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After the experience with True Staker, I was pretty full and wanted something similar.
I’m not really tempted to return to the vanilla parts yet (however, if GSC, in light of the release of the trilogy on consoles, is attached to the Steam version of the achievement, I’ll immediately rush to make platinum), and therefore I remembered my youth in the vast expanses Chernarus .
In the Far 2013 year, YouTube (there weren’t really any streams back then and many interesting things came to our attention through let’s plays) put up a video in which a character in a cap appeared on the coast and briskly ran inland with cities, military bases and JUST A COLLOSAL amount of forests.

But these are just flowers, the berries appeared later in the faces of generally quite ordinary people with scary faces and groaning sounds (some moved on all fours, so it was extremely difficult to call them ordinary) and the entire gameplay was built around these components: respawn => running as far as possible from the spawn point (if you played it alone, then everything was aggravated by finding yourself in the area and transferring this valuable information to your friend, so that unite and experience the hardships of survival together) => search for equipment => optional domination over everything alive and not so much on the map, which more often ended in a terrible death in textures\stairs\dehydration-hunger-bleeding, because no matter how charged a survivalist you were, the loot spawn system had its own ideas about justice.

The gameplay was so innovative (or is it the case now, when survivors come out every 15 minutes) that it spurred sales of Arma 2 with additions to some unimaginable values, and this is understandable: those who want to reliably do pimp-puff are several times less than those who want to knock zombies between the eyes.

Amid all this success, a group of people spun off from the core development team led by Dean Hall, who came up with the whole concept based on his experience serving in the New Zealand Army. Updates to all aspects of the game rained down: survival, diseases, construction, transport, etc. d.
However, the developments became too cramped within the framework of the FASHION, so already at the end of 2013 a STAND-ALONE version of the mod appeared on Steam.
This is where the story of my complex relationship with the game begins.
Alpha was absolutely scanty, so much so that even some of the functions from the mod did not migrate to it, but the plans were Napoleonic!

Narration through the environment and notes https://luckukcasino.co.uk/withdrawal/ (in the best traditions of many modern projects), an advanced disease system (there were even stories about Dean Hall’s consultations with infectologists, in order to more accurately convey the behavior of the local infected), base construction, clans, reliable physics.
It all sounded incredibly delicious, coupled with statements that “guys, give it a year, we’ll get everything ready for release.” Of course, after a year, nothing was released. There were lengthy articles about what the studio was doing, and then an update came out with several new pants and a flashlight for the Kalash.

Sales reached 2 million six months later, which clearly signaled to the developers that their development strategy was correct. But I still didn’t find significant changes and was tired of dying in the protected forests from thirst and dehydration without any sane loot, I threw this product, considering myself thrown into the haymaker by Dean Hall (who some time later left the studio to make some of his next survival game)
What is the game like after 11(!) (JUST THINK) years after birth?
Oddly enough (especially after such a lengthy introduction) this is a completely solid project, in which FINALLY all the mechanics have been synergized into something digestible and even moderately casual.
I’ll make a reservation right away: my current experience is based on the Vanilla version of Chernarus without any mods. At first glance, everything remains as it was: the same shore, the same cast-offs (there is minimal customization, but in general you are unlikely to appear in some kind of sheepskin coat and durable boots), the same open houses, because players take out everything at least somewhat valuable and useful for advancement, but now even after them you can find a couple of useful “artifacts”.The logic of loot is no longer completely lacking in ideas, although weapons are still quite often found in “civilian” buildings.

They, by the way, have not undergone any changes either and are still divided into “accessible”/non-accessible”, which they promised to abandon in the alpha version, giving the opportunity to climb anywhere. However, with climbing it became much better! The survivor has mastered a number of parkour techniques with good animation, making travel more enjoyable, and annihilation of the infected easier (any hill in the form of a concrete block or car makes you practically invulnerable) and since we’re talking about transport, it’s not a sin to tell about it.

It…is, but the vehicle fleet (namely, the vehicle fleet, t. To. There are no helicopters in the game other than Helicrashes, but in the files there are those and even a whole plane)
very modest: 4 civilian cars and 2 military ones in the form of a Hummer and a Military Truck, which you can enjoy driving after putting them in order by collecting parts and fuel. I don’t think it’s possible to assemble a vehicle solo (you’ll still have to find the skeleton), so unfortunately there’s nothing to tell about the control features at release. There is nothing to say about the construction, other than to confirm its existence, and judging by the details and components lying around in the locations, it is at least NOT WORSE than what was in Fallout 76 and clearly fits into the surroundings. Here you have lanterns, generators and some kind of frames, although given the bloodthirstiness of the local population (both in the form of players and NPCs), such construction sites need to either be guarded 24/7 or built completely on the outskirts. When talking about bloodthirstiness, I refer mainly to past experiences. T. To. now the survivors have either become extremely dangerous and experienced predators, making it impossible to notice them, or (and what is more likely) moved to Livonia\Custom servers. But as for me, this only benefits the experience and familiarization with the current Dayz.
Kojimovsky Death Stranding praised for conveying a total feeling of hopelessness and loneliness, when you are climbing rocks under Low Roar, and for kilometers around there is not a soul. So Daze’s work is no worse, only instead of licensed soundtracks there is the creaking of trees, the sniffing and grunting of the infected, the sound of water, and distant shots that clearly do not promise anything good and even frighten not only you, but probably the shooter himself.

