Chainsaw Warrior: Lords of the Night Reviews

Chainsaw Warrior: Lords of the Night is pretty much a much better version of Chainsaw Warrior than the original game. In it's core it remains a board / card game with lots of dice rolls and massive RNG to get through. The art design is actually pretty awesome and if one does enjoy RNG, likes to kill hundreds of zombies and is a fan of the entire franchise and/or Warhammer, you're probably at the right place. It's by far not anywhere near an AAA title, but it's cheap and has actually quite a bit of content. Can recommend to fans.

RNJesus take the wheel Chainsaw warrior: Lords of the night is a digital card game where you go thru a gauntlet of zombies, cultists, and mutant things. You roll your stats, pick your weapons and armor and then die because you failed a dice roll. The game is fun and semi relaxing but brutal. The three difficulties are hard, harder, and impossible. this is a game where the main game play is dice rolling (it is based on a board game after all). Think if solitare had a child with warhammer 40k, and you whould get chainsaw warrior. Pros: short but sweet simple to play and learn great in short bursts Cons: one bad roll and you are dead unforgiving to everyone The dice roll weird and I blame that for bad rolls In short: A single players board game that is brutal but fun P.S. always go for the bomb vest, when in doubt blow yourself up.

Making this game was a good idea. Improvements on decades old board game could not be any more welcome. That's why this had a lot of potential. Alas, it did not materialize. I'm always sad when it looks like all that hard developers work got them *that close* but still not over the line to make the game enjoyable and rewarding exerience. My mine gripe with the game are: Absense of published ruleset / cards and a lot of "unpolishedness" in the UI. The first game did not explain rules well either, but then, you could look these up in your copy of rules that you store in your physical board game, so not such a big of a deal. And there are a lot of small things like these: - Inconsistent use of terminology, what's called "marksmenship" in some in-game text is called "ranged" on other - Blessing icon is bugged it is super-imposed on your special skill icon - The Wait button does not explainm, why would you want to wait - Lore skill does not show stats niether of the blessing nor of the guarding. It would be only useful in combination with rules that would explain that. Or in-game card browser. - Button placement is not convinient. You click the card in the center, but you click accept/fight in the bottom-left corner. This is very inconvinient - The game does not show you key short-cuts and does not have a UI for rebinding them If you never played the board game, I think there should be no reason for you to buy this title at all. If you did, you might entertain the idea of buying it to see some gameplay improvements at the expense of everything else I listed above.

Genre - A Games Workshop Sci-Fi/Horror Solo Card Game Conversion I played the first Chainsaw Warrior on Steam quite a bit and enjoyed it in short blasts, although I had a few gripes with some of its mechanics. The game basically involves generating a character and choosing items before entering a randomised solo adventure. When I saw this was out for a fiver, I thought I may as well give this one a go too. I was pleasantly suprised as they had polished and added to the first game quite nicley. Now the clock although a factor is not so harsh. You also get to fight two randomised mini bosses between the three stages, The inventory and skills are also more intuitive. The only gripe that I still have is that 'The Darkness' can only be destroyed with two items The Laser Lance and an Implosion (suicide) vest. Sometimes you will end up reaching him without the a good enough marskman skill to hit him or sometimes without the Laser Lance itself. Most of the time I can only kill him with a lucky shot, which doesn't have great odds either. There are a few security measures to help with this, like the teleporter. Also this time around you can destroy a few of his minions to make him slighlty weaker. However, I still think this can be a very irritating game mechanic in an otherwise fun game. It would have been nice if they'd have thrown in a few more weaknesses this time around.

