Review Category: Games

Dragon Ball Z has always benefited from a strong history of fighting games. While it has certainly suffered from a few duds, the Budokai Tenkaichi series and Xenoverse duology alone put it head and shoulders above the competition. With that being said, FighterZ might be the single best adaptation Dragon Ball Z has ever benefited from.

The story mode this time is largely original one, with a brand new villain. Clone copies of heroes and villains alike have begun appearing across the world while following a mysterious new villain. Rather than playing Goku himself this time, you are a disembodied soul which has somehow become fused to him and is linked to this mysterious new threat somehow.

The actual levels themselves are a more dynamic version of the maps used in Budokai 2, but blown up to a global scale. In each one you need to reclaim new territories, and choosing when to upgrade your abilities and swap out fighters to recover between battles. The dynamic nature of the maps allows for a few remarkable surprises to arise even after hours of gameplay.

Outside of the story mode itself however, the core gameplay is the best one you should have hoped for with a Dragon Ball Z release. Fast, kinetic and often filling the screen with ki blasts, Arc System Works have approached it with the same attention to detail as BlazBlue, but from an entirely different direction. While precision here is rewarded and careful actions will win out, there’s a balance between super and standard attacks which allows you to turn the fight around at almost any moment and recover from an abrupt loss.

The fighter roster itself is the vast ensemble of colourful characters you would hope to see, while retaining the distinct powers, styles and qualities of each figure. More than simply the abilities and visuals, the basic attacks and speed of certain strikes match up with the distinct styles found in the anime itself. Android 16’s heavier counters and blows feels inherently different from the likes of Zarbon’s precision strikes. Also, for those wondering, yes, the more insane abilities like Ginyu’s body swapping stunts are in here as well.

These qualities alone would be enough to turn out a great game, but what elevates it to the next level is the tagging system, where you can take up to three fighters with you at a time. Battles become a case of switching out fighters at the right moment, which offers a surprising amount of longevity to fights. It allows players to make a few inherent mistakes without losing the battle entirely, and while the same time prevents them from dragging on for minutes on end. There’s even a very subtle but quite brilliant mechanic to this. Both the exchanges between characters as they are swapped out and the fact that both fighters are swapped to their neutral positions allows for a moment to catch your breath and even sidestep certain moves if timed correctly.

Unfortunately, FighterZ is let down by a few bizzare development quirks. The inability to directly invite players from your friends list on most devices slows down the experience in multiplayer, and the issue is only exacerbated further thanks to a surprising lack of lobbies. What’s more, a few interface elements heavily favour style over functionality, such as the use of an overworld in favour of a traditional menu. It certainly looks nice, but after a while you start to realise just how it prologues selecting basic options. When it comes to the core gameplay, there is also a definite leaning toward ease of use over mastery.

A few particular characters are capable of pulling off very long combos with minimal button prompts. This allows it to have a much broader audience than most traditional fighting games, and lacks some of the frustration inherent in these fighters. However, similar decisions led to Kung Lao dominating rosters in 2011’s Mortal Kombat.

FighterZ certainly has its flaws, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s an utterly exceptional fighting game. For some this will be an exciting new way to see Goku beating seven kinds of hell out of Frieza, but for many others this is the spiritual successor to Marvel vs. Capcom 2 we have been waiting on.

DRAGON BALL FIGHTERZ / DEVELOPER: ARC SYSTEM WORKS / PUBLISHER: BANDAI NAMCO ENTERTAINMENT / PLATFORM: PLAYSTATION 4, XBOX ONE, PC / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

With the critical success of I am Setsuna, Tokyo RPG Factory set itself up as the ‘yesteryear Square Enix’. Unfortunately, while Lost Sphear retains many qualities found in I am Setsuna, it might be their first major misstep.

The game follows Kanata, a young man who encountered an unknown phenomenon and has gained the ability to restore missing parts of his world. This can work with objects, people or places so long as he has a strong memory to anchor them in his mind. Cue save the world plot.

