Dungeon Keeper Mobile versus Dungeon Keeper 2 [iOS, Android, Windows]

Dungeon Keeper 2 (DK2), was released in 1999 surely it cannot keep up with a late 2013 release, or can it? Dungeon Keeper Mobile however is a freemium game, so is it worth it? Let's battle them out and see who wins.

DK2

Value: DK2 is available on GOG for $5.99 USD or about $6.48 AUD when I converted it online. The cheapest amount of gems in Dungeon Keeper costs $6.49 AUD and this amount isn't enough to even buy a new imp. Even if you paid full retail for DK2 back in the day I honestly think you would have gotten your money's worth.

Winner:
Dungeon Keeper 2

Dungeon Keeper Mobile

Graphics: DK2 is a game from 1999 and as such it looks pretty terrible though it is playable.
Dungeon Keeper Mobile on the other hand was released at the end of last year and looks great. It's done in a simplistic style to fit the mobile platform but it is clean and doesn't suffer from the cluttering of the DK2 interface.

Winner:
Dungeon Keeper Mobile

Dungeon Keeper Mobile

Gameplay: The mobile version lets you build, which takes hours without spending gems, or battle other dungeons and occasionally defend your own. That's it. I find myself playing for about 10 minutes then switching it off as I have nothing left to do. The first time I fired up DK2 I played a couple of campaign missions then spent hours in my "Pet Dungeon".

Winner:
Dungeon Keeper 2

DK2

Wittiness: DK2 says things like, "A lost soul has entered your dungeon. Oh... no, it's wandered out again" and "You have an excess of mistresses. There is a word for keepers like you!" Dungeon Keeper Mobile says stuff like, "Everyone likes lists" and "I never grow tired of witnessing the endless abuse of another's imp." So of course the winner is...

Winner:
Neither

Yes nobody wins this one, they both border a little more on the annoying than the funny side of things, especially when repeated.

Dungeon Keeper Mobile

Creativness: DK2 was heavily criticised for it's lack of creativity due to it's similarity with the original game. However, when compared to Dungeon Keeper Mobile, which adds very little new material, limits your gameplay to waiting for a clock to tick down and throwing some minions in at designated spots, DK2 seems extremely inventive.

Winner:
Dungeon Keeper 2

Dungeon Keeper Mobile

Dungeon Keeper 2 takes it out 3 to 1, a pretty impressive score for such an old game. Whilst it does suffer a bit from it's old age it is still worth playing. Dungeon Keeper Mobile on the other hand just leaves you feeling frustrated. It's main issue is it's gameplay, it doesn't even try to sucker you in to start paying to play. With no Dungeon Keeper 3 on the radar the alternative is to check out War for the Overworld, a Kickstarter campaign that is available already, in beta form on Steam.

Tiny Dice Dungeon Review [iOS]

Tiny Dice Dungeon is a free RPG played with dice. You play as a guy with a big sword who captures monsters Pokemon style and then uses them to beat up other monsters. There is looting and upgrading, mainly of your all important dice as well as in app purchases.

The way the game is played is you roll a bunch of dice. You start out with a small amount of dice but as you level up you get more and you can choose from different types of dice. You get to keep rolling till you choose to attack, or you roll a one. The problem with the, 'rolling a one' mechanic, is that it happens quite often on a six sided dice. Now there are different type of dice, including dice that cannot roll a one but you must always have at least one basic dice that can. It's really friggin' annoying, especially if your whole team rolls a one on their first go and this does happen often.

Items are handled really oddly in this game too, you get a whole horde of these things before you even have any idea what they do. Items could be things like a comb, or a pocket cactus and they give your characters bonuses and often negative attributes. Introducing items after you have collected a bunch only the makes the game more confusing, as now you have to go back and look through all the shit you've collected. Each character can have up to four items and because each item is so vague as to what it is and what it does, it's a pain to equip them, especially because it may negatively effect your character as much as it does benefit it.

