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Reviews
Accolade Sports Collection


Accolade was a developer and publisher with a number of titles that came from their studio in the 80’s and 90’s, probably best known for the Test Drive and Bubsy games. Many of their early games were for the Apple II, MS-DOS, and Commodore 64, eventually releasing a number on the Sega Genesis (or Sega Mega Drive if you’re from Japan) when it was at the peak of its popularity.
Checking a list of their released games, they did a surprising amount of sports titles, so it shouldn’t be a shock that this Accolade Sports Collection came to be. While this collection doesn’t have every title they released, it’s got arguably the more popular ones from the early 90’s. Featuring five sports games, you can prove you’re the best at 90’s sports games to your friends with Hardball!, Hardball II, Hoops Shut Up and Jam!, Winter Challenge and Summer Challenge. While I question placing two baseball titles in the same collection, the varied sport events from the Olympic games somewhat offset this.
While not realty a ‘remaster’, as the games are left untouched and straight from the 90’s, there are a number of other options we’ve come to expect in nostalgic collections like these. Save states if you want to stop playing and resume later, a number of filter options to make it appear like it’s being played on an old CRT TV, digital manuals, and even a rewind function that makes it simple to try once again if you strike out or crash during some downhill skiing.
Hardball!
Originally released in 1985 for Commodore 64, 1987 for Atari, and 1991 for Genesis. If you’re a big fan of the movie 'The Princess Bride', this was the title Fred Savage was playing at the beginning. While I was never really into too many baseball games, I’ve played my share, and what stood out for me right away with Hardball! was that the main camera view when pitching and batting is actually from behind the pitcher’s mound like a real broadcast, not behind the batter like in virtually every other baseball game. This of course took a little getting used to, especially when batting, but that’s where I made much use of the rewind feature, until I could learn the timing better for hitting the ball.
There’s a number of different modes and options to choose from: Play Ball, World Series, Batting Cage, Normal or Corked bats, enable or disabling Errors, and even the classic Password option to resume a game at a later time (though this is moot with the collection’s save state feature). You’re able to pitch from a few different types and even where you want to throw based on where the batter is standing. Pitchers even had stamina, becoming less efficient the longer they played. For its time, it had a lot of impressive features, especially its animations, but I found the controls awful, though not as bad as its music. I do keep in mind the era and platform it’s from, but I didn’t care for it overall versus other baseball games I grew up playing.
Hardball II
Originally released for PC in 1989 and 1990 for Amiga and Mac, a second baseball game in a collection with only five titles seems like an odd choice. The main change from the first game is that the pitching and batting viewpoint is what we’ve come to expect from baseball titles, being behind the batter. There were a number of additions and improvements, from updated stats, pickoffs, team editor, more animations, more viewpoints when it comes to fielding, and more. That said, I found the overall game much worse than the original. I didn’t find the animations were all that improved, fielding was terrible, and I found the controls to be much more sluggish.
Hoops Shut Up and Jam!
Released in 1994, the game was originally titled Barkley Shut Up and Jam!, titled after the iconic NBA star, Charles Barkley. Due to licensing deals ending, subsequent ports were subtlety changed to Hoops Shut Up and Jam! to avoid any issues. Let’s be honest, NBA Jam came out a year prior and is vastly superior. While Hoops Shut Up and Jam! instead focuses on street basketball, it certainly wasn’t terrible by any means, it just simply got overshadowed by the greatest NBA game of all time.
Able to play a single game or series, you can choose the length of quarters, scoring method, and the roster of 16 players will show you their skills in Twos, Threes, Dunks, Rebounds, Stealing, and Speed. You then choose a city to play in, each with its own style of court for a 2 on 2 match. There’s no fouls, so try and steal at every opportunity. Since you don’t directly control your teammate you’ll want to pass to your controlled player if you want any of the action. There’s turbo and dunks to be had, but even after a few matches I found I’d rather be playing NBA Jam instead.
Winter Challenge
Released for MS-DOS in 1991 and then Genesis in 1992, Winter Challenge is one of the more interesting titles in this collection. Made to mimic the Olympics, Winter Challenge has eight different events to participate in, though more like seven since Luge and Bobsled play basically the exact same. For the events, you have Luge, Bobsled, Downhill Skiing, Cross-country Skiing, Speed Skating, Giant Slalom, Biathlon, and Ski Jump.
Keep in mind that games from this era rarely told you how to play, as they used to come with instruction booklets back in the day. I highly suggest checking out the manual before the events, as you won’t have any idea how to play, eventually crash, and lose the event. This is where you can use the handy rewind feature for mistakes like these. Of the events, I enjoyed Speed Skating, Biathlon, and Ski Jump the most. Some of the other events were quite challenging to control, and honestly, hasn’t aged very well. Framerates feel like they are in the single digits, and I understand the game is a product of the time, but there clearly wasn’t enough power in the hardware at the time for what they were trying to accomplish.
Summer Challenge
Exactly the same setup as Winter Challenge, but with completely different events you’d find in the Summer Olympics. This game too has eight events which felt much more varied overall. You can compete in Kayak, Archery, 400m Hurdles, High Jump, Pole Vault, Equestrian, Javelin, and Cycling. These too had some instant fail events that were challenging to control, and earning a medal really felt like you earned it, though goodluck.
The standouts for me were Archery, which was actually quite enjoyable to try and get those bullseyes, and Javelin, running fast as you can then holding the button to get the perfect angle to toss. This game too seemed to struggle with its hardware limitations at the time, as some events really seemed laggy and controls didn’t feel accurate. Even placing the bar on the lowest setting for High Jump or Pole Vault, I was lucky if I could even leap at the right time or place my pole accurately without failing.
While each title in the collection is accurate for the time and untouched, it’s welcome to have some modern quality of life additions, especially save states and the rewind feature. Being able to change filters to make it look like an old CRT screen is novel at first, and I’m glad the manuals are there for reference so you can actually figure out how to play, but special unlocks or behind the scenes bonus stuff would have been a welcome addition as well.
I can appreciate that the Accolade Sports Collection is trying to preserve some classic sports titles and bring them to a new audience, adding some modern features along the way, but the games have not aged very well at all, some downright awful. Gamers that grew up with these titles will surely enjoy the nostalgia hit, as well retro fans, I just don’t see myself going back to play it anytime soon when there’s access to many other superior titles that I have fonder memories of.
**Accolade Sports Collection was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 4.2 / 10



Tap Wizard 2 has you becoming a wizard, choosing your spells then sitting back as you watch them do their thing. Being an Idle-type of game, you will need to intervene often with menus, but the actual gameplay does its own thing automatically. The first thing you see on a splash screen is that you move the cursor with the Left Stick and can move you Wizard with the Right if you want, and that’s about it.
When the Wizard is close to securing the Chronosphere, they are ambushed by the Dark Forces and when about to die, time rewinds. This rejuvenates the Wizard and they are slightly more powerful than before. And that’s the catch of the narrative and gameplay, time rewinding when you die and you can try once again, becoming slightly more powerful as time goes on, making incremental progress ever so slowly.
CURSE YOU CURSOR
Released last year on PC and mobile, Tap Wizard 2 finally makes its way to Xbox. While there’s no touch screen or mouse to use, controller implementation is there but is a source of much frustration. Since the game automatically plays itself, you’re more managing menus, so you’ll need to move the excruciatingly slow cursor with the Left Stick and click boxes rather than implementing D-Pad use for ease. You’re not even able to press ‘B’ or some other button to close a menu, instead having to navigate the sloth inspired cursor to the ‘X’ at the top right of each box to close it.
To make the cursor annoyances even worse, it seems it sometimes has a mind of its own and simply disappears for no reason. Moving around the stick will bring it back, but with all the chaos on the screen, even finding it sometimes can be a guessing game. I sometimes must simply hold down on the stick until it reaches the bottom of the screen so I can notice it over the buttons for all the menu options.
Tap Wizard 2 uses a minimalistic pixel art aesthetic, and while it suits the gameplay and setting just fine, with you opening menus often, you’re always covering up the action on screen with big menus, sometimes two or three at a time. The icons also are quite confusing at first until you know what to look for, though thankfully you can basically reorganize the menu icons however you see fit, which I highly suggest doing once you get a grasp on all of its mechanics.
A WIZARD’S JOURNEY
Your first order of business is going to choose which Wizard you want to be, well, watch blast enemies. Each wizard can control certain elements such as fire, ice, lightning, and poison, each with a different combination of two different types. These could be considered ‘Classes’ I guess, but you’ll unlock more over time, and there’s not really one better than the others I’ve found, as they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. It’s more about putting time into the game to become more powerful as you destroy thousands of enemies, automatically.
Each run usually only lasts a few minutes tops in the beginning since you start out quite weak, have low health, doesn’t deal much damage, and you don’t have many perks or abilities yet. Each run will end once you lose all your health, sending you back to the Chronozone, rewinding time before sending your wizard back into the fray.
COMPLICATED PROGRESS
The premise of Tap Wizard is quite simple; you’ll slowly become more powerful over time, even while not playing, but you’ll eventually hit a ceiling where you’ll need to start over, though doing so gives you bonuses that makes that next attempt easier. Repeat this cycle over and over again and you have an Idle RPG like Tap Wizard 2. What’s simple in premise is anything but when it comes to figuring it all out though. This is due to the lack of tutorials and poorly communication of how all the mechanics synchronize with one another.
Sure, I learned a lot by checking a wiki online, but players shouldn’t have to resort to that for having to figure out what does what, or how. There’s a lot of tool tips and I guess technically everything is explained, but it was quite confusing since you’re bombarded with a metric ton of information before you even know what’s going on. Only after a couple hours of ‘play’ am I really understanding it all and finally have some sense of strategy to progress quicker.
As the game plays itself, you’ll simply be waiting for one of your menu icons to show the three dots indicating a new notification or unlock. Choose the appropriate option and then wait for the next unlock. Eventually even some of this can be automated, so don’t expect much in-depth gameplay. As you level up you’ll choose new spell perks, altering how each spell can act or cast. You’re able to increase your power, enchant, awaken, use totems, and more. It’s all quite confusing at first, but essentially you clear waves, level your Staff of Knowledge, Awaken, and repeat until you unlock a new Era. Again, this is all explained quite poorly and takes some time to really understand fully, so I’ll do my best to break it down.
STAFF OF KNOWLEDGE
To level up you need to defeat enemies. They will drop Power resources, and sometimes, even souls, which will convert to more power at the end of a run. Throughout the waves you’ll also find chests that can give a bonus to souls, health, and coin. Every time your Staff levels up, you’ll get to choose a new perk for your spells at random. These will vary from more damage, faster cast times, or other special bonuses. These perks will persist until you Awaken later on. Choosing the same perk will make it more powerful, so each time you level up the next set of runs should be better since you’re slightly more powerful. Once you reach the maximum level for the Staff you’ll be able to Awaken. Think of this as Prestige from Call of Duty, but more on that shortly.
IDLE HANDS
Being an Idle based game, you can let the game play on its own, but when you close the game it’ll continue to progress on its own, albeit at a drastically slower rate. You won’t be able to completely max out by not playing though, as you’ll need to actually play and choose your level up skills and such, as that’s not done automatically. The more you level up the more powerful you become, so it sometimes pays to simply let the game do its thing while you wait to choose perks and upgrades before closing it for another game.
RESEARCH MANUAL
As you defeat enemies and earn gold, this gold will be used to research projects. Think of these as buffs. By spending enough gold you’ll be able to choose upgrades for your health, damage, earned coin, extra souls and more. A timer will count down and once it completes, you’ll have that buff permanently until you Awaken. If you’re flush with cash you can fund the research to have it complete earlier, but I opted to simply wait until it finished for 'free'.
RINGS, RUNES, AND TOTEMS
Rings are powerful accessories that will give you permanent buffs that stay with you even through Awkenings. These can be purchased with a special currency, so they are never a bad option. Runes on the other hand are collectables that can be used at any time and give buffs for a specific amount of runs. You can use as many as you like, and with over 25 different runes to collect and use, they can add a big boost to your runs if utilized properly.
There are 12 different Totems that will randomly appear on the battlefield, used as soon as you touch them. These too offer a number of different bonuses that can greatly help in a run, and if you’re able to collect multiples, the bonuses can stack up to a powerful level 4 version.
OBELISK SHARD
Eventually you’re going to hit a wall of progress, usually because your health or damage output is too low. There are ways to boost them listed above, but the biggest boost you can get is from Enchanting via the Obelisk Shard. This is how you’ll get a big bonus to your damage and research cost discounts. You don’t need to Enchant once you have enough for a single rank (a x1.05 damage boost per), as you can save up for multiple ranks simultaneously. Once you do decide to Enchant, you’re thrown back at Wave 1 on a new run and won’t get your bonus until you’ve earned the same amount of power you used to Enchant. So the longer you wait the bigger the bonus, but the longer it may take to gain as well. Enchanting is well worth the tradeoff, as even a few extra ranks and increases of damage can make a huge difference in follow up runs.
AWAKEN AGAIN AND AGAIN
Awakening is like choosing to Prestige in Call of Duty multiplayer. You lose your main progress, but you unlock new perks and abilities that makes the next run that much easier, thus begins the progression treadmill. Each time you Awaken you’ll get four special skill points to be used in the Memory Tree, unlocking more permanent buffs and bonuses. You can see where the treadmill starts over many times, but each time you become slightly more powerful. Going a step further, there are what’s called Era’s, as well. Think of these as another prestige for your max Awakening. As you can see, there’s lots of layers and complexity and it’s explained very poorly. It simply takes a lot of time to figure it out on your own.
After a handful of hours I’ve finally figured out the clumsy UI and all of its mechanics, but it wasn’t without a lot of fumbling and simply seeing what does what on my own. Since the game essentially plays itself, you’re more waiting on enough resources to upgrade, or waiting for said upgrade to finish so you can wait on the next. This means fumbling around in the menus. I do appreciate that you’re able to reorganize the square icons and move them around like into other bags (essentially folders), but again, this took a lot of time to figure out on my own to really grasp.
The pixel art is minimalistic but it works to get the point across. Your Wizard and enemies are distinct, but there aren’t many arenas you’ll play in. You’ll face new types of enemies as you progress, but you’re generally more focused on waiting for notifications for any upgrades. The soundtrack is surprisingly really well done, and even though there’s not many tracks, the tunes are quite catchy and I’ve not wanted to mute the game so far.
What is odd is that there’s seemingly some PC options left in that don’t seem to do anything, like V-Sync and custom cursors, which seems like an oversight. It’s clear that the gameplay has been ported from PC with the cursor movement, but it’s a constant frustration with it disappearing or getting lost in the onscreen chaos. Coupled with a slow movement, I’m not sure why D-Pad isn’t an option for using the menu.
Tap Wizard 2 is an extremely grindy game. Even though you can AFK for much of it, it does take checking in every so often to actually make significant progress. Interestingly, there’s no Quick Resume support on Xbox, so going to another game closes it completely and puts it into ‘offline mode’. Some might be confused with a $18.99 CAD game where you don’t have to play it very much, but I’ve been hooked, checking back in every chance I can to get one more upgrade so I can make it just that much further on the next run.
**Tap Wizard 2 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 6.7 / 10



Don’t let the ‘dungeon crawler’ description fool you, Cuisineer does have combat, but it’s lighthearted, using shish kabobs, spatulas, a meat tenderizer, and other utensils as weapons. The gameplay loop is quite simple, having you kill animals for food, gathering wood and stone, then serving patrons in your own restaurant to earn money to purchase upgrades, rinse and repeat.
You are Pom, a cat-girl who returns home after receiving a letter from her parents. Upon returning she discovers that her parents are gone, but it’s not as grim as the letter made it sound. Your best friend, Biscotti, finds you inside your parent’s empty restaurant and hands you another letter from her parents stating that they’ve left for a trip around the world. This of course leaves the restaurant in your hands as you opt to give it a try, only to find out shortly after that your parents are massively in debt and now it falls on you to repay it in their absence. Wanting to keep their dream alive, you’ll have to start from the ground up, as they didn’t even leave you any furniture or ingredients in the fridge. It’s a good thing Pom is a natural when it comes to cooking, as it will come down to you and how you run your newly acquired business.
Released on PC a little over two years ago, console players wait hasn’t been for naught. It seems we’ve gotten extra content that was added over time since its release such as new weapons, a wardrobe feature, more recipes and year-round festivals that make the town lively during its celebration and theme based.
Citizens around town will offer you side quests here and there, usually asking you for a specific ingredient or dish. This will usually earn you new recipes, which give your restaurant more offerings for your customers. The town will also have a number of different stores and merchants you will need to use regularly. You can purchase and upgrade Bubble Tea, acting as a way to replenish your health during dungeon runs, spend hard earned coin to upgrade your bags for more carrying capacity, or even buy new or upgrade weapons to help you deal more damage.
One of the more important shops is where you’ll be spending stacks of saved rock and wood to upgrade your restaurant size and capacity, for a cost of course. This is where you’ll also purchase and craft tables, chairs and other important restaurant necessities. All of the upgrades take a hefty amount of materials and coin, so you’ll need to start saving as much as you possibly can. With most items stacking to about 20-30 though, you’re going to have to manage your inventory, fridge, and chest for items gathered while dungeon delving.
This is where I found the first couple hours frustrating, as there’s basically no tutorials at all. Each individual component, from running the restaurant, upgrading, and running dungeons isn’t difficult in itself, but you need to know how they all coincide with one another and the best way to manage all of it. At first you can barely carry any materials or ingredients due to small bags, so you need coin to purchase upgrades. Well, to get coins you need to sell your cooking when you open your restaurant, which takes gathered ingredients, but you run into the same problem of not being able to carry very much at a time initially.
This means you then need to fill your bags, dump them off at your home, then either sell what you can for the remainder of the day or sleep to go for another dungeon run tomorrow, as you’re bound by a time schedule and can’t go do a dungeon or serve customers at night time. Once you prioritize bag space upgrades you can then bring more materials home each day, so I found the best routine for me was doing a dungeon until bags full, sleep, open restaurant for a day, sleep, then repeat.
Running a restaurant is simple in practice with only a few button prompts, but can quickly come chaotic when it’s the lunch or dinner rush. Customers will come in, and if they know what they want and you are able to currently cook it, they’ll seat themselves at one of your tables and order. This is when you need to go over to your stove, pot, cutting board or oven, depending on what you’ve purchased so far, choose the corresponding recipe from the list and press ‘A’ to cook it. In usually 5 seconds or so it will be done and automatically placed on the counter. The customer will then walk up to the counter, grab the food for themselves and go sit back down and eat. After they are done they will go up to the till and wait for you to take the money.
It's quite simple overall, it’s more about making sure you have enough ingredients in the fridge so you can cook your customers’ orders. If they want something you can’t currently offer they’ll get upset and leave. Having enough seats early on when it’s the lunch or dinner rush is an issue too, as customers won’t wait long before leaving if they can’t get a seat. Your restaurant is quite small to start with, so you’ll need to save a lot of money and materials so you can expand and serve more customers, thus earning more each day.
With over 100 recipes to unlock, you’ll be cooking everything from sliced tomatoes, to fried chicken, bowls of rice, fried eggs, pizza, roast chicken, sushi and many more. The more you upgrade your restaurant, the more seating you can place, as well as other cooking stations to create new dishes. Eventually you’ll want to upgrade from standard wooden tables and chairs to something more fancy, as specific customers will then be enticed to come visit, as well as more customers overall. Update your fridge to hold more ingredients and upgrade your cooking stations to be able to queue more dishes at a time.
What becomes a chore though is having to run to every station to start the meal that’s ordered, then going to get the payment when the customers are leaving. There’s no option to hire any staff, so you’re the chef and cashier simultaneously. Thankfully customers go up and get their own food once it’s on the counter, but it becomes chaotic during the rush with every seat occupied, orders coming in and a line of patrons wanting to pay their bill. Once you close shop for the day, you’re given a scorecard of how well you did and how much you earned. The longer you’re open for business the more you’ll earn, which is why I like to rotate my days between dungeons and cooking.
You won’t be able to do very much though if you don’t spend the time and run a dungeon every day or two. Ingredients are used quickly and upgrades can take stacks of materials at a time. There’s no ordering ingredients from a supplier, you must take the fight to chickens and beasts yourself and gather what you can. There is a trader that appears in town from time to time where you can trade one ingredient for another if you’re desperately short on something specific.
Every dungeon run will be slightly different due to being procedurally generated. There’s are a couple of biomes as well, accessible after you pay portions of your debt. That’s right, the reward for paying off your parent’s loan is to find out they actually owe more, but you’re given access to new areas to run dungeons, which net better ingredients, thus better recipes can be made and you can earn more if they are ordered.
Your weapons are utensils and food based, as are elements you can eventually have perks for. There are status effects like Toasty (fire), Frosty (ice), Salty, Sweet, and more. Each weapon and armor piece can have bonus effects to these, so it’s worth the time now and then to try and match your bonus perks if possible for the most damage.
There’s no shortage of enemies, and you can keep going deeper into the dungeons, but you’ll essentially have to end your run and return to town once your bags are full, which is why it’s imperative to try and upgrade that first. The more you can hold the more you can bring back. Your first few weapons are going to seem like you barely do any damage, but once you get a few upgrades or some perks on them, you’ll eventually be able to take out plenty of enemies at once.
Boss battles stand out and can be fun, but it seems random what the rewards are. Sometimes it’s a handful of regular ingredients, other times I got a few rarer ingredients and a weapon or two. There is a roguelite component to it though, because if you die you’ll lose what you’ve collected in your bags that run, so there’s certainly a risk versus reward you need to weigh. You’re able to teleport back to town at any point but it takes a few seconds, so plan ahead.
Aesthetically, all of Cuisineer appears to be hand drawn. It’s very colorful and bright, all of the NPC’s and enemies are well drawn, and there’s plenty of detail in town. The festivals at town during special events are particularly gorgeous. Even the over 100 recipes looks quite tasty with how well they are drawn. The music matches and is upbeat, and I’ve yet to want to mute it even after a few dozen dungeon runs and restaurant serving days.
I actually enjoyed Cuisineer more than I thought I would. Once I got a few upgrades and didn’t have to come running back to town after filling my bags in ten minutes, I started to enjoy it much more. Having a fridge full of ingredients meant I could run my restaurant all day and make some good coin. There’s certainly some pacing issues, an endgame grind, and could use much better tutorials, but playing casually, running a dungeon or serving patrons here and there is quite enjoyable and relaxing.
**Cuisineer was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10



Unlike its mainline titles, Metal Slug Tactics, developed by Leikir Studio and published by Dotemu, has taken the iconic characters and setting, but converted it to a turn-based tactics game played in an isometric perspective. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure how Metal Slug was going to transition to be a slower-paced tactics style game, but they’ve managed to capture the same essence, even with the drastic genre switch and some roguelite elements to boot.
Longtime series antagonist, Donal Morgan, is back once more to take revenge. It seems he’s been secretly amassing an army over the years, so it once again falls to The Peregrine Falcon Squad (P.F. Squad) to stop him and prevent a massive war. Led by the series iconic hero, Marco Rossi, he’ll not be alone, fighting alongside other series longtime heroes that fans will instantly recognize. The P.F. Squad are the only ones that will be able to stop Morgan’s Rebel Army. While there is an overall narrative, there’s not much to it outside a few codec-like conversations before you start some missions and some minor dialogue. Much like the original games, you’ll be playing Metal Slug Tactics for its strategic gameplay and replayability with over 100 hand-crafted missions that will vary objectives.
Not only is Metal Slug Tactics a complete genre change from its run-and-gun roots, but there’s also roguelite components to its gameplay as well. Even though the perspective is drastically different being isometric, it still absolutely looks and feels like it belongs in the series. You’ll need to be strategic in your movement and actions, but it still retains its classic challenge.
The map is divided into separate regions, needing to be cleared in order. Each region is then divided into a handful of missions that you’re able to choose the order you want to play. After a handful of missions you’ll then face off against that area’s boss, which is likely going to take a number of attempts before being successful. Each mission has a different objective type and rewards, so factor these in when choosing which path to take.
Where the roguelite elements come into play is that you need to win consecutive missions to progress, and when you ultimately fail and lose your whole team in a mission, you’ll need to start all over once again. There is some overall progress you make though, as your characters will level up with successful missions, also earning money that can then be used for upgrades and purchases, making the next run a little easier.
As you eventually progress in the campaign you’ll unlock more iconic characters from the franchise, each of which have their own playstyle, weapons and abilities. It’s up to you to choose which you want to bring into battle and how to best strategize so that can sync their attacks together. With the missions being handcrafted and needing to restart from the beginning each time you fail, you’ll certainly see a few of the earlier missions a handful of times. This will allow you to replay, or avoid, specific missions, as they can vary in objectives. I’m partial to the ‘Kill All Enemies’ or ‘Kill Specified Targets’ missions the most, but there’s also Escort, Rescue and Survive mission as well.
I will say that while there’s a brief tutorial in the beginning, it’s not nearly enough to really explain all of its intricacies. You’re basically thrown right into the deep end and I was confused why I would constantly be failing every mission or two. Yes I read the tutorials, but I simply didn’t get it. I honestly was wanting to give up, but I persevered. Then it clicked, I understood the combat and some strategies and instantly started to really enjoy the challenge and planning of each move when it came to the combat.
Tactic style games generally favor playing defensively, using Overwatch (if the game has it), and letting enemies come to you to get picked off one by one. This is why I was failing so badly, as Metal Slug Tactics cannot be played defensively at all really. You need to take the fight to the enemy and constantly be moving, for reason. Yes, the game teaches you this briefly in the tutorial, but it didn’t really make sense to me at first. Once it did though, I started making good progress and quite enjoyed my time with it after a couple hours of forcing myself to break my instinctual habits.
You’ll take on Morden’s army across over one hundred hand designed maps and almost two dozen different mission types. With dozens of weapons, plenty of weapon mods and numerous loadouts, there’s plenty of ways you can customize your units to best suit your playstyle. Again, this isn’t taught very well initially, so it will take some time and experimentation to fully understand it. As you’re successful in battle and earn XP and money, you can then level your units and choose new abilities, skills, weapons and perks that will greatly help with the next run.
What makes Metal Slug Tactics stand out in the genre is how it really encourages, well, forces really, you to move as much as possible, as that’s going to be the only way you survive. The more spaces you move on the grid the more Dodge and Adrenaline you gain per turn. This allows you to take more damage and use special abilities quicker. Basically, the more you move, the more defense you’ll have. This is what took me a while to really understand fully, as most Tactic games aren’t as such.
Every character’s iconic main weapon has unlimited ammo, but you do have a secondary that is more powerful but has limited uses. They also have special abilities and skills which consumes adrenaline, which is what you gain from movement and attacks on the battlefield. You have two Action Points per character per turn, one for movement and one for attacking. What’s unique is that you don’t have to necessarily use both on one character before changing to another. For example, you can move each of your three units to where you want, then choose to attack afterwards in succession. You’re even able to undo your movement if you want to find a better spot or think of a new strategy, as long as they’ve not attacked yet.
The tactic of moving all your characters before attacking is paramount, as this is how you’ll best make use of the SYNC attacks. This is how you’ll unleash much more damage on your enemies, as other characters in range can assist the one you’ve given an attack command to with a free bonus attack essentially. Again, something that isn’t explained all too well but is necessary to be successful.
After a few missions in a region, you’ll then take on some iconic bosses from the Metal Slug universe. These missions play out quite differently and the first boss took me probably about a half dozen tries before I was successful. They are challenging but break up the typical missions and are quite memorable.
Metal Slug has always been known for its fantastic artwork and animation, and it’s no different with Metal Slug Tactics. Even though the camera and gameplay has shifted from its norm, it still looks as though it belongs in the series. Animations are done very well and goes along with the fantastic soundtrack from Tee Lopes that never grew tiresome when going for one more run.
It takes some time for all of the mechanics to really make sense due to the poor tutorials, but once it does, Metal Slug Tactics goes from being a frustrating experience to a challenging but very rewarding once. Even being turn-based, it feels like a true Metal Slug game, and while I wasn’t sure how the genre change was going to turn out, it’s clear much care and effort went into not only making a great game on its own, but also keeping core fans in mind with a creative spin-off. Mission Start!
**Metal Slug Tactics was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.3 / 10



Dr. Rosalene and Dr. Watts work for Sigmund Corp, specializing in a technology that can create artificial memories for dying patients, acting like a last wish of sorts, but only in that terminal patient’s head. The patient the doctors are here to help today is an elderly man, Johnny, and his dying wish is to go to the moon, but he’s not sure why. As the pair delves into Johnny’s memories, they have to work backwards to go through Johnny’s past, starting with a recent memory, then going further back in time. This allows them to travel through his life backwards by finding mementos, special objects tied to specific moments in his life. With each memento found, you learn more about Johnny’s past, piecing together a puzzle about why an old man wants to go to the moon, yet can't explain why the urge.
Delving through his memories you find out Johnny had a wife, River, who had passed away a short time ago. They didn’t have a perfect marriage, but he loved her nonetheless. To the Moon is a narrative heavy game, thus I don’t want to delve too much into the story for fear of spoiling its twists and turns. I’m glad I went in knowing nothing about the story, and I suggest you do the same to get the same reactions at the reveals. Topics such as mental illness and death are touched upon, and when the doctors find a large gap in his memories as a child, that’s where things become even darker.
The setup is quite an intriguing one, able to give people ‘fake’ memories so that they can pass on happy. Is that moral though, giving someone a sense of a life they never actually had, or did things they never did in their actual lives? I can see both sides of the argument, and this is probably why the procedure is only available to those on their deathbed. While it’s a linear story, it’s still quite moving, and while I didn’t cry, I wouldn’t blame you if you did. The writing is well done and the story can hit quite close to home depending on your own experiences.
As for the gameplay, there’s very little. You control the doctors as you explore certain scenes, looking for clues to the memento so you can move onto the next memory and further back in Johnny’s life. There’s no combat or inventory to worry about, though there are some light puzzle elements. Aside from that, you’re exploring scenes from his memories as you try to find objects to move onto the next.
When you do find the object in question that acts as the gateway to the next memory, it has a protective bubble surrounding it. You’ll need to find a handful of clues in the memory, acting like an attack of sorts, so that you can break the barrier and move on. You won’t have to pixel hunt, as the items in question are quite obvious the majority of the time, and once you do so there’s a quick block switching puzzle to complete.
The pixel art is decent, with enough details and animation so that there’s no confusion of what you’re seeing. The colors are generally bright, though some memories have a darker tone or haze to them for narrative reasons. Where To the Moon really impresses is with its soundtrack filled with wonderful piano melodies. There are a handful of quite beautiful songs that really add to the narrative atmosphere that’s unfolding on screen. The standout though is an absolutely stunning track by Laura Shigihara (known for the great Plants vs. Zombies soundtrack) that is sure to give you some goosebumps with its melody and soft vocals.
When you know how the story ends, it’s more about the journey than the destination. You know there’s going to be a sad ending, so seeing how Johnny’s life unfolded is both beautiful and heartbreaking. There’s plenty of emotions that you’re sure to feel going through the four to five hour journey, as the story is heavy hearted and tackles some serious topics. To the Moon is a compelling story that ties together quite well and in an interesting way, I just hope that its two sequels eventually come to console as well.
**To the Moon was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10



I'll be honest, I was expecting something like a modern SimAnt where you build up your colony, but at its core, Empire of the Ants is mostly a third person Real Time Strategy game. While being ant-based surely makes it stand out amongst other RTS games, what will no doubt catch your eye is its photorealistic graphics as you command battles on a small scale. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, Empire of the Ants is inspired by Bernard Werber’s iconic novel of the same name. Explore, strategize and survive as one of the smallest insects.
For a RTS game, I wasn’t expecting such a lengthy campaign. You are ant 103,683 of your colony that begins their journey with you chasing a butterfly to learn the platforming controls before reaching your nest. Your Queen has chosen you to lead the colony to new prosperity as you’re going to have to rebuild a new home, explore the woods, defend your home from rival colonies, and even possibly make alliances with other species. It’s up to 103,683 to ensure the colony’s survival, and doing so won’t be easy, so prepare to lead your army of ants into numerous battles across a 10-20 hour campaign.
Interestingly, within each Chapter of the campaign, you’re able to choose which missions you want to play. Some have different objectives than others, whereas those wanting to experience it all will can play every mission. While you’re not invading manmade structures like backyards and homes, you will see remnants of humans in for form of their objects, like a deflated soccer ball or a tin can. You’ll even need to deal with changing seasons that each have their own challenges, and rising water that is deadly if you stay in it for too long.
Between missions you can interact and talk with specific other ants that offer missions, and while there’s no voiced dialogue, I think that actually is better in this case. While the majority of the missions are RTS based with combat, there are a few that are more exploration based like a 3D platformer. These missions I enjoyed the most, as it lets you explore the world at your own pace and really realize how small an ant is in the grand scheme.
While most RTS games are played with a top-down view so you can manage the battlefield, Empire of the Ants puts you in control of 103,683, a leader that commands the battlefield of your units but played in third person. You’ll need to build your armies, choosing between different units called legions, from melee warriors, ranged throwers, support aphids, beetles and more.
The first few missions are your tutorials, teaching you the basics and which units are strong or weak against others. The basics are simple enough to understand, though I did find I forgot which units were strong against others, so I generally opted to command all my units to attack or defend at once as a massive army which worked for the most part.
The majority of your time will be tied in battle missions where you need to attack and defend, but there are a handful of exploration missions where you need to reach a certain point on the map. I quite enjoyed these, as it was relaxing to take in the beautiful world that was created, appreciating the scale of an ant compared to everyday objects like flowers, logs and branches.
A RTS at its core, the genre can sometimes be difficult to play on a console due to controller restraints compared to a keyboard and mouse. Some have done so successfully, and Empire of the Ants is another to add to that list. You’re only able to command a few units at a time, and once you unlock resources like food and wood gathering, there’s little else to manage, so it’s a simplistic take on the genre. It simplistic enough that it works quite well on the controller.
Your main legions will be warriors, gunners and workers, each strong and weak versus another type, but there are also special units like beetles and aphids that offer unique support to buff your offense or defense. Each nest can only build a certain amount of units, defenses and upgrades, so when you need more you’ll have to go conquer other nests and take over. This is how you’ll bolster your army and unlock new abilities to use in battle.
It should be noted that while you are controlling ant 103,683, you don’t directly engage in battle or even gathering. You’re essentially a mobile leader issuing commands while freely wandering the battlefield. You do have a stamina and health bar, but there’s no reason, or use, for you to be near battle other than to watch your loyal warrior fling their enemies across the dirt battlefield, which is always amusing.
You’ll need to setup gathering to earn wood and food, used for upgrades. You can purchase special leader abilities that will greatly affect your units in battle by healing, speed boosts, high defense and more. You can only upgrade and unlock a finite amount of upgrades and legions, so you need to plan ahead to be the most efficient based on your playstyle for each mission.
Surprisingly, there’s also an included online cross-platform multiplayer option for those looking for more after the campaign. Here you can play in player versus player ranked matches of 1v1 or 1v1v1. There’s some more modes promised in future updates, as I would love for a cooperative mode of sorts.
There’s so much detail in the world that Unreal Engine 5 really gets to showcase what it can do. Cutscenes are incredibly detailed, foliage in the maps are dense, lighting is realistic, and for someone that has severe arachnophobia, the spiders you encounter are absolutely terrifying at that scale when you’re an ant. The term photorealism gets thrown around a little too often, but if you check the screenshots you’ll see why it’s a reality with Empire of the Ants. Animations are fluid, the world is gorgeous, and if you’ve not been sold on Unreal Engine 5 yet, this should do it. The soundtrack is calming and fitting, though forgettable. There’s no voiced ants, and the odd completely silent sections can feel a bit off at times.
While Empire of the Ants may be a watered down basic RTS game at its core, the flipside to that means that it's more approachable for those that aren’t generally into the genre like myself. RTS enthusiasts will surely want more than what’s offered from a gameplay perspective, but I quite enjoyed the simplistic and streamlined take. While I generally don’t want my games to have thousands of bugs, Empire of the Ants is an exception.
**Empire of the Ants was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.2 / 10



You play as Cyrus, a blind chosen-one who becomes a hero. Set in two different worlds, Cyrus arrives in the city of Micropolis hoping to find a new life as he stays with his aunt. Cyrus is looking for work at the local corporate conglomerate, but unexpectedly he suddenly manifests a magical power to teleport to another world. This other world that Cyrus can teleport to is magical, full of mysterious creatures, floating islands, and plenty of secrets to uncover. Somehow this special world is connected to the real one, but how and why is initially unknown. There are a number of factions that Cyrus will encounter during his journey that all seem to have their own motivations, and it's up to you who you want to side with.
There is Impulse, the local and powerful corporation that will do whatever it takes to keep power so they can sell their technological innovations. Then there’s a group of sorcerers who wants to release magic to the world and show that it can be harnessed for good even though it’s outlawed. Then there’s the VED’s, a magical police of sorts that use their powers to keep the two worlds separate and are largely anti-magic. This naturally puts them at odds with the Sorcerers, and the story starts to become quite muddled with all of this information.
Cyrus is going to need to master his powers of being a VED, learn about himself, and decide how he’s going to save both worlds, if at all. The story starts out interesting and simple enough, but then it keeps piling on, adding more characters and factions. It becomes so confusing that it’s quite difficult to follow, as there’s also a storyline involving a mysterious girl that Cyrus seems to develop feelings for, yet doesn’t really know who she is. The story is non-linear and changes based on your choices but it becomes a mess and impossible to follow clearly if you don't pay full attention or take notes.
As you meet new characters you’ll have them entered into a diary of sorts so that you’re able to reference it when needed. Choices you make will also affect your relationships positive or negatively, though I’m not sure if this actually changes certain outcomes or options given to you later on. Siding with one faction will obviously negatively impact others narratively, and there’s a number of different ways you can steer the story in each chapter, so those wanting to really get their value worth, there’s clearly a number of playthrough options available if you want to see everything VED has to offer.
At certain times you’ll make narrative choices, but also be given a d20 that you’ll need to roll based on Cyrus’ scores for Strength, Dexterity, or Magic. For each successful roll you’ll improve your stats which makes subsequent choices easier to pass a winning roll. These rolls can give you bonuses to buffs or debuffs, so there’s some risk versus reward. Easier difficulties will make it impossible to fail these rolls, though these parts feel quite out of place for how infrequent they are.
The magical world is unique, as this is where you’ll meet and converse with a number of mythical creatures, improve the village, and face monsters in combat. Before you face off against a monster you’ll be given a number of options to make the battles either more challenging or easier. Choose to make the battles harder and you’ll earn extra currency which is then used to upgrade your village. Giving the enemies buffs can make quite a challenge increase, though if you want to breeze through combat, you can make it easier but not get as many rewards.
Building your village has a lot of benefits, as this is how you’ll earn new abilities and skills for the combat portions. Purchase new buildings will coincide with a number of different abilities that you can then use to slot into your combat loadout. The combat was the most innovative part of VED, being turn-based and having to position yourself appropriately for advantages.
When combat begins, you’re face to face with a monster and placed on four horizontal tiles. Most abilities will move you in one direction or the other, some moving one tile, others more. Enemy attacks that are about to occur will show red on specific tiles so that you know which to hopefully avoid. Many enemies can spawn extra limbs or addition monsters that can only be attacked from certain tiles as well, so there’s quite a lot of strategy when deciding which skills to use, as you need to factor in what tile you’re on, which you’ll go to, and what portion of the enemy it'll attack (or miss).
Cyrus has mostly offensive abilities, but there are some defensive ones that are purchasable as well, such as shield gains or heals. Adding another layer of strategy is that you’re able to customize which abilities and skills you have in each slot. Each tile has a limited number of skills you place when Cyrus is in that spot, so there’s quite a lot of customization when it comes to figuring out the best setups for Cyrus. Do you use a limited skill slot to place a heal in every tile slot, or opt for more offensive abilities instead. I found having one heal or shield in every second tile was sufficient, but I also played a bit more defensively.
It’s going to take quite a few battles to really understand the combat, as it’s not taught very well from a strategic standpoint. You can turn down the difficulty for each battle until you really understand its intricacies, then you can make it more challenging to earn more rewards once you understand it better. Combat is the most interesting portion of VED, it just takes time to really understand how it works and to unlock more abilities.
The hand-drawn artwork is VED’s greatest strength. The other world is very colorful, and while monsters get reused often, they’re all designed quite well and really fit the fantasy setting. The real world is much more dim and dark and makes for quite a stark contrast. The soundtrack fits the mood for the most part as well and the sound effects of your attacks sound impactful, but then there’s the voice acting. All dialogue is voiced, but it’s atrocious at the best of times.
Either its poor editing or something else, but there are long awkward gaps in-between sentences that make for prolonged pauses. There’s also heavy emphasis on the wrong words or letters in sentences, as if the script is being read instead of acted, and possibly by a non-native English speaker. There are a number of times I even suspected that many lines were simply voiced by AI, that’s how little emotions were in each of the performances. Even Cyrus sounds dead inside and made it impossible to like him at all. The writing is poor, but the voice acting is probably one of the worst I’ve experienced in quite some time, to the point of being comical and quite distracting.
VED has some interesting ideas but it’s as though the game didn’t know quite what it wanted to be at times. This is possibly because it was a completely different game in its early stages. It's hard to be harsh towards a small indie team that clearly made VED with their passion, but there’s so many different components that don’t mesh cohesively, and a story that becomes so confusing that it’s difficult to follow. Even if you could follow the convoluted narrative, you’ll be too distracted with the abysmal voice acting to even remember that combat was actually quite interesting.
**VED was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10



Developed by Black Tabby Games and published by Serenity Forge, Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut is a visual novel at its core, but if that’s not the genre you’re normally not into, don’t dismiss it quite yet. While I’m not normally too enthralled with visual novels, those with intriguing stories are hard to ignore. Visual novels are generally quite linear. Sure in most you’ll get a few dialogue choices, but it’s usually getting from the start of the story to the end, and that’s it. Slay the Princess is more than just a story you’re following, instead offering plenty of different branching choices and a number of surprising endings. Slay the Princess is unique in the sense that it’s a horror themed yet has some dating-like elements to it.
Given that Slay the Princess is a visual novel, I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers where possible, but it’s also impossible to do so given the nature of its genre. Do what you can to go into Slay the Princess blind, avoiding as many spoilers as possible, aside from reading this review of course. Slay the Princess is self-aware of itself, much like The Stanley Parable, but also has some unique and unexpected twists and turns, like Doki Doki Literature Club.
Most games revolve around you saving the princess, but here it’s the opposite, as you’re tasked with slaying the princess by any means necessary. “There are no wrong decisions. There are only fresh perspectives.” This is the message you’re first greeted with. This made me feel as I was able to freely explore different options and outcomes I normally wouldn’t.
You begin in the woods on a path with a cabin in the distance. At the basement of this cabin is a princess locked up with chains. You’re told to slay her or else the world is going to end. Yes, you read that right, you’re not here to save the princess, but instead, stop some sort of calamity by murdering a seemingly innocent princess that’s bound with chains in a basement. That can’t be right can it? If I knew someone was coming to kill me, I would do anything I could to survive, be it lie and promise anything that I could. This is what the princess will do, anything to convince you to stop from slaying her. But do you save her and risk that it might actually destroy all life as we know it? Do you take such a risk, or follow the voices in your head.
I’ll show them though. The first thing I did was ignore my instructions, doing what I could to actually save her. Someone has to be lying, so naturally I wanted to do the ‘right’ thing. I don’t kill princesses, I save them. This was my first ending, and I’ll tell you, it wasn’t quite what I expected. Even when you reach an ‘end’, it’s not really the end, but more of a new start.
This is where the time loops are introduced. I saved the princess, but woke up back in the woods telling me I screwed up and to right this wrong, by slaying her. Thing is, you’re not just replaying the same chain of events, as when you get back to the cabin, things look and appear different. Instead of a wooden door, maybe now it’s larger, or maybe there’s a window or mirror. This has to mean something right?
For my next chain of decisions, I opted to just leave, not going to the cabin, but leaving entirely. This of course led to a different outcome, and I found myself back in the woods. With a new voice in my head, I had some different information, which led me to my next sequence of choices. With a narrator describing many things happening, things become slowly more odd as you try new decisions and see outcomes. Eventually the narrator starts to actually talk directly to you, as do other voices in your head. What could this mean? Who is the narrator? That’s when Slay the Princess starts to become quite intriguing and really started to grasp my attention.
As for its gameplay, Slay the Princess comes down to being an interactive visual novel, so you’ll simply be choosing different dialogue choices when offered. There’s no timed choices or quicktime events, so you can play at your own pace. Even though there’s not much to its gameplay, it’s an intriguing experience regardless.
There are so many twists and turns I didn’t see coming. This made it quite engaging, as trying a new path of choices usually led to drastically different outcomes. I stopped keeping count of how many times I died, and even though I did, that wasn’t necessarily an end. Sometimes when you think you’ve finished the game, it’s not truly the end. Even when you do reach an ‘end’, playing again can lead to a completely different outcome by choosing different paths and dialogue. There’s a tracker to keep progress on which endings you’ve gotten, so there’s plenty of reasons to try to slay the princess in a different way, all of which are drastically unique from one another.
Maybe you’ve played the base game already, wondering what’s new and added to The Pristine Cut. The main addition is the three new chapters, each of which play vastly different from what you’ve experienced before. With these chapters also brings new princesses, of which will do what they can to murder you if given the chance.
Maybe you’ve already mastered the game and know all the intricate routes. Some of these routes have been expanded drastically, even up to double the length. Boasting 35% more content, there’s even a new ending to try and experience. There’s a Gallery to track your progress and with 1200 new hand-drawn frames and 2500 new lines of voiced dialogue, even the most experienced princess slayers will have plenty of new content to explore.
Most visual novels can sometimes be a slog to get through since there’s a mountain of text you need to read. What surprised me the most was how Slay the Princess - The Pristine Cut was fully voiced. Flawless performances from Jonathan Sims and Nichole Goodnight elevate the well written dialogue, and once you start to grasp what’s going on and finally seeing your dialogue choices, it becomes quite an intriguing adventure. The different voices in your head, along with the narrator trying to influence your decisions has to mean something, right? While there’s not much animation, there’s plenty of different scenes that are hand drawn by Ignatz-winning graphic novelist Abby Howard in black and white.
It’s not often that a visual novel sticks with me after the credits roll, but Slay the Princess - The Pristine Cut has been with me the last week or so after getting many endings. There’s an intriguing story, great penciled artwork, and flawless voice acting. The branching paths and dialogue options are substantially different from one another and makes for one of the more memorable visual novels that deserve to be up there with the best of the genre.
**Slay the Princess - The Pristine Cut was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10