This game is a definite improvement over the first Chainsaw Warrior. While I liked the first Chainsaw Warrior, it had some problems which were addressed in this game: - The inventory screen was clunky, only displaying two cards/items at a time. The user interface for this game is a significant improvement and much more streamlined, letting you see everything you have in one screen. - Similarly, whenever you attacked, you had to always pick your weapon, which could be a pain because it required you to keep telling the game "Yes, I want to use this weapon". Picking a weapon to attack with in this game is just one click on the bottom of the screen, plus you have the option to not use a weapon, which isn't in the first game. - Rerolling in the first game was TEDIOUS, since there was no way to do it except to constantly restart a new game and roll every individual stat. In this game, all your stats are rolled at once and there's an option to reroll right in the character creation screen. You don't know how much less of a hassle the game became because of this alone. - Ranged weapons were harder to use in the first game. First you had to roll for reflexes just to get a chance to hit, then you rolled for your chance to hit, and each weapon had its individual numbers to roll for each enemy type, which was affected by your marksmanship. In this game, it's less complex: marksmanship is the ranged version of your hand-to-hand score and is rolled against the enemy's reflexes or power (depending on if they're ranged or not), with some weapons offering a bonus to marksmanship. It makes ranged weapons less of a pain to use. As for the new/reworked elements, I rather liked them. There's a little more replayability with unlockable items now, especially with different chainsaws (also, you start with a chainsaw automatically now). Using ranged weapons is a little easier now (no more botched reflex rolls), plus having weapons that can take out multiple enemies is very nice. Some of the more oddball items from the first game are gone, and nearly every item in this game has its uses and doesn't feel as situationally-useful as in the first game. Also, you can punch Darkness. That's cool. Overall, a much improved sequel to Chainsaw Warrior. If you liked the first one, this is definitely worth getting.

[b]tl;dr -> I got my laser rifle stolen by a cult thief then was immediately ambushed by a monster that can only die to special weapons (ex: lasers). 11/10 keep getting served on normal difficulty.[/b] I had a few extra dollars in my steam wallet and decided to pick this game up because I've always enjoyed card games, and this one looked interesting enough. I was satisfied with my gameplay experience. If you like dice-based (D6) card games and the Aztec theme, then you will enjoy this game. The aesthetics are nice and simple - the detail in each card is well done. There are visual effects whenever you do an attack/use an item, but most of the time you will just be looking at and reading the cards on a static background. The music and sounds are decent, however, I quickly muted the music in favor of my own. The story involves you racing against time (nightfall) to stop The Darkness from destroying the world. Controls are entirely mouse-based and simple. There is an optional tutorial that very quickly shows you everything you need to know, however, improving your playthroughs will require you to die a lot and learn through trial-and-error. The learning curve is mostly minimal depending on your knowledge of D6-style gameplay, and the most difficult element of the game is probably understanding how to best optimize your loadouts for each run (for example, if you roll a character that is weaker in hand-to-hand (hth) combat, how do you compensate for this?). Gameplay consists of you drawing cards until you encounter the area boss (this can occur before all the cards in the deck have been revealed). Defeating the boss will allow you to progress to the next area, until you reach the last boss in the third area. After each action you take, a "round" occurs, decreasing the time on the clock. Once darkness falls, your character will take a hit to his hth stat. If you reach 0 on the clock, The Darkness will automatically win. As you draw cards, you will most likely encounter an array of enemies, however, you can also run into different types of traps, airdrops (allow you to restock/change equipment), temples (protected by a powerful guardian and will give you a blessing buff if you defeat it), or events. Before you begin, you will randomly generate (roll) a chainsaw warrior to play as. This makes each playthrough a bit different, as you will have different values in your Wounds (hit points), Venom Resistance, Radiation