IIWYM Reviews: Ironclad Tactics

IS IT WORTH YOUR MONEY?

Reviews: Ironclad Tactics
Available Platforms: Steam Games, Facebook? Other app stores?

Hello once again, fans and other, today we take a look back to 1860 and grow out our epic mustaches while strapping dynamite to robots and throwing them at people!

STEAMPUNK FANS REJOICE!

Thank gods, it's here!

A game that's taken seriously and steampunk and pretty good!
...Though it still has flaws.
Finally, almost a year since my Guns of Icarus review and I find a good steampunk game.
Well...
Maybe.
I shall continue!

Ironclad Tactics is a game set in an alternate history 1860's, following a version of the American civil war... Except where both sides had massive metal death machines.
...So yeah. Summarizing a bit here, but... AWESOME!

Let me start off with the big pluses. The ENTIRE GAME is drop in-drop out cooperative. It even has "Counteroperative" modes (To borrow a phrase from Perfect Dark) in every mission, where a friend or someone online can take over your opponents, even taking over the bosses with a special army setup.
I haven't played with a friend at press time, but just thinking about getting 3-4 buddies and talking alot of smack and bluffing about your game should exponentially increase the fun. If there's any significant problems with the multiplayer, I'll cover it in an update.
The actual "Tactics" of ironclad tactics are rather fun, with a good amount of customization out of a...
...
And we now get to both this game's big strength and it's biggest weakness.

Everything is a card.

Yes. Another card strategy game.
*Sigh*
Let me explain why you shouldn't walk away.

Card Strategy games basically work with units taking the form of cards in a deck, which you then play to attack other cards, as seems logical. The problem with these games is they add a LARGE amount of luck to each game, and can lead to heavy arbitrary difficulty spikes, where the important thing isn't having a deck that is varied with good cards, it's about exploiting the hell out of a single strategy and creating a deck just for ONE mission of the story campaign then never using it again.

OH! The story, I nearly forgot! It's told through pretty good comic book style cutscenes, which makes me wonder if this wasn't based off of a comic book franchise that I just haven't heard about as I don't know step one about comic books. It's decently funny, getting a few good laughs out of me while setting up the next mission.

But back to cards again, this DOES lead to some pretty big frustrations and can leech the money value right out of the game, requiring sometimes several restarts until you get a good hand, and even if your deck is balanced and well done, you still can get worked over by pure card luck.

But that doesn't mean that there's not alot of fun to be had, as it feels awesome to wipe the floor with an opponent... Though sometimes card abilities are weird, like Armor not reducing damage over 1... Which seems...Strange, and it could definitely use more. More... Everything, really. There's the jumping off point for something excellent here, and it comes much closer to being awesome than Guns of Icarus did with a similar theme.

All in all, I spent $15 on this game. Once I get around some of the difficulty spikes, I'll definitely feel like I got a good amount of money's worth. While the game's basis is solid, varied, and the art is excellent (Which I didn't mention, but it's highly stylized and very memorable and good looking), it just doesn't quite produce great money value at the $15 price tag. If this were a Xbox Arcade game in its present state, I'd be happy paying base price for it. Of course, it may be and I just don't know about it.

Anyways, Ironclad Tactics gets a Buy it Cheap verdict. I definitely say "Get it!", especially if you're a fan of steampunk OR the civil war, or even better, both!, but maybe wait for a sale or see if you can't find it somewhere in the neighborhood of $10.

This is Nev with IIWYM, twirling my mustache and riding my metal ironclad off into the sunset. See you next time.

IIWYM presents... A very special review

First, A foreword from Our Chowder.

Hey there, loyal followers. It's been quite a while, hasn't it? Eight months, to be specific. This review was meant to be my second review on this site, but I kept continuously putting it off because, frankly, I didn't want to play through it again to give it another review, despite my thoughts telling me I loved the game. So, this made me think. Why? Why didn't I want to play it? And well, I will elaborate in the following paragraphs.
So, thanks for sticking by me all this time while I put my thoughts together. And apologies for continuously promising I'll review something, then not delivering. I hope to correct that now.

This review is also dedicated to my friend Michael "The Machine", as he leaves for the Air Force a few days after this review goes to air. Good luck, buddy. Stay safe.

So. Without any further ado...

IIWYM presents...
The long awaited...

Review of Darksiders II

Available platforms: Steam Games, X360, PS3, WiiU, and probably every other console known to mankind.

Freaking. Hell.

I can only think of one other game that I wanted so badly to love, yet it failed to live up to my expectations. It's especially more painful because this game gets alot of things right, but then SO much wrong! I'll try to explain from memory, but forgive me. It's been a long time and I still have no desire to pick this game up again.