The nagging feeling is also developed by the abundance of empty houses beginning to decay, half-looted remains of transport and the realization that there will be no happy ending. And if it starts to rain, you’ll want nothing more than to hide in some hole/trailer/tent, it’s so atmospheric. Strangely enough, the closest project with similar sensations was the first Stalker, even though getting caught in the rain did not promise hypothermia and a cold. In addition, the developers have also more or less solved the problem with food (so the probability of starving after an hour or two of wandering around abandoned places no longer tends to 100%), not forgetting about Hall’s promises regarding some kind of simulation of diseases. Nobody forbids you to eat from the floor, but such a meal is unlikely to go in vain. The menu has a wide range of gifts of nature: vegetables, fruits, mushrooms, meat, fish (obtained as it should be from reservoirs and animals), in addition there is a good selection of “store-bought” food and canned food (my favorite from a visual point of view is the pate, which is drawn as accurately as possible)

And what, exactly, should we do with all this splendor??
Well…to survive? for once, as was intended back in 13, master the mechanics (seasoned daisists recommend about 500 hours) in order to calmly integrate into community servers with different whistles, you can try to walk through the “places of military glory” if you are a veteran of the project and, like me, left it for a long time. Elektrozavodsk, Chernogorsk, Old Cathedral, if these names resonate with you with warmth around the fifth point, then this is an excellent challenge!

About 20 hours into my “return” call to Chernogorsk for the sake of a beautiful screenshot, I still didn’t get there… In the end, you can wait here until the release of something like that, be it Stalker 2 (which still doesn’t inspire much confidence) Metro (which, according to rumors, has been forged for a long time, and for owners of VR helmets the seed will arrive this year) will eventually be released sometime this year PIONER .

Yes, the game still has bugs, a couple of times I crashed out of the textures of the house, and the infected, on the contrary, seeped into the house through the walls and doors, but they are not critical, updates are made quite often and now these are not the addition of a couple of items, but quite tangible changes in the system of animations, sounds, etc. d. Core gameplay outside the city is still a walk through the forest (which can be optimized with a toothpick stuck into the keyboard), but thanks to the introduced animals, such walks can also provide the opportunity to experience ADVENTURES similar to the very first entry into the game. Unfortunately, the price tag for Dayz has jumped to some disgusting heights since its release (~3k), but sometimes at a discount you can grab it for a much more affordable price. So if you are close to the romance of post-Soviet abandonment and hopelessness, then take a closer look. And if you lure your friends, then you can safely try “shootout” gameplay involving technology and all the ways to control other people’s characters (be it handcuffs, a bag over the head, blood transfusion and much, much more)

DC Dual Force is often called an attempt Warner Bros. Entertainment make your own Marvel Snap . In fact, about DC Dual Force became known even before the announcement Marvel Snap, It’s just that the development has been delayed – the project was planned to be released last year. It still hasn’t been released, but I got access to closed beta testing and became convinced that the new product has practically nothing in common with Snap.

Slow superheroes

If Marvel Snap famous for its five-minute matches, then DC Dual Force gameplay is much closer to Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering . Suffice it to say that the decks here consist of as many as 40 cards – their compilation takes much more time. Accordingly, matches are longer – about 15 minutes.

The playing field is divided into 12 cells – six each for the player and his opponent. Two cells on each side are occupied by leaders, famous superheroes, who mostly observe what is happening from the side and do not attack. Roughly speaking, the leader is a nexus from Legends of Runeterra: he has more health than normal creatures, but once both leaders are destroyed, the game will end. The difference is that leaders accumulate a kind of “ultimate”, unique for each character, and can use it every few turns. Someone gains attack power and is able to eliminate the target, someone generates cards, and so on.

The remaining four spaces on the field are occupied by creatures, and the system works much the same as in the recent Wildfrost: cards in front protect those behind leaders. To eliminate the enemy leader with normal attacks, you must first defeat the interfering recruits. Therefore, it is necessary to place creatures on the field with the expectation that they will be able to take the majority of the blows – if there are few healing cards or minions, each blow inflicted on the leader can significantly weaken the player.

Habitual mana or energy in DC Dual Force No. Instead, they added a resource system that greatly limits what you can do. On the first turn you have a unit of bronze resource – you can play one card with a bronze icon. The second resource already has two units. And on the third, one of the two bronze units turns into silver, that is, you get the opportunity to play one “bronze” card and one “silver”. A silver resource can be spent on playing a “bronze” card, but then it will still be lost. That is, it’s not Marvel Snap, where on the sixth move you can put five or six cheap cards on the table – here a resource unit is always equal to one card.

