 2/Call to Power but in space. Both games also utilized unit customization but in different ways. In Alpha Centauri's case, it is an optimization process of armor, cost, abilities, and armament. In Beyond Earth's case, it is visual and combat style. You see, every time you improve your units, you have to choose from two combat perks and these perks tend to either shore up weaknesses, improve strengths, or add interesting advantages like improving strength with each adjacent unit.

Progression in Beyond Earth is what makes it stand out. Instead of simply tech progression, the game utilizes 'affinity' progression. There are three affinities: Purity (Humanity First), Harmony (fusing alien and human), and Supremacy (Uplifts). With Rising Tide you can hybridize two affinities near the end of the game. Each 'pure' affinity has a specific combat style. For example, Purity is all about firepower and durability while Supremacy is all about speed and flanking. 'Hybrid' affinities mix the two affinities while making their own spin on them, like purity-supremacy units tend to be something of both but with a focus on abilities (at least, that is how I got the most out of them). Each affinity has a resource specific (purity=Floatstone, harmony=Xenomass, supremacy=Firaxite) to it and their availability heavily determines on your affinity path.

This goes into the first complaint that people have when comparing it to Alpha Centauri: the factions feel all the same. The reason for this is due to each affinity requiring a specific resource, making factions set in stone in terms of affinity useless when there isn't enough of that resource to go around. Alpha Centauri never had this problem... although had others instead (broken Psi).

The complaints... don't have that much water when you actually look at the bigger picture mechanically... but people like to complain and rant and rave whenever things aren't to their spec or aren't 'pure' enough.

The game itself plays like Civ 5... and Civ 5 was back when 2 units per tile was a thing and before the vastly improved District System of Civ 6... and the 'old school' system of Civ has aged rather poorly. Then again, that system has been around for a better part of two decades by the time this game was released, with only a handful of upgrades to its credit. It is simple, but doesn't allow for striking visuals like the District System does.

The combat hasn't changed a bit since Civ 5 and, really, combat isn't the focus of a Civ game even though it is a major part of it. You've got your ranged units, you're melee units, your aircraft, and your naval units. Nothing much changed with those and plays a lot like Civ 5 in that manor...

Really, this is a good game for all its faults...

Ladies and gentlemen, if you want a unique-ish FPS experience, then Interstellar Marines is what you'll want. Settling somewhere between ArmA and CoD in terms of gameplay, the game plays quite well despite it's indie origins. The lack of updates isn't due to malice but more due to mostly monetary issues and at the time of this review Update 27 is on the list of thigns getting released soon.

Now I originally backed the Kickstarter and then upgraded to Spearhead on Steam sometime afterwards. The game is pretty good with decent gunplay. Given that this is still in the beta stages, problems do happen.

I would recommend this to anyone who isn't for the ArmA hyper-realistic combat and CoD's trigger-based gameplay. It's something of a happy medium between the two. Hope to see you recruits soon. :)

This game isn't perfect by any means, but it is far more capable than most online shooters on the market. Yes, I've payed to get onto the boat and for what it's worth, it was worth every penny I've spent.

Now the game's athsetics is a mix between keeping with the anime AND a bit more realism thrown in. The gunplay is actually pretty good, even if you die quickly if you can't quickly acquire targets. If anything, it's a faithful rendition to the GitS franchise.

So, Mighty No. 9. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it great?

I was late to the entire Megaman Fan Train, so I wasn't as nostalgic or fan-crazed as quite a few others in the fandom. I liked the Megaman games. Hell I bought 2, 4, and 6 for my 2DS a while back (before it broke) and spent months trying to complete them. I backed the project for 20 USD. Minimum entry level. I heard about the various projects within the Kickstarter business, and many of them are rather grandure and got a lot of money (Star Citzen, I'm looking at you and your 'AAA budget' crowdfunding) in doing so. Others got reletively little. Some of them had realistic goals in mind, others did not.

Sadly, due to a forum-mate of mine, I've learned that Kickstarter had a rule in their Terms of Service that requires you to carry out every goal in your kickstarter or face Kickstarter and the local authorities coming in and getting that money refunded. Now I know WHY Kickstarter is being avoided like a plague by those of the savvy sort. This goes into Mighty No. 9's laundry list of problems.

It had 4 Million USD at the kickstarter. It got to every goal the team came up with. Now the team got SADDLED with doing those goals be realistic or not. That includes the five console, two handheld, and (if I remember right) two to three OS compatability insanity (as they say: fighting on one front is managable, fighting on two is stupid, but fighting on TWELEVE?!? You must be the KING OF IDIOTS to fight on TWELVE FRONTS!)...

The game is GOOD. I never have any CTDs other than ONE misshap with the graphics settings. It plays like a Megaman game with X and Zero bits attached with a new mechanic to make things interesting. Seasoned Megaman players can easily get through this game in an hour or two. Others will take longer depending on skill, reaction time, and sometimes even luck.

Now, for those not blinded by nostalgia, the 'Castle' segment of the game ALWAYS had a difficulty spike, sometimes HORRIBLY so. Wily's Castle #2 and 4, I'm looking at you. While I haven't personally got there yet, I have expected that difficulty spike in the later stages. Since I haven't had as much nostalgia given that I was pretty much late to the party, I expected crazy and pretty difficult level design.

Now people smash the game for it's athsetics but Inafune's style has always been Astroboy-esque. Sure it shifted from time to time but that primary tone has always been there. I still like that sort of athsetics mind you in a world where the only place you can expect that sort of style to hang out is Nintendo.

The controls are a bit to get used to, but once you get a hang of it, it feels somewhat understandable and actually intelligent at times. Sure most nostalgia-centric games focus on the keyboard for gameplay but the keyboard and mouse combination does hold some merit to it.

The gameplay is... mediocre but solid, and the Megaman games were essentially the yearly CoD of their time. Sure you don't get to use your boss abilities much -and this is a fault sadly enough- but the fact that the bosses help you out in other stages is a nice touch (and quite beneficial to you).

The story is essentially your basic Megaman story with the numbers filed off with a few twists and turns along the way. Those expecting something grandure, sorry but no dice. It works, it's useful, and gets the job done.

The voice acting is... odd... to say the least. Not great, not horribad, but slightly better than what has preceeded in Megaman games. Although hearing what sounds like a gritty Spike (from Bebop) that happens to be a sniper to be amusing and quite a few lines do make sense in context.

If Steam could give a score, I would rate this game a 7.5 for a 20 USD game. The overall package is above average, and the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that has come to pass is likely going to stillborn the franchise. Inafune and his team screwed up because they only expected maybe a million to come in. They were more or less noobs in the indie scene and everything that happened pretty much was a perfect storm.

Also, that 'better than nothing' comment by Inafune? Yeah that's what the translator translated it to, not out of his mouth.

At this point, the game is essentially a turd. The AI is poor, the game is not pollished, and it's not even worthy to have the 'Greenlight' tag.

If you want to pay 25 bucks for a turd of a game, then go ahead waste your hard-earned cash. They've given up development and right now I want my money back.

Despite any bugs that this game has and that any sequel is effectively dead thanks to the failure of the Kickstarter campaign, this wonderous game is a surefire treat for those in love of the space opera and sci-fi setting. This game is, despite it's faults, pure distilled awesomeness.