Preview: Conquer Humanity (PC – Steam) ~ Let’s Go Rouge.

Steam page

In this article, I’m taking a look at a game that’s going to release in the first half of 2023. The developer send me a Steam key for the full version that’s still in development. But, if you get interested in playing this game right after this article, there is a demo available on the Steam store page. In this article, you’ll also get my 100% honest opinion on the game. I’ll take a look at what I played and what I think should be in the full version. So, should we conquer humanity, and should we become a super villain like the Steam store page suggests, or should we wait until this is a bit more polished or skip it outright? Well, that’s what I’m trying to discover with you in this article. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on the game and/or the content of this article.

Editoral note: the release of the full version is set in Q1 2023 at the time of writing.

Simulation Devil

In this game, you enter a simulation where you are a super villain with various powers. Your goal is to destroy and kill as much as you can before you are defeated yourself.

You do this in a very large map where people are spawned around you. But, the more destruction you cause, the more police will come after you.

To defeat the game, you’ll have to reach level 30. The more people you kill, the more XP you’ll get. If you get a great kill streak and do it in style you’ll get a better ranking and earn more XP and do more damage that way. Compare the style thing to Devil May Cry in a way.

This game is anything but easy. You really have to manage your powers and movement strategically. Since, the smallest mistakes get brutally punished. You have ten lives and no way to get any back. You are able to heal, but you’ll have to kill for that. So, getting surrounded might be your end.

This game is described as a brutal, fast-paced, isometric bullet hell. And I honestly can’t describe it better. For this review, I have played several rounds and I had a really hard time getting further than level 15. I’m a bit on the fence on the difficulty curve, since I honestly think that with one change… This game can become way more fair.

The big issue with this game is that you are directly thrown into the deep end. You are dropped into the simulation with 6 powers on a cool down and a few other mechanics. You barely have any chance to get used to everything, since after a few kills… The police spawns, and you have to be quick on your feet. Now, you do have the sandbox mode to get used to the game. Yet, here the powers aren’t on cooldown, and you don’t see the blue level up bar or the powers.

I think it would give the game a better flow if the player is nudged first to the sandbox mode where you have to reach something like level 10 using the different mechanics. Since, I felt close to overwhelmed with all the different mechanics and I felt that I first had to figure a lot of things out before I was able to attempt the actual game mode.

I don’t want to sound like “this game is too difficult for me, make it easier…”. I just feel that if you give new players too many mechanics at once without them having a way to learn them or practice them, they aren’t going to have a fun time. And I think if you add a mode or a few optional tutorial stages to get used to the game would be a blessing. And I really mean, optional. So people who want the experience of jumping into the deep end can still do it. But, others who want to know how everything works can ease themselves into the game. Since, if I’m brutally honest, the controls manual is helpful if you know how everything works. It’s too bare bones for newcomers. Like, why not add the icons of the powers in the controls manual?

Did it fail?

This game is difficult, and it’s a game you will have to get gud at. Once you learn the different powers and when to flee, this game is actually quite enjoyable. This game has the “one more attempt” mentality nailed down. After you are defeated, you can get right into the action in seconds and try again.

The game also has a built-in timer, which can open the gates for speed runners and other competitions as well. Maybe it would be fun to have a leaderboard with the fastest times and the longest survival times in the full game.

And maybe like an endless mode that started on easy and at certain level milestones, it goes to a higher difficulty?

Are there other things I would like to see in the future? Of course! First, I’d love to see a way to change the key binds. It’s something I mention quite often in my PC reviews, but I get annoyed when the game forces WASD on you and don’t keep in account that there are a lot of countries which have another keyboard layout. Here in Belgium, we use an AZERTY layout, and that means I have to set my hand in a pretty weird spot to move. Since our “A” is where the “Q” is and our “W” is where the “Z” is. And then the powers having keys close to WASD… I only have two hands and I still have to control the mouse.