Tiny Dice Dungeon is going for a Pokemon type monster collection but it doesn't make collecting and managing your monsters easy, nor does it have particularly interesting monsters to collect. You are very limited on the number of slots you can have for monsters for starters which is very un-Pokemon-like and it does the whole combining monsters together for better stats thing which is always irritating. It just feels like you are constantly hitting the pay-wall in this area. I am not against having pay for features but not when they complicate and confuse the whole feeling of the game.

Tiny Dice Dungeon is a good idea but it doesn't deliver. The dice mechanic is a clever one but it will never beat rolling real dice. Secondly, the game feels too clunky and out of order. Rather than keep it simple, with obvious ideas about upgrading and pay options the, game confuses you with pocket cacti and other nonsense. Finally, it doesn't have the design nor high quality art that Pokemon does and although its 8-bit style is cute it doesn't make up for its other short comings 5.9/10.

[Edit - Due to feedback from a reader I had to lower the score on this game or rewrite the review. I chose the easy option and also perhaps the correct one.]

Dark Souls II [Windows, PS3 Xbox 360]

Dark Souls II is out on Windows now and that is mainly what this review will look at. It looks way prettier on PC than on it's console counterparts as this video can attest but it also has a lot of issues due to the complexity of the PC platform. Everyone has probably gotten it by now but you are compelled to read on by forces of dark magic... or something.

The game is super clunky on the PC and it will probably take many patches to get it to where the developer wants it to be, as the console versions have shown. For example in order to quit the game  you need to go back to the main screen, where it will then try and connect to the internet before you can choose the quit option. I thought it would be best to play it with a controller but at first that was a nightmare. Enemies will glitch through walls and because the game is so hard you will often exploit lapses in the A.I. I have a Logitech Dual Action controller and none of the buttons were assigned correctly, there is no easy way to fix this in game either. Eventually I found this guide to install a little app to help with this. So with this installed, I could finally learn how to play the game, oh shit, I just fell off the edge right near the start.

Frustration and a type of OCD are basic requirements of this game as you will be repeating sections over and over. I have tried playing as every class and I must say that the ranged classes have it a lot easier at the start of the game than the melee ones do. As many fans of the series will point out, balance isn't a part of this game. When you can play as a Deprived, a severely hampered class that starts with no weapons, low stats and poor armour, I think you can see the attitude towards the players here is punishment around every corner. However, I had the most fun when I decided to play as a Deprived. It helped teach me a lot more about want I wanted to do and how to level than any other class did. Plus scrounging around for each piece of gear seems to match well with the Dark Souls 2 ethos.

The thing is that Dark Souls II is based on the idea of old games, these old games were often quite short so they used repetition and learning the game as a way to lengthen the gameplay. These old games also came with beautiful manuals that explained how to play and offered tips. Dark Souls II has no manual and as such you will spend your days playing with a browser open in the background, unless you are a complete masochist. I loved the old games that came with these often quite large and ornate manuals, I would play the game by day and read the manual at night. It not only taught you how to play the game but added to the experience as a whole. I think this is something that is sorely lacking here. If you are going to appeal to the old sensibilities you should do it right.

Gameplay will vary quite a lot depending on what fighting style you go for. Even a weapon as simple as a sword will vary your fighting style quite a lot, with different attack motions, timings and defensive options. This is one of Dark Souls greatest strengths, learning the different attacks and defensive manoeuvres of your class, the weapons you have equipped and even your play style. To learn all of this you will be completing multiple runs (an enemy can be killed 12 times before it disappears, not including bringing them back with a bonfire ascetic) of the same area. You will need to do this to collect souls to level up your character and buy gear. It's this kind of repetitive gameplay that is just going to turn off some people and I think that's fair enough. I love to find new challenging areas and bosses but it's the grinding to get to them which really does my head in. Unfortunately, one of the challenges of this game, is to become patient enough to either grind till you are high enough level, or grind till you are immensely skilled at the game.

