This game is based on a British television series. It seems like a rather popular one and the final season is set to air soon but I’ve never watched it. I only bought this because I’m always curious about quirky little games and I liked the setting. The name itself refers to a family of gangsters based in Birmingham, England, set just after the end of the First World War. The gameplay is somewhat similar to Shadow Tactics, in that you need to coordinate a team to get through each level.
I am of course way late in playing this and the reason is that I completely forgot that I even owned this. I have this on the GOG platform and never even bothered to install the GOG Galaxy client. I’ve never played the legendary first game either but of course know a bit about its history and how the Fallout series is kind of its bastard stepchild. This was kind of an old-fashioned game even back in 2014 but I found that I rather like it that way.
The Grand Theft Auto series only really blew up when Rockstar made the change to a fully 3D world with an over-the-shoulder third-person-view with the third game of the series. But before that the first two games used a top-down view and that is what this game is doing. It’s basically a GTA clone using that top-down view using of course a modern engine and graphics. I myself have never played those versions of GTA so I thought I’d give this a shot.
This was a free game on the Epic platform not too long ago and of course it’s only just about now that the sequel dropped. I played this because I really liked Frontier Development’s Planet Coaster and wanted to see what they could do with the Jurassic Park property. Plus of course it was free. Having done so, I have to say that while the game has its merits and it’s rather fun just to watch dinosaurs for a while this is a really shallow game and it leaves me with no desire to play the sequel. In fact, I’ve taken Planet Zoo off of my wishlist because I fear it will be too similar. Ouch!
I added this to my to play list a long time ago because it’s a noteworthy innovation on the RTS genre and originality should always be rewarded. It’s surprisingly rare in video games for someone to attempt to make something really different as opposed to revised versions of familiar games. This title introduces at least one new way of thinking about strategic games and several ways to streamline repetitive actions. Unfortunately this still is an RTS game which as you should all know by now isn’t my favorite genre and playing it is a pretty dry and time-consuming experience.
I play nearly every type of game there is but one popular genre I have never played is the JRPG. That is probably because I do all my gaming on PC and have never owned a console. I thought I ought to play one of them someday and since I don’t want to go back to one of the old classics, I thought I’d try this one that is one Steam. The first game was a full on collaboration between the developer Level-5 and Studio Ghibli. This one isn’t but still features Yoshiyuki Momose formerly of Studio Ghibli as character designer and music by Joe Hisaishi so I thought it would make for a decently modern introduction to the genre.
Still focusing on lighter games, here’s one that I bought a while back that really appealed to me on multiple levels. It’s set in what its makers call the Golden Age of American whaling, being inspired by the novel Moby Dick. It has a boardgame-like look and the mechanics to match. Plus it rocks some pretty great thematically appropriate sea shanties by a Bristol-based group called the Roaring Trowmen. It’s such an original work so different from anything on the market that I just had to get it.