Speaking off the mouse, I think a controls flaw is created there. I noticed that I had trouble preforming my push move because that was clicking with your scroll wheel. Which is all good and well, but using your scroll wheel actually zooms in or out. So, if you didn’t click in the chaos of this game, and you actually scrolled, well… Yeah, that’s an attack that didn’t happen. Which is sadly not limited to the push attack. There is another attack that I feel either isn’t as powerful or the visuals don’t communicate it’s power/range enough. When pressing Control, you can do a slam down attack. But, it’s not only unclear how big the radius is… it’s also unclear how strong it is.

In this game, it’s important that the visuals communicate with the player what’s happening. All in all, the visuals feel “last gen” but I honestly don’t mind that. It optimizes the game quite a lot, and you get a stable game to play. Also, it makes it easier to read what’s going on around you and makes it easier to make the right decision. I think it would be handy in the future to have a sort of radar in the right corner. Since, it would be helpful to know where the police and such are if you flew too far away.

Speaking about flying, that’s something I want to address as well. In the small manual, it teaches you that you can start hero mode by pressing “H” when you reached at least the “A” style rank. Yet, when you start the game, you get a free hero mode and only get a “B” rank. Now, it’s unclear that the message of “A” style rank still has to be on the screen or not… But there isn’t a way to know if you can activate hero mode or not.

In addition to that, I think there might be something strange going on with the flying… Since, once you lose your first life, you loose hero mode. And when you press the fly button then, you sprint away. Very slowly, sprint away. Yet, I had trouble starting to sprint several times when I press moving.

It’s early simulation

Reviewing or talking about early access games is quite tricky. Especially when they are still in development. You never know in how much detail you should go since a lot of things can change when you get the final product.

For example, I really like the animation system in this game. It’s goofy and gory, which fits this game like a glove. Especially when you make a great combo attack… The slowdown to show you the result of your attack is eye candy. And sometimes a much-needed small break in all that intense action.

That’s something I sometimes missed in this game. A spot or a moment to get a breather from the action. It’s intense all the way through, and you can’t let your guard down at all, or you are done for. And your ability to earn any of the achievements is done for.

Another example is that sometimes there is no music during gameplay. I had several times when the track just stopped playing and no new music track started. Sadly, it ruins the atmosphere, but I think this is something that will be fine-tuned and patched when the game releases.

Speaking of the music, the music is a nice heavy metal track that plays. I really enjoy it, and I’m curious to hear the full soundtrack once the game goes out of early access. Since, it’s the perfect music genre for this style of game. In terms of sound effects, this game is fine but still has some work. Sometimes you hear “god dammit” and I can’t say if it’s my character getting damage or a human dying.

Something I’m really on the fence about is that this game doesn’t have a save system. So, that means you’ll have to do each run in one sitting. I think that’s a shame since if you are in a good run and something happens like automatic Windows updates restarting your computer out of nowhere… It’s the end of the run. And failed runs don’t count for your “best run” in the main menu.

Finding the right balance between challenge, fun, and options is extremely tricky. I have no clue how to implement a save system during a run of this game. And it might open the door for a lot of other issues.

Just like deciding on the cooldown period of your powers. Personally, I feel that sometimes the cooldown is a bit too brutal. Quite often, I felt that the laser power cooldown was a bit too slow. Maybe I’m using the wrong strategy of running away from the cops and trying to kill the small gatherings of humans I left around the map, but the cops are faster than your laser power can regen.

So, what do I think so far of Conquer Humanity? Well, I think this game has an addictive concept where the fundamentals are here. It has that “one more try” and “one more round” written all over it. But, it still needs some polish with the controls and animations. Its biggest flaw is currently that the game doesn’t really explain all its mechanics enough for players to learn how everything works. So for newcomers to these type of games, it’s not the game to get into the bullet hell genre.

I recommend that you give this game a shot and give your thoughts and/or opinions to the solo developer since I think that this game has a lot of potential to be an amazing small indie title to test your skills at crowd control and bullet hell. I might be brutally hard, but it’s a game that feels rewarding for the small progress you made. I highly recommend this game to everybody who is looking for an action/arcade type game and looking for a great challenge with it. Since, there is a lot of game to learn here and it’s going to beat you, several times.

