In the thirteen years since I opened my Steam account, (Thanks, Half-Life 2) I've collected an enormous collection of games through various Steam sales, and bundles for sale through sites like Humble Bundle, Indie Gala, and Fanatical (formerly Bundle Stars).
The thing is, I haven't played almost any of them, but the most 'popular' titles, and I've got no idea what is good, and what is bad. Steam does have a system of user reviews; but I like to experience things for myself, without context, and to suspend judgement from what others have written.
Steam Stats Sourced from Steamdb.info
So here we go, approaching my Steam Collection with alphabetical precision. I don't know what the frequency of these posts will be, but I can tell you that there may end up being a lot of them!
Anomaly: Warzone Earth
This game is essentially, reverse tower defence. It is good fun, for a little while, before the scenarios become increasingly complex and well, long. Instead of building towers, turrets, and lasers to destroy the enemy trying to get to the objective, you are the squad that is trying to infiltrate the enemy position.
There's a mixture of modern / slightly futuristic units, and dozens of entirely alien enemy units and buildings to destroy, and it is a fun game. Its fun, so long as you're in the mood for a tower defence game, and micro-managing defences in a strategic way.
The moment you're not in the mood for it, it loses all of its charm, appeal, and generally excellently produced gameplay mechanics. Why can't it enrapture attention very well, then? In my opinion, a combination of the voice acting and long term appeal.
This is the sort of game that would be incredible on mobile, and thankfully, it is available on these platforms. It just doesn't quite make it as a full fledged PC game, to me - perhaps I need more time (I've played five hours, according to Steam) - or to have a longer attention span; but this is a pretty good title.
8/10
Arcania
To even get the game to load, I had to change compatibility mode, lower my sample rate for sound in Windows, and run the title as administrator. That's a great start, before I even know what the game is even about, or how I obtained it!
Further to this, once the game loaded, it would only run on my secondary monitor, not the primary. Soon, a cinematic tells me about the story. I then take control of a kingly sort of fellow, slay some skeletons, then come to outside of a village.
There's a bit more of an intro, some exploration to do, the ability to kill sheep with a shepherds tool, and then, consecutive game lock-ups; issues, and things that are not worth my time, nor effort. These games are meant to actually be good, from the press I've read about the Gothic series.
This is very clearly a terrible, awful, and unacceptable game, and should not be played by anyone, ever.
Verdict
0
Arcania: Fall of Setariff
This appears to be a standalone expansion to the ill-fated Arcania, just reviewed above. This title opens with some uninteresting exposition; voice acting so poor you need to turn the sub-titles on to understand what's going on, and initially, invokes a great sense of frustration at another title wasted in my Steam library.
This one is slightly more playable than the last in the series, but doesn't make it any better. It remains a poor, boring and mostly linear experience, filled to the brim with unengaging combat, linear but "not linear" environments, that force you to run around needlessely in circles.
I chose to discover life as an archer; and died very early in the piece to a shrill woman who screamed loot. This was after I'd been through a cave of skeleton / goblin / ghoulish enemies that seem to have no connection to the environment, let alone any exposition to justify their existence in such a close location to "civilisation".
I feel like with more time devoted to this, within a mental institution, you'd end up thinking it was a poor, poor man's version of Skyrim, Morrowind, or even Oblivion.
Verdict
2/10, at least it works.