The graphics range from awesome to horrible in the blink of an eye. Textures are often poor and laid like ill fitting carpet upon large N64 like polygons. Other times the game really builds a dark and scary scene, not only through the graphics but the sounds and music as well. For the most part the animations are quite good but like all games that use melee weapons they can look a little odd at times. As I mentioned before the PC version is much prettier than the consoles but it doesn't have that next gen feel of quality to it.

Dark Souls 2 is incredibly time consuming, especially for someone new to the series like me and it's not really the kind of game you can come home tired from work and play. You will die and end up frustrated. For every problem Dark Souls has it has an equal amount of good. So I think it comes down to the question, do you want to spend the prime part of your day playing it, instead of doing something creative or productive? I know a lot of people think that about video games in general but this is not something you can play to relax. You need to be switched on and focused on what you are doing. There is a huge amount of depth to this game and there are many things I haven't even touched on yet. All the multiplayer aspects, the huge list of equipment you could go on and on about it for days. I think it is a solid game it is just much more niche than those other reviews will have you believe 7.9/10.

Warhammer Quest [iOS]

The Games Workshop board game, Warhammer Quest, has been out for sometime on iPhone and iPad but it has been released free to play for one week. Then it goes back to $6.49 AUD. Sad news for Android fans though, with no plans from Rodeo Games to launch it on your favourite little robot.

The game is played out on a map where you can choose quests, visit towns and take care of your merchant/leveling up needs. Then you will enter dungeon crawl mode, which looks almost exactly like the board game, with squares laid out and all combat taking place in a turn based manner. The story is explained to you through text and is moderately interesting. It's mostly standard RPG fair but if you like the Warhammer world, there is a little extra appeal here. You get quite a lot for free but if you want variety, you are going to have to pay for extras. New heroes, new enemies and new dungeons to play in, cost extra. This is fair enough and the characters you start with are quite interesting it's just the monsters and world you fight, that is extremely repetitive. You are probably gonna want to get a region pack if you love this game and I think they are fairly priced for what you get. Dungeon packs on the other hand seem like an experiment in seeing how much you can rip someone off. Given that this is aimed at Warhammer fanatics, the answer is a hell of a lot.

In general I find combat quite exciting but like a lot of Games Workshop's games it can be a bit erratic. One turn your warriors are carving up every enemy in their path and then the next they are missing everything, like a bunch of drunken school boys. The Winds of Magic are incredibly erratic, they can make your wizard unstoppable or useless, which makes it hard to level him up early on. At times, combat can be free flowing, which I find to be the most fun but often due to the cramped nature of the dungeons, the heroes end up walled together, with no way to move, just chomping away at the tide of enemies. I suppose it's designed like this but it happens a little too often and takes away from the feeling of choice you have as a player. Also the turn based movement throughout the dungeon can get a little grating, especially when you are led down the wrong path and have to backtrack.

Aesthetically the game is a little mixed. Animations range from well done, to immensely poor. Often enemies will float across screen without moving their limbs at all, though most of the combat animations are done nicely. The music is quite nice but it is very repetitive and it ultimately becomes grating. Again the monsters and world are a little too repetitive to really keep your interest for long. There are lots of minor niggles with the UI et cetera. Accessing your inventory by switching your phone or tablet to portrait, is a cool idea but there is something of with it's sensor code. Plus, playing on the iPhone makes accessing your inventory and abilities a pain in the arse, as it's just too small. Also you can't skip the enemy kill screen shown at the end of every dungeon.

At the admission price of free it is well worth it, I can see myself getting an expansion pack for it and having a lot of fun but having to buy the game and then pay the same again for an expansion, I would feel a little ripped off. It has gone on sale for a dollar previously and that seems reasonable too, there is a lot of questing here. You can go on endless quests if you like but they all end up feeling the same without adding some new content to it. It's a cool little game, it gives you that board game feeling and it works well on iOS. It just lets it self down in a bunch of small ways that ultimately add up 7.5/10.

