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Games, Reviews

Train Fever, tries to be Transport Tycoon.

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Train Fever is a Transport Tycoon clone, a good old fashioned economic tycoon simulator. Good, as it’s always nice to see these kind of games, they are getting fairly rare these days. Old, because the core economic game, is utterly imcomprehensible to any human form of thought.

I’m not kidding, oh on the surface, this game is fairly straightforward, buy trucks, trams, busses and (theoretically) trains, transport crap from A to B to C etc… Build roads, railroads, busstops, trainstations, bridges ad all that which is best in life.

Sounds fairly straightforward, eh? Well it isn’t, it really, really isn’t.

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In Transport Tycoon, all stations have a chatchment area, in which they’ll pick up cargo and passengers, of there are any around, and if any lines are able to tranport them. If there aren’t any of those two, nothing happens.

In Train Fever, stations present an opertunity for passengers/cargo to get to their destination, and they will base their go/no go decision on travel time. How do you predict travel time? You can’t, you really can’t, not unless you’re some deranged purestrain hyper-sperging autism machine, who will joyfully calculated the time, based on virtual feedback, experimentation and the very quantum uncertaincy of the goddamn universe. Seriously, you’d have to be utterly mental to figure it out, no sane human being could ever do so.

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So making money can be incredibly obtuse, for passengers, not for cargo, oh no, cargo is a piece of cake. It’ll simply take the fastest route to the nearest reciving destination, and it’ll either trickle towards the avaliable destinations (Steel Mills, Saw mills and refineries) or take your MUCH faster trucks, so that’s not really an issue. However, the generic goods that the factories vomit forth? Now that one’s nice and obtuse as hell. The maximum amount of generic goods factories can produce, and thus also the amount of unprocessed goods they’ll recieve, is determined by the amount of goods the nearby cities will recieve, meaning that the optimal solution for industrial profit, is a processing site, surrounded by three or more cities, all who’ll recieve plenty of goods, now that’ll generate a solid profit.

So, that’s Truck Fever for you, plenty of fun with trucks.

As for busses and trams? Utterly unpredicatable and not even remotely straightforward, due to the travel time issue, sometimes they’ll trickle in some form of profit, but their use is almost entirely used for feeding train stations. As it should be, very realistic.

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And here we arrive, at the elephant in the room, the terror, the dread, the trains.

And they are ever so fucked, not intially of couse, in the early start of 1850, people don’t really have cars, so you’re trains? They are the only real choice, no way in hell are anyone going InterCity without your gleaming trains. And this state of joy last to somewhere around 1950, when the car arrive, as in the real world. And I guess I now know how the railroad tycoons of the era must have felt when Fords fucking Model T came along and ruined everything.

The early days are the good days, cheap trains, cheap to run, no other choice, plenty of money.

And here’s the best part, unless you somehow manage to REALLY slash the travel times, people will just take their goddamn fucking cars, like a bunch of Americans, the only remote success I had with trains, where dirt cheap railbuses, and a shitton of them, but even that, doesn’t really cut in the long run. Even tried an EXTREME long distance route straight across the map, still no success.

It becomes virtually impossible to make any money from trains, after the cars fuck everything up, cargo’s doing just fine, as they don’t spawn cars at any time, but trains? Nope, ain’t gonna happen.

Unless the devs tweak the amount of passengers, or the ticket fees or the maintainence costs of the damn trains, it’ll remain incredibly hard to actually make any money of trains after 1950, which is kinda bad, with a name like Train Fever.

Graphically, it looks okay, not terrible well optimized.

If the economy was a lot less obtuse and better balanced, this game would be recommendable, unfortunately, it isn’t recommnedable at all at present.

Electronic Entertainment, Reviews

Omerta – City of Gangsters deserves concrete shoes

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Omerta – City of Gangsters deserves concrete shoes

Omerta – City of Gangsters is a turn based tactical strategy game, blended into a crime simulator, set in prohibition era Atlantic City. Or is it? It isn’t. It’s a shallow crime building simulator, where combat encounters are done via turn based tactical action, similar to XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Or is it? It kinda isn’t. It’s actually a shallow crime building simulator, with a nor terrible impressive turn based combat encounter system bolted to it, and the similarity to XCOM is strictly theoretical.