The actual core mechanic itself is a highly inventive one and is integrated into both the story and essential mechanics in a number of creative ways. For one thing, spells and special attacks cannot be bought or immediately learned. Instead, you trade captive memories for them. This gives the game a somewhat Pokémon-esque hunting element which is built to be more of an engaging hunt than a fetch quest. This is further supported by a surprisingly effective and very diverse crafting system which can be used to boost character stats.

As you might expect from this developer by this point, the visuals are intentionally archaic in style but are nevertheless beautiful thanks to a vibrant colour pallet. Unfortunately, Lost Sphear fumbles many other essential elements, which feel as if they have come off of a factory line over being independently crafted.

The writing is extremely uneven, with few true surprises to it, and isn’t helped by bland characters. None are definitively bad, but they feel more like a pastiche of older successes over a new inspiration. It plays it so safe that it’s ultimately unengaging. The core mechanics have largely been taken from I am Setsuna. While this replication would be fine in of itself, the few attempts to build upon it get in the way of the overall experience. The over-engineered idea that repeated use of skills earns you bonuses looks good on paper but only adds to the grind, while slight tweaks to the timed combat system only add a layer of frustrating to a challenging mechanic.

Lost Sphear certainly has its strengths, and it’s not hard to see why JRPG fanatics might appreciate it. However, the issues cited above are difficult to look past, and its attempts at character-driven drama often fall flat. This makes for an especially difficult beginning, and the game doesn’t begin to truly improve until you’re over an hour in. Enthusiasts will likely get a thrill out of this one, but otherwise, you would do better to stick with I am Setsuna.

LOST SPHEAR / DEVELOPER: TOKYO RPG FACTORY / PUBLISHER: SQUARE ENIX / PLATFORM: PC, NINTENDO SWITCH, PLAYSTATION 4 / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Almost every gamer has faced their personal Moby Dick at some point. From the one orc who refuses to die in Shadow of Mordor to a seemingly unbeatable boss in Dark Souls, there’s always that one foe you will stab at from hell’s heart. With that in mind, it’s something of a surprise to think that it took so long for a game like Nantucket to arrive on modern systems.

Set in the golden days of whaling, it’s your job to run a ship hunting for creatures on the ocean seas and prevent your ship from sinking to piracy or mutineers. As you can imagine, that’s a simpler thing said than done.

The game prizes itself on atmosphere and it’s very easy to see why. Between the sea shanty soundtrack, the aged visuals and nautical map, everything here has been set up to create a sense of real immersion. There’s a real sense of beauty in just how well the developer has pulled off this aspect of the game, and thematically it continually works to build up an engrossing quality few other titles of its genre can match.

The game is less one of full fledged exploration than it is logistics and success, as you ply your trade and navigate between a few key ports. It’s less about throwing caution to the wind in favour of glory than it is mitigating damages. Knowing how much you can risk in a venture, where the best spots for hunting are and just what you can get away with are key to success. As the game will often throw random elements and even new threats your way, it creates the sense of an ever evolving world. Anything from new tariffs to crew problems can easily arise, to the point where you need to guess what the developers might have thought of over a few possible mechanical threats.

Much of the evolving nature of the setting is told through its characters, especially your crew. Many key decisions and random events will arise to affect how you are viewed by others. From risks in facing pirates to simply allowing your people more time on land, how they view you and their level of loyalty will be decided and change over time. Surprisingly, there are a variety of effects which can stem from a few key actions, allowing you more variety than a simple like/dislike ratio. This grants the game a great deal of replay value, and an incentive to keep experimenting when you die and restart thanks to its rogue-light elements. It even comes into play when it comes to upgrading your ship and hunting larger whales, or altering your usual patrol routes.

However, Nantucket’s flaws stem from a few unexpected areas. The most obvious among these is how combat is dealt with, as engaging pirates and whales alike boils down to very traditional turn based engagements. While there is nothing especially wrong with the system in question, it sticks out like a sore thumb in an otherwise unique game, and is often at odds with the carefully cultivated atmosphere. Fights can often devolve into repetitive brawls thanks to a flawed AI system, and it requires a great deal of micro-management to ensure that your own crew do not lead to your own defeat. This is something of a learning curve however, due to a few ill advised choices with the UI, which can easily lead to player confusion.