For this reason, when building a deck, it is very important to keep track of how many cards of each value you put in. Add too many cards with a gold icon and there will be nothing to play at the beginning of the game. Overdo it with “bronze” – you will greatly increase the chances of drawing weak cards in the last turns. The ability to shuffle the deck before the start of the battle and replace the starting cards greatly helps not to lose on the very first turns, making it possible to temporarily get rid of expensive creatures.

Tactical Thinking

When the deck is successfully constructed and an opponent is found, the fun begins – for me, every match in DC Dual Force comparable to a fascinating mathematical puzzle in which you try to use limited resources as efficiently as possible. All creatures have different abilities, and there are enough keywords that you often have to right-click on cards and read the explanations. Deploy is the local equivalent of the "Battle Cry" from Hearthstone. Shield – “Divine Shield” from the same place. Guard – "Taunt": these cards protect all leaders and creatures on your field and should be eliminated first.

There are cards that https://monsterwincasino.co.uk/withdrawal/ do something at the beginning or end of a turn – for example, generate silver resources or increase the health of leaders. There are cards that belong to the same category, and when played, synergy arises between them – like the inmates of Arkham, of which there are more than two dozen. Penguin, for example, gives +1/+1 to every cellmate on the field, hand, and deck when one of them eliminates an enemy Recruit or Leader. But it only has three “lives”, so simply placing it on a cell is pointless – you should do this only if you can get a bonus on the same move. Or put it in the back row and protect it with another creature, hoping for a miracle.

There are plenty of opportunities to strengthen your recruits, make enemy creatures weaker, influence the “ult” charge of your own and other leaders, and so on. Some characters have camouflage and cannot be attacked until the next turn, some are hunters and ignore this rule. Several cards have the Lethal keyword – they defeat any recruit with one blow, but they usually have only one “life”. Attack and health work exactly as in Hearthstone – what is the attack of your target, how much health will you lose when trying to attack it.

In addition to recruit cards, there are action cards, and their price is the same – one bronze, silver or gold resource unit.

It’s especially fun to look for the most successful synergies between leaders and the cards that are associated with them. Although there are many leaders here, there are only five classes as such, so Shazam and Zatanna may have the same cards, as well as Batman and Green Arrow. Before you build your deck, you need to choose two leaders and then draw 20 cards for each. Decks with characters of the same person will not be the most successful.

You need to look at the “ults” of the leaders. Not only can Harley Quinn attack every two turns, but she also draws a card if her hand is empty, so her deck needs to be constructed accordingly. “Shazam” creates five free “Lightning Bolt” cards every three turns that deal damage to the enemy – among the creatures associated with it, one receives an increase in stats for each card played, and another gives all recruits +1/+1 for using spells, so these “Lightning Bolts” are useful not only for eliminating enemy creatures. And “Batgirl” allows one of the recruits to activate the Deploy ability again, which also opens up many possibilities.

Knowing that Batgirl’s ultimate gives her three attack units, you can easily understand what mistake I made in this video.

Since this is a closed beta test, the balance is still poor. Some leaders require too much effort from the player. “Black Adam’s “ulta,” for example, gives him +10 to attack, but you need to charge it for as many as 10 moves, and the process speeds up only if you place creatures with an attack rating of 5 or more on the field. At the same time, playing for “Batman” seems like cheating – every two turns he generates free gadgets, among which there is not a single useless one. With them you can deal damage and return recruits to your hand to heal them and allow them to activate abilities again. The starting deck with Batman and Wonder Woman, initially available in beta, wins almost every match – when I wanted to quickly earn coins for fresh sets of cards, I just took this deck and played almost with my eyes closed.

Something to read

Everything described above is relevant for normal battles against AI and other users. But one of the key features DC Dual Force is located in another section of the menu called "Comics". This is a kind of PvE mode in which real comics are played out. The beta version includes only the graphic novel Justice League Vol. 1: Origin – about the origin of the Justice League and how Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg and Green Lantern save the world once again. Of course, they didn’t transfer all 192 pages – only passages with battles were selected.

First you read a couple of pages of a comic with simple animations (fire, flying hair, etc.), and then you participate in battles with AI, mainly facing alien parademons. The rules of the game remain familiar, but the opponent usually only has one leader with a huge supply of health, and all decks are drawn up in advance. You draw cards, play them on the usual field and try to stay alive, which is not at all difficult.

There is no nonlinearity, but it is possible to make decisions on which bonuses in battles depend. When Batman first meets Superman and begins to fight, the player is asked to choose which weapon he will take with him. If you click on the stun gun, then each time you play a card your opponent will receive an additional two units of damage. If you choose Nerve Gas, Batman will automatically eliminate the first minion of each rank played by Superman. And at the end of the comic, you are asked to choose which superhero you will fight the final boss. I’m not sure that this will affect the replayability of the novels, but the idea is interesting – you can adjust the gameplay to your playing style.

The descriptions of some cards include short summaries about the characters with their name and the date of their first appearance in the comics.

