Source: Review Copy
Price: £15.49
Where To Get It: Steam
Other Reviews: Early Access, Early Access 2

Even after release, Hacktag remains an odd sort of beast to me. It is, and, at the same time, isn’t my sort of game. It remains recommended because, despite my own problems, it is, nonetheless, an interesting and fairly accessible take on co-op stealth/hacking games.

Oops… I see trouble in my future…

Goodness me, that was a bit of a mouthful. Let’s back up a sec. Hacktag is, at the same time, competitive and co-operative, involving an anthropomorphic (that’s animals as people, in this case) world of corporate espionage, in which two players steal data in one of three mission types, either as a stealth operative, or a hacker. The gameplay in each is different, but has the same base idea: Do the things, don’t get caught, and if you do get caught, hope your friend (or you, in the case of Solo play) don’t get caught trying to bust you out. Occasionally, you do things together, and, overall, it’s a tense experience.

Aesthetically, the game works fairly well. Clear visuals, some good stealthy music, ramping up to fever pitch when, inevitably, something goes to hell, and its icons and tutorialising are pretty clear. The controls are understandable, and it comes in the three flavours of multiplayer (friends or random players), local (Two players, one machine), and solo (switching between controlling characters with TAB, the majority of my experience with the game.)

Mainframe hacking is the mission type added for release, and it’s a long, tense haul…

I’ve already mentioned that I find it a little odd that, despite its co-op nature, players are scored (and level up) separately, especially as co-operation is, in at least some cases, mandatory. Indeed, part of the tensions comes from situations like one player trying to unlock the way ahead for the other, to run into a situation like the alarm trap, which requires both players to deactivate (Indeed, one of the pictures of this review is a fine example of when this happens.) Nonetheless, unlockables, co-op play, an interesting visual style… There’s a lot to recommend it.

It isn’t, as it turns out, my particular cup of tea, but if you’re looking for something new in a relatively small genre (at the present time, anyway), this may well be worth a look.

As far as I am aware, while this deeply resembles a lootbox, Coins are earned in-game. Nonetheless, I did get a little skittish when I noticed this…

The Mad Welshman isn’t, as it turns out, much of a multiplayer feller.

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £11.39 (£16.18 w/Soundtrack, £4.79 for Soundtrack)
Where To Get It: Steam

Minor paraphrasing aside, Into the Breach sums up, in its own title, how I’ve felt while reviewing it. Once more, unto the breach, dear friends! ONCE! MORE! I’m less enthused about the part where I close up the walls with the English dead, but that’s mainly because I don’t have all that many to close the walls with, and I’m pretty sure most of my mech pilots aren’t English to begin with…

OOPS. Welp, back to the time machine, folks!

…Still, Into the Breach is Subset games’ latest foray into their particular brand of tight, replay dependent strategy, in which three mech pilots (One of which, at any given time, is a traveller from a future where things went horribly wrong) try to hold back an insectile menace, mostly without backup. It’s turn based, and with the clever gimmick that, due to time travelling shenanigans, you already know what your enemy is going to do. Well, to a certain extent. You know what they’re shooting at (and are capable of), and you can take advantage of this to, for example, shove one of them with artillery or a punch in such a way that they actually hit their bugfriends this time around.

As such, it’s a highly tactical game with a lot of depth, which you might not realise looking at screenshots, as every mission is an 8×8 map. On its most basic level, there’s always at least as many of them as you (unless you’re super good), so simply doing damage isn’t enough. In fact, at least some of the time, you’re merely going to be concentrating on avoiding housing damage, as, with enough loss of life, that’s it, the Vek have reached critical mass, time to bug out and maybe find a timeline where you did better (taking one pilot with you.) But then, it adds layers. Pushing and pulling enemies as well as hitting them. Status effects. Synergies. Environmental considerations.

Ahhh, nothing like saving the day by setting things on fire, and then shoving things *into* fire. Or acid. Hell, just plain water does well sometimes too!

Since explaining everything would most likely be rather dull, let me focus on a team that I never thought I’d like… And yet, they consistently get closer to victory than any of my other mech groups. Heck, even their name (The Rusting Hulks) and their price to unlock (a measly 2 coins) doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. The fact that one of their units doesn’t even hurt enemies seems, at very first glance, like the waste of a unit. But this is where it gets fun. Because, you see, the other two units drop smoke. Smoke which, to them and them alone, also electrocutes enemies at the beginning of their turn, on top of what smoke normally does in this game: Stop you being able to attack if you’re in it.