While the rogue-light qualities are a great strength within the game, the dread of dying stems as much from the battles as simply not wishing to go through the tedious early-game grind again. The initial stages of commanding any whaling ship boil down to repetitive hunts for easy prey with little reward, and it can be a real slog to truly get through. By the third death, you might be wishing there was a simple way to skip the early stages or even a faster if riskier option for success.

Nantucket isn’t the smash hit success story some were hoping for thanks to these flaws, but it is still a worthwhile experience. The elements and ideas surrounding the ship and the handling of crew relationships, business transactions and risks all makes it a worthwhile game despite a few key problems. If you’re a fan of Sid Meier’s Pirates, Sunless Sea or even FTL you will be happily sinking hours at a time into it, but those after faster paced successes may wish to look elsewhere for their naval fix.

NANTUCKET / DEVELOPER: PICARESQUE STUDIO / PUBLISHER: FISH EAGLE / PLATFORM: PC / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

There are few words which dull a gamer’s attention quicker than “Early Access Survival Game”. In the hunt for an elusive perfect experience, the system has become oversaturated with half-finished games and abandoned projects promising the world and delivering nothing. Yet among them there are a small handful of success stories, and few are greater than Subnautica.

The game sets you up as the survivor of a starship. After crashing on an oceanic alien planet, your job is to survive, recover and somehow make it offworld. Yet, as you brave the depths, it becomes clear you are not the first person to land here. Someone else came before you, and something is terribly wrong with the local wildlife…

The game’s greatest strength is easily its environment, which constantly inspires both terror and wonder in equal measure. What could have easily served as a one-shot gimmick instead has been used to construct a completely alien world, filled with micro-ecosystems and individual territories. The vast world is divided into a multitude of smaller reefs, open dunes and cavern networks, each completely distinct from one another and often populated by ever strange lifeforms. Through this, the game manages to sidestep the old sin of making such a world seem as if it is a single featureless world of dunes dotted with coral reefs. Yet, as diverse as it is, each blends almost seamlessly with the other, and no single one ever seems at odds with the rest of the planet.

In addition to the varied environments, developer Unknown Worlds opted to approach Subnautica as a world rather than a series of challenges. The AI governing many creatures is both varied and distinct, with their own behavioural habits and modifiers. Some predators can be briefly befriended, while others will be drawn to powerful energy generators. You even witness the full life cycle of one as you traverse the world in search of answers.

The game manages to sidestep the usual survival problems thanks to several creative decisions. The biggest among them is the streamlined nature of the crafting system. While you still need to procure the correct resources and blueprints from crashed vessels, the upgrade system is a simple network of decisions over a complex spider diagram. The actual resources themselves require less mining than they do a general awareness of the various locales, meaning you spend less time hunting about for the one missing iron bar needed to finish your new submarine. The addition of submarines as mobile bases also allows you to more easily progress through the game, and to have a wide arsenal of resources on hand at anytime.

The actual objectives within Subnautica are both easy to follow while still serving as guidelines. While that might sound simplistic, the genius of this is that it prevents you from ever feeling lost, while still capturing that sense of true exploration into the unknown.

These elements alone would be enough to make it a great experience, but what elevates it further is the sense of mystery and a strong story to the game. While only told through environmental visuals and brief log excerpts, you learn of a multitude of tales behind the game’s setting. From previous explorers to crewmen and even long-gone figure who once resided upon the world, it’s enough to add a great deal of depth to a world which could have seemed thematically shallow despite its visual and mechanical strengths.