3 Short Reviews [Windows, iOS]

Age of Wonders III [Windows]

Age of Wonders III is very similar to Heroes of Might and Magic VI but I think the combat is a little more tactical. That said it does suffer a bit from Might and Magics problem where basically you just amass the largest army you can and then you can crush everything in your path. Still it's a lot of fun and it just has a ridiculous fantasy setting that is so enjoyable. It has everything from flame tanks to undead dragons. Also it looks incredible. It has a huge set of skills and abilities to allow for all of this, which can be pretty difficult to grasp at first. This can also lead to unfair battles as you may have a range of fire units, that then come up against something that is immune to fire. Remembering all of this is going to be a nightmare for most but hardcore turn based fans will love it. This is what Might and Magic should be 8.0/10.

Goat Simulator [Windows]

Created out of a game jam Goat Simulator was never meant to become an actual sellable product and it borderline isn't. It will always be held up as a fan favourite and yes you can get a lot of fun out of it but only if it really appeals to you. Want to be a goat and run around looking silly, being silly, in a bug riddled and silly world? Good then that is the point. There is a free content patch coming out next month which will add a new world to explore plus a lot of other things. So perhaps with the patch and a Steam sale it would be worth picking up but otherwise leave it to the goats 6.9/10.

Sun Flowers [iOS]

Sun Flowers is now available for free and sees you in the role of the sun, looking after... flowers. Basically you need to send sun rays through clouds to water your plants and get them to grow. Be careful though as you could burn the plants by hitting a thunder cloud or missing a rain cloud all together. Then you get play around with the plants you found in your garden. There is a game here but it isn't much of one. It's all very cursory and doesn't keep my interest at all. If you really like the art style and flowers maybe it's for you but I wouldn't recommended it 5/10.

Titanfall [PC, Xbone, Xbox 360]

Titanfall, the most talked about game of the year so far and finally I get around to reviewing it. Thanks to an anonymous donor for a copy of the game. If you haven't heard Titanfall is a First Person Shooter (FPS) with no single player campaign, it's multiplayer only. It's not the first of it's kind but it is probably the first from a big studio with lots of backing.

There is still a campaign but it is a multiplayer affair and it needs to be completed in order to unlock everything. Honestly, it kind of sucks for a lot of reasons. As Kotaku pointed out, you can finish the campaign without having ever fired a shot. It's really just a set of multiplayer matches that have to run their course. Secondly, I'm not impressed with the story at all. People yell stuff at you, there is the odd interesting idea but it doesn't impact what you are doing at all in terms of gameplay. The other factor with this is that, paying attention to the story will wind you up shot in the head; it is too fast-paced to stop and smell the CGI. Finally, it's really hard to find a match, especially for the particular campaign mission you are up to. The campaign seems to be amongst the worst for this but as you'll find out, matchmaking in general is a big issue.

Matchmaking is almost totally automatic, which could be nice but it is riddled with troublesome issues. You can choose which data centre to use, whether that be Australian, US, etc. and which type of match you want to play but you can't see a list of servers to choose from. Titanfall offers 5 game modes at the moment but if you want to login and get to a match straight away you'll just be playing Attrition. It's so hard to find a match of anything else except for maybe the Variety Pack mode. Titanfall does not support cross-platform play, which I think really contributes to the server desolation. I thought Xbone and PC players would be able to link up, at the very least. Also there is no autobalance of any kind, you will not even be swapped to the other team if they have several less players, let alone if you/they are kicking arse. It's incredibly rare to find a match that approaches an approximation of even.

Titanfall Makes up for all of this by having awesome gameplay. It's frantic and the rewards come thick and fast. Whether it be a new weapon or you've just received a burn card, something is always causing you to check your build. The burn cards are a cool idea, they give you a little boost such as a more powerful version of your gun but once you die it's gone. A lot of thought went into making this game accessible to a range of players. The clever thing about it is by adding those dumb AI minions into the mix even poor FPS players like myself can build up confidence. You kill a couple of those and then you are in the swing of things. I have done stuff in this game I never thought I would be capable of in a FPS, going on kill-streaks, actually detonating a satchel charge on time, the list goes on. However I think some fudging does go into this. It seems easier to kill someone in this game then in other titles. The hit-boxes seem to be larger than average and I swear I have killed people when technically they should have been around a corner. It certainly happens a lot to me in the replays. This is not to say there is no skill in it, there is a lot to learn from good parkour technique, when to activate your special abilities and of course, being accurate enough to get a headshot.

