=== PC Game Review -- Infested Planet - RTS Tower Defense - 10/10 ===

What Are We Reviewing?
Today I bring you Infested Planet by Rocket Bear Games.

Released: March 6, 2014
Price: $17.49 CAD
Genre: RTS / Tower Defense

This game has a good number of very positive reviews on Steam... and for good reason; I was pleasantly surprised by this title. I don't normally go out looking for games which include the tag "Tower Defense" in them because quite honestly, I usually find them to be incredibly boring and dull; in my opinion, most Tower Defense games get old very quickly usually because there isn't enough to do as the game progresses or because the game eventually comes down to figuring out how to optimally build for the scenario to get the 3 stars available on each level. It's difficult to describe just how nice it is to find a game of this type where that finally isn't such a big problem.

Gameplay:
Infested Planet comes with a nice campaign that introduces all the new mechanics of the game one at a time from new units, to new buildings, to new powers. This picture below shows the campaign progress which branches into different mission types.

Additionally there are some weekly challenges which can be done for a score to get a rank matched up against other players around the world. These challenges also have different mission types such as exterminating the map as quickly as possible for the highest score, or surviving as long as possible.

Much of the gameplay revolves around the squad units available with each mission. From left to right (starting on the right of the building in the picture and going counter-clockwise) you'll see the different unit types: Minigun, Officer, Scout, Flame, Sniper, Shotgun, Rifle. You can imagine by the name what each is capable of doing and what they're likely best at, but they all have their different uses in different situations; I found that many of the missions can be completed with a combination of Officers, Rifles, and Shotguns.

So, at first glace one might wonder how this is a tower defense game if you're using a squad of troops? Well, the gameplay has much to do with capturing and defending resources and bases. As seen below, there are hives which spawn alien creatures which must be defended against, destroyed, and captured. Each base point unlocks more points which can be spent on more marines (Rifles by default) and base defenses. Each marine has an increasing cost as more are hired and each one can have more points spent on equipment packs (such as a shotgun or a flamer) which changes their unit types.

As more points are captured the difficulty tends to increase as well. Yes, more points are unlocked for a more powerful squad or more powerful base defenses, but the other hives across the map may respond by mutating for a different unit type of their own (such as a ranged unit or one that explodes) or may start spawning MORE units to fight back against.

Enemies across the map have defenses of their own either to defend their hives or to defend resource crates which can be brought back to any base location for additional usable points.

Graphics:

The art-style here as you've seen is very familiar to the flash-based games of the past mixed with what I consider to be a hand-painted look. I can confirm it runs quite well and looks very nice on the eyes; nothing is too bright or dark or hard on the eyes and all actions respond very well to the inputs. 

Replayability:

I wouldn't normally think of a tower defense game to be very replayable... only because once you've completed a scenario there isn't much use in playing it again unless there's some type of achievement to be unlocked or a higher score to be achieved. Luckily there are weekly challenges available which give at least a weekly reason to reopen the game and compete against other players.

Also available are a couple DLCs - Trickster's Arsenal and Planetary Campaign. I haven't had the luxury of being able to play either of these myself, but given the opportunity, I would gladly open Infested Planet once again to try out the new content. Planetary Campaign seems to include a new procedural campaign creating a different experience each time. This is super interesting to me and might just be the reason I put more money into Infested Planet by Rocket Bear Games even though it was released a couple years ago.

SUMMARY:

I love RTS games and the real-time strategy portion of Infested Planet is very nicely done along with the Tower Defense aspect of it. I am in fact so happy with how it meshes together that... especially because I'm not normally a fan of tower defense games... I'm happy to give Infested Planet 10/10. This is probably a game I'll be coming back to in the future once I get my hands on the available expansions and you can bet if that happens that you'll see it on my livestream over on Twitch.

~ DaemonVirus

=== Mobile Game Review -- Hustle Castle - Management - 7.5/10 ===

I started playing Hustle Castle some time ago and couldn't have been happier at the time when I first started because everything was so similar to Fallout Shelter. Hustle Castle really had a similar vibe right off the bat, but I did enjoy the different style of combat which gave me more of a "tactical" feeling about the game that I didn't get from Fallout Shelter.