And that’s everything I wanted to say about this game in this preview. I might take a look at this game once it’s released to see what’s the finished product is. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Advertisement

First Impression: Rise of Nations: Extended Edition (PC) ~ Apes With Tanks

Official website

Since my childhood I have been playing a lot of RTS games. From Rise & Fall Civilizations At War to Age Of Empires, I have played a lot of them. And I have to admit, I’m not great at them. Whenever I would play online against other players, I get easily defeated. Yet, I enjoyed my time with these games quite a lot. I love to play skirmishes or various matches against the computer. Now, one of the favorite RTS games is Rise of Nations. And that’s the game we are going to take a look at today. A game where you take your civilization from give or take the stone age to the modern times of today. So, let’s not wait longer and let’s dive right into my first impressions of this game. The reason the first impression is simply because I never finished the campaigns, so yeah. I haven’t seen all the content of the game. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article in the comment section down below.

Apes with tanks

Rise of Nations has been developed by Big Game Studios, the studio that also worked on the second expansion of Age of Empires III. While this game has a “Conquer the world” campaign mode where you play as for example Napoleon conquering Europe, I haven’t played a lot of that mode. And that has a simple explanation, I already talked about in the introduction of this article. Now, for this article I have played parts of the first campaign of Alexander The Great.

Now, for this article I have played the extended edition of the game that is on Steam at the moment. The core gameplay of this game is extremely similar to games like Age of Mythology and Age Of Empires. If you have played a RTS game in the past, you will feel right at home in this game.

Some mechanics do work differently in this game. First of all, the way to claim land. When you start the game, a certain part of the map is colored in your color. You can expand this area by building more cities or defensive buildings. You are unable to build any other buildings outside of that area. It’s quite important that you plan out your city structure well, since it’s a factor in how much wealth you will earn from your trade route or the ability to build even better wood cutting or mining camps.

To increase the population limit or the efficiency of certain buildings, you will need to upgrade at the library. There are 4 trees you can update. The military level which allows you to create even better military units, the science level to have even better buffs to your economic output and military, the economics level to have your resource gathering be even more efficient and stockpile better and the civic level which allows you to build even more units and cities. On top of that, you have to worry about advancing through the ages. You go from the early stone age to the middle ages to finish in the modern ages.

The way you gather resources in this game is also quite different. In this game you don’t have to worry about re-seeding farms or finding now ore veins for your villagers. All the resources are infinite. Now, there are certain restrictions. You can only build up to 5 farms per city. The placement of the building is also quite important. For example, if you place a woodcutter camp in the middle of a forest, more villagers will be able to cut wood for you. If you place it at the edge, less villagers will be able to cut wood for you.

Now, with all of this, you need to keep in mind that if you enter enemy territory, your units automatically get attrition. So, if one of your camps or buildings falls into enemy territory, you will loose slots or loose that building entirely.

Another mechanic in this game are the merchants. Spread over the whole map are certain bonus items. Sometimes they can be presents like the relics you can find in Age of Empires III but without the guardians. And sometimes they can be rare resources that can give certain buffs. On this Wiki page, you have a list of all the different buffs you can get.

One of the mechanics I really love and miss in a lot of other RTS games is the automatic exploring. Seriously, I can let any unit automatically explore the map without me having to worry about it or me always giving it a path. The times I forgot to explore the map in other RTS games… Man, I’m unable to count that anymore.

As you can see, there are many layers on top of the gameplay. The game is very complex and expansive. And I haven’t talked about how you can conquer and take over cities, set the unit production to loop, the fact you can take out your enemies in many different ways, the ability to rename your cities, the unique wonders and their bonuses… The features that set this game apart from other RTS games are just amazing and make for a very unique experience.

Visual fluff

This game can be very challenging. Depending on the difficulty of the AI, this game can be quite easy or quite difficult. While I’m able to beat the computer on Normal, I always have trouble when the computer is on hard mode. Yet, the issue I have with this game is that the normal mode provides just a bit too little challenge for me and the hard mode provides a bit too much challenge for me. Whoops.