Resistance, Range, Reflex (ability to dodge), and Hth stats. Enemies do different types of damage, and falling to 0 in wounds, venom, or radiation will result in your death. Your character will roll a special perk, which may be something like decreasing each area deck by 5 cards, increased reflexes, etc. You may also select your starting equipment, and you will usually start with 3 to 8 equipment points (this seems to be offset by high or low starting stats). You can choose from different melee, ranged, and heavy weapons to help you survive the Aztec jungle. There are also a number of devices (ex: medpack, extra ammo clip, etc) you can take with you. Finally, different armors can help you fend off enemy attacks. If you select the "Classic" difficulty, all equipment will be replaced with a ?, only to be revealed once you start your run (truly making everything random-based). Your starting equipment selection is a critical part to your playthrough because you can end up making your run easier or much more difficult depending on your choices. For example, if I roll a character that is a bit weaker in the hth stat, I may decide to grab a Stun Nux, which adds 4 to my hth stat whenever I am fighting a living opponent (ex: cultists). Taking advantage of a higher range stat is highly recommended because many of the enemies you will fight will prefer hth combat. When you draw an enemy card, they may have a special effect (ex: deal x type of damage immediately or ambush: go immediately into close-ranged combat) and/or do an extra type of damage (venom) on top of normal wound damage. Different enemies will prefer either hth or ranged combat, and using the opposite tactic on them will give them a debuff of some kind. For example, many of the initial zombies you will encounter are hth fighters, so using a ranged weapon will almost always hit them without the need for a dice roll (unless they have a really high reflex stat). Some zombies will counter this tactic by having an ambush ability, which will allow them to immediately put you into close-range (there is a device that will negate the ambush ability). In close-range, you can use melee weapons or try to evade your opponent. Every action in combat involves dice rolls, and succeeding in an evasion will result in no damage taken (failing will still cause you to evade, but you will take some damage) and put you back in ranged-weapon distance. During combat, your enemy (multi-enemy battles are still fought one-at-a-time) will roll two die (D6), adding this value to their hth or range stat depending on the level of engagement (ex: you are using a melee weapon against a melee opponent). Next, you will roll two die, adding this value to the appropriate stat (in this case, your melee stat). If you have a higher value than your opponent, you will instantly kill them unless they have armor, in which case you will do 1 damage to armor (until it goes down to 0 or 1 - at 1 armor weapons like chainsaws can pierce through). There are weapons that allow you to ignore x armor. If your opponent's attack value is higher than yours, then you will take damage depending on the type of your opponent (either wounds, or both wounds and venom). Armor will allow you to negate some types of damage if you roll a 5 or 6 during an armor check. You also have the option to try to escape, however, you have to roll a 6, otherwise you will take 1 wound damage. In a situation where you are using a ranged weapon against a melee opponent, the enemy will add their roll value to their reflex stat instead of their attack stat (since they cannot attack you at range). If they beat your roll, you will miss and they will close the distance. Against enemies with significantly lower reflex stats, you will automatically hit with your ranged attack because they are too slow. Some of the tougher opponents can only die to special weapons, so conserving your laser ammo is critical to survival and progression. Your equipment can become stolen or even broken, which can be fatal most of the time. Multiple playthroughs will help you refine your preferred playstyle. Overall, the game is very nice and simple - a good filler game if you want to spend a short amount of time playing something. I always try not to mention price in my reviews if I think it is unnecessary, however, I will say that I purchased this game on sale for $3.24 CAD, and I think that is a much fairer value than it's original price of $6.49. I suggest you wait until it is on sale, unless you are dying to play it. For people that enjoy D6 card games, you should definitely give Chainsaw Warrior a try. Recommend! Cheers, DJSF [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/djsfsroguereviews]@DJSF's Rogue Reviews[/url]