Developed Ahr Ech and published by Devolver Digital, Pepper Grinder is primarily a 2D platformer, but your grinder allows you to tunnel and drill through certain terrain with ease. Washing up on shore after a shipwreck, Pepper uses her grinder she finds to track down those who stole her treasure. There’s not much more narrative than that, and the strength of the game is in its drilling gameplay and light puzzle elements. Pepper won’t have an easy time though, as mysterious enemies will appear to try and stop her.
Stages will have you trying to get to the end of each, and you’ll need to make use of your grinder to drill through terrain, as there’s not a simple path to get to where you need. Pepper can’t jump very high, so she will need to rely on her digging and launching from terrain. Your drill is not only used for digging and drilling through the ground, but to defeat enemies and even solve puzzles. This multipurpose tool is the only way Pepper will survive. Only specific terrain can be digged into, like soft rock and sand, while nearly everything else till be too tough, and you’ll always need to be wary to traps and other things that can hurt Pepper if you drill into them.
Maneuvering through the terrain is simple enough, aiming the direction you want to do with the Left Stick while holding Right Trigger to spin Grinder. You can boost to launch yourself out of the terrain, acting like a double jump of sorts, allowing you to reach higher or further digging points. There will also be grapple hook points later that allows Pepper to swing at certain points, launching off at the right time to make your next dig.
The best parts of Pepper Grinder is when she propels herself through the air with a burst of speed as she launches from one terrain and digs into another block of land to burrow forward. These jumps almost make you feel like a dolphin leaping out of the water before digging back into the terrain as you twist and turn.
There are a bosses at the end of each biome, each of which I found actually decently challenging. You’ll need to be clever with how best to take them down. For example, the first boss, a giant beetle, can only be damaged on its underside, so you’ll need to wait for it to crawl on the ceiling as you dig through the terrain and hit it in its weak spot. Another boss will require you to time your leaps out of digging to reach its weak spot to damage it. There’s only a few bosses but they were memorable enough, probably because of the retries it took. Dying on a boss when it’s about dead only to have to redo the whole fight from the beginning does get a bit frustrating after a dozen tries.
Until my double digit death on the first boss, I didn’t realize there were some interesting accessibility options buried away. While the game isn’t overly quick in is gameplay, there are times where you need to land specific leaps and time your grinding. There’s an option to slow the game speed down if you find it too quick and need a little more time to help with your reaction times, which definitely helped on the tricky bosses. You begin with only four health bars, but can unlock more as you progress to make things easier.
There are some light puzzle elements where Pepper will need to use her grinder in some different ways. Platforms can be raised and lowered if she uses her grinder on its special point. There’s also some walls that can be knocked certain ways by digging into them from a specific side. Flipping one latch might make another move as well, so you’ll need to figure out the order to do so to continue onwards. Sometimes she’ll even have access to a gatling gun, changing the gameplay for a brief time.
You’ll collect gems and coins throughout the levels, and on the world map you’ll be able to enter a shop where you can spend your collection. One of the coolest things to spend your gems on is stickers. Yes, stickers. These can be then placed in your sticker book, creating a scene however you like with your unlocked stickers. It’s a cute way to add something a little extra. There are even hidden collectables for those wanting to spend the time and find everything Pepper Grinder has to offer, as well as Time Attack option when replaying levels for something different.
The world of Pepper Grinder is based in pixel art, but the animations are quite smooth and the environments quite colorful. Each biome looks unique from the last and it simply has a warm feeling to its aesthetic. Music matched the tone of the game but was completely forgettable, as I couldn’t hum any tunes afterwards while writing this.
A mix of combat, platforming and puzzle solving, Pepper Grinder is a cute indie game that will last a few hours, more if you want to collect everything. Once you get a feel for the controls, when levels flow, is when Pepper Grinder is at its best as you leap from one dig to the next.
**Pepper Grinder was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10



Fight through hordes of aliens in a number of different environments as you release countless bullets and take down a near unstoppable army as you hunt for the evil Lord Vroll once again. There’s some minor story elements usually after each chapter to progress the story, but you’re here to blast enemies and listening to metal while doing so, of which it succeeds. Mecha Therion is not only your suit of armor, but your arsenal of varying weapons as well. Able to freely fly around on a 2D landscape, Valfaris pilots his suit to destroy everything in his way. There’s a number of difficulty options, with the easiest and Normal not being too challenging until a pretty large difficulty spike near the end.
Those that want a challenge can test themselves on even harder difficulties. Playing on Normal, the first few Chapters were a breeze without any deaths, but then the difficulty started to spike in the latter half, with the final chapter being a bit frustrating simply because of the checkpoint placements. Early on, there’s plenty of checkpoints where you refill your health and can change/upgrade your weapons, but these start to become spread out further and further the closer you get to finally tracking down Lord Vroll. Early on, checkpoints are placed right before a boss fight, but later it’s moved further back, so a death means a portion of repeated areas once again.
Stage design is done quite well and each environment looks unique from the last. There’s a few sections that turn the game into 2.5D for a short while, and these sections made it quite difficult to really judge enemy distance and your placement. There’s a portion as well where you need to keep up with the slowly moving camera while navigating some tunnels and killing enemies, which the game doesn’t warn you about, so it took a few tries to figure the best strategy to do so. Another part has you moving upwards as you not only navigate between massive rotating blades, but trying to avoid the lasers shooting from some of them as well.
While the game is primarily linear, there are some secrets sections and paths to find if you’re keen or equip a special item to point out where these are. These areas will get you a few extra bonus items that will help you upgrade your weapons quicker. I found a few on my own, but it can be tough to find these passages when you’re so focused on avoiding enemy fire and trying to navigate obstacles.
As you progress you’ll unlock new weapons that you can swap out at any of the checkpoints. You’ll start with a simple blaster and sword, eventually having a variety of different options in your arsenal depending on your preference. I opted to go with the lightning gun that shoots across the whole screen and arcs from enemy to enemy. You also have options for an auxiliary weapon, the default being a lock-on for enemies and projectiles on screen, though I found I didn’t use these very often.
Regular enemies don’t pose much of a threat to you, but later chapters will have enemies that can easily damage you and take much more firepower to destroy. What makes combat interesting is that you have an energy meter that is basically your ammo for your gun. When this is empty you can still shoot, but it is quite weak and basically not worth doing so. You regain energy quite slowly over time, but if you melee and kill enemies, you’ll earn chunks of energy back for doing so. This means you want to use your gun until you’re almost out of energy, then melee a few times to refill. This isn’t too challenging early on, but later you’ll have to strategize what enemies you’ll want to melee and which to avoid due to their attack patterns.
There’s a number of bosses that will test your patience, and while some are more challenging than others, none feel like bullet sponges that most games tend to do. Depending on your weapon upgrades and use of melee to refill your energy, some boss fights can be over quite quick. One fight has you protecting someone behind you as they charge up, so you have to make sure you melee down any projectiles, or even some bosses where you can clash swords briefly and have to button mash to be successful.
Checkpoints not only refill your health, but also where you’ll upgrade your weapons. As you defeat packs of enemies, doing so successfully will earn you Blood Metal, essentially a currency for your upgrades. The first tier or two of upgrades are cheap enough, but eventually you’ll need another currency as well to push the upgrades even further, found throughout the levels sparingly.
The issue comes in where you simply don’t get as much Blood Metal as you like, so you almost must commit early to which weapon you want to stick with and upgrade to max. This means you can’t experiment as much as I’d have liked, as I always chose my more upgraded weapon over a new weapon I just took from a defeated boss but that wasn’t upgraded at all. I was upgrading all the way until the final checkpoint as well. You’ll need to upgrade your main weapon of choice and melee offhand if you want a chance at doing enough damage by the final chapter.
The pixel art once again is fantastic, each biome varying from the previous and new enemies in each new chapter. The only falter here is that enemies and their projectiles can sometimes blend into the background, as I’d usually get hit from something I totally didn’t notice. The few 2.5D sections are neat to do something new, but don’t work all that well when having to avoid and shoot enemies as its rotating.
The OST once again is the standout. The metal soundtrack makes you want to put up the horns and headbang along to some great tunes. If you’re a fan of shmups and want to shoot some aliens to a kick ass metal soundtrack, Valfaris: Mecha Therion is an easy sell.
** Valfaris: Mecha Therion was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10



While the only mode is the campaign, don’t expect any story or narrative of any kind. In fact, the game simply starts out in front of a computer and you’re off to figure out the rest yourself. No story, just simply dismantling ships one after another once you have your starter tools. As well as the base game, the Warships DLC is also included, adding three extra massive ships: Chevy, Fuso, and Wicher.
With tools in hand, you’re free to dismantle the ships however you like, chaotically by taking out support structures and letting physics do the rest, or systematically and with precision, taking out carefully planned pillars and floors to reach specific areas of the vessel. Bigger and better than the first game, this sequel makes a handful of quality of life improvements, as well as more massive ships and some new mechanics.
Having not played the first game I wasn’t sure what to expect, though you don’t need to have played the original game to enjoy this sequel. Regardless if you have a hundreds hours in the first game, or none like myself, Ship Graveyard Simulator 2 can be enjoyed by anyone and at your own pace. While you’re going to be using a variety of hand tools the majority of the time, sometimes you need something bigger, much bigger. This is where your crane will come in, able to haul out the more massive components like shipping containers, engines, massive pallets, and even sections of the ship itself.
The first ship you’ll dismantle is quite small, acting as a tutorial of sorts. As you earn more money you can purchase larger ships which will be more difficult and time consuming to break down, but will have a bigger payout since there’s more materials to harvest from these derelict ships. You’re after iron, steel, aluminum, plastic, wood, copper, gold and nearly any other material you’d expect in ship components. The first ship you’re given is only a small section of a ship, each becoming larger and larger, eventually half sections of a ship and even eventually a full sized vessel.
Using your computer at your home base is how you’ll purchase ‘new’ boats which turn out to be practically free, but you’re only able to have one active at a time, so you’re going to want to salvage everything you can before moving onto the next. Your computer will show each ship’s difficulty and list of resources available, as well as some side contracts to be filled for extra cash. This was the part I didn’t figure out until a half dozen ships completed, that the list of materials certain people are looking for, you can fulfil those for a good amount of extra cash. Cash is what you’re after, as this is how you’ll not only purchase new ships, but unlocking upgrades for your tools to make each dismantle more efficient and quicker.
There isn’t much you can do with your bare hands, so you’re going to need your tools to help you dismantle these ships. Ships are a collection of thousands of other parts, and your job is to break down the larger parts into more manageable sections, toss them into your truck to haul away to the scrapyard so you can salvage every component. When I say toss parts to your truck, I really mean it. You have the strength of Superman, as you can gather a bunch of materials into a box, then toss that box into the back of your truck. All you need a clear view of your truck and enough space and you can literally toss the box of scrap to your truck, regardless of distance. This looks comical when you’re throwing heavy boxes the length of a football field perfectly to the back of your truck, but as long as you see a green arrow when holding the button to toss your crate, it should land in your truck no problem. Thankfully you don’t need to run back to the truck each time to unload your box, and you have an unlimited amount of crates in your back pocket.
To break down all the materials you’ll use a variety of tools, each of which are meant for a specific uses. For example, your sledgehammer is used to smash rivets in the corners of walls and floors, and once all corners have been smashed, you can ‘Bonk’ the section to dislodge it and make it available to gather. Yes, you need to bonk each part to disconnect it from any connectors, but if you smash a bunch of parts that are all connected together, then bonk one, they’ll all disconnect simultaneously.
Braces indicated by black and yellow hazard stripes will need to be cut with your saw, welds melted with the blowtorch, demolition charges for heavy doors, and of course your crate to hold all these materials once freed from one another. Your hammer is going to get the most use by far given how many floors and walls there are, though it’s time consuming when each small circle rivet takes two or more smashes to complete. When you start to work on the bigger ships, you’re going to need to upgrade your tools, as having to hammer each spot multiple times will simply take too long.
Ships are quite large, and if you dismantle a staircase, there would normally be no way to get to another level. You also have a rope that you can use like a grappling hook, and while there’s a short range at first, it can be upgraded to reach further. It’s a bit finicky to work, as you need a really clear line of sight to where you want to zip to, but you’re able to zip to nearly any portion of the ship you can see and get close enough to.
Your hammer and saw will get the most use by far, though I can count the amount of times I actually used the demolition charges. You think you’d be able to set charges anywhere you want to blow open holes into walls and floors, but it’s really just meant for certain heavy doors, so I just opted to smash down walls beside them instead.
Your truck seems to have no weight limit, as it appears the back fills up, but you can keep tossing crates into it and simply sell at the end of the salvage. Bringing your truck to the salvage lot, you’re able to either manually sort all your scrap in a minigame of sorts, or have it automatically sort for you for a 10% cut. It’s well worth the small cut to save the time, as the scrap will come down a conveyor and you need to make sure the proper colored scrap goes into the corresponding buckets.
Once you sell your scrap, you can choose to sell however much you like, but you need a balance of keeping materials on hand for tool upgrades, as well as enough money to purchase ships, upgrade blueprints, and the upgrades themselves. I found the best way was to sell all of the scrap for one ship’s deconstruction, then use the next for upgrades. It will take a hefty amount of money to get all the blueprints, but it’s well worth the investment as it will save you a huge amount of time in the long run.
A few ships in, I realized that there’s almost a puzzle-like element to each, as getting out the high value components with the crane requires a bit of planning and strategic thinking. The larger the ship the more complex it can be to extract these massive parts with the crane, as there is usually multiple floors that would need to be cleared to open up a skyline for the crane to come and haul them out. Navigating these hazards will also take some planning, as you’ll become injured if you’re not safe.
There are dangers though, even on these decommissioned ships. Somehow there’s still electricity flowing, gas lines, and even radioactive materials. When you see electrified rivets, you know that you’re going to take damage if you hammer those before finding the source of the electricity and shutting it off. Find the power switch and you can disconnect it, then dismantle the box and cables for more scrap. There are also gas pipes where you’ll need to find the valve to switch off before sawing into them, as you don’t want an explosion.
Like nearly every other UltimateGames title, it’s clear that Ship Graveyard Simulator 2 was quickly ported from its PC origin to console. The menus are clunky to navigate, it’s hard to see which option you’re actually choosing, and even choosing the correct tool in the radial menu sometimes takes a few tries. Movement is also clunky at best, though you get used to it and learn to jump over and on top of objects and walls.
Visually, the ships look quite decent, but there’s not much else to really look at other than a bunch of walls and floors on the vessels. There’s a day and night cycle, I assume to make use of the flashlight that you can toggle, but I never ended up using it and there seemed no reason to. The physics can be amusing to see a floor or two collapse all at once, but it’s quite jarring when you see dozens of scrap pieces clipping through one another and glitching visually. Tools sound realistic, especially the hammer and saw, though after a dozen hours you’re going to want to put your own music on to get the piercing sounds out of your head.
I have to be honest, I was quite skeptical at first and assumed that this would be an awkward and such a niche title that I wouldn’t enjoy all that much, then I realized hours have passed my first time playing. Those that obsess over cleaning will appreciate the methodical way to dismantle such a big craft, as I looked at it quite strategically, rather than randomly smashing down walls and floors.
Ship Graveyard Simulator 2 is oddly addictive and satisfying, even for how specific and niche the setting is. While there’s no narrative at all, there’s something quite relaxing by causing destruction to these vessels. Many will see Ship Graveyard Simulator 2 as tedious and repetitious, but I kept telling myself “just one more ship”.
**Ship Graveyard Simulator 2 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 5.7 / 10



Duty Calls
I’m not sure what it’s actually labelled as, but you’ll still be launching Black Ops 6 from the Call of Duty launcher/hub app. It’s still as terrible as previously was where you’ll open the app, prompting for a restart, choose your game/mode, require another update and restart, then hope that you don’t get another update and restart before changing modes. Terrible launcher aside, Black Ops 6 does have some new and refreshing ideas. There seems to be many more choices and options in the settings, from audio, graphics, controls, and more. I actually spent a good amount of time catering each of the settings to my liking. If there’s two major changes to this year’s Call of Duty though, I’d have to narrow it down to the new Omnimovement system, and the triumphant return of round based Zombies.
Omnimovement now lets you slide, dive and sprint in any direction, even backwards and sideways. I thought this would result in many more ‘dolphin divers’ than previously, but it hasn’t been any more noticeable than what I’m used to. It does feel great to dive sideways from a corner and land that headshot though, as does diving backwards to tossing a grenade into a pack of enemies. Sprinting backwards feels so natural now, so I’m hoping it’s a mechanic that stays in follow-up sequels.
Maybe it’s just the placebo effect, but guns feel much more satisfying this year. Regardless of which I’m using, they felt distinct from one another and sounded great. While I’m primarily a LMG user, the overall weaponry just feels more solid and polished, and in campaign you have a weapon wheel to choose all your equipment and gadgets easily, pausing time to do so.
Action Packed Narrative
While it’s not mandatory to have played the previous Black Ops campaigns to enjoy the story, you’re certainly going to be lost without any previous knowledge of who’s who and what’s happened to this point. There’s no recap of sorts to catch new players up to speed of returning characters either, so you won't have any context to why some people are incredibly important or what they've done previously.
A Call of Duty campaign wouldn’t be the same without memorable setpieces, exciting combat and an interesting narrative, all of which Black Ops 6 checks the required boxes. Set in the early 90’s, Black Ops 6 has a story that will have you globetrotting around the world from Iraq to within the United States after being forced to go rogue and being hunted from within. Some popular characters make a return, like Woods and Adler, and there’s quite a bit of variety in the missions, from motorcycle chases, open world, supernatural elements, and plenty of stealth given this is a spy action thriller.
Missions tend to vary quite drastically. Most have a stealth element to them where it’s certainly an option if you’re careful, though I opted to go loud once I got caught. There’s a few sections where stealth is mandatory, meaning basically an instant fail if you’re caught, and these were the weakest and most frustrating parts of the campaign, even if only a few.
These aside, there were quite a few really exciting missions, namely the open world mission where you have to take out a number of targets in any order you wan as well as being able to complete optional side objectives. This mission specifically you’re given a vehicle to drive from spot to spot if you wish, or can try and infiltrate with stealth and snipe every guard from afar. You’re able to even fast travel back to the base in the middle of the map if needed. There's another open world mission where you need to sabotage a base undercover, allowing you to do some a variety of different ways.
Two others really stood out for me, one that had a supernatural element to it about halfway through. I don’t want to spoil exactly what, but it certainly took me by surprise and was a challenge. My favorite though was the Casino mission, where you play sections of the mission from everyone on the team, each very unique from one another given who they’re undercover as. The final mission should get praise as well, as it may have been the most exciting part.
Your hidden HQ, The Rook, is where you’ll be able to have chats with the team and plan your next move between missions. Here you’re also able to spend any money you find in each mission on a range of upgrades. You’re able to improve your weaponry, gear, abilities, and perks for a cost, though finding enough money for all of them will take some time searching each level.
The blockbuster action looks great, the varied environments have a massive amount of detail (especially the Casino level), as does the main cast of characters. Faces look quite realistic and very detailed, especially on closeups. Woods and Adler have never looked so good. Nameless NPC’s don’t have nearly the polish, but you’re generally sneaking around or shooting anyone you see to notice. It was a great campaign throughout until the credits rolled and worth the playthrough.
Braaaaiiiinsssss...
Fan favorite Zombies mode is a staple of the yearly Call of Duty entries, though the mode changed recently with the addition of Warzone. Fans can rejoice, as classic round-based zombies makes a return on two new maps; Liberty Falls and Terminus. Also returning are Gobblegums, a usable consumable item that gives you temporary effects, buffs, or abilities. These single use items can make a huge difference in a run and some are quite unique and vary in rarity.
I’ll admit, I’ve never really been a Zombies fan. To new players, the mode does a terrible job at teaching you what you’re supposed to do, what machines do what, nor teach any basic strategies. Newcomers to the mode are going to feel quite overwhelmed, which is why I’ve never really got into it that deeply. Thankfully this time around I played alongside some friends that are longtime Zombies fans, so I learned from them what I needed to know to really understand the mode better.
The two Zombies maps are drastically different from one another and designed quite well. Liberty Falls is a small town where there’s a number of buildings and rooftops to explore, as well as a bowling alley and a church that places you in some other dimension. Terminus appears to be some kind of prison or secret HQ, as there’s underground tunnels and something deep within. Grab a boat and even explore small islands, but watch out for what lurks in the water.
The first few waves start out easy enough, but you’re going to need to collect as much cash and scrap as you can so you’re able to upgrade your weapons. Pack-a-Punch returns, upgrading your weapon efficiency. You’re able to upgrade your weapon three times, each increasing its power, ammo capacity and even giving special effects, denoted by the special animated camouflage skin color. Collected salvage can be spent at an Arsenal Machine to upgrade the rarity of your weapons, greatly increasing its damage. You can also spend salvage on adding elemental bonuses to your gun as well if you have spare.
Augments is a new way you can customize your Zombies loadouts, adding a number of perks once unlocked. As you play Zombie matches you’ll earn XP towards the Augment you’ve chosen. You’ll research more perks as you progress, eventually able to choose one major and one minor augment for each. These can vary greatly depending on your choices from field upgrades and ammo mods. This too isn’t explained very well, but once you know what you want to work towards, simply load it into your build and start earning XP in matches.
A few rounds in and zombies you were taking out with a good headshot or two will suddenly start to take a lot more firepower to kill. Then the elite zombies start the spawn. These mini-bosses are massive bullet sponges and can easily take you out quickly if you’re not careful. They aren’t too terrible when there’s only one or two, but a few dozen rounds in and you’re going to have more than you can handle, which is incredibly difficult. Worse yet, if you die in a round you’ll get revived if your team completes said round, but you lose all your upgraded weapons and you’re virtually useless with a basic gun on respawn.
On-Brand Multiplayer Returns
I’d guess that a vast majority of Call of Duty players generally gravitate towards the multiplayer portion and rarely deviate from there aside from some Zombies matches with friends. If you’ve played Call of Duty multiplayer before, you’ll know what to expect: shooting other players online endlessly, grinding away for weapon skins and Prestige ranks. I’ve actually really been enjoying Black Ops 6’s multiplayer more than I expected, not just because of how natural Omnimovement feels, but the weaponry and TTK (Time-To-Kill) feels just right.
That doesn’t mean Black Ops 6 doesn’t have any flaws though. 16 new maps were available at launch (17 if you include the 2024 version of Nuketown a week after), as well as all of the modes you’d expect, including Hardcore. I found the maps to be quite varied, though the majority of them are quite small save for a few. I of course have a few favorites; Babylon, a train yard with 3 major lanes and plenty of hiding spots. Scud, a map with a number of different lanes and a downed radar dish that many players tend to congregate to. Skyline is another of my favorites from the beta, taking place in and outside a massive penthouse on a cliffside, and Red Card, taking place in a stadium and one of the larger and long range maps. The same goes the opposite too, as there’s a couple I absolutely despise and would rather quit than play on them, namely Lowtown being the worst of the bunch for my playstyle.
The maps have variety to them visually, all with their own quirks and popular lanes, but the classic problem of spawn killing is still present and not fixed. Nor is getting rid of cheaters on PC, so expect some dying as you spawn and other shenanigans, especially due to crossplay with PC and console. Having launched on GamePass as well, there’s a massive amount of people to play with and against. With plenty of weapon attachments and skins to unlock, as well as a number of Prestige ranks, you can stay playing the multiplayer portion of Black Ops 6 for quite some time.
Visually, Black Ops 6 is what you come to expect from a AAA Call of Duty title. The setpieces are grandiose and large in scale, campaign looks absolutely fantastic, and Multiplayer/Zombies never suffered from any slowdown on an Xbox Series X. The soundtrack to the campaign hits a different level when actual music comes into play and you’re holding off oncoming waves of enemies, and the amazing performances from the main cast is practically flawless.
Some may grow tired of the year Call of Duty entries, and I’ll admit, they’re usually hit-or-miss for myself as well, but I’ve been thoroughly enjoying all Black Ops 6 has to offer. Campaign is one of the best in years, Zombies being round based is the correct move, and multiplayer feels solid overall.
Campaign: 9.5
Zombies: 8.5
Multiplayer: 9
**Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10



Released in late 2021 for PC, New World had a lot of excitement behind its launch. Like most online games though, it had quite a rough launch, and while it’s been vastly improved over the years and even had an expansion since, the time has come for console players to get in on the online action. Branded as a relaunch of sorts, New World: Aeternum includes the base game, Rise of the Angry Earth expansion, and all the updates and improvements to this point (for console players. PC owners don't automatically get granted the Expansion). The most exciting though is that it’s finally coming to console (including cross-play between all platforms), and having played the Open Beta and now the full release, I’ve been unable to put it down since there’s always progress to be made.
New World: Aeternum places you in a massive world with near endless things to do, able to play your way and focus on what you want. You could do quests, leveling up your character and getting new gear, or maybe you want to take a break and simply gather for materials and craft for a while, all while solo or with others. If PvP is your thing there’s plenty to partake in, or if you want to delve into dungeons and raids with friends, that’s an option too. Given than MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) are constantly being updated, fixed, and changed, this review is based on the game at the time of writing, approximately two weeks after Aeternum's official launch. Also, we were given access to a temporary max level/geared character to try out all aspects of Aeternum, which really helped me understand the complexity of higher tier crafting and endgame.
Overwhelming Amount of Quests:
New World: Aeternum begins with you on a ship, partaking in the new brief tutorial that shows you the basics of combat. The ship is destined for a ‘New World’, told to be full of fortunes, treasures and power. There’s a massive shipwreck and you find yourself washed up on the shores of Aeternum, a massive island that’s full of lush settings and wild animals, but also something that has seemed to corrupt many that were here before. You also start to hear a voice, as if someone is guiding you towards something. It’s an interesting story enough to keep my interest, even if I would get endlessly sidetracked with many other activities. The main story does get interesting later on, though I found it hard to follow at times simply due to doing dozens of hours of other things in between.
The Main Story Quest (MSQ) is most likely what you’ll spend the good chunk of your first dozen or hours doing, that is, if you don’t get sidetracked with harvesting, crafting or fishing. This quest line takes you through level appropriate areas, becoming more challenging the closer you get to max level. When you’re wanting a break from the MSQ, there’s plenty of optional sidequests and other things to do along the way on your journey across the island. Some are fun lighthearted quests, where others are a bit more involved. There’s faction quests which will need to be done if you want to purchase specific items, so there’s no shortage of questing to do across the island as you level up. It can almost be overwhelming in the beginning with a map full of icons and numerous quests in all directions, so learn to filter what you don't need on the map. The leveling process is actually surprisingly quick, so getting to max level won’t be too difficult, but that’s only a different starting point really.
Built for Console:
When PC games get ported to consoles, there needs to be a conscious effort to make it work well on a controller. It’s much more than simply remapping keys to buttons, as it needs to flow and feel like it was made for a controller, not hamstrung down, as this makes for a poor console experience. A few console MMO’s have done this right, namely Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy XIV, and Neverwinter. It’s clear that a conscious effort went into making New World: Aeternum feel natural with a controller, as there’s a number of options available such as Aim Assist, Smart Cast, Target Locking, and more.
I will say, luckily having a Razer Turret that I previously reviewed, I finally had a reason to dust it off and use it once again. The Razer Turret is a keyboard and mouse combo designed to work specifically for Xbox. It has a heavy base and an included pull-out mouse pad, so even though I’m sitting on my couch playing Aeternum, swapping to keyboard and mouse with the Razer Turret was simple enough. You don’t need this product specifically, and while I used controller the vast majority of the time playing, having a keyboard for typing and using the Marketplace and chatting to others was infinitely more user friendly. No needing to remap or swap controls, I could instantly grab the controller or move to the keyboard and mouse if I wanted on the fly. If you’re going to be putting hundreds of hours into Aeternum, it’s a worthwhile investment to at least grab a keyboard for your Xbox for these reasons. If that's not an option, you can easily pins areas with different icons to get your point across to others if needed if you're not wanting to use the software keyboard.
New to Aeternum:
Maybe you’re a long time PC player of New World, simply curious what new has been added for the Aeternum launch. While there’s been plenty of improvements, changes, and additions over the years since its tumultuous launch, the Aeternum relaunch also has a plethora of improvements and additions as well. One of the most notable is probably the new large scale PvP zone, The Cursed Mists. Here you’re tasked with gathering cursed doubloons and resources, but will you be able to escape with your loot before being attacked or betrayed? The two other main additions I’m quite looking forward to is a 10-Player Raid, The Hive of the Gorgons, which will have your raid completing puzzles and epic boss battles. There’s also end-game solo trial challenges, perfect when you’re not in the mood to do some grouping.
Those are just some of the highlighted additions with Aeternum, but there’s still plenty more, not all of which include: New Artifacts, Gear Score increased to 725, upleveled gear and rewards, cinematic storytelling, swimming, cross-platform play, a whole new starting experience, fresh start worlds, combat improvements, Seasonal Events and more. And yes, there’s finally mounts, so you won’t have to run everywhere any longer.
Archetypes – Simply A Starting Point:
So you’re ready to now make your character and begin your adventure on the isle of Aeternum. The first choice you’ll need to make is which Archetype to begin with. These aren’t really classes, as it doesn’t lock you permanently into one playstyle, as your abilities are governed by which weapons you’re currently using. Archetypes are simply a starting point, giving you two separate weapons and some bonuses to begin with. If you get to a point where you don’t like the weapons and abilities said archetype gave, you can swap to new weapons and play as that style instead.
While you can freely use any two weapons, there are combinations that work best together due to the attribute points and how they give bonuses to stats. Once chosen, you begin in a new tutorial and the story starts to unfold. With not having actual classes, you can easily change to different weapons and loadouts if needed, say to queue for an Expedition as a Healer or Tank instead of a DPS, providing you have the gear of course. I opted to main a healer for PVE purposes and have been loving it every step of the journey so far.
Soldier (Defense/Offense): A fighter by trade, balancing defense and offense with heavy armor and shield, sword and hatchet.
Destroyer (Offense/Defense): A mighty slayer, brutally executing foes with massive great axe and war hammer.
Ranger (Offense): A keen-eyed hunter, scout, and pathfinder, proficient with bow and spear.
Musketeer (Offense): A nimble explorer and adventurer, skilled with rifle and rapier alike.
Occultist (Offense): A practitioner of primal elemental arts, commanding the forces of frost and flame.
Mystic (Healing/Offense): A scholar-warrior who seeks to master the forces of life and death.
Swordbearer (Offense/Tank): A gutsy, heavily-armed berserker, wielding a colossal greatsword and broad-bored blunderbuss.
Ever Important Attribute Points:
Every time you level up, you’re given attribute points you can place into your Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Focus, or Constitution. In general, each attribute will improve a certain aspect and archetype, and there are milestones for each stat where you’ll get specific bonuses if you have enough points into it. In general, Strength will improve melee Archetypes, Dexterity for ranged, Intelligence for magic, Focus for healing, and Constitution for additional health. As a healer main, I was placing the majority of my attribute points into Focus, as it improves my healing greatly. You’re able to respec, so again, you’re not locked in and can’t make any critical mistakes if you decide to change up your weaponry.
Weapons for All Types:
Speaking of weapons, each Archetype will begin you with two that generally go well together, able to swap on the fly by simply pressing ‘Y’. Each weapon has two skill trees, so there’s plenty of mix and matching skills for your preferred playstyle. Most weapons usually have two or three skills in each tree, along with a bunch of bonuses or ways to alter the abilities. Where the strategy comes in is that you can only have three skills loaded on your hotbar for each weapon type, so it’s a matter of trying them all out and finding what works best for you and the situation. Again, you can respec when needed, so try them all out and see what works for you.
The more you use weapons the more they will earn XP and level up. This earns you Weapon Mastery points, which is how you unlock new abilities and bonuses in the two skill trees. Do you decide to fill out one of the trees completely, or mix and match between the two? There’s no right or wrong. Weapons max out at level 20, so you won’t be able to fill both sides of the skill trees, so it’s a matter of finding out what abilities you like and how it’ll match your playstyle and needs.
Gear Up:
Gear you wear will also play a factor in how much defense and mobility your character has. Heavy plate armor will give you plenty of defense, whereas light armor gives my healer more elemental defenses and mobility. High end gear will also start to come with bonuses, ranging from attack and defensive perks, or even a bonus that will help your gathering speed. This too allows for unique builds and what works best for you. Quests give a healthy amount of upgrades as you progress, and it’s always exciting to get new loot that’s a big improvement. You’ll get plenty of upgrades as you quest along the journey to level 65, eventually so much that you’ll be salvaging plenty or equipping them to your other saved Gear Sets, allowing you to swap weapons and armor on the fly.
Three Factions – Different but the Same:
Reach a certain level and you’ll be able to take on a line of quests to join one of the three main Factions. Joining a faction will allow you to take on Faction missions, earning special tokens which can then be used to purchase special gear and crafting items. You can change your faction after a certain amount of time, so you’re not permanently stuck if you want to swap. There’s no wrong choice, as they are all essentially the same, more just choosing a ‘team’ when to comes to the larger scale PvP. The three Factions are as follows:
The Marauders: A ruthless military force bent on establishing a free nation where anyone with the strength to do so can prosper and profit.
The Syndicate: A secretive organization of boundless guile and intellect in search of forbidden knowledge to usher in a new age of enlightenment.
The Covenant: A fanatical order that has charged itself with cleansing the land of heretics and defilers so that its true holy nature can flourish and justice can be restored. This was the faction I joined, so it’s clearly the superior one.
Dynamic Combat:
Every weapon has a light and heavy attack, executed with a Right Trigger press or hold. You can block with Left Trigger and Dodge with ‘B’. The three abilities from your skill trees you put points into are mapped to your Bumpers, so it all flows well and makes sense on a controller. Combat is simple at first, making sure you dodge or block enemy attacks, but once you start getting into the late game, bosses will be quite a challenge, as you need to make contact with your attacks. Easy for ranged classes that can lock on, but a little more challenging for melee archetypes. I much prefer the ranged combat, especially with my Life Staff, as I can stay at a distance, lock onto an enemy and cast away. You also don’t need to worry about ammunition if you’re using the musket for example, and aiming at specific parts of an enemy can also give bonuses, such as headshots for example. Combat is quite enjoyable, and once you have the abilities you prefer, it becomes even better once you figure out the best rotations for your skills and how both weapons can complement each other.
Everyone Can Make Everything:
Trade Skills and Crafting can be very hit or miss in MMO’s. In some games it’s a very arduous activity to delve into, or quite expensive. Trade Skills is quite encouraged in Aeternum and I’d highly suggest doing it even during your leveling progress. There are eighteen trade skills, from harvesting rocks, lumber and bushes, to cooking, smithing, armoring, alchemy, engineering and more.
Gathering materials is quite simple, as all you need is the right tool equipped (axe for chopping trees, pickaxe for mining, sickle for harvesting bushes, skinning knife to harvest pelts and meat from kills, and a fishing pole for some relaxing fishing). You’ll get the tools to craft within the first moments of playing once you land on the island, so make use of them and harvest as much as you can. Some great gear can be crafted, so it’s not just meant for a small population of the players. I personally quite enjoyed just gathering materials or fishing for a few hours for a change of pace, as you still earn XP for doing so. There are multiple tiers of gathering nodes, so make sure to keep them leveled up, as you’ll want to collect them when you get to higher tier zones while questing.
Mount Up:
You’ll eventually be able to undertake a quest to unlock a mount. These are important as the isle is vast, and mounting up will have you run from place to place much quicker. Just like using weapons to level them up, you’ll also need to ride your mount and even participate in races to increase your riding skill, thus making you even faster and unlocking other bonuses. These races are fun distractions when you want to do something different for a while. You’ll really appreciate the mount once you’ve ran everywhere for the first two dozen levels or so. There are a number of teleport stones all over the island, but this takes a special Azoth currency, and you're going to want to run many places for your gathering along teh way.
Home Sweet Home:
When you reach a certain level and also have a high enough standing in the territory you want to live, you’ll be able to purchase a house. These homes can be set as your recall point, serve as extra much needed storage, and you can even decorate them with trophies that will give buffs. These aren’t free though, and you’ll need to pay an upkeep, like rent, so make sure you’re saving that hard earn gold. It’s an investment, but the benefits far outweigh the costs, plus, who doesn’t want somewhere to put your feet up and relax after several Expedition runs?
Buy Low, Sell High:
Called an Auction House in other games, the Marketplace is where you’ll buy and sell all your goods and items to other players if you don’t salvage the items. Almost like a stock market, you can set your buy and sell order prices, having items be deposited to your storage automatically once filled. There’s a small fee for setting these buy and sell orders, but if you’re watching the market, you can easily make some easy coin if you know what to look for. Learn what people desperately need and you can make quite a killing, or even sell stacks of low tier gathering materials to those that don’t want to waste the time to gather it all themselves.
Plenty to Do:
When you reach certain levels, you’ll be able to do a lot more other than simply leveling, crafting, and harvesting. There’s actually a healthy amount of different modes you can queue for depending on your preference. There’s lots of options for dungeon runs (Expeditions), PvP small and large scale, Raids, Trials and more.
Expeditions are your typical dungeons runs that you can queue for. These are made up of five players, generally having you fighting through a linear zone, clearing trash, mini-bosses, and a main boss before you’re given your just rewards. Aeternum has a dozen Expeditions at launch, so there will be plenty of dungeon delving to partake in to get that sweet loot. You’re also able to challenge yourself at harder versions (Mutated Expeditions) for even better rewards once max level and have a higher gear score. Some dungeons even have puzzle-like elements to it, though fully expect higher level characters to rush through it your first few times if not playing alongside friends and guildmates.
Raids are a ten-player version with more notorious bosses and even better loot. Then there’s also a variety of different Trials you can challenge yourself in. Season Trials places 6-20 max level players together for instanced boss battles, with new challenges refreshing each Season. Take on a colossal sandworm in an Elite Trial for 12-20 players, or if you want to play alone, Solo Trials are available when you just want to play by yourself.
For those that enjoy PvP, there are plenty of activities for you to fill your time with as well. You’re never forced to PvP, but this earns you PvP based rewards when you reach certain milestones. 3v3 Arenas, Influence Races where you battle against enemy factions, massive 100-player War mode where you can take control of territories, and Outpost Rush places teams of 20 players fighting for control of fortifications and resources that also combines PvE elements as well. A new addition is the Lawless Zone, an open world PvPvE area where it’s everyone for themselves as you try to escape with Cursed Doubloons and Resources which can be exchanged for other rewards if successful.
Season Pass:
Every few months will introduce a new Season Pass, with Aeternum launching with a brand-new Season (6) of course. These Seasons have a Free and a Premium 100 tier reward track, so you’re never forced to purchase the Pass, but doing so will earn you a whole extra set of (better) rewards on top of the free ones for completing challenges. You need to be level 25 before it even is available to unlock the tab in the menus, which I like, as it gets you to play the game for a good amount before deciding if you’re going to want to spend some extra money on it and what it all does.
Open Your Wallet?:
Generally, there’s almost always a cash shop in MMO’s nowadays, New World: Aeternum is no different. Where issues lie is what they offer. Having plenty of cosmetics and some shortcut consumables like XP pots and such are no big deal, but if there’s Pay-to-Win elements where you can purchase gold or top gear, that’s where it can be a slippery slope. Aeternum certainly offers a variety of items such as armor and weapon cosmetics, Transmog tokens, Gear Slots, Mounts and more. I never felt as though I was falling behind not spending any cash, though I did opt for a currency bundle and the Season Pass as I’ve thoroughly been enjoying my time on the island.
Impressive Looking and Sounding:
Playing on an Xbox Series X, I’m quite impressed with how well Aeternum performs. I’ve not ran into any performance issues aside from the odd glitch here and there and haven't had a single crash. The island is impressive, as each area is almost like its own biome. Dense forests with near endless trees to chop down, desert areas with lots of stone to mine, beaches, poison swamps and more. The areas vary quite drastically and make each leveling portion feel different. There’s some amazing scenery to be had if you find the right vistas, some of which I needed to take a handful of screenshots. For how good the environment, mounts, unique weapons and armor looks, the NPC character models themselves aren’t nearly as impressive, which gets showcased every quest when you’re going through the dialogue. Enemies vary area to area, but plenty get reused obviously, so expect to fight many of the same infected, ghosts, wolves, soldiers, etc.
Audio actually really impressed me early on. The voice acting across the board is quite decent, but the weapon and gathering sounds are what really made me take notice. Weapons feel like they have impact when you hit an enemy, even with my charged up shot from my Life Staff. Chopping a tree and hearing it crash to the ground sounds great, as does the ‘ting’ of your pickaxe smashing against some boulders. I could even tell when others were around me gathering from the sounds and a tree falling in the distance. The most impressive though was the soundtrack during some of the Expeditions, as it really felt like an epic soundtrack as we were making progress in the dungeon.
My Time in Aeternum So Far:
You could play New World: Aeternum fully solo and enjoy yourself the whole time, though it’s nice going to towns and seeing plenty of other players. Of course, if you want to start getting the best gear and see everything it has to offer, you’ll need to play alongside, or against, other players. MMORPG’s are quite a hefty time investment, and Aeternum is no different. But if you’re enjoying yourself, making your characters stronger, grinding away for a piece of gear, or spending hours fishing like myself, then it’s doing what it’s meant to do well. This was apparent quite early on, as I was having fun regardless if I was questing, exploring new areas, running Expeditions, harvesting, or simply fishing for a change of pace.
I’ve actually been enjoying Aeternum more when I was casually playing instead of rushing to get max level and grinding endgame. I’ve not done everything Aeternum has to offer yet, but with access to a temporary max character with raid gear and plenty of crafting materials, it really helped me understand the latter portions where endgame begins once you’re level 65. I know I’ll be grinding eventually to get the best Artifact gear, altering how you can play your character greatly. In the meantime though, I’ve spent well over a dozen hours simply just gathering, fishing and enjoying the scenery as I reach a new area. It’s easy to hyper focus on leveling to endgame or sticking to PvP, but I’ve been dabbling in all Aeternum has to offer at my own pace and really enjoying every minute of it. Once I convinced a few friends to pick up the game and join my server, it got even better as we did Expeditions together or took a break and fished alongside one another in some random lake.
There’s always something to do and work on, and while some elements could have used a bit more explaining and be a little more console friendly, overall it’s port to console was done impressively well. Of course, I ‘cheated’ a bit with having my Razer Turret to make typing quicker, but it wasn’t a requirement, as the default controls worked just fine and intuitively with a controller in hand. I'm going to be adventuring on Aeternum for quite some time at my own pace, and won't be surprised when I reach a few hundred hours of playtime. Console players may have had to wait a few years, but Amazon Games has clearly put in a hefty amount of effort to do it right, but better late than never.
** New World: Aeternum was provided by the publisher, as well as a max level/geared temporary character, and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10



While it may be a sequel not many expected, developers Mad Fellows took all the feedback, good and bad, to heart from the first title and addressed every single piece of feedback that they were able to, within reason of course. This meant Aaero2 was to be “built from the ground up”, and it seems those improvements have indeed made their way into this sequel.
Two difficulties are options from the beginning, ChillOut and Normal, whereas you’ll need to play through Normal to earn enough stars to unlock Advanced and Master difficulties. ChillOut mode is if you simply want to play and experience the music without having to worry about scores or dying, as all the songs are unlocked right away in this mode since there’s no progression. Normal is where you’ll want to start, as that’s how you’ll start to earn a score to place on the leaderboards as well as earn XP for progression and achievements.
The biggest addition to this sequel is the inclusion of two player multiplayer. Even more surprising, it’s not just local multiplayer either, as you can jump online for the included co-op and PVP modes as well. Normally smaller games like these would only have couch co-op, so the online inclusion was quite a shock. That said, every single time I’ve played I looked for a match online, only to have it not find any matches, so don’t expect many, if any, playing online if that’s what you’re looking forward to unfortunately.
The premise of Aaero2 is simple enough; navigate your ship through a handful of unique worlds, surviving by staying along the musical path and defeating any enemies in your way. If you’ve played the first Aaero, it’s virtually identical, though slightly improved in a few areas. Survive long to the end and be accurate as possible and you’ll earn a stars and score, hopefully high enough to impress on the leaderboards.
With three different bosses, I was expecting each handful of levels to be set in the same biome, but this wasn’t the case at all. Each of the 18 songs has its own unique backdrop and stage that you fly though (on rails). You’ll traverse tundra, volcanoes, forests, caves, underwater and more. The bosses are just as unique, though I do wish there was more than three to battle against. 18 songs might not seem like much, but there’s different difficulties and leaderboards to climb the ranks of.
Completing songs earns you XP which goes towards unlocking bonuses for your profile like icons, banners, borders, etc, as well as artwork. There’s a handful of daily and weekly challenges to complete which earn massive XP increases, so they are worth working towards if you want to collect all of the unlocks for your profile. Your overall performance of each song also will get you up to five stars, and reaching certain songs later on will require a set amount of stars, so you’re going to need at least three or four stars on most songs to unlock them all. If you want to unlock the higher difficulties, you’re going to need even more stars, which is a given since it’s a harder mode.
There’s essentially two halves to Aaero2’s gameplay: The music portion and the combat half. Starting with the music part, your ship traverses through a stage on rails, but you’re able to move within a large circular radius with the Left Stick. When there’s music, you’ll see lines called ribbons, that can be straight or curved. Think of these like the singing portions of Rock Band or SingStar, but appear as if they’re floating in the 3D world as you fly through.
Your aim is to maneuver your ship directly on these ribbons for the most points. These ribbons will match the song beat and lyrics, so it really feels like you’re ‘playing’ the song when you’re doing it correctly, moving along the edges of the circle. The difficulty of being accurate with the ribbons really depends on the song, as a faster paced EDM song plays different from a Rock song with more vocals. The easier difficulties have a little more ‘magnetism’ that helps your ship stay on the ribbons, but fail being accurate and you’ll lose your combo and probably earn less stars as a result.
There’s some clever melding with the worlds in some stages, like the ribbon guiding you around an obstacle that will kill you if you fly into it as you pass by. The highlight of Aaero2 is absolutely these musical sections where you’re so focused on lining up with the ribbon and hearing the foot tapping soundtrack from Monstercat. Each song really suits the stage background as you fly through it, and while some songs are better than others, objectively, there wasn’t a single track I disliked.
The second portion of Aaero2’s gameplay is the combat. This is where it plays somewhat like Rez, moving your aiming reticule with the Right Stick, trying to lock onto enemies and then releasing missiles to the beat. As you hold Right Trigger for missiles, your goal is to try and release them correctly with the beat. There’s a small bar that will show the proper beat timing, but if you’re tapping your foot along to the music you should be able to get it roughly close. You can also use your Left Trigger to shoot your Machine Gun, which is weaker overall and can overheat, but you don’t have to worry about any timing.
Enemies fight back though, so you’re going to need to watch for the projectiles coming towards you as well. You only have a few lives, so you can’t afford to die and lose your multiplier if you’re aiming for those coveted stars at the end of each song. Bosses will have weak glowing spots that makes it obvious where you’re meant to lock onto, but the tricky part is releasing at the ‘right’ time to the beat.
Combat portions on their own aren’t terribly difficult, but where it starts to become overwhelming is where you’re having to do both the musical ribbons and combat at the same time. This means watching with one eye and moving your ship along the ribbon with one stick, and aiming and avoiding projectiles with the other, while also trying to keep a beat. This was the most frustrating portions for me, as it can become chaotic real quickly and you’ll be focused on enemies only to realize you’ve missed the last few seconds of the music ribbon. While the combat has been improved from the previous game, it was the portion I disliked the most when combined with the music portions.
While the varied environments and stylized visuals are appealing, the real star is the soundtrack of course. A licensed soundtrack from Monstercat, there’s a decent variety of genres, though I found the EDM tracks the most exciting to play and tap my foot along to. While I’m not familiar with most of the artists, there wasn’t any songs I hated, so that’s a plus when it comes to a small tracklist. If you want to simply experience the musical portion and not worry about failing, that’s what the ChillOut mode is for, but it’s clear there’s a very high bar for being skill based if you want to be successful with all the star earning and unlocks. It’s a shame I couldn’t find a single player online to test the multiplayer out with, but the fact that it’s included is commendable from such a small team, showing their commitment to the community.
18 songs may not be a large tracklist, but the numerous difficulties and leaderboards encourage multiple playthroughs and trying to beat your previous scores. It’s going to take some serious practice to meld the musical and combat portions of gameplay together without having to think about it too hard, but once it does, it feels quite good to ride those ribbons while taking out some baddies with a barrage of missiles.
**Aaero2 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10