Something I really like about this game is the fact that the visuals change when you change through the ages. You see the building style change when you advance through the ages. And not only that, the sound design changes as well. For example, when you get to the industrial ages, you start to hear chainsaws in the lumber camps instead of saws.

Up close, the visuals can look a bit dated. But, that’s completely normal. Since near the end of the game, there are so many units on the screen, I’m glad that they aren’t too detailed. The ending of a game can be so extremely hectic, I can barely keep track of what’s going on. I remember a multiplayer session with my best friend. In the end of that session we neglected our economy and idle villagers because the warfare required most of our attention. At the end of a match, you are able to make 4 big upgrades. One of them is instant creation of units. With this upgrade, the warfare gets so crazy, you have to focus on it.

Some elements of the UI in this game can be expanded and collapsed. For example, when you expand the resource menu, you have quick access to the market where you can trade resources. You don’t need to click on a market to do that. You can also see if there are open spots for mining, farming, wood cutting… And when these get in your way, one simple button click and they are hidden.

Not only the visual presentation and sound design changes through the ages, the animation does as well. When you reach the industrial ages, the miners you jackhammers instead of pickaxes to mine.

The sound design is amazing, it really captures the enjoyable chaos that happens on screen perfectly well. On top of that, the sound effects for male and female units are different. Yes, when a female unit dies, you hear a woman scream. And guess what, you hear a male scream when a male unit dies. This attention to detail is just amazing.

Couple this sound design and amazing visual design with an amazing orchestral soundtrack and you have an amazing visual presentation. In the original version, I had issues with the soundtrack. It never played during gameplay. While playing the Extended Edition, I haven’t encountered that issue once.

Perfection?

Now, is this game perfect? No, there are some things I would change in this game. One complaint I have is that there aren’t too many differences between the nations you can choose to play as.

Due to the various amounts of game mechanics, this game can be extremely overwhelming. If you aren’t into RTS games, just don’t play this game as your first RTS game. This game isn’t easy to get into because the various amount of layers upon layers of complexity in this game.

Due to the length of some rounds, I honestly got a bit bored at the end. This game is a lot of fun to play but near the end, I found that the game became a bit too repetitive to my liking.

Also, compared the to original game and the extended edition, there hasn’t been a lot of additions. Thankfully, the community picks up the slack from the developers in the Steam Workshop.

Some achievements are rather grindy in nature. I have close to 60 hours of playtime in this game and I’m not even halfway to the achievement of killing 50K units. Yes, I have killed 8K units during my 60 hour playthrough.

And to be honest, that are all the negatives I can talk about. Maybe I discover a few more negatives when I’m trying out the campaign mode again soon, but I highly doubt that. This game is quite a lot of fun if you are into RTS games. Once this game has a hook on you, it barely lets go. This game is one of my favorite RTS games and I’m so glad that it’s available on Steam. And after writing this review (well, first impression) I can’t wait to boot the game back up again and start up a new round.

With that, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. I want to thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Gamer’s Thoughts: NekoJonez VS his backlog

So, I would be lying if I said that I don’t have a backlog. I do have a backlog and it’s rather huge. To be honest, I stopped keeping a list of the games that are on my backlog and I just started playing the games that I wanted to play or that are in my collection. If I have to guess, I think there are over 500 games in my backlog. Do I honestly care that there so many games in my backlog? Not at all, I love it! Because that means I always have a game that I could be playing when I’m feeling bored. And for those who don’t know why I have so many games on my backlog, that’s because I’m a game collector and I collect games left and right. Almost every week or two, I add a game to my collection so I rarely have time to finish a game. Now, why am I talking about this? Because LaterLevels and LightingEllen are doing a collaboration with a lot of other bloggers talking about their backlogs and I felt like joining in. And before I continue, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the backlog, your backlog and/or the content of this article.

NekoJonez’s Backlog

Now, in my introduction, I said that I had given up on keeping a backlog. This is quite true. I have piles and piles of games in my room and in my digital libraries begging to be played. Yet, I keep playing the same games over and over again.

But are there really over 500 games on my backlog? Well, because I don’t keep track of that much depth, I think that’s the best answer. When I just look at my 800 games large Steam library and cross off all the games I have finished, I think we get close to that 500 games mark. And at that moment, I haven’t started counting all the games I have for my consoles and handhelds.

