I Recommend: Bad North

The best techniques are passed on by the survivors 

Playing games is a sort of a thing that I like to do, not sure if you've noticed. Sitting down and diving into games both unfathomably massive and complicated as well as those that are simple and relatively small both form perhaps the most core aspects who and what I am. That's partially why I started this series of games that I recommend, because otherwise I'd spend all my time talking about these big extravagant affairs of gaming when the smaller more intimate one's are just as important and special to me. They're just not the sorts of products that would slide into any other discussion, which is why it's important I don't forget to cover this series like I've done something like twice in a row now. (That's an angry message aimed directly at me.) With that in mind, the game I have to bring up today is one I only actually came across thanks to that ol' Epic free games deal that they love doing, which has me begrudgingly admitting that they certainly do seem to have a rather solid track record so far of offered games. (Doesn't mean I have to love every single thing that Epic store does) The title in question is: Bad North.

Bad North, or specifically for the version I'm playing, 'Bad North: Jotunn Edition' is a frightfully simple strategy game which answers the question of what could I possible do to kill time whilst I spend an actual week setting up my modded Oblivion run. (Why do I need three different mod organisers to sort things out? How did the community allow things to get this convoluted!?) The answer being; I get lost in a world of polygonal simplicity where all the game consists of is a 'king of the hill'-esque scenario that just is built upon level after level with small nuggets of tactical planning thrown in there. But don't let that get to sounding intimidating for you, trust me when I say that 'tactics' is a phrase that typically gets me running for the hills too, rather I'm talking the sorts of rock-paper-scissors tactics that you take to so easily you don't even realise you're being challenged until you've been hopelessly pulled into the cycle of island hopping.

Plausible Concept's Bad North presents the player as a group of Viking-looking polygons sitting on a mostly desolate island save for a single building present there. Over the course of the level a few ships with gently drift into dock, with their path being predictably straight for cohesive planning purposes, and a party of marauders will try to storm the island and destroy the building. All you have to do is guide your army of warriors to mash themselves into the invaders and keep your home from being set on fire. That's pretty much it, I just laid out the entire gameplay loop of this whole title. Yet I'm being honest when I say that within that simple premise there's enough game to keep you on-your-toes and hooked for a few hours at the very least. (And sometimes a few hours is all you're looking for.)

First off, it extends itself by having a barrage of seemingly endless scenarios just like that level I just described, but randomly generated with a few conceptual consistencies so that you develop and maintain some idea of what's going on. The islands that you come across might be bigger and with more than one building to protect, and that swelling in size will mean that a proportional force of enemies will come to greet you. Maybe they'll be so many enemies that you cannot devote your warriors to protect all side at once, something you'll have to figure out. Or maybe, as the levels go on, you'll find yourself facing enemy troops who are more powerful and capable of overpowering your ordinary troops. These are variables that occur naturally and are conveyed to the player through either a general overview of the island they choose to travel to for the mission or through a very barebones user interface. Both ways in which the team devoted themselves to the concept of a 'minimalistic tactical experience'.  

As the screenshots have likely succinctly imparted, minimalism is the key design philosophy that drove majority of the development decisions. The bare, yet elegant, featureless attackers and defenders, the control scheme which literally consists of little more than clicking, and even the core progression that is very straightforward and comprehensive. Tactical games have this tendency to appear big and intimidating unless you dedicate yourself to memorising all of these rules about 'unit counters' and 'resource nodes' and 'development costs' and all of these topics that are least worthy of entire dedicated tutorial pages to explain them. Trust me, as someone who's actually quite a big fan of 4x titles like Stellaris and Civilisation, they can take up a lot of your time and mind just to come to initial grips with. What I feel that Plausible Concept have succeeded in doing with Bad North, is in whittling down all of that chafe into bare simple basics that are unimposing, approachable and still fun. Now that's not to say I think Bad North makes the perfect stepping stone to being able to enjoy 4x mind you, that's still a pretty substantial leap, but I still think it makes for a great strategy game for those who don't think they like strategy because it's just too much to absorb at once. (Which I think is a genuine criticism of the genre type.)

Though that simplicity doesn't mean Bad North has stepped away from strategy staples such as progression, indeed there is a rouge heart to this little game, so some form of progression does need to be instituted so that each run can be measured against the last. Minimalism is the soul here, yet again, in order to maintain that all important approachability. Every building you manage to protect throughout the duration of the assault rewards you with coin related to how big the building was, coin that you can then spend on upgrades to make your troops more powerful. Additionally, some islands come with standing armies already upon them, that will join your roster if you manage to complete that level with them. Of course, the risk comes that if an army is ever completely destroyed during a raid they're gone for good, but Bad North, once again being much more friendly compared to the rest of the genre, offers ways to replay levels if you screw up badly and manage to lose an army unjustly.

