Glittermitten Grove
Okay, since this is not the “normal” game we are getting here, so i am gonna first talk about the “Main game”, the one we are sold with, the one with the game title - Grittermitten Grove. Especially for those who didn’t know the “dark secret” behind this game at the time they hit the buy button.
This game reminds me a lot of the PC98 Pixy Garden (ピクシーガーデン 妖精伝説) back in 1995. Such nostalgia! Haven’t really seen a similar genre of that type since, I’ve played Creatures and other monster breeding/town management games but none of them gives me that special feeling from Pixy Garden, until i find this game. This game is like a combination of Pixy Garden with Terraria’s suvival and terraforming touch, making it much more difficult and intriguing.
– Real player with 19.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best City Builder Farming Sim Games.
Glittermitten grove is, in and of itself, a very simply fun game with a shallow learning curve and an immediately apparent reward for learning the game’s fairly simple mechanics. It’s nice to look at, it’s original, and it’s a worthwhile time-waster if you’re into building bases and managing resources. There’s not really an endgame and the depth leaves quite a bit to be desired, but we all know that’s not the game you want to hear about.
Frog Fractions 2, or TXT World as it’s called in-game, does not measure up to its predecessor. I’ll admit, it’s got a very unique sort of charm, and the minigames that are unlocked are funny enough; the glaring issue is that the game utterly lacks the spirit and sense of absurdism and unpredictable over-the-top progression that, in my opinion, made the original Frog Fractions great. The game is interesting and engaging to a point, the difficulty is tough but fair and easy to adjust to, but rather than an imaginative journey from humble beginnings through a goofy and nonsensical plot that retains cohesion with interesting – if consistently silly – writing; TXT World serves as a sort of ascii hub through which to access games that feel like in-jokes and collectibles that reward you with cheap nonsense meant to make one laugh through its randomness and reference to pop culture. The entire time I was playing, I was left wondering, “When does the real game start?” to which the game replied, “Never.” If you’re a die-hard Frog Fractions fan and want to see what the developers did with the kickstarter money they raised, then you can spend $20 on a nifty resource manager and a collection of game jam titles, and hopefully prove my feelings about this game wrong. As it stands, however; I cannot reccomend this game. I was disappointed and saddened by this title, and while I don’t regret purchasing it, I couldn’t encourage any of my friends to spend their money on this end product. Maybe wait for it to go on sale? I don’t know.
– Real player with 16.1 hrs in game
Tropico 4
Power corrupts, absolute power… is pretty neat.
Tropico 4 is the magnum opus of the Tropico franchise. It has the best gameplay, graphics, story and characters of the whole franchise. This game took the torch from Tropico 3 and made everything absolutely better. The soundtrack is amazing and gives you the Caribbean immersion you need to rule the proud nation of Tropico. The interface is clean and to the point, and the game communicates very well to the player what he is supposed to do, and the colour palettes in this game are gorgeous even by today standards. Also the jokes are hilarious and never get old.
– Real player with 817.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best City Builder Management Games.
At first, I wanted to be a kind, benevolent dictator, in charge of my island which of course would be perfectly green, a land of equality, equal pay, a high living standard, jobs for every Tropican, a high level of schooling and a good member of the United Nations.
However, people kept complaining. At first, this was fine. Free Speech and all. But they were not working. Worse, they began to become rebels and attack the work of innocent, hard working Tropicans. “Right,” I thought, “no more of that.” I built guard posts around the nation to protect my other civilians and the economy which kept everyone fed and housed. After a while, the strikes became too much. “This right to protest is too inefficient”, I thought, “and we just missed that freighter. We needed that boost to the economy.” In a moment of Thatcher, I had the newly raised guards gun down some of the strikers. The rest returned to work. The right to protest had been removed, but people were happier as everyone got richer.
– Real player with 258.9 hrs in game
Constructor
What to say about this game? Well, to start with some points here:
The game is a remaster of the original game Constructor launched in 1997, it presents remastered elements as well as the original units sounds presented back there.
There is new things in this version such as new buildings and even a mission mode that will be released in the future, those missions are like in Mob Wars (Street Wars) in where you need to execute specific things in order to win the map.
Although some of the reviews are negative, saying the game has bugs, the multiplayer doesn’t work or something else, the devs team are constantly working in bringing updates and fixes for those things that can break the game.
– Real player with 157.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best City Builder Building Games.
TL/DR: Splendid remake of an old game, if you liked it then, you will like it now. But some problems from the original remains.
A remake of a classic, old school game.