At first, I thought Hustle Castle had a better combat system... but as I've played more and more, I've slowly realized that it just doesn't hold up that well. The combat slowly turns into more and more of "who has the better items of the single best strategy" sort of thing. In a perfect world, without a way to outplay an opponent with skill, there needs to be a way to counter each strategy... but that just isn't the case with this game. Quite simply, if you try to do more fun things and change up your build, you'll just lose to whatever the strongest strategy is, which is usually some sort of silly continuously resurrecting some really powerful tanks. The only way I've found to reliably counter strategies is to just be stronger than your opponent and/or have better items.

There is a little bit more which can be done with the combat in Hustle Castle which MAY be able to sway thing in your favour by upgrading spells and bringing them into combat with you. There is a selection of spells including one to damage a random enemy, one to heal your most damaged character, and one to increase the damage of all your troops for a few seconds. These spells can be very powerful when used properly, though I still tend to find that the combat relies much more on how powerful your units are rather than any sort of strategy involved.

Of course any time you leave the game for a while and then come back to it you'll get a lovely update on any attacks which have been done against your castle and the result of them whether it was a win or a loss and you can even watch the combat replay if you want to see exactly how the fight went.

All of these combats are found through the world map which allows the player to continue along the "campaign" trail with each area unlocked having a selection of opponents who can be battled whenever you wish. Once you defeat another player on the map one time, their castle will disappear and be replaced some time later with a new one from another player. After some time, an option will appear which will allow an opponent to be "re-rolled" with another player who may be at a higher/lower/equal level.

Besides the campaign and battling other players there are a couple other options available to keep you busy in the game including a portal which opens up every once in a while which gives increasingly difficult levels of battles that can be done to gain more soul shards which can then be traded in for rewards such as epic items and resources. I have personally found the portal to be quite fun while it's open and then the game slows down a lot with not as much to do while it is closed.

If not busy doing portal fights there is an arena system which lets you put your best combinations of troops up against those of other players in a tournament-style system where you earn more points depending on who you choose to fight and win against. So far I have only managed to be in tournaments where I can perform reasonably average, but I've never been able to win because there's always another few players who have really powerful combinations of units or who are at a much higher level.

Winning one of these tournaments rewards the player with a chest which would have....... I'm not really sure, seeing as I've never won, but I assume there are some pretty good rewards in these things. However, competing in these tournaments does provide another type of resource which can be traded in for more epic and unique items.

Speaking of chests, there are a bunch of different chests which can be earned in Hustle Castle which have varying types of rewards inside of them including resources and items which can them be used to equip your characters whether that is for fighting or for making more resources faster.

Opening chests is also a very simple and kind of fun process of hitting the next open button which continues to open more chests as long as you have another chest to open. I don't know what it is about opening chests of random rewards that's so much fun even when 90% of them don't have anything useful in them.

Moving away from the combat system, there is some castle management which needs to be done while you're not out fighting monsters or other players. In this game, that comes down to building what rooms are available and upgrading them whenever possible. The castle rooms produce resources as time goes on which can be used to construct more rooms or upgrade existing ones depending on what is available at your current player level. One one hand, this is nice because there is a clear build path, but on the other hand I don't like it because there's no customization or learning curve to it besides "I better make this because it's available to me." Definitely ups and down on the castle management depending on how much customization and learning you like in your games.

My personal thoughts on Hustle Castle are quite mixed. I really like how well made the game is and how fluid the combat system is as well as the simplicity of the castle management. As far as a long-term game goes... this one falls flat just like all the other idle-simulation type games out there. Once you get far enough into the game you start having to save up so much resources that the player loses interest in waiting before being able to do things again. There's a great start to this game which really gets you into it, but with the usual idle-roadblocks I found myself losing interest. Granted, usually I lose interest because the wait is too long and there isn't really anything to progress to after a while... only this time my loss of interest wasn't because I didn't have anything to progress to; I lost interest because I hit a wall where the only solution was either to spend real money, or to wait days or weeks before being able to upgrade enough to make any real progress.


Summary

Gameplay: Being the most important part of a GAME, I thought the actual gameplay was quite fun right off the bat up until I wasn't able to progress any further without waiting for really long times due to needing resources and upgrades and training times before being strong enough to get past certain areas and boss fights.

Sound: There's not much of note to the sound design to this game. All the noises fit well without being annoying and the music is nice to listen to, but playing the game without any sound doesn't really make any difference to the enjoyability especially when only logging in momentarity to collect resources and then turn off the game.

Replayability: As the game went on, my interest in continuing to open the game went down and down with the increased upgrade and resource colletion times.