By the late game, and where things become interesting, the real hook of the game comes when the enemies start reinforcing their troops with  three or four archetypes that directly counteract yours. There are archers, warriors and Pikemen, each with an obvious advantage and disadvantage to range and melee attack strength that can be deduced. It's up to the player to match armies with their counters, whilst positioning defensively to keep the island safe, and there's even a few specially powered armies you can earn along the way in order to sprinkle just that extra something into the variety of the formula. Throw all of that in together and you've got a surprisingly clever little tactical defence game that naturally introduces all of it's ingenuity to the player and even at it's peak is never too much to come to grips with. Making Bad North an absolutely great time for those who are here to digest short sessions of strategy action without becoming too invested (as one might with 'Into the Breach' and it's 'every mistake is deadly' policy) or getting dragged into a game that lasts months. (As one would with 'Civilisation' Because of course.)

Bad North is the sort of game that I would recommended simply because of it's wide spread possible appeal to literally any kind of game player out there. Those that are used to small chunks of bitesize game that they'll get off their phone, will find an easy to latch onto experience. Some that might be into some types of games but perhaps not so much strategy, will discover that this is a very casual yet rewarding time. And strategy fans I'm sure will be able to pick up on the understated depth in the game's mechanics that are just enough to stimulate. And beyond all of that, I love the game because visually the idea of utilising a minimalist artstyle to portray Nordic snow islands has a simple beauty to it that I deeply resonate with. What's more, the game is less than £12 on Steam, so it certainly meets it's value proposition. If casual strategy is in anyway your thing, then so is 'Bad North: Jotunn Edition'.

I recommend: Enter the Gungeon

 Taking aim at roguelikes

So I guess I'm a convert for Rougelites now. How did I get interested in that kind of thing? Should we all like Rougelites now? What's the official line the Church's taking on Rougelites? I seriously cannot reconcile the person I used to be with the rougelite fantatic of today, who gobbles up these types of games like kibble. But would you believe me if I said I'm still not sure how I fall on the whole genre? I mean they're fun to me, I think, but I wonder if I'm more addicted to the struggle of trying to force through them than the moment-to-moment enjoyment of randomised chaos. At the very least, I like the prospect of games that can be played to completion in short bursts, as they fit nicely in with my schedule of doing literally anything else all day, thus it's should come as no surprise that I quickly fell for Enter the Gungeon when I saw it.

The first time I saw this Devolver Digital title was actually back before it's first release during a preview, believe it or not, and the game stuck with me because of one simple word: simplicity. It was a game that seemed to knowingly whittle down itself to the core essence, making this top down shooter with roguelite elements a pixel-art bullet storm shooter with agonisingly simple controls and an almost obnoxious commitment to it's theme of everything firearms. There's no need for grand storylines, AAA 3D renders and several volumes worth of lore if you know what you are and nail it to an impeccable degree. The only stipulation is that you must nail it, because when you've laid yourself out that bare it doesn't take much for everything wrong to stick out and ruin the experience. In that simplicity there is beauty, and Enter the Gungeon is a very simple game.

It's a dungeon crawler. One that tasks the player with selecting a character and running through randomly laid-out rooms full of enemies of various types who are all chomping at the bit to fill you full of holes. All you have at your disposal for protecting your preciously slim health pool is the arrow keys, a very useful roll and the oft-forgotten ability to flip tables like this is a John Woo movie. Yes, this game is so obsessed with sticking to the '80's action movie' aesthetic that the name invokes that it even borrowed table flipping. I mean, it's not all that useful and, in all honestly, it's more than a little cumbersome to have to seek out a surface and then turn it over; (In the knowledge that it's a very destructible cover too) but is there any better way to embody the spirit of a gun-toting badass? Of course there is. It's sliding across tables whilst shooting at enemies. And you can do that too. (Though, again, so unwieldly that's it's really only for bragging rights.)

The real 'Rougelite' part of the game comes in the items that you collect from the randomly generated chests on each floor, or purchased at the item shop or looted off of bosses. These items can be anything from extra hearts to special boosters that cause an enemy damaging impact whenever you flip a table. (Really like that one) Honestly, the effects of these items are almost criminally underexplained which makes it hard to really be excited when I find one, but the key to any successful run is usually gathering the most useful ones in the same go anyway. So far so normal for just about every dungeon-based Rougelite ever. But where Enter the Gungeon really earns it's flair is where it lives up to it's name; this is a Gun-geon, afterall, thus what you really want to be finding in those chests aren't item boosters, but newer more powerful, or more whacky, guns to change up the way that you fight.