Unfortunately, Subnautica’s one great failing is born from its best qualities. The sheer scale of the sea and the unforgiving nature of the monsters can easily drag out your experience. While a skilled player can easily pick out where and what resources he needs from the seabed, all too often hunting for a missing schematic can leave you searching about the game for hours at a time. Equally, a few key sections forcing you into narrow confines populated by vast predators can make you die over and over again. While this will admittedly vary from one player to the next, it can easily reduce the game to simply repeating the same action until you somehow emerge victorious.

Even in an era overpopulated with survival simulators, Subnautica nevertheless stands head and shoulder above the competition. Its unique environments, creatures and strong story makes Subnautica a modern day classic. It’s one of a rare few that everyone owes it to themselves to play, so long as you don’t have an intense fear of alien sharks, anyway.

SUBNAUTICA / DEVELOPER & PUBLISHER: UNKNOWN WORLDS ENTERTAINMENT / PLATFORM: PC, PLAYSTATION 4, XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 23RD

At first glance, Yume Nikki looks as if it is a wannabe attempt at a genre. Made with RPGMaker, and retaining a description that seems like it’s equal parts Fran Bow and Alice: Madness Returns, it would be easy to write this off as an experiment by a first time developer. However, this is another example as to why you should never judge a book by its cover. Yume Nikki is a masterpiece rendered in 16-bits, and the best part is that it’s absolutely free.

The game advertises itself with the following synopsis ‘this is a game in which you traverse the extremely dark world inside a dream’. That’s really all you need to know, and all that you should know when going into this one. This is a game of exploration, and as such the real reward comes from the sense of exploration and reflection which is born of the game. There is a great deal of mystery and speculation to be found in the game’s messages, and you might find yourself redefining your views on the player character’s life as you see more of it unfold through each image.

Many of its messages are told non-verbally and work purely through the mechanics of the game. By traversing through mazes, cope with shifting mechanics and hunting down items required to progress throughout the game. Threats emerge in the form of surrealist creations and folklore monsters, and their presence builds upon the nihilistic undertones found within each level. While the monsters themselves cannot outright kill you thanks to the lack of a Game Over screen, the way in which they teleport you to impassable areas forcing you to restart manages to create more dread. There’s a greater sense of loss when you’re forced to start over, by your own hand rather than being bumped off, and little in the way of falling back to a previous save point.

Because of its thematic nature and lack of direct conflict, in many regards, Yume Nikki is a walking simulator but one done right. It puts you at the centre of the ongoing story rather than trying to follow a previous narrative by someone else, and you are a direct part of what unfolds. What’s more, you can directly interact with the environment and make dramatic changes, to the point where you can kill off every single last NPC you encounter via a knife to the throat.

The only true flaws within Yume Nikki stems largely from the fact that it requires a Sixth Sense level edge. It needs the player to enter with as little knowledge of the game’s inner mechanics as possible to pull off its engaging moments, and for the player to complete them with no outside assistance. Forewarning a player against its tricks or trying to replay the game again means it lacks much of the magic from that first impact. As such this is likely to be a game you play once and remember fondly, but you will find no replay value within it. Then again, given it’s being offered up to the public with no price tag attached, it’s difficult to call this much of a failing.

Unfortunately, what is a much more notable failing is the English translation, which is laughably direct at times. While it doesn’t quite seem like the entire script was run through Google Translate, there are more than a few times where the grammar becomes almost painful to read, and many cultural definitions are lost in the details. This is especially evident when it comes to the game’s attempts to utilise creatures of Japanese mythology.

This is one of those few games which anyone with any degree of familiarity in this medium should experience. With no objectives tethering you to a single path, and with a strong narrative which remains vague yet engaging to the player, it’s a melancholic and bizarre creation which nevertheless remains resplendently beautiful from start to finish. If you can stomach a fair degree of surrealism, and an unfortunately rushed English translation, definitely set aside a few hours to experience Yume Nikki.

YUME NIKKI / DEVELOPER: KIKIYAMA / PUBLISHER: AGM PLAYISM / PLATFORM: PC / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Deck Casters is a game you might have seen before under a very similar name. Originally released on console under the name of ArmaGallant: Decks of Destiny, the developer claims that this has merely been “based” on his previous outing. In truth, little has changed and the few alterations made have definitely been for the worse.