Bonus: If you enjoyed Fallout Shelter, this game has some similar aspects which will feel familiar and fun.

SCORE: I'm giving Hustle Castle 7.5/10. It's better than many other idle-type games out there with having more to do and being more interactive. The biggest downside for me is that it continues to suffer from the same problem as all the others where wait times get way too long without spending real money which I feel with this type of game would just go to waste.

=== PC Game Review -- Ancestor's Legacy - Real-Time Strategy - 8.5 / 10 ===

Hello everyone, welcome to my review of Ancestor's Legacy, a real-time strategy game for the PC. I was lucky enough to get this game free for the weekend during a time when I actually had enough time to put into it to gain a proper opinion of it.

The first thing I would like to mention, is oh my god, the artwork is absolutely STUNNING. There's something about hand-drawn artwork that really catches my eye in games; that's not to say that artwork is what makes or breaks game, but rather good artwork in a game is the icing on the cake. Yeah, it's weird that I would start with something that isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things... but artwork like this really isn't seen often enough in my opinion.

So let's get into the meat of things: The first thing we're greeted with when starting the game is a pretty sweet fight scene that makes you think you might be playing some sort of third-person fighting game, weirdly there's like no context to this which is a bit confusing right off the bat. Then it transitions into a bit of a tutorial on how to command units and how to start playing the game.

So at this point, we've seen a guy killing people, gotten a bit of introductory gameplay, and we're thrown into some more beautiful artwork with a nice narrated voiceover telling us the story of what's going on and why it's happening.

Now we get into another tutorial scenario where we learn more about the mechanics of the game. So what's this game all about? Ancestor's Legacy is all about squad management; we're not dealing with massive groups of units doing tons of different things all at once. With a maximum squad limit of 10 squads, we're maybe fighting over two, POSSIBLY three different locations at one time.

The gameplay relies heavily on a combination of unit counters and terrain management. All foot-squads have the ability to make two different types of traps; either a trap which slows enemies down and makes them unable to run away, or a trap which instantly kills some of the units. Much of the gameplay revolves around managing what looks like fields of wheat or tall grass where the players are unable to see into unless they have at least one squad inside the field. Some squads have the ability to spot traps at the cost of not auto-attacking, though in my experience the traps are only effective in certain situations which realistically are NOT in the early part of the game.

When not fighting around fields and trees and traps, there is a struggle to be had over what I would call "village points" which are points which must be captured which then earn resources as the game goes on. These points are quite important in the early- to mid-game, though I could see how they would fall off in the later game if there's a buildup of resources and not much fighting because both forces don't engage to the point of death. Without more time in the game it's a bit hard to say really.

From what I was able to experience, the single player campaigns are well done and well driven... but after only a short time, I started to feel like the whole experience was quite slow. I'm sure there are many more fun scenarios to play with much more things going on, but honestly I found myself getting very bored of the campaign mode due to how slow it was waiting for units to move across the map, especially during the end-game where you know you've won the scenario but it's now a matter of actually finishing off the enemy units.

It was at this point that I decided I would make my overall judgement on the game based on the multiplayer aspect as that would obviously have to be the part of the game which would need to hold up over time to make it work the purchase. As fun as single player games are, why wouldn't a person want to test their mettle against another human player to see if they have what it takes to out-smart and out-maneuver a real live opponent? Now I didn't exactly have the experience to get myself into a bunch of live multiplayer games (though realistically, I do play a lot of RTS games.... so I don't know why I would be uncomfortable with dying and learning to play a game like this...), so I decided to test my excellent prowess against a poor soon-to-die computer AI opponent... this was an awful idea.

If you watch the livestream footage of me playing this game, you'll get a very good idea of how I was feeling throughout my experience. One one hand, I did enjoy the competitive skirmish multiplayer sort of thing... but on the other hand, I have strong feelings against it.

I first decided I would play as the Slavs who are supposed to have strong archers including horse archers, which sounded like a pretty fun time to me; my opponents I would set to the Saxons who I had been playing against in the campaign mode, so I figured it would be a bit of a familiar experience that I wouldn't be playing against all sorts of new units that I hadn't seen before. I also decided each side would start with a hero... unfortunately after bashing my head against my opponent for probably at least two hours I finally had to give up based on... the Slavs, who only start with basic swordsmen in the early game are much too weak against the Saxons who start with access to slingers as one of their first units.

