Menace – Early Access Impressions

The early access release of Menace is here, and after giving it twenty sweaty coffee-infused hours like the nerd that I am—I’m ready to give my first early impressions. While I do feel it’s a much better experience than the demo, since we are actually in control of progression and the campaign now—sadly, my issues with the general gameplay remain. This means that the combat is still mostly abstracted, with a strong wargame (board-game) feeling that work against the immersion in parts.

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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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