The core idea behind Deck Casters is a good one – Combine together Collectable Card Game and Real Time Strategy mechanics to construct a hybrid. Many typical CCG tropes are present, with a variety of elemental card types, support and engagement versions, and RTS elements such as large-scale battlefields for units to manoeuvre about in and terrain modifiers. It’s a good start, but its problems arise once you start to look beyond this.

While the game openly promotes a lack of micro-transactions, it tries to offset this by having all cards unlocked from the very start. While this is an idea which looks good on paper, it lacks the proverbial carrot on the stick to keep players going, and a real reward for each victory. As such, it hinders the engagement of players and limits its ability to build-up a player base each of its modes sorely needs in order to work, especially the much promoted 2 vs. 2 battles. Worse still, many details and core mechanical functions are remarkably difficult to read, especially the terrain of the battlefields. Combined with the obtuse nature of certain cards and a complete lack of a tutorial, many players will struggle to get to grips with the system.

When playing alone, the game’s AI might as well be set to random at times, as its strategic competency veers between Colonel Klink and Grand Admiral Thrawn every other turn. It’s wildly unpredictable and seemingly directionless, and player losses will more likely be down to the lack of feedback in terms of monster abilities.

Matters are only made worse by a clearly botched attempt to adapt a console focused game to PC. The UI has obviously been built with controllers in mind, as it’s not only bereft of hotkeys but has large unit buttons dominating much of the screen. The settings menu consists of only the bare minimum needed for some players, while basic functions such as full-screen have been so poorly implemented you can accidentally disable them at a moment’s notice.

Ultimately, Deck Casters is a very bare bones effort to translate a console game to PC, and it’s impossible to recommend this one in its current state. Unless you are hell-bent on finding a brand new RTS-CCG combo game and you’re willing to ignore its clearly unfinished elements, ignore this one entirely.

DECK CASTERS / DEVELOPER & PUBLISHER: ROCK NANO GLOBAL / PLATFORM: PC / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Much like motion controls, VR is all too often used as a gimmick. It’s a way to make an otherwise basic game stand out, and more often than not the best releases on this new medium are the simplest. Fewer still can be called games, and more often than not can simply be marked down as interactive experiences. Blade Runner 9732 falls into the latter category, offering an environment for the user to explore. However, this passion project by Quentin Lengele helps to highlight the benefit of the medium over traditional film.

The entire ‘game’ in question is simply this – wander about the apartment of Rick Deckard, and enjoy the atmosphere. From the rain splattered windows leading out over the cyberpunk dystopia beyond to the famous piano, every effort has been made to bring this scene to life and there is an astounding attention to detail present here. Everything from the brand of beer Deckard drinks in one scene to the exact lighting cast by the window shutters is present, and the fading luxury of the place is captured perfectly.

The apartment features a number of interactive areas and moving sequences to explore. The views of the city beyond with police cruisers passing by or the television broadcasting a very familiar sequence are both highlights in this regard. Through these Blade Runner 9732 displays the strengths VR, and encapsulates how the medium can accomplish things film or even typical video game genres cannot hope to match. It’s a perfect match for the atmosphere and experience of the film.

Unfortunately, the key flaws become apparent after only a short time. You have a relatively small area to explore, and within that only a few notable elements can be interacted with in any way. Furthermore, there are some obvious optimisation problems present here, as both the frame rate and textures can rapidly degrade with certain graphics cards. The sound assets are also heavily reliant upon those of the film and, while most are replicated without issue, others like the piano sound clipped and can abruptly cut off rather than ending. While a great deal of leeway can be given to any fan project released to the public for free, it’s difficult to accept when they break the atmosphere it seeks to build.

Even with the above flaws, however, this is still a joy to experience. It’s completely free, highly detailed, and while it has been designed with VR headsets in mind, you can even get by with just your monitor. If you ever wanted to see a bit more of this famous set, definitely give it a look.