Respawn Entertainment have announced they are working on matchmaking and perhaps in time it will be a lot better. There is also a promise of some free DLC as well. Either way, Titanfall is a great game, that just has a few niggling issues. As long as you are willing to focus on playing the Attrition mode, (face it, it's the best anyway) you'll never have to worry about getting into a match quickly but then what is the point of all these other modes? Still, if you want a shooter to play with your friends who aren't the best at them, this could be a way to encourage them to join you. In that sense Titanfall really achieves it's purpose. Go buy it and join a non-Attrition mode, maybe I'll see you waiting in the lobby... 8.4/10.

Mavericks 10.9.2 Review

There comes a time in everyone's life when they must update their operating system to the latest and greatest. So a mere two patches later and Mac OS Mavericks seemed usable. With great trepidation, a Time Machine and a (fully bootable) SuperDuper! backup, I set out to ride this wave.

I came from Lion not Mountain Lion but the first thing I noticed and liked, is that it really isn't that different. There are a lot of features Apple has listed to wow you but most of these are really only for a minority of people. Enhanced Dictation is a bit of fun but it only has limited appeal and gets half of what you say wrong anyway. It is great that iBooks is finally on Mac but at the same time I don't really see myself reading that many books on it anyway. The power saving features are probably the biggest boost to most users with LAPTOP reporting a 41 minute gain in battery life during their testing. The main features I like, are the iCloud features introduced in Mountain Lion but now I get all that for free. I think this is the update Apple had to have. Firstly it's free, secondly as much as they want you to think it, it isn't that exciting of an upgrade. Instead it focuses on getting the core things right and although it took them two iterations, in my testing at least, it is finally stable.

Oh look, Apple Maps how great! I can't wait to delete that. Oh, you can't, what a surprise.

It gives you features that nobody wants like Apple Maps and a harder to read yet still kinda ugly calendar. The notification centre is a combination of cool and annoying. I find it most useful for iTunes and extremely annoying for text messages, as it means I get one notification on my Mac and then a spilt second later on my phone. Yes I know you can turn it all off but there isn't even a simple way to default it to all notifications off. Instead you either have to do each app manually, or set "do not disturb" mode up, which will still leave a 1 minute gap where you could receive notifications.

Now onto performance. First I'll start with my 7 year old MacBook Pro 3,1. Now I have to say it does not have a functioning battery right now, so it is underclocking itself as a result. Both of these tests were performed without a battery though so they are even. As you can see in the NovaBench scores below, Lion performs better, though Mavericks' graphics performance is much higher.

Lion

Mavericks

Now onto my 2011 iMac 12,2 testing in Xbench. This time Mavericks outperforms Lion hands down.

Lion

Mavericks

It isn't particularly surprising that Mavericks only improves the newest machine but I would like to do some more testing on the MacBook Pro as soon as I can get a new battery for it. The most disappointing factor for my sad old MacBook, is that there aren't really any customisation options, out of the box, that increase the speed of Mavericks at all. Yes there are Terminal commands one could run and plugins to download but there isn't really any option to turn off the bells and whistles and just focus on the core tasks.

Overall I am pretty happy with Mavericks, it was easy to get everything up and running, even things like Logic Pro and Ableton were easy to get going again. I didn't have any issue with getting both of those programs talking with my MOTU 828mkII, so I was back recording again in no time. I also really like Safari 7.0.2, mainly because Safari 6.x can't handle browsing most websites these days. There are probably only one or two, major new features that most people will use in Mavericks, so there is little to be excited about but I think it is worth the update because of some of the more boring things going on under the hood. Whilst older computers aren't going to see an upgrade in speed you may want to upgrade them just to get around any compatibility issues you may have. For those who are Mac purists and aren't familiar with using iOS, I think Mavericks may be a little alienating, though it doesn't change a huge amount, it is a definite step in the direction of linking the two together. My official recommendation is to backup heavily then upgrade and I'll see you when 11.0.2 is out.