The Plucky Squire plays just as my childhood imagination used to envision my favorite characters would do if they were able to leap out of their storybook pages. Being able to jump back and forth between the pages and out to the ‘real’ world makes for some interesting mechanics as a game, but also simply fun to see and play.
Even though the target audience is clearly younger gamers, that didn’t dampen my enjoyment as an adult. Sure it was a bit easy, but I was smiling throughout my playthrough at how adorable it all was. If you have quite young gamers wanting to play, there’s a Story or Adventure more, and you're also able to toggle not taking any damage, or defeating enemies in a single hit if you want. I took it for what it was and simply enjoyed a colorful tale with amusing characters trying to right some wrongs and stop the bad guy.
In the Land of Mojo, The Plucky Squire, known as Jot to his friends, is a young hero armed with a sword that happens to have a quill tip for the blade. The Plucky Squire is known throughout the land as a hero since he has a number of his own children’s books, as well as plenty of tie-in merchandise.
Alongside his friends, Jot will be fighting against the evil wizard, Humgrump, once he realizes that he’s actually the villain of this book. Knowing that Humgrump can never win against Jot, he finds a way to literally kick Jot out of the book without a way to return, thus changing the story to how he wants. With Jot gone from the pages, Humgrump can rewrite his story however he wants, but the problem with this is that Sam, the child’s room owner in real life who read The Plucky Squire, will fail to be inspired and make his own cartoons and drawings when he becomes older.
With Humgrump able to send minions out to the real world to as well to stop Jot, our hero will need to be quick thinking and rely on his friends to defeat Humgrump once more. The most entertaining of Jot’s help is a grand wizard named Moonbeard. Not only is he cool with his sunglasses, but he’s a DJ as well. He’s the one that helps Jot and friend the most in their journey to stop Humgrump, adding a few laughs along the way. It’s a cute story and the 2D to 3D shifts really make it feel like you’re at times coming out the book into Sam’s bedroom, then diving back into the book before turning the next page.
The Plucky Squire opens up once the pages do, having Jot navigate across the 2D pages, something akin to classic Legend of Zelda. As you reach the edges of the pages, the book flips to the next page, placing you in the next area or having a moment for narration and accompanying cutscene. Even though it’s 2D, it’s colored so vividly and wonderfully hand drawn that it really does make you smile and appearing like a children’s book. Keep in mind this book is inside Sam’s bedroom, so it’s got a layer of complexity as you’ll soon be jumping between the two worlds.
Traversing in the 2D pages is simple enough. You are able to attack and dodge, though when Jot is pushed out of the pages by Humgrump, then the gameplay changes to a 3D platformer for the most part. The mixing of 2D and 3D worlds is where The Plucky Squire shines best, having to do some light puzzle solving that has you thinking outside the book.
As bright and colorful as exploring the book is, I quite enjoyed running around Sam’s bedroom as Jot, making it feel like something right out of Toy Story, as the smallest ordinary objects may now be impassable. There are some friendly arrow signs to help guide you to the right direction, so you can’t really get all that lost in the much larger environment. There’s also times where you’ll hop back into a 2D world, but instead of Jot’s book, it’ll be across multiple drawings on some sticky notes, or even sidescrolling on a mug sitting on the desk. There are plenty of hidden objects to find in both worlds, unlocking concept art for you to see how the game progressed during development.
Green swirl portals are how you know you can enter or leave your current 2D or 3D world. Simply holding a button will have Jot magically jump between the worlds, but can only be done at these specific points. Given that the game is meant for a younger audience, there’s quite a bit of hand holding throughout. It’s not really possible to get lost in this linear adventure, and after completing a page or two you’ll get some dialogue and a story page before going to the next few pages to play. If you do need a hint of what to do there are mini versions of Moonbeard scattered throughout, not telling you explicitly what to do, but not quite vague enough where you’ll still be confused either. Think of him like a built in hint system for the puzzles.
Bosses were the highlight, as each battle completely changes the gameplay into the form of a minigame that is like old classic games. For example, the first boss, a mean honey badger, had Jot tear off his sleeves and all of a sudden be buff so that they could box, like classic Punch-Out. Another boss was musical based, and one of the more interesting ones was a RPG battle inside of a Magic card. I don’t want to give them all away as they were quite unique and part of the enjoyment to see what type of battle the next boss would be. They changed up the formula at just the right times to avoid the gameplay becoming stale for how easy it is.
Combat is quite simplistic and shouldn’t pose much of a challenge. You’re able to turn on invincibility or one-hit kills if you have someone younger playing or someone that wants to simply get through the story, but you shouldn’t really need to outside of that. Jot can also toss his sword, having it not only attack enemies from afar, but also hit switches, and able to be recalled back to him like a boomerang. You’ll eventually be able to spend your currency on skill upgrades and even a new 360 spin slash. Affording all the upgrades by the end wasn’t difficult as long as you manage to whack all the bushes and trees for hidden money, just as Link taught us all those years ago.
Puzzles are where The Plucky Squire really feel unique, as you’ll need to not only move blocks in the 2D world, but sometimes also change the words on the page. For example, maybe there’s a spot you can’t access because a gate is CLOSED. Find elsewhere on the page where maybe the word OPEN is. Whack these special words and Jot can pick them up and carry them, placing them elsewhere on the page. Placing OPEN beside the gate sentence will have the gate magically open, and it’s simple to see how these puzzles operate. You’ll have another layer as the adventure goes on, dealing with multiple words or bringing them out of the book to flip pages and place elsewhere. These puzzles were fun but not frequent enough.
Puzzles will need a little more thought when Jot gets special stamps that can alter the pages in the book, but from the real world. Maybe there’s a spinning blade that you and your friends want to pass, but can’t because of the danger. Jot can jump out of the pages, use his ‘Stop’ stamp on the blades, and just like that, the blades are stopped inside the book. There’s another stamp you get later on that I don’t want to spoil, but it’s the same premise of altering the 2D world from the outside 3D one. These puzzles become creative, and once you’re able to tilt pages, you can make certain items like a railcar move along tracks depending on which page you tilt and lift. For some reason there seemed to be a small lag between ‘grabbing’ the book and being able to flip or tilt the pages, and I constantly had to think of which way I wanted to turn the pages.
The Plucky Squire’s visual aesthetic is really what made me smile. The 2D storybook looks just like books I used to read to my young daughter, and the ‘real’ 3D world really does look like a young kid’s room with toys and knick knacks scattered everywhere. Jot being able to traverse both worlds really gives it a whimsical feeling, as I know I’ve imagined characters from my novels growing up as a kid doing the same thing when I’m not looking, like Toy Story. Everything is so bright, colorful and vibrant that it’s really hard to not appreciate it and smile with how wholesome it is. The audio is done just as well, with a lighthearted soundtrack outshined by the excellent narration by Philip Bretherton that perfectly fits every page. My only complaint is that I wish there was more narration, like commentary on what Jot was doing possibly when playing.
While it’s intended for a younger audience, that didn’t stop me from enjoying every minute of the seven or so hours it took me to reach its final page as a full grown adult. While it may have not been a challenge in the slightest, it was a wonderful adventure full of humor, wonderful artwork, adorable characters and some really interesting gameplay. It’s clear The Plucky Squire was made with a lot of love and care, and I’m glad to have helped Jot along in his wondrous adventure.
**The Plucky Squire was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10



It’s well overdue, and honestly quite a surprise out of nowhere, but Square Enix has finally released Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster on Xbox. Released last year for Switch and PS4, the Xbox snub was a glaring omission for decades-long fans like myself. Better late than never, Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster is a collection of the first handful of classic games, Final Fantasy I – VI (1-6), but with some great improvements. Sold as a bundle with all six games, or individually if you only want certain entries, you do get a sizable discount for the collection purchase (a little over $22 CAD savings with the current sale.
Remasters are tricky, as you don’t want to change it too drastically to alter what made them so great for existing fans, yet also want to improve what you can to make it great for newer fans and audiences as well, as sometimes older games don’t always age too well. Now fans old and new can play some of the greatest JRPG’s of all time with a handful of new features that I’d argue made it a much better overall experience, yet also keeps the spirit of the original games intact.
Having grown up in the era that these first six Final Fantasy titles released, they have a soft spot in my heart. As they were some of the first JRPG’s I ever played, I become a lifelong fan. Having played most of them, there were still a few I hadn’t yet, and it’s also been decades, so I can’t even remember if I beat many of them being that young at the time. While there’s been a number of ports over the years for different devices and consoles, now was the time I wanted to re-experience them with all the additional features and improvements.
Many Upgrades:
All six included Final Fantasy titles have had very similar improvements, which I’ll list below here, and it’s a uniform upgrade across all the titles. If one of the individual games have a specific improvement I’ll list it under its own section, otherwise, all the added features below are included in each of the titles. These remasters were based on the original titles, so any changes that other remakes or ports received are not included unless listed.
HD-2D:
The 2D pixel graphics have been updated, but more importantly, the original artist and current collaborator, Kazuko Shibuya, was onboard to upgrade each sprite. Characters are all still instantly recognizable with their iconic designs, it all just looks sharper with HD visuals and widescreen support. No more stretched screens or outdated screen resolutions, everything looks beautiful as it once did.
While you probably wouldn’t even think about it initially, even the font has been updated. You’re able to swap between the default font, or a pixel-based font that aims to recreate the feel of the original games. Again, with the support of HD and widescreen, I found the updated font just fine as I played dozens of hours across the series.
Legendary Soundtracks:
Visuals aren’t the only to get improvements either, as the music in Final Fantasy is arguably even more iconic and legendary. If you want the original experience, you can choose to have the original soundtrack, but the audio has been improved as well with a new rearranged soundtrack. The best part, the new orchestral arrangements have been overseen by the original composer, Nobuo Uematsu. In each game’s main menu you can even listen to all of the music with the sound player without having to complete the games, so feel free to get that playlist going in the background, rearranged or classic versions.
Quality of Life Improvements:
Visual and audio improvements are great, but there’s plenty modernized to the gameplay as well. For starters, you can toggle the default walk or run. Sounds like a small feature, but given how long each of the games are, there wasn’t a time I wanted to slowly walk, so defaulting to run without having to hold a button was a welcome addition. Another small but welcome feature, being able to exit to the Title Screen from the pause menu, even during battles. Maybe you’re trying to steal a rare item from an enemy but don’t get it. Now you don’t have to completely quit out of the whole game, able to easily go back to the Main screen and reload your save to try again.
Like the music player, being able to check out the Beastiary and Illustration Gallery was a real treat for fans like myself who adore the legendary concept art of Yoshitaka Amano. No need to complete the game either, explore all the art whenever you wish. These might seem like small additions for most, but I found them great features to explore when I needed a small break. You can even see on the world map where each beast was fought.
The best addition though is the option to boost your earned Experience, Gil, Auto-Battle, or even toggle random encounters. Each game allows you speed up the whole process if you want, multiplying experience and Gil (money) gained from 0 to 4 times (though some have a slightly different mechanic, Final Fantasy 2 for example). Having played previously and simply doing so once again, I appreciated the extra XP and Gil to make things go quicker, 4x quicker to be exact. If you want the original experience, leave it as is or maybe you want to challenge yourself and turn off earning either.
Sometimes I ran out of healing potions or items and didn’t want to have to redo a whole dungeon, so I was glad I could at any time turn off random encounters and safely return to town. Boss battles and monsters hiding in chests are exempt, but sometimes I just want to explore areas without constant battling. Of course without fighting you won’t level up, but it certainly gives you much more options to play how you want.
Lastly, you can simply press one button and have the game auto-battle for you, repeating the last actions each character took. When I was mindlessly grinding, this was perfect, as I simply had all character’s attack with their weapons, then simply repeating it automatically until battles were won. Another great quality of life option for those that want it.
Final Fantasy I:
Final Fantasy, the one that started it all back in 1987. Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi actually thought this was going to be his final game as a developer, hence the title. You control the Warriors of Light, a team of four heroes destined to restore power to the four crystals to save the world from a looming darkness. With Garland and Chaos as the main antagonists, I was excited to replay this classic after having finished Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin from 2022, as it was a pseudo prequel to the original game. As much as I loved reliving my childhood, many of the mechanics are quite dated.
Final Fantasy II:
Released in 1988, the first sequel may have the same visual style and amazing soundtrack, but the gameplay was changed slightly, especially in the way you level up. There’s a war happening between the Empire of Palamecia and the Wild Rose rebels, which is where four young orphans come in to try and save the world from ruin. This was the introduction to Chocobo’s, so of course it has a special place in many fans hearts.
One of Final Fantasy 2’s most unique mechanics is its proficiency system. The more you use weapons and spells, the better you become with them. You don’t gain levels the traditional way, as there are actually no numbered levels, you instead try to rank up your stats by using equipment, blocking attacks and more. While it was an innovative change at the time, I found this to be much more grinding in the end. One of the boosters you can enable specifically for this title is the multiplier of experience gained for your weapons and spells. I really wasn’t a fan of this new way of leveling up due to partly being increased by randomness but it did grow on me by the time the credits rolled.
Also unique to the sequel was learning key terms and words, then using them in conversations to try and find out new information to further the narrative. Also new to the Pixel Remaster is being able to see a previously hidden stat called “Magic Interference”. Essentially this made your magic less effective if you were wearing heavy gear since there was no real ‘classes’. This wasn’t shown or explained originally, so seeing the stat is a welcome change.
Final Fantasy III:
1990 saw the release of Final Fantasy III which was a big revolution for the series, that is, if you lived in Japan at the time or imported it. Not making its way to this side of the ocean until 2006, North American fans had quite a long wait to experience the title that introduced the iconic Job system and Summons. When it did arrive we got 3D remakes, so this Pixel Remaster marks the first time the original 2D version is playable for us.
Introducing iconic classes like the Dragoon, Summoner and more, a small addition was labelling the classes in the job selection screen with its title. Previously you just had to know which class was what by its appearance, which is no problem for long term fans like myself, but new players would probably get confused. Darkness consumes the land, and it rests solely in the hands of four orphans who has been gifted powers by the crystals to save the world.
Final Fantasy IV:
1991 saw Final Fantasy IV release, introducing with it another series staple, the Active Time Battle (ATB) system we would see for many Final Fantasy games afterwards. This new combat system blended in turn based and real time mechanics for the first time, making for faster paced battles. This is where the series really started to stand out as a great narrative. The dark knight Cecil, captain of the Red Wings, has been stripped of his rank and position, deciding to fight back against his king. Starting out as a simple delivery mission, Cecil and others will have anything but a modest quest. The story that unfolds touches on many different emotions and where the series really started to tell amazing and dramatic stories.
Long time fans will notice some subtle differences in the Pixel Remaster, such as some minor changes to Edge’s dialogue before a certain battle, and Kain’s Jump ability will stand out compared to other Dragoons using a special animation instead.
Final Fantasy V:
Final Fantasy V released the year after in 1992 and brought with it a vastly expanded job system, giving players more freedom to customizing their character by being able to combine skills. It also refined the ATB system, now showing which character would be next in turn.
While it may not be the most talked about in the series, it was certain an important title, as it too had a great story that revolved around four heroes; Bartz, Faris, Lenna, and Galuf. As Bartz and his Chocobo investigates a fallen meteor, he’ll learn of the four crystals and how they are in danger. These crystals control the world’s elements and he’ll need to do everything he can to stop them from being exploited and losing their power. The story has some darker and more mature themes which we see carried on into the sequels.
One of the Pixel Remaster bonus toggles is the regular XP adjustments like the games above, but also being able to adjust the ABP (Ability Battle Points) gain from 0 to 4 as well, making grinding much less arduous if you’re simply wanting to relive Final Fantasy V for its narrative once more.
Final Fantasy VI:
1994, the last game of the SNES era before leaving Nintendo and going to Playstation. While there’s no right answer as to what the best Final Fantasy is (it’s clearly VII), VI is usually on the top of many fans’ lists, and for good reason. The first Final Fantasy to be directed by someone other than its creator, it quickly become iconic and one of the most beloved in the series, and even on many greatest games of all time lists even to this day. I know I’ve played it before, but I admit I’ve never completed it, so finally getting through it with Pixel Remaster was high on my priority list.
With a massive cast of 14 playable characters, Final Fantasy VI tells the tale of The War of the Magi, causing all the magic to disappear from the world. A millennium later and the world relies on machinery, much like a steampunk backdrop. A young woman is found who somehow has mysterious magical powers, causing a cascade of epic events. Each of the characters has their own stories and destinies, yet intricately woven together. While Sephiroth may be one of the most well-known antagonists of the series, Final Fantasy VI’s Kefka is on par and just as memorable.
One of Final Fantasy VI’s innovations was its Magicite system, allowing you to customize your spells and summons. One of the unique boosts you can toggle aside from the earned XP is also changing the multiplier for AP (Ability Points) up to 4X, again, which will make the grinding much less arduous. One of the more unique changes with Pixel Remaster has to be the iconic opera scene, as it now has newly recorded vocal performances. I now understand why VI is still so widely beloved to this day.
A Collection of Classic Greatness:
There’s no denying that the pixel artwork of Kazuko Shibuya and the iconic melodies of Nobuo Uematsu have not only stood the test of time, but are just as great all these decades later. With updated graphics, rearranged music, and a handful of options to make the game more accessible, Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster is a wonderful trip down nostalgia lane for decades-long fans like myself, but also the best way to jump into the series if you’ve not played the classics that started the long running and much beloved franchise. Pixel perfect nostalgia.
**Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.8 / 10



A cyberpunk adventure with turn-based rhythmic combat highlights its Super Mario RPG influences, and you’ll play through an intriguing story where music is outlawed, and has been for 141 years. You are B0B0, born as a Doppelganger, a human/cyborg hybrid, into a lower class that is meant to simply serve for the overall prosperity of Saturn, but she is strong willed and doesn’t agree with this life of oppression.
The powers that be dictate every single thing and every move people can do, yet B0B0 simply wants freedom for her and others. She wants to be able to sing and play music, as it’s her passion, yet it is another act that is strictly outlawed. Why is music banned though? What trouble could it cause? B0B0 breaks out of prison and sets out on a journey that will answer that and uncover other truths of her dystopian world. It’s quite an interesting narrative that had me intrigued, and I found it humorous how many of the instructions are opposite of what you should do, such warnings like not to attack guards or counter their attacks due to it being illegal.
Your first order of business as B0B0 is choosing from one of four classes: Samurai, Hacker, Sequencer, and Juggernaut. Two are offensive focused whereas the others are defensive. Each has its own movesets, skill tree, and even story. I opted to play as the defensive Samurai for my first playthrough as I battled for freedom. Saturn is an unforgiving planet though, so you’ll need to seriously practice your timing for the rhythmic battles if you want B0B0 to survive and find out the secret of Keylocker. Later on you'll even unlock a second class for even more unique gameplay.
Exploring the different areas on Saturn are not only varied in their biomes and designs, but filled with plenty of interactable objects that give the world some extra flair when reading the descriptions. Maybe you’ll even find some hidden items and secrets, so there’s always a reason to check every object and click it as you run past.
Along your journey you’ll also come across a number of different characters, some friendly, and some not so much. Some NPC’s you’ll be able to give gifts to, possibly even befriending them and changing certain elements of the story. One of the most frustrating things about Keylocker though was the lack of a map or any directional guides of where to go. You’ll have descriptions in your quest log of where to go, like “the south end” of an area, but where’s that area and how do you get there? This caused me getting lost quite often and plenty of backtracking and aimless wandering. On the bright side I did more combat and leveled because of it, but with no marker to even guide you, it’s an unnecessary frustration that was a constant.
As you explore each area you’ll find a variety of items, like ever important healing milkshakes, but you’re only able to carry a handful at a time. If you find another milkshake for example, it’ll offer to sell it for you right away if you want to pick it up, or you could use one from your inventory to top off your health and then refill your held inventory with it. Like almost every other action, gathering items is against the law, so every pickup will have the Danger Meter on the side of the screen to creep upwards. Once it reached a new level you’ll have more church-police after you, so think of this somewhat like GTA’s wanted star levels that resets when you defeat them in combat.
Combat is what really makes Keylocker unique and stand out from other RPG’s. While there’s no random encounters, you can choose to take on battles the majority of the time, though there are many spots where it’s impossible to avoid conflict. I’d suggest battling as much as you can early on anyways for gaining keys to level with, but more importantly, practice with its rhythm based combat. One of my complaints about their last game, Virgo Versus the Zodiac, was that any mechanics weren’t explained well, and this issue carried over to Keylocker as well. Combat is going to feel impossible for the first while, but with enough trial and error, it’ll eventually make sense.
Combat is one of Keylocker’s most frustrating yet addictive mechanics, clearly inspired by Mario RPG with its timed inputs to help deal more damage or negate incoming attacks. Taking place on a hextile grid, you’ll primarily play as B0B0, but there will be times you’ll have help alongside others or not even have her in your party. The grid plays into certain attacks only able to attack in a straight line, an arc, or diagonally, as does range from enemies. Battles are turned based and you’re able to see the turn order in the top right of the screen to plan your best strategies.
Blocking and parrying play a huge part of combat, and I highly suggest getting into every battle you can to get practice, as you won’t be successful without mastering your timing. I’ll be honest, the timing window to do perfect blocks and parries is so incredibly precise that I was getting frustrated early on, even on the Easy difficulty (apply labeled Soft Punk). I highly suggest playing on Easy simply due to getting perfect blocks negates all damage, whereas higher difficulties will still give you chip damage.
Press ‘A’ just as you flash white and you’ll deal extra damage if attacking, or press it just as the enemy flashes white and you’ll block or parry depending on how accurate your timing is. Interestingly, you’re not the only one that can counterattack, as enemies can do the same. This means there could be back to back counters from you and your opponent, something you need to stay ready for if you want to make that perfect timing. Even on the easiest difficulty I thought the window to hit the button would be much more forgiving, but it was still quite difficult to nail the timing. After a good handful of battles I started to get the timing down, but it took a lot of healing milkshakes before then to do so. You’ll need to almost get a feel for when the enemy will flash white briefly, as trying to wait for the screen to show you then hitting the button will surely be too slow. It's about getting a feeling and anticipating the move.
Not all moves use this white flash timing either, some moves or counters need to have certain directions on the D-Pad pressed in short succession, or stopping a moving bar within a small area to get that perfect block. This is fine, and I enjoyed having different inputs, the problem is you don’t know which to always prepare for. Getting ready to watch for the enemy to flash white but then having to quickly use the D-Pad can be jarring. You’ll eventually learn what moves certain enemies use, but some sort of indication would have helped the early frustration in the first few hours.
This is where much of my frustration came from, as once I finally got the timing down for certain moves or enemies, I then faced new enemies or had to learn the timing of new moves to be accurate. Sure, you don’t NEED to do this, but battles will take much longer and you’ll take way more damage. I did enjoy completely negating an attack if I timed my defensive button press perfectly on the easier difficulty, or landing a critical hit on multiple enemies based on the attack I used and unit placement.
For the three paragraphs above of me being frustrated with the combat, there’s something interesting that happens a couple hours in once you figure it all out and it just ‘clicks’. Combat goes from being a constant frustration to being quite addictive once you know how to essentially negate their attacks and best tactics to use your varied moves. Get a feel for the timing and combat becomes quite enjoyable, but it will take quite some time to get to that point.
Learning the combat timing is only part of your battle, as now you’ll need to learn what all the movies do, the different bars meanings, and of course the best tactics to use. There are LP (Life Points) and EP (Electricity Points) bars. Think of your EP as your armor bar, this generally needs to be depleted before you’ll take damage to your LP (health). You can also use your EP to charge for a more powerful attack, thus draining your own shield to deal more damage if you time it correctly. You can also spend EP to bolder your defenses, setting up for a counterattack if you know you can time it correctly, but hope that you're facing the right direction and within attack range.
Keylocker has a serious problem explaining all this to you in a simple way, so it took me a few hours to really grasp the mechanics, but like blocking and countering, once I understood what I was doing and how my attacks differed, combat became even more enjoyable.
Healing items are cheap and generally plentiful enough in the beginning that I wasn’t struggling too badly aside from the first hour when I was learning the timing and what to do. You can’t carry that many though until later on, so no need to hoard them. Plus, you can use them in combat without using your ‘turn’, so no need to factor that option in. You’re also able to save and load from practically anywhere, so I simply got into the habit of saving before a fight just in case my timing was off.
XP and leveling aren’t done the traditional way in Keylocker. Instead of earning a magical number of XP for winning battles, you’ll loot keys instead. Keys are essentially a currency you can use in the skill tree to unlock new skills and bonuses. Early unlocks are cheap, where as the best ones at the bottom of the tree are naturally more expensive. Many have multiple ranks too, so it doesn’t hurt to do some early grinding for those precious keys once you have your head around combat and feel comfortable. The tree has two different paths, so there’s plenty of ways to customize your B0B0 to suit your playstyle and chosen class, then doubles when you have a secondary class.
You’ll eventually start coming across new gear and equipment as well. These can be slotted into different spots of your loadout, changing your attacks or giving them new attributes. I was still figuring this out a few hours in as it’s also not explained very well, but once I tried out moving some skills around and different attacks, I was able to get my Samurai skills just the way I liked and did well with. A move in a specific slot can alter quite drastically when slotted into a different spot.
Keylocker has some wonderful pixel art, full of bright colors and suited to the cyberpunk aesthetic. Environments are varied and there’s plenty of smaller details including the most mundane objects. While enemies are repeated, there’s still enough variety and distinction between them. Animations are smooth and its visually appealing all around.
The soundtrack is absolutely fantastic throughout. A mixture of slow gloomy beats but also having some great head bopping synthwave tailored for the cyberpunk backdrop B0B0 finds herself in. Each biome has a different mood and accompanying music that sets the tone perfectly. Composed by Elektrobear, their return for this soundtrack and doesn’t disappoint. I just wish that the dialogue was voiced to add that much more immersion. At the end of Chapters you'll generally get to fight a boss then perform a concert. Boss fights are unique and can be quite challenging, but i absolutely loved the minigame concerts that feel like playing Guitar Hero. Here colored notes come down the four lanes mapped to Triggers and Bumpers and really showcase some of the OST's best tracks.
Keylocker does a horrendous job at teaching you what you need to know or make it simple to understand. Having no map or waypoint markers is going to cause a lot of wasted time wandering around and backtracking. It’s going to feel quite difficult, borderline impossible for the first while, but once you get passed the frustration and learn its mechanics and timing, it almost instantly switches to quite an enjoyable title I had a hard time putting down.
The innovative combat is quite rewarding once you’re able to master it, but you’re going to have to persevere and struggle through that first few hours to really grasp how to do it properly. It’s clear Keylocker was made with a lot of passion and care across the board, and it’s probably one of the more unique and original games I’ve played in a while, I just worry many will not persevere through the early challenges that the game does practically nothing to teach you.
**Keylocker was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10



You are a cat pirate on a journey to find the “North Star”, a treasure that grants the bearer wishes. As expected with such a highly sought after treasure, you won’t be the only one searching for this long lost artifact, so you need to be ready to battle against some fur-midable pirates that will try to stop you and take it for themselves.
A 2.5D adventure set in the Purr-ibean, you’ll not only be exploring islands and delving into dungeons, but sailing the seas and purr-taking in ship battles against the Pi-rats, led by the notorious Pirate King. While the main quest will only take a handful of hours to complete, there’s a number of side quests, world bosses, and other things to do as well. Just like this review, Cat Quest III is filled to the brim with so many cat puns, and the writing is done quite well from a cast of interesting characters.
Cat Quest III is probably one of the most adorable action RPG’s I’ve played in a while. It’s bright and colorful, has cute characters and animations, and just feels like a joy to be in its pirate themed world. With many islands to sail to and explore, there’s adventure in any direction you decide to furr-eely explore. Sail around and battle Pi-rats in ship battles, explore dungeons, search for treasure, and simply play however you wish.
There are different biomes and varied enemies you’ll face against in your journey to find the North Star, though you’re not forced to play a certain way or in any purr-ticular order. Combat has been improved since the previous game and you’re also able to play alongside a local co-op partner as well if you choose to adventure together, though I do wish it had online capabilities.
With a map that’s said to be about 1.5 times larger than in Cat Quest 2, there’s plenty of seas for you to sail in the Purr-ibean. Not simply used as a mode of transportation, you’ll also make good use of your cannons to sink enemy Pi-rat ships so you can earn XP and booty. Utilize docks on the islands to leave your ship to explore the beaches and dungeons before setting sail once again for another island. There’s even upgrades you can find for your ship depending on how you want to play, like better hulls or new secondary attacks with your cannons.
Controlling your ship is simple enough, and there’s a short cooldown on your cannons and abilities. Generally circling around your enemies and firing after they do will make you win most battles, even against the harder Pi-rats. Watch out for mines scattered around though, as they’ll cause serious damage to your ship, and you don’t want to sink since you know, cats and water don’t get along.
There’s plenty of loot and XP to be had for those that explore. On each island there is treasure to be found and enemies to fight. You might even find some colorful characters that will offer rewards if you can help them out with some side missions. Maybe you’ll want to check out the Wanted posters and turn in for big rewards if you can defeat these mini-bosses.
When on foot, you’ll be fighting primarily with your sword as your main weapon, though you can also equip a secondary gun or magical wand and swap between them. Your ranged weapons are for fighting from a distance, whereas your blade is meant for being up close and heavier damage. You also can learn spells to cast, inflicting a number of different effects based on which spell you use. Swapping between them and knowing what's best to use when is how you'll be successful.
Once you find a good combo that suits your playstyle there’s not much reason to swap to anything else. This is also due to being able to upgrade your equipment. You’ll gain the ability to level up all your weapons, gear, and spells early on, so if there’s a weapon you really enjoy, the more money and resources you put into it, you can level it up to be incredibly powerful. I was struggling a little bit at the first dungeon boss, but after spending my hard-earned treasure on upgrading my weapons and armor, it become much more manageable after that. Weapons and armor you equip will also show on your character, and there’s some pretty amusing outfits to collect.
Cat Quest III is simply a delight to admire with its bright beautiful colors and great artwork across the board. Even in the dark dungeons, you can appreciate its brooding aesthetic. Even though some might be disappointed with its short campaign, there’s plenty of side quests to complete, including NG+ with a drastically raised level cap, and an Infinity Tower to challenge yourself with. It’s hard not to smile when playing this paw-some indie game, as it’s just got a fantastic and warm vibe that doesn’t overstay its welcome.
**Cat Quest III was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10



Doing my research, I actually learned quite a bit about the sport and what it entails. For example, ‘Peloton’ – The main field or group of cyclists in a race. Now I know where the popular exercise bike gets its name from. Having seen packs of dozens of riders, I didn’t actually realize how beneficial riding within the peloton was for conserving a rider’s energy (drag can be reduced drastically by drafting within the pack). It’s time to earn that coveted yellow jersey, not just by out-cycling your opponents, but bringing your team to victory as a whole.
Tour de France 2024 has all of the World Tour Teams already, but also now has over a dozen Pro Tour Teams as well. In ProTeam Mode you can now take the reigns as a professional team, or choose to create your own team from the ground up if you wish. This of course will take a lot of sport knowledge, as not much is really explained for newcomers without a lot of trial and error. Fine tuning your team and playing for a number of seasons is the goal here if you’re playing for the long haul.
You’re also able to create a rider in ProLeader Mode and then take them through the career, free to change many of the settings for a customized experience. More than just adjusting difficulty, there’s a number of options for you to adjust how you see fit, able to utilize different rulesets you wouldn’t see in the actual sport.
While I didn’t expect racing on bicycles would be exactly like racing in a car, sure the acceleration, braking and race lines are similar, there’s a lot more you need to factor in when manually pedalling a bike hundreds of kilometers. If you push hard and pedal quickly non-stop, your energy reserves will deplete quite quickly and you’ll find yourself at the back of the peloton in a short amount of time.
Endurance is key, so you’ll need to manage your energy levels very strategically, knowing when to pedal, when to attack, and when to draft and regain some energy. Unlike racing games, you don’t always want to be in the lead at the front, as it’s not generally a great strategy since you'll wear yourself out early in a race. It’s about how you finish, and there’s many different strategies you can utilize to ensure you place best as possible.
Racing within the peloton is a great example at how much energy a rider saves while in the pack, as you won’t have any wind resistance or drag if behind others while slipstreaming. Also, leaning low while coasting on the downhill sections are another great way to get your reserves up. Learning how to utilize these tricks at the most opportune times is how you’ll ensure you have enough energy to not only finish the race, but attack at the right moments near each of the stage sections.
Even after my first lengthy outing, I realized that Tour de France 2024 isn’t so much a regular racer. Pedalling and braking are part of it, but instead, you’re really just managing two different bars for your endurance. The blue is for your regular pedalling and energy level, whereas the red is your attacking when you need to stand and push hard for a short period of time. Races take quite some time to finish, so you need to manage these resources long term.
It’s a constant balance of staying within the pack, knowing when to attack, yet not let the lead get too far ahead. A mechanic I really appreciated was being able to ‘latch’ to another cyclist. Holding the ‘X’ button to the closest in front of you will have you essentially mimic what they are doing to stay within range as close as possible, even steering. Since races are so long, sometimes it’s good to do so just to give your fingers a rest for a while too. Most of the CPU’s are decent, so if you do this to one of the riders generally out front, you’ll be in good shape for the race for the most part. This is actually how I started to race better, by learning when to follow, when to peloton, when to rest, and when to attack.
While you’ll surely focus on your main rider, you need to remember you’re a team. This is where the other portion of the game comes in; team management. At any point in an offline race, you’re able to pause the action and decide on which team commands you want to issue. You can issue orders to attack, get in the peloton, defend, and more. You’re able to even swap with a teammate if you want to control one of the others directly. This portion too takes some strong knowledge of the sport, as you’ll be taught how to do it for controls, but not really any of the strategy behind it. I’m still focused on my single rider, and I know learning the team management portion would probably make my team stronger overall.
The bike handling itself is quite basic on its own. Right Trigger to pedal, Left Trigger to brake. Given that you’ll be latching much of the time within the peloton, you don’t actually ‘control’ your biker all that often outside of the occasional attack and passes. AI seems to follow their line regardless if you’re in the way, and the collision detection is quite weak, simply bumping riders over a little each time without any recourse. With invisible walls blocking going off the main road, you won’t have to worry about too many sharp turns either, as you’ll simply bounce off of them majority of the time. You’re more watching your meters than actually pedalling and ‘controlling’ your bicycle.
Like most sports games, it seems that the yearly iteration brings a few new features, but generally nothing too drastic. Outside of the new online Criterium Mode, which I will concede is a drastic and must needed addition in this year’s entry, the rest of the listed improvements are minor in comparison. The inclusion of “Controller vibrations on dirt roads” shows how little new stuff was added outside of the Criterium focus.
Last year’s 2023 edition seemingly had no online multiplayer, only local, which is surprising these days, but it seems this is the big addition to 2024’s outing. Yes, finally there is online multiplayer for you to race against friends and opponents, being called Criterium Mode. While it’s limited to six players currently, at least it’s a step in the right direction. Here you’re able to make a team of two riders from the pool of hundreds of cyclists, and the most important, choosing your jersey.
There's a lot of settings to go through setting these races up, choosing which leg to race that are randomized, as well as which team type from hill, flat, versatile or mountain. It seems the characters statistics are also randomized, as to try and give everyone a fair chance. I wish I could comment on the interesting and long awaited Criterium Mode more, but every time I tried to find a match it just sat looking without finding any other players, and without any crossplay, I worry that the niche audience is so small that the mode is essentially dead unless you have other friends to race along with.
Visually, there’s not much here that will impress other than seeing the peloton of riders all together. While the number of riders on screen is impressive, each individual model is not, neither is the barren environments. Animations are so stiff, including the pace car, and as you bump into fellow riders your rider slightly nudges over awkwardly. Textures are low quality and the draw distance isn’t all that far either, so you can expect some pop-in in the distance. For audio there’s not much to mention here, as bikes don’t make much noise like how car engines do. There’s some commentating that occurs now and then, but aside from that, races are near dead silent with no soundtrack, so you might want to load your Spotify playlist during each lengthy race.
I’m still somewhat surprised at how little actual racing there is, as you’re generally just managing your meters and team orders throughout a race for the most part. Races are quite long, so you need to have a dedicated amount of time to see each to completion, but it does become monotonous to simply be watching two meters for the majority of each race outside of the attacking portions. I’m sure true fans of the sport will enjoy seeing actual Pro’s and Teams as it caters to its niche audience, but as a newcomer there wasn’t enough to want me to compete for that yellow jersey.
**Tour de France 2024 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10



Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown (simply referred to as Solar Crown here on) aims to keep the DNA of the original series intact while also modernizing it for this new era of gaming. With new developers under the hood, Kylotonn is best known for their WRC and Isle of Man series of racing games, and having a racing game developer taking care of such a popular series is quite the task to live up to expectations.
Keeping its tradition of being a massively online racing game, Solar Crown gives you a massive playground to drive and compete in with plenty to do as you wish. Massive might be an understatement, as its set in Hong Kong on an island recreated at near 1:1 scale with plenty of secrets to find along the way. Purchase cars, customize your character, race against opponents, join a clan and more, there’s no shortage of events to keep you busy.
It should be noted that Solar Crown is a live service game, meaning you’ll need to be connected online to participate, even if playing on your own. This also means that the game is going to be ongoing updates and content over the long term, which publisher Nacon has already laid out the first year’s worth of content coming. I’ve actually delayed posting this review to see how the early access launch has done, as playing before the general public had access was quite different and solitary. I’ll delve into the details shortly, but calling the launch “rough” would be putting it mildly.
You’re met by the owner/runner of the Solar Crown, a prestigious event where only the best drivers get to compete. After a brief tutorial and outing with a sleek Lamborghini to prove you have what it takes to take part, you’re then flown off to Hong Kong Island where the rest of the game takes place. Here you’ll take part in a number of racing events, meet Clan leaders and members, all while trying to impress your peers and become a driver that’s a serious threat with the reputation to back it up.
You’ll begin by creating your character, customizing how they appear, clothing and accessories. There’s not really all that many options for hair and such, but just enough sliders to tweak facial features to be unique. As you play more, you’ll unlock new clothing and accessories, able to come back and customize your driver whenever you like. You then choose your starting car between a Ford Mustang GT, Nissan 370Z, or Alpine A110 Legende.
Hong Kong Island is a unique backdrop, and since it’s been recreated at a 1:1 scale, there’s plenty of roads to explore and secrets to uncover. With over a dozen different districts, each area is unique, as you’ll be red lining along highways, drifting along bended roads, trying to keep on track in the mountain trails, speeding down narrow single lane roads and more, all while solo or among friends. With plenty of hidden collectables to find, there’s always a reason to go off the regular path, and with a dynamic weather and day-night cycle, the conditions could change at any minute. Gas Stations, Dealerships, Meetup points and Workshops will also act as fast travel points to get from one side of the island to the other if you want.
As you drive around the island or check your map, you’ll come across racing events all over which vary in type. Some have class or power restrictions, others have specific models allowed only, so if you’re unable to partake in a specific event, you probably don’t have an applicable car to enter with. You’ll mostly compete in Circuit races (eight players on predefined routes in the city), Time Attack (solo race but must beat the specified time), Sprint (cross the finish line without missing any checkpoints), and Domination races (pointes are added each time you pass a checkpoint, with score tallied at the end).
It appears there’s some dynamic difficulty adaptation depending on how well or poor you play, as there’s no difficulty option in the menus. The first handful of races I was dominating, and as I won more, I could see the CPU difficulty start to increase, eventually having (Expert) beside their names. As I stopped placing first, they seemed to tone down in difficulty, eventually going back up to be serious rivals once I started winning again. The issue is that the CPU is dumb and simply stick to their race lines and don’t adjust for what you’re doing, so don’t expect clean races if you’re battling in the first portion of a race.
Due to the always online requirement given this is a MOOR (massively open online racer), you better hope you don’t get interrupted during gameplay, as there’s no pausing the game. Mid race and badly need to use the washroom or answer the door? Consider that race lost. Annoyingly, there’s also no way to quickly restart a race either. You need to instead completely quit out of the race, go back to the open world, start the event up again, let the lobby try and find people, then you can retry the race. You can start races right away from the lobby and it will fill it with CPU drivers if you don’t want to wait for players, but many times I wish I could simply restart a race due to a bad start or corner early on.
Finding the right car for each type of environment and race is paramount. Taking a street racer onto dirt roads is not going end well, and each car handles so differently it’ll take some time to become accustomed to how each drives and performs. You’ll also need to be conscious of not simply slamming on the brakes, as you’ll lock up and skid most likely out of bounds without hope of recovering to win the race. Even in the mid-tier vehicles, there’s a real sense of speed. The world doesn’t blur all around you like in other games, but you’re so focused on what’s coming ahead as you know there’s likely a turn coming up soon you’re going to need to brake hard for. I found each car was a little different of when I needed to brake and how hard, but you’ll get the hang of it after a handful of races in each.
If you want to simply drive and explore the island you can, and even if you’ve not unlocked the races for the next district on the island yet, you can still drive anywhere. There’s still plenty to do on Hong Kong Island outside of regular races, as you can test yourself in Speed Traps, aiming to gain three stars by passing through each with extremely excessive speeds. There’s quite a few of these all over, so try and see how fast you can go through each.
If you want something a bit more relaxing, you can also find car wrecks all around the island, though you’ll need to find a dozen or so of each type to unlock an exclusive car for your garage. Your GPS will start beeping and alert you the closer you get to one, but they are sometimes hidden quite well. There are also hundreds of collectables to find, netting you bonus credits, reputation, clan reputation and more.
As you drive around you’ll notice you’ll also be rewarded for doing certain maneuvers like drifting, speeding, close calls, and driving the wrong way (the island is in Hong Kong, so remember that they use the left side of the road). You can cash in credits after a certain amount of these feats, but if you hit a wall or object, it goes back down to zero. So, if you’re confident in your skills you can keep letting the amount and multiplier climb for bigger rewards, but lose it all if you don’t cash in before you hit an object. It’s an interesting risk versus reward mechanic for simply driving around while not in races.
As you pass by other players, you can instantly challenge them to a race by flashing your headlights with the D-Pad. Doing so will place you in a race with the winner taking the prize money that was bet on by the players. You’ll also meet other players within certain buildings such as the Solar Hotel, car dealerships, Workshops, and Clan Headquarters, a staple of the Test Drive Unlimited experience.
The Solar Crown spares no expense, so regardless of which car you’re behind the wheel of, you’ll have access to the latest AI that will help you navigate GPS and even use augmented reality to show you driving lines and racing paths. Races won’t have side streets blocked off, instead having holographic barriers instead to guide you on the right path, though the mini-map will also be handy to see an upcoming turn. You’ll also have a handful of different radio stations to listen to if you wish, from Rock, Classical, Club and more. Things can change quite quickly too with dynamic weather effects, so you might get caught out in a rainstorm with the wrong tires on.
A racing game is only as good as its cars though, and while Solar Crown doesn’t have the most robust lineup on offer compared to other games, they do have a healthy amount of over 100 vehicles from a number of different manufacturers. As expected, it’ll be quite some time until you have the needed experience, levels, reputation and cash to sit in the Lamborghini’s, Ferrari’s, Bugatti’s and McLarens, starting out with much more modest vehicles instead. It is odd to have a racing game set in Hong Kong, yet barely any Asian manufacturers, as there’s no Toyota, Mitsubishi, and other staples. Every car has been recreated in detail for their outwards and inside views, as well as their unique engine sounds. You can also toggle the headlights, wipers, and even drop the top if it’s a convertible.
There’s technically car damage, but it’s quite minor and doesn’t affect gameplay at all or even look that severe. Crashing into small bushes and barriers will slow you down briefly, as it should, but can easily cost you a race, especially against the harder opponents. Each vehicle has its strengths and weaknesses and performs a certain way. Just as I was quite used to my first car, the Nissan 370Z, I got my next car and it felt drastically different, even more so when you get a vehicle meant for dirt tracks. I found myself attached to certain vehicles, as I was using them quite often to win races until I needed to purchase something else due to race requirements.
This is where the different classes of cars come in. These ‘ranks’ are only purchasable after you’ve reached a certain level and of course, if you have the cash saved. Of course the high-end luxury vehicles are going to cost millions and require a higher rep level, but your first few will be reasonable and won’t require too much grinding to acquire the credits.
You’ll need to keep in mind that you can also upgrade your cars performance as well, which has a cost. Certain parts will unlock at specific levels, then you can purchase them and include them on your rides. These purchases are per vehicle though, so you’ll have to purchase upgrades on each vehicle you want the upgrades on. Workshops around the island is how you’ll do this, and it’s simply done in some menus. I was hoping that there would be some mod kits and visual upgrades as well, but there’s only paint color, interior color, wheels and tint, sadly no spoilers and other parts to visually upgrade your whip.
Progression is quite slow, as you’ll need to grind for the credits to not only purchase the next vehicle you want, but you’ll absolutely need the unlocked upgrades as well, so it can get pricey quite quickly. This results in a lot of races being replayed early on since you don’t have many choices in a first few districts. Sure you’re earning rep and money each time, but it feels as though progression is just a tad too slow in the first few hours.
Another big component of Solar Crown are the Clans. These are two families that are fighting for supremacy: The Sharps and The Streets. These Clans compete with one another, but to join you’ll need to beat one of their own in a one-on-one race. Choosing a Clan opens up more racing opportunities, a headquarters to hang out at, special clothing and more. You’ll be able to rise in the ranks as you earn influence for your chosen Clan by winning specific races.
How do you know what Clan to join though? Both differ in how they express their luxury. The Sharps are more traditional in the sense of driving high-end luxury cars, wear expensive clothing and seem more like your typical rich crowd. The Streets are the opposite, not wanting to blend into the crowd and do what they can to stand out. They utilize an underground nightclub as their headquarters filled with dance music and neon lights, whereas The Sharps HQ is more sophisticated and resembles a fancy bar where you’d order some martinis.
There are special races once you’ve joined a Clan where both clans go head-to-head. These races are the most exciting, as it’s not just your regular circuit race, because traffic is also included, adding a whole other layer of challenges. The number of times I’ve been close to winning a race only to have a head on crash with some traffic, or vice versa where I was able to pass an opponent because they got T-boned. You’ll get bonus influence for each driver you beat of the other Clan faction as well, so it can make for some exciting races.
Solar Crown funny enough shines brightest when it’s in the middle of the night and raining. Here you’ll see the slick wet roads and the neon lights from nearby buildings as you speed by. You’re able to choose between Performance and Graphics mode depending on if you want higher resolution versus framerate. Given the fast-paced racing, I opted for Performance mode for the smoothest racing. The cars naturally look as they should and authentic to their real counterparts, as does the interiors of each. Character models and animations won’t impress though. What’s odd is the complete lack of any foot traffic when outdoors, even mid-day. This makes the island feel hollow at times when you finally notice. Given that humans don’t look all that great, I guess this could be a positive. The real star is the island, as the varied districts make for unique racing backdrops, as does the night-day cycle with the weather changes.
As for the audio, each vehicle sounds unique from one another. Driving my Audi TT sounded different from my Mercedes, and my Ford F-150 sounded nothing like the others. Engine revs sound powerful, you can hear cars coming behind and beside you with some good headphones on, and the loud ‘BANG’ from exhaust backfires always make me grin. The voice acting from the cast of characters you meet are passable, though not great. The radio stations though are what you’ll spend much of your time listening to as you explore the island and was varied enough that it didn’t become stale.
While a required persistent online connection usually wouldn’t bother me, this is clearly going to cause issues for some. Perfect example; as early access launched, my friend who pre-ordered long ago just happened to have their internet go down for quite some time. This meant he was unable to play early due to the forced online component. Also, what does this mean down the line when the community wanes and it’s no longer as popular?
The early access launch has been terrible at the best of times. I’ve had races start only to lose connection mid race, instantly sending me back to the map with no rewards. Another friend was in a persistent crash loop for hours once he was even able to log in. I’m sure these will get sorted, but it puts quite a sour taste in your mouth and was quite frustrating. For a game that has a heavy social aspect to it, I can’t see myself hanging out at my Streets club HQ to chat with other players. I’m sure some friendships will be forged, but I’ll most likely be muting all the players that have open mics or have things to say about my mother when they lose a race.
With the first year of updates already planned and shown, there’s sure to be some cool additions for Solar Crown... eventually, but with the iconic Casino not even arriving until Summer 2025, you’ll need to embrace the grind to tide you over between Seasons. An arcade racer with a heavy social focus is what made Test Drive Unlimited popular in the first place, but in the years since its absence with Forza Horizon releases, the bar has been raised, one that Solar Crown isn’t quite at just yet. Solar Crown has the DNA of what made Test Drive Unlimited so revered, but it doesn’t quite have the same heart yet.
**Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10



It's clear that I’m still just a grown up kid, as the idea of HYPERCHARGE Unboxed is something that just seems awesome. Who wouldn’t want to play as a collection of action figures, battling it out against other waves of toys? The best part is that you can play solo in a campaign mode or alongside some friends, though if you want to play versus one another, there’s plenty of options for that as well. Clearly a passion project by a small team, HYPERCHARGE Unboxed may have been delayed coming to Xbox, but the wait was worth it.
An ancient power source known as the Hypercore is what keeps all of the memories of humans favorite toys. Major Evil wants to destroy the Hypercore though, because, well, he’s evil of course. So it’s up to Sergeant Max Ammo to stop Major Evil and save the Hypercore. This is where you’ll come in, as you’ll need to defend the Hypercore at all costs, or else all those cherished memories of your favorite toys will be lost forever. I couldn’t imagine not having my fond Transformer toys memories from my childhood, so I of course took up arms to help Sgt. Max Ammo in this wave-based tower defense shooter.
There’s an optional tutorial that will show you the basics of the gameplay, though it’s quite simple. Its main mode is a wave-based tower defense where you’ll beef up your Hypercore’s protection with a variety of different traps and objects, then face off against waves of toys trying to destroy it. It’s simple, and most importantly, fun. Aside from running and shooting all the waves of incoming toys, you can also explore the levels finding stickers, coins and other collectables, as well as work towards optional objectives.
Being able to freely swap between first and third person views, you can play however you wish if you prefer one viewpoint over the other. I found myself switching to first person when shooting a bunch of Beyblades and green Army Men, but swapping to third person when trying to platform around the environments. Since this is a bunch of toys fighting, it takes place in our world, so your levels are within a toy store, a kitchen, living room, shed, playground and the likes. This really makes it feel like you’re actually a bunch of toys battling it out while the humans are away and not looking, much like Toy Story.
For playing as a bunch of toys, I didn’t expect the gunplay to be as good as it is. Weapons feel powerful and like they have some punch to them, as a good number of shots will take down enemy toys easily. You have a wide assortment of weapons too, from rifles, snipers, shotguns, flamethrowers, beam guns, grenade launchers, rockets, machine guns and more. They all have unlimited ammunition as well, so no need to scrounge around for ammo, simply reload when needed.
The catch is that you’ll have to explore the levels for these weapon attachments or find them around the stage to purchase with the coins you gather platforming around as well. Instead of actually carrying two weapons, most attachments allow you to place it on the main barrel or underneath, simply able to rotate and swap the barrel to the other ‘gun’ as needed. There’s also sights, handles and more attachments you can find to really beef up your weapon if you take the time to explore, though the default rifle will certainly do the job against regular foes as needed.
The building phase will begin immediately at the start of a match, as well as in between waves. This time is meant to be used to explore the level, set up defenses, gather resources and coins. You’ll also want to be on the lookout for loose batteries, as these are what powers your Hypercore shields. Most stages have three separate Hypercores spread around the map to defend, so you’ll have to keep an eye on them all. While there’s nothing stopping you from exploring and gathering during the match itself, it’s a bit easier to do when you’re not constantly getting shot at.
There are set tiles near and around each Hypercore, and this is where you’ll place your defenses such as LEGO brick walls, poison traps, turrets, spikes, and more. You only begin with a few traps to place but unlock more as you progress and earn match XP. You’re able to repair battered defenses during this build phase if needed, or can demolish what’s there and place something new. Maybe a teammate is short a few credits to place his turret, well you can easily hand them some of yours if you’re so inclined. Teamwork makes the dreamwork. Depending on the difficulty you choose, this will give you more, or less, time in between the waves, and if you’re playing solo, you can have bots on your team to help as well.
The defense time is up, now it’s time to survive against waves of enemies trying to destroy the Hypercore. There’s no map or HUD to indicate where waves are coming from (aside from a handy ‘heartbeat’ sensor weapon attachment if you can find it), so you’re going to have to move from area to area to cover each of the cores. Some enemies are easily spotted, whereas others like the green Army Men, can be a bit more challenging, as they are smaller and they tend to stay ‘dead’ once defeated and toppled over, littering the bedroom battlefield.
Choosing your action figure in the beginning you’re only given a few options, though there are plenty of ways to customize your toy, simply by playing. You can unlock new figures, heads, and skins for body and weapons (though most are simply palette swaps). There’s twenty buildable traps and objects to unlock to defend your base as well, and along with 200 hidden objectives, there’s almost always something to work towards. There’s more than 600+ unlockables, and you do so simply by playing. No microtransactions to nickel and dime you, no terrible battle passes, just play, have fun, and unlock new stuff for your action figure.
While you can play completely solo and with bots, HYPERCHARGE Unboxed shines with playing with friends and communicating with one another. Work as a team, call out enemies or pickups, and strategize which traps to lay. Cross-platform play made it so I was always able to find a match, even in the middle of the night when I wanted to get a few waves in. The difficulty scales with the player count as well, so you can always feel challenged, yet not unfair. There’s even split screen mode for up to four players, a long-lost feature in most modern games.
Playing cooperatively with others is fun, but sometimes you just want to shoot each other for a good time. This is where the competitive modes come into play, allowing for your typical PvP modes such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Battery (AKA Capture the Flag), Infection, and King of the Hill for up to 8 players. Having all these modes was surely a surprise, and never once did I run into any lag issues. Impressive for such a small team.
HYPERCHARGE Unboxed looks as though your toys have come to life. There’s a good amount of different character figures to unlock, and a number of different enemy toys to face against, but the environments are the real star. Jumping around a kid’s bedroom, avoiding burners on the kitchen stove, going down a slide at the park, or jumping across the ceiling fan to reach a collectable all makes it truly feel like you’re a toy in this world. The colors are bright, the framerate is solid, and it simply looked great overall where everyday objects look huge.
The soundtrack has an 80’s/90’s feel to it, but the audio really shines with the weaponry. Guns not only feel powerful but sound it as well. Blasting an enemy with a charge beam rifle sounds great, gatling guns sound fantastic unloading a massive amount of rounds in a few short seconds, and even hearing planes and jets fly overhead trying to bomb you all sounds wonderful with a pair of headphones on. The story sections are done in a comic book style and voiced well across the board.
At first, I was a little unsure about its $29.99 USD / $38.99 CAD price point, but after a handful of hours, I realized I was having fun and I wasn’t being nickel and dimed with microtransactions or asked to purchase battle passes. There are plenty of modes to enjoy, single or multiplayer, and makes for a simple and enjoyable game you can play for a few rounds or number of hours. It’s clear HYPERCHARGE Unboxed was made with a lot of care, and if you’ve ever wanted Small Soldiers to be a game, this is it.
**HYPERCHARGE Unboxed was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.7 / 10



The one issue I have with a majority of smaller visual novels is that they usually aren’t voiced, so it can be hard to sometimes keep my attention late at night when playing after a long day. Thankfully, this isn’t an issue with Read Only Memories: NEURODIVER, as it’s fully voiced (well, the vast majority of it), and has an interesting story that kept me interested until the credits rolled.
A sequel to 2064: Read Only Memories, NEURODIVER is set in Neo-San Francisco and primarily revolves around a new cast of characters, though fans will surely notice a few familiar faces from the previous game. I was initially concerned that I would be lost having not played the first game, but thankfully developer MidBoss did a great job at making it welcoming to newcomers, as it is its own contained adventure yet some references for previous fans.
In this cyberpunk visual novel set several years after the original game, you play as a young Esper, Luna Cruz, known as ES88. Esper’s are those that have psychic abilities, and she works for MINERVA in a special division. An Esper is able to dive into people’s minds, specifically their memories, and as a new agent, ES88 is excited, yet nervous, for her new career as she gets assigned her first case.
Of course, things don’t go quite as planned, and ES88 is tasked with something a bit more serious, tracking down Golden Butterfly, a rogue psychic who is able to hide inside the memories of others. With the help of your cyborg partner, GATE, you’ll set out to try and find out what Golden Butterfly is, but also how to capture them.
While being an Esper gives you special abilities, you’ll need help. This is where the Neurodiver comes in, a bioengineered creature that greatly boosts an Esper’s ability. Appearing like a large shrimp or prawn, the Neurodiver comes along with ES88 in a container of sorts, attaching to her and her subject that she wants to delve into the memories of. It’s a harmless procedure other than feeling a bit cold, though you sadly never get to see this in action.
Neurodiver hooked me almost from its onset with an interesting narrative. With ES88 helping someone try and recall a memory that seems fuzzy and forgotten, you’ll uncover the truth, showcasing what she’s truly capable of. ES88 is young, naive and not quite sure of herself, but across her journey, she has character growth and becomes much more confident about herself and her abilities. Since the vast majority of the dialogue is voiced wonderfully, it was great to sit back and enjoy the story unfolding before I had to do some detective-like work when inside the memories of others.
When you delve into someone’s memory, they are also conscious of what you’re doing, and you’re able to converse with them as well to get clues or to tell you what they do or don’t remember. These memories might be something as simple as gathering with some colleagues at a bar, chatting with zoo goers, or trying to solve something mysterious on a moving train. The environments are varied and done quite well in its pixel art.
When you’re inside someone’s mind and recollecting their memories, you’ll sometimes come across what looks to be glitches. These are the portions of the memory that your subject can’t quite remember for some reason. As you explore and click around the environments, you’ll come across clues that will help you piece together what happened. This simplistic puzzle has you matching one, two, or three clues to match their story, and when you combine the right objects, the glitched memory is fixed and then you can see what happened. Most puzzles are quite easy, though one or two will require a small bit of pixel hunting, as there’s no way to highlight all the interactable objects in a scene. It appears Golden Butterfly is the one causing these memory glitches, but why? Even with these puzzles, it’s a linear story and quite short, with my first playthrough being about four hours or so.
Many visual novels I’ve played have been hand drawn, but with Neurodiver, it’s all a pixel art aesthetic. It’s done quite well, as the environments are varied, bright and colorful, yet has just enough detail that you can tell what objects are supposed to be. It may not be quite what you think when you imagine a cyberpunk narrative, but it fits the setting well.
The real accomplishment though is the wonderful voice acting across the board. Daisy Guevara as ES88 and Amber Lee Connors as GATE get the most attention with the most dialogue, but the voice over quality across the board is done wonderfully, each with their own quirks and personalities that shine through. The vast majority of dialogue and object clicks are voiced, but it’s odd that some seemed to have been missed or skipped for some reason. Ken "coda" Snyder also composes a great synth soundtrack that’s upbeat and lifting, and also more mysterious and fast paced when story demands.
Read Only Memories: NEURODIVER starts out strong with an interesting cyberpunk narrative that had me intrigued with its cast of unique characters, but with a short runtime of around four to five hours, the final chapter seemed quite rushed and made the ending feel unsatisfying since it was just starting to get good. Even so, Neurodiver was still a psy-fi adventure I’m glad I was a part of, even if it didn’t quite and as strong as it began.
**Read Only Memories: NEURODIVER was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.2 / 10



Sometimes things happen for a reason though, and a handful of the original team acquired the rights to Sam & Max, and with the help of other Telltale staff as well, they aimed to remaster these three episodic games, for original fans and new. Having reviewed the first two remasters, Sam & Max Save the World (Season One) and Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space (Season Two), I’m pretty sure I was legally obligated to review the final Season, Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse. Originally released as monthly episodes, Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse combines all of its episodes in one package. Developed by Skunkape Games, their actually named after General Skun-ka’pe, a character from The Devil’s Playhouse you’ll meet in the first episode. The first two remasters were done well and clearly had a lot of people that cared about the series behind it, so I expected no less in this final Season.
You play as the titular characters Sam & Max once again. Sam is a six-foot dog detective in a suit and fedora, while Max is a hyperactive rabbit-thing with a thirst for violence. The are polar opposites but make a unique and iconic duo that solves crime and sometimes even saves the world, with plenty of banter and humor at every chance. Like the previous remasters, The Devil’s Playhouse is broken into its original chapters and can be played in any order you wish, but the story directly flows from one to the next chronologically, so I’d suggest playing it in order.
This remastered final season begins with a narrator telling you that Sam & Max have found the “Toys of Power”. These childish appearing toys somehow give Max a range of various psychic abilities, and if you’re familiar with how unhinged Max can be at times, you can imagine where this might lead the duo. The first chapter revolves around the alien General Skun-ka’pe coming to Earth in search of these mysterious Toys, so the Freelance Police are tasked with sending him to banishment, known as the Penal Zone. There are plenty of returning characters and jokes from previous Seasons as well (like when Max was the President), so fans that have played previous Seasons will have plenty of inside jokes to catch.
Just like previous seasons, much time, effort and care have gone into this remaster. Character models have been updated, lighting improved, new cinematography, new environment design and music. Technology has changed a lot since the original released, so now of course the game also supports 16:9 aspect ratio and 4K resolution as well. It may seem initially subtle, comparing screenshots of the original release to remastered side by side, but it’s simply a better overall experience and up to modern standards.
If you’ve played any of the previous Sam & Max games, you’ll know exactly what to expect; a wacky over the top point and click adventure filled odd characters, odder puzzles, and witty humor. With Max having special toys that give him powers, it opens up a whole new dimension of puzzle solving, as you’ll have to rely on shrinking the duo into a can of nuts, teleporting to anyone’s phone number, or maybe using a ventriloquist doll to get people to do your bidding.
The core gameplay is unchanged, being a point and click at its heart, but modernized for controllers. Majority of the time you’ll be controlling Sam, but can swap to Max when you need to use his toys/powers. Every scene has a number of different objects you can interact with, sometimes useful and able to be put in your inventory for later, many times simply giving you a quippy one-liner about it. If an item goes into your inventory, safe bet you’ll need it to solve some obtuse and quirky puzzle, though you really need to think ‘out there’ to have Sam & Max’s logic. The dialogue tree is the same as before, and even Sam’s face icon will change based on the response you hover over, a small touch that was animated quite well.
This causes some of the puzzles to be a bit obtuse at times. Sure it makes sense to a maniacal rabbit, but to us 'normal people', it can sometimes be a bit far fetched for some solutions. While there’s not a direct hint system, there are subtle ways that the game will help guide you as to what needs to be done next. Sometimes this is Sam possibly saying something that might clue you in to the next step, or you could check his little notebook that also will give you a subtle hint as to what to do. Some Episodes were much more challenging than others, as I struggled with Episode 2’s swapping between reels, having to eventually check a guide when I became stuck a number of times.
The five Episodes are all done quite well and even though I wasn’t a fan of the second Chapter, the others were great as I expected. Episode 1, "The Penal Zone", has Sam & Max trying to stop General Skun-ka’pe once they uncover his true intentions of coming to Earth. Episode 2, "The Tomb of Sammun-Mak", has the duo watching videos of their great grandfathers as they try and find the Devil’s Toybox. Episode 3, "They Stole Max's Brain!", just as the title suggests, has Sam trying to figure out who stole Max’s brain and helping his buddy get back to his normal self. Episode 4, "Beyond the Alley of the Dolls", has the duo trying to stop an army of Sam clones. Episode 5, "The City That Dares Not Sleep", was my favorite and quite a send off for the duo and ending for the Trilogy.
The signature Sam & Max humor never lets up and there’s plenty of quiet smirks to full on snort laughs. Even though some of the jokes are topical and references of the time, they still hold up after all these years. Older fans like myself will surely catch many of these, but younger audiences might not understand some of the pop culture references.
It’s clear a lot of effort and care went into this remaster, making it simply a better version without changing what made it so great in the first place. They might seem like minor improvements, but collectively they make for the best version to experience when compared to the original. Everything simply looks sharper and smoother, and aside from a few minor bugs, it was great replaying these classic episodes once again with my favorite Freelance Police. Voice acting across the board is done amazingly, and the comedic timing and writing couldn’t be any more perfect.
Now that Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse caps off the trilogy remakes, I’m hoping for renewed interest in the series, as there’s nothing quite like its humor, even still. It’s bittersweet to see a game you enjoyed (again) come to its conclusion, though I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the nostalgia trip with one of my favorite duos.
**Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10



A single player first person narrative adventure, Eternal Threads is about changing the past, one small decision at a time, seeing the new outcomes and consequences of each alteration. You’re thrust into a story revolving around six housemates that need to be saved. Thing is, they’ve already all died in a terrible house fire. Altering outcomes one decision at a time, can everyone be saved? What’s the consequences of altering the timeline? I was hooked from the beginning and intrigued with how the butterfly effect can completely change future events.
You’re simple a numbered operative from some time in the future, tasked with fixing a corruption in the timestream. You’ve been sent to a specific house in England, 2015, to a house where six people died in a fire. The thing is, you’re not allowed to simply stop the fire from happening, as doing so has greater consequences in the future. Instead, you’ll need to manipulate choices made by the housemates a week leading up to the fire, aiming to save them all.
Able to freely explore all of the events a week before the accident, you’re able to watch all of the events that happened prior, even alter significant events so that other cascading decisions can be made or occur. While a number of events will be minor and simply give background information on people, this is maybe how you’ll find out a combination or where a key is hidden for a locked door in the house. The major events that can be changed have larger changes in the timeline, altering them, or even having different outcomes completely.
As the butterfly effect states, the smallest decision can have massive changes in the future, and with a week of events to witness and alter, you’ll quickly see how things can drastically change from seemingly insignificant choices. Finding the right combinations of choices is the only way you’ll be able to save all six housemates. Saving one or two wasn’t difficult, but making so everyone gets out alive is the real challenge. Choices and consequences.
As you arrive in the charred house, you’ll set up base with a futuristic handheld scanner that will show you where in the house these events on the timeline occurred. Able to look at the timeline of events, you can choose any event and the scanner will guide you to where it occurred. Here you’ll watch what happened for that specific event as holograms of the people replay for you. Sometimes small details in the house will change based on which outcome you choose, which is a small touch that didn’t go unnoticed.
I’ll admit, the story is quite slow to start and it’s challenging to follow along a disjointed series of events for six different characters, but once you get passed the introductions and know who’s who, it becomes much more interesting, especially when you realize you’ve got to figure out what happened and how you can save them. Over the course of the week of events you’ll start to uncover issues some of the characters have, their demons, trauma, and possible ways you could save them.
It takes a while for the narrative to really to start becoming intriguing, but once it does, I wasn’t able to put it down, needing to figure out a way to save everyone. There’s a point in everyone’s individual story where it goes from 0 to 100 real fast, and that’s when I was hooked. There’s even a shorter abridged version to play if you want a quicker playthrough, but this doesn’t give you the full story and every outcome possible, so I highly suggest playing the full version.
The house has about twenty rooms or so, some locked until you know how to access certain doors. You choose how you want to experience the story and events in any order you wish. I opted to go in chronological order of the week, but if you want to lock to one character only and see their story from beginning to finish, you can. Or jump from the end, to the start, and back to the middle if you wish. Making multiple decisions across numerous timelines is hard for me to keep track of, which is why I chose to view events from oldest to newest.
The house isn’t too large, but you’ll be constantly running from one bedroom, to the next, to the backyard, to the kitchen, wherever the events originally occurred. It’s a little tedious at first, but once you learn the layout of the house, it only takes a few moments to get from room to room. Seeing events unfold as holograms make it obvious that these occurred in the past, as does the rest of the room dimming, making you focus on the characters and being immersed on the conversations. If there are others in the room nearby that aren’t part of the narrative or a vital character, like at a house party for example, they are simply silhouettes.
There are over 150 scenes, so keeping track would be quite difficult if it wasn’t for the timeline menu. Here you can clearly see each event, what time and day it occurred, and which of the six characters are involved, usually multiple of them at a time. A feature I really appreciated was the ‘Event Lock’, where it’ll then only show you the scenes that influence, or are influenced by said event. On the scenes were you can choose a different outcome, this is handy to see what it changed on the timeline as well.
The timeline menu is how you’ll keep track of everything, from the minor events to the decision ones, indicated by different shapes. One of the best features they’ve added is that you can replay a scene you’ve already watched, but just skip to where you make the choice, so you don’t have to rewatch the same parts again. If you really wanted, you could simply make your choices on the timeline without having to go to the room in the house and actually watch it play out. It gives you enough information on what happened and you can see the following events that each choice links to.
There are of course different endings with all of the different decisions you’ll make, and there’s different ways to save each person. Finding the way to save everyone though is the real challenge, as changing one event may make someone else not survive for one reason or another. Manage to get the ‘perfect’ ending, and there’s quite an interesting twist at the end that I quite enjoyed.
Investigating a burned down house knowing six people died in it is creepy at first, but there are no jump scares even though I was expecting them at some point. The house and environment is done quite well, especially when you notice small details change based on your choices. Because the characters are always down in hologram form, you don’t always get a bunch of detail, and while the animations are well done, there’s virtually no expressions on their faces and poor lip syncing. The voice acting on the other hand was done wonderfully across the board, each matching their character quite well.
I could see some players not enjoying themselves since much of the ‘gameplay’ is simply running to a spot in the house and watching some dialogue, but if you become invested into each of the six individual stories and can understand how they are intertwined, it can be exciting to see how each decision changes follow-up events. While there’s no replayability once you’ve experience all of the events and save everyone, it’s still a great play on a weekend for narrative game fans.
**Eternal Threads was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10



While there’s technically a story, there’s not really much to be said for it. On planet Spira, Cat Rascal and her friends were simply looking to have some fun. One day, a portal appears in the sky, bringing chaos to the world. Everyone went into hiding underground, trying to find ways to unravel the portal’s secret. The solution they came up with, building a mecha suit that could withstand the portal’s energies. Cat Rascal takes this upon herself as she dons the mecha suit, giving her the ability to fight back and hopefully return fun for everyone. While I appreciate there was an attempt to have a narrative, you’re going to forget all about it within the first few minutes. You’re a cat in a mecha suit blasting away at waves of enemy robots, that’s really it. Don’t expect any other dialogue or cutscenes, just some chaotic gameplay that never slows down across a couple of different worlds and biomes.
Your new suit grants you the ability to morph into a ball, allowing you to traverse faster and dash into enemies. If you’re reminded of Sonic’s spin dash, it’s very familiar. The levels are set almost like you’re inside a pinball machine, as there are ramps, jumps, bumpers, tubes and more, allowing you to zip around the small enclosed stages as you aim to defeat every enemy as to start the next wave.
There are four worlds, each having three stages, and each stage having three waves. At the end of each world is a boss fight that was bar far the highlight, yet also challenging. Each of the worlds have a different biome and theme, and you’ll fight some new enemies in each, though the structure stays the same and the levels are the same each run. You need to defeat every enemy before you can move onto the next wave, and you’ll eventually earn upgrades and modifiers that improve your skills and abilities as you progress.
Being part twin-stick shooter, I made the mistake of trying to play it primarily as one. This doesn’t work because you run out of ammo quite quickly, and the only way to refill is to dash attack enemies. Played in an isometric view, you’ll always have a view of what’s going on, but things can happen so quickly and there’s sometimes so much happening on screen that it’s chaotic at the best of times. You start with a single weapon, but can hold two, as well as have two abilities.
I was initially only using the ball and rolling to evade enemies, but once you realize that the dash attack is one of your best offensive moves, the game completely changes. After a few runs, I actually started playing completely the opposite as I started, not using my weapons often at all. When you start utilizing the ramps and bumpers to your advantage, it becomes a much more controlled chaos. Rolling is also how you utilize the ramps and tubes that will move you from one area to the next.
Some levels are quite vertical which I found the most fun, but this also makes it harder to keep your combo up. The higher your combo the more currency you’ll earn, which is then used for upgrades just before bosses and on new runs. Other levels like the desert world was the most frustrating, as some enemies will be up on a platform, but you can’t shoot at them unless you’re on the same level, so you need to find the ramp that will launch you in that direction. Trying to do this while keeping your combo going is the real challenge.
With over 25 different weapons, you’d think there would be a wide array to choose from and find a favorite, but they need to be unlocked first. Even with a large selection of guns, they all feel generally the same and I never really found a favorite of the bunch, though it didn’t matter much once I used the dash attack to do the majority of my damage to enemies. What annoyed the most though was how weapons don’t automatically swap when you run out of ammo. There’s also over 20 abilities you can unlock, mapped to the bumpers, which can be quite useful. These range from spinning discs, jump attacks, and more.
Being a roguelike, when you die in your first few runs, you’ll start all over, but can purchase new weapons and abilities and perks with your earned credits. Runs will take anywhere from a half hour to an hour if successful, depending on how efficient and quick you can dispatch waves of enemies. There’s also other characters to unlock, so you do have something to work towards long term.
Before each boss you’re able to spend your earn credits on health refills, new abilities, perks or weapons. There’s only three choices and it’s random which are offered on each run, but the costs seem to be a little too high to be helpful in some cases. Having to usually purchase the heal, this left me unable to buy other upgrades most of the time. With a bunch of passive upgrades, like more ammunition, more damage, increased fire rate, more health, etc, these are great to get, but it doesn’t tell you exactly how much your stats increase.
With how quickly you need to constantly be moving, it can feel like quite a lot at the beginning. The first few runs were overwhelming with how chaotic the screen gets. The colors are bright and vibrant, the neons are eye catching, and you’re constantly moving at a fast pace and dashing from enemy to enemy. Gameplay is very smooth and I had no hiccups even when chaos was happening.
While the dashes, rolling and attacks can overpower the audio at times, the soundtrack is dynamic, seemingly changing to what’s occurring on screen at times. The electronic soundtrack can be mellow at times, then quick paced and frantic sounding the next. When it’s chaos on screen, the audio represents and sets the tone.
Go Mecha Ball surprised me. Half pinball, half twin-stick shooter, it shouldn’t work on paper, but it really does. Once you can embrace the chaos and find the best way to play for yourself, it can be exciting. Feeling like it’s truly an original experience, Go Mecha Ball is a fun trip as you dash from one enemy to the next do it all again in the next run.
**Go Mecha Ball was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10



War Hospital is a sim game, but unlike others I’ve played. Here you’re in command of a hospital near the front lines, making constant life and death decisions while trying to protect yourself from an advancing enemy. A War themed game that doesn’t have you actually shooting anyone, instead trying to save a constant stream of patients, supported by the Imperial War Museum for even more authenticity. Even though it’s War themed, you’re trying to focus on the good you can perform by saving soldiers, but you’ll quickly realize not everyone can be saved.
It's the final year of the Great War, 1918, and you are Major Henry Wells, a retired combat medic, but you’ve been placed in charge of a field hospital near the front lines. You’ll have a constant flow of injured soldiers, not enough staff, and nowhere near enough supplies. But you’ll need to do what you can with what you have, as your allies are counting on you.
There’s actually a decent story to be had across three Chapters, not always something included in sim games. I found the difficulty of deciding who to save quite interesting, as you can read their bio cards, telling you about their history, married life, kids, etc. I’ll admit, I was more tempted to try and save someone that was married and had kids than someone that was not, so I could tell my own biases were creeping into my decisions.
Your main goal is to keep the camp’s morale up, though every time someone dies, gets denied treatment, or a slew of other reasons, it will go decrease. Treatment for soldiers is paramount, but this is difficult to do when you only have a handful of staff and nowhere near enough supplies. This is where you’ll quickly learn you’ll have to prioritize, not just patients, but staff and supplies as well. You’re constantly adapting, trying to do what’s best, but not everyone can be saved. Even though you might not be in the trenches, War is still hell for those at the War Hospital that need to shoulder this burden.
While the gameplay comes down to you pushing paper and making decisions, that doesn’t make the weight of those decisions any less, especially when a dozen patients all come in at once, yet you don’t have the staffing to treat them all. The more you treat, the more you can send back to the front line, but this also drains your supplies, as you have a very finite amount of resources. If you think simply hiring more staff is the solution, you’d be in the same thought process that I had, but I quickly realized that your increase of staff now needs more food, another resource to balance.
You’ll need to manage your staff, their fatigue, recruitment, supplies, everything pertaining to the camp, and it won’t be easy. You have Doctors, nurses, scouts, engineers, and more, all of which are specialized for certain tasks. But you need to make sure your staff aren’t overworked either, as they can only do so much before needing to rest. Fail to give them some time off and they’ll collapse of exhaustion, which takes even longer than a normal rest would have been in the first place.
You’ll constantly have to make hard decisions, choosing who lives or dies. A patient arrives in critical condition that will take 8 hours of surgery to complete probably doesn’t have a good chance at survival, as healing two or three soldiers that are in better shape is usually the better option unfortunately. This becomes more difficult if you choose to read the patient profiles, as you might be more inclined to save someone that’s married or has kids for example. I’ll admit, I was letting my emotions cloud my judgement at times, but once you figure out the best way for the gameplay loop, the profiles generally become irrelevant, as you’re simply trying to save as many as you can, regardless of their individual backgrounds.
A patient whose surgery has a high risk of failing probably isn’t going to get chosen over others I can guarantee survival. Things become much trickier when you have VIP’s admitted to your hospital though. Maybe saving a VIP is worth the risk, as you’ll usually be given a special reward if so. You’ll eventually have to think of the patients as numbers and risk assessments, simply weighing the surgery success percentages and discard the others unfortunately.
If you’re impatient like I am, you’re able to speed up, or completely stop time, but the faster time moves, the more you’ll have to deal with at once. If you’re critically short on supplies, you can order them, but they are quite costly and takes time for them to arrive by train. You’re better off having your engineers build certain buildings so that you can refine one resource into another, though this takes time and resources as well.
As you begin your first playthrough there is just enough tutorial hints that it helps you get started, but there could have been a lot more help. It wasn’t until my second attempt at the first Chapter where I really understood all of the mechanics and had a better go at it, as there’s little room for error. Again, morale reaching 0% is Game Over, and when you’re denying handfuls of patients care or even unable to bury them, morale can plummet quite quickly.
Even hours into my second campaign attempt, I was struggling with the controls. Being a PC game first and now ported to console, it takes some refinement to transition from a keyboard and mouse to a controller. While functional, some more work could have been done to make it more controller friendly. First off, there’s no cursor in the middle of your screen, so when you’re moving the camera around and wanting to click on a specific building, you have to kind of guess and sometimes zoom in so you can see the highlighted building to open its context menu.
Your main hotkeys are tied to the Left and Right Bumpers, but this takes some time to memorize where in the radial menu they are. I also found text a bit small, even on my large 65” TV. The worst offender though is trying to choose your doctors’ rest time, moving it between surgeries, as it sometimes felt like luck when I was finally able to move it. Trying to rearrange multiple surgeries was also a nightmare, not able to easily place them where I wanted without having to completely remove them from the schedule and starting over again.
Saving patients is your main priority, but that will only get you so far. You’re going to need to think longer term, needing a constant supply of resources. There’s a large skill tree that you can invest into, but this takes requisition points gained from saving patients. Sometimes you’ll want to send rehabbed soldier back to the front line, sometimes back to HQ, or maybe even discharge them, it really depends on your needs at any given moment. Engineers will build your researched options, as well as create medical supplies and more, though that means they need to work those shifts, something you’ll need to constantly adjust and balance.
My first game did not go well, as I had staff constantly passing out due to exhaustion. Sure, there’s a menu where you can check on all your staff, but I was so focused on the incoming patients that I forgot. You can eventually set shifts later on, but I found it was simply better to do manually once you get a hang of the controls and know what menus to check up on. By my second campaign I figured out the best course of action and was having much more success, though I wish more strategy was taught to me in the beginning to help.
Being a strategy sim game, the overhead camera is typical for the genre, though every now and then you’ll get a brief cutscene of the frontlines at certain plot points. These cutscenes are actually quite dated and not done well at all. It’s not the focus, but it’s such a drastic difference from the majority of the game and simply doesn’t look great. The soundtrack and voiceover on the contrary is done well, and there’s just a looming darkness and despair from being so close to all the death and front lines.
My first playthrough was a harsh learning experience. I felt as though I was losing more patients than I was saving. Needless to say, I didn’t complete Chapter One my first time as my morale had reached 0%. My second playthrough went much better, as I learned I had to simply not make decisions with my emotions, playing a numbers game, knowing when to rotate staff and upgrading the necessary buildings.
Even understanding the game more, it was still quite stressful, as it should be. You’re not given much time at all to sit back and think, reacting and adapting as needed, hoping you’ll be able to save one more soul. Once you come to the realization than you can’t save everyone, you can play more strategically with your mind and not so much with your heart. Sometimes even when there’s a high chance of survivability, things go wrong, so you always have to prepare to pivot and adjust, as it seemed I would get an influx of patients when my doctors were finally getting some rest.
War Hospital tells tales worth hearing and shows a side of the Great War not usually thought about. While it may not be as exciting as being in the thick of battle in the trenches, it’s a unique side of War that’s equally as important. Do your best to prevent casualties of War, but prepare your heart for not being able to save many.
**War Hospital was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10



You are awoken in a cave by a mysterious voice, unsure where you are. There’s only one way out and forward, so you follow it. Here you learn how to move and jump, eventually being rewarded with a special piece of equipment called The Grip. The Grip is essentially a grappling hook, but can be shot out at a high velocity and will pull you to where it anchored to, much like Batman. Trick is, you can only grapple and hook onto special clay blocks.
Exiting the cave, you’re greeted to an open and beautiful field full of trees, cliffs and a waterfall in the background. You’re not given any direction other than you must make your way to the Grip Shrine, a far mountain in the distance to return The Grip. So you set off on your journey, unsure where to initially go. This is how you start to explore the world around you, simply seeing where you can or can’t go with your new way of traversal.
When you see the clay blocks and boards you can grapple onto, you know that’s probably a way you’ll need to explore, and while you’re not stuck on a linear path, you won’t be able to progress to the next area/chapter until you’ve found a set amount of Relics that unlock the next area.
As you make your way up the mountain from area to area, you’ll reach new heights, overcome new obstacles, and explore outdoor woodlands, underground lava caves, and blizzard peaks. Your adventure begins out simple enough, grappling from one spot to the next, eventually needing to link your grapples from one to the next in succession. There’s even a dedicated button to perform a 180 degree turn for when you need to quickly turn around mid-air.
Since GRAPPIN is played in first person, you’ll have a constant reticule in the middle of your screen, though it’s always rotating and spinning, so it can be a bit distracting at times. The reticule is white the majority of the time, but when you’re close enough to grapple onto the clay, it’ll be yellow so that you know you’re in range. There’s an option to turn on aim assist, which is normal for console games, but it's broken at times here, locking you on to the clay grapple block, unable to move the cursor away, causing me to turn it off momentarily to look elsewhere.
Many times you’ll need to run and jump so that you can get close enough to grapple on a far distant platform, and sometimes you’ll have to simply make sure you don’t fall off a thin walkway, or jump over moving lasers. You’ll always be looking for the grapple points along the map, as that’s generally the way you’ll want to go, but there’s many times you’ll have to go slightly off the main path to find hidden relics.
Relics are the golden skulls you’ll need to find to progress. Each area has a set amount you’ll need to find, most of which are mandatory before you can get through an impassable barrier, though there are some relics that are optional. You’ll naturally find these at times, as they are generally in obvious out-of-the-way places, but with a button press, you can get a list of the Relics in a stage, each of which all have a clue as to where they are in the level. Examples of this may be “In between four pillars”, or “On top the highest peak”. The clues give just enough description to set you in the right direction, but vague enough to not be too blatantly obvious. I better hint system or arrow would have been helpful at times when I've been stuck for a half hour unable to find the last relic.
Some levels are quite large, sometimes vertically, so it can be frustrating when you’ve been searching nearly everywhere for a relic and unable to find it. With more than fifty relics to find, you’ll be scouring each area to find each. In certain sections your Grip will be upgraded into the Trace Grip. This removes any distance limitations and you’re able to grapple right across the map if you can hover over a clay spot with your cursor. These sections are far and few in between, but are the highlight as you swoop through the air to any distance.
Physics are a bit wonky at the best of times, as you do this small little float once you grapple into your target, and jumping is quite floaty as well. You can imagine how this works out when you’re trying to make precise jumps in first person. I was able to deal with the floaty controls, but that was until I got to the absolutely awful second to last level.
This stage has you losing your Grip, so you have to make a bunch of jumps simply running and jumping. I was quite enjoying myself in each stage, challenging myself to find each relic, slowly making my way higher and higher. The last two levels were so awful, it really killed all my enjoyment I had before it. Trying to land jumps in first person while using momentum just doesn’t work well, and being forced to do so in a whole level caused so much frustration that I didn’t want to even continue. While I did progress and finally see the credits roll, I did quite enjoy the twist ending, but I don’t think many will have the patience to get through the last few levels.
Visuals are quite simple with basic geometry, but each biome adds a new aesthetic and tone to keep things interesting. The first few levels were the most beautiful, as I found the others more confined or having to concentrate intently on making my grapple shots instead of admiring the views. The soundtrack is mellow and fits the gameplay, composed by Benoit Malis.
GRAPPIN gets more difficult as you progress, though not always intentionally, as I would fall to my death multiple times due to floaty controls or missing my jumps because of the first person view. It’s a shame GRAPPIN loses all its good faith and momentum with the awful final stages, though I’m still glad to have played through it for that gripping and intriguing ending.
**GRAPPIN was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10



It was inevitable that with the wild success of Trombone Champ, that there was going to be other similar games following right behind. Disaster Band is that next game, but you are no longer confined to a single instrument, instead able to choose from a larger amount than expected, and form a band of up to four players online for probably one of the worst sounding, yet hilarious, bands you’ve ever been a part of. “There's nothing wrong with playing wrong.” Easy to pick up and play, you can expect some hilarity when playing online with some friends, just don’t expect anything close to a Rock Band experience.
Where Trombone Champ was limited to its singular instrument, Disaster Band vastly surpasses that with 15 “instruments” to use. I quote the “instruments”, as some of them aren’t what you’d initially expect, and there’s also very little difference between them all. Sure a guitar sounds different than a flute, but they all sound pretty terrible, which is half of Disaster Band’s appeal.
With 15 instruments to choose from, you’ll recognize the names and descriptions of most, but there’s also a handful that I had no idea what it was until gameplay started and I could see it. There’s no way to see the instruments or hear what they sound like before choosing it and jumping into a song, so if you’re not sure what a Pipa or Timpani is, you’re in for a surprise.
The instrument list is as follows:
- Trombone
- Recorder
- Vocal Soloist
- Pipa
- Chello
- Choir
- Electric Guitar
- Erhu
- Theremin
- Timpani
- Whistler
- Kazoo
- Violin
- Yangqin
- Cat. Yes, you can ‘play’ a cat, and it sound just as you’d expect.
As in any musical game, your goal is to hit the notes at the correct time accurately for the most points. This is of course the main goal, but even when you do hit the notes perfectly, the music in Disaster Band isn’t really going to sound all that great, though seemingly this is purposeful. Regardless of which instrument you use, they’ll all kind of sound terribly similar. This is of course part of the humour of Disaster Band, though if you’re looking for accurate representations of the included songs, you won’t find that here, but that’s also part of its charm. There is three different assists you can choose from, allowing you to play freely, to an almost auto-play mode, depending on how much you want to challenge yourself.
Just like Trombone Champ, you control a small circle on the left side of the screen that you can move up and down to control pitch. As the notes come from the right side of the screen to the left, you need to try and match up your little circle with the oncoming notes that can be flat and constant, or move wildly as you hold the button. Playing accurately gives you more points, playing poorly does not and also makes fart sounds to occur to indicate how bad you’re doing. Juvenile? Yes. Hilarious? Also yes, for the first while anyways. And no, there’s no way to disable this, so get used to hearing a lot of farts while playing the classics. The simple controls means anyone can play without a tutorial, and even if you do hit all the notes perfectly, you’ll sound terrible as a band, so don’t worry about needing to be perfectly accurate.
I’ll admit, the first hour of hearing terrible renditions of songs was entertaining, and my daughter thought it was hilarious, but it does lose its appeal after a while hearing the same limited tracklist over and over again. Sure, the number of instruments can make songs sound slightly different, but this too gets old after time when you’ve played them all a number of times. Every instrument just sounds out of tune, and I’m sure this is purposeful, but this means you won’t hear how a song is ‘supposed’ to sound even when you hit the notes perfectly. Again, this is meant to be Disaster Band’s appeal, it just grows tiresome after a while.
What sets Disaster Band apart from being a simple Trombone Champ clone isn’t its small track list, but rather its Mod.io support. This means you can create any of your own tracks via a PC (MIDI format) and then share them with the Disaster Band community. The 20 or so included songs have some tracks you’ll probably recognize, but the song list is quite weak overall as they are also quite short. I'll admit, I spent almost an hour trying to do a song myself, and gave up. It's there, but it's not simple or foolproof.
The track list for included songs are as follows:
- Alla Turca
- Amazing Grace
- Brother John
- Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy
- Derp Derp
- Family Business
- German Anthem
- In the Hall of the Mountain King
- Maple Leaf Rag
- Morning Mood
- Off to New Shores
- Prelude No. 1 in C Major
- Ride of the Valkyries
- The Blue Danube
- Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
- Gymnopedie No.1
- Silent Night
- Toccata Without Fugue
- Trivial Canon
- We Wish You a Merry Christmas.
If you don’t know the titles by the name alone, there’s no song preview, so just like choosing an instrument, you’ll probably be going in blind for a number of them. There’s also no way to sort or filter songs, though to be fair, with such a small selection it’s only a few button presses away.
The Mod.io integration is what will hopefully make Disaster Band worth it once the community starts to create some songs. There’s only a handful to download at the time of writing this, of which I really only enjoyed one or two and didn’t like the others at all, but of course musical preferences are subjective. There’s infinite possibilities for songs in the future, but judging what was available at the time of writing this, it’s quite bleak.
Another feature that makes Disaster Band set itself apart from Trombone Champ is the inclusion of online multiplayer for up to four people. You can play solo, duo, trio or even as a quartet, with each band member choosing which instrument they’d like to play. You can create private rooms require a code to enter if you want to play with just your friends, or play with random strangers and bond over your terrible musicianship. While I didn’t find a lot playing online, the few jam sessions I did have were lag free. The four positions in the band even take their names after MOBA games (Carry, Support, Mid-Laner, and Tank) for whatever reason.
If you thought playing solo or with a friend had the music sounding terrible, wait until you play with a full band of four. Hilarious yes, at least for the first while. Everyone sees the same sheet of notes scrolling across the page, but the notes you need to specifically hit will be highlighted in green, where all the others players’ notes will appear grey, this way you don’t get confused on which you should be playing. While I applaud the inclusion of online multiplayer, the lack of split screen or local co-op was a downer, as me and my daughter wanted to play together.
I shouldn’t be surprised that the visual esthetics match the audio, as it’s all hand drawn stick figures. I’m sure this was also purposeful, but there’s really not much to look at other than one to four stick figures playing instruments, notes scrolling across the screen, and some background videos that are faded as to not be too distracting. With all the music being MIDI quality, you can guess the quality of the audio as well.
The way Disaster Band attempts to keep you playing is the Mod.io support, though that’s going to fall to the community to create new songs to download and play, of which I’ve not really seen much of yet. The other is making the achievements a slog to unlock, as you need to play instruments for a set amount of time, so you’ll eventually become numb to the out of tune songs and fart sounds by then.
Disaster Band is hilarious... at first. The novelty of playing terrible sounding music is funny for a while, but with such a limited song selection (currently), the gag can get old quickly. The potential for longevity is there with Mod.io support, but that will rest on the shoulders of the community to create, which has not been seen yet. At under ten bucks USD, I’d still suggest waiting for a sale until more song content is created. Maybe my Hot Crossed Buns on the recorder doesn’t sound too bad after all.
**Disaster Band was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 4.5 / 10



Cutter Slade and his dry humor returns to the alien world of Adelpha, and better yet, the original team behind the cult classic has also returned, so you know it’s been created with the right team behind the wheel. Going in blind I really wasn’t sure what to expect, but I came away impressed overall at its lush world and traversal, even if it does fall short in other places.
Cutter Slade, protagonist and hero from the original game, returns again once he is resurrected by the almighty Yods (the native species word for Gods). Returning to find that the Talans have been enslaved and Adelpha is being stripped for its natural resources, Slade will need to figure out what this new threat is and how to stop its robot forces. Slade has made enemies in the past though, and when familiar faces return, they’ll have no problem killing him, and again, and again. It’s a good thing the Yods are merciful and keep resurrecting you when needed.
The overall plot will seem oddly familiar if you’re a fan of the Avatar movies, though aside from just a few characters, there’s none all that memorable, Slade being one of them naturally. The overarching narrative is simple enough to follow, but there’s so many smaller quests, events and optional dialogue along the way that you might sometimes forget what you were initially doing. There’s a number of moments that actually made me chuckle, so there’s some dry humor within if you’re into that, like a great cheesy movie.
The land of Adelpha is quite vast, and you’re going to need to use your jetpack and wingsuit to get around quickly. Starting out as just a way to jump higher, then double and triple jump, your jetpack eventually is like a rocket, able to quickly boost and glide slightly above the ground as you speed your way to your destination. Traversing the world actually became one of my favorite things to do, as it simply feels great to get to the top of a massive tree or mountain and glide across a large section of land freely, reminding me a bit of Just Cause. Once you unlock the ability to truly fly like The Rocketeer, it becomes even better and never becomes stale.
After the opening mission you’re set free in a non-linear world where you can decide how you want to complete story missions. You’ll begin in one town, completing their tasks, eventually branching out to others and then are given the freedom of what order you’d like to complete them. This encourages exploration, and while the world is stunning to look at, there’s little to find outside of each checkpoint and specific point on map where there’s an event to check off the list.
These extra events are worth doing though, as this is how you’ll earn new weapon module upgrades and abilities. That said, it becomes a bit tiresome and they’re all generally the same. Also utilizing similar methods to the way Ubisoft games do, you’ll need to find a portal to show where all these events in an area are, then some are unable to be accessed until you deactivate the shields at another base. This surely does give a lot of content, but it’s the same few events over and over in each area.
You’ll find a portal at each of the main towns, though unable to be used until repaired. There are also a few of them scattered throughout the wilderness, and unlocking these makes fast travel points to quickly get from one area to the next. This is great, but you’ll soon realize that with each quest, you’re simply following the compass from point A to point B, as there’s not much in between in the wild, aside from its beautiful scenery, collectable foliage for potions, and some stray wildlife that will want to attack if you’re too close. Once you realize the majority of the quests are very similar, I just simply fast traveled to the closest point, rocketed over, collected or killed what I needed, then fast travelled back. Those simply looking to get more play time will surely be kept busy for some time, but it became a bit overwhelming midway with a dozen main missions and nearly endless side events to complete.
Slade begins with a simple pistol, small but effective. As you explore the world and clear out certain bases, you’ll find large chests that will give you specific upgrades for your weapons. Combat is quite simplistic, as the enemies are braindead as best, and even on the harder difficulties, you shouldn’t have much issue. Defeat enemies and they’ll drop resources that you’ll automatically pick up once close to where they died.
While I never had to specifically go out and find more ammunition, you can always fall back on powerful melee attacks if you get surrounded. You also have an energy shield to block attacks, but if you engage firefights from far enough, you should be able to defeat enemies before they pose any real threat. You’ll eventually find and unlock a rifle that uses a different type of ammo, so when one gun is empty or overheated, you can swap to the other.
Instead of giving you a bunch of different weapons to carry, Outcast’s way of weapon customization is really interesting and had me experimenting to find my perfect loadout. Completing missions and side events will have Slade find weapon modules. These are used to alter your pistol or rifle in a variety of different ways. With quite a few to select from, I was partial to homing bullets and proxy mines, but there’s plenty of others to choose like spread shots, explosive shots, rapid fire, electric bullets and more. This makes for a lot of different combinations, and you can make some truly overpowered builds if you combine the right mods.
Even further, in your skill tree, you’re able to unlock additional upgrades, allowing for more powerful versions of the mods you own, though you’ll need to spend specific resources to do this, again, earned from combat, missions, and events. The more you do, the more you’ll have to spend and unlock, making Slade more powerful.
There are also upgrades for Slade himself, adding new jetpack skills (get the Wingsuit asap), melee and shield upgrades, and more. While I didn’t use it often, there’s also a crafting component that allows you to turn your gathered plants and meat into more powerful potions. I found the basic resources was more than enough to keep me healed when needed, which is probably why I didn’t spend too much time with the crafting. There’s just enough new abilities, mods, and skill unlocks at a good pace that it feels fresh in new ways as you work on completing Slade’s adventure.
The land of Adelpha is absolutely stunning, especially the higher up you are and just start to wing glide across to your destination. It truly does look like an alien planet and I stopped more than a few times to simply take in the vistas to snap a few screenshots. The world is bright and colorful, full of plenty of details in its dense environments. For how good the backdrop and world looks, it does have graphical issues, even on the Xbox Series X. There’s a slight lag of texture pop in when cutscenes begin, and I’ve seen one NPC’s necklace bouncing around for no reason like they were at a rave. Models are passable at best, even for the main characters, and animations can be quite stiff, especially the poor lip syncing.
As for its audio, Outcast’s original composter, Lennie Moore, returns and creates an absolutely wonderful soundtrack, changing based on what’s happening, if you’re in combat, or zipping across a lake on your jetpack. Voice acting is decent for the main characters, as Slade’s dry humor comes across like a series of great dad jokes, though secondary character performances are quite hit or miss.
You know that B-movie that not many people enjoy, but you just absolutely love it for whatever reason? Outcast - A New Beginning reminds me of something like that. It may not have a AAA budget, and it’s certainly clunky in some places, but I enjoy its 90’s vibe even with its flaws. A beautiful world to explore and enough to keep you busy for quite some time, even if it is busywork much of the time, I’m glad I finally got to have an adventure with Cutter Slade and hope for another in the future.
** Outcast - A New Beginning was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.7 / 10



Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story takes the popular duo from League of Legends and gives them their own single player story-based game. Developed by Tequila Works, Song of Nunu follows Nunu and Willump as they explore the vast lands of Freljord, showcasing their friendship with a lighthearted platforming adventure that really made me enjoy the characters. You don’t need any prior League of Legends knowledge to thoroughly enjoy Song of Nunu, though fans will surely enjoy seeing a few other popular character cameos along their travels.
You are a young Notai boy, Nunu, and the game opens with you struggling in a massive whiteout blizzard searching for your best friend, Willump, who happens to be a cuddly and adorable yeti. This duo of best friends are searching for a magical object called The Heart of the Blue, something Nunu’s mother told him about. As you explore the world of Freljord, a beautiful story unfolds through the special bond between the two friends. With Nunu’s mother also missing, he believes that The Heart of the Blue will guide them to her, so they set off on their wondrous adventure.
While the land of Freljord is beautiful at times, it can also be treacherous, especially the closer they get to their goal of heading towards the Winged Mountain and cross paths with the ice witch, Lissandra. Nunu has vivid dreams about his mother every night, acting as a guide of sorts, but he’s unaware that Lassandra is also always in the background, observing and listening. Unsure what The Heart of the Blue actually is, he only recalls being told by his mother that it’s a weapon of sorts, a way to battle the darkness and cold. Nunu and Willump are determined and will stop at nothing to be successful in their quest.
Being a young boy, Nunu of course wants to play and has a spunky personality, so it’s not uncommon for him and Willump to stop what their doing at certain points to have a quick snowball fight to crown a champion. There are a few different difficulty options to choose from when starting your adventure, even a Story mode where you can’t take any damage in combat, so anyone should be able to complete their adventure, regardless of skill.
A platformer at its core, Song of Nunu will have your duo exploring a large area of Freljord, even if it is quite linear in nature. You’ll be jumping across gaps, freezing waterfalls to climb, and even sledding down a huge pathway from areas as you get closer to Winged Mountain. There’s also some light puzzle elements where Nunu can use his instrument to play a handful of different notes and songs.
Along the way you’ll meet a cast of characters, that if you’re familiar with League of Legends, you’ll surely recognize. Be on the lookout for Braum, Ornn, Volibear and Lissandra, sure to bring a smile to your face if you’re familiar with the cast.
Portions of the game will have you controlling Nunu on his own as he makes his way through smaller areas Willump can’t pass, or maybe climbing somewhere to raise a platform for his best friend to catch up. Willump is smart enough to follow along to show you where to go in these parts, so thankfully there’s no needing to babysit your furry friend. The majority of the time though, Willump will snatch you up so you can ride on his shoulder or back, controlling him to carry you both across larger jumps, fighting enemies, or climbing frozen ice walls.
The majority of the game I absolutely was enjoying myself thoroughly, but in the last portion there’s a stealth element introduced that was a constant source of frustration for me. This last chapter made sense narratively as to why Nunu had to sneak and not be seen, using distractions to get guards to path or look away, but it just slowed down the momentum the rest of the game had to a crawl. That said, the few boss fights were done quite well, with the final showdown being a good challenge yet fun to do.
When the duo isn’t climbing and exploring caves, Nunu will need to put his instrument to good use to solve some puzzles. Your flute can be played with a number of different notes, designated by the bumpers, triggers, and combinations of both. The first few puzzles do guide you through what each symbol means, with arrow or square like symbols, but after a while you’ll need to experiment and simply remember what button corresponds with what note to play.
I’ll admit, this was frustrating for the first handful of puzzles where I simply had to trial and error my way through remembering the combinations, but if you take a few moments to look at the symbols, they do make sense in a way (arrows pointing left means Left Trigger for example). Later on, the songs you play are comprised of six to eight notes or so, needing to be played in the correct order to progress. Eventually I was practically fluent in Nunu’s instrument, playing songs with ease in a matter of seconds.
While there’s not a lot of combat, you’ll mainly be facing off against wolves and other animals that seem to have been corrupted. You have Light and Heavy attacks and a dodge. Once their health is low enough you can perform a finisher by holding ‘Y’, giving a flashy scene with a number of different variations of the best friends defeating said enemy.
Freljord is a gorgeous world of open valleys, ice caves, and numerous vistas to take plenty of screenshots of. Character design is what you’d expect being from League, and the overall aesthetic is quite colorful, bright and friendly. The voice acting across the board was done fantastically, and even though Willump can’t speak, you could still elicit what emotions he was trying to convey with Nunu. The soundtrack is just as whimsical as you’d expect and complimented the lighthearted adventure perfectly.
Nunu and Willump’s adventure was simply a joy watching them interact with each other, and the fact that you can go and hug Willump anytime you want with a button press makes it all that much more adorable. While some story segments I saw coming a mile away, it didn’t matter, as I was smiling the whole way through (until the stealth section at the end anyway).
Even with very minimal knowledge of League of Legends, that didn’t matter at all as a newcomer to its world, lore and characters. Nunu and Willump are an adorable duo of inseparable best friends that I’d enjoy to have more adventures with. If this is the start of more League single player adventures with their more charismatic characters, count me in for each one.
**Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10



As this is a visual novel, the core ‘gameplay’ is simply going through the dialogue, so I will be vague as possible for main plot points outside of the beginning chapter or so, as it really should be experienced without any prior knowledge. The story follows three best friends that seemed inseparable before the pandemic in 2020, but as we all know, Covid changed the world in many ways, including these three friendships when they were separated from one another for about two years with the lockdowns.
Two years in lockdown is a long time, and people change. I can relate to this personally, so I totally understand how people can change due to this. One of the friends, Claudio, has the idea to ‘get the band back together’ so to speak by having a vacation for the three friends at his late grandfather’s villa in Italy. Friends Mida and Andrea agree as this will be a short three day getaway to not only relax, but to reconnect as friends that have not seen each other in two years.
Thing is, people change, sometimes not for the better. What should be a fun and relaxing vacation doesn’t quite turn out that way, but the reason would differ greatly depending on whose perspective. The story takes some serious dark turns, and those struggling with their identity can be heartbreaking. The drugs obviously don’t help the trio of friends when they each have their own priorities of what they want from this vacation. One wants to get back to his roots and family heritage, another wants to simply party and get with someone for some sort of connection, and the other became quite popular on social media during the lockdown.
All have their issues and are in for a wild three days that won’t play out anything like you expect. Each character has a story to tell, as well as living a nightmare at certain points, and while I found it difficult in the beginning to differentiate each from one another due to the similar looks aside from a haircut, I was able to relate in ways to each in their own way once I understood how they were feeling and the reasons for so.
While the story was a bit confusing at first, it eventually comes together, even more so when you play subsequent playthroughs and see all the choices you didn’t make the first and second times. The writing is well done for the most part, even if I do find the characters a little whiney, though they are 20-something year olds, so it might be my older generational view. All of the narrative is accompanied by some bright, colorful and even abstract imagery, and while there’s some erotic and queer undertones, there’s nothing overtly explicit.
Three days isn’t a long time to do a lot of activities for a vacation, so you’re going to have to choose which to do at times, making someone happy and probably disappointing the other friends. Picking the daily activity for the trio sets the story off in different ways, also giving you a special insight into certain characters. Maybe someone not getting to do the activity they want brings out some jealousy, fears, or maybe even obsession. There’s no way to make everyone happy, so it’s usually deciding on which character you want to learn more about, seeing how their choices change the outcome of the story. Like ordering one pizza for a large group of friends, there’s no one type that everyone is going to agree upon, leaving someone disappointed; that’s what it’s like with every choice here.
It may not seem like a big deal to choose between going to the beach or a nightclub, but remember, these people are reacclimating to social gatherings and being around people, even themselves as friends which used to be effortless. Where Mediterranea Inferno really starts to stand out is when you get to experience “Mirages”. These are, to the best of my understanding, a sort of trip in your consciousness after being offered to eat a fruit to experience them from some sort of celestial being. Get enough of these and you’re told you can get into Heaven. I know, this portion took me by surprise too.
These mirages are surreal, giving a glimpse of a fantasy, or a frightening nightmare. These are where things get really trippy, able to navigate panes and click on objects as you find you way to the ‘exit’. These are meant to offer a lot of symbolism, so it can be a little hard to follow at times beyond what you see at face value on the screen. There’s a currency of sorts to collect, able to be used in different ways in these mirages, meant as collectables.
Because of ‘choosing’ one person's daily activity, there’s inherently some replay value if you want to see all of the outcomes. This can be tiresome at first but you’ll eventually be able to play scenes at 5X speed and even later skip scenes all together after certain objectives are met. I went through three times as I wanted to understand each character’s motivation and reasoning, some of which I never would have expected, yet could relate to.
Indie developer Lorenzo Redaelli has done a fantastic job at creating a visual aesthetic that is simple yet has a very clear and distinct style. While I found the three friends to be a bit too similar in their design, causing a little confusion at first, the illustrations for the backgrounds can be like a bright and color abstract painting at times. Every panel is unique and doesn’t use your typical visual novel style. Coupled with its mature and dark themes Mediterranea Inferno was certainly memorable and really leaned heavily into the 'visual' novel. The music was equally as good, setting a certain tone for each unique backdrop and situation, almost as trippy as its visuals.
Mediterranea Inferno isn’t meant to be a happy story with a fairytale ending. It’s a raw tale that’s honest, filled with a bunch of emotion and uneasiness. Some might be turned away by the LGBTQ+ theme, but it was certainly one of the more memorable and unique visual novels I’ve ever experienced and I’m glad to have gone on vacation with the trio of friends, even if the ending(s) weren’t what I initially expected.
**Mediterranea Inferno was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.2 / 10



Have you ever been asked for advice? I’d like to say I’ve got a sound mind for some helpful advice when asked, but what if the advice you gave made the person do something unintended, or they took your words a completely different way than expected? What if the only advice you could offer was between two very poor choices? Do you ever find that you overthink your words when replying to someone? Grotto is about interpretation, so if you’re someone that over-analyzes or over-thinks their responses, you’re going to have your work cut out for you.
A game where you’re playing as a prophet of sorts, a Soothsayer, using the stars and constellations to find hidden meanings and messages. Grotto at its core is somewhat like a visual novel, as there’s not much in terms of ‘gameplay’ aside from choosing a constellation and having dialogue with those seeking your advice and guidance. Your advice has a lot of weight, as your words are like gospel to those that seek meaning and advice, so beware, as there may be unexpected consequences in what others interpret your words as.
You play as the unnamed Soothsayer, residing in a grotto where those seeking answers come to for guidance. Those that come are from primitive tribes, and your ability to read the stars will give them purpose and answers, though what you say versus what they understand may be drastically different things. Your options of responses are based on which constellations you ‘see’ and how you interpret their meaning. Your guidance will not only affect the person your conversing with, but possibly the tribe as a whole.
While you never see yourself, the world is populated with anthropomorphic creatures that can walk upright and speak. This primitive tribe seeking answers has you turning to the stars for answers as they come to your grotto each evening. As you awake from your slumber each night, you don’t have many possessions, only a special stone to stand on to gaze the stars and a small bonfire where locals will come for your advice. How you interpret the stars could vastly differ from how they understand its meaning as well, not always lining up or playing out exactly as you expected. Do you look at each constellation and overthink what each could possibly mean or symbolize, or let your mind freely flow and go with your feelings instead? There’s no right or wrong per se, but different meanings can have drastically different outcomes, from prosperity to possibly even death.
Grotto is the epitome of a slow burn. Events unfold over the 5 hours or so campaign, seeing the outcomes of the advice you’ve given. Each night you’ll have a visitor, you’ll talk to them, then choose which star constellation will act as an answer to their question. You never actually leave your grotto, which is an odd feeling when you start to understand their hardships and plights, even more so when an outcome sounds horrible, only able to imagine what’s happening outside from their tales. While you think you’re helping, sometimes the next day or later the person you gave advice to returns only to tell you something tragic happened, due to how they interpreted your words.
Actually, the majority of the time, the outcomes were nothing that I expected, usually resulting in one of two awful results. A perfect example of choosing a lesser evil is when a parent comes for advice of what to do with their child, either being ritually killed or sold into slavery. Heavy stuff when you legitimately think you’re helping by rationalizing your own reasoning. Be prepared, as there’s some heavy content that should probably have a trigger warning, with themes of abuse, death, torture, and other dark topics. That’s not to say that it’s not done tastefully, but it was certainly unexpected.
As for the gameplay elements, Grotto is set in a 3D world, your small grotto where you can move around and explore, but it’s really just a small room. The characters you interact with nightly are 2D cutouts, and it’s generally always so dark that there’s not really much to see aside from the dimly lit campfire making the cave lightly glow. The character design is well done, and even if you’re not a fan of the anthropomorphic character choices, seeing the different races did make it appear to be set much further in the past.
When someone arrives in your grotto for advice, you’ll listen to their question or plight, then making way to your standing stone where you can gaze upon a small hole in the cave ceiling to see the distant stars. This is where the majority of Grotto’s ‘gameplay’ comes in, connecting stars in the sky to figure out different constellations. This will allow you to ‘read’ the stars and use it as an answer to your visitor(s). How you’re supposed to know what stars need connecting to create and unlock each of the constellations is beyond me. There’s nothing that explains this, so I just started to randomly connect different dots/stars, eventually unlocking a handful of constellations I could then use as answers. Without a guide I’m unsure how you’re supposed to figure out which star connections make each.
Once you’ve unlocked your constellations, great! Well, now the issue is that you can’t simply give the same answer to everyone each time, as after a few uses, it’s no longer a valid option. This meant that sometimes I’d be giving an answer I didn’t necessarily think was the best, but was one of my only options. Turns out you can again connect the stars in the sky, but this wasn’t explained at all either. Thankfully the constellations on your large wall in the grotto show what stars need connecting to ‘get’ it again once unlocked. There are a few moments later where you’ll do something slightly different, like reading bones or going to another plane after smoking something to meet spirits. The vast majority of your time though is waking up, talking to a visitor, choosing which constellation is the answer/advice you want to give them, sleep, then repeat as you see the outcome.
Going through my second playthrough, I expected that given how many different answers you could give to each visitor, the storyline would branch wildly different each time. While I did get some slightly different results, it does seem as though the narrative eventually funnels towards the same direction near its end regardless of your decisions. There is more than one ending, but given how grim most of the results are, it feels almost futile at times to try and ‘save’ everyone, as what I thought was good intentions at times resulting in a drastically different outcome than expected.
While simplistic, I did enjoy the aesthetics for the anthropomorphic characters, they all had their own personalities and designs, yet looked as though they did belong to the same primitive tribe. I’ve always been a fan of the 2D in a 3D world since Paper Mario and Parappa The Rapper, and while a very dark and gloomy design normally wouldn’t appeal to me, it makes sense when the entirety takes place within your grotto during the dead of night. At the same time, there’s really not all that much to look at being confined to a single room. The soundtrack is fitting for its atmosphere, catchy at times even, though could have benefitted from a few more tracks. While there is a little bit of spoken dialogue, it too creates an uneasy atmosphere and tone.
Gameplay is simplistic and rarely changes, and while it is repetitive, it’s more akin to a visual novel. I did make the mistake of playing quite late one night, falling asleep with my controller in hand due to the mellow soundtrack, having the character waiting for my answer for about an hour. That’s not to say Grotto is boring, as it has an interesting premise, but you’re going to need to be in the mood for a narrative heavy adventure with a side order of stargazing and ambiguity.
I’ll be honest, when the credits first rolled I put down the controller and my initial reaction was quite apathetic. I didn’t hate Grotto, but I didn’t really enjoy it either, as I don’t normally gravitate towards visual novel-like games. That said, as I let my thoughts simmer for a day, and especially while writing this review, it just somewhat ‘clicked’ with me, and the more I reflected, the more I realized Grotto was actually quite memorable and how I appreciated what it was going for. I kept thinking of the questions I was asked and how my interpretation of my answer vastly differed from the person seeking the advice. It made me wonder if something similar has happened in real life with advice I’ve given, as there’s usually not always a ‘right’ answer to many questions. While some won’t enjoy the lack of ‘gameplay’, Grotto is a unique experience that makes you think of how you interpret situations and what you would do in times of desperation.
**Grotto was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10



World Tour is the campaign mode where you’ll spend the majority of your time. Completing the career mode will only take a handful of hours, but there’s just enough replayability that you’ll probably have to go back to a few of the races or time trials if you’re striving for 100% completion. You’ll be racing across the world, from the USA, Brazil, Italy, Morocco, Thailand and Japan with over 60 tracks.
Each country is made of three different segments, each consisting of a half dozen races or so. The earlier tracks begin out simple with wide roads and not as many turns, later becoming much more narrow and winding. They are a stereotypical version of what you’d expect from each, and while the color pallets and backgrounds may change, you’ll be so focused on any upcoming corners that it’ll be challenging to appreciate as you speed to the finish in races that last a mere few minutes.
Races will have different times of day and varied weather. While the tracks themselves don’t change - the majority being circuit laps (usually three or four) there’s also the odd point A to B race which changed things up just a little bit. There will also usually be a Time Trial in each segment where you’ll have to put your racing skills to the real test, collecting every nitro and hitting every boost if you’re to make the par time.
While there are a number of cars to unlock as you progress, you’ll begin with a choice of just a few. Each vehicle has a different style (racer, muscle, SUV, hatchback, etc) and their own stats. Given that the majority of Horizon Chase 2’s racing is about high speeds and drifting corners, I opted for the vehicle that had the best handling to start out with, the Hatchback that resembles a Yaris or something similar. Sadly the vehicles aren't licensed at all, but it's pretty obvious which real world car brought the inspiration.
Placing in the top few spots will allow you to progress, and on each race there’s a number of blue coins you can collect. Given that the overall content can be a bit light, focusing on trying to 100% each race is where the value comes in. Your reflexes are going to have to be up to par, as those corners come fast and furious. Wide roads that are about four or five lanes wide make for an easy drift and cornering, becoming much more challenging when only two lanes wide and trying to pass an opponent. Get knocked off the track and you’ll lose all your speed and crash for a moment, just like classic OutRun.
Make sure you don’t lose focus, as one mistake can cost you pole position. You’ll have a few Nitro’s you can use that will push your car beyond its normal max speed, great for passing opponents at a straightaway. I found though that the first or second place CPU would boost just as you start to catch up to them, so it's generally best to let them get ahead for a bit, then boost to overtake on a straight stretch. The majority of the time you’ll simply be holding the throttle down the whole time, though if you’re close to crashing out or missing a turn, you can let go of the gas for a moment. I don’t think I actually used the brake at all now that I'm reflecting. Simply go fast as you can all the time.
As you win races you’ll earn XP, level up, and get to choose an upgrade to permanently boost your vehicle. Each upgrade will have you racing faster, adding another boost, increasing acceleration or handling. At level 10 your car will be fully increased, though each car will have slightly different maximum stats. While the upgrades of your cars are good and all, the customization is what I enjoyed more. You can unlock new body kits, paint colors and rims. You’ll have to spend coins earned to unlock these, which gives you more to work towards, and each car has their own unlocks. There’s only about three body kits per car, a few colors to choose, and rims unlock by completing challenges and Time Trials. It takes quite a grind to earn enough coins to unlock everything, even for one car, so if you want to earn everything for every vehicle, it’s going to take quite some time. I do wish there were more options, as it's a bit light on content.
With online and local multiplayer, you’ll be able to play against your friends, or anyone, regardless of where they are or which platform. Other than career mode, you also have Tournament and Playground mode. Tournament mode is just that, four back to back races of varying difficulty, some of which are actually quite challenging.
Playground is basically what they call their online mode. Here you can race other players online, regardless of platform they play on, as well as some really difficult challenges, like only crashing a certain amount of times, not collecting the blue coins, and other ways to slightly change how you’d normally race. With rotating challenges, there will be new events to look forward to long term.
Horizon Chase 2 is quite colorful, more so than the original game. It has an almost cel-shaded look to it and each country is quite bright and unique. The speed is quite fast and I never had any issues with it all trying to keep up on a Series X. Barry Leitch returns for another great upbeat soundtrack and the sound effects of tires screeching never gets old as you drift at full speed.
While the World Tour may not take long to reach the finish line, there’s enough challenge to try and get 100% completion if you want to collect everything. While I could see myself going back now and then for the online challenges, it may not have the most longevity and replayability, but Horizon Chase 2 was still a fun and stylish sprint to the finish line.
**Horizon Chase 2 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.3 / 10



Set in the land of Arcadia, a civil war is unfolding, causing much turmoil, death, and political sides being taken. With a Queen that is forcibly taking over the throne from her husband, her war now turns into the kingdoms. Two lovers and fighters, Desmond and Vashti, are brought together during this conflict, but as events unfold, their views vastly differ from one another when a princess aims to take back her rightful throne from the Queen who will do anything to keep her power.
Part love story, there’s also another plot about something dark and ancient awakening when a mysterious mage meets a young girl. The power they access has the potential to destroy everything in Arcadia once these magical cards are unveiled and used. What starts out as a nation tearing itself apart and dividing, turns into something much more serious and larger in the latter half. The main characters are interesting enough, and there’s just enough story that kept me interested until the end, wanting to see what happens next after each battle.
As is normal with the TRPG genre, victory will require a lot of turn based strategy and planning. Most battles will involve your team of 5 (though there are some missions that allow you to use more or less) against soldiers, animals, and monsters. You’ll need to level up your characters, outfit them with upgraded gear, take on side quests, recruit more units, and of course, strategize what’s the best way to success.
Between battles you’ll be able to move across and overworld map to set points. In towns and cities you’ll be able to enter a tavern to check out the latest gossip, recruit new units to your team, and buy/sell gear for upgrades if you have the money for it (which won’t ever really be a problem). Every time you enter these areas or a battle, you’re greeted with a “LOADING SCREEN” for a few moments. Yes, it’s literally called that as you see your character sprites animate and the bar quickly load. Even on an Xbox Series X these were quite often, though not terribly lengthy.
Before delving into the meat of Arcadian Atlas and its combat, something worth mentioning is the controls and battlefield. Menu controls are fine, even if some options and such are somewhat hidden and not intuitive (I keep forgetting where I need to spend my special medals earned for bonuses). Moving your cursor on the battlefield still tripped me up after a handful of hours. Moving the cursor in the exact tile and direction you want can be challenging, not just because of the isometric view, but you’re unable to rotate the battlefield at all, even though it appears to be 3D.
Not being able to rotate the map wasn’t too much of an issue most of the time, but when there’s a tree or object in the way, it’s sometimes hard to tell where a unit is behind it, or what tiles are currently being affected by damaging fire or other buffs/debuffs. If there was some way to even only show certain ‘heights’, it would have been a welcome addition. The result is sometimes you are simply guessing your move since your view is obstructed and there’s nothing you can do about it, which isn’t very strategic.
With twelve different classes, there’s plenty of variety to choose to suit your playstyle. Well, kind of. There are four base classes: Cavalier, Warmancer, Ranger, and Apothecary. Cavaliers are your knights, wielding a large two-handed sword, or one handed and a shield. While you’d assume they are tanks and can take a beating compared to the lighter armored classes, I never really found that to be the case. Wamancers are your mages, able to conjure fire, ice, or lighting attacks. Rangers are bow and arrow wielders that can shoot from afar. Lastly are the Apothecaries, able to attack enemies or heal allies with tossed potions.
The best part of Arcadian Atlas that I enjoyed was its leveling system. For each character that takes part in battle, they’ll earn a level when you succeed. No need to fill an experience bar, simply use the units you enjoy and they’ll level up each battle. The flip side to this means that the units you don’t use will stay low level, but this isn’t much of an issue either. Whenever you recruit a new unit, they’ll be equal to your highest character, and since you’ll generally use the same units most of the time, you can freely try new builds and classes for a nominal cost of hiring the unit.
Each of the four base classes can be promoted into one of two master classes once a certain amount of skill points are spent. Cavaliers can be upgraded to Inquisitors that are good at battling undead and use holy attacks, or Ronins that use trances and gain bonuses from losing control. Warmancers can be promoted to Sorcerers, able to cast powerful nuke spells, or Druids, using nature and traps to their advantage. Rangers can choose to be either a Hunter, a ranged class still but with an animal companion and traps, or a Reaver that stabs enemies then disappears, like a ninja. Lastly, Apothecaries can become Monks that can punch or use their energy to heal or harm, or choose a Shaman that can sacrifice friends to damage enemies.
When you promote a character to a new class, they still retain all of their abilities from the base class, so there are some interesting builds you could experiment with if you wanted to find what works best for you. That said, melee classes are basically worthless. Any ranged class is able to 2-3 shot an enemy, whereas it’ll take that many moves just to get close enough to attack with a melee class. This was disappointing given the two main characters start out as knights, though there is a way to change their classes later if you wish. Since you’re not forced to use the main characters in battle, you can simply choose to ignore them if you wish as well, which I found odd. There’s nothing special combat-wise about the main characters, as they get no extra or cool abilities, nor any special stats or gear. They simply look different than your cookie cutter recruitable units.
For being a game that’s all about tactics and strategy, Arcadian Atlas fails this at the start of every battle. You’re told how many units you can place on a pre-set number of tiles on section of the map, the problem being is that you can’t see where the enemy units are going to be until you start the battle. This means you have to simply guess where enemies may spawn and place your units accordingly. There’s no undoing this either, so it’s either an unfortunate oversight or poor design flaw. Again, guesswork in a strategy based game.
As mentioned above, not being able to rotate the map really can hinder you at times, especially when an object is blocking view or you have a few units all together in the same area. The reasoning for this is that apparently the map is actually 2D, but it appears 3D because of the isometric view; still a shame nonetheless.
In many tactics style games, turn order is an important factor to think about. Usually you can opt to not move as far, or defend, to gain a bonus and move a little further ahead on the turn rotation. Not here though. Defending because you can’t reach an enemy to attack won’t have your next turn come sooner at all, nor will if you opt to stay still for your turn. The turn order is set and there’s little you can do to change it aside from a few special abilities from certain classes.
Thankfully friendly units can’t get in the way and block attacks, but you can absolutely buff an enemy if they are on a tile your spell will hit, as well as hurt your own units if you do the same with a damaging spell. If your unit does end up losing all their health, they’ll have 3 turns before they are completely dead. Thankfully a few classes can heal or even revive units.
Height also means nothing on the battlefield. You can have a unit at the top of a steep cliff and they can simply jump down or move from it. Verticality doesn’t change the hit chances or block line of sight at all, which looks silly if you’re using a melee attack to hit an enemy on the roof from the ground. Simply choose all ranged classes, focus on one unit at a time, and every battle will be over quickly.
There’s an elemental system in place where one status effect makes a unit weak to another, but I didn’t really rely on this much aside from accidentally doing so. There’s seemingly no real flanking system in place either. Apparently there’s a bonus but I never found it to be substantial enough to be noticeable since almost every hit always lands anyways. All of the above make combat feel dull a majority of the time, even the few boss battles weren’t challenging.
Because you earn so much money from missions and sidequests, you’re able to constantly buy the best equipment for all your units. You can purchase a main weapon, secondary (if equipable, like a shield), helm, chest, and accessory. Every few missions the store will get new items, but you have to check after each battle as it doesn’t tell you. Each better upgrade simply increases the stats a slight amount. I was hoping there would be some unique gear or something specific for certain classes, but nothing that intricate unfortunately.
While not game breaking, I did have a bug that occurred more than a few times. For whatever reason sometimes a specific menu would get stuck, like checking my units’ stats. This overlay stayed on top of the other menus, so I was unable to use other menus beneath. This caused a complete close of the game and a restart. Normally a small bug like this wouldn’t bother me, especially from such a small team, but it happened at least a half dozen times, enough to warrant a mention.
For all the issues I take with the combat mechanics, I will say, the pixel artwork of Arcadian Atlas is done quite well and beautiful. Animations are varied, you can see small details and expressions from characters, and the world is bright and colorful. Each of the maps are varied and showcase different biomes as well. While the music is decent, the jazz-like soundtrack does feel a tad out of place at times, not always matching what you’d expect from a battle against a pack of enemies or a boss.
It's clear that Arcadian Atlas is a love letter to other greats in the TRPG genre, it has just as many things that I liked that I didn’t as well. Loved the leveling system, but combat overall was repetitive and tedious, lacking much of a challenge. Aesthetics are wonderful and animated quite well, yet the soundtrack is completely forgettable and doesn’t always match the tone of what’s on screen. I enjoyed Arcadian Atlas overall for what it is, an indie tactics style RPG, though probably more than I normally would as it’s been years since I’ve played a great one, but it’s got a ways to go to be considered alongside the greats of the genre.
**Arcadian Atlas was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10



Lara Croft is a gaming icon. She is right up there with the likes of Mario, Master Chief, Pac-Man, Sonic, and others, and for good reason, as her first three games were absolutely fantastic for the time. There really wasn’t much else quite like a Tomb Raider game in the era. You had a female lead that was badass with dual pistols, exploring ruins and tombs by climbing, jumping and flipping, while also finding treasure and uncovering secrets along the way. Now older generations of gamers like myself can revisit the classic Tomb Raider I – III entries, and newer gamers can also experience what gaming was like in the mid to late 90’s, albeit with a pretty decent glow up in the visual department.
Tomb Raider I – III Remastered has developer Aspyr behind it, the ones responsible for the first handful of Tomb Raider entries being ported to Mac, so it’s not their first outing with Lara. Even better, it’s a full experience, as now the bonus expansions and bonus levels are all now included as well, a first for console if my memory serves right. Having never played the expansions for the first three games, I was quite excited to try out some ‘new’ content with Lara’s adventures. Given that the games have been out for nearly three decades, this review will more focus on what’s unique with the Remastered content. Fret not though, the core gameplay is virtually unchanged, with Lara searching for artifacts and uncovering secrets among ruins and tombs, all while in third person.
So by the title alone, you can probably discern that the first three Tomb Raider games are included, though with the expansions mentioned above as well. You can freely choose from Tomb Raider (1996) + Unfinished Business, Tomb Raider II (1997) + Golden Mask, and Tomb Raider III (1998) + The Lost Artifact. If you’re an old school Tomb Raider vet like myself, you’ll be happy to know you can also start directly on the expansion content for each title should you wish. Given that I’ve completed the original Tomb Raider games numerous times back on PS1, I really wanted to see the content I never got to experience.
What’s going to garner the most attention from this Remaster is no doubt it’s visual improvements. Nostalgia is funny, as you can remember things much better than they actually were. Case in point, being able to instantly swap between new and classic graphics was quite an eye opener. What I remembered in my head was drastically better than what it actually was. Funny enough, I swear I remember the game looking as great as it does now with the improved visuals, not the actual original version. If you yearn for classic Tomb Raider, you can swap to the original graphics whenever you like, and back again to the updated, much like how Halo: The Master Chief Collection did, though practically instantaneously.
Remember how cool the FMV cutscenes were, but the gameplay looked drastically different? Well now the games look much more in line with the FMV quality of aesthetic. Not only is Lara’s model improved (gone is her pyramid chest), the textures, animations and lighting have also been completely redone as well. The odd thing you’ll notice almost right away though is how the environment textures look vastly improved, but the actual sharp edged geometry is still in place, regardless if using new or classic graphics. You stop noticing it after a while, but the improved framerate is quite a difference, as swapping back to half the frame rate with old graphics is a bit jarring at first.
Until swapping back and forth between visual modes, I forgot just how dark the original versions were. I get it, you’re in caves, tombs and ruins, but it was quite a challenge to see where to go at times. Thankfully the lighting has also been completely reworked and changed when in Remastered mode as well. While overall the lighting was much more natural and brighter, there were a few spots where I had to swap to the old graphics to see where I was going, using the toggle somewhat like a flashlight. This wasn’t often, but enough that it’s worth mentioning, and I’m unsure why in one mode it would be pitch black, but fine in the other.
The second biggest change is with its controls. For its time, tank controls weren’t all that uncommon, most notably the style used in Resident Evil, though I’ve never been much of a fan. It worked though with Tomb Raider since you had to take your time to line up jumps just perfectly, and these classic controls are also an option if you want the true classic experience. Just like the visuals though, you can opt to play with a Modern control setting. This is much like any common game these days where you move Lara with the Left Stick and the camera with the Right. I of course opted for this as I wanted to see how it would improve or change the game. Surprisingly, while functional for the most part, it wasn’t nearly as better as I expected for a variety of reasons.
A big part of the original games was lining up Lara to ledges and having the perfect amount of running space before making a leap. This is much more difficult and convoluted to do, though not impossible, with the newer control scheme oddly enough. This meant a lot of missed jumps, falling off edges, and trying to remember which button combinations did what. For the platforming portions, classic tank controls felt much better overall. But I’m stubborn, so I opted to generally stay with the modern controls, as this is a new experience. I’m a glutton for punishment, what can I say? Modern controls for combat wasn’t much better either, as whipping out your pistols also automatically locks onto enemies. When you need to fight multiple enemies at once, it becomes a chaotic mess nearly every time as the camera flips or you lose tracking of your target.
One of the better improvements though is the ability to Save and Load at anytime you wish. About to make a leap you aren’t sure you’re going to land? You better save so you can reload where you just were. While the menu system is clunky and convoluted, it didn’t seem as though there was any autosave system in place, as I forgot to save in about a half hour or more, only to mis-jump a gap and have Lara die. Yup, it put me back at my last save a long time ago. Lesson learned, mostly. Some sort of rewind function would have been quite handy for moments like these.
A few other smaller but notable additions is that bosses now have health bars above their heads so you can see exactly how much of a bullet sponge they are. The photo mode is handy for some scenic pictures, but I’ve also used it to move the camera around an area and see if I could notice any hidden collectables in spots I maybe missed going to. And lastly, there are well over 200 achievements. I completely expected most of them to simply be your typical “Beat Level X” unlocks, but there’s actually some interesting ones that may have you trying something different. And yes, you can still lock your butler in the freezer should you wish. It’s ok, we’ve all done it.
Classic Lara platforming returns, and even though the modern controls seem a bit confusing when compared to classic, our hero can still leap, climb, backflip, side flip, roll, swim, dive, push and pull blocks, and more. The smooth and updated graphics does look great, though the very sharp and rigid environments make for a stark contrast at times. It’ll take some getting used to how ‘slippery’ controlling Lara can be with the Modern controls, as will remembering to save as often as you can to avoid any unnecessary replayed sections.
The old vs new graphics are quite impressive, especially when you can instantaneously swap on the fly at any point. While textures are more slick and modern, the lighting can be hit or miss, sometimes requiring a swap to the other mode to see where you are or going at times. It’s a little odd to have the classic level geometry but everything else has been improved, but I can only assume it’s because of the core platforming gameplay that it needed to stay as is. This is a remaster and not a full remake after all. From what I could tell, the audio went unedited, which is fine since it sounded great in the first place, but it would have been cool to have this updated as well.
Remastering beloved games is a balancing act of remaining faithful to the original games, yet improving just enough for new fans to enjoy as well. While it doesn’t stick the landing in every aspect, and as a Remaster it does feel a tad bareboned without much extras, it’s fascinating to see how far the series has come and how nostalgia distorted my actual memories. Not all things about the original trilogy has aged very well, but the glow up is quite a welcome addition and Lara looks great as ever.
**Tomb Raider I-III Remastered was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10



Reviewing gives me an opportunity to play games I would normally never look at or take notice of, and the original Hellblade was one of those occurrences where I wasn’t really paying it much attention before launch, but happened to fall into my lap come release. It ended up being my personal Game of the Year that year for its unique narrative driven experience, and even all these years later, I still think of the game now and then.
Here we are seven years later, and with Ninja Theory now owned by Microsoft Studios, the long awaited sequel has finally arrived. There’s been a few promos and trailers, but there really hasn’t been much marketing or content shown for Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II outside a few spots. While this didn’t make me nervous, as Ninja Theory more than proved themselves in Senua’s first outing, there’s always that question mark, if lighting can strike twice.
All of the love and care that went into crafting the first game has clearly been not only retained, but vastly improved. Still a narrative driven action game that revolves around mental health, the sequel looks to amp things up even further, and they've more than succeeded in every aspect. Senua’s journey is once again going to be a brutal affair as she battles dark forces in reality and in her own mind. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II aimed to create the new standard for exclusives on Xbox Series X, and they’ve done more than just that, raising the bar across nearly all facets of visuals, audio and gameplay.
While it’s recommended you play the first Hellblade to really understand protagonist Senua’s character and growth since Hellblade II takes place following the original’s ending, some backstory will give more context into her condition and suffering. That said, there is an included re-cap video crafted to explain the events of the first game so you’re not completely lost if new to the series.
Senua’s original journey had her battling to the gates of Hellheim to try and save her dead lover’s soul. What makes Senua such an interesting character is that she suffers from psychosis, a form of mental illness. This makes her internal battle just as difficult as the external one in reality. A Celtic warrior from the 10th century, Senua’s journey is now leading her to Iceland so she can stop the Vikings who raided her village at its source.
While I don’t suffer from psychosis, both Hellblade games have now given me a basic understanding of what Senua must be dealing with on a constant basis. Hearing voices in your head constantly, seeing things as almost an alternative reality, and even simply understanding situations differently than most is common. Ninja Theory has taken extra care to recreate what these experiences must be like from someone who suffers with it, and like the first game, they’ve worked closely with doctors, scholars and even actual people who live with this mental condition. This realistic depiction is done with the utmost care, and with the latest technology, taken to whole new levels in this sequel.
This next chapter of Senua’s story is even more cinematic than before, raising the bar for visuals and audio to a level I’ve never experienced elsewhere before. With Senua finally making peace with her past and her condition, her perceptions and voices she hears aren't any less apparent, the difference now being that she’s learned how to not let them fully consume her, not let them fill her rage or depression at all times. She doesn’t fear the visions and voices any longer, which is impressive given the visions she sees and the constant whispering in her ears, acting like a narration of what’s happening. Facing a new type of enemy, the Draugr, Senua will also find new allies along the way, each of which I thoroughly enjoyed their story arcs and personalities.
I’m only going to mildly touch on story aspects given how narrative heavy her journey is, as its best left as a surprise if at all possible, but you can expect to take roughly 8-10 hours to see the credits roll depending on how long you search for collectables, take in the scenery and play with the photo mode for some amazing screenshots. Senua’s Sacrifice: Hellblade II doesn’t overstay its welcome at all, nor does it feel padded to artificially lengthen its gameplay. It’s a closed and linear story, but that’s also why it’s the amazing experience that it is, because of that focus. While there’s no New Game+ mode after completion, there is something interesting you unlock that I will surely play again through to experience, but am leaving that a surprise for you to find out.
Before you begin Senua’s journey, check out the options, as there’s plenty to set based on your preferences or accessibility needs. There are difficulty options for combat, but it goes a step further, allowing you to have Full control, Simple that will automatically use the best attacks and proper defenses, or if needed, full on automatic play. Combat was somewhat a challenge in the first game, so it’s great to see that if that was a barrier before, you won’t have to essentially worry about combat and still be able to progress.
There are three different Color Blind options (Deueranope, Protanope, and Tritanope), subtitle options, text sizes, button preferences (tap versus hold versus auto). With audio being a massive focus, you can change the mix from voices, sound effects and more. If you suffer from motion sickness, you can also change the motion blur and camera bobbing. There’s an impressive amount of accessibility options, so anyone should be able to enjoy the game regardless of any potential accessibility requirements. One option I highly suggest toggling is the walk/run to ‘toggle’ instead of the default ‘hold’, or else you’ll need to hold a Bumper button the whole time you want Senua to run (more like a brisk walk compared to a leisurely stroll).
Gameplay is similar to the first game, and while it may be linear, that by no mean diminishes its experience, fitting the narrative focus. With no HUD and no markers showing you where to go, you’re completely engrossed in Senua’s world. There are some subtle ways the game leads you in the right direction, like seeing some white paint or scuffs on ledges you can interact with, or following the light in a near pitch black cave. The narrative flows so smoothly that you don’t even know what chapter you’re currently on, as it’s all done cinematically. There’s no cutaways or text on the screen announcing chapters, again, fully immersing you in its own reality. Even the change from cutscene to gameplay is indistinguishable until you learn its subtle camera tricks indicating when you have control back of Senua.
While designed linearly, there are odd small paths you can explore, possibly finding pillars that have runes on them. These light up when found, indicating how many you’ve found along your journey. These give you some background lore and a small story told to you, fleshing out Senua’s world even further. While optional, there’s something you can unlock after completion if you’ve found every hidden collectable.
For those virtual photographers, you’re going to be very excited for the control you’re given with Hellblade II’s photo mode. You’re given a huge amount of tools, not just from moving the camera, but adding lighting sources, hiding characters, enabling or disabled background animations like weather, filters and more. What I didn’t expect was being able to enable photo mode during cutscenes, which made for some really interesting peeks behind the curtains so to speak. I fully expect to see some incredible screenshots, and the dozens I took were simply of the gorgeous backgrounds and Senua in the environment.
Puzzles return, much like Senua’s first outing, though not quite as heavily as before. There’s two different types of puzzles, what I call the ‘sign’ puzzles from the first game, and ‘orb’ puzzles. Every so often you’ll come across a door or pathway that becomes blocked as you approach. It will have a specific symbol on it, and the ‘key’ is to find the same parts of the symbol in the world. For example, maybe you need to find a symbol shaped like an “F”. Well, standing in a specific area and looking in a direction might have some debris or tree branches line up to form that symbol, unlocking part of the doorway. Finding the right spot and angle is key here, and you’ll know you’re in the right area when you start to see glowing symbols floating all around you. If you played the first Hellblade, it’s virtually identical.
The orb puzzles have you shifting reality to pass specific blockades or areas. In reality you might see a simple wall, but part of it has a strange glow to it. Find the nearby floating orb and this will distort reality, almost like a secondary plane, making that part of the wall disappear. Find another orb to swap back realities and the wall reappears. The later puzzles will have a few you need to trigger in a specific order to go from area to area, but none really stumped me for too long.
Senua’s journey isn’t an easy one, and along the way she’s going to have to fight in some brutal combat. There are light and heavy attacks, along with a block and dodge, but he biggest change from the first game is that Senua will face foes one at a time, almost like a gauntlet of enemies. Some may see this is a step back, but I remember becoming frustrated in the first game’s combat due to being constantly surrounded by enemies. This drastic change allows for a much more cinematic feel, being slower paced but no less brutal. Senua isn’t a superhero, she fights to survive and doesn’t hold back, and nearly every battle can feel like her last, especially when you’re fighting the tenth enemy in a row. Combat tells a story, not just showcasing her brutality and combat skills, but her desire to survive even when fearful.
One big change from the first game is the bosses. While they exist here, they are quite different than what you might remember from the first game. I’m not going to spoil anything of what to expect, but they aren’t your typical ‘boss fights’ that the first game had. That said, these were some of the most memorable sequences in the whole game, something I know I’ll be thinking of and remembering for some time. It’s different, but it fits Senua’s journey and is pulled off very well.
Unreal Engine 5 is showcased fully in Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. The first game seven years ago impressed, and somehow Ninja Theory has taken it to a completely higher level. "Photorealism" sometimes gets thrown around a little loosely, but the facial animations of every character, especially Senua, embodies the photorealism terminology. Those with ultrawide screens will be happy to know that there’s support, and on a standard 16:9 TV or monitor you can expect an anamorphic camera with 2.39:1 aspect ratio. This means there’s a black header and footer, giving a cinematic feel.
With no UI or HUD, you’re engrossed in Senua’s world, not simply following a marker or icon to your next objective. This helps make it feel like a cinematic experience, more than just a ‘game’, it’s a playable cutscene. The original game was motion captured in two days, but combat alone in Hellblade II took 69 days; this alone should tell you how much effort has gone into improving every aspect, down the smallest details. The smallest details from Senua’s movements are realistic, and watching behind the scenes videos, you can see why. Even her outfit in game was created in real life so the actress could wear it and have it be as realistic as possible. I’d argue that the smaller details are even more important than the general visual improvements. I never saw any instances of clipping, as Senua’s hair and even clothing reacts realistically based on her environment and movements. Everything is just so fluid and natural, from facial movements where you can actually see emotion from a small squint in the eyes, to the natural movements in combat when Senua gets knocked down and must get back up before it’s too late.
The environments are equally as beautiful and hostile. Even in the darker scenes, there’s beauty to be had, then when you’re outside and the sun is shining, it’s hard to not snap a few vistas for its beauty. The real world is gorgeous, and the visions that Senua sees and experiences are just as mesmerizing. Lighting in each environment also feels natural. Fighting in the darkness with just a few torches in the background gives an uneasiness, where seeing a mysterious light shine through a cave entrance provokes wonder and beauty.
Ninja Theory is pushing the boundaries of realism, and the motion capture work from all the actors involved needs to be specifically pointed out for how real and raw their performances where, especially from heroine Senua. So many small details makes for a realistic performance, and I could tell how Senua was feeling simply from the smallest facial movements. Even the camerawork feels like a Hollywood level of immersion and professionalism, again feeling incredibly cinematic at all times, not just in cutscenes.
For how impressive the visuals are, the audio experience is even more so. The voices in Senua’s head that are a constant are called furies. They are always there, and while the audio in the first game was incredible, again, Ninja Theory has upped the bar in every way. First and foremost, if at all possible, play this with a pair of headphones on, any pair, but the higher quality, the better. Binaural audio makes the voices in Senua’s head sound so incredibly real, it’s as if they are voices in your own head. While Binaural audio isn’t a new technology, it seems they’ve perfected it, hearing voices distinctly in one ear or the other, appearing as if they are all around you at times. This is produced from a dual microphone setup, and in some behind the scenes videos, you can see performers Abbi Greenland and Helen Goalan circling the microphones as they deliver their lines which gives a 3D sensory experience. This constant narration was something that haunted Senua previously, but she’s clearly learned to deal with their presence.
In the first game only these voices were binaural, but now it’s everything audio related, even the music and background. I swear I thought it started raining heavily outside during one sequence that I took my headset off only to realize it was in game. For how realistic the visuals appear, the audio is on the same level of realism. Even smaller details are highlighted and noticeable, from Senua’s footsteps, a crackling fire, and even waves crashing in the background. Audio Director David Garcia performed something incredibly special in all of Hellblade II’s audio aspects. There’s even a streamer mode you can enable if you’re worried about DMCA strikes if you plan to broadcast to others.
Then there’s the performances from all of the talented actors. The voice acting across the board is nothing less than flawless. Melina Juergens reprises her role as Senua, and does an absolutely unbelievable performance as expected. Every line delivered, to her combat shouts and grunts, Senua’s motion captured and acting comes together in a completely believable performance that made me feel for Senua even more than before. Performances from everyone else are just as amazing, from the voice of Senua’s father belittling her abilities and trying to make her question her own motives, to your new enemies and allies, simply flawless. A special mention to folk band Heilung, crafting a very unique soundtrack that fits the setting and mood at every turn with their chants, drums and piano.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is an absolutely beautiful game, not just in its visuals, but also the audio and Senua’s actual journey from the original game to what she’s become in this sequel. There’s a famous quote stating video games can’t be art; I’d argue that Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II proves this inaccurate. Artistry across different senses and technology come together to craft an amazing and meaningful tale worth experiencing. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is a linear narrative driven action game that is unique, intense and incredibly immersive. With a focus on mental health and illness, there’s nothing quite like Hellblade II, a visual and audio experience unlike anything we’ve experience before, raising the bar of what ‘next-gen’ should mean. Once again, a Hellblade game is going to be in my GOTY contention.
**Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 10.0 / 10