Darksiders II is an action-platformer-puzzle game that followed up on the (humorously) dark-horse underground hit Darksiders, which was set in a world after the apocalypse was brought on too soon by War, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and War set out to clear his name, as he was tricked into invading earth and bringing about the destruction of humanity. Darksiders mythos is basically christian mythology in nature, but with the second game it takes some more turns into weirder territory. Darksiders II takes place in the same time frame as the first game, but from the different perspective of Death, War's brother and the other of the four horsemen, last living Nephalim known.

So, now that we've got the setting up of the game out of the way, let's get on to my favorite part of this game. The soundtrack.
My god.
I want to give the composer for this game a medal.
The battle theme in the opening world is AMAZING, powerful, intense sort of Celt Rock being the best term to describe it. It's glorious, and so is much of the rest of the soundtrack to the game.
The combat is faster and more fluid than the last game, with Death getting a dodge as opposed to War's block, and Death's scythes have alot more visual flair than War's sword swings, though War was an admittedly cool character, with a very Warcraft-style design. In fact, that's a good sum-up for alot of the game's visual style. Warcraft.

But all of this... Comes at a price.

THE GAME IS BORING!

I really hate to admit it, but it's frankly true. The first game was one of my favorite games of all time, blending several different games experiences into something all its own, taking bits from God of War, Zelda, and Portal. The dungeons were creative, and had that Zelda-style feel that other games have tried to replicate unsuccessfully, and it bulged with fun ideas. Sure, it didn't break any new ground. But it was FUN, and I like fun things. And why not have more of our favorite experiences in a new shell? Darksiders I was an awesome game, and if I gave it a review today, it would still get a Buy it Discount.

However, Darksiders II loses ALMOST ALL of that. In Darksiders, you gained a new tool for traversal or other useful item in EACH. DUNGEON. In II, you do NOT get this. It's a constant quest of "Collect the three things so you can advance and collect the next three things". It's a cosmic road trip that really... Goes nowhere. And that's not even getting to the BETRAYAL that the game does in the ending, but I'll get to that later. I mean, oftentimes you would collect one of the series of three things and in one case those three things were just ONE of ANOTHER set of three things you have to collect. It has very MMO-style feels... Hey... I'm seeing a pattern here...

The designers seem to have taken so much inspiration from Warcraft, World of Warcraft in particular, that they BECAME like world of warcraft, and all the problems that has. Now, WoW can get away with really simplistic design and occasional middle-school intelligence because it is, by its nature, multiplayer. Deep, involving stories tend to not translate well into mulitplayer, especially if you're skyping with two or three other people and are laughing your keister off at a buddy's attempt to glitch his sword through the NPC's head, or jumping around like a rabbit. Storytelling is best told in simple quips, guides to give you a bit of context to what you're doing, which is often a simple "Go collect X amount of this". I mean, the game seems to be taken mostly out of Game Design 101.

It SUFFERS because of this. The game seems to have been approached with multiplayer in mind, as the game is less about fighting some "Villain" and more a cosmic road trip where Death has his one goal, the resurrection of humanity, in mind, and he constantly gets stopped along the way, which would be fine, if you had some friends to spice up the experience. But to me it seems multiplayer got scrapped late in development, so they were left with these really large open areas... But not that much to fill them with. It also necessitated the removal of the clever zelda-style puzzles that made Darksiders I so fascinating and so much fun.

This gets more apparent the farther you get into the game, as the story starts to get more ridiculous and nonsensical. Okay, so, in the game's story, you have angels and demons fighting a war. Angels aren't necessarily good, they're more about order and law and hierarchy and bureaucracy and such, while demons are about chaos and destruction and corruption and that sort of thing... But then you have Corruption, which is a new thing introduced that has nothing to do with any of these but is about... Destruction... And corruption, of course... And...Chaos...
ISN'T THAT WHAT THE DEMONS DO? How is this faction any different from the ones we already know? And furthermore, the gameplay itself begins to devolve. The dungeons get less focused as you go on, and the worlds stop being developed. By the time you get to a demon area, late in the game, it's like the designers stopped caring. There's ONE character for you to talk to, and ONE dungeon. However, in the first world you go to, there are Four, with two extras. Why? The game definitely suffers again from the lack of variety later in the game. Early on, things are good, and hitting their stride. Why not make the worlds more balanced so you're seeing different places more? It just doesn't make much sense to me.

