I recently received a steam key for Superhot as part of the Kickstarter for the board game. I have recently spent a little bit of time with it and have mostly found it to be fun although it is occasionally frustrating.
The main game is a first person shooter where 1 hit will kill you (and 1 hit will mostly kill the enemies as well). The main hook of the game is the art style, which is featureless polygons. The other hook is that time only moves when you move (which includes looking around). You go through a series of levels and a meta-story about playing a hacked game while you do this.
The game is fun in that each level is like a mini-puzzle with weapons and enemies lying around. The mechanic of time only moving when you do lets you assess situations and takes a normally frantic game type (first person shooter) and makes it nearly turn-based.
However, the frustrating part is that it is a puzzle and it does still rely on reflex. On some of the larger levels, it can get quite tedious to go through the same first slow-moving part of the level before you puzzle out a solution. This is particularly true if you are completing a difficult section of the level and than a stray bullet catches you, meaning your pinpoint timing has to be repeated.
Most the levels, however, are too short and fast paced for this to be a worry. Overall, I found Superhot to be a very enjoyable game which has a novel take on the first person shooter genre. It is definitely worth checking out.
4 out of 5 smoking-hot waffles
Wednesday, 26 July 2017
Wednesday, 19 July 2017
MOVIE REVIEW: SPIDERMAN HOMECOMING (2017)
Spiderman: Homecoming is a Spiderman film set in the Marvel Universe. In case you missed the promotional posters, Iron Man is present in the movie. Or if the posters are anything to go by, it may be Iron Man starring Spiderman.
Those fears are unfounded. Spiderman is very much his own movie. Tony Stark is there as a mentor to Peter Parker and someone he is trying to impress as he tries to go through life after Civil War. This story really focuses on Peter Parker and having to juggle responsibilities, including doing the right thing with his powers even if it hurts him.
Tom Holland plays a really good Spiderman. He is younger looking and more naive-sounding than Tobey MacGuire, and they own that by casting him as younger. The rest of the supporting cast is kind-of a miss. Liz (the love interest) is one dimensional, there new Flash (an Indian nerd who resents Peter's intellect) doesn't really have any pay-off, and Ned (the computer geek friend) is also grating. Michelle is the only hit out of them and probably the only one they should give a big part to in the next movie.
Where this movie really shines are the villains. It seems that they finally put a bit of time investment into establishing the villains and there motivations. It also helped that they brought the villains motivations back from taking over the world/killing the president/etc. which worked well in Civil War. Here, the Vulture specifically wants to stay below the radar of the big guys (because Vulture can fly; Iron Man can fly and has Tank Missiles) and so it leads him to mostly selling salvaged weapons and heisting them without people finding out.
All in all, this movie is a definite hit. The hero is good, the villains are good and the action is good. One complaint is allot of the big action beats are ruined by the trailers so it would've been good to have a bigger sense of wonder and the supporting cast doesn't really hit as well as it should (which, for a movie that spends allot of time with Peter Parker in school, should be a bit better). Despite that, it is a very hearty recommendation.
4 out of 5 web-swinging waffles
Those fears are unfounded. Spiderman is very much his own movie. Tony Stark is there as a mentor to Peter Parker and someone he is trying to impress as he tries to go through life after Civil War. This story really focuses on Peter Parker and having to juggle responsibilities, including doing the right thing with his powers even if it hurts him.
Tom Holland plays a really good Spiderman. He is younger looking and more naive-sounding than Tobey MacGuire, and they own that by casting him as younger. The rest of the supporting cast is kind-of a miss. Liz (the love interest) is one dimensional, there new Flash (an Indian nerd who resents Peter's intellect) doesn't really have any pay-off, and Ned (the computer geek friend) is also grating. Michelle is the only hit out of them and probably the only one they should give a big part to in the next movie.
Where this movie really shines are the villains. It seems that they finally put a bit of time investment into establishing the villains and there motivations. It also helped that they brought the villains motivations back from taking over the world/killing the president/etc. which worked well in Civil War. Here, the Vulture specifically wants to stay below the radar of the big guys (because Vulture can fly; Iron Man can fly and has Tank Missiles) and so it leads him to mostly selling salvaged weapons and heisting them without people finding out.
