Alec Meer
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Writing For
Rock Paper Shotgun
IGNLatest Reviews
Blues and Bullets
And yet I do want to see more. I have no interest in finding out where the plot goes, because so far it's Arbitrary Events In The Lives Of Wooden Characters, but I do want to find out which dramatic places it will show me next. It's also not impossible...
Card Hunter
Clearly changing everything now would outrage its existent community, but I do wish its Steam relaunch had pared things back to a more traditional base+expansions model. All the loot-buying stuff is disconcerting, even if ability rather than gear is broadly what wins the day. Card Hunter's in an awkward halfway...
The Magic Circle
The Magic Circle has a very clear understanding of how games can be laid low, especially when high-minded ambition rather than practicality is in charge, but whether because of budgetary limitations or because it's too determined to convey its message first and foremost, it seems to then make some of...
Massive Chalice
I can choose who to marry to who in order to know exactly what Class their offspring will be. I can choose who to shackle to breeding or research or novice training for the rest of their lives. I can choose whose life to gamble with. I can't change anyone's...
Convoy
I'm frustrated that there's a great game here, laid a little low by grind, by sub-racing game insta-death factors and irritating, quote-drenched dialogue. This is, at heart, a small and simple game which tries to make itself bigger with unnecessary frippery rather than expanding its worthy core. It's perfectly serviceable...
No numbers, no inventory to speak of, but so much to do, so many ways it can play out and plenty of snowballing consequences. Its superficially simple 2D art occasionally flares into high prettiness too. We might not have Red Dead Redemption, but Westerado is an enormously satisfying consolation prize.
War for the Overworld
So yes, an awful lot of what makes Dungeon Keeper Dungeon Keeper is in here, and I respect the hell out of that, but there’s a certain degree of elegance missing due to the micro-intensive method it’s chosen to move the dial towards. For those fans who, unlike me, have...
Cities: Skylines
These are mere quibbles. You’re going to love it. Skylines is very much the traditional yet hyper-modern city-builder that everyone’s been crying out for. Me, I love it too, though I remain a little haunted by this concern that it’s more of a response game than its own game. In...
Hand of Fate
This does allude to my deeper concern, not just with Hand of Fate but also with every smart, adventurous roleplaying-esque game that appears somewhere in the Steam top ten in recent months. I don’t feel entirely qualified to get into the formalism debate going on in some quarters of games...
Evolve
It is a pointsfest, though. I keep jumping back into Evolve as I write this piece, which I guess means it's doing something right, but my interest is much more in unlocking the next monster than it is the joy of playing the two I've unlocked already. I want to...
Sunless Sea
Look, Sunless Sea isn’t for everyone. It requires patience, and it requires no small amount of imagination. For those who have those qualities, or are prepared to try and acquire them, I would say that Sunless Sea is an uncommonly rewarding roleplaying game, and an essential one.
Grim Fandango, in other words, still seems like a game from another universe, albeit now one which seems closer to ours than it did at the time. The Remastered edition might not be quite as modernised as we'd hoped, and it's sorely in need of a little more PC-specific TLC,...