South Park: The Stick of Truth [Windows, Xbox 360, PS3]

The coveted stick of truth, whoever controls it has limitless power. This much delayed title is finally out and I've been playing it on PC. Yes I have the unedited version and no, I don't think you'll be missing out on anything exciting if your copy is censored. It's just a couple of disgusting mini-games that in terms of gameplay mechanics are pretty boring. Anyway on to the experience as a whole!

Gameplay is broken into two distinctive parts, roaming the world and turn-based battles. Roaming about the world is mostly about puzzle solving. Using things like your long-ranged weapon, your allies abilities and fart-magic, you unlock the path before you and find hidden treasures. When you encounter enemies as you are roaming about, you can hit them with an arrow to stun them in combat, or, if you get the first hit on them, you get to strike first. Then you enter the turn-based battle screen. The style of fighting is akin to a Mario RPG title, where timing and the mashing of buttons will ensure successful attacks. It's mostly pretty fun and you get to learn a lot of different attacks but by the end it is all a little repetitive.

The storyline is great but if you couldn't see yourself watching three episodes of South Park back-to-back this game isn't for you. The story takes a lot of the classic South Park episodes and mashes them into one big plot with a few new ideas for the game. Whilst this does mean it often treads on old ground there are plenty of hilarious and unexpected moments to keep you going. However, there are some moments where the gameplay/storyline overlaps in strange ways and doesn't really feel cohesive. For example, I had already spoken to the goth kids and learnt that I had to dress like them to hang out with them but as this later becomes a quest, I was forced to hear it all again. Mostly though the next plot twist or silly joke is what really keeps you driving along into this game. I wish as much time was spent on the design elements as they had put into the storyline.

Some poor design choices have stopped this from being the game of the year. When you see a mob of monsters on the screen, you battle them all as one, yet when it comes to picking up loot you have to search each monster. Why not streamline this into one loot bag and make it funner for everyone? There is no way to easily see how your weapons and armour compares to what you are buying. Some of the gameplay mechanics are immensely frustrating to use and the game teaches you these fart mechanics that you don't actually need to use in the game. Throughout the whole game you use the WASD keys to move but all of a sudden you need to use the arrow keys to do dance moves. I can't tell if this is a bug, a joke, or Matt and Trey being arseholes, either way it just comes off as frustrating. Plus half the time you are doing the right thing but just not standing in the right spot which adds to the frustration. Of course seeing as I played it on PC there are plenty of bugs and work-arounds but I guess this is the new normal.

It's a good game with good ideas but not enough time has been spent developing it. You will go through moments of pure joy, laughing at the gags and enjoying most of the gameplay, only to be snagged by poor design choices and bugs. South Park: The Stick of Truth is one for the fans and whilst I had hopes it could transcend that status and be an all round fun title it's gameplay isn't solid enough. There is a huge adventure here but only someone who is a fan of the series, could actually stand to play it for that long 7.9/10.

Creating Music for a phone game.

So a friend and I are currently developing a game for the iPhone and hopefully, if it receives even modest success, Android too. It is going to take a long time for us to finish this project as we are only doing it in our spare time, so I won't go into too much detail just yet. What I want to talk about now is a song I have recently created for it. If you just want to hear the song, scroll down to the bottom.