In addition, in the first comic there is an episode with a puzzle, where within six moves you need to change the red icons in the cells to blue. A special deck was created for this – cards unique to this riddle. This idea may sound stupid, but I was not without pleasure solving this puzzle – in other short stories I would also like to see similar episodes that distract from the classic battles. Completing one novel takes about half an hour.

In the full version, comics will be added to the game every week. According to the beta, DC Dual Force will offer a local equivalent of the battle pass for $10, but some comics will be available even to those who will not buy it. Holders of the “pass” are promised a mountain of gifts: unlimited access to all novels (past and future), and 10 sets of cards every month, and some promotional cards that cannot be obtained otherwise, and daily rewards. There are also a lot of goods outside the pass: sets of cards with leaders attached to them, and shirts. Prices are unknown, so it’s difficult to draw conclusions. But in beta, you had to win ten matches to save up gold for a new set of five cards – not an easy task for those with little time to play.

Overall gameplay DC Dual Force left a pleasant impression. Much is taken from other card games, including some card abilities, but in this regard it is difficult to come up with something new. The main thing is how it all fits together and what ideas the developers were able to implement. The idea with two leaders who need to be protected on a tiny field is great. Finding synergies between cards, tactically using the abilities of superheroes, solving mathematical equations to most effectively eliminate enemy recruits – the game is captivating with all of this.

It’s a pity, the battles don’t look too exciting, especially after Marvel Snap with its unique animations for many maps and locations. Everything here is mundane – cards attack each other, leaders talk, but are voiced lousy. The animations seem somewhat sluggish, and if you put actions in a queue at the end of your turn, the chain may be interrupted when the time of your turn expires, which after Hearthstone seems very unusual. The field is strange – as if it were some kind of Batman gadget. Watching the game from the outside, in my opinion, is not very exciting, especially if you don’t understand which cards do what. This is true for many card games, but from a game based on the DC universe you expect a more casual focus.

On the other hand, for fans of card games with long games and the need to think a lot DC Dual Force you might like. Apparently, this is why the creators are focusing primarily on the PC audience – a release on mobile platforms will take place someday later. Deck building is like a puzzle, and matches are even more like exciting puzzles in which you constantly make decisions. There is also an unusual PvE mode, which will be constantly updated. I’m not sure that the game will be a resounding success and millions of downloads, but it deserves attention – this is not just an attempt to put together something for the sake of competition with another comic book publisher.

Frau Kost was overjoyed today. Today was a special day. She even marked it in red on her calendar. How she marked it in red? – you ask. Yesterday Frau Kost caught a communist and made compote out of him with her bare hands. I dipped a calendar sheet into it and was pleased with myself. I drank the rest. Don’t let the good go to waste. July 26, 1944 – the happiest day in the life of Frau Kost. The day Galperia will be destroyed!

But her plans were not destined to come true. To stop her, the Soviet services sent their best special agent, Daur, under the code name "Naked Arthur". The location of the operation is an underwater top-secret base under an island in the northern Caribbean Sea. Daur climbed out of the hollow rocket in which he was secretly transported here by underground fighters. All he had was a pistol with a silencer and a knife. For someone, this was not enough to save the world. That was enough for Daur.

— “Naked Arthur”, as a setting? Communist Baranov contacted Daur.
“The Germans, comrade, they are everywhere, there are whole hordes of them here,” Daur reported.
– You can do it, I believe in you. All you need is to steal a unique key card to launch nuclear missiles on Galperia. Without it they won’t be able to use these weapons. Remember what the Bolshevik Meshcheryakov and I taught you. You will succeed, son. Evacuation from the base will be waiting for you on the surface of the island. For the Motherland. For Naritsa.
“For Naritsa,” Daur repeated in a whisper so as not to get burned.
— End of connection.

Daur liked to kill little people. He really loved to kill. Sometimes he even killed his own. That’s why he was sent behind enemy lines. There were no “ours” there. But there were a lot of little things.

– I-I, zergut. Wunderschmufel wufel.
— Potato?
– Wufel, shmufel, prufel – they speak German.

“Nazis,” Daur said contemptuously.
https://spinsy.co.uk/withdrawal/ />

Daur, like a fox, passed by the guards like a shadow. Quiet, graceful, graceful, sexy, lightning fast. In the corridor, directly opposite the desired entrance to the ventilation, a German man stood with his back turned. And there is no way to get around it, such an infection.

– What should I do?? – asked Daur. The answer was not long in coming. “Use the Pnevmopikh fighting technique,” ??said the voice of the Bolshevik Gleb Meshcheryakov in Daur’s head.

Daur stuck the tip of a knife in the butt of the German, it was finished with him. Didn’t even have time to utter a word. Daur entered the ventilation.

There were only a few seconds left before the missiles were launched on Galperia. Nemchuga handed over the key card to Frau Kost.

— Hail Kungurov!
— Hail Kungurov! – they greeted each other.

