Warbanners – Welcome to Difficultville

This is a weird one. I do enjoy the basics of Warbanners, I find the graphics fine, and the mechanics for the most part intriguing, however, the difficulty is just out of this world. I can appreciate that fact to a certain degree, but the older I get, the less time I have to go full autismo mode like in my younger days. With this, I mean the time it takes for a game to go from challenging to tear-out-your-hair frustrating. This usually ends up with me banging my head against a wall, until the one and only perfect strategy forms. My tolerance for that kind of gameplay is almost gone nowadays. There is a subset of gamers that love this kind of Stalingrad -esque difficulty in their games, and I salute them. Crasleen Games surely has made something for them to dig into, but for the rest of us mere mortals…

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SpellForce: Conquest of Eo – First Impressions

Conquest of Eo is a 4X spinoff of the SpellForce series, and initially, my impression was great. But as it turns out, the game seems to have some serious problems in form of difficulty. The first few hours were awesome. It felt like a nice mix between Age of Wonders and Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes. I was happily building up my heroes and doing some general adventuring when something foul and smelly revealed its head. As it turns out, the circle mages, which are powerful opponents, don’t play by the same rules.

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Xenonauts – Illegal Aliens

If I have to pick, I go with the guy with the moustache

I decided to replay Xenonauts in the wait for Xenonauts 2, and I can’t say I regret my time spent. The game, which I think copies a little too much from X-com to a fault, still provides a grand old time for X-com aficionados like me. The main standout is the time period. The 80s iron curtain setting is a phenomenal pick for the backdrop and makes the game ooze with atmosphere. It just feels right, story, setting, and weapons/tech. And with the provided prequel novel Crimson Dagger that set the stakes, you just can’t go wrong here. Xenonauts is made by Goldhawk Interactive, and currently, they are busily working on a sequel.

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Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones – Cosmic Snorer

Watch out, gargoyle coming in for crash landing

Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones is a Lovecraft-inspired RPG by the developers Cultic Games. I have completed this game once before when it was released back in 2019, but I got into a Lovecraft mood and remembered I had this game. But after spending about 10 hours in Arkham again, stuff is coming back to me why I didn’t like the game that much. It’s not all bad, though, it’s just a major disappointment for what could have been something good.

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Solasta: Crown of the Magister [DLC] Lost Valley – Animal Control

Solasta: Crown of the Magister – Lost Valley is a fairly large expansion for the game Solasta, made by the developers Tactical Adventures. I have not yet written a review for Solasta, which might come off as a little strange since I’m reviewing the expansion, but I did a let’s play of the main game on my Youtube channel. Overall, I did enjoy Solasta, at least in the beginning, up to the middle parts. Later parts of the game felt way too easy, and linear, which in the end actually bored, and kinda angered me. The pacing was so slow with all these filler fights that didn’t matter that it started to feel like a chore to play, instead of feeling like you were on an adventure. So the question is, how does Lost Valley fare comparable?

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