The Setup

iMac mid 2011
Logic Pro 9.1.8
MOTU 828mkII A/D
Newer Technology miniStack v3 (explained below)

The Instruments
Korg Microkey 25 key USB keyboard
Roland TD 15

The Cables
1x (Extra Long) Firewire 400
1x MIDI
1x USB, type A to type B
1x Firewire 800 (explained below)

The Music Creation Process

It's hard for me to say how I create music, because I don't think I really have a technique per se, it's more that I just blurt something out and then I begin working with the mess I've created. This whole song began because I was testing out a Christmas present, the Korg Microkey. I just wanted to have some fun with it and out came this riff. I used some sneaky short cuts to help me create this song. There is the obvious copy and paste of sections but also copying and pasting sections into different instruments to help me get an idea of the sound. Then I would take out unneeded notes, lengthen them or move them as necessary. Once I had finished using the keyboard and editing notes in the piano roll I moved onto the drumkit.

The Problems

Some of you may notice straight off the bat that the 828mkII uses firewire 400 and the mid 2011 iMac only has firewire 800. So to fix this, I used my powered portable hard-drive/hub, which handled all my connection issues. Next we come to the latency issue. I've never really noticed any latency issues with anything but drums in Logic and of course I wanted to record some drums, via MIDI in this project. I switched on Low Latency Mode in the options, which did nothing. So I Googled and read manuals and tweaked this and that to no avail. Turns out you have to switch the button in the arrange window, the option in settings does nothing. I guess it's a feature.

Mix for Mono

The first thing I noticed about my mix was that it sounded terrible through the tiny iPhone mono speaker. The combination of a stereo mix and the heavy bass sounds of Logics instruments meant I was getting some problems with sound going out of phase. To correct this I changed to a monophonic mix and I tweaked every sound I used. Mainly I needed to take out the bass, pretty heavily but on some sounds I had to cut some high frequency and adjust their volume/compression levels. After nine mixes I was happy to say it was listenable on that tiny iPhone speaker.

Read Before Listening: A Warning

Because Google are not the masters of the internet we thought them to be, mp3s are quite difficult to load into Blogger, so I have uploaded a video instead. I decided to use some footage I had taken with my iPhone at MONA and a gig I went to.

Warning: The video contains strobe lighting that may be dangerous for some viewers. Also it is of such poor quality it is recommended that you close your eyes and simply enjoy the song.

Banished [Windows]

So, you are in charge of a small group of people who have been banished and you need to start your own town. The game plays something akin to Sim City and The Settlers and it's set in the medieval era. This seems like a winning formula so let's check it out.

Depending on which difficulty you select you'll start out with a bunch of goods and some people. The harder the difficulty the less goods and citizens you will have. Then you will have to look around the landscape and start planning out your town. Food and firewood, are important resources to start gathering and they will need to be stockpiled for when the harsh winter rolls in. Surviving the winter is one of the biggest challenges of the game and not being prepared for it can kill your towns inhabitants. The game also has disasters like tornadoes and fires, plus infectious diseases can break out amongst your livestock and crops. So yes, survival is the main aim of the game.

Unfortunately Banished is not without its issues. I did encounter a few bugs, the most annoying of which was my cursor disappearing. I also had the bug that only allows you to install it on C: drive though there is a work around for that here. I also had a known bug that causes the game to crash when you are viewing the paths your citizens use.  They are fairly minor issues and they are being looked into but as the developer is only a very small company, it may take sometime to resolve all this, which is one thing to consider when purchasing. There isn't a huge amount of content in Banished and the late game suffers a little from this. Sure you can collect every last type of seed and livestock but that isn't as rewarding as having something completely new and different to build. However, the developers will be launching a modkit soon which will hopefully alleviate this problem. The only thing is again you are going to have to wait.

I know a lot of people like me were looking forward to the release of Sim City but were bitterly disappointed with the poor decisions made by Maxis and EA on that title. I think a lot of people who felt that way will really enjoy this game because it has so much more charm and even comes in a DRM free version. For those of you who are big fans of this genre it is a must have right now, for everyone else, it is worth waiting and picking up on sale. Once the modding community has got its hands on the modkit, the major issue of lack of content will disappear and judging by it's current success it may even see an expansion or two. This game is like a fine wine, it needs time to reach its full potential but I really think it will make it there 7.9/10.