Last week was plagued by bugs, this week was hectic, and I'm watching the sale timer on Botanicula go down into the hours section before I can even write a proper review of it. It may take a few days for things to get back to normal and for me to catch up on my reviews, but in the meantime, here's my (swift) thoughts on the few Steam games I played last week:

Orion: Dino Beatdown: ($10, 1.5GB, gut review: 3/5 stars) A cheap Horde mode with purchaseable weapons, vehicles, and plenty of raptors & T-rexes to shoot in the face. Seems to get most of its mileage out of the sheer absurdity of its premise (Future Marines vs DInosaurs!). Gameplay seems alright so far, but several bugs & a lack of instructions really hurts it. Will need to play a few more hours of it to see whether its worth the money or not, but at least it seems to have an active online community. (Best part so far: being picked up by a giant pterodactyl & punching it until it dropped me.)

Botanicula: ($10, 700MB, gut review: 3/5 stars) A puzzle adventure with the graphic style of Machinarium applied to tiny sentient plants. Your tiny plant party explores a giant tree to save a seed from the evil shadow spiders. Along the way, they solve simple puzzles and experience many weird things. It won't stretch your mind much: the only difficult puzzles I've encountered so far have either been trial-and-error or poorly-explained "I'll just try everything" situations. However, the scenery and the scenes makes for a pleasant trip through this game, even if the gameplay itself doesn't leave an impression.

I hope to have more thorough reviews up by the end of the week, but hopefully these will help you figure out whether you should give into the impulse to buy these games now or wait until later.

Last week was plagued by bugs, this week was hectic, and I'm watching the sale timer on Botanicula go down into the hours section before I can even write a proper review of it. It may take a few days for things to get back to normal and for me to catch up on my reviews, but in the meantime, here's my (swift) thoughts on the few Steam games I played last week:

Orion: Dino Beatdown: ($10, 1.5GB, gut review: 3/5 stars) A cheap Horde mode with purchaseable weapons, vehicles, and plenty of raptors & T-rexes to shoot in the face. Seems to get most of its mileage out of the sheer absurdity of its premise (Future Marines vs DInosaurs!). Gameplay seems alright so far, but several bugs & a lack of instructions really hurts it. Will need to play a few more hours of it to see whether its worth the money or not, but at least it seems to have an active online community. (Best part so far: being picked up by a giant pterodactyl & punching it until it dropped me.)

Botanicula: ($10, 700MB, gut review: 3/5 stars) A puzzle adventure with the graphic style of Machinarium applied to tiny sentient plants. Your tiny plant party explores a giant tree to save a seed from the evil shadow spiders. Along the way, they solve simple puzzles and experience many weird things. It won't stretch your mind much: the only difficult puzzles I've encountered so far have either been trial-and-error or poorly-explained "I'll just try everything" situations. However, the scenery and the scenes makes for a pleasant trip through this game, even if the gameplay itself doesn't leave an impression.

I hope to have more thorough reviews up by the end of the week, but hopefully these will help you figure out whether you should give into the impulse to buy these games now or wait until later.