Reviews by apprev

Painkiller Hell and Damnation
 – 

Very solid FPS

This is very good FPS: half a dozen neurons and ten fingers are enough to play it.

- If something moves, shoot it 'cause it's a bad guy. If it's not moving...shoot it just in case it's breakable.
- Kill everything to advance to the next level.
- From time to time, kill a big (really big) boss.
- Also kill your space-bar jumping, because that'll make you run faster.

The gothic graphics are nice, the framerate is solid, and the game appears to be stable.

So far, if you think you can run this game (some people appears to have problems with it), buy it, it's relatively cheap.

PS: If you have problems, the developers are gathering feedback on the Steam forum (It may help to kill some bugs)

PPS: It's here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/214870/discussions/0/522728269370180712.

by apprev, France - Jun 16th 2014

Metro: Last Light
 – 

Do not miss this game if your Mac can handle it

Summary:
Metro is a dark, graphically very good and perfectly ported game. It tells its story with just enough cutscenes to allow for some rest between (or during) each chapter.
The only two "not as good as the rest of the game" things are the level design (linearity) and, sometime, the animations and AI of the NPCs.

The good points:
- From a technical point of view, it's one of the best port I've seen: The graphics are great and the game performs perfectly, even at max settings. Although I've played it on a computer well above the minimum specifications, the game should be playable with good quality on many recent Macs with a dedicated GPU.
- There's a story, with some surprises and a lot of cutscenes. They can be skipped for a more "action packed" and less "story driven" gaming experience (Although I don't see any reason to skip them).
- The graphic style is dark and fits perfectly with the game's post-apocalyptic world.
- The soundtrack is very good. In game-sound is also very good and seems to be exploiting the optical output (for true 5.1 sound).
- Gameplay (Keyboard + mouse) is good, although Aim-assist is enabled by default (It can be disabled).
- There's enough content to justify the price even with only one playthrough. Above that, the game can be played more than once... I will just because there's more than one ending!
- My XBox 360 controller (USB) was recognised by the game. The drawback is that it can't be disabled in-game and must be unplugged. As I dislike playing FPS with a pad it remains untested.

The "Not as good" points:
- NPCs sometime have strange reactions and less than perfect animations.
- The levels are a bit linear.

The bad:
Hmmm... let's see...

Conclusion: Excellent port of an excellent game. If you like a good FPS from time to time and have some money to spend, buy Metro.

by apprev, France - Sep 30th 2013

Iron Sky: Invasion
 – 

An overpriced not-that-good game

I really like space-shooting, so I bought this game without any hesitation.

Although I do not like posting reviews without at least some hours of gameplay, this one will be an exception.

Here's the short version: An overpriced and boring game without any controller support (You just _can't_ release this kind of game, at an AAA price tag, only with keyboard+mouse controls).
At $5 you may try it. At $40, buy anything else.

The good points:
- An OSX version exists.
- Graphics are bland, but correct.

The bad:
- $40 is way overpriced.
- Acting and cutscenes are awful. It was working for the movie (It was satirical) but it's not working for the game.
- The game is boring. I know that this kind of remark doesn't make a review, but I can't manage to play very long before quitting. There's something between the bland graphics, the clunky mouse+keyboard controls and the slow gameplay that doesn't work. This is really subjective... but after all, this review is only my own PoV.
- It's a _space shooter_ but it has no controller support (I tried an XBox 360 and two Seitek).

by apprev, France - Sep 23rd 2013

Drox Operative
 – 

A space-themed hack&slash

Something between Diablo/Torchlight and Escape-velocity.

Drox Operative is nothing more than hack & slash, but space-themed:
- Move around and do quests.
- Choose your weapons and shoot the bad guys.
- Loot them to improve your ship, gain levels and go killing more bad guys.

The good points:
- The realisation is good: no bugs, good performances, nice graphics and sounds.
- The factions are a great idea: You have to manage your standing with other factions. This leads to victory condition others than "kill everything that moves".
- There's more than one way to "win" (See above)
- You can easily choose the difficulty level.
- You can play, quit, and restart the game where you left it.

The not-so-good:
- Controls are a bit messy: Although it's a matter of personal opinion, I had to rebind nearly everything.
- Like all HnS, it's very repetitive and involves a lot of grinding.
- Except by looting some quickly obsoleted items (And by changing ship), the ways to improve yourself are quasi-inexistant.
- Zooming-out is far too limited.

If you like this kind of games (Din's, Diablo, , you can buy it without risking to be disappointed.

There's some nice ideas, the game is stable and looks nice, but otherwise, and although it's fun to play for some time, the replayability is not great.

by apprev, France - Sep 20th 2013

GRID™
 – 

If you like racing games, don't miss this one

There's nothing to say, except that for $25 it's an excellent racing game.

Everything is very good: Graphics, performances, gameplay and replaybility.

The various race types and the career mode are making this game enjoyable even after many hours.