It's yet another example of a simple concept realised to frightening efficacy. The pace of bullet hail shooters are so often decided by the movement of the player as well as their means of offensive defence. What's my rate of fire, how straight is my shot, do I have any recourse for enemies who aren't directly in front of me, etc. Similar games in this field, Binding of Issac comes to mind, recognise this and have the basic attack be subject to evolution with certain items that you can pick up, in the knowledge that as the way you fight changes the very speed and feel of the game does too. Enter the Gungeon takes that concept and balloons it to a whole new level by making a collecting game out of the sheer number of shooting implements you come across. Each gun behaves differently and changes up how you fight to survive, letting the pace of the game be set at a dime by random chance and the niftiness of the player. Are you making do with the rapid, but weak, starter pistol or do you have a slower, but reliable, spread shotgun? And that's without even taking into account the identity of the guns themselves.

Because, you see, almost everything in Enter the Gungeon is a gun pun. I mean everything. From the enemies, known collectively as the Gundead, to the various bosses, including but not limited to the Ammoconda, everything has a gun theme. Yet no part of the aesthetic is more wild than the guns themselves. You have guns that are bullets which shoot guns, as wierd as that sounds; guns that are boxing gloves which daze the enemy with a projectile fist; Guns that shoot sustained beams, guns that bounce bullets, guns that create little homing bullets after first launch, guns that start fires, guns that freeze, guns that shoot around corners and guns that create black holes. Each of these weapons have their own identity and the player is encouraged to collect an arsenal's worth of them for rainy days.

The balance comes, surprisingly enough, in maintaining ammunition supplies and choosing what weapon to whip out when. The plentiful amount of ammo that you're saddled with gets quickly offset with the number of Gundead hordes chewing at your ankles, so before long you'll actually find yourself picking between mowing down hordes and saving up for the boss encounters. At which point you'll start seeing the immense value of the refill boxes that top up a single gun, whilst weighing their worth against the mid-fill boxes that fill half of all your weapons. (the trick is timing) Then there's the blanks which are limited per floor but wipe out all bullets on the screen, and the currency you'll be picking through at the shop. Nothing I've listed about this game is inherently genre rewriting, but the mere flawless execution of them all together is what makes this game such a classic.

I would have to recommend Enter the Gungeon to all those that feel interested, yet intimated by the Rougelite genre, because of all the one's I've played this is certainly one of the most casual friendly. It's easy to pick up, provides rapid fire runs, requires no long term investments with so much to lose upon death and even gives handy quick restart options in the vein of Spelunkey to feed into that 'One more time' cycle of addiction. And bare in mind, with my recommendation, that there's vast layers of item synergies and secret bosses that I haven't even begun to delve into myself, so there's a lot for you to discover even beyond what I've covered. I just thought it was worth the write up anyway to let you know that even without becoming involved to the minuet-level: Enter the Gungeon impresses in spades. All I need to do now is Exit the Gungeon. (Which is the actual sequel/spin-off. That might just be next)

I Recommend: Tyranny

Binding fates and taking names!

So I consider myself an eclectic gamer who really does pay attention to the game of the day no matter what their genre or my chances of actually ever playing them. I know when the newest FIFA comes out and about such a game's pros and cons even though I've haven't owned a FIFA since '05, the same could be said for Forza games and even Just Dance. (Have to keep up to date on Ubisoft's super seminal franchise, afterall) As such, when it comes to a genre that I'm super invested in, RPGs, and a studio I love making them, Obsidian, I expect to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of them up in here. That should be a given, I shouldn't even have to look it up; freakin' osmosis should just kick in. Therefore when Epic Games decided to give out some Obsidian games in their free program I scoffed in the knowledge that I was likely already well versed and experienced with all the titles that could possibl- what the heck is 'Tyranny'? Why have I never heard of this? It came out a year after Pillars? How could I not have heard of this? What the heckin' heck?

So yeah, apparently Obsidian managed to sneak an entire RPG around me about four years back and I'm only hearing about this now. (How sneaky of them) And to be clear, Obsidian is the sort of company whom I very much expect to hear about whenever they make moves. Ever since 'Fallout: New Vegas' dropped and I realised that these guys beat Bethesda at their own game, I made it my mission to note everything that comes out of their offices, because there's a good chance I'll like it. I never got the chance to give 'Alpha Protocol' a try, which saddens me because despite the heavy jank which people claim the game shows I literally adore the premise. Stealth-based spy-themed RPG with choices and an odd sense of humour? Did Obsidian read my dream journal for that one? But that loss made me all the more dedicated to snapping up every one of their games whenever I got the chance, lest I be left short again, so I have no idea how 'Tyranny' slipped me by. (Well it's in my hands now.)