Frau Kost walked up to the rocket launch terminal and extended her hand to insert the key card into the hole. At that same second, suddenly, Daur jumped out of the ceiling ventilation of the room. He did exactly (!) twenty-five somersault jumps forward, ended up at the very nose of Frau Kost, took away the key card. Then Daur did exactly (!) twenty-five backflip jumps and ran away. It happened so quickly that no one had time to do anything.

– Nain, nain, nain, nain, nain! – Frau Kost screamed in hysterics. – Take him, stop him, don’t let him ruin the happiest day of my life!

Daur escaped from the pursuer, got into the submersible and went to the surface to the evacuation point. The most devoted partner in his life was waiting for him there. No, not the communist Baranov and not even the Bolshevik Meshcheryakov. His faithful dragon Catherine was waiting for him on the island of Daura.

“Jump on me, Daurchik, and we’ll fly away from here faster than the downloads in “Days Gone,” said the dragon Ekaterina.

– And what would I do without you, Katenka, my little catamaran, nimble?

A little strange! Although this reminds me of something… Oh yes, the games in the series souls! It is there that we constantly die and return to the starting point where we last "preserved". What, what are you saying? No save points? Every time after death, start from the starting location? Well, no, I value my time, I haven’t even completed one souls game (may fans of the series forgive me!), I didn’t have enough nerves. Well okay, the price tag is a bit over 300 rubles., let’s try.

It’s not for nothing that I mentioned above that more than one game "Souls" didn’t pass. I tried very hard, but I’m too sorry for the time. The only game I came more or less close to finishing was Blood Borne (only because of the setting). Therefore, I have great skepticism towards games of this genre. However, I have a soft spot for games "bagels", platformers. It was the combination of these genres that made me think about purchasing Dead Cells (sounds very similar to Dark Souls, don’t you think so??).

(The format of the inscription does not resemble anything?)

“I don’t think you expected to end up here. »

The developer of this game is a French studio Motion Twin, which up "Dead cells" produced mainly mobile phones. Yes, and the culprit of my story today was launched only into early access, after successfully passing through Steam Greenlight. I hasten to inform you right away that "EA" does not interfere with this product. The developers assure that there are some buggies in the game, but I haven’t seen any. The only thing that is really missing are the achievements that they promise to bring in soon updates.

The first thing you https://xfombet.co.uk/withdrawal/ notice in the game is the animation, which by the standards of a 2D indie game is made at a very high level. Starting from the movements of the main character, ending with the animation of battles. It’s hard to imagine how painstakingly the designers/artists approached the task assigned to them. However, over time you begin to notice that this is not their only merit. Locations made in different surroundings, monsters that although do not reach "Darksolshchinism", executed in an interesting and non-trivial way. Moreover, the game is in no hurry to surprise with the abundance of beauty from artists. Locations and monsters are presented very gradually.

(Who is this and why is he so huge?)

“Seriously, stop dying already!»

After your eyes get used to the animation, the delight from the landscapes subsides, your attention will be drawn to the gameplay, which is – RougeVania-Souls-like combat. Or in other words – very intense 2D action full of adrenaline, death threats with DS-like mechanics in a castle full of monsters.
At first, you will spawn in a permanent location in the form of something like a green slurry that moves into a nearby corpse. After an introductory conversation with the guard, you are initially given a choice of a shield or a bow (the sword is already in your possession). You go through the door and then you find yourself in a procedurally generated dungeon, with a bunch of different paths, exits and entrances. And this location generation solves the problem that made me quit playing souls games. The most infuriating thing about the DS was that you spend 30 minutes of real time to get to the next boss and catch the lula from him. It’s unlikely to defeat him on the 2nd or even 3rd try. Thus, you go through the same place over and over again. The same monsters on the way, the same nooks and crannies and…I told you what madness is? Dead Cells solves this problem, in my opinion the most important one.

(What awaits us behind this door?)

“You still don’t understand anything. »

We’ll be delighted with more than just procedurally generated locations. Throughout the game you will receive new weapons, which, by the way, are presented rather slowly. Each of the presented assortment of weapons is unique and has its own pros and cons. Bows, swords, daggers, ice magic, fire magic, bombs and traps with their own debuffs and much more. Over time, having opened a significant amount of the arsenal, you will definitely choose what you like.
One of the goals, in addition to passing, is to collect spheres (analogues of souls in DS), which can be spent on improving individual elements and parameters. True, unlike DS, after death you will no longer be given a chance to collect lost, precious spheres from your cold corpse. But fortunately, collecting spheres is a pleasure.

(Each bottle is a weapon)

“Others didn’t understand either. »

As a result, many questions remain about Dead Cells, due to the fact that the game is in early access. Will they solve problems with balance, bugs and in what direction is Motion Twin going to move its "bagel"? However, now, for your money, this is one of the best games on Steam. At the moment the game has beautiful animation/landscapes and art direction in general, Hardcore, fun gameplay and huge potential. Among the shortcomings, I would probably highlight the complete absence of any preservation, t.To. sometimes starting at the same location, even if it’s randomly generated, the lack of localization gets boring, but it’s not really needed here (however, it should be delivered). I suggest you check it out for yourself. The game is inexpensive. If you don’t believe my opinion, then believe those who managed to leave reviews about this game. If you have played and already have your own opinion about this product, then I will be very glad to read it in the comments.