It’s the latest game from Haemimont Games, known for their remastering of the Tropico franchise, and horribly overpriced German publisher Kalypso Media, known for their outdated habit of demanding preposterous sums for shallow games, small DLC and similar such villanous deeds. Like demanding 30€ and more for this wreck of a game. For fucks sake guys, i loved Tropico 4, stop doing this shit, Dungeons was a pile of useless waste too.

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Now that I’ve mentioned Tropico 4, I can mention it some more! Wait, just kidding, you’re not getting the pleasure of me talking about a good game, I was going to mention who they’re using the same damned engine, thus cutting costs even further, hell, it even reuses several bits and pieces of Tropico’s art assets, even a couple of voice actors get paid again. Should mention that they voice actors are actually very good, and have, duty done.

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Crime Simulators doesn’t pay.

Omerta – City of Gangsters is simple, and due to it’s simplicity, it’s easy as hell to play. The simulation have a theme of duality. Illegal (dirty) and legal (clean) cash, liked and feared ratings, joints and premises. The dirty cash is used for the setup of illegal activities, the clean for construction sites and little else. Liked ratings improve some activities, mostly gambling, and feared makes shit cheaper and pawn shops better. Not that you would ever build more than one speakeasy, boxing ring and similar, seeing as diminishing returns makes yet another ugly appearance here.

The gameplay is nice and simple, you rent joints and premises, and make your money using a limited range of illegal and semi-legal activities, some are logical, like speakeasies and nightclubs needing supplies of beer from breweries and liquor from disteleries, in order to rake in the dough. Other? Less so. Like the pizzaria that makes people fear you? I really don’t recall the part of the Godfather where Don Corleone spread fear through a fucking pizza hut.

Throughout most of the empire-building parts of the game, your opposition is pre-programmed and lacking, little if any AI will present you with any opposition, and the lack of any sort of logically located speed-up function can and will make the game hideous and slow.

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XCOM is weeping for it’s lesser cousin, for it has lost its way.

The turn based combat, oh dear merciful Eris, daughter of Chaos, preserve us all, it’s not very good. I’ll make a presumption, and presume that you have all played the new XCOM:Enemy Unknown, which I know declare the benchmark of turn-based squad gameplay.

Omerta’s connection to the shinning beacon of XCOM, is technical at best, in XCOM, cover was basically everywhere you could see, a tree was cover, a car, a wall. In Omerta? Only where the programmers have determined it to be, can you find cover, so where it’s instinctual in XCOM, it becomes illogically flawed in Omerta.

The complete lack of any serious customization beyond slightly better guns makes the game even shallower. There’s no armour, so when the game ramps up the difficulty, oh boy, does shit ever die. It becomes a matter of luck if you can even manage to drag all your gangsters through a combat mission.

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Should I play this?

No. You really shouldn’t, perhaps with an expansion pack it might become more interesting, and if Steam comes around with a giant sale, you could pick it up, if you are so desperate for a Gangster empire builder.

If you chose to ignore me, you can find it on Steam and on GOG.com.

However, if you want a tough-as-nails crime simulator? I suggest Gangsters: Organized Crime. With the warning, that I suck at it.

I give it 36/100.

Electronic Entertainment, Reviews

Duke Nukem Forever is bloody stupid.

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The game starts up with Duke taking a piss, but not just any piss. A piss of such magnitude, of such glory, so loaded with testosterone and steroids, that’s it officially qualifies as a chemical weapon in no less than 53 of the lower states. Now Duke zips up and fires of some catchy remark.

Which i sadly didn’t listen to, wondering if the game is really taking the piss, of everything. It’s a relic, a pipe(bomb( dream, something that really should have stayed lost, or make ten years ago, where it would have been a masterpiece. Sadly, now it’s just another mediocre FPS, which is really bad, because this was once upon a time, the potential for a champion among champions, now, and yet.

Duke Nukem Forever is probably the Silliest Game of the Year, which is a bit of a problem, because I do not think, it was suppose to feel quite this silly, defenitely not a serious game, but it doesn’t take the shit quite as good as say, Serious Sam did, it just messes around with mediocre health regeneration, quicktime event and sexism. It’s just juvenile to such a staggering degree, that it just ends up being fucking stupid, you don’t laugh, you groan.


I never see the enemies like this, all I see is a garbled mess as they mindlessly charge me.

A health bar replaced by an ego bar, increased by looking in a mirror, eating doughnuts, pumping iron and behaving like a pillock. An enemy AI that’s just about the same, as the one used in Duke Nukem 3D, the decade old gaming classic, shows that Gearbox didn’t even bother trying to innovate this game at all.

