Death Roads: Tournament Prologue

7/10 A CCG/TBS game in battle racing setting. Good: - the turn-based combat is quite interesting and varied. There are many different weapons which attack enemies in front, on the side or behind. You can bash into other cars to damage them. There is also a "steering" stat which you spend for your actions. "Steering" also gets decreased when you get attacked, and once it reaches zero, the car enters a "skid" mode where it does several random actions which may turn out beneficial or harmful depending on the current positions of cars - the protagonist is a woman in at least her late 30s which is not typical in games So-so: - the combination of TBS and battle racing seems to be unique, however I'm not sure it's a good combo. After all, TBS is for "nerds" and racing is more like for an average gamer, so the intersection is small. I'm a lifelong TBS fan but I generally don't like racing games, especially battle racing. So, while I did try the prologue, I find the "death racing" setting unappealing and will never buy this game though I do like the TBS part. Had it been anything more geeky (like, dunno, spaceship combat, or at least a robot/tank racing, not cars) I'd like this game more - the setting of "death racing thru America" is again too dumb for a TBS game. It also comes with the comic"badass" art style and narrative that I find unappealing - the randomness is a bit too high: the skid state is entirely random, and then you also have random cards coming in that define your actions. It makes the battles less predictable but also takes away the sense of control/agency - I'd prefer if the losing cars were just towed away or leave the road, not downright explode. I mean, somebody dies in those cars, it's not nothing. But I know, who cares, okay Bad: - the onboarding is a bit too rushed. The game piles on too much info, and I actually failed my first battle by crushing into the end of the lane while I was still struggling to understand the game's mechanics Overall, it's a good game if you like TBS games and also enjoy cars, racing and explosions. Though if you're just a fan of TBS games like XCom, Civ or anything like Panzer general, you'll probably struggle to like it because of its unfortunate choice of setting. [table][tr][th][i]I'm a Steam curator, you can [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43946907-Friendly-Nerd/]follow me[/url][/i][/th][/tr][/table]