As it turns out, having a ranged attack is quite important in the early portion of the game because on the low amount of resources available in the early-game, constructing traps is much too expensive as an attempt to fight back against the enemy. Let me explain it this way: One group of swordsmen get pelted by the ranged slingers until they get in range, the slingers then run away unobstructed because there's no ability to keep them in place. As the Slavs, if you make another group of swords men... you'll then find yourself in a two squads of swordsmen against two squads of slingers, which as you may guess, means you're getting hit from afar even more than before; once again, if the swordsmen engage the slingers, the slingers run away with little more than a scratch. Alright, so that didn't work, instead I would try making the trap which would cause the enemy squad to be unable to run away; in the early portion of the game, this means either the enemy squad STILL gets to run away because one group of swordsmen isn't enough to kill the opponent fast enough before they regain their ability to run away.... or they miss the trap altogether. Oh... and then there's the problem that you're also now one squad of swordsmen against TWO squads of slingers, meaning one group can run away while the other happily throws their rocks at your group futilely trying to chase them down.

Okay, so let's try a different strategy: I then decided to try starting out with one group of swordsmen to assist the hero capturing the first village, then going straight into horse archers! This was probably the closest strategy to really being effective, but once again the Slavs fell behind in power because of the extra resources required to even get into a fighting position. No matter how hard I tried or what I did... going after different villages first, trying to avoid the enemy, trying to harass them... it all turned out the same; the Saxons pulled ahead each and every time in every scenario I attempted.

Could it be that I'm just playing the faction wrong? I tested this theory by switching factions with the computer AI and continuing to play on the same map. This time I played as the Saxons and had my enemy as the Slavs; yeah... the game lasted a little bit longer with the computer playing the Slavs than when I was playing them, but the sad reality is that at no point did I actually feel threatened by them. The Saxon faction didn't just feel overpowered in this matchup because I was playing the wrong way, it was in fact because the Slav faction just has such a weak start in comparison that they really aren't all that threatening at any point.

Verdict

Gameplay: I'm still torn on how I feel about Ancestor's Legacy, but I do think there's a lot of potential to it which is why it's still on my wishlist to keep an eye on and see how it progresses.

Sound: Sound design in this game is great. There are lots of good sounds for each unit including voices, movement, and fighting. The bit of single player experience I got was fully voiced over for the story bits which made it very nice to listen to.

Replayability: The campaign felt slow to me and got very boring quickly. I would work through it if I had the time, but probably not all in one go. The multiplayer (vs AI) experience was a much more fun game mode, though I did find (after MUCH experimenting), that I had quite a large concern that the different factions may not be well-balanced.

Bonus: A little bonus in this game that isn't found in other games is the ability to go into a third-person sort of view where you can see very well designed fights with each unit in the squad doing their own thing. This is a much higher level of detail than what I have normally found in other RTS titles which some people may find to be quite an enjoyable addition.

SCORE: I've given this a lot of thought and I am in fact giving Ancestor's Legacy a score of 8.5 / 10 due to being a very well-designed game. I do have my worries about it which is why it's not getting the highest score, but it does have a lot of promise which could be easily patched into balance with future updates.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

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How Time Flies

Every once in a while I find myself taking a step back and realizing just how time flies by and life gets so busy. There's so much I have to do and so much more that I want to do; how can a person fit everything into such a short amount of time?

Today I find myself somewhat disappointed for putting my blog on the backburner. So many stories and experiences and thoughts I find rushing through my head that haven't yet been given a chance to be shared with the world. On one hand, I suppose that's a good thing that I was able to have that break because now I feel like I've hit somewhat of a muse that I've been missing previously.

I suppose what I'm looking forward to coming up is the end of my school courses. While they've been fun, I think it really is time to buckle down and complete them. Yeah, that may mean some of my other projects won't get as much attention as I would like. It may even mean I cannot spend as much time with the family as I would like, but once I'm done... I don't have to worry about it anymore. It will truly be such a load off my mind and a weight off my shoulders to not have to devote so much time to working through these classes. I suppose what I'm saying is that I'm about to start a strict diet of textbook material for a while until I can be confident that I know what I'm doing.

So don't be alarmed if you don't hear from me for a bit... though I still fully intend to get back to making blog posts more regularly and continuing to try to stream more often. Perhaps it is a strange thing to many people out there, but live streaming... even if I were to be reading a book or working through schoolwork... something about it seems to motivate me to work harder and to be better and more proactive in other parts of my life. I don't know how to explain it really, but it's there in my mind working away, breaking down the wall that builds up stopping me from getting the simplest things done on a day-to-day basis.