But what about the game itself, what has Obsidian thrown together and how does this differ from the isometric formula which Obsidian themselves helped revive back in 2015? Well actually this time the very premise pretty much sums up the USP, because Obsidian went for an off-the-cuff premise with this game and I have to admit I was dubious at first. (Okay, that's not true. First I played it for 2 hours and then I looked up what it was roughly about. Then I was dubious.) Essentially 'Tyranny' takes place in your everyday fantasy world without the crazy races but not without magic. Plus, there's an all-powerful agent of evil who seeks control over the entire world, par the course for any game out there. But things diverge from the norm, because instead of telling the story of a simple farmer's rise to becoming the 'hero of us all', 'Tyranny' starts at the end of that story. After the Tyrant has already seized control of the entire world and won, all that's left is the subjugation of some bumpkins out by the coast who are such a non-threat that they're busying fighting themselves by the time you arrive. Oh did I mention; you're also very much on the side of the Tyrant and consolidating their rule. (Talk about flipping the script!)

Now the reason this had me worried, even after playing the intro and quite liking what I was seeing, was because of the way it was marketed on the Steam page. "Tyranny turns the archetypal RPG story on its head!" the description reads "The player is not a random villager!", 'this isn't your grandma's RPG!' Yeah I made up that last one but you get the sort of vibe this is going for, right? 'Everything you expect out of a game from this genre? Yeah, this game completely changes all of that so buckle up for a envelope pusher!'. It's the kind of marketing that lays itself into what the story isn't over what is, and it gave me the impression that the game would mirror that sort of direction. The result of such situations would typically be a promising premise that get wasted when it could have been something really special. Luckily, my fears were so far off base that it's almost embarrassing, 'Tyranny' doesn't miss an ounce of it's potential.

Set in a world where the villain has won, Tyranny knows exactly what sort of world it's trying to build as it establishes a struggle between lawful tyrannical order and unrestrained chaotic freedom in a manner that's almost reminiscent of Shin Megami Tensei. The world building towards this is fantastic, and though it demands a lot of the player, in terms of reading heavy and detailed passages, it proves itself rich and deep enough to earn that commitment. Terratus is a plane that is shaped very much by the cult of personality which the regime forms around the all-powerful and mysterious Kyros, and as soon as you are positioned as a agent of this regime it'll become clear that traditional concepts of good and evil aren't really going to apply here. By most traditional standards you very much are the 'bad guy', but in this narrative that are no more side left apart from Kyros', and that fact alone paints this laudably natural coat of grey over each dilemma in the game and each system feeds that amorality beautifully.

Just like in New Vegas, the players will find a lot of their actions will be driven by the desire to build or sully relationships with close party members, factions and even just the various societies around 'The Tiers' (The region under siege). And just like in New Vegas, this allows for unique shades of personality and opinion to enter into decision making in a manner that doesn't quite happen with mortality-shader RPGs. And within this dictatorship relationships can shift and devolve over the matter of a few dialogue choices, thus players are always hyper aware of their interactions and the way it shapes those around them, to a degree that honestly shocks me in that I never really knew I wanted it this deep. But as if to wrap it all up in a beautifully neat bow, the very reputation system and it's quirks even get naturally tied into the overarching narrative in a manner so clever that I had to clap my hands together when I heard it. Or read it, I guess. (It's amazing how masters of their craft can blow you away even when you think you've seen everything.)

If there's another general feature of Tyranny which I cannot in good faith go without mentioning, it would have to be the the choices and consequences. Now, if you know me you'll know that I hate games wherein 'choices have consequences' is waved as a chief selling point, as it's almost always a prelude to disappointment as it merely draws attention to all the ways in which such a system doesn't live up to it's promise. Literally everytime it's a letdown, from 'Cyberpunk' to 'Life is Strange'; it's never as deep as they say. Tyranny, however, plays with this is a very subtle way wherein actions have consequences that may not be obvious all the time, and may not try to be flowers of opportunity either. Sometimes a choice you made in the prologue scrawl (Which is an extensive and important section) will shut down a potential interaction you could have otherwise had, or ingratiate you to someone you've just met, thus opening up more freedoms to interaction. It's hard to describe but I find it be a very honest approach to the concept where I have found myself frustrated upon coming against a wall, but its a wall I've built myself and thus I'm only immersed deeper by that frustration. (Does that make sense?)

I'm being very vague about my time with Tyranny and the parts of it that I loved and that's because I'm both still chipping away at the game and this isn't a review; it's a recommendation. Sometimes when a big shiny new hotness comes along and promises the world, what you really need instead is a robust and reliable clunker with a few tricks up it's sleeve and fine motor. (If you can even decipher that horrendously mixed metaphor) Tyranny won't blow you away with it's graphical fidelity (it does look pretty, but more artistically) nor it's gameplay; (it's basically just a real-time RPG like any other you've played) but it will satiate that hunger for solid, clever stories wrapped in an unfaltering RPG shell, if that's what you're so inclined towards. So unless the final act I'm approaching manages to screw everything up to an unreal degree, I'm pretty comfortable calling Tyranny my recommended game of the month. Because that's a thing I decided that I'm going now and you can't tell me it's dumb, I already know that it is.