German studio Silent Dreams best known for her parody series Grotesque Tactics, in which the authors ridiculed everything – youth culture, fantasy clichés, the standards of the RPG genre in general and turn-based combat in the style of Japanese role-playing games in particular. Two years ago they released the same funny sequel with a self-explanatory title Holy Avatar vs. Maidens of the Dead. In the new creation Silent Dreams There are also turn-based battles, somewhat reminiscent of what we see in JRPGs, and the word Dead in the title. But here the Germans finally swirled the fountain of their simple humor. And what kind of jokes can there be when there are zombies all around, and you absolutely need to survive and save the world??

All types of opponents have their own characteristics, and many can also use unique combat skills.

This is the job – to survive!

Dead Age has all the hallmarks of a typical survival game. But what is important here is not the presence or absence of originality, but how the gameplay elements are worked out. So, they have been worked out at a decent level.

We take on the role of a young man who, finding himself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, first searches for his missing sister, then finds her already infected, tearfully blows her head off and ends up in a camp of survivors. Naturally, almost immediately he becomes the new leader, on whom the lives of others now depend.

And it’s not easy to survive. The passage is divided into days, and progress is saved only after the end of the next day – if you died before that, start a new game. To prevent this from happening, you need to properly develop your characters, collect resources important for survival (food, materials, tools) and correctly distribute responsibilities among your charges.

Each of the survivors, whose number is gradually growing, has both combat and crafting abilities. Therefore, it is possible to create narrow specialists. Some will basically walk with you and fight, using their advanced skills in handling one or another type of weapon, while others are better “sharpened” for work in the camp. There you can hunt, collect plants, “craft” weapons, armor or first aid kits, and also protect others.

Each duty has its own https://nalcascasino.co.uk/withdrawal/ skill – Survival, Crafts, Medical, Cunning. They will also help during random events outside the camp. Will you be able to open an abandoned car without getting hurt or setting off the alarm (and the undead will come running at the noise), will you be able to crawl into a cave or distract the attention of enemies so that the group can quickly run further – the chance of success in each case depends on the level of “pumping” of the corresponding skill. True, for some reason Cunning is responsible for both the effectiveness of camp security and lockpicking, but let’s chalk this up to mysterious German logic..

Step-by-step tests

You’ll have to spend a lot of time fiddling with characters, equipping them, leveling them up, and redistributing them to this or that job. Someone, for example, after another foray into the forest or on the highway in search of resources, is already breathing his last – next time it is better to leave him to work in the camp, where his health is gradually restored. True, if there are few guards, and the threat of invasion by zombies or bandits is great, then they can kill you there (as well as seize valuable resources). But all this is a pleasant fuss, on which the survival of the group directly depends.

The situation with battles is more complicated. As I already said, they are implemented in a turn-based JRPG style, but they look much more primitive: you and your opponents stand opposite each other and on your turn hit with one or another weapon, use items from your inventory, as well as attacking or defensive skills to, for example, knock down an enemy or heal an ally.

Actually, that’s all: no combinations, no calling on assistants, not even the opportunity to go into defense. The only tactics are to use firearms carefully (ammo is in great short supply), to fight hand-to-hand more often (therefore, melee combat needs to be “pumped up” by everyone!) and “take out” the most dangerous opponents first.

Moreover, at each available location you need to go through a couple of dozen of these identical, routine battles in order to get to the mission goal or to an important “boss”. And the levels themselves are not particularly diverse – for a long time you will only have access to the forest and the highway in the night or day mode, which differ only in the strength of the enemies and the resources found there. Random events on them, despite all the “randomness” required in such cases, are also constantly repeated.

On the other hand, this routine work is also very important and useful – you earn experience, collect resources and complete numerous tests to kill different types of enemies, for which you are given special medals. For these medals you can then unlock new character classes (soldier, medic, engineer) and receive bonuses that will be available upon a new playthrough.

Love in the Time of Plague

The authors did not ignore such an important component of all survival games as nonlinearity and moral choice. Of course, in Dead Age there is not the same intensity, drama and really complex, twisted dilemmas as, for example, in The Walking Dead from Telltale Games. But still sometimes you think and check with your conscience. Is it worth sharing food with a hungry boy when you are already running low on food?? Should you come to the aid of two poor souls surrounded by zombies when all your characters are already unwell?? Should you agree to attack a group of other survivors in order to receive excellent weapons as a gift from the bandits??

Moreover, in Dead Age, in addition to random events and routine missions to kill certain enemies and collect resources, there is also a rather interesting plot – we must fix the radio tower, get to the city by the date of general evacuation and ultimately save the world. And there, too, from time to time you have to rack your brain: whether to accept new people into the camp, which will increase the consumption of resources; who to blame for the assassination attempt on one of the important characters; which girl to have an affair with.