How did it grow so out of hand? The first reason I already explained in the introduction of this article. I’m a game collector. Every one or two weeks, a game gets added to my collection. And it’s quite rare that I buy one single game nowadays. Apart from newly released games of course. When I’m looking for new games to play, I go to thrift stores or garage sales to buy them for a really cheap price. In other cases, coworkers, friends, family just give them to me because they don’t need those games anymore since they are left unplayed.

A second reason is one that you are reading right now. This very blog. Because I like writing so much, I try to write an article every week about a different game. So, that means I talk about give or take 50 games each year. A more realistic number would be 35 – 40 different games each year. So, when I have written an article on a game, I have already moved on to another game to write about. Even when I quite enjoy playing a game, I place it on my backlog to finish later when I have a bit more time. Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that I get requests from developers to play their games and write an article about them.

This brings me to my 3^rd reason why my backlog is so big. Because I’m a game collector for multiple systems, I often switch between systems while playing games. For example, I’m in a PS2 – Switch period lately. The result is that I have posted quite a lot of PS2 and Switch articles lately. Now, I got a few Gamecube games for my birthday, so that might mean that I’m going to play a lot of Gamecube, Wii and Wii U games in the near future. But, I’m also really interested in the new Challenge Tombs that are getting released for Shadow of the Tomb Raider. And once I open Steam, I see that bundle of games I bought at the Lunar sale that I wanted to play. This is exactly what I mean when I say in an article: “I got distracted by other games.”

A fourth reason is one that started during my teenage years and now carried over in my twenties. I dislike focusing on one or two games. For example, I’m playing Resident Evil 4 and I get frustrated because I’m unable to beat a certain section. Instead of getting frustrated and fed up with the game, I just stop playing the game and take out another game to play. The main reason I play games is to have fun and talking out of the experience, my performance in games gets worse when I have to repeat a section over and over again. Now, it does happen from time to time that one game is so much fun, I ignore all other games for a while. During the last Christmas holiday, I have played so much Rollercoaster Tycoon. To the point, I have almost completed the original campaign and half of the campaigns in the expansion packs.

Now, what is your backlog actually? Are these the games that you have started and never finished or the games you really want to play? Is it a combination of both? Well, I think it’s a combination of both those things. But, can you scrap a game from your backlog? When it has been too long on your backlog or when you feel you don’t want to beat it? For example, I have never beaten the original Pokémon games BUT I have gotten extremely close. It’s the final rival fight that I’m unable to beat. Now, would you say that these games are on my backlog until I have beaten them completely? Well, now I’m totally overthinking it. Whoops.

I might have said it a few times already in this article but do I honestly care that my backlog is so long? No! I don’t care at all. The big advantage of this is that I can pick up a console or boot up my PC and just pick a game I feel like playing and have a great time. It also means that I always have a game to play when I’m in a certain mood. On top of that, it makes for a great reason to finish or replay games when I want to write an article about them.

The questions

Now, LaterLevels and LightningEllen have a few questions in this collaboration. Let get to answering them.

The game most likely never to be played

That’s a thought question. Since in most cases, there is always a time I pick up a game I have bought ages ago. For example, a few years ago, I added Final Fantasy X and X-2 to my collection and I started to play those two games for a short while during my summer holiday in 2017. Another example is more recent. When I started playing Resident Evil 4, I saw that I have a few other Resident Evil games in my collection so I’m trying those out in between Resident Evil 4 sessions.

If I really need to answer this question, I think it is the Football Manager games I got in a pick-up but then again, I might start playing them in a summer break when I want to play something unique and different that I haven’t played before.

I could cheat and tell talk about Lego Fever. It’s a game I played a lot when I was younger, but it refuses to work on newer systems. Plus, it’s quite rare to find, since there are no physical copies of and yeah.

In addition to that, I have technical issues with getting the game to run on my computers so it’s unplayable for now. But then again, I just need to take some time out of my day to figure out what’s causing the error and just try to get it working on one of my retro gaming machines. Oh well, one day this will happen.

