Empyrean

A good game that provides a surprisingly in-depth approach to politics, not just forcing you to ally with the "heroic" revolutionaries but also allowing you to work through the systems put in place by the combines to achieve your goals. Despite this, it is difficult to feel completely in control because options are not clearly explained. For example, skillful fencing requires you to have high reaction and vigor, whereas shooting requires high vigor and sensitivity/nerve. However, these subtleties are never actually explained in the game itself. As a result, you will often end up blindly guessing which combinations of stats you need for each choice unless you choose to read the game's script, which is a shame, because this is one of the few COG games which allow you to make meaningful political choices.

Good game, solid story.

Still one of the best Choice of Games. A single story that doesn't waste a line or a minute creates a wildly original and detailed fantasy world that might comfortably host a six-book series, with crisply sketched, enthralling characters, poignant motivations all round and scalpel-sharp dialogue throughout. Kyle Marquis made little worlds of wonder in 'Pon Para', 'Silverworld' and 'Tower Behind the Moon'; Empyrean brings it home again, with a vigorous anti-authoritarian bent essential for the 'punk' in dieselpunk, and a smattering of old-time pulp adventure. Even the romance with a 'what-is-this-s*x-that-you-speak-of?' jungle girl, a curious staple of Marquis titles, comes off marvellously without anything problematic. The gameplay certainly isn't the simplest among COGs, being even less straightforward than Pon Para, possibly less than Tower; displaying the 'Combine character' and 'Revolutionary character' stats might have been an idea. The more intricate and finely-crafted a Choice of Games title, the more the need to copy and save the game files before a choice and/or check the code, which I think personally are legitimate means of exploring a brilliant story more fully. Frequently frustrating but worthwhile, however, is not the same thing as unplayable; COG and Hosted games have put out unplayable and simply boring games and this is not one of them. 'Sky Pirates of Actorius' (I lied about a single story) is more modest but absolutely worth reading as well, with some sly references to 'Empyrean' itself.