An entire stage, with a miniaturized Duke, driving around in a fucking RC car, it’s just so sad, Half-Life 2 did this years ago, twice, without the retarded gimmick. It’s like playing that ancient MicroMachines racing game all over again, just worse, and less fun. Seriously, who thought this was in any way a good idea? Yes, I do indeed love sections of constantly re-spawning enemies, where all I can hope to achieve in my present state, is make them jump around on a single leg. Dodging sure is fun, fun like taking a shite in a winter forest, surrounded by rampaging LARPers.

And don’t make me start ranting about the magnificent design off the random passersby you encounter, they look like they’ve just escaped from freaking Outcast, or perhaps even, from some of the old trailers of Duke Nukem Forever. There’s just no excuse for this kinda useless work.

And these motherfucking pigs! Fuck them, hateful little shite gameplay.

And dear sweet one-eyed Wotan, god of destiny, god of death, the all knowing, the all-seeing, all hail Odin, true King of the Gods, those fucking twins are annoying, it’s like having Tony Blair licking your ears, possibly pleasant, but deeply annoying. I don’t even want to save them, when they are inevitably kidnapped, the world would be better of without them, hell, the universe would be better off without them.

And hey, remember how Alyx from Half-Life 2 looked, behaved and dressed like a sensible human being? And remember how no one really tries to do that again? Duke Nukem Forever once against proves that it is the anti-matter of all innovation, and scales the whole thing back to strippers and lesbian twin schoolgirls. Skimpy clothing, skimpy brains, skimpy motivation, boring as fuck.

Go visit and actual strip bar you useless freaks.

Gotta give the game a few points, it’s tradition, it is deeply honest, it does have a mature rating, no pandering to the politically correct crowd, or to WalMart. And it runs on my ancient PC, a pc that’s so decrepit, that it’s being held together with glue, dust and my iron will.


This picture contains nothing but filthy lies!

In the end, don’t bother, unless you have the mental youthfulness of a seven year old German boy. The game-play itself, is so utterly devoid of innovation, so generic, that the layer of ancient nostalgia, makes you feel kinda sad.

Don’t buy it, watch a Let’s Play on Youtube, see a stupid friend play it. But stay away, it’s just not good.

Not even charming.

If you are a retarded man-child, go buy it on Steam.

Rating: 43/100

Reviews, Webcomics

MegaTokyo: The Neverending Story

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MegaTokyo is a webcomics that have been running since the late Mesozoic era, originally written by a deranged Dinosaur, it was picked up by Fred Gallagher of the secret Lizardmen cabal, who’s been adding to it ever since.

Having decided that it was time to move his horrible conspiracy forward, Fred decided to draw his awful cliché story back in the glorious year two-thousand. Originally, it was a useless comedy webcomic with gaming and Japanese cartoons.

Orginally drawn in a lazy anime way:

It oddly enough still is, wait, did I type oddly?By Jove! I forgot. Anime fans have NO FUCKING TASTE!

Megatokyo’s entire concept is a clueless, witless, useless, ugly, tasteless and utterly devoid of any human emotion nerd, who travels to Japan for no logical reason, and then goes on with his useless little life.

And despite being so utterly unlikeable, a generic Japanese woman, who doesn’t even vaguely look asian, “fall in love” or perhaps “fall in awkward affection that’ll probably never result in anything”.

And oddly enough, the humourous sidekick has more luck in his love-life, hocking up with some cynical women, and he at least is vaguely relatable, that is, if you’ve been bullied by anyone at anytime.

He’s basically a dick, but he’s a human dick, the main character, Piro, is a vague useless arsewipe, who’s is loved by a pretty girl, or girls, for ONE SINGLE FUCKING REASON!

He is the author, inserted into his own private anime dream world.

It’s a boring pointless story about a boring pointless charachter, occasionally giving paused by the comic relief fighting giant monsters in freaking Tokyo.

Whoopee, what a fucking surpirse.

Don't you miss Tintin? Where high quality backgrounds where a fucking STANDARD!

Megatokyo is the fifth worst webcomic I have ever laid my poor eyes on.

It represent bland anime styles, poor storylines and a neverending story, without the awesome song.

I’d recommend Megatokyo as worthwhile reading, the day the missing continent Kerguelen rises from the depths and unleashes the horrors that has rested there for untold years.