And now to get to the BETRAYAL of the ending that I talked about before. Now, this does get into spoiler territory, so if you desire to purchase this game even after all this I'll keep this in spoiler text. Hi-light it to read it.

Now, over the course of the game, you are constantly told that Death is one of the last of the nephalim, spawn of angels and demons who threatened the balance of the cosmos long before humanity ever came into the picture. Now, the four horsemen (Death, War, Famine, and Strife, as they're called in the game) turned on their brothers and swore to uphold the balance. Death, however, has misgivings, and refused to destroy their souls so they could never be revived, and kept them in his soul-reaper amulet. Early on, this amulet is implanted into his chest, and is visible on Death no matter WHAT armor or equipment you acquire. It's Always visible, constantly bringing to mind the fact that Death has a choice. The ONE demon you speak to in the demon world tells you this. Bring back the nephalim, or bring back humanity. He could only choose one. This choice is constantly on your mind as you go through, and Death seems to take it pretty seriously, and all through the game I was weighing what I would choose and evaluating which I would take first, as that is the one that counts. This choice is built up through the ENTIRE game, and is the main reason for your quest: Make it to the Well of Souls and revive humanity to clear War's name. 
Now, imagine my surprise. I beat the final boss and make it to the end, ready to cast my vote for the future, and get a chance to see what world my choice created...
BUT NO
You do NOT get a choice!
It automatically chooses the "Good side" ending (Reviving humantiy) for you, and you have NO options! It just happens, with no player input at all.

No!

THIS IS WRONG!
Don't jerk me around like this, game! You built up the choice *I* as the player would have to make the ENTIRE game, well over 20 hours, and then you don't give me the one choice I get? The major one that determines the fate of the universe?
WHY?
How much of a problem would it be to give me a text prompt and a BOX OF WORDS if I choose the other one? I'd be fine with that, at least allow me to make a decision if you built it up. I'm not picky, I'd be okay with it... A bit disappointed, but okay if I got SOMETHING that acknowledged this build up the entire time. But the way it was handled goes against every rule of design I know of... And it drove me MAD. I seriously screamed "WHAT?!?!?" at the top of my lungs when the last cutscene played and the credits rolled. I seriously think I damaged one of my vocal cords.

And truly, I was raging about that for HOURS.

*Sigh*
Just thinking about it makes me upset.

Anyways, that's pretty much it about this game... I don't want to go back to it. In fact, if I had the chance, I'd erase it from my memory so I could still hope for a game that's a bigger, awesomer Darksiders I instead of Darksiders and Diablo/World of Warcraft combined.

Darksiders II recieves a score of BUY IT BARGAIN. If it wasn't for the awesome soundtrack and some fun parts of gameplay, it would recieve our first ever DON'T BUY IT. It was really that close.

This is Nev with IIWYM, signing off. Whew. Finally glad I got that review done.

IIWYM Reviews... Rogue Legacy

IIWYM presents...
A review of...

Rogue Legacy

Available platforms: Steam Games, X360 Arcade.

Salutations, fans and other! This is Nev, with IIWYM, reviewing Rogue Legacy, and heading into the dark and foreboding castle for the last time, on an adventure that Charles Darwin would readily approve of.

Rogue Legacy is an... Interesting game. On its surface, it's a 2d action-adventure. The closest game that I can come up with is Super Castlevania in terms of stylistic format and gameplay. And I mean seriously. All the castlevania weapons are here, from the boomerang weapon to an arcing axe and so on, which are much more useful than your sword *Ahermcough*Whip! *Ahremcough* in general. It's clear what the inspiration is for this game, but it does alot of things differently. Alot of, I think, good games.

The game, as well, is HARD. There are casual games, and there are hardcore games, and this is SQUARELY in the latter's territory. Especially early on, enemies WRECK you. It has alot of the feel of "Bullet Hell" games, such as the rather infamous Touhou, especially the bosses, who absolutely fill the screen with bullets. And if you die, you lose all the money you have collected, and you HAVE to collect money to advance the game...

Now, you'd be right to think this is frustrating. And, it is.
But.
And a rather big, juicy but it is.

Every time you die, you pass on all of your stuff to your next heir... Immediately. Seriously, when you expire, you're about two screens away from starting the game again, with a newly minted son or daughter with a wide selection of wacky traits, ranging from Irritable Bowel Syndrome to ADHD and Alektrokophobia (The fear of chickens). This makes the game SO MUCH more enjoyable, and much like the last game I reviewed, I did get frustrated. However, frustrated is not bored. I have logged roughly thirty hours in the game and still have three bosses to defeat before finally beating the game, and unlike other roguelikes where you start every game from the basic zero starting point and are SO prone to getting absolutely #%@!&$ by the roll of the dice, this game is much more friendly, and much more appealing to ME, as you just have to be a little bit better than before every time, as you upgrade your facilities to improve you each time, making it a bit further and surviving a bit longer, making a bit more money. Again, though, the game is hard, as if you don't do better, you've wasted your run, as your upgrades get more expensive and as earlier stated, you give up all your money with each new generation after spending it on upgrades.