This may not seem useful, but consider this: An enemy not attacking, and taking damage, is a net plus. An enemy that can’t fly shoved into water, or two enemies with 1 HP being shoved into each other with violent gravitic force is not only a plus, it’s being classy as hell. I don’t need powerful beam weaponry, giant fists, or superscience shenanigans. I have smoke and mirrors. What with the different teams each having an interesting style of play, the ability to play with random mechs, and the ability to pick and choose teams, with achievements (and thus further team unlocks) for experimenting? Now that’s what I call encouraging replay and diversity of play, friends…

It hasn’t taken me terribly long to get to the point where things have slowed down a little (A straight night of play has earned me all of the islands, most of the pilots, and some of the teams, with two almost wins) , but, even with everything unlocked, I see the potential here for me coming back. What if I have an all-shoving team? Or having to watch my collateral with highly damaging beam weaponry? Hrm. Hrrrrrrrm!

Smoke and mirrors. Okay, and riding the lightning too, but let’s not go overboard here!
…Okay, let’s go overboard.

It helps that the music is tense, fitting, and atmospheric, the sound solid, the visual aesthetic similarly tight and consistent, and, best of all, it tutorialises fairly well, and is pretty clear. I would consider this a pretty strong purchase for strategy fans, and another fine example to add to my collection of designing clearly and tightly to goals. Props.

Burninate the towns… Burninate… Oh, wait, no, that’s the opposite of what The Mad Welshman is meant to be doing! Sorrrreeeee!

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £5.79
Where To Get It: Steam

It’s a somewhat sad truth that there are very few games about detectives that make you feel like a detective. Unless, of course, you’re after the Lestrade experience, where you bang things together until somebody archly takes you aside and tells you how you’ve been doing it wrong all this time. And so it is with the Miss Fisher Mysteries episodic adventures so far, an oddly hollow experience after you reach past the surface value of it being more adventures of one of the more characterful and interesting detectives in recent history.

Ah yes, the opera. Noted purveyors of Hoyyotoyoho…

On the absolute surface of it, the music is fitting (It should be, a fair amount of it comes from the show), the paintings of the characters and locations are solid, and it’s accessible. But even here, oddities begin showing up. No windowed mode (or, more accurately, you can Alt-Enter, but it won’t be terribly useful.) Saves are within episodes (so you have to start the episode to load a save, going through at least the introductory cutscene.) If you guessed, by the price, that the cast of the television series were not going to make an appearance (or, indeed, voice acting), you’d be 100% correct. That, at least, I’m not really willing to judge beyond making a note of it.

The rest, however? That, I’m willing to look at a little harder, and, honestly, it just feels unsatisfying. It’s an adventure game of the “One correct path, and no progress until you do the thing” variety, and progressing… Well, when the first episode is resolved with repeated “Talk” commands (and, in the context, this is rather lacklustre ), I can’t help but feel a little cheated. This is a dramatic moment, folks, why the variety of textboxes? Both episodes can be completed in a single afternoon, but… Even knowing this, after the first episode, I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to. And a big part of this is that it feels more like a highlight reel, sapped of context, than a fleshed out adventure.

Ah yes, one of those times when Dot is shown something “sinful” in order to progress the plot. Noted running theme.

Ah yes. Here’s the bit where Phryne scandalises her aunt, yes, we want that. And the bit where she tells Jack she’s not a settling person (being a strong, independent woman of the 20s/30s.) Here’s a brief bit of 20s colour, in the form of a speakeasy, yes. Oh, and the bit where progress is being impeded, effectively, by the patriarchal obsession with proprietry. All gone by in the space of an hour, largely unexplored, only… Sort of there. Oh, and we know you like Murdoch Foyle, so he’s our cad and bounder of the hour (or, more accurately, couple of hours.)

There’s some other stuff too, such as finding Phryne’s dresses (finding things seems to be an obsession with these more casual adventures, I’ve noticed. Odd), but, on examination? It’s window dressing. Very accessible window dressing, make no mistake, for, as noted, the game will simply refuse to progress until you’ve done the right thing, and your options are, essentially “Look at thing”, “Talk to person”, and “Bang clues together until you have a new one or a changed one.”

I’d say this would maybe be a short, enjoyable romp for folks who are fans of the Phryne Fisher mysteries, but…. I’m a fan of them, and my time so far has felt like popcorn: Briefly tasting nice, before I realise I’ve spent dosh on something that’s going to make me hungrier…

Here’s your general guide to Murdoch Foyle, serving double duty in this scene as one of two clues you’re given *in* the scene to bang together!

The Mad Welshman often has difficulty, with short games like this, to avoid spoilers in the images. He hopes that nothing has surprised you, as he picked on the basis that it didn’t surprise him.

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