Suboptimal Six

Six games from Epic that didn't do it for me.

Prison Architect - features art like the Escapists but this time instead of working out escapes, you must manage facility construction and management. Trying to mix these two worlds together is just an absolute fail.

theHunter: Call of the Wild - in this first person shooter you go into well rendered reservations and kill defenseless animals which boasts awesome graphics, good voice overs and pretty decent systems. If you enjoy spending hours following tracks and getting absolutely lost in huge wilderness zones then this might be for you. Definitely not for me though. In my simulations I kinda like prey that fights back.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair - an improvement from the last game since most of the levels are now of the fixed 2D platforming variety removing the terrible camera issue. It even has a better story, where you must rescue a "beetalion" of bees who act as a shield to help you when you attempt the titular impossible lair (or if you are that good, you are free to attempt it with zero shields). Might interest the younger generation but otherwise its just a standard platformer.

Relicta - an interesting story which quickly degrades into first person box puzzling. What absolute shit. Not recommended to anyone.

Gods will Fall - another interesting premise where you get a handful of random vikings to try defeat ten or so gods, with the quirk that your heroes only enter dungeons one at a time and if they fail they are stuck in there until one of their compatriots wins the level. That's not too bad. Unfortunately said dungeons are really long, and shitty camera angles and instadeath falls just make it feel like an absolute chore. If it was 11 immediate boss fights that would have improved this game immensely, but for some reason developers love grind.

Mages of Mystralia - another game that suffers from grind AND respawning enemies. Otherwise it's a pretty light Diablo style game where you fight goblins as an apprentice mage. Oddly enough, none of your abilities have any range which is a bit odd as you basically have to bash your enemies on the head with your wand. Maybe later on you can actually shoot stuff but the devs want you to grind for that privilege. Stupid game design and not recommended.

The Escapists 2

Because you haven't escaped ENOUGH!

I didn't like the first game and the theme in this one hasn't changed at all: you are a prisoner that needs to escape from whatever prison you are placed in. Luckily, most of what I disliked was fixed here. There are much better controls and a more user friendly HUD, and there are some awesome prisons: every thing from a regular jail to a moving train and space station!

I quite liked this one.

Even better, there is co-op capability for up to four people so you can try this out with friends. While it's still not a game in my wheel house, this is definitely an improvement from the initial offering and one that would probably interest those who like this genre. Not something I'd go out of the way to play though, so I give it two escapes out of five.

Insight: Read the signs near the start as they give great options per map.

The Escapists

You need to breakout of prison. A lot.

In this RPG-maker like game you must get your custom prisoner to get out of each of the five prisons available (in the base game). As all but the first is locked you need to beat them in order of difficulty, and at the start can name all the other inmates and guards present too.

That translates as "someone's digging a tunnel".

Then it becomes a matter of learning routines, getting the right jobs and doing favors to get the right tools (like a guard uniform from the laundry), and escaping just like in the short tutorial which fails to cover MANY things which is frustrating. Almost as frustrating as trying to click on the correct character when they stack on each other and are moving. And is there a combat/non-combat indicator somewhere?

Ultimately, this is not a game for me as the main thing it requires is patience - and given that after using it once the program refused to open ever again, there wasn't really enough in my first foray to encourage me to fix that. Not one I'd recommend but if you are into this sort of thing then it's supposed to be very popular.