In short, this is a game about the Evolution of Species. Like I said before... Charles Darwin Approved.

However, we now get to the point that I've been dreading while thinking of this review. The rating. Because, try as I might, I simply CANNOT give this game my highest rating, despite how much I REALLY love this game.

Because, simply put, it's not for everyone. For some people, the frustration IS a major problem, and you have to have quite a bit of patience to make it any distance. However, unlike Sword of the Stars: The Pit, another game of similar style that I'm reviewing next, this game is rather friendly for a game that's in the "Roguelike" park.

Rogue Legacy recieves a score of RENT IT, for those new to this type of game, or the casual player. However, I would recommend it to hardcore gamers because of the massive feeling of satisfaction you get from working your way from peasant to hulky slab of monster slaying beef.

This has been Nev of IIWYM. I've paid the toll, and I'm on my way back once more into Castle Hamson and Rogue Legacy. See you in the next generation.

UPDATE: Quite recently, I've finally finished the game, and can say it had a really excellent ending. I didn't touch much on the story in the main review, but it is well written and goes hand-in-hand with the gameplay...mostly. Going from a total zero starting point to knowing alot is great, and there's a good twist in the game as well that I didn't quite see coming. I won't say what it is, of course, just that I think the ending and last boss are excellently done. I can't wait to see if there's a Rogue Legacy 2 coming in the future!

UPDATE UPDATE: Upon further reflection, I'm beginning to think that I was wrong. Rogue Legacy is a far more accessible game than I gave it credit for. Sure, I still think it's hard. Sure, the difficulty is rough. But I think that it's worth it. It's easily the biggest surprise hit for me of the year, and I don't think anyone should miss out on this game. It's far too good, far too well crafted to miss out on. Hense, the game's score is hereby changed to Buy Any Price. So Sayeth the Nev.

IIWYM Rev.... THERE'S NO TIME TO EXPLAIN!

IIWYM Reviews....
THERE'S NO TIME TO EXPLAIN

Available platforms: Steam, (Xbox 360 arcade?), other places around the nets (Newgrounds?)


Hey everybody, this is Nev with IIWYM here to bring you a...
*SUDDEN BURST OF STATIC*
I'm Nev, From the future! There's no time to explain, you need to not go through with this rev...
*Wall breaking noises, various sounds of screaming*

Huh... He's gone. Well, that was weird!
Anyways, on to the IIWYM review of There's No Time to Explain!

TNTTE, as I shall NEVER be abbreviating it henceforth, is at its core, a platformer with (Several) interesting "Gimmicks" though that is definitely a very bad term for it. Mechanics is probably better. In either case, depending on your view, it's a VERY funny platformer that hits that same sort of vein that can usually only be scratched by a good puzzle. Portal and Zelda games have traditionally filled this itch, but There's No Time to Explain futher! ON TO THE NEXT POINT!

You traverse the environment in the beginning with a sort of beam gun that works remarkably like a jetpack. The game has a rather realistic physics system... Or, rather... A PHYSICS SYSTEM. It works quite well, and probably 90% of the puzzles are about managing your momentum and making sure you are pointed in the right direction at the right speed. Finally, physics majors. Here's a game you can REALLY get behind! The puzzles are creative, and well done in general, though some of them get frustrating, and frustrating quickly. However, frustrated isn't bored! So there is that. This game did NOT bore me.

However, there are some weaker points. Some of the other traversal tools you get are disappointingly short, such as the shotgun, which you get early on. I was just having alot of fun with it when I was done with the section and was given back another gun. There's other tools as well, like a slingshot tool, an antigrav gun, and others. When do you get these, you might ask? Well... you know.

THERE'S NO TIME TO EXPLAIN!

All in all, I had an excellent time without having time to explain it. Or, not that much time.
*Time travel noises*
There's no time to explain! You have to give your review score now! This has gone on WAY too long, and has FAR too many time-related puns!

Ehh? Oh, alright then.
There's No Time To Explain gets a Buy it discount, for some rather frustrating moments and other minor issues, but is definitely worth your money and time for a good weekend's gaming.

This is Nev with IIWYM, so long!