In general, relationships with partners need to be built carefully and correctly – they may be offended. One of the newly arrived girls, for example, first asks to help her find the weapon of her dead boyfriend, and then flatly refuses to give it to anyone else, although she is a poor shooter. Not everyone in the group likes this, and then you have to decide what to do. Depending on your actions, you can get six different endings.

Dead Age — another “survival” game about zombies, but with its own characteristics. And thank God for the signature humor Silent Dreams not included in their number. The Germans, of course, are still joking out of inertia – they allow our hero to flirt with various ladies in the survivors’ camp and call their combat system Final Fantasy-style turn-based combat, although it is also far from FF, how far humor is Grotesque Tactics from a comedy frenzy South Park: The Stick of Truth.

But these are, so to speak, residual phenomena. Moreover, in some places, on the contrary, it becomes a bit boring – the battles and locations are too monotonous. However, this is already a cost of the genre. In general Dead Age is a serious, thorough and complex game that I am sure will appeal to all fans of harsh survival challenges.

Pros: interesting plot; well-developed survival mechanics; availability of professions; good role-playing system; there is nonlinearity and moral choice.
Cons: monotonous and not very interesting fights, few interesting locations.

Thanks to the efforts of Hollywood film studios, superheroes in funny tights have been experiencing a new peak of popularity for ten years now. Naturally, it would be unwise to miss the opportunity to make money from gamers. And the best tool for this is MMORPG. Dedicated not to a specific superhero, but to an entire universe – one of the two most famous in the world of comics.
Having grabbed a fat license, Sony Online is in no hurry to please fans, constantly postponing the release. Hopefully this is due to a desire to release a polished product that doesn’t suffer the same fate as Star Wars Galaxies or Vanguard. But competitors are not sleeping – DC Universe Online is by no means
the first MMO about superheroes. How will we beat City of Heroes and
Champions Online?

First of all, the setting. What is natural is that Batman is now more popular than ever. And with the support of Superman, Flash and other Aquamen, it will definitely attract fans of DC comics. The project should be given authenticity by artist Jim Lee, who has been illustrating stories about Batman, Superman and the Justice League for many years. And the people who created the first EverQuest, which is still alive today, are responsible for the game mechanics.

An inquisitive mind has probably already imagined a terrible picture of a world inhabited by a thousand Batmans, three hundred supermen and a million catwomen. But developers weren’t born yesterday either. We will not be offered any classes or ready-made superheroes. Instead, a clever constructor.

The player determines the gender and physique https://coincasino-pro.co.uk/withdrawal/ of the hero, and then the fun begins. We have an assortment of ready-made blanks with the abilities of specific characters from the DC universe. Let’s take, say, Superman – and we get super strength, speed, the ability to fly and rays from the eyes. You can choose a character’s characteristic gait and even a side in the conflict. Superman the villain – what’s it like?! And then we select additional “forces”. For example, you can give the hero power over fire or make him dependent on clever gadgets.

Lovers of unique costumes also have a place to roam. How do you like Batman in leopard skin?? Or in bandages mummy? Or maybe in lizard scales?

The number of combinations of abilities and costumes is huge. By using your imagination, it’s easy to create a unique character that, despite all its unusualness, will organically fit into the crazy universe of comics.

The game has a pleasant, bright picture, invites you to get into the shoes of your favorite heroes and see with your own eyes places famous from comics, meet representatives of warring factions. But this does not exempt DC Universe Online from a number of reasonable questions.

For example, what will players do in a world where “everything is super, which means no one is super”? Constant mass battles, no matter how impressive they look, will sooner or later get boring. Running around the world in search of the next opportunity to do good and justice will also turn into a routine. Due to the lack of a good quest system, interesting activities and sensible end-game content, more than one game has burned in recent years. Yes, we are promised tasks with interesting stories from leading DC authors. Let’s remember – Warhammer Online also had a strong plot component, but this did not save the game.

The role-playing system, in which the player does not receive experience for destroying enemies, and therefore does not upgrade his superpowers, is also somewhat dubious. The fact is that skill points are awarded exclusively for completing quests, and not for exterminating more opponents. In a world where everyone is busy punching each other in the face, this is at least strange.

With powerful trump cards up its sleeve, like two parts of EverQuest, Sony is quietly putting one experiment after another. So far, unfortunately, their projects cannot boast of resounding success and stir up a thoroughly stagnant genre.

Daylight seemed like a very controversial adventure from the very beginning. Ambitious plans to create a horror game in a randomly generated world were expressed out loud – but in advertising videos only identical corridors were visible. The developer had carte blanche in the form of cutting-edge Unreal Engine 4 technology and the ability to create for the new PlayStation – but none of the company’s previous games were good enough.

Surely we managed to achieve only one thing: Zombie Studios attracted the attention of almost the entire specialized press. The project was probably talked about even more than it deserved. Still, I wanted to believe that the authors would be able to breathe new life into the boring format of horror films.