In 1987 the world nearly ended. Nearly. In the 11th hour one man, one hero rose to face Darkness and banished it from this world, saving us all. But evil will always find ways into the hearts of men. Now, eighteen years later, deep in the Mexican jungle, the followers of a forgotten God have found a new ally, and an old enemy we had thought defeated returns to finish what they had started eighteen years ago. Darkness has returned and only one man can stop it from destroying the world. It had been a suicide mission then. Noone thought he could succeed, much less survive. Then, against all odds he prevailed. Can a million to once chance come true... twice? In a desperate race against time, cutting his way through the jungle, hordes of zombies and a crazed apocalyptic cult, the Chainsaw Warrior has only 1 Hour to reach and banish Darkness or all will be lost. New dangers lurk among the trees and in the swamps. The ancient guardians of the aztec ruins have awakened. But with great challenges come great rewards and the Chainsaw Warrior will need all the help he can get if he is to save us... again. Prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. Armed with his trusty chainsaw. He is ready to once more be the hero the world needs. Are you? Game Facts: Like the original Chainsaw Warrior, Chainsaw Warrior: Lords of the Night is a game of turning cards and rolling dice. Each card you turn, each action you take will thake 30 seconds and you only have 1 Hour before the world ends. You move through the jungle by turning cards and encountering enemies or traps and just sometimes finding something to help you on your mission. What equipment will you take with you? What risks will you take? And yes, how lucky will you get? These all will determine your success or defeat. Pros: +The Chainsaw Warrior games manage, with simple mechanics, to capture the pressure of time, the sence of emergency, that mad, desperate dash. You frantically turn cards willing that clock to stop ticking, the doom counter to stop its count. + Three difficulty settings affecting stats, equipment points and whether you get to see the equipment you pick or are forced to select blindly + Equipment allows for various tactics to reach the end. Even though in the end it comes down to one thing: Destroy Darkness or die trying. + Classic mode truly is challenging Cons: - Like any game based on dice, luck is very important. Changes from old game: * Ranged combat has been completly rebuild, making ranged weapons far more useful. You can now manouvre from melee to ranged distance and put that assault rifle to good use. * Instead of two decks there now are three: Jungle - Ruined City - Temple * Old Aztec temples can be found and explored to recieve special blessings - but beware, they are guarded. * The Meat Machine and Slime have company: more unique enemies have been added and act as mini bosses at the end of the first two decks. * Darkness is spreading as Shades. These offshoots of Darkness may be encountered sepparately and defeating them will weaken Darkness, making that final battle easier. * New equipment to match the new setting, including new versions for your trusty chainsaw. Some of this equipment has to be unlocked through playing the game. Verdict: The clock is ticking. While you were reading, Darkness has come this much closer to killing us all. Go, Save the world.