I'm not going to go into detail about everything I have to do and everything I want to do, you'll see the results of all my hard work as things are completed. I can say my primary goals at this time include performing well with my new job (which I absolutely love), spending quality time with my family, and getting back up to date with the real (not gaming) blog posts that I know you all love.

I look forward to continuing to entertain you all. Don't forget to follow the blog, Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch so you don't miss any of the coming action!

As usual, you're all fantastic and I look forward to hearing from you when time isn't flying away from you too. ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Let's Make It Official

Honestly, I find it kind of hard to believe that the day for us to make everything official and finally get married to my love is coming up so quickly.official I'm getting married to my love. I'm sure it was just yesterday that we still had a month to go before this big day. Now I find the big day is tomorrow!

Will this change anything? Of course it shows that we're committed, but I don't think it will change too much. I could be wrong, but other than a change of name and signed paperwork... I think we're pretty much already a married couple. Does that make it any easier and less nerve-wracking to go through with such a big event? Not really. This will be on display in front of our closest friends and family of our commitment to our relationship. We can't just go through with something like this then give up on it at the first sign of trouble. This is the real deal.

This is is no longer a recording with all the mistakes edited out of it. This is a livestream with all the technical difficulties you didn't expect. I have great confidence that together we won't be just another show cancelled after the first season. We will be an ongoing series right up until the end when there's nothing left for us to do... At which point they'll make spin offs of the other characters in our show going on to do their own things as they get older. Now, if all goes as planned... Or unplanned... we will have a long time with many adventures to go on about for quite some time.

Seriously though, I think we compliment each other so well it's almost scary. She's excited, I'm content. She's loud, I'm quiet (usually). She's clean, I'm dirty. She's wants things done right away no matter what, I want to take a little bit more time to think about it first. The real tough part seems to be learning to communicate together. We're absolutely getting better at it each and every day, but it's certainly an ongoing process to learn about one another and how to coexist together under the same roof while raising children.

Let me just take a moment to thank family for being so helpful and supportive even at the worst of times, and friends for giving us people to socialize with and talk to besides each other. Most of all, I should thank Carley for continuing to put up with me no matter how silly or stupid I may be on any given day. I mean heck, even though we have a child doesn't mean we have to make things work; though I am glad that thing's do in fact work between us.

Here's to a wonderful future with many years to come. I love you Carley. <3

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Would You Like A Teddy Bear? =25=

I never imagined I would ever be asked the question "Would you like a teddy bear?" while walking down the street.

We had just dropped off the car at Kal Tire so they could check if there was anything wrong with one of the tires which I found was quite low on pressure. On the way back home Carley decided she wanted some Taco Time, so we made a detour to make our way past the restaurant for some lunch. As it turns out, the Moose Jaw Fire Department was just finishing up their lunch at Taco Time as we were coming down the street.

I thought it was pretty cool to see the firemen out and about. They drove towards us after getting into the firetruck and really surprised us when one of them came hanging out the passenger side and offered us a stuffed moose while asking "Would you like a teddy bear?" This totally made our day and now Isabelle owns a stuffed moose!

I've heard of awesome things happening to people on the street all the time, but I think this is the first time anything like this has happened to me. I'm so grateful for that happening and feel amazing that even though it was so hot and felt kinda lame to be walking so much in the heat, we were in the right place at the right time.

If you ever get the chance, you should do things like this to other people. It'll make you feel great! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Jaw Surgery Adventure - The Beginning =2=

     We have been through quite a crazy jaw surgery adventure in the past few weeks. I don't know yet whether it has been all worth it to go through, but I think once all the healing is compete that Carley will be much happier with the events than she currently is right now.

     The couple weeks leading up to the surgery turned into stress-city around here. I had no idea Carley would get so worked up about something she had been looking forward to for such a long time. She had previously told me about how huge of an effect this would have on her and how she would have a much better self-image. I'm all for supporting her through something that would make her feel better about herself; she fought for this and wrote countless letters to get this whole process started years ago before she even met me. The worst part about the experience for me has been how stressed she started to get leading up to the surgery.

     We reached a point where pretty much everything set Carley off and either started a fight, or she would yelling at me because tasks weren't being done right away or not going her way immediately without questions. I absolutely understood her being in such a stressed position; she was about to go through a very intense process including pain and weight-loss. I think anybody would be stressed knowing they would have to be going through that in such a short time.

