Tom Ravencroft
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KeenGamer Latest Reviews
Rome is well-trod ground for games, but most of them are more like the HBO series Rome, focused on violence and chaos. You’ve got your Total Wars and your games about gladiators and your games about the myths and violence of Rome…but maybe what really gets your pulse racing is…aqueducts…city planning…architecture, yeah? Something for the true sophisticates.
Some games try to be fun and entertaining interactive experiences and some try to tell engaging and gripping stories, and some are desperately trying to be movies. But sometimes they manage to catch a vibe. You kids with your broccoli hair and your iPads might not remember the desolate feeling of flipping around basic cable or satellite TV on a weekday, trying to find something to watch, but there was a time when you were stuck with whatever happened to be on, and, buddy, that was it. And wha...
Some games try to be fun and entertaining interactive experiences and some try to tell engaging and gripping stories, and some are desperately trying to be movies. But sometimes they manage to catch a vibe. You kids with your broccoli hair and your iPads might not remember the desolate feeling of flipping around basic cable or satellite TV on a weekday, trying to find something to watch, but there was a time when you were stuck with whatever happened to be on, and, buddy, that was it. And wha...
Sometimes, games sound deranged when you explain them, but when they come together so elegantly in gameplay, it’s almost impossible to sound sane about them, especially when they’re so good you want to rave like a lunatic. To start from the beginning, you have a train full of dragons and demons and fairies and mad scientists and mushroom people and you’re trying to storm Heaven (like, THE Heaven) and fight angels and LISTEN HERE INDIE ROGUELIKE DECKBUILDERS DON’T NEED TO MAKE A LOT ...
When last we saw Drop Duchy, I was intrigued by the prospect of Tetris but it was also a light strategy game with building, production, military units, and combat. The full version is here not and it is definitely that, a combination of Tetris and a tile-based board game with roguelike elements like randomized paths, deckbuilding, and the usual “combat, stop and shop for upgrades, trade resources, and get new cards” gameplay.
Ron Swanson once said, “Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.” Merchants of Rosewall wants to be a cozy store simulator. It wants to be a cozy small town with a dark mystery to unravel game. It tries to be both of those things and does neither of them well. It half-asses two things instead of whole-assing one thing. Ron was right. He always is.
But if you’re willing to put up with that sort of ongoing pressure on your health and sanity (oh, how very meta), it is, at least, an intriguing experiment and a certainly unconventional game in a genre that usually tends to be more about 360 noscopes and sick kills than reckoning with the fragile mental health of your band of heretics who may or may not be falsely accused as they seek to escape a monastery. One day, they’ll make that The Name of the Rose Black Ops they keep hinting at, but until then, this is what we’ve got.
But on the other hand…there’s not really a competitor, except Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, so what else are you going to do? It’s a gorgeous game and when it all comes together and you’re soaring over the Grand Canyon or crashing into the street in front of your house or doing low-level stunts in an F-18, it hits like nothing else. But you’re going to need a big, beefy machine, a nice, steady internet connection, and the favor of…THE CLOUD! HAIL CLOUD! I dunno, I’m starting to think this “put everything online and make it dependent on massive server infrastructure” thing was a mistake.
Look, I’m not going to lie to you, this isn’t some subversive indie game where deep down there’s a deeply moving story about a sad dad with a beard discovering he loves his son or whatever. There’s a squirrel, there’s a gun. What more do you want?
Multiplayer is an enjoyably chaotic affair that depends entirely on your ability to order dudes around and the quality of your teammates as well as your ability to coordinate. I get the push for it since it can be fun, but lord, they really do make it feel like a crappy free-to-play mobile game with log-in bonuses and multiplayer rewards for completing missions and dailies and that kind of thing in addition to the always online thing. It is a very weird combination of vibes to log into a reasonably beefy and violent World War 2 RTS and be notified your daily supply drop (or whatever) refreshed. Or to do a tutorial mission to learn where to click and have to wait for a server to connect. What a weird combo.