I think most people on the Internet would have by now seen the art by Polish artist Jakub Różalski that inserts giant mechs into late 19th-century or early 20-century settings. This art inspired a board game set in its own fictional universe and it was apparently successful enough to make this RTS game viable. Unfortunately I don’t think this game did too well. I bought for pretty cheap a while ago as I too was intrigued by the art of Różalski and wanted to know more about the world it inspired. Plus I have fond memories of playing Company of Heroes and thought that this might be somewhat similar.

All memories about this game are now forever tied up with the suicide of one of key creators Alec Holowka. I don’t really have anything to say about that but I do think that is very unfortunate as this game was a solid success and deserves to be remembered on its own merits. This still isn’t a game that I would have ordinarily bought for myself but I did remember the praise it received when it was offered for free on Epic and I wanted an easy game to decompress a little with after the intensity of Dirt Rally 2.

According to my Steam records, this is the game that I had left unplayed for the longest time. I loved the first Dirt Rally so much that I bought this sequel quite eagerly. But I also knew that I wouldn’t want to play on anything other than a real driving wheel and I kept putting off that expensive purchase. I did finally get around to buying one this year, choosing Thrustmaster’s T300 and after resolving some initial problems getting everything to work, the gaming experience has been everything I’d hoped it would be. I’ve now put in more hours into than I have into the first game and I still feel that I’ve only completed a fraction of the game and there is still so much room to learn and improve.

Taking up yet another Zachtronics game to play makes me feel like a glutton for punishment. Years after I said I would probably never play this title yet here I am. Not only did I hugely enjoy this, much more so than I ever did with TIS-100, I’m also shocked that I managed to complete just about all of the puzzles in it on my own, at least those in the main campaign. Those in the bonus campaign are another order of difficulty entirely. I’m pretty stoked that I managed the feat even if some of my solutions rate rather poorly against the average.

Soon after starting this up for the first time, I knew that even just buying this was a bad idea. Tekken is of course one of the very well-known fighting game franchises but I’ve had no experience with it since a short time button mashing a PSP version a very long time ago. I bought this out of curiosity and of course because I wanted more games to play on my Hori Mini fighting stick. But it was a bad idea because this is very technical fighting game franchise that has no place for amateurs at all and this particular installment has very scanty single-player content.

This is an indie game about the French Revolution made by Polish developers. I really wanted to like it due to the originality of its premise but ultimately have to give it a thumbs down because it has too many issues which are inherent in its design. Its story mode is also very frustrating in that you really have no control at all over what happens even if it appears at first that you do. I do credit this for being a worthwhile educational experience about day to day life during the Reign of Terror period of the French Revolution but you have to do your reading up of the facts separately. Even so I’m not sure that the game is worth your time.

The last time I played a Warhammer 40k videogame was Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon, so I guess take this as proof of how much the setting appeals to me as a turn-based wargame. I think there is a difference in scale between the two games with the older one being a strategic level game while this one is tactical. But in a videogame the difference doesn’t matter as much as you’re pushing units around a map regardless. Here you’re playing on the side of the Space Wolves chapter of the Space Marines, which in practice means there is a lesser variety of units to play around.