     As much as I wanted to explode sometimes, I did my best to keep clam and be as supportive as I could be. We got through the bad feelings by indulging on things that she wouldn't be able to have for a while after the surgery, like pizza, steak, and other fast foods. There are people out there who think stress is nothing and can be pushed aside no problem. Unfortunately that's not the way it is for everybody and that does include my dear sweet Carley. It's really hard sometimes to handle the levels of stress that pour out of this beautiful lady, but I just remember what she is willing to do for me and I put myself next to her to support her and lift her up. We can get through anything together.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Happy Birthday! (A Month Ago) ===

     Alright, I know this is late, but happy birthday to my sweet Isabelle! I still find it difficult to believe that she's already been around for over a year; she still seems so itty bitty small.

     Now that I've been spending more time with her and getting to know her better, I find myself beginning to understand more of what she wants in certain situations and how to handle her in different moods. She laughs at some of the weirdest things and she turns on the waterworks at the drop of a hat for reasons I won't even pretend to understand. Soon enough she'll be talking and communicating more in a language that I'll have an easier time understanding... I hope.

     With her so close to walking, it's only a matter of time before she's getting into even more things than she's already getting into. She's cruising around the furniture like no tomorrow and every once in a while she gets brave and lets go of things and just stands there sucking on a toy or her hands. Not a single tooth has popped out of her gums yet, but she's almost walking.

     Time seems to be flying by with this tiny little girl. In no time at all she'll be past all this baby stuff and moving out of the house and I'll be wondering what I've been doing for the past 20 years. Ah well, I'll just have to try to keep up with her and we can all learn and enjoy the experience together.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Getting Laid ===

     A few weeks ago, I found myself getting laid... off from my job. While that's certainly something you don't expect to see coming, I wasn't totally surprised due to some other people getting laid off previously as well. At this point I'm still looking for a new job, but strangely I think we're doing better now than we were doing before. We finally have all of our bills paid including our credit card and we still have some money to spare for groceries and gas and whatnot.

     This is a situation we didn't actively plan for, but now that we find ourselves in this position, we surprisingly aren't as worried as we had expected we would be. The craziest thing for me right now is that I'm having so much more time to see my sweet Isabelle than before. I'm learning new things about her that I didn't know before and watching her grow and start to do things that she wasn't able to before either. It's amazing to be able to watching all of this happening from the comfort of my own home... rather than for only half an hour every morning and an hour each evening.

     I've become a stay-at-home dad at this point. Honestly, I didn't really think it would be so difficult to keep up with all the daily housework and things that have to get done. On one hand, I'm exhausted and worn out and I don't want to keep doing anything, but on the other hand, I'm getting things done and getting the house slowly organized and it feels great! I think I might be a little bit sad that I'm going to have to go back to work at some point (preferably sooner rather than later).

     One thing I would like so say is that I have no hard feelings towards Boardwalk at all. That's unfortunately just a part of business sometimes. I would still work for them if a favourable opportunity presented itself, but I will admit that I am enjoying a bit of time off where I can do some other things for a bit including paying a bit more attention to this here blog. I have big plans you guys, big plans. Much to do, much to do. Everything will come together in no time and soon enough you'll be reading about me almost every day! (Or maybe not, who knows? :P )

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Dark Reign - Game Review, Real Time Strategy - 10/10 ===

     Today I'm here to review Dark Reign: The Future Of War. This game is an oldie made back in the good old days of 1997. This game was one of the first RTS games which came out at around the same time as Command & Conquer and Warcraft II. Considering the age of this game, I'm not reviewing it completely as though it is a new game considering the age of the game; but even considering how the game has held up over the years, I think it's going pretty great.

     Many RTS games these days tend to have at least two types of resources to work with. One basic resource and one advanced resources with which to make stronger things or research new things with. Some have even more types of resources; Dark Reign has one... and a half. The most important resource in this game is water; the story goes that most of the water has been poisoned and now fresh spring water is a valuable resource. So you collect enough water until it gets launched off-world in exchange for credits which you use to spend on things. Easy enough, right?

     Now, why would I say there's a half of another resource? I say that because you also have to power your buildings using a resource known as Taelon. That sounds pretty important.... but if you have enough credits, then you can keep building new power plants to power your things without filling them up with Taelon because every power plant is already half full when it's completed.