The only drawback, like others racing games, is that you'll absolutely need a controller to play (Keyboard+Mouse controls are nearly game-breaking).

The only reasons not to buy this game would be some kind of "racing allergy"

by apprev, France - Sep 20th 2013

DiRT 2
 – 

A good game for an honest price

You can't ask a lot more to a $20 game : Good graphics, good performances and it's working with my USB controllers (Saitek "flight simulator oriented" peripherals).

Like many racing games, it's a bit repetitive. But, as there's a lot of game modes, tracks, cars and customization options, this game remains fun even after a few hours.

by apprev, France - Aug 2nd 2013

Tropico 4: Gold Edition
 – 

A good Mac port of a good game

TL;DR version: Tropico is a fun game with good graphics, lot of humour, excellent performances and good replayability.
Although the game is not cheap, the quality of the port and the included DLC justify the price. If you like "building games", don't hesitate and buy it.

The good points:
- A lot of buildings, islands and development paths to choose from. It's not as complex as Civ V, but I found this game to be more fun than Civilization (Civ 5 is 100% crap-and-half-done-porting job).
- Modern times DLC is included (it's a must-have). Above that, the sandbox mode extends the game replayability.
- You can continue to play even when the "game is over".
- You can choose your difficulty level ranging from "Have some fun building a very large city on a paradise island" to "struggle with natural disaster and counter-revolutions".
- The omnipresent humour is not heavy-handed. Buildings descriptions and advisors dialogs are fun.
- The program is stable, Mavericks (10.9) compatible and performs well even with a large city. I didn't encounter a single crash or slowdown during 10-20H of gameplay.
- Although I didn't test any of them, there's a lot of user created content accessible from an in-game download manager.

The not-so-good points:
- Controls are a bit unintuitive, but the tutorial explains everything.

by apprev, France - Aug 2nd 2013

Borderlands 2: Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage
 – 

Below average for $10

Everything is in the Title: I don't see how to justify a $10 price tag for this DLC.
I picked this one, because user comments on metacritics made me thought if was the best of BL2 DLC's: I now hope I was wrong.

So far, after finishing it, here's what you'll find "inside the box":
- Some quests: No, it's not "sidequests aplenty", it's "A short main questline with some side-quests".
- A few arena battles: Just easy and borring "content".
- A handful of races: You'll have to retry them because of bugs with invisible walls on the map.
- Two new bosses: They say "including", but in fact, it should have been "Just two new bosses". Moma just died on first attempt with some rockets, and I had to Google the fourth (Blimp) to remember what it was.

It's not worth $10.

by apprev, France - Feb 15th 2013

Sid Meier's Civilization V: Game of the Year Edition
 – 

Bad ending for this franchise (It's the end, isn't it ?)

I spend a lot of time playing previous versions. This fifth-of-the-name is not amongst the bests.

In fact, it's probably the worst :

- Bad IA : Cheats and artificial handicap are not a substitute to a good IA. We're playing on multi GHz / Multi cores / Multi GB computers, but it appears that the IA cannot evolve past what was developed for a 33MHz/512KB computer.
- Bad graphics : Adding 3D, just for the sake of it is not the way to go.
- Bad performances : How can this thing be so slow ? The windows version works better in a parallel VM than this "native" version.
- Bad combat system : This is probably very subjective, but resolving battles with what appears to be a single RNG'ed number is not what I'm expecting from a "strategy" game.

So, buy Total War, not Civ V (Some of the previous Total War incarnations are even available on MGS).

PS :

I'm not sure I bought CIV V on MGS or directly from steam. If it's the later... sorry M. MGS ;-)

I'm not a fan of Steam's Mac client (It's crap) but the problem with this game is not Steam : It's the game itself.

by apprev, France - Jan 29th 2013

Borderlands 2
 – 

Single player (4.5 stars) + Multiplayers and DLC (1 star) = 3 stars review

For the single player experience, it's a near five stars game : The game, in itself, is really good, cartoonish graphics are great, gameplay is fun, and this game has an excellent replayability.
The only drawback is that the Mac port (I also played it under Windows) is way more demanding than the Windows version.

For the remaining, it's a 1 star game, except if ALL your friends are gaming on a Mac :

- Multi-player is still not working between OSX and Windows : It's been like that for weeks, and the game was advertised WITH multi-platform play (I know... "it's coming"... yeah...)

- I bought the Carnage DLC : $10 is overpriced for a few quests and some arena-like fights.

by apprev, France - Jan 18th 2013

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Ultimate Edition
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Just buy it !

Although the Windows version is already some months old, don't hesitate : Buy this game.

- Excellent scenario (Do you like plot theory ?) and realization.
- Good controls and gameplay.
- Good performances even with maxed-out graphics (Macpro + 5870).

by apprev, France - May 17th 2012

Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition
 – 

Yet another bad console port

Frustrating controls, crappy UI (Using the arrows to select menu entries... when you have a mouse) and bad gameplay during boss fights.

Just avoid this game.

by apprev, France - May 17th 2012

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