BLADE RUNNER 9732 / DEVELOPER & PUBLISHER: QUENTIN LENGELE / PLATFORM: PC, VR / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

You would be forgiven for thinking that world-famous collectable card game Magic: the Gathering took itself too seriously. After all, this is a game played by millions of people, with those at the highest ends of the tournament scene earning serious amounts of cash out of it. It is effectively a sport, but without all that tiresome running about.

So too many, the ‘Un-‘ series of cards is a bit incongruous. Unstable is a series of boosters for Magic: The Gathering that isn’t designed for tournament play. Instead, they’re tongue-in-cheek cards designed for social play. Magic is meant to be fun, and Unstable brings in an element of silliness that is sometimes lacking.

It’s not all silly; token cards are foils and the land cards are gorgeous. Those looking for very pretty decks might want to take a look at the land cards; fully compatible with all forms of play and the so pretty you’re probably going to want them in poster format at some point.

The Un series means the cards have rules on them considered too silly or too impractical for normal play. For example, quite a few of the cards require rolling six-sided dice, something you never see in the ‘proper’ game. Our favourite of these is ‘Go To Jail’, which mocks one of Monopoly’s most irritating rules. We also get ‘host creatures’ and augment cards. A host creature may be an adorable kitten. An augment may be a Rhino. Shove the two together and you have a Rhino-Kitty. Or a humming bird-stegosaurus hybrid. Or Half-Orc, Half-Orc hybrid, if you fancy. There is a sequence of cards based on High-Fiving each other,  and one that allows you to count your ‘library’ of cards as its own creature. These gags are highly social, deeply daft and quite fun.

We should mention contraptions; this is an overly complicated rule set that lets you set up combos. They require a side-deck of 15 cards and some planning. The entire Unstable release is set on the steampunk land of on Bablovia, and the theme is crazy invention. Hence the hybrid monsters animated books and impractical time machines. Each card looks gorgeous, which is the standard we expect from Magic.

We found the best way to enjoy this set is to buy a big box of boosters, get your buddies together and do a draft. Many of the cards are deeply silly, and drafting means that you not only get to see a whole load of cards, you also get to play with cards you wouldn’t usually use. Drafting does make using contraptions a bit tricky, but it’s worth fudging that (and you can always shuffle and play again anyway). Well worth seeking out, especially if you play Magic and are starting to think that it’s serious business.

MAGIC: THE GATHERING – UNSTABLE / DESIGNER: MARK ROSEWATER / PUBLISHER:  WIZARDS OF THE COAST / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Darkwood takes place after some unspecified disaster has forced you and numerous others to eke out an existence within the confines of a sinister forest. The mechanics are an unusual hybrid of RPG, RTS and survival horror, but gameplay comes secondary to the primary objective of scaring the everloving crap out of you. A goal, by the way, at which it more than succeeds, principally down to some fantastic sound design, the ambient music and effects of which are reminiscent of the likes of Dead Space or Silent Hill. The top-down view could have diminished the horror aspect by allowing you see your whole surroundings, but the sight line means objects and individuals are only shown when they are directly in front of you.

The diurnal parts of the day/night cycle are spent exploring the forest, scavenging for limited resources, and talking to an esoteric cast of nightmarish NPC freaks to advance the story and piece together clues as to what the hell is going on. Although the game is semi-open world, your decisions affect how it progresses, with the various branching storylines playing out in different ways depending on your choices.

As darkness begins to fall you must make your way back to your safe house, as after full night descends the forest is strangled in an impenetrable black mist and the shadows explode into hordes of hostiles, meaning if you’re caught outside there is little chance you’ll survive. Within the protection of four walls you’re still not free of danger, since even if you’ve barricaded the windows and doors and strewn traps about the floor something will often find its way towards you. Such is the unknowability of the creatures hunting you, you’ll find yourself alternating between straining your ears for the slightest sound other than your own pounding heartbeat, and remaining utterly motionless lest the source of that unidentifiable scratching noise come bursting through the door and surge towards you in a murderous frenzy. And god help you if the generator runs out of fuel and the lights go out. In real time the nights last about five minutes but subjectively feel about five years, and upon hearing the musical crescendo heralding the approaching dawn you feel a sense of physical release that the current ordeal will soon be over.

