July 16, 2023 - Day 197 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 217

Game: Vampyr

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Mar 4, 2023
Library Date: Apr 28, 2023
Unplayed: 80d (2m19d)
Playtime: 40m

Violations Will Be Punished is a dystopian-cyberpunk-themed top-down turn-based strategy game that was free until May, and then became paid.

I've been watching Marvel's Secret Invasion in fits and starts, and other than feeling pretty much burned out on cinematic universes, the most disturbing thing about it is the AI-generated content used in the opening credits.

It just feels... wrong. Much like doing a search for a technical issue on Google, and hitting a result that initially seems reasonable, and then quickly becomes obvious that the "article" is a vaguely coherent remix of something else, and resulting in frustration.

Which brings me back to Violations Will Be Punished, which feels like a dev had some great technical ideas, some great story ideas, and no idea what to do about the graphics, so hit up an off-brand Midjourney clone to generate a bunch of graphics to touch up and drop into their game.

The gameplay feels a bit like "what if you took Command and Conquer, stripped it down and turned it into a turn-based-strategy game, and wrapped it in a thick layer of anti-corporate irony. There's some dark humour in the game that I can appreciate, and the gameplay is OK, but the dead-eyed thousand-foot stare of the characters in the cover art and the in-game avatars, and the design inconsistency, definitely gives the impression that all of the characters were spat out by a GAN, and gives the whole thing a slightly unsettling vibe.

At the core of this game, it feels like there's something there that could be good, but the execution just makes it all feel a bit:

2: Meh

#ViolationsWillBePunished #TurnBasedStrategy #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay