Alec Meer

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·Jul 10, 2015

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The Magic Circle [Steam page] is a game about an unfinished game. A first person puzzle/exploration/action game about a…

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·Jun 4, 2015

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There are many good things within Massive Chalice, but they're frustratingly kept at arm's length from me.

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·Jun 4, 2015

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It's extremely rare to come across a game in which all of the details of that design intertwine so effectively. And then you realise it lets you redefine a lot of the parameters individually instead of having monolithic difficulty levels and, wow.

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·May 22, 2015

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NEON STRUCT is a game about hide'n'seek as paranoid fear, not superthief glamour. It gives you large, heavily-guarded maze-like spaces and asks you to find your own way around them, whether it's by roof or street, by stolen keycard or opened vent, by planned strikes or pure evasion, by gadget or by wits alone. Welcome back to Liberty Island. You're not safe here.

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·May 7, 2015

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[F]ifteen quid, lots of bullets, lots of steampunk Nazis and some monsters too. If that's (still) your poison, you can't go far wrong with this.

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·Apr 30, 2015

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It's a shame the same anything-goes mindset doesn't apply to the mission structure and the story, because the dryness, repetition and general rudimentary air is what will ultimately keep me from coming back for more, but if you want a few hours of XCOM-lite with cyberpunk trimmings and the option for co-op, you could do a lot worse than Shadowrun Chronicles.

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·Apr 23, 2015

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Dungeons 2 [official site] is a strategy-management game which borrows heavily from Dungeon Keeper - to whit, you're an…

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·Apr 21, 2015

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I'm frustrated that there's a great game here, laid a little low by grind, by sub-racing game insta-death factors and irritating, quote-drenched dialogue. This is, at heart, a small and simple game which tries to make itself bigger with unnecessary frippery rather than expanding its worthy core. It's perfectly serviceable as a land-based remix of FTL, but your next great, chaotic adventure Convoy is not. Yet.

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·Apr 20, 2015

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No numbers, no inventory to speak of, but so much to do, so many ways it can play out and plenty of snowballing consequences. Its superficially simple 2D art occasionally flares into high prettiness too. We might not have Red Dead Redemption, but Westerado is an enormously satisfying consolation prize.

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·Apr 7, 2015

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Dungeon Keeper has always felt important to me, and I’ve rarely analysed why, for the same reason I don’t question why …

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·Mar 20, 2015

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Battlefield: Hardline is a stupid game. I quite like it.

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·Mar 18, 2015

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If it's playing I can close my eyes and feel what HLM made me feel. Because my associations for HLM2 are confusion and frustration more than exhilaration and escapism, the second doesn't seem to have power. But there are some lovely pieces in there for sure.

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·Mar 10, 2015

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Cities: Skylines [official site] feels like the response to a question. That question is “what, exactly, do people want…

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·Feb 25, 2015

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I'm not sure the Homeworld games were first built with the expectation that they'd stand the test of time like this, but because there was so much care, because there's been nothing quite like them since, and because the remastering has been sensitive, this package comes across as beautifully timeless, and as essential as real-time strategy gets. Welcome home.

Rock Paper Shotgun

Alec Meer·Feb 24, 2015

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Hand of Fate [official site] is a CCG/roguelite in which a masked, magical figure challenges you to play an increasingl…