While there’s no typical Campaign, there is a Scenario and Freeplay Mode depending on how you want to play. Scenario is where you’ll learn how to play, acting as a tutorial of sorts, and another scenario where it lets you basically freeplay, visiting each of the stations. While there’s not a lot of scenarios, they do tell you how long each is going to take from the onset, though you’ll need to commit a good amount of time as they can be well over an hour long each.
The scenarios are difficult to complete though for a number of reasons; frustration, understanding, boredom, and/or game breaking bugs are generally the top offenders. Running a metro train isn’t simple though, and even getting it moving can be a challenge in memorization given the dozens if buttons, levers, knobs, and switches. Then you need to watch your speed, up ahead for track signs, stopping properly at each station, and picking up passengers.
The tutorial scenario will teach you the basics of being a metro conductor, but even early on I started to notice a few issues. There’s a lot you need to do before you can even get the train moving, and while I did appreciate that there were arrows pointing at exactly what button to press or lever to pull, if you don’t have a picture perfect memory, there’s no way to go back and read the tutorial steps over once again. The only way to remember it all would be to replay the tutorial over again if you come back to the game after a long break.
It’s all very difficult to control, as you need to move your cursor around slowly, all while the dashboard is beeping loudly at you for speeding over the track limits and the e-brakes kick in. With two trains to operate, one is quite dated and old school, where the other is a more modern train. With lengthy scenarios asking for a lot of your time upfront, the problem is that there’s no saving option outside of the Resume feature on Xbox. If you exit a scenario an hour in because you ran out of time, you’re going to have to start all over again next time as there’s no autosaves or progress points. Having a checkpoint at each station would have been a help to stop some of this frustration.
I could have overlooked some of the smaller issues which are commonplace is simulators like these, but what really started putting a sour taste in my mouth is having a game breaking bug at the end of the tutorial scenario. At the end of the tutorial you reach the end of the train line, having to swap around the direction of the train and go back the other way. For whatever reason, the emergency brakes engaged, which is normally a simple toggle, but it wouldn’t disengage. This meant my train was unable to move, so I couldn’t complete the scenario, losing all the time I’ve invested in the scenario given the lack of saves and checkpoints described above.
Given that I had to review the title, I of course started again, only for it to happen the next time as well. You can guess my level of frustration at this point. Of course I’m a glutton for punishment and go through the whole scenario once again. Somehow things finally worked as they were supposed to and I was able to complete the tutorial and get my achievement. Next scenario had me travelling to each of the stations, which is no big deal now that I’m a master at maneuvering the metro, except each time I tried, the alarm wouldn’t stop as if I was speeding, even though I wasn’t. This meant I had to continually hold ‘A’, and even a single km/h over the limit and the emergency brakes would kick in. Annoying to say the least.
There are two different trains you can navigate, the Nomernoy and the Oka. Nomernoy is the much older train with plenty of classic buttons and levers. This train takes much more effort to get going and stopped, as it’s much older technology. The Oka is much more modern and quick. Getting the train going is very fast, and stopping is substantially better than the older version. Even though I should like the modern train more for its ease, something about the manual controlling of the Nomernoy was more rewarding, having to use multiple levels of braking to stop when required, when it worked of course.
Being a simulator, you’ll need to look at each button and lever to use it, so it can be difficult to see what your current speed is when having to constantly adjust via levers. There’s actually very little notifications to help you, as you can’t tell when a station is coming up until it’s almost too late. More than once I almost blew by the stop as I fumbled around with the controls, and having to zoom in on the dashboard while unable to look out the windshield can cause you to miss things or over speed, which causes the emergency brakes and an annoying alarm to constantly berate your ear.
I can be forgiving when a game has bugs here or there if they aren’t game breaking, but when the game forces you to quit out literally in the tutorial, numerous times, it just sets itself up for failure. I only kept with it because I had to review, but the lack of care and quality assurance is astounding. The text for what it tells you to do is a literal port from the PC version, yet no one bothered to check and change it saying “Use Left Click” to whatever button needed on the controller. Oddly, there’s also certain punctuation missing like apostrophes, so words like “don’t” actually show as “don t”. Small things like this normally wouldn’t bother me much, but it just showed the negligence.
Graphically, don’t expect anything that will impress. Sure there’s generally not much to look at when you’re going through dark and barely lit tunnels, but even the stations are as lifeless as the NPC’s that board the metro. Every NPC looks dead inside and the stations have absolutely no character to them, everything is just bland. While I've never been on the metro in Moscow, I can only assume that its' quite authentic.
The audio is no different, with pre-recorded sounds that don’t match what’s happening at all. For example, the train speeding up should sound as if it’s going slow at the beginning until the engine whirls louder the faster you go. Going less than 10 km/h sounds as if you’re going full speed, and slowing down, going into neutral or a light brake, just stops the audio even though you’re still moving. The station announcements are done well, though I don’t speak Russian, so I’m unable to make sense of some of it until the English version comes over the speakers.
I’m all for odd, quirky, and niche simulators, as I generally find them relaxing, but when you’re frustrated more often than having any enjoyment, it’s hard to recommend. I’m sure if you’re a metro fanatic there will be some enjoyment, but the lack of care and quality on the console version of Metro Simulator 2 is almost at an embarrassing level unfortunately.
**Metro Simulator 2 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 3.6 / 10



With glowing reviews of the first game, I was excited to see what I was in store for with this sequel, and while I was simply expecting a typical puzzle game, I got something much more in-depth and meaningful, with a healthy amount of brain bending puzzles for good measure. Those that thoroughly enjoyed the original’s philosophical overtone and stunning environments will be glad to know that they not only return, but are much more vast this time. I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting such a story driven puzzle game that made me think as much as the puzzles did, so it surprised me.
With philosophy being a large portion of The Talos Principle II’s narrative, writers from the first game have returned for the sequel. If you quite enjoyed the original’s theme, it's very similar. Taking place long after the first game, The Talos Principle II's timeline is long after humans as we know it have gone extinct due to global warming causing a deadly virus to be unearthed in some permafrost. Knowing that mankind was doomed, a group of scientists rushed to create advanced artificial intelligence as a way to preserve humankind of sorts. Those that were able to solve puzzles in a virtual reality were then uploaded to android bodies, so while they may not be human on the inside and out, their essence lives on. The first of these androids was Athena, who then created a handful of others so that they could build New Jerusalem, a haven and a reminder of how their kind can do things right this time, learning from the past’s mistakes.
You awaken. You are 1k, the 1000th android to be created, fulfilling “The Goal” from Athena of having one thousand androids, the ideal amount of population for New Jerusalem. Even though Athena has disappeared long ago, she’s viewed as the main creator, almost like a religious figurehead. Now that “The Goal” has been completed, it’s time for celebration, though this ends abruptly when a holographic Prometheus appears heeding a dire warning. With a massive energy spike detected in the far distance, it’s going to be up to 1k and a few others to go investigate what it was and the origin of that holographic figure.
Your team makes their way towards a megastructure that resembles that of a pyramid, but of massive scale. You’re unsure what the origin of this structure is, and you’re unable to gain access for the time being. This is where the puzzle solving comes into place for 1k, unlocking pieces to create a bridge. As you make progress and explore each vast area, solving their puzzles along the way, you get a sense of scale of this world that was once inhabited by humans. Even though this society of androids call themselves human, they are fascinated with the history of their origin and the people before. With many philosophical questions to be had, it made me question my thoughts and beliefs. With AI becoming more prevalent and advancing every day in the real world, even though this scenario may be thousands of years away, it does seem plausible and not all that far-fetched.
At its core, The Talos Principle 2 is a first person (though you can choose to play in third if you wish) puzzle game. Each one is designed to be completed in a minute or two, but that’s assuming you know the solution. Of course this isn’t the case in the beginning as you’re learning the mechanics and puzzle styles, and being stumped on a puzzle for a half hour wasn’t an anomaly. Each puzzle is segregated from the others, and your goal is to unlock some barrier to allow you to press a button, acting as a part of a larger unlock sequence, usually eight puzzles long per section.
Once awoken and active, 1k can explore New Jerusalem, a peaceful and calm city continuing to be developed and built before setting off to the mysterious lands that seem to have been left unexplored as of yet. Tracking down the energy surge leads you to a new land, separated by massive sections and different biomes. If you need a break from puzzle solving to relax your brain, you’re free to explore the land you’re in. It’s much larger than I expected and can feel like an open world game at times given its vastness. While the puzzles are your main objective, there are plenty of things to not only see off the beaten path, but secrets to find and even extra puzzles for those wanting even more.
What I didn’t really expect for a puzzle game was just how large the world is that you can explore. While the main areas are sectioned off into different places that you’ll take a high-speed tram to, each of the areas are quite vast, and it’s not just empty nothingness either, as there are secrets to find, extra puzzles, and even a few interesting Easter Eggs, like Serious Sam standups hidden behind a sectioned off area. There’s no map for you to reference, but there’s a compass at the top of your HUD that will point you in the right direction for the main puzzles and undiscovered places. You may even cross paths with the other androids on your excursion, allowing you to interact with them and choosing dialogue options. If you have a very keen eye you might even find a ‘spark’, allowing you to complete a puzzle without actually finishing it if you truly become stuck and refuse to check online for solutions.
Then there’s the puzzles, probably the reason you’re interested in this title. If you know the solutions to each puzzle, they would probably only take a minute or two, as they are all separated into their own area and not grand in scale, but there were more times than I could count that I spent easily a half hour on a puzzle, completely stumped before I either had the eureka moment or shamefully had to look up a hint online. In each main area you go to, you’ll need to complete the eight main puzzles to progress, rewarding you with a cutscene and story progress. When all eight puzzles are complete you’ll head to the main gate and need to build a bridge by connecting tetromino pieces together in a specific order. If you manage to become distracted and explore a bit, you could use the overhead compass to find your next puzzle, but you’ll also see signs in various areas that act as a clever way to guide you to the next puzzle, blinking and easy to understand what path to take.
There’s quite a few puzzles to get through, starting out simple enough, ramping up in difficulty as you go, adding new mechanics at each new area you access as well. Your main goal in each puzzle is usually lowering a barrier somehow so that you can press the button and complete said puzzle, but doing so isn’t always as simple as you think. Most puzzles are going to involve a colored laser on a wall and a matching colored receiver elsewhere to lower or power certain gates. Things start simple with matching red or blue lasers to their corresponding receiver, but you’ll soon have to deal with walls, jammers, movable crates, pressure plates, fans, RGB converters, drillers, and more. Each new mechanic is introduced one at a time, but you’ll need to catch on quick, as puzzle difficulty ramps up afterwards once the game determines you should know how to properly use each object. Those are have color blindness, there are different options for you, as well as a few accessibility toggles for those that get motion sickness as well.
Some gates will block you from entering, generally the one blocking the button to press at the end of each puzzle, and others will allow you to pass through, but not carried objects, and some won’t let lasers through either. This is where jammers, connectors and converters come into play. You can pick them up and place them where needed to manipulate the laser to go where needed. I hope you know your primary colors too, as the RGB converters will be used quite heavily to change colored lasers when combined, or inverters that swap from red to blue and vice versa. You can probably start to get an idea how much pre-planning or brute force some of these puzzles are going to take. When holding one of the items, you can use a specific trigger to link them, and once placed, the will either work as intended, or not, depending on your placement and line of sight.
Then there’s certain walls that can have a hole created through it temporarily with the drillers, allowing lasers to pass through, or objects placed on either side. Jammers come in handy, allowing you to disable a gate from afar to whichever it’s pointed at. The later half adds some more puzzle elements that I’ll leave as a surprise, but suffice to say, it only amps up the complexity and challenge when you have to think of gravity swaps and verticality. Certain puzzles I found quite difficult, seemingly like it was impossible, but of course once you solve it you feel like an idiot at how you didn’t realize the solution for the last twenty minutes of trying everything you could think of. Many of the puzzles seemed to be step based, as you couldn’t just do one or two things to reach the end, instead having to do manage multiple lasers, moving objects, then adjusting almost like another phase of the solution.
The Talos Principle II has some absolutely stunning vistas. More than a few times I stopped to simply take in the scenery and atmosphere for some screenshots. Without humans the planet is beautiful, and even though there’s only 1000 androids inhabiting New Jerusalem, they do have a thing for cats it seems. The scale of the environments is massive and each biome feels unique from one another, daring you to explore it and maybe find some secret in the distance. The soundtrack is just as beautiful, opening for a melodic background that suits the puzzle gameplay, and the voice acting from across the cast was wonderfully done, being believable ‘human’ androids, each with their own quirks.
Obviously the difficulty of the puzzles are going to vary person to person, given your skill level and problem solving abilities, though I do wish there was some sort of included hint system so I didn’t have to resort to checking externally online when I became frustrated after being stuck for a half hour on a single puzzle. That said, even with how often I was stumped, I kept wanting to try for just ‘one more puzzle’, as that would get me to the next area that I wanted to explore, which is an odd thing to say for a puzzle game. Priced at $38.99 CAD normally, there’s immense value for what you get, lasting you at least a dozen or two hours, and is a more than fair price for the quality and overall experience.
While I could see that some may not enjoy the optional exploration component as much as I did, especially for a puzzle game, the world was so unique and beautiful it couldn’t help but be memorable. I wish I found the original game sooner, as The Talos Principle II should absolutely be in the same conversations as Fez and Portal as one of the best puzzle games there are. There’s an impressive amount of detail, from the environments, puzzle design, character development, and plot, The Talos Principle II is a must play if you’re a fan of puzzles and narrative that comes together in a meaningful way.
**The Talos Principle II was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10



Set in SpellForce’s world somewhere in its timeline, you’re in control of your master’s wizard tower, but they have passed and the tower is in shambles, so now it’s up to you to figure out what happened and uncover secrets, all while defending yourself and your tower from others. The Circle of Mages are the most powerful Magi in Eo, and you are clearly nowhere near as powerful as them as a lowly apprentice. You actually are kind of pathetic when you compare your powers, so it’s going to take a lot of time and effort to succeed in the dozens hours long campaign that is procedurally generated. You’ll have many decisions to make along your journey, though it’s all done through text, so don’t expect any exciting cutscenes.
You begin by choosing one of three classes, each of which play quite drastically different from one another. One creates glyphs to improve your units, another crafts items and bombs to support you in battle, and lastly, the one I started with, was the Necromancer, that can raise the undead into a controllable army hoard.
Playing an evil Necromancer was quite fun, raising the undead and controlling a near unlimited army to overwhelm your opponents. Next I tried playing the Artificer, creating glyphs and items to boost my armies after mining a bunch of ore. These units weren’t nearly as many but seemed powerful. Lastly was the Alchemist creating potions and bombs to use in combat, though I enjoyed this class the least. If you don’t want to play either of these classes, you can create your own mixture and your own class, but you’re going to want to have some playtime under your belt so you know what best to focus on. If you choose to spend some more money, there’s also a Demon Scourge DLC that allows you to play as a Demonologist, though this was not included in our review edition, so I’m unable to comment on how it plays comparatively to the others.
As you grow in power from a simple apprentice to a masterful mage, your journey won’t be easy, as the world is full of others that are trying to expand in the land of Eo as well. You’ll quickly begin with a simple minion or two, eventually amassing an army that can all be controlled individually or in squads should you wish. Building up your tower not only makes you stronger, but your home base can also eventually be moved across the map, and will be needed to, to take on eventual challenges and campaign progress.
While your overall goal may be to find the ultimate source of magical powers, the Allfire, you’re going to make friends or enemies along the way, harvest resources, explore a large map, fill your grimoire with new spells and abilities, expand your territory and try to make your previous master proud. Unlike most 4X type of games, you command your tower, acting like your city, but you can move it when needed once you’ve learned the proper spells and will need to be careful, as you need to defend it and prevent it from being destroyed.
Your grimoire is your trusty spell book. You only have a few pages to begin and not many spells to use. You’ll need to spend research to learn new abilities and spells, and completing certain quests will unlock new spells pages which will unlock even more powerful spells. There’s a lot of upgrades to get, and the better and more powerful spells take more resources to research and cast.
Along the way you’ll have the opportunity to recruit special units, acting as a hero or apprentice, able to lead your troops in battle. You can group different units and troops together however you wish, crafting your armies. I do wish I was able to make larger armies as a bigger unit, but learning how to create groups of troops will play into your strategy. Do you surround a tough foe by a number of groups and battle back to back, or separate, divide and conquer? You’re able to cast spells before battles, buffing yourself or inhibiting your enemy, this of course takes some resources to do so though.
When you’re not exploring the overworld map, you’ll be placed in combat. While you can choose to auto resolve most battles aside from the powerful enemies, doing so might have consequences you don’t want, like dead units since you’re not directly in control. Should you decide to actually take part in battle, you’ll be placed in a small hexagonal gridded map and occur in turned based combat. You can see on the map where you can move and decide which enemies to attack if in range. If you’ve been taking place in battles beforehand and leveling up, you’ll have unlocked special abilities and stat increases for your units along the way.
Depending on which class you decided to play, your combat strategies will differ greatly. As a Necromancer I simply overwhelmed my enemies with a huge army, though I found Alchemist a lot more work having to remember to use potions and bombs to win in battle. Other than a few instances, there really seems no alternative to combat much of the time as there’s no diplomacy mechanics. There are times where you’ll anger characters or get them on your side, but eventually you’re going to travel and expand into others territory, and it’s up to you how you’ll react to them defending their area.
While the overworld map is static and doesn’t change from game to game, events and how things play out will each time, so I opted to play a bit differently every game as I tried each class. The world is colorful and the units are varied based on which class you’re playing, but unless you’re actually controlling each battle, there’s not too much detail to see, though I do enjoy the high fantasy aesthetic. The audio however was quite lacking. There’s a light soundtrack that plays as background but there’s no voice acting, which is surprising giving how much dialogue and text there is along the way.
While not quite as in depth as a true 4X title, there’s still quite a lot to take in and learn, and honestly, the game doesn’t do a great job at teaching you every nuance. Controls can be quite confusing, and it wasn’t until my second play as the Artificer where I really started to understand strategic gameplay and planning my moves ahead.
While I found my first playthrough a confusing and frustrating mess, it made much more sense trying the other classes. They all play differently enough to warrant other playthroughs and require different strategies. Once I got the hang of the gameplay and how to best progress, I went from being frustrated to wanting to play ‘just one more turn'.
**Spellforce: Conquest of Eo was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10



Taking place in the fictional country of Grand Chien, its president has gone missing after being kidnapped by a paramilitary force known as “The Legion”. Led by "The Major”, The Legion now rules the countryside and is hostile to practically everyone as they take over. The President’s family won’t let this stand, and his daughter works together with the Adonis corporation to hire a group of mercenaries to not only save the President, but also return order back to the country. The story is by no means its strong point, but it’s serviceable enough to give you an overall objective to work towards stopping The Legion.
This is where you come in, a part of a mercenary group hired to track down The Major, defeat Legion, and rescue the President. Even though you have good intentions, sometimes your actions won’t always be perceived that way by locals. During your excursions, you’ll actually have a lot of decisions to make, and there will be consequences for your choices, regardless of intent. These outcomes were not always what I expected, as I thought I was helping at times, only to have a result that was quite different.
A turn based strategy game at its core, Jagged Alliance 3 pits your mercenary team in a number of different situations where you’re going to have to learn to adapt on the fly, with each play being different based on certain outcomes and what team of mercenaries you have with you. Before you begin your rescue mission though, you’ll need to decide how difficult you want your game to be. There’s actually quite a lot of toggles to change, not just the overall difficulty, but other options as well like permanent death for mercenaries and a bunch of others to make things easier or harder. I will say, even with all of the easiest settings enabled, some battles were quite challenging.
I’ll admit, the first few hours going from mission to mission, I wasn’t enjoying myself very much. I was dying, losing mercenaries, running out of money and simply struggling with the controls. I decided to start over once again from the start, seeing if I would have a better run the next time with a few hours under my belt. While there’s tooltips that somewhat help you early on, it doesn’t do nearly enough to actually teach you best how to play or how to handle the poor controls. Starting out with weak guns and low level mercenaries doesn’t help, but soon as you start killing some Legion, you’ll loot bodies and find some better items along the way.
With a steep learning curve, it’s not helped by the terrible console controls. Clearly designed for a PC experience with mouse and keyboard in mind, while it technically works on a controller, it’s a frustrating mess with having to hold either Left or Right Trigger as modifiers for a bunch of commands, or the bumpers to swap targets, none of which are really taught to you. Even hours in I was still making mistakes on the controls or having to try and squint to read what buttons did what, as it never feels natural even dozens of missions in.
As you make your way across the country, you’ll clear sections on the overworld map. There’s two portions to the gameplay; exploration and combat. Before you’re spotted or start a fight, you’re in exploration mode where you can freely wander, talk to locals, scavenge for loot and more. Completing missions will earn you more cash which will allow you to do more and hire better tiered mercenaries as well, as no one works for free.
Your mercenaries are the core of your teams. The game firsts asks you to hire four to start your team off, so I did, not knowing that I could actually hire more and even create my own. This is all done through a UI that’s meant to emulate early internet era, and it’s not always clear what you can or can’t do, even in the menus. It wasn’t until my second game restart that I figured out I could actually create my own mercenary for cheaper.
You can choose to do a ten question quiz that’s quite humorous, which will form a merc a certain way for its class and stats based on your answers, though you can skip this and simply move the stat sliders to whatever you like, as well as choosing two perks. I opted to make a sniper focused character, though you don’t get to choose their starting weapon, so my sniper simply had a pistol to begin with.
There’s about 40 mercenaries to choose from when you’re hiring, ranging from rookie to legendary, with the better mercs costing much more, as you need to pay their salaries for employing their services for days at a time. They all have their own look, style and personalities, some of which are parodies or stereotypes, which I found quite hilarious. There’s also some times where the merc you want to hire refuses to join because they aren’t a fan of one of the people on your team already, so sometimes you need to settle or spend more on someone else. If you’re a fan of the previous titles, you might even see some familiar faces, and as they level up you’ll be able to improve your mercenaries and choose new perks.
The turn based combat can be quite tactical once you figure out its intricacies and wrap your head around the terrible controls. Like other games that are similar to X-COM, you have a set amount of Action Points which can be used for movement or attacks. This AP will vary mercenary to mercenary based on their stats, so you can spend more to move further, or take more accurate shots. Instead of firing a number of times, you can spend more AP to narrow in on your enemy for what I assume is a better percentage to hit. Part of the problem is that it seems the enemies aren’t restricted by AP though, as they can run half way across the battlefield then take a shot at you with ease, as they seem to almost have 100% accuracy regardless of where they shoot from.
I say assume because Jagged Alliance 3 never tells you the chance to hit or miss enemies. This becomes apparent when you land a long range sniper shot, but then miss a point blank shotgun blast. This randomness is by design but makes it near impossible to decide what the best course of action is. If I knew that certain shots were a very low percentage to hit, I’d figure out something else, but missing three times in a row for what seems like an easy attack becomes frustrating every time it happens, which is quite often.
Once in combat and trying to take a shot, you can zone in on specific body parts to aim for, which is sometimes necessary as a portion of them might be behind cover. Obviously a lot of your damage is factored by your position, critical hits, type of weapon, distance and more, but some enemy soldiers seem to be bullet sponges. I’ve head-shotted an enemy more than once and it still didn’t kill them. You also can’t see how much health they have remaining in a numerical value, only text that says “wounded” or otherwise. Again, this makes it hard to strategize when you don’t really know how much health they have left.
Overwatch is a system that can be used, setting up your mercenaries to watch specific areas, shooting if an enemy passes through, but there’s a few issues here. From what I can figure out, again because the game doesn’t teach you much and the controls are horrendous, you can’t freely aim where you want to place your overwatch cover. You can choose to aim at a specific enemy, but this isn’t what I always wanted. Even on my third game starting over, I tried everything and couldn’t figure out a way to freely aim my overwatch direction to anywhere I wanted like you can do on PC. Maybe I’m missing something, but it made it almost useless at times unless you just happen to be in the right area and facing a specific direction.
While I appreciate there is online multiplayer co-op so you can play alongside friends, I was unable to find a single match, nor had anyone join when I was hosting each time I attempted, so I’m unfortunately unable to comment on how that plays or differs from single player.
While the game looks fine overall, but it also won’t impress. Each the maps are detailed enough that it does feel like you’re exploring and fighting in a jungle or desert, but unless you zoom in quite close, you’re going to miss a lot of the smaller details. It’s all passable, including the animations, but there’s nothing that really stood out visually. There’s a good amount of voice overs from all the mercenaries, and while some of the performances were over the top, I believe many of them were meant to be, especially the Arnold-like muscle guy with plenty of one-liners.
While I don’t think as many would have the patience I did to start over three times (the third due to a game breaking bug), even hours in I was still becoming frustrated with the horrendous controls. Clearly designed for mouse and keyboard, while yes it’s been ported to console controllers, it’s not intuitive and was a constant frustration trying to read the tiny text to determine what trigger I needed to hold to do specific actions so I don't accidentally end my turn again.
Waiting more than two decades for a sequel, I’m sure true Jagged Alliance fans will overlook many of its shortcomings and frustrations, as it does capture the same feeling, it seriously needs some work on its control scheme to be more much fluid and less confusing. For every moment I was enjoying, I was equally frustrated when I missed point blank shots or accidently ended my turn prematurely due to a wrong button combination.
**Jagged Alliance 3 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 6.3 / 10



INFONET promised a utopia that would be built upon the backs of androids, known as Denzels. Like most stories with this setup, this was all fine and dandy for a short while, but then the proverbial crap hits the fan. Shinji Fallon is a brilliant engineer who creates Denzels, creating a special one named Cherry. Unexpectedly, they fall in love with one another, so you’d expect they have a wonderful life together. Well, this doesn’t last long of course. INFONET’s leader, who appears like a clone of Marilyn Manson, decides that they need Shinji to work for them, so they take her by force. Of course Cherry tries to stop this from happening, but in the process, she’s brutally destroyed right in front of Shinji. Even broken into pieces, you try to chase after your love, but are executed in gruesome fashion. I told you the game title alone doesn’t prepare you.
You suddenly awaken one day, unsure where you are. Turns out a mechanic, Raz, found you and repaired you. Now that you’ve been rebuilt and repaired, Cherry has revenge on her mind, to save her creator and love of her life, and if she needs to take down all of INFONET to do so, she will, as violently as possible.
While Cherry is a badass android that can fight, she can’t do it alone, so you’ll have a sidekick that gives you advice along the way, though I guarantee you won’t see this coming. Regina and Cherry will have plenty of conversations, and it might take you a moment to put two and two together, but Regina is your... robotic vagina. That’s right, your sidekick is your talking vulva down in your nether regions. Again, something the title alone couldn’t have prepared you for.
A Metroidvania at its core, you’ll be exploring this sidescroller and destroying any other robots and enemies along the way. Rooms and areas begins simple enough, slowly adding more traps and dangers. The best part is that you can use these buzz saw or electricity traps against your enemies, as knocking them into said pits will cause them to take damage as well.
In true Metroidvania fashion, you’re going to come across areas you can’t access the first time you get there, but eventually you’ll get upgrades that allow you to gain admittance to new areas, allowing for more upgrades and getting closer to extracting your revenge on INFONET. Now and then you’ll come across some warp points, though I do wish there were more for when you need to backtrack or go another way.
Combat begins simple enough, using ‘X’ to punch and kick to attack your enemies, also able to combine with 'Up' to launch enemies in the air for some combos. Your regular attacks can do the job, but will take a lot of spamming to actually defeat the harder enemies. When an enemy is low on health, you can use ‘Y’ to execute them with a finisher, also refilling some of your energy which can be used for heavy attacks. Learning your combos and juggling enemies is going to be imperative when things become much harder the closer to INFONET you get.
While you can use your stored energy to use some heavy attacks and quickly down some enemies, I opted to not do so, as it’s the same resource needed to heal yourself if needed. While this makes you vulnerable as you channel your stored energy into health, it’s a necessity when things don’t go to plan. This becomes apparent early on once you reach some rooms that trap you inside until all enemies are defeated. Seems like no big deal with one or two enemies at first, but eventually these rooms will have an overwhelming amount of enemies that will cause some deaths and restarts at the last checkpoint you reached.
This is where combat becomes very chaotic and you start to feel some of the holes in the fighting mechanics. The biggest flaw without a doubt is the parry system. In theory, you can press a single button, parry an enemy attack, and defeat them. In practice though, you’ll be lucky if you’re able to make it work even close to half the time. For the life of me, I simply couldn’t get the parry to work, even on the basic enemies. They do give a slight indication of their attack that’s about to happen, but the reaction window to react seems so small that it feels broken. I could parry an enemy here and there, then mistime the next ten and end up dying. And that’s just one on one versus a single enemy. As soon as you have two or more, there’s virtually no point trying, as when you don’t hit the parry in time, you’re open for attack. You can’t parry projectiles either, so you’ll also need to rely on your dodge much of the time instead. Facing a boss where you need to parry their attacks, and you can see where a bunch of my frustration started to set in.
This is exactly why I opted to always save my energy to use for self-heals, as every time I didn’t parry properly, I took a massive amount of damage. I honestly just thought that maybe I misunderstood the parry mechanic or was doing something wrong, so I checked online, only to find out that it seems to be a common ‘problem’ with many others trying to enjoy Cookie Cutter to its fullest as well. If I was able to perform parries whenever I wanted, one shotting enemies and refilling my health for doing so, I’d breeze through Cherry’s quest, instead dying quite often and becoming frustrated cause it just feels off. I actually simply just stopped trying to parry, relying on dodges and normal attacks instead, which made every fight slog on.
As you explore each new area, you’ll gain new abilities and fight new enemy types along the way. While you can expect the usual types of abilities and upgrades like dashes and double jumps, in an interesting twist, your new combat abilities are also how you’ll gain access and reach new areas. As you combat new enemy types, certain abilities will be best suited for certain types, but I found myself falling back on what simply seemed easiest, as it can become chaotic at times.
While the combat frustrated me at every turn, the visual aesthetic was easily its highlight. Everything appears to be hand drawn and animated, and done amazingly well. While there’s a hefty amount of blood and gore, it’s all a spectacle to take in. Even the designs of enemies and Cherry herself feels unique and not what you’d normally expect. Finishers are over the top and gory, and the animation is quite slick overall. The metal soundtrack that kicks in during boss fights and certain moments amps up the experience as a whole. I do wish there was some voice acting aside from the opening moments, as I’d be curious what hearing Cherry and Regina banter would be like back and forth.
While all the pieces are there for a great Metroidvania, complete with unique setting and characters, Cookie Cutter frustrated me more often than not due to the broken parry system that rarely works as advertised. I wasn’t expecting to play a love-revenge story as a lesbian android that talks to her robotic vagina, filled with violence and gore, but it certainly was a memorable adventure.
**Cookie Cutter was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.3 / 10



That said, I found it odd that such an obscure title in their library finally gets a sequel more than three decades later with Ufouria: The Saga 2. It’s said that the characters from these games were once going to be SUNSOFT’s mascots of sorts, though never really worked out that way even though they did get a few cameo’s here and there. Gaming has changed dramatically in the last three decades, and the classic NES title now looks vastly improved with its unique and disgusting adorable art style.
You begin as Hebe, a penguin-like creature with an adorable blue toque for a hat. You awake in your bedroom, which happens to be atop a tree, consisting of your bed and a toilet, also acting as the game’s main hub. You’re interrupted by a strange alien in a UFO who throws bumyons, a purple goo-like substance that sticks to anything it touches. Thankfully Hebe has popoons, the inverse to this sticky goo, a furry Tribble-like creature that absorbs and destroys the goop. So you start out on your quest to stop this alien and clean up your home with your trusty popoons.
While the main plot is for you to stop this alien and get rid of the annoying bumyons, it’s really about making friends and exploring the world for coins and secrets. The first few bosses you defeat allow you to have companions that will accompany you on your journey, each with their own ability that will allow you to progress further. Some will only join once you buy them something they desire from the local vending machine at your home, so save those coins, as you’re going to need all the help you can get.
If you’ve played the original obscure game, the characters will all seem familiar, as they make a return. While the original NES game wasn’t visually pretty by any means, Ufouria 2 is absolutely charming and stunning with its design, appearing as if the world is created by fabric and felt for its backdrops and perler beads that border the text boxes and make up firework animations when a boss is defeated.
A sidescrolling platformer at its core, there’s also some Metroidvania elements thrown in as you’ll be revisiting areas numerous times as you gain new friends with their abilities. The clever way this is done is by giving each companion a different ability, rather than your single character magically getting new skills to jump higher or swim, etc. Like any good Metroidvania, you’ll reach areas you can’t access yet until you have a specific ability and friend alongside.
The world’s layout for zones is static, but what’s interesting is that each time you enter a zone, it’s slightly different each time, randomized for its layout. This prevents the game from becoming stale, as you’ll sometimes need to pass through zones a handful of times, so at least each time is different slightly. Levels will also give you an objective to complete if able, giving a bonus that's usually coins. These optional objectives vary from not getting hit, killing a certain amount of enemies or racing to complete it under a certain time for example, and while not overly challenging, at least gives you a focus if you want the bonus coins or cans.
While not a terribly long or challenging game, the first portion will have you going to new areas, defeating a boss, then gaining that companion after you buy them the item they desire. The second half is using all your new companions abilities to their fullest so you can get to new areas to collect more coins and precious tin cans needed for the vending machine upgrades and unlocks.
Swapping characters once they’ve decide to join you is done with a simple press of either Bumper. This has them give a high fine to one another and swap out the current character for the next. Each character is unique from one another, not just in their ability, but how they look and even walk. While you won’t have a traditional gridded map to remind you of the world’s layout, it’s just remembering where that large gap you couldn’t jump across was before, or the pool of water you couldn’t swim through.
Combat is simplistic in nature, having you either throwing your popoons to destroy the purple goop, or to stun enemies, though there's a little delay as it refreshes to be used again. You can also butt stomp enemies as well for extra coins. The only complaint I have about the butt stomping is that you need to be perfectly in line of the enemy, as if you don’t exactly stomp in the middle of the enemy’s hitbox, it’ll count as a hit against you and you’ll lose a heart. Honestly, the only times I ever really got hit was when I wasn’t perfectly lined up for my butt stomps. A quick popoon hit will stun them in place for a few moments, making it easier to line up your butt attack though.
Even the stage bosses don’t pose much of a threat, as you simply need to butt stomp them three times after removing their bumyon with a timed popoon attack first. Only the final boss is slightly different, though Ufouria 2 isn’t a challenging game by any means. After a boss you’ll come to a room with a chubby bird that offers to fly you home for free if you wish, netting all the coins and cans you’ve found along the way.
Back at home you’ll have a vending machine which is where you can purchase new items and upgrades when you have enough coins and cans. The amount of cans you’ve collected determines what items you’ll have access to and to purchase, you’ll need enough coins to actually purchase them though. Thankfully there wasn’t much need to grind levels for coins, as I generally always had enough for what I needed without having to do another run of collections.
There’s a shocking amount of items and upgrades to buy, and while a majority is optional, it’s always nice to have more hearts, adding challenge rooms, portals to get around the world quicker and more. You can even purchase optional abilities for characters, which is how you’ll find all of Ufouria’s secrets. I kept wanting to find more of the tin cans to see what the next upgrade was so that I could then purchase it and see how it changes the world.
Ufouria 2 is one of the most visually charming and disgustingly cute games I’ve played in recent memory. The world aesthetic of being crafted from layered felt reminded me a lot of Yoshi's Woolly World and how it too had bright colors and simply made you smile gazing upon it. The perler beads also add a nice touch and Ufouria 2’s arts and crafts visual flair just make it a joy to appreciate. The soundtrack is whimsical, and while there’s no voice over, the sound effects are just as cute as you’d expect along the journey.
While it may be a tad on the expensive side ($31.99 CAD), I quite enjoyed my time with it alongside Hebe and friends exploring their world, certainly memorable for its unique design and colorfulness. Ufouria: The Saga 2 is a sequel that I don’t think anyone asked for, or saw coming, but I’m all for it given how adorable is all is. It’s a small and quirky game that’s certainly on the easy and casual side, but sometimes a game like that is a welcome change.
**Ufouria: The Saga 2 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.2 / 10



You are tasked with trying to prevent the Collapse, a world ending event that’s going to happen in five minutes. Luckily for you, your home base is inside a magical tower outside of regular time and space, where you’re not confined to the regular time limits while outside. Thankfully for you, you’re able to head back to your tower through special portals, rewinding time back five minutes once again as you try and make another run at preventing the apocalypse.
Every time you set out into the world with your five minute timer, you’re searching for a special gear, one that can be slotted into your time machine back at the tower, slowly accumulating so you can reset the world to what is was once before, before Chaos caused destruction everywhere. To be successful though you’re going to have to not only survive, but craft upgrades, enhancements, and crafting unique types of bullets for your weaponry.
While five minutes surely isn’t a lot of time, every time you enter the world it is randomly generated and filled with plenty of enemies and resources. Long as you make it back to the tower before dying, you’ll keep all that you’ve collected. If not, you’ll lose the resources you didn’t deposit back at your base. Certain Chaos enemies can randomly appear, and if destroyed, will add some time to your clock that’s constantly running out. This is why I found it stressful in the beginning, always having to worry about racing against the clock and making it back in time before it was too late, as the world doesn’t end exactly after the five minutes, but becomes a much more deadly and destructive place until you return and reset the clock once more.
Wizard with a Gun is exploration and crafting heavy, constantly needing mass amounts of resources so that you can survive just a little longer each run, maybe finding another gear or boss to make some overall progress. Create bullets, design modifications, outfit yourself in different garments with enhancements, and even furnish your tower.
While you don’t have traditional spells as a wizards, where your talents come into play is crafting specific types of bullets, once learned. This is how you’ll fight back in each loop once you turn back the clock and head back into the world. With each time to enter the world being randomly generated, you’ll have to explore and search, constantly weighing risk versus reward. Do you opt to stay a little longer before heading back to the tower and risk dying and losing everything you’ve gathered this run, or be cautious and quick to try and keep more resources and progress further even though it may not be as much?
I’ll admit, I was quite overwhelmed and frustrated for the first couple hours, as you’re taught the basics, but there are so many more mechanics and nuances to learn as you go that doesn’t really get explained all that well. You’re unsure what materials to keep, how to make new materials and what you even need to keep or not. While everything has a use in some ways, it’s not always clear or in what step you’ll need each type of item, as the crafting system becomes quite vast and convoluted.
As a twin-stick shooter, you’ll use the Left Stick to move your character and the Right to aim. Triggers are your bullets and you dodge with ‘B’. The core gameplay revolves around your guns, swapping them out and using the different elements against enemies. While there are different types of weapons from rifles, SMG’s, Carbines, Blunderbuss, and other types, the real interesting part is crafting the different bullet element types and choosing which upgrades as you mix and match to figure out what works best for you.
While the varied enemy types aren’t all that challenging, as they simply fire or rush at you, you’ll start to do well in combat once you learn how to use the elements in conjunction with one another and how they affect the world. Using regular bullets to destroy a tree will give you wood, but using fire or poison to do so will give you a different material, such as charcoal or poisoned wood. This again is something not explained very well, so you’ll need to do a lot of experimenting to figure these basics out, then having to memorize.
Upgrades are done in a number of ways. The most obvious is crafting the different ammunition types with resources you gather. Fire, ice, poison, lightning, force, and even bullets that can charm enemies and have them fight alongside you for that run. How you combine these elements will alter how they affect enemies. You’ll eventually be able to unlock and alter specific traits as well, like being a more powerful shot, leaving elemental trails behind and other ways to customize your guns.
While you get to choose a handful of different wizard robes and garments, these seem cosmetic at first, but you’ll eventually be able to upgrade specific components to each piece of gear, adding health bonuses, movement speed, carry capacity and more. The more you can craft, the more you’ll realize how much grinding you’ll need to do for specific materials you need. Certain upgrades may require a specific amount of mushrooms for example, so on your next run you set out with that specifically in mind. You’ll of course become distracted, looking for other materials, finding gears, harvesting Arcana from enemies, all while keeping an eye on the five minute timer.
There’s also been a large 'Bounty of Guns' update recently, adding much more gameplay to the predictable gameplay loop. This added new exciting bounties, where you’re hunting massive minibosses who will have some unique attacks you’ll need to learn the patterns of. More than 50 new guns also await to be crafted, though to find the blueprints you’ll need to scan specific NPC’s and enemies, which is easier said than done when trying to avoid getting hit.
There is an option for two player online co-op, though I was unable to find any games being hosted, nor did anyone join mine in the dozen or so hours I had a lobby open, so unfortunately I’m unable to comment on how co-op changes the gameplay, if at all.
The visual aesthetic is quite colorful and has a very distinct style. Enemy designs are quite varied, and while there is a lot of repetition for creatures, they are designed quite well, as are the animations for movements and attacks, telegraphed with large red markers. The soundtrack fits the mood of each biome and backdrop with light instruments, though largely forgettable for the most part. You’ll mostly hear a lot of your footsteps and weapons firing more than anything else though.
While the tutorials for a lot of the mechanics are lacking or not explained well, with enough time, I went from not really enjoying myself to having to do just ‘one more run’ for a specific upgrade. Once you’ve wrapped your head around all of what’s possible and how to craft, it goes from being a confusing and frustrating grind to being a fun yet repetitive shooter. While it does become tedious at times, Wizard with a Gun starts to really shine once you learn of its elemental intricacies.
**Wizard with a Gun was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10



There’s no real narrative per-se, you’ll simply be taking a quick road test to introduce you to the gameplay basics of navigating your car controls before you’re set free in the the city of Barcelona to drive passengers from one corner to the other. Earn money and experience for doing so, purchase new cars, upgrade them and eventually even start a fleet of drivers all working for you.
You’ll first begin by choosing your driver, but don’t expect any sort of character creator here, you simply choose one of a couple drivers without any option to customize. You then choose a company name for your save file, a logo from a handful of premade ones, and then you’re off to play however you like. There are a few options you can choose in the difficulty, even how the car itself will handle from simple arcade controls all the way to simulation where you’ll need to use the clutch and shifter.
Gas and Brake are mapped to the Triggers as you’d expect, though it took some getting used to not being able to reverse by simply hitting brake again once stopped. Instead you need to place the gear into reverse, then hit gas, which makes sense in a real car, just not as common for other car games. The D-Pad is for your turn signals, which you’ll want to use if you want to be a courteous driver and earn the most tips from your customers. You can of course use your horn for when people walk in front of you or cut you off, but it doesn’t actually do anything as no pedestrians or drivers react to you road raging with your horn.
Picking up passengers is simple enough, choosing which you want to get from your map and following the GPS to the spot. Park in the designated area and they’ll get into your cab, setting your GPS automatically to their destination. Make sure you follow the rules of the road though, as each customer will tip you based on how accurately and safely you drive. Would you tip a driver who drives down the wrong side of the road or breaks the speed limit? Probably not. It’s the same here.
The simple gameplay loop of picking up customers and taking them to their destination is an addictive one, as you earn money and XP for each successful ride. The city is bustling during the day with traffic and notably quieter during the middle of night. Barcelona is recreated on a 1:1 scale and gives you 286 miles (460 km) of roads to explore, from highways to narrow one-way alleys. There’s just enough detail in the city that it almost feels live, filled with garbage cans, road work, broken lights, car accidents, trees and parked cars, but the pedestrians walking about on very linear and rigid paths quickly take you out of the immersion.
Following the rules of the road may seem easy on paper, but watching where you’re going, remembering to use your signals, stopping at red lights, watching your speed, keeping an eye out for red light runners, and simply remembering what side of the road to be on is a lot to think of all at once. Road rules are slightly different in Barcelona than here, so I had to get used to looking for traffic lights at the sides of the road, not hanging in the middle above. There’s also a lot of roundabouts, multilane ones as well, something we don’t see a lot here on the west coast.
Every so often your customers might strike up a conversation with you. You’re not obliged to engage and speak to them, but you’re given a few choices you can respond with the D-Pad, and after a little back and forth you earn a little XP based on how well they enjoyed the discussion. This happened quite rarely though, maybe once every dozen or so customers. Others may simply ask to have a window rolled down or to wipe the bugs off your windshield.
There’s no shortage of customers, and I did like the fact that once you drop off one rider, it’ll ask if you want to pick up the closest person nearby waiting for a ride. You can see all the people wanting a taxi on the map, able to choose and make a waypoint to them at any time. There are even a handful of special challenges to complete where the customer asks you to get them to their destination as fast as possible where you don’t want to worry about the road rules or speed limits.
Your vehicle is your livelihood, so you need to maintain it as well. You’ll need to make sure you have enough gas, repair any damages and of course keeping it clean, as customers won’t be happy with a dirty ride. When you eventually purchase and unlock an electric car, you’ll also have to monitor its battery level. If you want to take a break from driving customers, there’s also plenty of landmarks to find, each netting you some decent XP for your troubles. I do wish there was some sort of history lesson unlocked for the landmarks though, as I would have been interested to learn more about them.
As you earn XP and level up, you’ll be able to spend points in the skill tree. There’s a decent amount of options to choose from, like earning more money or XP, reduced ticket prices, or increases to how much your staff will earn. It’s not a large skill tree by any means, but enough that it gives you something to work towards for a while at least.
Money is arguably more important, as this is how you’ll be able to purchase new taxis, upgrade your car stat wise and aesthetically, as well as pay your employees and fines. You can upgrade your cars handling, speed and braking, even adding new paint, rims, spoilers, interior, and even undercarriage neon lights if you really want to stand out. There’s not a lot of options, car or upgrade wise, but just enough that I wanted to customize each.
Every new car you buy, you can also hire a worker to join your company. You get to choose from a list of which person to hire, each with their own positive and negative aspects. The menu system for this is a bit convoluted and confusing, but you’re also able to choose their work times and district to cover. Every new car means more potential earnings, though I constantly had issues with them not working when they were supposed to or not bringing in really any money, and I’m not really sure why.
For all the things I did enjoy about Taxi Life, there were at least two more that frustrated or disappointed. First and foremost, the AI in this is basically nonexistent. Pedestrians will walk through crosswalks whenever they please, regardless if it’s a green or red light. Worse yet, they might get halfway across the walkway only to turn around and go back, then change their mind again, basically stopping you from driving until they decide where they want to do.
Then there’s the bug where you pick up your single passenger, but when you bring them to their destination, two or three get out of taxi instead. Or where the quick cutscene plays of them getting into your taxi, but your car continues to roll forwards or backwards without you able to stop the car, which then results in a minor accident and needing a repair later on.
AI drivers are not much better. More than a handful of times I’d be sitting at a red light only to get rear ended at full speed. Drivers also don’t know where they’re going or follow the rules of the road, as they’ll change lanes last minute, or simply stop in an intersection or roundabout for no reason at all. I mean, I guess there are actual terrible drivers like this in real life, but I don’t believe this was specifically programmed to recreate this. Seeing a cop blow through a red light is also something not uncommon given their lights weren't on.
The majority of the time there was no performance issues, but every so often, seemingly in certain crowded areas, the framerate goes from being smooth, down to almost single digits. This of course usually results in a crash as you’re trying to compensate when the stuttering moments. Visually the city can look beautiful as you drive by certain areas and observe landmarks, and while there’s a few radio stations, they are all quite bland and the voice acting from you and the customers during dialogue is terrible at best.
Once you have the majority of the skills have been earned and have a handful of cabbies working for you, there’s really not much else to work towards. That said, there’s still some enjoyment to be had to picking up a few customers and bringing them to their destination within a gorgeous city. Clearly rough around the edges, Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator frustrates in certain ways, yet is relaxing in others.
**Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 4.7 / 10