All in all, this movie is a definite hit. The hero is good, the villains are good and the action is good. One complaint is allot of the big action beats are ruined by the trailers so it would've been good to have a bigger sense of wonder and the supporting cast doesn't really hit as well as it should (which, for a movie that spends allot of time with Peter Parker in school, should be a bit better). Despite that, it is a very hearty recommendation.
4 out of 5 web-swinging waffles
Wednesday, 5 July 2017
BOARD GAME REVIEW: CHAMPIONS OF MIDGARD
Champions of Midgard is a game published by Grey Fox Games that has had no shortage of love. Featuring glowing reviews from the Dice Tower and featured on an episode of Tabletop, it grabbed my interest when it was described by Wil Wheaton as a mix of Lords of Waterdeep and Stone Age. These are both games I really like and, add to that the new expansions that are available for it, I decided to see how it would compare.
In Champions of Midgard, you are trying to earn the most glory over 8 rounds. Glory is earned by building up the village (resources), defeating monsters and fulfilling destiny (or goal) cards. This is done by a combination of worker placement and dice-based combat resolution against monsters threatening your village. The game feels quite tight, with only 8 rounds and normally only 3-4 workers per round meaning you have to focus on what you are doing.
Because Champions of Midgard feels so tight, allot can be dependent on the dice roles (especially when fighting the bigger monsters). The more you want to mitigate them, the more actions you need to spend to earn re-roll tokens. This is probably the biggest detractor from the game, as you can fluff key dice roles (even if you re-roll them) meaning you have lost out on allot of resources.
This is a shame because allot of the other mechanisms are quite nice. The way blame for not defending the village is assigned is what all semi-co op games should aspire too when trying to determine lose conditions (i.e. just punish the people not helping). The worker placement and collecting of dice resources feels nearly copied from Lords of Waterdeep, which isn't a bad thing (why shouldn't designs feel iterative) and collecting resources to send out for raiding feels quite thematic.
However, Stone Age has the advantage of not having each individual roll feel as critical and having the ability to stock up on tools and cards to mitigate this. Lords of Waterdeep is a very tactical game (except for those stupid Mandatory Quest Cards, which should just be reworked into negative points if uncompleted) where you aren't leaving huge scoring opportunities to chance. Compared to these, Champions of Midgard may be average to good, but won't often be a game I would choose to play above these or a bunch of other worker placement games such as Russian Railroads or Ancient World.
On a side note, it appears that the Valhalla expansion addresses most of my main issues with this game so perhaps that will elevate the game into the regular rotation for me.
2.5 out of 5 non-horned Waffles
In Champions of Midgard, you are trying to earn the most glory over 8 rounds. Glory is earned by building up the village (resources), defeating monsters and fulfilling destiny (or goal) cards. This is done by a combination of worker placement and dice-based combat resolution against monsters threatening your village. The game feels quite tight, with only 8 rounds and normally only 3-4 workers per round meaning you have to focus on what you are doing.
Because Champions of Midgard feels so tight, allot can be dependent on the dice roles (especially when fighting the bigger monsters). The more you want to mitigate them, the more actions you need to spend to earn re-roll tokens. This is probably the biggest detractor from the game, as you can fluff key dice roles (even if you re-roll them) meaning you have lost out on allot of resources.
This is a shame because allot of the other mechanisms are quite nice. The way blame for not defending the village is assigned is what all semi-co op games should aspire too when trying to determine lose conditions (i.e. just punish the people not helping). The worker placement and collecting of dice resources feels nearly copied from Lords of Waterdeep, which isn't a bad thing (why shouldn't designs feel iterative) and collecting resources to send out for raiding feels quite thematic.
However, Stone Age has the advantage of not having each individual roll feel as critical and having the ability to stock up on tools and cards to mitigate this. Lords of Waterdeep is a very tactical game (except for those stupid Mandatory Quest Cards, which should just be reworked into negative points if uncompleted) where you aren't leaving huge scoring opportunities to chance. Compared to these, Champions of Midgard may be average to good, but won't often be a game I would choose to play above these or a bunch of other worker placement games such as Russian Railroads or Ancient World.
On a side note, it appears that the Valhalla expansion addresses most of my main issues with this game so perhaps that will elevate the game into the regular rotation for me.
2.5 out of 5 non-horned Waffles
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