And we will cure you

After watching the trailer, I want to write down two hits at once in the “source of inspiration” column: Slender And Outlast. It turned out that there is practically nothing here from the latter, with its complex direction and twisted plot. But from a series of stories about a skinny man, perhaps too much was borrowed.

A girl named Sarah wakes up in some abandoned hospital. She is greeted by an unfamiliar male voice who says all sorts of scary things: about ghosts, about the need to be saved and that “the memory of this place stores terrible things.”. The same man also explains the rules by which the game will be played in the near future.

The only property that the main character has is a mobile phone, which replaces her flashlight and navigation system. If it gets too dark, you can use glow sticks, scattered in limited quantities throughout the levels. Finally, if any paranormal gets very close, a signal fire can scare it away. By and large – everything.

Despite the presence of some cliches, the game gets off to a good start: mysterious tattoos appear on the girl’s arms, an eerie ghost appears at the end of long corridors, and heart-rending screams are heard from the neighboring rooms.

Actually, the gameplay is https://boomerangcasino.co.uk/withdrawal/ that you need to explore a closed location in search of newspaper clippings and personal files of patients. Once a certain number of sheets have been collected, a magic item will become available in one of the rooms. It must be brought to the closed doors to the next zone, where everything will happen again.

What should be interesting is that the locations Daylight are generated randomly on each playthrough. However, there is nothing good about this: the hospital turns into an incoherent jumble of corridors and identical rooms, and it is not immediately possible to distinguish one forest from another. There are so few environmental elements that they are repeated even within a single run (the maternity ward, for example, can be encountered three times). And it doesn’t even help that the rooms themselves are made more or less atmospheric.

The “search-puzzle” cycle will be repeated several times, periodically diluted with scripted puzzles or cut scenes. And after an hour of running around, the player is faced with a finale that is completely absurd in its “surprise”. In theory, it is he who should tease and encourage a replay, which will clarify new details of what happened. After all, the only thing that will change when you restart is the structure of the level and the text of the collected pieces of paper. But Daylight there is simply no need to go through it twice, so generating content is useless.

Nothing, you’re just tired, it happens to everyone

It’s probably worth changing your anger to mercy: after all, a million games blatantly copy other people’s ideas, diluting them with unnecessary innovations. The authors, it seems, do not aspire to more, knowing full well that they will not have a masterpiece. They are just honestly reproducing other people’s work.

First of all, the player is given the role of not just a faceless dummy, but a character with a certain character: Sarah constantly comments on what is happening, screams and complains that she doesn’t like the situation too much. It’s a pity that the girl often talks out of place. "I don’t see anything!" she says as she holds a lantern in each hand. "What was that?"- when there was absolutely nothing. And only the phrase “I can’t do this anymore” is almost always appropriate, because you begin to experience similar feelings within twenty minutes.

IN Daylight you can probably find all the cliches that the industry is sick of. Falling shelves, flickering lights and paintings tilting to one side are fine, but the “old Indian cemetery” is a complete circus. In addition, the only and main enemy does not evoke any emotions: this is a faceless half-dead woman. Her presence in the abandoned hospital is so logical and appropriate that, compared to the aforementioned Slenderman, it is not at all scary.

However, horror has two things in store that deserve attention. First of all, of course, technology: Daylight – this is the first game on Unreal Engine 4. We can celebrate the beginning of a new era!

But it’s better to celebrate without cake, and drink without clinking glasses. Everything that depended on the developer was done in the worst possible way. The textures are very low resolution, the animation of the main character’s hands does not reveal new technologies in any way, and if the art and design are surprising, it is by the degree of inexpressiveness.

However, even through the thick walls of poor implementation you can see echoes of the engine’s capabilities. When you open the doors, realistic dust scatters across the floor, the sheets on the beds sway in many planes, and the light from the lanterns falls on the surfaces in such a way that it’s simply a sight to behold. This is not a reason to buy the game, but graphics fans will certainly appreciate it.

Another interesting point is that the horror film is specifically designed for live broadcasts using Twitch and assumes the ability of the audience to influence the gameplay. This element was clearly tailored to the needs of PS4, but is also available on PC.

It works like this: if you start the broadcast using a special item in the menu, the game will be able to monitor comments in the viewer chat. And as soon as anyone present mentions a certain keyword, the virtual director will throw up an event corresponding to the key. “Hello” will make the heroine say hello, “scream” will cause a heart-rending scream. The authors do not provide a complete list of commands in the expectation that viewers will look for options on their own.

Based on trailers and screenshots Daylight leaves the impression of a passable horror film, the kind the market is filled with. And she actually holds some sort of standard: she’s decently voiced, doesn’t look too bad, and sometimes manages to please with a spectacular scene. In the end, it just works – there are a very moderate number of bugs in the game.

But in fact, the value of such a craft is no more than ten thousand clones Flappy Bird. It lacks integrity, there is no style and taste, but there is only an endless stream of borrowings, which, if it frightens the player, is only an inexperienced or sensitive one.

Pros: small number of bugs; funny story.
Cons: boring, secondary, inexpressive, meaningless.