You play as Body, a literal body without a head. You fall from quite some height to the bottom of a cave, and this is where your adventure starts. Where did you come from? Why are you headless? What are you? These are questions that you’ll soon forget once you start to explore this mysterious world. Shortly after your harsh arrival to the cave you start to look for a way out, pushing and pulling some rocks to be able to leap up to new heights.
This is where you’ll find a head. Once you place this on your shoulders you somewhat become one entity, though you’re still holding it with your hands and can place it down when needed. Head needs air to live though, and you’ll notice that you’ve already passed a handful if air tanks along the way. Take a moment to fill Head with air and you’re off to explore new pathways that open up. When you move though Head’s air slowly depletes, thus starts your journey of finding a constant stream of air tanks so you can survive as you try and find a way out now as one entity, Airhead.
Body and Head may be two separate entities, but now their fates are intertwined. Body can’t survive long without Head, and Head needs to be carried everywhere, constantly resupplying the air gauge. Slowly leaking air, you’ll need to find a way to not only survive, but a way out, trying to find the machine that stole Head’s air source. While there’s no text, dialogue or cutscenes, there’s a story that plays out in a way for you to interpret on your own.
A 2.5D platformer at its core, you’ll be running, jumping, and dashing as you gain new abilities, allowing you to reach new areas in this Metroidvania as you complete puzzles. Where you once couldn’t reach, you’ll eventually be able to pass or find another way through when you earn these new abilities.
You’re able to place down Head at any time, but doing so also depletes its air gauge slowly, so you can’t be apart for too long. Sometimes this will be needed though, as when Body is holding Head, you’re unable to use your arms to climb ledges since your hands are occupied. This is where some of the puzzle elements come into play, as you may need to place Head down and find a different way around to pass through a smaller area, or to push a rock to make a ledge reachable while holding Head afterwards.
Head can only last a short amount of time before needing a resupply of air. Thankfully there are plenty of air tanks strewn around the world conveniently, refiling your oxygen for a short period. Every time you use an air tank, this counts as a checkpoint as well, and since you’re constantly going from one tank to the next with only about 30 seconds or so in between, you’re never too far back if you manage to die from suffocation.
This is also where some of my frustrations come into play with Airhead as well though. Because you’re basically always suffocating, you’re constantly running and searching for the next air tank to refill your oxygen. This puts a constant pressure on you, especially since you also have to deal with puzzles along the way as well that can be quite challenging. I was so preoccupied with simply trying to reach the next air tank that I found it hard to enjoy myself or take the world in as I was constantly stressed trying to reach the next checkpoint, even if it was only 30 seconds away.
Puzzles start out simple enough, pushing a rock here or there to reach new heights, but eventually become more complex, having to place Head down, let the wind take it, or use different types of air tanks that have you float or sink. As you get new abilities, the puzzles become slightly more complex as you go. I’ll freely admit, a few puzzles certainly had me stumped and I needed to search online more than once for a solution.
Airhead’s visual style is gorgeous, starting out with dark and bleak caves and water, eventually opening up to outside cliff sides, almost as if each area is hand crafted or painted. The background soundtrack is subtle but adds a calm ambience, even when I was constantly stressed trying to each the next air tank to survive. While I had no major issues, I would get hung up on random objects now and then, or missing a jump from not being just perfectly timed, usually resulting in a quick death from loss of air. There's also the odd time where you need to go 'up' or 'down' onto another ledge or path given its 2.5D nature, but this wasn't always clear when or the exact spot to do so.
Even without any dialogue or traditional narrative, Airhead manages to tell a story, though it may differ from one to another depending on your interpretation. It’s clear that Airhead was built with a lot of heart and passion but I found it hard to truly enjoy from being constantly stressed about finding a constant air supply. Challenging puzzles and classic Metroidvania gameplay is to be had for fans, and while it may not be a long adventure, it was certainly memorable for as long as you can hold your breath.
**Airhead was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10



While we all may know the legendary tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, NeocoreGames has taken the classic tale and given it quite a unique spin, one that is dark, morbid and treacherous. You are Sir Mordred, the black knight from previous tales and nemesis of King Arthur. Using a dark power to invade the lands, you and King Arthur finally have a showdown to the death. You kill King Arthur, but in his last breath, he ends up killing you as well. You both died, yet you both somehow live.
You have both risen from the afterlife. You’re awoken by The Lady of the Lake, resurrecting you and telling you that you need to finish your journey to destroy King Arthur, as he’s now too resurrected but corrupt with evil. It won’t be easy though, as you’re going to have to fight through an army of corrupted denizens in the lands of Avalon. Almost as if the good versus evil roles have reversed, you take on this adventure to find a slay Arthur.
Obviously a drastic shift in the traditional Arthurian legend we know, this storyline had me hooked from the opening moments and constantly wanting to find out more. You won’t be able to fight the hordes of undead armies and monsters alone though, finding other Knights of the Round Table along the way, having them join your side in trying to repel the evil darkness besetting Camelot.
Characters are introduced along the journey and in a natural way. How you interact with them will determine a number of outcomes later on as there’s also a morality chart that you need to be cognizant of, as some knights may approve certain choices, but frown upon others. They all have an interesting background and reason for joining, playing into the larger overall narrative naturally without feeling forced. Do you choose to help someone’s quest for redemption, or ignore another’s brutality all to keep their allegiance? And just because you manage to complete the campaign doesn’t mean the game ends, as an endgame unlocks that offers new extremely challenging quests and boss fights.
If you’ve previously played on PC and wondering what’s been changed or improved for the console version, the list may not be terribly long, but it’s been done well. First, you’re given two graphical options to choose from; Quality that gives 4K resolution or Performance which instead gives a smoother framerate. There is a local PVP option if you want to challenge a friend head on, of course Xbox achievements to unlock, and controller support, obviously. I’ll admit, many games that get console ports from PC don’t always have a great controller layout or scheme, so I was unsure what to expect here. Thankfully, NeocoreGames have put in the work to make the controller feel natural for the most part, aside from a few finicky menus.
The core gameplay for King Arthur: Knight’s Tale is a tactical turn based RPG, so if you’re a fan of games like XCOM, Gears Tactics and countless others, you’ll have an idea of what to expect for the most part. Careful planning and strategies will be needed if you want to survive each battle, as death can be permanent for your knights if you’re not wary. You’ll also have aspects of hero management and the rebuilding of Camelot. There’s a number of different difficulty options, from Easy to Hard, and in the later chapters I found the default Normal to be quite a challenge if you don’t have an ideal party setup or a sound plan going into battle.
Camelot will play as your central hub after your opening mission. This is also where you’ll need to do some building management, deciding what to upgrade and when. You not only want to find and defeat Arthur, but restore Camelot to its former glory as well. This takes resources, which you’ll gather from completing missions, exploring the maps and finding treasure chests. Unlocking and upgrading facilities will allow you to purchase new gear, heal knights, set titles for bonuses and more. It’s actually quite more involved than I expected, as I was always trying to figure out the next best upgrade. Do I want an extra slot in the hospice to heal my knights when they become injured, or add another slot where my unused knights can earn XP as well? Early on you’ll struggle to figure out what best to upgrade, though you’ll steadily unlock more as you progress through the campaign.
On the overworld map is where you’ll choose which mission you want to test yourself with, able to see its objectives or potentially required knights to proceed. Side missions will earn you extra rewards, but also carry risks, as your knights can become critically injured, or even permanently die on certain difficulties, so there’s always a risk versus reward component in play when even choosing to do a side quest or not.
When gathering your knights for a mission and battles, you can take four into battle. Even choosing which knights is a strategic choice, as there are different classes you need to take into account as well. With six different classes, you’re generally going to want a balanced team, but how you choose to do so is up to you. Each character levels up individually, has skills to unlock, and can wear upgraded gear, but the downside is that they can also get critically injured or even permanently die depending on your difficulty option, so rotating new party members in while others rest and recover is generally wise. Loyalty also plays a large factor, as decisions you make will move a marker on the morality chart, and knights that don’t align with your views may decide to not agree or follow, or worse, stand against you. The main opposite views are Righteousness versus Tyranny, but there’s also Old Faith versus Christianity choices as well.
Combat is quite strategic, playing out on a grid and turn based. Here you’ll get to decide where to move each of your knights, what skills to use and develop your plan of attack. You’ll need to use AP (action points) to move and use abilities, and in the beginning you can generally move and attack once, but it becomes more strategic as you unlock more characters and learn more intricacies. There’s traps to keep an eye out for, and if you decide to use your AP for Overwatch protection instead, that’s a perfectly viable option as well which I found worked quite well.
Archers will eventually unlock skills to be more effective, shoot fire or poison arrows, magic users can hurl fireballs across a huge distance, and your knights can generally take a good beating with their heavy armor. How you blend these classes together and proper placement will make a huge difference in your success or failure. Gear can be upgraded with sigils, ranging in quality and stats. You’re able to sort it to only show what each character can use, and can upgrade your armor, weapons, ring and amulet. While the armor upgrades don’t change how you physically appear, each decent upgrade can make a substantial difference in your success. Upgrading buildings in Camelot can even offer new gear to purchase once you start to come across more gold. Explore each map thoroughly though, as campfires are ever important to restore your health or armor, but you'll need to choose wisely.
The dark, bleakness and constant death is a constant. Avalon’s backgrounds are quite detailed and ruins you come by will be crumbled. The color pallet is dark and it gives an uneasy feeling around every corner. Character designs are done quite well also, with your knights appearing as walking tanks in their medieval armor. The grim visuals are accompanied by a similar soundtrack that is haunting at times though unmemorable, and the voice actors all did quite a good job with believable performances.
King Arthur: Knight's Tale does a fantastic job at taking turn based tactical gameplay from titles we love and adding its own twists and dark setting. Strategic combat, moral choices, and a compelling narrative makes it difficult to put down. While it can be brutally challenging at times, even on the easier difficulties, turn based tactical combat is front and center but can feel a bit repetitive after a few dozen missions. A fresh take on Arthurian legend, King Arthur: Knight's Tale offers a memorable journey across Avalon as you try to rebuild Camelot and seek vengeance.
**King Arthur: Knight's Tale was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10



In the not so distant future, robots have taken over every single mundane job humans don’t want to do. For some reason though, all of the robots are now malfunctioning and have now turned against humanity. It’s up to a group of four comrades to save the world from the robot onslaught and save the world. This will be done with their tools, building skills, gadgets, and turrets.
At its core, Bish Bash Bots is a tower defense game played on a single screen with a top down view. Your goal is to protect the EMP at the ‘end’ of the stage from becoming destroyed by the onslaught of robots. Where it becomes tricky is that the majority of the levels aren’t a singular path that the robots will follow, and you are also only able to place your turrets in specific spots, so strategy will play a larger part than your typical tower defense title.
With 32 different worlds to play in, there’s plenty of different stages to challenge you, and they surely will. Not just simple backdrop changes, levels can greatly affect how you play that stage across the eight different biomes. Levels start out basic enough, though they eventually add other obstacles and environmental challenges such as multiple paths the bots can take, a gap in the middle of the stage you need to jump across, areas you can’t build on until you smash the giant mushrooms away, poison clouds that block your vision, quicksand pits, goop that blocks your turrets from firing until you clear it, and some boss fights that add even more to deal with. New stages never become stale, as you always have something new to contend with aside from turret placement and robot bashing.
The biproduct of this is that you’re continuously busy. There’s never, if rarely, a moment to rest, as you’re always having to do something, be it chasing after a rogue bot rushing to the EMP, upgrading a turret, collecting cogs or dealing with some environment mechanic. As you destroy bots, they’ll drop cogs, which is your currency to build new turrets, and they may even drop upgrade cubes that can be given to a turret to give it a slight boost in its upgrade meter.
I will say, playing solo, I wasn’t enjoying myself at all. It’s very challenging to do everything yourself, clearly designed for 2-4 player multiplayer. When I was able to convince my daughter to play with me for a few rounds, it was a night and day difference. Trying to juggle everything on your own seems near impossible. It’s not quite, but I had to restart levels quite a few times when trying to conquer it by myself. This is where I found that upgrading one turret multiple times was more powerful than having numerous level one turrets.
The four characters are more than simple color swaps as well, as they each have their own abilities and special power that can be used once fully charged. Some are clearly better in a group setting than others, like the one I chose that upgrades turrets faster, but activating these abilities benefits the whole group for a short time. When playing co-op this isn’t as much of an issue, but solo, some characters are immensely better than others because of their special ability.
While the strategy of proper turret placement and types is the priority, being able to bash the bots is where your brawling abilities can help or hinder. Swinging your hammer knocks the bots in that direction, so if you’re not careful, you might bash them past your turrets, or even into the EMP accidentally. If you wildly start swinging at the bots, they are going to get knocked in all directions, so you need to be a little more precise at the angle you attack from. While your attacks don’t do a lot of damage, it’s usually enough to finish off a few bots that are out of range of your turrets, but there’s nothing worse than seeing the bots get launched into the wrong direction or right into your EMP.
Enemies vary as you progress, become more challenging or having more health to deal with. They start simple enough, but then you have to deal with ones that shield all the robots around them until you give them a whack. Then there’s the annoying flying robots which are the worst because only the anti-air turret can hit them, so you almost always need one and hoped that you placed it along the right pathway.
As you progress in the campaign you’ll unlock new turret types such as a tesla that can temporarily stun enemies, as well as a few new gadgets for your wrench that can be equipped, giving such bonuses and stunning robots that are bashed with it. Clearly the best upgrades though are the cosmetic hats you can unlock, adding flair to your character and simply added for fun.
Again, Bish Bash Bots can certainly be played in single player, but it’s truly meant to be a multiplayer game for four players. Able to be played locally or online, four players makes for a much better experience overall. While having online multiplayer is an awesome addition, it’s done by room codes, so unfortunately there’s no random matchmaking to find players to fill out your games on a whim.
Bish Bash Bots is quite colorful with its varied biomes, and each robot enemy is clearly distinct in design from one another. This makes it easy to tell what robots are coming and which turrets you’re going to need for the oncoming wave. Music is what you’d expect, being light hearted and whimsical to match the cartoon visuals, though nothing really memorable.
Bish Bash Bots is a tower defense game at its core, but with all of its other mechanics in play, it’s quite a unique and challenging one, especially solo. Clearly designed to be played alongside friends, it’s a blast with some co-op buddies, but a constant frustration when solo.
**Bish Bash Bots was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.7 / 10



Before delving into the gameplay, let’s talk about the track list, as a music based game is only as good as its soundtrack. While music preferences are going to vary person to person, if you’re not a fan of the tracklist below, then it’s going to be a hard sell regardless of how good the gameplay may be. Vice versa, if you’re a fan of the included music then you’re likely to look past its smaller frustrations. AVICII Invector had 25 songs in its playlist, which felt like a decent amount, this time though in Invector: Rhythm Galaxy we have 40 songs total, upping the playlist by a fair amount.
Tracklist:
Adam Lambert – “Holding Out for a Hero”
Alec Benjamin – “Let Me Down Slowly”
Anne-Marie – “Ciao Adios”
Bausa & Zuna – “Biturbo”
Beka – “x – “Legion”
Burns – “Talamanca”
Charli XCX – “Boom Clap”
Charlie Puth – “Attention”
Dan + Shay – “Glad You Exist”
Disturbed – “Down with the Sickness”
Dropgun – “Earthquake”
Duran Duran – ty Fifty – “Cupid”
Garmiani – “Ava”
Greeicy Rendón & Mike Bahia – “Esta Noche”
Griff – “Black Hole”
Gucci Mane – “Classical”
Kojey Radical feat. Knucks – “Payback”
KSI feat. Tom Grennan – “Not Over Yet”
Liam Gallagher – “Wall of Glass”
Linkin Park – “Lost”
Lumix & Gabry Ponte – “Monster”
Maná – “Oye mi amor”
Merk & Kremont – “41 Days”
Mike Shinoda & Kailee Morgue – “In My Head”
Nathan Dawe feat. KSI – Nutini – “Shine a Light”
Paramore – “Ain't It Fun”
PARTYNEXTDOOR – “Her Way”
PinkPantheress – “Boy's a Liar”
Priya Ragu – “Adalam Va!”
Quarantino – “Broken Love”
Royal Blood – “Come On Over”
Sam Gellaitry – “New Wave”
Sam Ryder – “Space Man”
The Spinners – “I'll Be Around”
Tiësto feat. Charli XCX – “Hot In It”
Tina Turner – “The Best”
Wiz Khalifa feat. Berner – “Bluffin'”
It should be noted that 8 of the songs aren’t playable in Single Player mode until you unlock them in the Campaign by completing them, so it’s probably a good idea to start there first. While I initially thought that having a quite varied tracklist would be a positive, there doesn’t seem to be an overall genre or theme across the game, unlike what Avicii had. This meant that I really only liked half the songs at best, so my want to replay songs over again lessened because of how many I didn’t enjoy.
This becomes quite apparent in Campaign mode where you need to make linear progression through songs, and doing a couple back to back can be a drag if you’re not a fan of the genre, artist or song. Of course being a modern day rhythm game, there are DLC offerings of songs for purchase if you want to up the track list. Currently there are two extra packs available, one Latin music themed and the other EDM, but we only reviewed the base game with the included 40 songs.
What I didn’t expect was Invector: Rhythm Galaxy’s attempt at having a story. The campaign is how you’ll go from song to song, but every now and then you’ll get some chatter between characters Ebula and her friends going on an intergalactic road trip together after Ebula’s grandmother’s passing. After every few songs you get some dialogue snippets, and while I commend the effort to having put some semblance of a narrative, it’s completely forgettable and felt more like a disruption between songs.
Campaign is mandatory to get through though if you want to unlock all the songs, ship skins and world backgrounds. While you can play Single Player any time, doing so after the campaign makes the most sense. These unlocked songs are a little more challenging, as your shields won’t regenerate, so you’re only able to have a certain amount of missed notes to complete it.
Songs in Campaign start out easy enough (depending on your difficulty of course), and you simply need to get a specific percentage of the notes to pass. This percentage needed goes up the further in the campaign you get, making for an arbitrary difficulty increase, as the songs themselves don’t generally get progressively harder themselves. Sure there were a few songs that required a few restarts to get the hang of certain note sections, but it seemed sporadic and random, as sometimes the notes were on the bass, melody or vocals depending on the genre and song.
Gameplay is virtually identical from Avicii, and since I enjoyed the original game so much, I had a feeling it would be the same here. For the most part, I was right. One change I noticed right away though is that in the previous game you had to press the button as your ship was over the note itself, now in Rhythm Galaxy though, you have an oval reticule in front of your ship, needing to press it then just before it reaches your ship. I’m not sure why the change but it was causing me issues in the beginning, making me question if my audio/video wasn’t synced properly on my TV. Sure I accommodated to the slight change eventually, I’m just unsure why the change was made in the first place.
You spaceship flies above a set and winding path littered with notes based on the song selection. There are two different highway playfields, the first is a flat ‘road’ where you can be in the middle, left, or right lane where you attempt to press the corresponding button at the right time to the beat. Then there are the triangle highways, where instead of being a flat playfield, you can move to any of the three sides as it rotates, all while winding up, down, and to the sides.
Starting out on the Casual difficulty to get myself warmed up the gameplay, I eventually challenged myself to Normal, Hard and then Ultra. The harder the difficulty, the more notes generally on the screen. On Casual you only have to use the Left Stick, Bumper and ‘A’ button to match with the note prompts. Going to Normal adds more notes as well as the ‘X’ button, Hard adds ‘B’, and Ultra adds ‘Y’ and even more notes. While it’s color coded and obvious what button is meant to be pressed, sometimes it becomes a blur with how much is on the screen at once.
I’m generally quite skilled at music based games, but Hard mode was quite challenging on a number of songs due to different genres playing oddly from one another. With a pop track you generally hit the button to the beat and instruments, but on some of the other songs, you had to go along with the vocals or melody, so it felt a little inconsistent at times. You also always need to be looking ahead of the notes coming down the lanes so that you can prepare for which button to press correctly. This isn’t normally an issue, but at times when you’re going ‘uphill’ on the highway, you can’t see the notes coming until the last second, almost always making for a missed note unless you’ve memorized the song.
If you have friends or family over, four players can play together, each taking a corner of the splitscreen. I didn’t get to test this out, though I do wish there was an online multiplayer offering, though the online leaderboards will have to suffice for now. Even though there are more songs this time around, me not enjoying half of the tracklist made it feel about the same length of replayability as Avicii was.
Visually, Invector: Rhythm Galaxy is a wonder to look at if you’re able to take your eyes off the playfield for a few moments. As you fly through futuristic landscapes, complete with neon highlights, it’s a lot to take in visually, especially if you’re watching it for the first time. While it’s quite chaotic with all the bright lights and fast movement, you do eventually get into the ‘zone’, able to focus and block out all the extra visual noise as you tap your foot to the songs you enjoy.
If you enjoyed Avicii Invector’s gameplay, you’re sure to enjoy Rhythm Galaxy as well, though I’d suggest checking out a few of the songs and see if they are what you’d enjoy, as a music game is only as good as its soundtrack. I do feel as though Invector: Rhythm Galaxy is missing an overall theme or tone with its varied soundtrack selection, but it’s challenging gameplay and gorgeous aesthetic make it hard to not recommend.
**Invector: Rhythm Galaxy was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.2 / 10



While there’s no traditional Career mode, that doesn’t mean you don’t make progress. You begin with just one mode unlocked: Race. This is the simplest mode where you just need to reach the end at each leg of the race. What makes Make Way unique is that there’s no pre-designed levels, instead offering all players a tile to place down, creating a leg of a race. You race that segment, then add more tiles and the track becomes longer each time until there’s a points winner.
As you play you earn XP and level up, unlocking two more modes along the way. At certain levels you’ll then unlock Classic and Chaos mode. Classic is also your standard racing, but now adds weapons to the mix, Mario Kart style where you have to drive over one of the blocks to get the power-up. These range from different types of fun weapons meant to stop your opponents as you make it to the next checkpoint. This mode also adds some blockades and ramps, making the actual racing a bit trickier.
Then there’s Chaos mode, perfectly named. This is like Classic Mode, but more weapons and obstacles, also without any of the walls on the edges of the tracks, meaning you’re going to fall off and be knocked out until the next leg of the race quite often. Chaos mode was quite challenging and I had to purposely drive much slower to avoid driving off the track and not gaining any points. There’s also a Custom mode you can unlock where you can set all the rules exactly how you want.
I wasn’t sure what to make of the scoring system at first, but once I understood it I actually quite enjoyed it. A race is comprised of multiple rounds until one player reaches the maximum points. At the start of a race each player chooses a track tile to place, then you race on that layout. Once that segment is raced and completed, you add another four tiles to the track, lengthening it and racing from the beginning once more. You keep repeating this until someone wins by reaching the maximum of 3000 points, which are given out for segment wins. If you manage to get knocked out or fall off the track you won’t score any points for that segment, but will reappear at the next section. Points are given for each segment you survive, with higher places gaining more points.
The building segments in between rounds takes a really simple idea and makes it into a fun gameplay mechanic. Tiles are laid out randomly and you choose which you like and want to race on, but be quick, as it’s first come first serve. Then it’s a race to place it where you want on the track, so if I place my tile down before you, that’s how the race layout is going to be. Races may only be a few segments if you’re winning each portion getting the maximum points, but if it’s competitive, it may be a dozen segments long.
Not only can you place track pieces, you’ll eventually get to unlock obstacles too, making races more chaotic. Bumpers, ramps, boosts and more can be placed, and while you’ll only have a handful of tile options at the beginning, you unlock more as you level up. Eventually you’ll have really cool pieces like loops, seesaws, twirling ramps and more. Every race is going to be different because the tiles offered are randomized, and players will race to get different pieces and place them in different orders each time.
This takes designing your own tracks to a new levels, because you then race it directly after being placed, and knowing an opponent hates the tiles with no barriers or a gap may be a benefit to you if you’re able to remember the layout and avoid the obstacle. While I may have fallen off the track the first few times, I certainly started to remember afterwards, strategizing how to go about the race. With endless configurations, you more rely on skill and reflexes rather than memorizing a track layout. Thankfully each vehicle handles exactly the same, so it's simply an aesthetic preference as well.
My main issue is with the camera. Given that it’s a top down racer, the camera essentially is locked to the player who’s furthest ahead in first place, meaning if you fall too far behind, you’ll be knocked out for that leg of the race. Even though the camera is locked to you in first place, it’s not zoomed out far enough to see what’s coming, especially if you’re racing at full speed, so you have to hopefully memorize the track layout from the tile placement or be somewhat cautious since you can’t see very far what’s ahead of you until it’s too late.
The weapons can help you knock or stall your opponents, allowing you for a segment win. While there’s not that many different weapon variations, they are light hearted, like a mallet on the top of your car to smash anyone in front of you, or a goo launcher to slow them down. You’ll gain XP for doing so as well, so always a good idea to try and do so regardless.
Completing races will earn you XP in a variety of ways, unlocking new vehicles, track tiles and obstacles. The more you play the more you’ll unlock, so there’s always something new to play with it seems. I do wish there was a way you could see more than just the next unlock, but once you start getting some of the more unique tiles, races become quite fun with a few loops and such thrown in.
Play up to four players online or locally, and if you’re by yourself, you can race three other bots no problem. Even able to choose their difficulty when playing solo I was still having a great time, though I could see playing locally with some friends and a few adult beverages being even more of a blast. While online multiplayer is supported, I was unable to find a single match every time I tried, which was a bit of a dissapointment.
I'll admit, I expected Make Way to simply be another MicroMachines knockoff that I’d forget after a day of playing. Instead, I’m leaving it installed just in case I have someone over, as it’s simple enough to pick up and play and would absolutely be a blast with some friends. When not only the gameplay is fun, but creating the tracks as well, races never became stale due to being completely unique every single time, and the constant slow drop of tile unlocks kept me wanting to play one more race.
**Make Way was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10



If you have automatonophobia (fear of mannequins) or find it hard to deal with suicide topics, this may be difficult for you to play. The later section even deals with child harm, which as a parent is hard to stomach, especially when it’s a cutscene you can’t intervene in. With some heavy topics being dealt with here, you can also expect some messed up themes, blood, supernatural events and more. The atmosphere is set in place quite quickly and had an uneasy tone throughout until the credits rolled.
Your brother has gone missing, and after months of no leads or findings, you decide to go search for yourself. Naturally in a horror game, this leads you to a dark and creepy alleyway with someone on the other end of a radio guiding you. You of course then up in some sort of abandoned hospital, because where else would it lead you right? Of course this is when the radio stops working also. With a quite short runtime of around two hours, I can’t delve much more into the story without spoiling the main plot points or twists.
Search from room to room and you’ll eventually come across some VHS tapes that are somehow linked, acting like a new chapter or different perspective. I did find it a little hard to follow along at times, but what starts as a missing person mystery, a much darker tale starts to emerge. While the tropes may be overused, I was intrigued to see if my assumptions were correct once I think I had the plot figured out, but rest assured, there’s a few twists and turns I even I didn’t see coming, especially in the last few sections that takes quite a dark turn.
Before you begin your journey though I’d highly suggest checking out the options, as I had to turn off the head bobble and film grain. Yeah, the film grain can make it look grittier and like that of a found footage film, but the environments are so dark already, and the head bob was way too emphasized that I’m sure it may make some people nauseous. Thankfully these can be toggled to your preferences.
Each chapter, or section, has a distinct theme or objective. Some will have you searching the abandoned halls of a hospital looking for certain patient records or finding the breakers to turn on the power so you can use the elevator. Maybe you’re reliving a memory, though things may not be quite as you remember. Sometimes you reach the end of a hallway only to turn around and it’s completely rearranged from the way you just came. Doors will slam shut or lock on you once entered, making for a tense atmosphere.
Then there’s the mannequins. These start out innocent enough, but can be quite creepy once they start to move as you walk by or rearrange themselves. Later on there are paranormal events that occur as well. Is this real? Is this just something you’re imaging in your head? Can you survive the horror? The tale comes together from multiple viewpoints that’s a little difficult to piece together, as it’s not always blatantly expressed who or where you are until later.
A good horror game has multiple layers to try and scare the player. You have mood, music, atmosphere, enemies and of course jumps scares. While jump scares are present in Anthology of Fear, it does become a little overused, as there’s not much else here to scare you aside from your automatonophobia. That said, while it’s not outright scary once you realize this is mostly a walking simulator with a horror theme, you won’t really have much in the way of combat aside from a single section and maybe three enemies. You eventually get this odd looking ‘weapon’ that helps you in a single section, only to drop it and never use it again.
Aside from being able to interact with almost anything, the only other actions you can do is slightly walk faster by holding Left Trigger and the odd QTE event where you’ll need to mash the ‘A’ button to open a door with a crowbar for example. There’s one section near the end that involves some self dental work, but I had no UI to tell me what or how to do so, eventually fumbling my way through it.
Visuals are a mixed bag. The atmosphere and lighting are absolutely on point. Hallways looked creepy and the lights really set a realistic tone and uneasiness. It’s a shame that everything else had incredibly low resolution textures, completely breaking the immersion at times. Even the keyboard on an old school computer you need to interact with had blurry textures. It also doesn’t help that important objects you need, like keys and other things, don’t glow or anything to indicate they are to be picked up unless you happen to have your cursor exactly over the item.
Hallways not only appear visually creepy, but sound the part as well. You’ll hear creaks on the wooden floors, though not always aligned with your footsteps, and things from afar or on the other side of a doorway you hope that you don’t find out what it actually is. The audio sets a tone that makes you tense as you peak around each corner, but again, once you realize there’s no actual danger per-se, you lose some of the horror aspect. The voice acting is passable at best, making it difficult to empathize with what they are thinking or going through.
While Anthology of Fear might not outright scare you, it’s supposed to make you feel uneasy and tense, which is does in certain sections. With some very heavy themes and shocking scenes, I was hoping for more of a build up to these climax, but instead the ending felt as though it came abruptly out of nowhere and not all that satisfying tying up loose ends. If you’re a fan of the P.T. demo, this may be worth a look, just expect a short runtime with a story that will be forgotten aside from a scene or two.
**Anthology of Fear was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 6.3 / 10



Choosing to play as a Priest or Journalist, you’re called to a remote town via letter that appears to be abandoned when you arrive. Of course it doesn’t take long to realize all of the citizens have turn into monsters and zombies, all trying to kill you on sight. So begins your journey to figure out what’s happened and if you can stop it. There’s more story here, but it’s told in just a few cutscenes and lore pieces you can find and investigate along the way, so it was a bit hard to follow. If you don’t pay attention or find all the notes, quite a bit of background lore can be missed. Let’s be honest though, if I’m playing an old school retro FPS, I’m probably playing it more for the combat and gunplay rather than its story.
As you progress deeper and deeper in this horrifying town, you’ll find more evil at every turn. You’ll start out with a simple pistol, eventually equipping a handful of different weapons. Depending on which character you choose, Priest or Journalist, they also have a handful of different abilities which suit different playstyles, though it would have been nice to know the differences from the start.
I found the Priest much more powerful with his abilities as he can get moments of invulnerability, a few seconds of infinite ammo, a heal and more. The Journalist has an AoE attack, a heal when attacking, an AoE stun and a few others, but I still found the Priest’s abilities much more useful overall. The priest also fits the dark Lovecraft setting as you blast your way through hordes of enemies. There’s some slight differences in the story based on which character you play, though I don’t believe enough to warrant a second playthrough unless you want to play with the other abilities and skill tree loadout.
Given that Forgive Me Father is a retro FPS, it also appears just like they originally did, 2D characters in a 3D world. You’ll find classic health, armor and ammo pickups, as well as needing to find colored keys to match their corresponding doors to make progress. Most levels are fairly linear, and while there’s the odd few branching paths here and there, they usually house some sort of secret like extra armor and ammo. No need to worry about reloading either, as you’ll keep firing away as long as you have the ammunition for it.
There’s a decent range of enemies you’ll face throughout your journey, and yes, you’ll see many of them constantly reused, but it’s no less fun to blast them all away as they rush you. Even though they appear as 2D cardboard cutouts, they are animated decently and sound as you’d expect evil monsters to with their groans. The early enemies will be simple cannon fodder, eventually having more abilities and even annoying flying enemies in the latter half. While not a huge variety of weapons, the skill tree and mutating the weapons is where you get variety. You have your typical pistols, rifles and launchers, each of which is generally best suited for a specific enemy type or situation.
Level design is generally quite basic. The first few chapters are very small cramped and indoor hallways, whereas the latter stages are a bit more open and less confined. There’s no real getting lost, even without a map. As the genre dictates, you’ll need to find specific colored keys for the matching doors to make progress, which almost always ends up with a few waves of enemies spawning right after you pick up said key. There’s even some platforming you’ll need to do early on, with a little more focus on it later, which is part of its weaker sections.
With the Lovecraft backdrop, you can also expect to manage your madness levels. The more ‘mad’ you become, this will make you more powerful, even changing the visuals and audio to a focused black and white experience. It’s apparently tied to a combo meter or sorts, but not explained all that well from the beginning. And if you want to save your progress you’ll need to find the fixed save points. There are usually a couple per level so it’s not a big deal if you die and have to restart, but there a few sections that aren’t fun to redo due to an untimely death.
Luckily the journey is where it’s fun. Shooting your weapons feels and sounds solid, and the huge boss fights were the most memorable highlights of the whole adventure. With each gun being able to be upgraded a different way, even a typical boring shotgun can be something different. There’s a large skill tree, and each weapon can branch into two different options. Typically one will allow for better range, damage or reload speed as per usual, whereas the other option is where it gets more interesting possibly completely changing your gun in other ways. While I could have chosen to have more damage on my pistols, I instead opted for the other upgrade path that allowed me to have two pistols instead. Same goes for one of the other regular guns, eventually morphing it into a grenade launcher that looks like it was designed my Cthulhu himself as it looks as though its covered in moving tentacles.
You’ll also be able to choose how you want to upgrade your skills as well, health and ammunition upgrades, even earn more XP per kill if you want. Make sure you have an upgrade plan early on though, as the experience needed to earn a new skill point in the later sections felt incredibly long. The first few hours I was upgrading quite often, but it certainly slowed down near the end. Enemies near the end also turned into annoying damage sponges and flying creatures that make you waste a lot of ammo, so maybe that was part of it as well.
The comic book style works quite well and suits the 2D characters. Don’t let that fool you though, as Forgive Me Father is absolutely bloody at every turn. Blasting holes in monsters leaves a ton of blood splatter everywhere, a great contrast to the dark and brooding environments. Where the game really shines though is with its kick ass metal soundtrack. When it’s time to fight you’ll certainly know, because the music kicks into high gear and gets you pumped. While the voice acting is decent at best, there’s not much of it, and the soundtrack elevates the audio as a whole.
While not the most unique retro FPS I’ve ever played, I enjoyed my time with Forgive Me Father due to the unique skill tree and weapon alterations you can choose, along with a badass metal soundtrack that I wasn’t expecting. If you’ve ever wanted classic DOOM but with the Lovecraftian setting, Forgive Me Father is absolutely what you’ve been waiting for, flaws and all.
Suggestions: **Forgive Me Father was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10



While there may have been a lull for quite some time with the Happy Tree Friends crew nowhere to be found, they have now returned in videogame form. Originally released back in December 2022, The Crackpet Show may not have had the Happy Tree Friends branding or name, but it certainly took inspiration from the cult cartoon, as it was hyper violent, but in a cute way. Well, it’s finally happened. The crossover event is finally here with The Crackpet Show: Happy Tree Friend Edition. That’s right, your favorites have returned and I can’t think of a more fitting game that suits their style, branding and violence better. Play as your favorites from Happy Tree Friends as you shoot and kill dozens of enemies, all for TV ratings!
Who wouldn’t watch a TV show where the characters are all trying to kill one another? That of course gets ratings, and that’s your goal on The Crackpet Show, to get likes, become famous, and survive. I guess that last part is the most important though. Welcome back a handful of the classic Happy Tree Friends ensemble, such as Giggles, Cuddles, Handy, Petunia, Toothy, Nutty, Flaky, Sniffles, Splendid, even Flippy, and my personal favorite, Lumpy as the announcer.
A rogue-like shoot-em-up at its core, you’ll be placed in arenas until all your enemies are dead before being allowed to progress to the next room. Every kill is over the top bloody, as expected with a Happy Tree Friends setting, though if for some reason you don’t care about the latest update that added this crossover, you can toggle it off and play the base game with the core Crackpet Show characters instead. With this latest crossover edition, not only did we get the slew of Happy Tree Friends characters to play as, but certain death animations for characters were added, which fans of the show will certainly recognize, as well as updated visuals and audio overall.
With up to 4 players locally, it’s up to you to use your guns and weapons to kill all the enemies, as that’s what the audience wants and how you’ll get your thumbs up likes, and if a few audience members gets caught in the crossfire, c’est la vie, they new the risk being an audience member. The bulk of your gameplay will probably takes place in the Campaign Mode, though there is an Endless Mode that unlocks once you complete Season One.
A season consists of six episodes, and each episode is broken into a handful of smaller levels, or arenas. Kill all the enemies in a level and you’ll get to choose the next stage you want to take on, some giving a weapon, perk, item or other bonuses, all randomized. Complete all the levels and make your way to the final arena and you’ll have to challenge yourself versus a difficult boss. Defeat said boss and the episode is complete and you can move onto the next which becomes a little tougher and longer, eventually adding harder versions of arenas and even mini bosses halfway through the episodes.
Before you begin each violent episode though, you won’t last long without a weapon, so you choose one of the four base classes to start out. Assault starts you out with a pretty standard Pew Gun and Anvil Drop item, whereas my favorite, Engineer begins with the Zap Gun and Turret. There’s also a Medic that uses a Lob-o-Gun and Bandages or the Tank that get a Shotgun. These are only the starting weapons, and each suits a different play style, so experiment with each, as you’re bound to find plenty more along your way through each episode.
The more likes you earn by killing enemies after each run, successful or not, you can then upgrade weapons, perks and items randomly chosen between two different ones. This is where the rogue-like elements come into play, as each run is randomly generated, though you will make slow and steady overall progress as each weapon, perk and item gets upgraded over time with your choices.
While most levels won’t give you much hassle until the later episodes, you’ll certainly die at the boss stages a few times. These large bosses have a hefty health pool, so you better hope you’ve been getting some awesome upgrades along the way in that run, as it all resets for each run. These bosses can practically fill the screen with bullets, so you’ll need to your use dodge quite often to avoid getting hit and losing your hearts. Lose all your hearts and it’s Game Over and you’ll need to start the episode from the beginning.
Certain stages will rewards you with a random weapon, item or perk along the way. The perks accumulate and stack, making for a pretty good safe choice, though if you’re not enjoying your weapon or item as much as expected, you’re sure to find something new along the way. The weapons are quite diverse, and since no two runs are the same, it doesn’t become stale. Of course this is where the randomness will either favor or play against you, as I’ve had some terrible runs due to weapons I didn’t enjoy, then next run I beat the episode in a single go because I got an awesome gun and some powerful perks.
After a few episodes you’ll also gain the ability to save your loadout for the next run should you choose. This means placing your current weapon in the fridge, so that when you die, or live, your next run has your upgraded weapon waiting for you from the beginning, giving a huge head start. Unfortunately this weapon holding only lasts for one run, and if you don’t choose to use it on the next run, it disappears until you save your loadout again at a specific level.
While I was disappointed there was no online co-op, there is at least 4 player local support. This of course ups the chaos in the levels, but surely to be more fun alongside friends and family. Even playing solo, I was having a good time, slowly making overall progress even when I died on the same boss a few times. Since my weapons slowly got upgraded, each run was slightly easier each time and I hoped I'd get lucky to find my favorites along the way to the Episode's boss.
An unexpected but completely fitting crossover, The Crackpet Show: Happy Tree Friends Edition looks, sounds and plays just as you’d expect something from the iconic violent cartoon. While it won’t be for everyone, I enjoyed my time each run trying to take out the difficult boss and complete the Episodes and Seasons. It’s been quite some time since I’ve thought about Happy Tree Friends, but it certainly put a smile on my face to see them once more as I blasted hundreds of enemies for some likes.
**The Crackpet Show: Happy Tree Friends Edition was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10



Don’t expect some large sweeping narrative in KarmaZoo. Actually, don’t expect any story really, as it’s simply an online cooperative game without any story as to who, what, or why. You share kindness with others by helping one another, and developers Pastagames has somehow managed to make a game where playing with random people online is actually fun rather than frustrating.
A group of up to ten random players online will be placed into a lobby together, then whisked off to a series of levels where you work cooperatively to not only reach the end, but collect as much fruit as possible. Simply getting to the end in this 2D platformer is only part of the goal. Again, your aim is to help one another reach that goal, and no two runs, called loops, will be identical since levels and characters change with each lobby. A loop consists of a couple levels back to back, with a vote taking place between each where the players get to choose a special bonus.
Even if you wanted to rush ahead and try to reach the end goal on your own, you wouldn’t make it far for a few reasons. Usually certain pathways are blocked so you need one player(s) to hold down a button to raise a wall so others can pass, then the players who have passed can hold the door for the original button holder. Also, you have a ‘halo’ around you that keeps you safe. If you have no one nearby it will slowly shrink until you die and respawn, though if you’re in range of another player, your halo’s somewhat meld together, keeping each other safe and becoming larger. This means you can only be on your own for a short time, always needing to be in range of at least one other player.
All good deeds give you and your team Karma. Held open a wall for others to get through? Karma for you! Used your character’s special power to help progress? More karma! All the karma you unlock is essentially a currency that you’ll then use to unlock new characters and more for future loops. The game even tallies all the karma all players earn and put it towards a KarmaPass, unlocking new rewards for all players that helped contribute, which even the bottom of their website showcases the cooperative essence of the game.
You start out as a simple blob with no powers or abilities other than being able to sing. After a brief tutorial teaching you the basics you’re then free to hop online and find others to play alongside. Yes, it’s a multiplayer only experience, which I found odd given the tutorial has you alongside a bot. With cross-platform support between PC and console, I never had an issue finding others to play with, as lobbies generally filled quite quickly.
Stages will somewhat cater towards the characters being used, and since there’s so many and they have a wide range of abilities, it’s pretty rare to replay the same level over again. Even if you do, the players you’re with will likely change, so it’ll be a different experience each time. You’re able to freely change to any unlocked character you own in your sanctuary, your home, but once you join an online loop, you’re committed to that character until the match is finished.
With quite a lot of characters to unlock, they all have a special ability that is used to help others. There is the odd few that overlap in special powers, but for the most part they’re generally unique. Some are cute, like the mouse, clock, lantern and more, where others I enjoy like the turtle, elephant and umbrella for their special abilities. The majority of levels can be completed without special powers, but choosing certain characters with abilities will give the levels a greater chance of needing that power to find all of the hidden fruit.
Each run will take around 20 or so minutes to complete. I seemed to earn on average roughly 2000 karma per loop, but once you start doing the math and realizing how much karma you’ll need for all of the unlocks, it’s can become quite a daunting grind. Character unlocks can range from a few hundred to thousands, there are locks that cost Karma to unlock, books to collect and more. It’s a massive grind if you’re a completionist, though I quite enjoy simply playing it casually and unlocking a new character after every few loops. I do wish the earned Karma per loop was higher, but if it was too high you’d then have everything and nothing to work towards long term, so I understand its design.
If you happen to have friends and/or family over that want to play, there’s also a local multiplayer mode, but it’s more competitive in nature. This mode is called Totem, pitting you against the other players in the room. There’s a handful of minigames that you can vote on by dragging trophies to the mode, then challenge one another to the game. Some are races, collecting fruit and others, though I wasn’t able to test this mode out much. I do wish this mode was online as well.
What I do like about the main Loop mode is that there’s actually no voice chat, forcing you to communicate with jumps and a wheel of limited emoji’s. Sure at times this could be frustrating when you’re trying to somehow tell another player that they need to let you pass a wall, or to step on a button. The majority of the time it manages to work itself out and it was quite rare that a round wasn’t completed within the time limit due to a lack of cooperation. Making a sacrifice to jump on a spike so the other players can pass by feels rewarding in itself, which is impressive, as we’re conditioned to feel like dying is bad. Even though you reappear within moments to get right back into it, you know you were part of the solution.
KarmaZoo surprised me, as I wasn’t sure what to quite expect, but came away addicted to a fun and quirky cooperative game where I actively wanted to help other players that I couldn’t even talk to. While it is quite a grind if you’re going to want to unlock everything possible, it’s quite fun for a few rounds here and there in between other games and downtime.
**KarmaZoo was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.3 / 10



If you happen to know the iconic novel, this game is actually a prequel that sets up the nearly six decade old story. You play as Yasna, an astrobiologist who wakes up on the planet Regis III, but unsure how she actually got there. While she tries to piece together what has happened, her journey eventually turns into a rescue mission when she realizes she doesn’t know where her fellow lost crewmates are. Regis III isn’t like Earth though, as it seems desolate and untouched by mankind, and there seems to be more than what’s visible on the surface.
Your team are a group of scientists that work for a group called The Commonwealth. As you explore the world, danger becomes more and more apparent, but not in the way you might expect. Being a walking simulator, don’t expect to shoot any weapons, use a jetpack, or explore the stars. This is a very isolated story, a journey that will have you finding some deadly secrets of this planet and what happened to your crew.
A planet untouched by humans creates some amazing landscapes, barren yet breathtaking. How can a barren planet be dangerous? What possible perils could there be if it’s not humankind that’s a threat? Explore and find out, as evolution can be brilliant but dangerous.
A narrative that lasts somewhere 8-10 hours, it’s paced perfectly, constantly drip feeding you just enough information to stay interesting and keep you wanting to know what happens next. Even with the excruciating slow walking speed, the narrative continues at a constant pace. At certain times you’ll have dialogue choices to make, should you wish, which will dictate certain scenes and outcomes. While the first half is a very slow paced crawl, the second half is where it really picks up once some revelations are made. With a 60’s sci-fi aesthetic, The Invincible was certainly memorable long after the credits rolled.
The Invincible is a walking simulator, let’s get that out of the way first thing. I know that might dissuade people right away, but this is a tale worth telling, and it just happens to take place at a walking speed a majority of the time. As you try and piece together how you ended up on Regis III you’ll be in constant communication with your Astrogator, kind of like your commander, back up in your ship in orbit. Your constant banter back and forth make a lot of the experience more bearable as you explore this mysterious planet in isolation.
The atompunk setting fits perfectly with the whole experience. Your tools look as if they were plucked out of a 60’s sci-fi show, even your helmet and microphone have that cool retro look and feel to it. Your telemeter is especially retro, indicating with small analog LED lights which direction a living lifeform is when nearby. You also have an x-ray handheld that can detect and visualize metal in the world, which will be quite handy during your journey. You’ll also get to drive a land rover in the latter half, making quicker work of the lengthier distances on Regis III.
Given that the whole gameplay of The Invincible is basically walking and movement, I was hoping it would feel better than it did. Unfortunately, it was quite clunky and at times, excruciatingly slow. While you don’t ever have to worry about jumping or crouching, Yasna will automatically leap over or down spots if it’s the specific designated area, down to the pixel and nowhere else. Even though you should be able to step over that rock or object on the ground, you can’t, you can only move and traverse at very specific points and nowhere else at all. You are able to run with Yasna’s limited stamina, but it’s barely even any faster and runs out as quickly as you started to jaunt.
With how mysterious Regis III is, I was fully expecting that there was going to be some light puzzles to be had, but they never came or happened. There’s also no secrets to uncover aside from the narrative, or anything other than really heading to your latest waypoint. Oddly enough there’s also no manual saving of any kind. You have to rely on the autosave system and hope that if you want to quit and play later that it saved recently. While I never had this to be an issue, that’s also because I completed the game in two sittings, unable to put it down until its conclusion.
While simply walking a barren planet will no doubt bore some, there are a few other things you get to do in between story segments. You do have a few gadgets to use, as described above, though these are really only used at specific points. Sometimes you’ll need to scan the landscape with your space age binoculars to spot an object, camp or climbing spot. There a few spots where you’ll control a drone, though it’s very minimal and for narrative reasons. The rover sections change up the pace a bit, but you don’t get all that much freedom even in the larger more ‘open’ sections.
For how barren Regis III is, it’s oddly beautiful with its landscapes. The retro–futuristic atompunk aesthetic has a great feel and in the later portions once some revelations are revealed, there is some very spectacular scenery to take in for some wonderful screenshots. Given how slowly you walk, it makes it easier to take notice of the planet.
The musical score composed by Brunon Lubas is hauntingly beautiful at times. The music alone can make you feel weary or curious depending on the melodies. Sometimes there’s a lull in the music and that alone makes you feel more isolated on this planet, as dead air can be deafening. The voice actors from the main two characters, Yasna and Novik, is also done spectacularly and made me believe every word they said.
The Invincible is a slow paced first person walking simulator but with a heavy emphasis on its storytelling. It may not have the excitement you’d expect, though I can’t delve into much more of the story for fear of spoilers. Having never read the novel I wasn’t sure what to expect, and the fact that the game is a prequel to the novel is exciting, and now I have plans to read the source material. If you enjoy a slow burn sci-fi story, The Invincible tells quite an interesting and compelling tale, one footstep at a time.
**The Invincible was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10