Shortest game

Ace Attorney 6 – Spirit of Justice

I don’t understand why this keeps happening. I have bought all the DLC cases and I haven’t finished the DLC case yet. I’m such a big fan of the Ace Attorney series, it battles my mind that I just start playing this case and get distracted by other games and leave this one on the backlog.

The case sounds quite interesting to me as well, since it does something different and makes old characters return. Maybe it’s a great sign for the future of the series… (hint hint, subject of another collab). So, come on Jonez! Put aside an afternoon during the weekend and finish this game!

Longest game

Ehrm, I’m sorry… But I’m not going to list all these games I just played the first couple of sections to test out how the game plays and haven’t finished yet. If you just look at the first impressions series on my blog, you start to get an idea of how many games I haven’t fully beaten yet. Now, I have beaten some of these titles, but I haven’t gotten around to writing the review yet. So, you could say that I even have a review backlog.

But, if I really have to put a game here… Let’s pick one at random and let’s say… PopoloCrois. A while back, I said I was considering writing an article about this game. But, my PSP decided to delete all my save files of this game and I lost so much progress… I got so annoyed I actually stopped playing this game and I haven’t picked it up yet again. But, I was having so much fun. So, yeah. I need to change that.

The game which has spent the most time on the backlog

Oh dear. I’m honestly unable to answer this question because I collect retro games and I just play games I find in the wild or strike my fancy while browsing the eShops. Like I said earlier, some games I only play for a few minutes to test the games out. For example, I have started up so many Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts games… I know for a fact that some people are going to dislike what I’m going to say next but I haven’t finished a Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Witcher, Metal Gear, The Elder Scrolls, Dragon Quest, Sonic, Mega Man, Castlevania, Metroid, GTA, Assassin’s Creed … game. Yes. I haven’t played a lot of BIG and popular titles.

In addition to that, since I started reviewing games 8 years ago, I stopped keeping track of the games on my backlog and just enjoy the games in my collection and picking the game that suits my fancy at that moment so I can’t even tell for how long I own a certain game. Expect when I got it for as a birthday present or when it holds a special memory. So, I’m sorry, I’m unable to answer this question.

The person responsible for adding the most entries to your backlog

Would it be cheap to say, my wallet? Because I buy so many games in bulk, it happens frequently that games get on my backlog. Now, the actual answer to this question should be the person who gives me tells me about the games I should be playing or the games that are interesting.

And to be honest, there are a lot of people who give me advice or suggestions in terms of the games I should play. From fellow bloggers to YouTubers I love watching. A few examples spring to mind: NitroRad, AVGN (yes, like a TON of other video game reviewers), SomeOneCallMeJhonny, Eruption, Scott The Woz and Lazy Game Reviews. There are a lot of retro video game reviewers out there and I just keep watching them discover new games. Outside of the YouTube space, there are bloggers like Hundstrasse, The Well-Red Mage and Insert Disk. There are so many people I could name. And I shouldn’t forget the countless other collectors inside the Facebook and Discord groups I’m a part of.

Besides that, I love browsing RetroWareTV and browsing websites like eBay and local second-hand websites to check what they have on offer.

So yes, I don’t have one person that is responsible for adding the most entries to my backlog since a lot of people give me ideas, suggestions, and series to look into. It’s extremely difficult to keep track of that.

Oh, and I shouldn’t forget that I often get coworkers, friends, and family that donate or just give me games after a spring cleaning or something amongst those lines.

Wrapping up

With all the questions answered, I want to thank you so much for reading this article. It was an interesting article to write since I see my backlog in a totally different way than your typical definition of the word.

To me, my backlog is more of a suggestion log. A suggestion log of games I could play and/or take a look at. If the game interests me enough, I’m going to continue to play it. If it doesn’t interest me, I remember it to try it out later or I just give it a nice spot in my collection.

Now, surprisingly, even to me sometimes, but not every game that I play becomes an article. That’s because I have an article backlog and when I write an article about a game, it’s quite possible that I already forgot about a few games. But all of that is for another article.

With that said, I want to thank you again for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.