It’s a gorgeous game with some interesting mechanics and systems that, for some reason, makes me feel like it doesn’t want me to enjoy it. Act of AggressionĪct of Aggression is in a very strange place for me. I still have high hopes that a Grey Goo expansion or sequel will continue to expand on the game’s ideas and maybe increase the game’s pace and depth, while keeping or improving the QWERTY interface, research system, and unique faction dynamics I’ve so much come to appreciate over the course of the year.
#WOW HITS 2016 BACL CPVER SERIES#
After a rocky launch, Petroglyph and the team developing the game did a series of updates, improving the game’s AI, adding replays, leagues, expanding custom map support, and observer mode, as well as running a decent tournament which should conclude in January. One of my personal favorite games to launch this year, Grey Goo is a throwback to classic C&C gameplay… sort of (series: 1, 2).
#WOW HITS 2016 BACL CPVER FULL#
Etherium is a fun game full of great ideas that were hampered by execution.
Sadly as well the game was underwhelming graphically, which can be hard to overlook for some, and its UI and UX were terribly unpolished which led to a low quality experience for players used to things like production queues. The unit lists, however, were too same-y, with each faction only having 2 unique units and a handful of unique upgrades that made gameplay a little stale. This game has some extremely clever mechanics: each tileset has a unique weather feature that changes play periodically, many maps feature neutral AI subfactions that can be controlled or killed by either player, and there is the option for a non-army-driven ‘fleet victory’ where players can build structures that drive up a victory counter.
This would have to be my contender for most disappointing RTS of the year, sadly. We saw a fair number of RTS come to market this year. Now that we’re firmly past all of the holiday festivities, I’d like to take the time to talk about a couple of things we saw happen last year in the RTS space, and talk about what we can look forward to seeing this year.
My co-writer Topher Doll was gracious enough to pen some lines last week, enabling me to get a year-end retrospective out just before we jumped to 2016.