     The campaign in this game I think is done wonderfully. There are 12 levels in total and you can play each one in control of either of the two factions in the game. That means there are technically 24 levels in total... but if you only want to play each level from one side, you only have to complete 12 of them to get to the final level in which you  play a "third" faction which has access to all units from both sides in the game.

     The two factions in the game as seen above, are the Freedom Guard, and the Imperium. As this is an early RTS game, the two sides really aren't very different. They have nearly the same tech tree with some differences in units, but for the most part, everything is quite similar even when you get down to the units available to each side. I could take some points off for this, but as it is quite early in the timeline of RTS games, this isn't a huge concern for me. The game seems pretty well balanced and I can see how it could be quite competitive as a result.

     So from me, Dark Reign will get a 10/10. If you haven't played this game but are a huge fan of the Real Time Strategy genre, then you have to pick this up from GOG and give it a try. This was and still is one of my favourite games of all time. Yeah, maybe I'm giving it a higher score than it deserves, but this truly is a wonderful game and you really should give it a try.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== What's The Date Today? ===

     Carley and I went on a date today for the first time in a while. Today I remembered that it's really easy to forget to spend proper time together outside of the house. We tend to get into habits where we watch TV and play games and do the same old things over and over again. Now that's not a bad thing to be happy with what we have and what we do.

     Sometimes we get so busy with me working, Carley taking care of Isabelle, and then trying to spend the rest of our time with friends, that we run out of time to spend doing special things together. So today we finally got a chance to go to a movie together and we had a wonderful time. It was really nice to be able to do something for once rather than just sitting around (though I do really enjoy the regular things we do as well).

     Having dates together is something so easy at first when you start dating somebody. It's so simple to make anything into a date when you don't live together. You actually have to try to plan things out and spend time with each other at someone's house or outside somewhere. A little tip for everybody out there who may be in a relationship or thinking about getting into one: it's way too easy to forget how to spend that special time together once you live together. As simple as it might seem to hang out together in the same room, that's not always good enough. Sometimes you have to go out of your way to do something special for your partner; make breakfast in bed for them, get some flowers, or maybe write a poem.

     So here we are having a great time together after going out to our movie this evening. We decided to finish playing The Walking Dead: The New Frontier tonight so that we can move on to different games. What a wonderful series; but that's of course for another time when I'm reviewing another game.

Have a wonderful night everybody, and don't forget to show your loved ones how much you care.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Reactor - Mobile Game Review, Idle City Builder - 6/10 ===

     Welcome everybody to my review of Reactor, what I would call an idle city builder. I have quite a bit of experience with idle building games as I have a phone and a lot of spare time to kill at times. I mean, sometimes I just want to open a game, upgrade some things and close the game. Yay, I feel like I'm being productive and progressing through the game because I'm now getting more than I was getting before!

     Unfortunately with this game, it's just not the best example of this style of game in my opinion. There are some games where you have to press a single button to progress faster than if you were to leave the game to itself. This game has a lot of buttons to press... at first. When you start playing Reactor, you have to build windmills which stay alive for a period of time until they run out and then you have to click them again to bring them back to life. During this lifespan they create power which you must then press another button to sell this power for money. This is all quite a convoluted process which isn't really all that much fun as the game starts.

     As usual there are a lot of things to buy which progressively make more and more money, but as with most games of this type, they're locked at first until you reach some sort of goal or pay an unlock fee or something of that nature. Sooo...

     Then you learn about research. This is another type of building which you can create which will make research points every second. This research can be put towards many different things including the ability to sell this power automatically. Alright, so now we can make buildings which automatically sell some power for money, but they take up a lot of space, and none of this is feeling fun to me yet. Research now leads into other types of power which can be created as well, but then things start getting really confusing and suddenly you realize you don't have any space left and you have to wait quite a bit of time to remove objects in the landscape which are in the way.

     The game seems little complicated for an idle game to me compared to the other options out there. I'm sure there are people who would enjoy this type of thing, but this isn't really what I'm looking for when I'm looking for a mobile game. I just find the way this game tries to balance certain buildings with the space that you have a little frustrating; especially when it makes me wait for 4 sets of 60 minutes every time I want to remove a mountain or a tree in the game.

     This isn't an awful game; I would play more of this game if I didn't already have better and more fun games to play. I'm going to have to give this game a 6/10 because doesn't catch my attention, but it's not bad.

~ Kyle Welykholowa