Shenshi - The Best Sandbox RPG out!

Quick Review: If you are looking for a single player sandbox RPG - Buy this game now, it's my #1 Sandbox game dethroning Mount and Blade and I haven't even installed a mod for this game yet!

Review: I picked this up and was prepared for the long tutorial / figuring out phase that generally encompass this type of Sandbox game. It wasn't there, you jump in and start playing right from the start learning as you go.When you encounter new features it gives you a pop-up text explaining whats going on, and honestly it's just the right amount of detail. It's not too texty that I skip over it, yet it still gives me the right amount of information. Many times it leaves some mystery that you need to figure out on your own, which I love.

In the first game you play, you will most likely do things too fast or without proper preparation and it's going to cost you. Maybe with your life, a friends life or just that settlement you've been working so hard on for the last XX amount of hours. Yep that's right you can lose a whole settlement...it happened to me. I am getting ahead of myself let me slow down a bit. You can mine, fight, build, run trade routes, become a thieve, slaver and much more. This flexibility is amazing and you can branch out and do as much as you want. There are a variety of weapons, melee, ranged and mounted.  Using a skill levels it up and there is no skill limit, so you can do it all if you want. This goes for all your recruits as well.

Now back to my town, this was in my second game and I had found a very lucrative copper mine not far from outside a town, so I harvested it until I had enough money to recruit a friend to help me. Then we mined together leveling it up and making major money. Than I had a thought, I wanted to make my own town. I would haul my ore there and refine it and make it into products, which is even more profitable. So that's what I did and it started out well until I started getting things that people want. Then the bandits started coming, and there are a lot of different ones of varying power. When they come if your not prepared, they can raid or even take over your base. That happened to me, it sucked but was awesome at the same time, because I went in with blinders on, so the fact that it was possible to see my awesome settlement taken over made me smile. I know that sounds like quitting material for some, but it wasn't and here is why. I had made a lot of mistake along the way and I now know how to correct them, or so I thought. This third play through has shown me some surprises even still.  I am 30+ hours in and still loving it and have big plans that will take many more hours to come to fruition...if I survive that long.

FInal Assault - A True VR battlefield!

Final Assault is Company of Hero's like Strategy WW2 RTS, but what makes it stand out is the fact that it's all in VR. It's an awesome looking world that really puts you in the middle of the battlefield. It has a lengthy campaign and Multiplayer, giving it a lot of content that will gives you hour and hours of fun.  I ran it on an Nvidia 1080 and I7 4700 and had no issues.

Western Legends Board game Review!

Today here at Mature Minded Gamers we broke away from our computer screens and played a board game. Saddle up! because today we are talking about Western Legends by Kolossal Games. It is a choose your own play style Wild West centric game. You can play a variety of characters; some start you out on the lawful side, others the lawless side. You can still decide to go bad on all characters, but once your bad there’s no going back as they say. While choices did seem a little limited on what actions to take it did help streamline things that could normally bog down similar style albeit Heavier Titles such as Xia: Legends of a Drift System by Far Off Games.

Gameplay: You start off the game as a Famous or sometimes Infamous, Wild West Character. You are seeking Legendary Status and you must choose between two paths. Marshal (Lawmen) or Wanted (Outlaw). Each path provides multiple ways to earn Legendary Status (Victory Points) while limiting you on how you can interact with the world. Being an outlaw provides quick and easy Legendary Points every round, but you have to watch out for the Sheriff (A NPC) who is roaming the Country looking to bring Justice to the West. From robbing banks, stealing cash or cattle from your friends the West is not a safe place. As other players may be working with the Law trying to stop your nefarious deeds and bring Frontier Justice by way of creating their own Legend. Which bring us to the Lawmen. Fighting off countryside Bandits, transferring cattle safely to the train or arresting outlaws the lawmen life was never easy, and it isn't about to get any easier as legendary points do not come as quickly but are much less risky.

You can also just entertain yourself with poker, both with other players and the house if no one else is game. Each player looks at his hand of poker cards trying to make the best possible set with the river cards, all while staring your opponent in the eye trying to read his bluff. These cards are not only used for poker, but combat as well, so keeping that ace up your sleeve might be more valuable later.

Combat is straight forward and not a long drawn out affair or a dice fest. You and your opponent both lay down 1 poker card to decide the winner, high card wins. Most cards have other abilities, some are reactions to being played and others are actions themselves, which adds some fun and variety to combat. They do a good job of balancing the cards, lower value cards which are not good at winning fights, tend to have better reactions, thus giving some balance.

Quick, easy and stress-fully entertaining. The world does give other options that you can follow. Let’s not forget after working in the mines digging for gold, you can always sit back with a brew at the Local tavern and play some simplified Poker Mini-games or stop at the Local brothel to unload some of that extra cash. The west sure did have its perks.

Components: The biggest complaint we had about this game was the component quality. Western Legends comes with a handful of miniatures. These are barely up to board game quality. Maybe if this game was made 15 years ago it would be amazing. But with other companies doing such a great job with miniatures these days like Fantasy Flight Games and CMON. I really think they need to up the quality on this one to justify the hefty price tag. The game comes with ALOT of cards. Standard card stock, while not bad, again I do feel this game especially the poker deck should have hard paper quality upgraded to linen finished cards. Also included in the game is a little cardboard general store, which is basically a tray that holds all the things you can purchase/upgrade. I'm not sure if the board thickness was not where it needed to be or if the quality of board, but it seemed flimsy, my guess is the later.

Western Legends Provides some great story elements that change every game through a relatively simple card system. Cards are activated after a certain action or when ending your turn on a certain type of location. If you’re a fan of Red Dead Redemption or similar Western Themed Video Games. We here at Mature Minded Gamers, encourage you to check out Western Legends by Kolossal Games. Grab some brews, slide a few aces up your sleeve and just ask yourself one question......... You feeling Lucky?

Project Winter - Deception based fun!

This is a great game of hidden identity. Up to 8 people start out in a small hut, 2 of which are traitors, who are working together to try to stop the rest of the people (survivors) from completing their objectives and eventually escaping. The traitors start out with Walkie Talkies and can communicate with each other right at the start. The survivors can only communicate when nearby each other, until they build their own walkie talkies.   The survivors are focused on completing multiple task (randomly given out) to get to the end game of getting themselves off this cold and gloomy place. It's crazy, it's devious and it will cause you to not trust your friends or anyone else for that matter.  It plays like a deception / hidden role board game, which are some of my favorite. 
I streamed my session last night, if you'd like to see what the game plays like.