Some features have been updated to be more digestible, like the UI, graphics are more polished, there is some few additional content, but the game still feels precisely like the old one, and that is a good thing.
So if you enjoyed this game back then, you will likely be delighted to see this new, polished edition.
And there is even full controller support, in a game that frankly did not need one. While playing this game with a gamepad is certainly a step back from the keyboard and mouse, it needs to be said that the devs were industrious enough to provide such a complete support, specially considering there are many games out there that really need controller support and do not have it officially, or have a bad one.Having said that, some problems of the original game remain, and this may even be a good point somewhat, since changing them would require to radically change the nature of the game. But the problems are that you may as well be skipping the construction of many buildings, whose features are not needed to prosper in the game. Actually, they may even be detrimental, in a cost to profit analysis, So some “undesirables” (the in game term for some sort of “agents”) will never be played, unless you really want to see how they act like, while others are superb. And this goes up to the maximum difficulty level, with a full opponent rooster.
– Real player with 64.4 hrs in game
Parkasaurus
Okay, so I’m a huge fan of zoo-based park management games, right? I’ve spent a good portion of my childhood pretty much wasting away on them. Zoo Tycoon, Wildlife Park, Jurassic World Genesis, Zoo Empire, you name it. But I’ll be honest, when I first saw Parkasaurus, I really did not think I would enjoy this game all that much. Probably because it’s been so long since we’ve had a really good zoo management game (ZT2 Ultimate Collection is still considered the best by many zoo management fans, myself included, and that was released in ’08, so 10-11 years ago now), coupled with my own initial dislike for the ridiculously huge-eyed goofy art style and the fact that it’s solely focused on dinosaurs. Personally, I just didn’t have high expectations here.
– Real player with 319.3 hrs in game
☆The Old(est) Fashioned ‘Zoo Tycoon'☆
Parkasaurus has been on my wishlist for I dont know how long.
Right now, it’s the steam summer sale and I’ve been looking at games to distract me during the long heated summer hours.
I’ve been interested but I never really wanted to put £20 on it, like, it looked fun, but it’s…isometric? …Ehhh….
What I hadn’t realised was that the game is actually full on, low-poly style 3D! It’s not completely isometric art, and I appreciate that so much for a reason I’ll explain down below. I have played 4.5 hours so far, definitely going back for more, and this has let me play through two campaign levels (there’s loads left to do!) and the tutorial level.
– Real player with 25.6 hrs in game
Constructor Plus
I remember playing the original shareware Constructor back on a Windows 98 computer in the late 90’s. There was no music and I sucked at it, but it was still memorable enough that when I stumbled onto Constructor Plus on Steam I knew I had to buy it and play it again.
And hot damn, they did a fantastic job! It perfectly recaptures the original gameplay but modernizes the game itself with improved graphics, music, the ability to alt-tab, achievements, hints, adjustable settings/difficulty, and tons of content. Amazing job!
– Real player with 197.3 hrs in game
This is an absolutely perfect remake of the 1997 original aside from these points:
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Bad support for aspect ratios other then 16:9: either stretched, black borders or windowed mode
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A couple of very small things that annoy me (like a crying soundeffect if a tenant dies, or a pause added to the hippy select animation that feels disjointed)
But if you can overlook this, played the original constructor or are interested in trying at what I can best describe as a cross-over between simcity and starcraft, give this a try! If you’ve been burned at the rushedness of the HD remake, Plus fixes literally every shortcoming and make sure to look around for the bundle that will give you a proper discount.
– Real player with 100.5 hrs in game
Fantasy Town Regional Manager
This game was not what I was expecting. I thought it would be something like SimCity where you endlessly expand your town. But this game isn’t meant for you to build a long term town right out of the gate. You are expected to create a town, accomplish some small goals and quests, earn upgrade points and then - when your town crashes and burns - unlock some upgrades and start over again.
I’ve played for 16 hours and have yet to fully unlock all of the upgrades. I have unlocked all of the buildings and it is starting to get a little repetitive but I can see this as a fun game to come back to after a break and play a few rounds to pass the time.
– Real player with 16.4 hrs in game
Fun, engaging, eases you into some interesting complexities
I love how vibrant the game is, which is thanks to the music, the cute colours, the little people moving about the buildings, and the amount of story it’s able to fit in with the newspaper and your own gameplay.
That’s all drawn me in, but what’s kept me playing is seeing more new buildings appear, then deciding how their placement might affect the satisfaction of each class of adventurers. It starts off simple enough but when you’re ready, you’re able to introduce modifiers that impact the way you play even further.