Although I did enjoy the original [i]Chainsaw Warrior[/i], I did find myself burning out quite quickly on its randomness - there were some choices to be made, but you more or less were at the mercy of the dice. I'm glad to say Lords Of The Night improves a lot on this. Don't fear, you'll still die multiple deaths because of crappy dice rolls, but you do have a lot more tactical choices to make, both in weapons and equipment. Airdrops of new equipment during the game, also help give back a sense of agency. Then there is the addition of 'blessings', basically an active or passive power that can help you during your gruelling trek through the jungle (think along the lines of "heal 3 points", or "immunity from radiation damage"). New blessings can be acquired by entering a temple and killing a high powered monster (the game's equivalent of a very basic side quest). The pulpy setup of the original game is still in full effect, and I would say that the new setting adds a lot of flavour to the overall John Carpenterness of it all. Personally, I'd recommend this game over the original [i]Chainsaw Warrior[/i] (although at these prices, why force yourself to choose).

I must admit, I was both surprised and just a teeny, weeny bit excited to hear that they were sequelizing the Chainsaw Warrior board game adaptation from not-so-long-ago. In all fairness, I'm writing this review with very little playtime up my sleeve, but on the whole I have to confess that the aforementioned excitement has dulled ever-so-slightly into mild disappointment. Let's see now... My first hesitation is the setting. While I completely applaud the decision to not just set this in a post-apocalyptic New York - AGAIN! - choosing to situate the continued adventures of our titular hero in an Aztec-ian jungle suggests, to me at least, that we're slowly moving towards more Serious Sam-styled territory (though [i]all[/i] of these characters ultimately owe their lineage to Ash of "Evil Dead" fame, suffice it to say). Now, whether this is a good or bad thing is up to the individual, but personally I miss the urban decay/Escape From New York aesthetics...but maybe that's just me. If you harbour a particular hard-on for the Aztecs, you'll obviously be right at home here. Oh, and the music has changed accordingly, and while there's basically nothing wrong with the more jungle-y flavours on offer here - except perhaps the fact that it's all a tad too laid-back and "muzak"-y to generate much tension or momentum - on the whole, I must say that I miss the super-synthy goodness of the earlier game's soundtrack. (Oh, and there's also a completely needless and irritating "punch" noise every time you enter melee combat, even if you choose to use the chainsaw or what-have-you; other than this, though, the sound effects are perfectly dandy.) Now onto the mechanics... My earliest impressions of the game are that it's [i]slower[/i] than the first Chainsaw Warrior; and with that, arguably a tiny bit more cumbersome. The 2013 game was [i]very[/i] fast-paced, with cards turning over at lightning speed and enemies defeated just as quickly. This time 'round we have [i]armoured[/i] enemies, who effectively take "damage" and gradually weaken rather than simply being defeated outright. There are also some more "tactical" combat situations, such as a giant statue guardian who you can either attack directly, or firstly choose to target the stone hands of to reduce its ability to defend itself. The overall effect of all of this is that combats seem to take longer, and therein so does the game. Again...personal preference. But for better or for worse, that "jump-in-jump-out"/"I'll just play one more quick round" quality of the original game seems to have been lost somewhere in the shuffle. Things are also arguably slowed down (read: overcomplicated) by the fact that the devs have opted to make this a tad more of a full-blown "video game" this time around; and thereby less of a "board game adaptation". Simply put, there are less cards to look at (equipment is just a list this time 'round), and the cards which [i]are[/i] portrayed are visually less varied in content (one type of zombie crops up repeatedly; as opposed to the original, in which we had a healthy rogue's gallery of the zomboids in question). On a purely personal note, I also simply don't "like" the artwork as much (a very important factor in [i]all[/i] games, be they video/board/card/whatever). There are also BOSS FIGHTS - some optional and some unavoidable in nature - which again, slow the pace for a moment whilst you crap yourself wondering whether or not to waste precious Laser Lance ammunition on something other than Darkness himself. And I'm also pretty sure that all the new-'n'-improved "card decimation" animations (chainsaws cutting through enemies, cards exploding, etc) take longer to resolve than the more modest equivalents from the first game...though this may just be a figment of my imagination (but even then, still contributes to my overall argument of things generally "seeming" more sluggish). So the overall feeling of hurtling-towards-the-inevitable-final-confrontation has been hampered somewhat in favour of more conventional video game dynamics, and that oh-so-modern notion of the "side-quest" (in the form of the aforementioned optional boss fights); again, and I can't stress this enough, PERSONAL F-ING PREFERENCE. I don't know...perhaps I'll warm to this one more in time, but I think I found the charm of the 2013 game to lie predominantly in the speedy "casual"-ness of its nature, and that can't quite be said this time around. And I'm sorry, but I really just don't dig the jungle as much (heck, I'm a bit of an old-school John Carpenter fan, as you may have guessed from my nom de plume)! Having said all this, it's still a good game, especially at that price, and anyone who appreciates board/card game adaptations is liable to get at least [i]some[/i] jollies out of it. I dunno, maybe they should have set it in post-apocalyptic London, and had zombies in bobby hats? Full points for trying something truly different, I suppose... Verdict: 7/10. (PS There is one genuine improvement over the original game: Thanks to "air drops", you no longer have to back-track all the way to the START to replace a lost or broken Laser Lance...without a doubt, the single most annoying feature of the earlier game. So full kudos for [i]that[/i] change!) UPDATE: Alright, so I've played this a bit more of late, and may have been a tad harsh the first time. While I still consider the first game a bit more "fun", there's a lot to recommend here. So I'll up that Verdict, if only slightly. Revised Verdict: 7.5/10.

Chainsaw Warrior: Lords of the Night is a lot like the origional Chainsaw Warrior game made by the same Developer. Lords of the Night gives you a bunch of new things to fight from jungle critters to Armor wearing Moon Cultist. They also added a lot of new weapons and items, some of which you need to unlock to use. The UI has been imporved and the over all game feels much faster than the origional. You start the game on one of three difficulty levels. Normal and Hard which both give you a good chance of starting off with some decent stats, and you get to choose what items you take with you at the start. Then there is Classic Mode which plays like the origional board game and puts you at the mercy of the RNG gods with no boost to your stats and random starting items. As you progress through the game you will get Air Drops that will contain a collection of weapons and items for you to choose from, you have 3 item points for each drop and get to spend them how you want. You can also replace your lost Laser Lance from the Air Drops, so there is no need to backtrack to the start of the game to replace it. My only complaint of the game so far is the lack of a save system, but that is a feature they will be adding soon. If you enjoyed the origional Chainsaw Warrior game then you likley will find enough new content in Chainsaw Warrior: Lords of the Night to make it worth your time.