We Are The Dwarves Preview (PC)

I was hoping We Are The Dwarves would be a fun, real-time tactical action game--like a strategic Diablo--but after a little over two hours with the game, finicky controls and a surprising level of difficulty quickly pushed me away, saying, "I think you've had enough," and I can't help but agree.

The story of We Are The Dwarves is light and poorly voice-acted, incredibly poorly voice-acted, making it hard to care about anything going on with this band of dwarven astronauts as they journey to find a new star and avoid extinction, and the funny thing is, I actually wanted to care about the story because I like the sound of dwarven astronauts, but what I experienced during my time with the game was as empty as space. But who needs a great story if the game itself is great? (I'll take great gameplay over a great story any day of the week.) That said, if the story isn't great, it forces the gameplay, mostly, to make up for what the rest is lacking and, as I mentioned earlier, We Are The Dwarves suffers from more than just a bad story.

The controls were often unresponsive, forcing me to click a space or enemy multiple times before my dwarf would move or attack, which inevitably lead to many frustrating deaths. I don't mind a good challenge when the challenge is just and part of the design, but when I find bad controls adding an extra layer of challenge that shouldn't be there, I quickly become frustrated and frustrated is what We Are The Dwarves made me as I died many times when I felt like I shouldn't have, and the game is already challenging enough on its own.

We Are the Dwarves feels like a game that should be in early access and not officially released because it's not particularly pretty--it's not ugly, just average in every way--controls poorly, and has some of the worst voice acting I've heard in quite some time, but that's not the case and, in its current state, I can't recommend We Are The Dwarves to anyone, even to those who love a mighty fine beard or two like yours truly.

We Are the Dwarves (Steam [Steamplay] - $14.99)