– Real player with 15.3 hrs in game
Tropico Reloaded
One of the greatest political simulators of all time. The only thing the remakes do better is adding vehicles, tropicans have a real hard time walking the length of larger islands. Still runs excellent on modern machines.
Why is Tropico one of the greatest simulators of all time?
1. Clear factions that know what they want - people follow factions to varying degrees, factions have measurements of how you are doing based on their own criteria. Communists like housing and income equality, capitalists like industry, religious people like cathedrals and a robust clergy etc. In theory you can make all the factions happy, but if you actually manage do that, turn up your difficulty.
– Real player with 149.8 hrs in game
The original Tropico is still good, but not quite as good as the later ones. Tropico 2, on the other hand, is still the only game that lets you run a pirate island and is very much worth playing.
Tropico 1 is still quite enjoyable, but if you’ve played 3 and onwards you’ll miss the cars as it takes Tropicans forever to get anywhere on foot. This tends to cause food supply problems on large islands even with plenty of farms and wharves and markets. There’s also the same problem that’s been present in every game until Tropico 4’s Modern Times expansion of any housing with decent quality taking enormous amounts of real estate for the tiny number of people it houses. On the bright side, the excessively goofy style of the later games is absent here.
– Real player with 78.8 hrs in game
Tales of Lagoona 2: Peril at Poseidon Park
Welcome back to the undersea world of Lagoona! Poseidon Park is in trouble. Mayor Peabody has shut it down until repairs are made, and Leona is desperate to save her grandparent’s park. Join a quirky cast of characters as you all work together to save Poseidon Park. Take quests from the townsfolk, solve over 160 puzzles, take care of the park’s resident sea ponies, and even earn over 60 unlockable trophies!
Poseidon Park is brimming with things to do. Collect items to sell at the local market and fully restore the park with over 150 upgrade options! Seek out hidden gems, earn bonus goals, and solve hundreds of brain-teasing riddles.
An underwater paradise awaits.
Tropico 3
Day 1:start game ,listen to a overly excited probably bribed anouncer welcome you in,build house,no one lives in said house,
Day 2:i want to build a farm,builders refuse to build farm,i get mad,i use army to “convince” the builders to build,
Day 3: the people no longer like me now, i have 8 rebels on my small island…my army still cant find them,
i cower in fear in my palace.
Day 4: They have attacked, i’m the only one left, the one last man in the army. i’ve taken out only 2, now i retreat in shame. where are my people?
– Real player with 733.9 hrs in game
El Presidente Version 3
This is my first Tropico Game and after some time of frustrating restarts and head meets desk moments,
i finally figured out how to be a good El Presidente.
Sure some folks are always bothering me, but meh i got a prison.
You have many ways of getting rid of negative people as well as options to make your people happy.
Beating these small shacks, your worst enemies, can be difficult, since they tend to pop up in the worst moments.
Also your workers are damn lazy, they dont build your houses and ignore the big ass transport ships in your harbor -.-
– Real player with 30.5 hrs in game
Tropico 5
A good successor to Tropico 4, but with some missing features and less micromanagements. If you like city building games, I would recommend. Unlike most city builders, you can fail multiple ways. It has more innovation, challenging offers, and playstyles than Tropico 4.
Comparing to Tropico 4
Pros
Technology system and Era - Progress through eras to unlock new managers, buildings, and amendments. An awesome addition.
Constitution- allows you to run your nation. Form militias, create a free market, establish as theocracy, many different playstyles are available. A drawback is that some amendments are overpowered, and some are underpowered, but for the most part they are balanced.
– Real player with 159.6 hrs in game
The Tropico series has always played it safe, never pushing too hard to renovate making sure people know what to expect each time. Tropico 5 is no exception, with the same infrastructure and demands those familiar with the series will know exactly what to expect. With that said, significant changes have been made to the economy, development and elections systems that Tropico 5 holds its own unique identity within the series.
One new feature is a redesign of the campaign, while in previous games each mission would start on a new island beginning with the basic building blocks each time. Now players are given the choice between two islands, once the player completes a mission on the choose island the player must then complete the next mission on the second island. Levels are not reset and any development on the islands remains throughout the campaign. This change allows players to watch an island flourish over time, crawling up from its colonial roots to its own independent metropolis. Each choice becomes a much greater decision as it will not only effect the player for that level but for later missions that follow. While it provides a much greater sense of accomplishment it’s a system with many drawbacks. The greatest of this being put into an automatic lose situation.
– Real player with 114.0 hrs in game