Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown – Demo Impressions

My first impression of the Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown demo wasn’t too great, as it felt more like a proof of concept, than an actual slice of the game. No voice-acting, and everything seemed to have a cheap “visual novel” kind of design, with very little input from you required to do anything. But after the tutorial let go of my hand, I started to see the potential of this title. Now, for the decision-making, and story it never really leaves the visual novel phase, but as a complete package, I’m captivated regardless. And that is largely thanks to the ship management, exploration mechanics and how crew skills play into your judgments, and success.

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Urban Strife – Early Access Impressions

What is better than starting the new year with some zombie slaughtering? Many things to be fair, but beggars can’t be choosers, right? So zombie massacring it is! Urban Strife can best be compared to Dead State, as both games are turn-based tactics and follow the same premise: endure the zombie apocalypse with a ragtag group of hardened survivors. Dead State is a great game, but it came with some unfortunately tedious turn-based combat that at times turned the game to a slog. My main hope here, seeing as the combat is more in line with Jagged Alliance 2, was that Urban Strife would take the number one place as THE tactical zombie survivor game. And well, while I think the fighting is good, and much improved over Dead State, much of the other things feels lacking.

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Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker – Dreaming of Heaven

I have been getting into my old Xbox 360 as of late, so I thought: why not start with Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker that I have never finished before. Peace Walker was originally a PlayStation Portable (PSP) exclusive, but later remastered for the Xbox 360 in the excellent and well-worth package Metal Gear Solid HD Collection. Now, since it is a PSP game, there are some issues, especially if you treat it as a mainland Metal Gear game on a home console. It’s extremely segmented so you can easily play it on the move, with the missions being very short. The only thing that has any stay is the bosses, which can drag on compared to the usual sneaking and choking out guards. Regardless, it’s an enjoyable stealth game that greatly expands the lore about Big Boss

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