Every night the creatures you encounter become stronger and add a sense of urgency to your strategy, which is not especially helpful when the unnerving atmosphere is already enough to contend with. To better arm yourself against the dangers you must face, a workbench in your safe house brings a crafting aspect into play, combining materials to make better equipment and weapons or repairing your current items damaged from use, and as your abilities improve so does your capability of creating batter items. Organic matter can be flung together into a pot and stewed into an eldritch essence, which is injected to give yourself bonuses to aid in your explorations.

Some items can be purchased from traders by bartering with ‘reputation’ points, which is functionally the same as money but more realistic in context, and with the slight difference of being appropriately different for each character encountered.

The lack of a manual save could be a little frustrating for the casual gamer, but it prevents the save-fail-reload cycle that eventually allows you to overcome difficult situations without repercussion and instead forces you to accept the consequences of your decisions and plough ahead in spite of any mistakes you may have made. Whether or not that’s a suitable tradeoff for having it dictated to you when you can end a session without losing all your progress is down to each individual player.

A seamless fusion of genres and playing styles, Darkwood is a creation as engaging as it is deeply unsettling. The insidious sense of psychological violation at the core of its gameplay is inexorable and pervasive but also instils an emotional masochism that demands you come back for more.

DARKWOOD / DEVELOPER: ACID WIZARD STUDIO / PUBLISHER: ACID WIZARD STUDIO / PLATFORM: PC, MAC, LINUX / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Battlestar Galactica has had a few forays into the video game world, with distinctly mixed results. Now, almost eight years after the show ended, we finally have a great one.

The basic premise of Deadlock is this – You’re controlling the first attempts to build a united Colonial fleet during the First Cylon War. While no larger than a basic strike force, it is your job to defend the colonies, keep it funded and fight off opposition from those who want to undermine you from within. Perhaps once you’re done dealing with all the problems your own people are creating, you can get around to fighting the Cylons.

There’s a definite XCOM quality to the game but its real strength stems from how it approaches combat. You give commands to your ships, from what to fire on to when to withdraw and cover basic manoeuvers. You then have ten seconds of those actions play out, before the game freezes again allowing you to take control and issue your commands once more. It’s an easy solution to the usual problems which put many people off of playing RTS experiences, and the turn-based design assists in formulating tactical plans or familiarizing yourself with the variety of ships.

The use of timed mechanics and abrupt pauses benefits Deadlock across multiple platforms. Despite efforts to ease the experience, RTS games on console have always been notably flawed due to the limitations of controllers. Yet, because combat only takes place during brief bursts of action and you have relatively few ships to command, it works perfectly on all machines. Even the control layout is a simple matter of ordering the ships to follow certain orders in turn which, while intuitive, lacks the more finicky elements which can only be accomplished via mouse and keyboard.

While Deadlock lacks the grander scale of Starcraft, Ashes of the Singularity or even Homeworld, it nevertheless captures the perfect grim nature of its setting. While it emphasises micro-management of ships over sweeping formations, it more than makes up for that with its attention to detail. Many ships have weakened areas they need to protect, multiple firing solutions and independent abilities which can change the course of a battle in moments. You need to do more than merely command general actions, you need to dictate when to launch nukes, lay down salvo firing solutions and launch attack squadrons in combat sequences. It’s a level of detail and control which would be almost impossible to manage in real-time without losing control of the fleet.

Deadlock has proven itself to be a major success and a worthy prequel to the revamped series. With many of the same themes carrying over into the story and solid fleet-based combat, it’s a must buy for any fan of the franchise.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA – DEADLOCK / DEVELOPER: BLACK LAB GAMES / PUBLISHER: SLITHERINE LTD. / PLATFORM: PC, PLAYSTATION 4, XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW