[Early] Democracy 3 Review

It should be noted that I'm pretty piss poor at this game at the moment. There's a lot of moving parts and that leaves me questioning how to aptly play this game in order to get ahead. There's one big thing I've already noticed: making big changes means big public outcry. Even if what you're doing is for the best, the public either doesn't see the big picture or just isn't looking for true change. In many ways this mimics real life politics and almost makes me feel bad for the politicians. Almost. I've only played D3 for a couple hours last night and bought it on a whim for it's low price point and because it's sat on my Steam Wishlist for a long time collecting dust. It's a pretty straightforward game with a lot of complicated information, you defiantly have to think here and plan before you execute an order.

The biggest problem I've faced with D3 is how overwhelming it feels. Your nation starts with so many problems, it can feel like a bit much just getting started. The easiest thing I've found is to simply focus on one problem and see what small changes you can make to improve it, without a lot of major changes.

However, that hasn't stopped different groups from assassinating me for various reasons. I've had Conservative Patriots to Liberal Immigrants shoot me. But hey- can't make everyone happy. Having recently been watching House of Cards, one of the first things I toyed with was Frank's plan to empty welfare and deposit all the extra funds into state employee positions. Unfortunately, that too backfired as many of the state positions required a firm education or simply took time to see growth in that area.

One of the more annoying features of the game- which might actually have a good reason for being this way (although I haven't found it clearly) is the bubbles on the main screen. While the bubbles themselves are fine, however hectic they may be. The problem is they change position nearly every turn, which makes returning to that bubble confusing. Especially for new players who aren't aware of which bubble represents which function. The other issue is providing me with the right information- when I need it. When I decide to drop spending on something- lets say Military Funding, I really wish it provided me with automatic calculations on how much I'm saving, how my debt per turn will change and other graphical hard data. In a way, it almost seems like public opinion matters more than the actual hard numbers. Which might be the point all long. As long as the nation is happy it doesn't matter that Blacks are being put behind bars, the Religious Right is teaching Creationism and we're Nuking Korea.

The game is pretty intriguing and I'm happy I picked it up- it just seems to have a steep learning curve even with various tutorials. More updates soon- hopefully I get the swing of things shortly.

Plague Inc: Evolved Review

Plague Inc. has been one of those games that have been on my Steam Wishlist for a while now. There's really no reason I haven't bought it until now, other than to say I'm just a tad cheap. But with my paycheck and Tax Return clearing I figured I could drop the $14.99 that it was asking. To put it simply, I'm not disappointed in my investment. I do however, feel that they could and should do more to expand the game. It's important to note that this is a Early Access game and I understand that many game elements may change or be enhanced in the future. But as of now 3/2/15, this is my review.

The Good:

Plague Inc. is a seemingly daunting task at first and doesn't provide you with a lot of info to get yourself started. But things really aren't as hard as they first seem. Your first objective is typically to infect as many people as you possibly can. But there's plenty of room to experiment here, which can be fun and challenging in its own right. The interface is pretty easy to figure out and you'll be on your way to global destruction in no time.

The game is fairly fun, it's simple- but it's fun. You spend the majority of your time clicking popups which provide you with additional 'Bonus DNA' to modify your Plague with. The biggest challenge it seems is to create a contagious plague that isn't very lethal- at least not at first. Once you've spread to all corners of the Earth it's time to ramp up the lethality and start raining chaos upon the planet. This isn't always easy, and different plague's require different tactics in the short term.

It's tough to find other things I like about this game. It's very simple at its core- which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The Bad:

The problem Plague Inc. faces, is how repetitive the game becomes. The major gameplay feature you'll notice is how much clicking your doing to recover additional 'Bonus DNA', while this feature isn't bad in itself. It calls back to the game's predecessor as a Mobile Game App. In the future, I'd like to see some creative variety in obtaining additional DNA. The other issue with gameplay is a pretty key factor to the game, in playing the game close to 8 Hours last night I found myself falling back to the same strategy over and over again. Infect with a low risk plague- then ramp of the lethality at the last minute to cause a massive kill off. Once you've got the swing of this tactic- the game starts to fade and the AI becoming glaringly obvious. This could be solved however, with different objectives or extended gameplay. Perhaps in the future we'll see scenarios where you've been contracted to kill off one countries population, while protecting another- or other such complicated scenarios which would produce much more intuitive strategy.

The next issue I ran into was the additional content the game provides the player. While it appears at first beneficial to know more about the country you're infecting- in reality the majority of this information is repetitive or can simply be thrown out as useless. Worse yet, many of the buttons you are able to click don't provide any tool tips, which makes early gamers feel rather lost- I know I did. In addition, the game also allows the player to zoom in and while this may be for a future feature that involves a much more in depth look. At the moment this serves no purpose and if anything- hinders the player from spotting the Bonus DNA popups.

Summary:

In the end, despite these flaws I'm assuming there's a plan moving forward to solve these problems. According to the Plague Inc. Wiki, the developer has gone over nearly half a million gamer responses to his game, in order to improve gameplay overtime. So I'll be looking forward to see where he takes this game in the future. Final score,

6.5

DLC /Rant

I love the Total War franchise. But I can't even begin to tell you how much I hate the DLC for it. It's not the DLC itself, while I'm sure the majority of it is solid content. But it really annoys the piss out of me when I'm paying an additional $2 for a 'Blood & Gore' pack, when in reality this should have been included in the game. This isn't even a new feature by any extent- as Shogun 2 provided it as DLC (and possibly Empire?). I'm not even against DLC in terms of extending the gameplay- such as Gameplay Campaigns. But when it's frivolous money hording that's another story.

Take The Sims 4 for instance. Here's a game franchise in which has been gutted and strung up for the player to purchase as a full game. But to many gamer's surprise, what they got was nothing short of 'core gameplay' without any of the bells and whistles the franchise had become known for. Admittedly I haven't played it due to the reviews. But in investigating Sims 4, I was shocked to discover the developers left out such things as dishwashers, the toddler stage of growth, or even swimming pools- and their excused for why they choose to simply aren't that great. I fear we are moving into a poorly motivated system where gamers are being exploited for their pockets and love of the entertainment. The problem that I foresee is this becoming far worse before it gets any better. With any luck, the community as a whole will respond in force.

/Rant