While some might automatically assume that Lies of P is a Soul-like, it actually more resembles Bloodborne and Sekiro mix rather than an actual Dark Souls. What makes Lies of P unique is its backdrop, as it’s a dark reimagining of the classic Pinocchio tale, hinted at in the title. As Geppetto’s creation, you’ll need to survive this harsh world as you try to find meaning. While I heard many enjoyed Lies of P, I didn’t expect that I would much given its genre, but it certainly surprised me.
You are Pinocchio, awakening in an abandoned train in the city of Krat. This is no normal city though, as the majority of its human population has been slaughtered by puppets from the same creator as you, Geppetto. Being half human, half puppet, you’re the only one that has a chance at defeating a city full of murderous robot puppets. You're awoken by a mysterious voice telling him to head to Hotel Krat, which Pinnochio does, but it won’t be easy. After a number of deadly enemies and your first major boss, you find yourself in Hotel Krat, the last safe refuge in this now deadly city roaming with murderous puppets. Here you meet a mysterious woman named Sophia who is there to help you in any way she can. She gives you a lead on finding your creator, Geppetto, as he needs rescuing and the only person that would know how to stop this puppet uprising.
Now using Hotel Krat as your home base, this is where you’ll come to level up from Sophia, upgrade your weapons and simply take a breather when needed. Here you’re also given a cricket in a lantern, acting as your light, aptly named Gemini. Small details like this makes Lies of P’s connection with Pinocchio's dark retelling so special. Developers have done a great job at creating a world with plenty of lore and telling a narrative that’s interesting yet mysterious at the same time.
The city of Krat is styled after the Belle Epoque era in France (1870-1914), very elegant in nature, but now has streets filled with blood from these puppets killing anything alive they see. While the city isn’t as completely open as past Souls games, being much more linear in design, that’s not saying there’s no side areas, shortcuts and paths to find, but it’s much more linear at its core design.
Having heavy inspiration from Dark Souls and Bloodborne, you’re going to see numerous parallels in its game design. Stargazer’s are your bonfires, which will be used as teleport points, refills your health and healing items to full, but as we all know, also resets the world and all non-boss enemies. Bosses are generally housed behind massive doors which will have you strain to even open before attempting them. Your currency is Ergo instead of souls, used to level up essentially the same way as the games before it. Die before spending it and you’ll leave it at your last corpse, able to be retrieved as long as you don’t die again.
Combat is also very similar, needing to balance light and heavy attacks as well as managing your stamina, blocking and dodging. Just like in similar titles, you’ll die, a lot, learn from your mistakes and progress ahead. This is why fans of the genre enjoy it as much as they do, overcoming that difficult enemy or boss, finally progressing. What is unique is its take on the ‘humanity’ system, but here it’s about telling the truth or a lie at certain points, effecting your path forward and ending as well.
This is where the combat comes in, something FromSoftware has basically perfected, and what I generally struggle with in the genre. Souls games generally have you play more defensively, usually opting to dodge attacks and waiting for your opening for attack. Bloodborne on the other hand was much more aggressive in its design, and this is where you can clearly see Lies of P drew its inspiration from. You still need quick reactions, but Lies of P wants you to play much more aggressively, relying on counters and parries rather than dodging and rolling.
Performing a perfect guard is absolutely required to master, as that’s really your only chance the further you make your way into the city. Doing so is more than to just be flashy though. It’ll will give the enemy some stagger damage, where if you do this enough, will open them up to a heavy or execution attack, as they’ll be vulnerable for a few seconds. These perfect parries also will cause the enemies weapon to become damaged, maybe even breaking, which in turn reduces the damage output they can do. The best part? These also applies to bosses as well, so if you can perfectly parry a number of attacks in a row, you can get a huge advantage against them.
Even for someone like that that finds Souls combat difficult, once I learned the enemy patterns and was able to perfectly guard against them, I was able to play much more aggressive, barely dodging at all. There’s something so satisfying about negating a rapid attack from a boss, only to counter and take off a huge chunk of their health. Boss fights were easily the highlight, each being designed uniquely, having their own movesets, and later on, a good amount will have two phases that you’ll have to contend with.
The later bosses are quite difficult, some taking me at least a dozen tries, but is incredibly satisfying when you finally defeat them and make it to the next Stargazer. Certain spots will allow you to summon NPC’s to help you in these boss fights as well if you have the appropriate item, so it’s a good idea to search off the main path when you can, just in case you want some help at a certain challenging boss.
Instead of Estus Flasks you have health pots, which are used in the same way. In most Souls-like games, once you’re out of healing options, you essentially had to return to a Bonfire to refill them, but that also reset all the enemies of course. Here though, once you’re all out of your healing pots, you can actually refill at least one. Again, perfect parries will slowly refill these for you, again, forcing you to play a bit more aggressively, which is a great balance and reward for doing so. More than once I had no healing supplies left but was able to refill one simply from performing well in combat. A great touch that other Souls games need to copy.
One of the most unique mechanics to Lies of P though comes from its weapon crafting system. Throughout your journey you’ll find new weapons, as expected, but blades and handles can be separated, then combined to your own creations. These aren’t just for visual flare either, as the blade determines how much and what type of damage (blunt versus slashing), but the handle is for certain movesets. This allows you to create some truly unique weapon combinations based on your playstyle. Myself for example, I hate the large and slow weapons. I prefer the smaller and faster weapons, even if they do less damage, as I can get a few hits in before having to parry. Some prefer those large slow weapons that can take off big chunks of health at a time, but that requires knowing your weapon timing very well. Now I can take the blade from a dagger and the handle from a massive wrench, and combine them for something quite unique. Or maybe you do it the opposite way, keep the wrench end and attach the dagger handle for the special move that allows multiple ‘stabs’.
Once you get a handful of weapons it’s worth experimenting with, as every combination is really unique. Once you find a combination that suits you, it can make a massive difference in you being successful, especially versus bosses. The other unique mechanic is that you’ll need to sharpen your weapon when it becomes dull. Over time your weapon dulls, luckily Pinocchio has a portable sharpener on his mechanical arm. Holding the button for a few seconds is all it takes to get the blade back to optimum damage, as not sharpening it will mean you deal little to no damage. This usually isn’t much of a hassle, which is until you’re mid boss fight and trying to find the few extra moments to sharpen your blade. You’ll even get special sharpeners that allow you to coat your blade in fire as well.
Speaking of his mechanical arm, this can be swapped for different types. These each act as almost like a special move and is called your Legion Arm. Each prosthetic arm not only has their own unique ability, but can be upgraded later on to be even more powerful. Your starter Legion Arm starts out like a really strong punch, others will allow you to pull enemies in with a grapple cord, another act like a shield if you want to play a bit more defensively, and one gives you the ability to blast out a bolt of lightning, arguably the best of the bunch. There’s a few more to find throughout your journey, and I’m sure people will have varying opinions on which is best for them.
After a couple bosses and saving Geppetto you’ll also unlock the skill tree, called “P-Organs”. This is where you can unlock active and passive abilities for Pinocchio to suit your playstyle. These require Quartz, a special upgrade material you’ll need to be on the lookout for if you want to customize. This is how you’ll also create your own unique build on top of the weapon crafting. There are four nodes per section, needing to spend a certain amount before unlocking the next cluster. You can choose to heavily invest into one node and unlock special bonuses, or spread your quartz upgrades across the tree if you wish. Once you choose an upgrade, you can also then augment it with special abilities to increase your attack, abilities, survivability or item useage.
Lies of P is absolutely gorgeous to look at. Even though the city of Krat is in shambles, full of death and destruction, the design and aesthetics is wonderful to just take in if you get a few moments to do so. The robotic-like enemies at the beginning are interesting to look at, and later on as they become more monstrosities, they feel more unique. That said, you’ll see many enemies repeated over and over again, but for being puppets, that makes sense at least. The boss designs are fantastic, as the monstrosities are all uniquely designed. The backdrop of Krat is elevated with a soundtrack that fits the dark tone with melodies. By the music alone, you know when things are about to get serious or when you’re safe in the Hotel. The voice acting overall is done wonderfully, and I had no complaints there.
Even though I was initially apprehensive to play Lies of P simply due to its genre, they’ve managed to stand apart from the sea of poor Dark Souls and Bloodborne clones out there. Even though there’s very few in the genre I enjoy, Lies of P is up there on the list, as it was still quite challenging but was balanced just enough that I was able to enjoy it and make progress as well. Bloodborne fans are not going to want to skip this one, as Lies of P is clearly a huge love letter to the game in many ways, and if I was lying you'd see my nose growing.
**Lies of P was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.7 / 10



It’s not often games let you play as a German soldier, so it was an interesting perspective seeing a soldier from the ‘other’ side coming to terms with the atrocities he witnessed during the war. The War is over, but that doesn’t mean that your suffering is. Can you find peace even though you survived? How has the Great War affected your family? Your mind clearly isn’t the same since returning home, haunted by feelings, emotions and guilt.
You play as Paul von Schmidt, a German vet who returns back home after the Great War has ended. You have a brother, Johannes, father Karl, and mother Madeleine. Your family has been torn apart from the War, something that doesn’t generally get a lot of focus in media. While your family had issues before the War, it certainly went to another level afterwards. Thing is, much of the game takes place in Paul’s mind, or at least some distorted version of it, as he tries to come to terms with his experiences in the trenches.
You’ll explore your home, seemingly altered from what you remember, focusing on memories and then being thrust back into the trenches, but not exactly as you remember though. Exploring your home, you’ll need to solve puzzles to progress, maybe finding a key but not know where the lock is, or a horn that seemingly belongs somewhere specific. After solving certain puzzles, he sometimes gets triggered and falls back into the trenches, but fighting against a different kind of enemy, more of a monster type rather than soldiers.
You’ll eventually come across a blinded Officer, clearly in bad shape, writhing in pain and begging for some medicine. This sets you on a journey across the front lines to find some Morphine for him, as you think you can save him. As you eventually find this Morphine, a massive deranged and twisted female monster, named Despair, attacks and chases you. You don’t have a weapon though, so you can’t fight back in the traditional sense. Instead, you’ll reach an area where you’ll need to play some music, either something she loved, or otherwise, and what you decide to do will directly affect the outcome as the credits roll.
There’s clearly a lot of symbolism in the locations, enemies and even names, which I took as Paul dealing with his trauma in his own way. I was impressed with how the focus wasn’t on Paul in direct combat, or what you’d expect for a World War I setting, but instead how the War can tear apart a family in different ways.
Played in first person, once you start interacting in the mansion sections, having to open doors and cabinets, it felt very much like a Layers of Fear style of game, though without any of the horror elements. Sure there was some minor creepy things that occur and you will hear noises off in the distance, but thankfully not as many cheap jump scares. The house sections are basically a puzzle you need to solve to trigger the next memory sequence, bringing you back to some distorted memory of his time back in the War.
The puzzle elements are quite light, generally needing a key or item to progress to the next step, though I did waste quite a bit of time simply wandering aimlessly trying to figure out what I needed to do next. Pausing will give you a hint on one of the menus, but there’s no markers or waypoints. As you progress through the Chapters and come back to the mansion each time, new areas and doorways will unlock, unveiling more family secrets and notes with lore to find.
Then there are times where you’re transported back to the trenches. I took this as being triggered by some event or item, forcing your mind back to the front lines, possibly representing his mental health. But terrifying creatures are about, you need to be stealthy as you can’t fight back, making sure to avoid the tin cans on strings all about. Later chapters take a different turn, plucking you out of the trenches and placing you in some dark and grimy factory setting. This is merely a setup for the eventual boss fight, though these boss battles aren’t really fights, they are simply puzzles you need to complete with a 'big-bad' chasing you in some way.
It’s odd for a game with a WWI setting to not have combat. In fact, you only use a gun for the first few opening moments, and even then, you don’t even really use it. Because the bulk of the gameplay is more like a walking simulator, even the bosses are simply running to hit a switch or use an object, run to the next, and repeat. The boss designs themselves though, absolutely top notch and even as a horror fan, they had me surprised at how creepy and unsettling they were.
Visuals are decent given the linearity and being inside the mansion at least half of the time. There’s enough detail that it all seems well done, though the animations are quite stiff at times, as are the low poly models of certain objects. The music is quite fitting for the most part, sounding of era and fitting the horror tonality of the setting. The voice acting overall was also done well with no real complains there, especially for a smaller game like this.
A narrative driven walking simulator with a ton of symbolism and horror backdrop makes for a decent playthrough at least once. There’s multiple endings based on certain actions and choices made, but given how slow you walk and the simpleness of the puzzles, once felt more than enough to uncover a war torn family's closet of skeletons.
**Ad Infinitum was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 6.7 / 10



From its title, you can safely assume what Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021 is all about. It’s you as a motorcycle mechanic trying to start your business by completing jobs for customers for payment. Continue to do well and you’ll keep earning more money. Maybe someone has a junker bike they want restored, or some will come in with requests for specific new parts or attributes like faster speed.
Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021 falls in a weird spot because it is a simulator in many aspects, taking apart and building bikes back together piece by piece, but there also seems to be some inaccuracies as well. Now I’ll admit, I know nothing about motorcycles other than they usually ride the shoulder to bypass traffic at a standstill, so the beginnings were a little frustrating when I was tasked with replacing a certain part, unsure what that part is or where it’s actually located.
This is due to the lack of a worthwhile tutorial. Your first job shows you the basics, but leaves out a ton of other useful information that would have been quite handy to know. The game will teach you how to dismantle a bike, buy a few parts, and then put it all back together before leaving you on your own to play however you wish. Don’t expect any narrative here though, as you simply use your tablet to choose jobs from an ongoing rotating list, complete the job and move onto another. Finish the jobs and you’ll earn experience and money.
Now and then you’ll get a main mission which seems to unlock at certain progression points and levels. These are usually a little more involved and give you a dozen objectives for the job or so to complete. Side missions can vary from very quick headlight or handlebar changes that don’t have much of a reward, to a customer wanting a handful of completely new upgraded parts or fixes. Side missions seem to come and go quite quickly, constantly offering you a new job, but only lasting for a short time before it’s replaced with a new mission offering. This is fine, but you’re getting these new mission notifications quite often, even when currently working on a bike for a customer.
As a mentioned above, I’m not a gearhead by any means. I know the basics of automobiles like how to change a tire and refill the oil, but that’s about it. Tell me to point where a specific part is or what it does, and I’ll give you that blank stare. Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021 isn’t here you teach you what each part does, where it’s located, or how it all works together. It simply expects you to know what every individual part is, where it’s located, and how to get to it to replace. This of course had me wasting quite a bit of time simply dismantling nearly the whole bike to find a certain part I need to replace, but unsure where exactly.
There are some tools to help you find broken and damaged parts, but you’re going to have to constantly wrestle against the terrible menus and controls to do so. In a certain view you can easily see these damaged parts being highlighted in red, though that’s only if you can see it from your viewpoint. What if it’s a gasket or something inside the motor and you don’t know what or where that piece is? You’ll have to do like me and randomly start dismantling the bike in hopes to find it. Highlighting over every piece and component will show it’s ‘health’ and some information of it the part which you can then decide to purchase a replacement, upgrade it, or repair it if you’ve progressed far enough.
The more you play the more XP you’ll earn, eventually unlocking perks and bonuses that will help you perform your job easier and quicker. For example, taking apart a bike completely fully earned me enough XP that I had my screwdriver skills level up and now that takes a shorter amount of time to do. There’s a whole skill tree system in place too that I’ve forgotten about numerous times, allowing you to unlock new perks and such as well, but this too was buried in menus and every now and then I would remember to check it to see what I could upgrade, like faster diagnostics or new equipment for the shop.
Career mode is where you’ll likely spend the majority of your time, but there is a sandbox mode where you don’t have to worry about money limits, simply building and fixing whatever you want. Run out of cash in the campaign though and you may need to take out a loan through your tablet. With a handful of non-licensed bikes and over 400 parts to customize with, there’s certainly a lot to delve into that might seem overwhelming at first, but in the shop you’ll have to choose which type of bike parts you’re looking for, then the category, then the individual part, so it’s not as daunting as you first realize. Don’t come into this looking for your favorite Harley, Suzuki, Yamaha, Ducati or Honda bikes, though it’s clear which ones were inspired by which.
As you level up you’ll gain access to new areas. Ever wanted to rummage around a junkyard and find old parts to repair or use on your projects? Or maybe you’ll find an old junker bike that simply needs from TLC to be restored. You’ll be happy to know that’s possible here. Parts are categorized into Classic, Modern, Slick, Fancy, Epic and more, with the better parts costing more but usually giving some sort of stat increase, like acceleration or handling, or simply have a more unique look to them.
You can eventually repaint a majority of individual parts, even putting stickers on them, but the controls are sluggish and confusing at best. The controls though are just one component you’ll be fighting along your motorcycle repairing career. The camera at times has a mind of its own, zooming in so far that you’re inside the table or part, or out so far away that you can’t aim to properly use the screws. The cursor moves quite quickly, so fine adjustments are difficult if you’re too zoomed out.
While Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021 has the basics of motorcycle repair down, there’s also some missing things, like not having jacks to support the bike when you take the wheels off. Sure that’s looking for something nitpicky, but if you have simulator in the title, people are going to expect it to be as close to the real life thing as possible. So what do you do after you complete your job before returning it to the customer? Well, you’ll want to make sure it rides smooth right? Yeah... about that.
You can test bikes in certain sections of the map, and this was where I really got a sense of how little effort was gone into the game and the first of a laundry list of bugs I ran across. You can ride the bike you just fixed or built, but it doesn’t matter how good of parts you chose or if everything is working perfectly fine, your rider will lean close to the ground like he’s inspecting the pavement, but your bike has the turning radius of a house. Oh you crashed the bike because of the atrocious steering? No problem, just hit the reset button like it prompts to. Nope, that doesn’t work. Oh look, you're also unable to access your tablet or do anything. The game isn’t frozen, but you can’t do anything. I hope you saved in the last while because the only fix is to hard quit out and restart from your last save. Oh you forgot to save I the last hour? Well, that sucks. Better remember next time.
This is also assuming the mission you were given allows you to have it completed. I had one bike where I needed to get the handling or braking to a rank of 40. I had well over that and the objective wouldn’t update, even after reinstalling the part and buying a new one. So I couldn’t progress and had to cancel that job.
The mechanics for actually dismantling and building the bikes works quite well (aside from the camera). Let’s say you want to take off the front wheel. Well you can’t simply do that, so it’ll be highlighted red when your cursor is over it in dismantle mode, but it will show the part that needs to be taken off beforehand, either in yellow or green. If it’s yellow that means another part needs to be taken off before that one, so on and so on. If it’s green, that’s basically the start of the chain of parts you can start removing. Assembling the parts is kind of in reverse, where it will show a white ghost-like part that you can install next, so you don’t need to remember any sort of order for the parts thankfully.
When you need to change a tire you use a machine to take the tire off the rim, and then place the new tire combination together. Before putting it on the bike you need equipment to balance the tires. Great, no problem right? Well, that’s if the game doesn’t decide to bug out and just not give you your tire back. Numerous occasions I’d just combined my rim and tire to have it balanced, only for it to ‘eat’ my wheel. Now I had no wheel, so I went and bought a new rim and tire and attempted again. Nope, gone once again. The only fix was a hard close and restart. Again, I hope you saved recently.
The same issue happened when I would paint a part, only for it to disappear for no reason. Again, another reset. Then with the repair table you can fix most broken parts to reuse them, but the menu wouldn’t work in letting me add them to the list or actually accept my choices. Another reset. I simply got into the annoying habit of saving before using any of the machinery other than on the bike itself, which became a chore. Even with my new habit, I’d forget to save now and then, only to lose all that progress when I had to restart because of a game breaking bug.
Bikes themselves look decent at best, which is to be expected when dealing solely with hundreds of parts close up, though there are times the textures are muddy and blurred. The soundtrack wasn’t nearly as terrible as I expected and I didn’t have to shut it off after a short amount of time like in some other games.
Lastly, the lack of any amount of care in this port is downright embarrassing. At least a half dozen spots has portions that label the PC controls, like pressing “R”, "Left Mouse Button”, or to “Click”. The controls are poorly optimized for a controller, menus are a mess, and having to search the store for specific parts is a pain. It’s abundantly clear that virtually no effort went into porting this to console, even in its title, which is a shame, as the actual dismantling and rebuilding portions are relaxing, but the amount of game breaking bugs makes it impossible to recommend, even to motorcycle enthusiasts.
**Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 3.0 / 10



While playing pinball at home on the TV isn’t nearly the same experience as pressing those buttons for the flippers in real life, it’s simply going to have to do these days. This is where Zen Studios comes in, easily the biggest name in virtual pinball. Having played their pinball games for many years now, their latest release, Pinball M, is now here for horror and pinball fans alike to enjoy.
I’ll admit, I was a little confused at first, as I reviewed their last title, Pinball FX, which was more of a platform and service to house all your virtual pinball purchases in one place. That’s why Pinball M being a separate game on its own surprised me, as I thought they would have simply added more tables and packs to their core FX game, though there were some monetization choices I didn’t fully agree with.
Like their other releases, the game itself is free to download and play, giving you one table to play endlessly. How they hook you is teasing other tables for you to play on, adding as standalone tables or getting a minor discount if you purchase the bundle. Pinball M is horror themed, so you can expect a bloody good time on these more mature rated tables. Purchasing tables are $6.99 CAD each, or $25.99 for the pack of 4 DLC additions, as the base table is free, for a total of 5 tables.
Wrath of the Elder Gods: Director’s Cut – This is your free table, which may seem familiar if you bought the original version for Pinball FX. This Lovecraftian inspired table seems to be largely the same table as before, though with a little more blood and different music I believe. The top of the table has a sinister monster overlooking the playfield and a Cthulhu creature on the left that may aim for your ball as it passes nearby.
The Thing Pinball – Based on the 1982 classic from John Carpenter, this table has you battling the alien from U.S. Outpost #31. I found this table challenging with some of the quick speeds and steep ramps, never able to get much of a high score compared to some of the other tables. With a handful of different missions, you’ll need to collect blood samples to work towards finding who the impostor is.
Chucky’s Killer Pinball – Based on everyone’s favorite killer doll, Chucky is back, albeit in pinball form. This table was by far the bloodiest and creepiest of them all. There’s a bloody axe that chops away when hitting certain targets, you can see Chucky, his bride Tiffany Valentine and their deranged kid Glen/Glenda painted in the middle of the playfield. A large slashed up Chucky head sits atop the table and watches your ball movement for just that extra bit of creepiness, as is seeing the Good Guy’s packaging off to the side of the table. I too found this table easy to lose my ball down the middle, though became better with more practice.
Dead by Daylight Pinball – Based on the popular online asymmetric multiplayer survival horror game with the same name, this interesting table gives you the choice of playing as a survivor or killer (sadly only Trapper), just like in the game it’s based on. This offers many different quests to work on and each survivor is unique as well. There’s plenty of references to the original game here and if you enjoy numerous skill shots and quests, this table is for you.
Last and not least was by far my favorite table of the bundle, Duke Nukem’s: Big Shot Pinball. Having grown up with the original Duke Nukem games and thinking he was a badass, they’ve incorporated everything Duke you’d expect to find in pinball form. You’re going to have to have BALLS OF STEEL to take down all the alien scum, and I was easily racking up millions and millions of points on this table. There’s some fun quests and skill shots here, one where you even go into the iconic theater and use the flippers to shoot aliens, rewarding you with that sweet pixelated (but clothed) stripper dancing all us young kids enjoyed seeing.
Options allow for portrait or landscape mode, depending on your setup, and you’ll constantly be trying to climb the local and online leaderboards, and just having play a table for ten minutes and think you have a score on one can possibly beat, you’ll get humbled real quick when you see it’s a fraction of the top of the online leaderboards.
Like Pinball FX, there’s numerous ways to play each of the tables. Yeah you could play it in Classic mode, but there’s a number of different ways to play, each of which help you raise your pinball skills in unique ways. For example, one mode may only give you a certain amount of flipper hits, like 200 or so, needing to get the highest score possible without using the flipper as much as you normally would. This forced me to do much less hold and aim shots, as that counts as a use. Or maybe you want to see how high a score you can get in a set amount of time, or maybe with one ball. These modes offer a bit of variety to the standard gameplay that makes a return from Pinball FX.
What is new though is a Campaign Mode for each of the tables. A campaign mode in a pinball game? But how you may ask. Well, the title is a bit misleading, as it’s really just a number of different objectives you pick from the beginning, usually broken up into different modes as described above. The challenging mode was where your score continually decreases after a set amount of time, so you better keep racking up those points to survive as long as you can.
The best part and what makes Campaign Mode worthwhile is the unlockable cosmetics you earn for your individual table's play space. Somewhat like how Pinball FX had unlockable items to decorate with, here there’s no terrible microtransactions or Pinball Pass to deal with, simply earning a currency the more and better you play, allowing you to unlock banners, titles, table skins, icons, ball and flipper skins, and more. Each Campaign mission unlocks a specific ‘upgrade’ to your room for that table, like having a life sized Duke standing beside the table once a specific mission is complete. These don’t do anything to alter gameplay, but certainly made me play each table’s Campaign missions to get all of the unlocks.
Tournament play returns, allowing you to create or join anyone’s specific ruleset. The best change though was giving you a special currency for playing in other players’ tournaments, which will then let you spend a certain amount to be featured, thus have more players play your unique challenges. With seemingly endless tournaments and events, there’s plenty to challenge yourself with regardless of what table(s) you purchase.
Just like Pinball FX, the tables look and play fantastic. Sure I would have loved to have a 120fps mode to match my TV, but each table looked unique and truly represented its franchise quite well. While having two titles, Pinball FX and Pinball M, might confuse some, Pinball M is arguably the ‘better’ title simply given the fact that Zen Studios didn’t try and nickel and dime with shady Pinball Passes or useless microtransactions. With a wealth of horror based games and movies, I’m hoping to see more tables come to Pinball M in the future, as its success will be based on continual table additions. Make a Friday the 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween or SAW based table in the future and I’ll continue to come back for a bloody good time.
**Pinball M (DLC Bundle) was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.7 / 10



It’s you versus the clock in bite sized challenge rooms back to back. Blast enemies, traverse jumps, hit switches and make it to the end before time runs out. You’re competing to not just finish levels, but to do so in the quickest time possible, proving your skills with online leaderboards for bragging rights. With some levels only a couple seconds long, can you master it and find the most optimal path? Every fraction of a second counts.
There’s no need to worry about remembering some big story or reason as to why you’re doing what you’re doing, Warstride Challenges keeps things simple and pits you versus levels back to back. That’s it. There’s no story whatsoever, so just focus on beating levels as you unlock them to continue forward towards harder challenges. It’s all about climbing those online leaderboards, proving you’re the best there is on each level, if that’s your thing of course. With speedrunning being its main focus, you’ll simply focus on that, honing your reflexes and memorization of levels as you move from one to the next.
Each level’s premise is simple, to unlock the exit you need to kill every enemy and hit all the switches. That’s it. Sounds easy right? You’d think so when levels are generally anywhere from 3 to 30 seconds long, but there’s some serious challenge here, especially if you’re actively trying to reach the top of the leaderboards. Each fraction of a second counts, so the slightest non-optimal shot or movement can destroy your ranking. There are a few bonus stages later, like surviving waves of enemies and such, but the majority of your time is going from stage to stage, as each one unlocks when the previous is completed or you have enough medals to progress.
If it was as simple as simply running to the exit as fast as possible, that’d be no problem, but since you have to ensure every enemy is killed first, then things get a little trickier, especially when harder enemies appear in the later stages. Stages start out simple enough, almost being a straight corridor, maybe with a corner or two, but blast the enemy near the door and boom, you’re done. Later on though you’ll need to search for levers to pull, opening up new paths and having more enemies assault you before you can head to the exit.
There’s a variety of weapons you unlock along the way, from standard pistols to rifles, SMG’s and more. Do you quickly swap out your better gun as you leap across a chasm to save your limited ammo of your better guns for harder enemies, or shoot multiple grunts by maybe exploding a barrel nearby? While your goal is to simply get from A to B, everything in between is what will determine your time, even down to the smallest choices.
If you’ve played the previous DOOM reboots, you’ll have an idea as to the overall feel of the game, blasting any demons and monsters in your way. Add the classic Quake twitch-like reflexes needed and that’s what Warstride Challenges is essentially. Bunny hopping allows you to gain a quicker momentum, but you need to time these mini jumps to not hit a wall and lose your speed or possibly overshoot your jump across a gap. You can slide through low pathways, blast blocked doorways, swing across chasms and more, all at breakneck speed.
When you inevitably die or run out of time, simply retry the level again, working to better your time. Maybe you beat the level but only got a bronze medal for your time. Feel free to reply any level as much as you want, especially if you want to crack the coveted top 10 of the online leaderboards, but goodluck, those speedruns are on a whole other skill level.
Even if you’re like me and don’t have the quickest reaction time any more, you can still enjoy Warstride Challenges. Sure I wasn’t competing for any top 10 leaderboards, and sometimes I was happy simply getting through a level in time, but those that are highly competitive will surely have plenty of content to get through. ‘Easy to pick up, hard to master’ certainly applies here. Thankfully there’s also a limited ‘slow-mo’ you can use that not only slows down the movement speed, but time as well, so you can perfectly aim a difficult shot if needed.
I will say, when you have a run that goes well where you’re picking off enemies from afar with single headshots, making jumps smoothly, and getting those great times, the game feels fantastic. Once you get on that ‘zone’ and hone in on a level after memorizing where all the enemies and switches are, you feel like a pro when things just go right.
Most levels will unlock the next once completed, though you’ll eventually reach stages that you’ll need a certain amount of medals to unlock, forcing you to go back to previous stages to better your times on the harder difficulties. That’s right, each of the levels has a number of different difficulties, slightly remixing each stage, not simply making the time requirements shorter. Even though you’re replaying levels, they feel new on each difficulty, so it doesn’t become as tedious as I expected.
Maybe you need a break and need something different to do as a change of pace? Every level has a hidden skull to find that will unlock bonus levels, so there’s always a reason to go back to older levels. I will say though, after an hour or so playing straight, I felt exhausted. You’re constantly moving at a breakneck speed and I was so hyper focused that it weighed on me after a while. My fingers certainly felt it, because you know, pressing the buttons harder clearly is how you’re supposed to do it. The difficulty generally ramps up slowly, but there were certainly a few spikes out of nowhere that took a dozen or so restarts to complete as I did my best to memorize every enemy and lever placement.
Shoot, duck, bunnyhop, jump, swing, use powers, slow-mo and even utilizing a dedicated 180 degree turn button means you’ll constantly be moving, lining up shots, swings, slides and jumps. Combat feels exhilarating when you get into that groove and you feel like a pro when it goes how you intended. For every stage completion like that though, you can expect a few dozen restarts, crashing into walls, falling into pits, or not finding that last enemy, unable to finish the level and running out of time.
The later stages do become quite difficult, not just with the time constraints, but having to shoot enemies while swinging, or doing a 180 to blast a monster that spawned behind you as you’re in the air. Sure it becomes frustrating trying to do this a few dozen times in a row, failing each time, but once successful, it feels incredibly rewarding. Quite a few times I felt like there was absolutely no way a level could have been completed any quicker, only to be humbled by seeing the online leaderboards.
While there’s no direct multiplayer, the Nemesis Mode is a very clever way to compete against friends and the community. You can choose a handful of different players, add them to your Nemesis list, and every stage you play, you’ll see their ghost in your game. You could even add your favorite streamers or anyone you know that plays to compete directly against them. I did this more to see what paths and routes they took, improving my strategies. Knowing I was slightly ahead of a nemesis felt rewarding, or seeing one ahead of me forced me to focus just that bit harder to be better. There’s no better feeling than beating a nemesis of a friend by a fraction of a second, knowing they’ll probably try and do the same to you afterwards.
Warstride Challenges visually is impressive with its corridors filled with monsters that plays at a smooth framerate, though it’s honestly hard to appreciate much of it when you’re only playing levels for 30 seconds at a time, so hyper focused on your aim and jumping. Between stages you’ll head to a menu where you choose your Chapter and stage, though the menus are a bit bland. Audio on the other hand is fantastic, with a metal/rock theme soundtrack akin to DOOM, though not quite at the same level of kick-ass. The weapons feel impactful with every shot and you feel hyped when the music kicks in at the right time, especially on a smooth run.
I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Warstride Challenges, but it’s a well-polished speedrunner for those that really care about climbing leaderboards and shaving fractions of a second off of runs. While it’ll be a little much for novices and those that don’t necessarily have lightning quick reflexes, those craving to run stages repeatedly to become the best in the world will surely have plenty of content to work towards for some time.
**Warstride Challenges was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.7 / 10



After a brief opening cutscene about the detailing company you’re working for wins an award, you’re thrust into your first job detailing a vehicle, doubling as the tutorial to the gameplay. Don’t worry though, after a few jobs, you’re going to have the controls down and memorized, as it’s very repetitive. There’s a massive flood and your workplace is all but destroyed, so you have nowhere to go for work any longer. What better reason to go open up your own detailing garage rather than work for someone else? At least that’s the narrative that I took away from the brief storyboard cutscenes. This is a simulator game though, and we come here for the gameplay and recreation of the job, not a story. It’s time to wow and surprise your customers and build your business by focusing on the finer details.
Checking the computer at your desk will show the customers that are wanting to employ your services and drop their vehicle off to eventually look like new. Before choosing which of the jobs to take, you can see how much money you’ll earn and which components will need to be restored to their former glory. Based on how well you do and if you complete each task, you’ll earn a certain amount of money and stars based on your work. There’s even now and then some extra tasks you can do to earn a little more, like polishing the glass or putting a special product on the wheels. You’ll need all the money you can get, as that’s how you’ll purchase new tool upgrades, new garages, and more.
Detailing a car is more than simply getting some soap and washing it down. Yes, that’s usually the first task you’ll complete, getting the grime off the car, but then you’ll need to go a little deeper to make it shine. You’ll have a handful of different tools and kits to use, each with their own use and purpose. The body cleaning kit is where you’ll find your foaming gun, pressure washer and drying cloth. Your tire kit is has special brushes and sprays, where the interior cleaning kit is how you’ll clean the dirty mats and seats.
Every type of detail and clean needs a specialized tool, and while you’re only given the basics in the beginning, you’ll need to eventually purchase the others, like the headlight cleaner kit, polishing kit and more. Knowing what tools you need is only half the job, the other is hoping that the game itself deems your tasks complete, as that’s sometimes the challenge in itself.
Some of the gameplay is satisfying, like spraying down the vehicle with the foam, then the frustration sinks in when you need to annoyingly dry the car by hand with a hand towel, hoping you didn’t miss the smallest wet patch. Cleaning the insides of the car is much simpler, spraying down the seats, scrubbing them down, and spraying out any of the stains. The ‘gameplay’ in most of these sections is simply moving around the Left Stick within a small area, or spraying everywhere before cleaning it up. A small indicator will fill up a circle and disappear once that portion is fully cleaned, with the task coming off your list as well.
Clicking in the Right Stick will highlight any dirty areas or where repairs are needed with a good polishing. Doing so highlights the dirt and scratched in a faint red, though it’s quite difficult, near impossible actually, to see the smallest of the details, especially near the bottom of the car. If the car you’re detailing is red, or something that isn’t a contrast to the color red, good luck trying to find the smallest spot you missed cleaning or buffing out. This will inadvertently add a lot of extra time to the job as you go over every inch once again trying to find it. You can change this color in teh options, but having to do so each time is tedious and doesn't help all that much. In the polishing kit there’s a wand you get to highlight the scratches and such, but it barely does anything to help. I was hoping that the lighting upgrades for the garage would make the highlighting more pronounced, but it did seemingly absolutely nothing.
Once your individual tasks show complete, you can move onto the next, but when you’re 99% done cleaning or polishing for example and can’t see any remaining dirt or scratches, the frustration starts to set in, and this happens quite often. It’s tedious to go completely over the car once again blindly so that your task will complete. Other times it will show your task complete, even though you can see all of the windows haven’t been wiped or there’s still foam on the car. It's not always consistent.
One of the last tasks you might have to do to the vehicle is give it a new paint job. This costs a certain amount, and it’s really just picking a new color and clicking the button. The problem with this is that you might have less in your account than it costs to purchase the paint job, meaning you’ll have to complete the job not fully complete, thus earning less than the full amount.
It’s clear that Car Detailing Simulator was ported over from PC to console, but there doesn’t seem to have been much care into making the controls friendly as they could possibly be. More often than not, choosing a new tool won’t place it in the middle of the screen, fighting to find where it’s at before placing it where you want it. Needing to clear or polish a very specific spot can sometimes be a nuisance, as the cursor moves at mach-3 with no option anywhere to slow it down. There’s even a few spots where there wasn’t enough care to take out the mouse button icons in the tutorial prompts and change it to the triggers for a controller.
Gameplay becomes repetitive quite quickly, as it’s the same tools doing the same jobs over and over. Keeping the cursor in the right area is difficult and the UI is awkward at best. While the cars aren’t licensed, it’s clear which cars at meant to be Mustangs and other classics. Having a vehicle come in dirty and scratched then leaving polished up and looking brand new is quite satisfying. Even with the clumsy and frustrating controls, it’s addictive and relaxing at the same time.
You can purchase tool upgrades in the virtual store for $500 a piece, which generally allow you to complete each step of the detailing process a little quicker. Some upgrades seem quite worth it, like the interior clearer than does two steps in one, whereas others seem to not make much of a difference at all. You can also purchase upgrades for your garage, like shelves for your tool kits, lights for a brighter atmosphere (yet doesn’t help find the dirt and scratches any easier) and others, as well as buying a new garage and showroom. Later in the game you’ll be able to purchase old cars, make them pretty, then sell them and showcase in your other garages and showrooms, though the bulk the game play is still washing, scrubbing and polishing each vehicle.
The port from PC to console was disappointing, clearly not a focus as the controls are clunky and frustrating at best. The awkward menus don’t help much either. The worst part had to be the repetitive music that is bland and had to eventually be turned off for something else. The cars themselves look decent, especially once they are all shiny and polished, though there’s really not all that much else to look at other than stiff and awkward animations.
When you boil down Car Detailing Simulator’s gameplay elements, it really just comes down to changing one soiled texture into a shiny one by holding the Right Trigger and moving the Left Stick. For how simple the gameplay boils down to and for how repetitive it is, it’s oddly soothing, relaxing and addictive. More than one night playing I found myself saying ‘just one more car’. It’s not the most polished simulator out there, but it’s entertaining in its own way.
**Car Detailing Simulator was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10



You are Shuyan, a young princess who has trained many years in Kung Fu. Your peaceful home was invaded by the Guer army, led by the evil Ganbaatar. He aims to search for other Guardian Spirits so that he can take over the Five Kingdoms. It’s going to take more than basic martial arts for Shuyan to save the realm, which she will learn along the way.
Ganbaatar has killed your father, the King, so you must flee if you stand any chance at surviving, but do you decide to help your mother, or one of your best friends escape? There are choices you’ll make along the way with at least two endings to unfold. Told as a visual novel, there’s no animation when its the story segments, illustrated by over 1,400 panels by renowned comic book artist, Daxiong. His beautiful artwork is sure to impress if you’re a comic book fan, though if visual novels bore you, this isn’t going to help much. While it may not be animated, it is voiced, quite well actually, and has an accompanying soundtrack that fits the tone.
Shuyan Saga is a game of two parts. The first is the visual novel aspect, taking up about half your time, watching a tale unfold as you make a few choices here and there. The other half is the beat-em-up fighting, which given the martial arts backdrop seems to make sense, but is by far the weakest portion of the game by a large margin. As for the story segments, the panels flow together well, there’s plenty of sound effects and the voiced dialogue does help raise it a bit. Thankfully you can quick skip scenes if you’re a fast reader or are working on a second playthrough for the other ending and achievements.
Then we get to the meat of the gameplay, the fighting. One thing I will say is that I applaud developers Lofty Sky Entertainment for wanting the combat to be as real as possible. They’ve gone above and beyond by actually motion capturing combat maneuvers from Shifu Longfei Yang, Master of the Shanxi Praying Mantis Style. This of course brings a sense of authenticity to the experience for those that know their martial arts.
Shuyan begins by simply knowing some basic punches and kicks, eventually learning some combos to unleash much more damage against her foes. As you train with a new master halfway through the narrative, you’ll unlock more of Shuyan’s potential with new abilities and special moves. Combat takes place in two different ways though, a 1 versus 1 duel, and then a top down view where you’ll fight numerous enemies at once.
The top down fighting is where you’ll generally need to clear a wave of enemies before another appears, eventually triggering the next story segment to kick in. You can maneuver Shuyan around a small arena as the brainless enemies come at you until defeated. They’ll have a small indicator above their head to show they’re about to do a special move, which is your cue to either dodge out of the way or prepare to grab and toss them, once you learn how to do so with the Right Stick. This combat really doesn’t have much to it, as you kick and punch your way through enemies until there’s none left and rewarded with story progress.
Then there’s the 1-on-1 fights that plays more like a rock-paper-scissors match. While opponents early in the game will be defeated by simply button mashing, eventually you’re going to know how to block and evade attacks. The Left and Right bumpers are how you’ll block high and low attacks, and using the Left and Right D-Pad will be how you Evade and Counter once you’ve learned how to do so. For the first half of the game I was getting by just fine by simply using combo attacks of punches and kicks (X and Y button), but eventually enemies got a little more challenging and was blocking my attacks more.
If an enemy is guarding high, then you’ll want to kick, if they are guarding low, then a good punch in the head will suffice. Once you’ve gotten used to the odd timing and awkward animations, combat becomes trivial, as I was able to counter every attack thrown at me, even the final confrontation with Ganbaatar. For a game focused on martial arts and even motion captured from an actual Master, the animations are quite rigid and don’t always flow together quite well, making for a jarring experience.
The star of Shuyan Saga is clearly the hand drawn artistry comic book style narrative. Even though the writing wasn’t amazing, each panel was done well and quite colorful. This is a stark contrast to the 3D fighting sections with basic models and rigid animations. With a soundtrack from composer Aaron Tsang, it plays beautiful melodies with its orchestral sound, fitting the culture’s backdrop. Even more surprising is that Kristen Kreuk (Lana Lang from Smallville) voices the titular Shuyan, so there was clearly a heavy focus on making the audio as a whole as top notch as it could be.
While Shuyan Saga uses the simple good versus evil trope for its main backdrop, the narrative flows nicely, being broken into three separate chapters. While I didn’t find the climactic final battle all that exciting, actually quite a letdown, I did enjoy seeing all the artwork start to finish. The odd very anglicized pronunciation of some Chinese names and places did seem 'off' at times, and I wish the quality of the combat matched the storyboard artwork.
An odd blend of visual novel and brawler, Shuyan Saga is certainly unique in its own right elevated with its great artwork and colors, though brought back down with its combat and gameplay. For a martial art that’s all about fluidity, it feels quite rigid at times. With an arena mode, a quick side mission after the story is complete, and two endings, there’s surely some reasons to play again if you’re really trying to get your value’s worth.
**Shuyan Saga was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10



While I don’t have the excitement for yearly Call of Duty releases I once did, last year’s Modern Warfare II took me by surprise with its thrilling and exciting campaign that left me wanting more. Well it seems that the Activision have realized this, as Modern Warfare III is a direct sequel, picking up directly where the previous game left off. Even though it’s titled as a sequel and fully priced, I do question if this content was initially intended to be DLC or an expansion for Modern Warfare II for numerous reasons which I’ll delve into shortly.
Call of Duty titles generally have two main components, campaign and multiplayer, so let’s delve into the campaign first. Having quite enjoyed the previous game’s story and full on action sequences, I’ll admit, my expectations were a little higher than normal. With Modern Warfare II's ending with a bit of a shocking revelation, we now see what the follow up outcomes are in this sequel. Once again we’re with the familiar faces of Task Force 141 led by the iconic Captain Price as they take on a new, yet familiar, threat.
If you’ve been a Call of Duty fan for the last few titles, the name Vladimir Makarov should ring a bell, also noting how serious this threat truly is. Like most Call of Duty titles, the opening mission attempts to set an exciting tone full of action and plenty of gunfire. Modern Warfare III is no different, as you begin as an elite team infiltrating a maximum security prison in search of a VIP target. I don’t want to spoil much narratively, but having Makarov back as the antagonist was exciting given how cold and calculated he is from his previous discretions. "Remember, no Russian." is probably one of the most iconic lines in the franchise with its Airport level being one of the most memorable and shocking to date, really cementing how ruthless Makarov can truly be.
In most Call of Duty missions, you’re more or less simply going from point A to B, with a little wiggle room in between to give the illusion of a larger scale or freedom, albeit with a lot of gunfire and death in-between. Modern Warfare III does try something new in a handful of missions, giving you more choices. Not only for certain loadouts, but actually different paths and a bit more freeform level design. Thankfully the terrible forced stealth missions and ‘boss’ fights are omitted this time, as they weren’t much fun in last year’s release.
Introducing open combat missions, you’ll still need to get from a point A to B, but how you get to your objective is up to you. Do you go in the front door blasting or opt for a more silent approach, taking out targets one by one? These open missions are spread out across the campaign, though didn’t excite me as much as I expected them to. Sure it’s cool that you and I could play the same mission completely differently with unique loadouts and playstyles, but I found the stealth approach hard to complete, generally resulting in massive gunfire battles either way.
I’d wager that a large majority of Call of Duty players purchase the yearly entries for its addictive multiplayer component, regardless if you’re a fan of standard competitive modes, Warzone, DMZ or Zombies, there’s certainly something here you’ll enjoy. Something I didn’t expect was being able to carry forward all my Operators and Weapons into Modern Warfare III multiplayer, though a byproduct of this really starts to make it feel like an add-on more so than a fully-fledged sequel.
If you’ve played online multiplayer Call of Duty in the past, even more so if last year’s entry, then things are going to feel very familiar, as very little has changed pertaining to the ecosystem. You still have an overarching and confusing Call of Duty ‘app’ where you choose what mode to play and jump right in. There are some new additions and changes this year though, from 37 new weapons, 16 maps (remastered and modernized classics), loadout changes, aftermarket customizations, Tac-Stance and more.
If you’ve been a multiplayer Call of Duty fan for a number of years, you’ll certainly recognize the latest map additions, even if they are reworked classics, along with a handful of new ones. All 16 launch maps from the 2009 Modern Warfare 2 have been updated, including the iconic Estate and Highrise that easily stood out for me amongst the rest. While this may seem like a cheap way to pad the map offerings, because of the new weapons and mechanics, I found players didn’t play exactly the same way as they did over a decade ago on the original versions.
Having access to all my Modern Warfare II weapon unlocks from my first match was certainly a shock, as you can easily tell early on who’s been playing for some time, even at low levels. This means I can instantly start playing with my maxed out weapons and attachments since I put many hours into the previous game, leaving new players at a disadvantage. With over thirty new weapons now included in Modern Warfare III, I of course started to work on these new additions, leveling them up and wanting to check out the new Aftermarket parts.
Not explained well, Aftermarket parts allow you to drastically change some weapons to suit a specific playstyle. For example, as an LMG player using my Pulemyot LMG, the Bullpup Conversion Kit I unlocked after completing a specific challenge allowed my gun to have better maneuverability, hip fire recoil and simply improved its overall performance, not to mention looking badass with the magazine canister angled forwards. Other guns can be converted for some unique changes to how they perform, even some allowing for akimbo loadouts when certain challenges are completed.
Tac-Stance is also a new addition, acting as a middle ground between ADS and hip-fire. I can’t count how many times I’ve lost a firefight because ADS on my LMG is generally quite slow, yet trying to hip-fire with a rapid LMG doesn’t always work well unless in close quarters. Tac-Stance can improve your performance, giving you a bit more accuracy and maneuverability when compared to ADS firefights, available on most weapons, even able to be used with Modern Warfare II weapons. Easily toggled, this took some self-reminding that it was an option, but it certainly saved me on more than one occasion.
What’s old is new again, showcased by the return of some classic Call of Duty gameplay. Once again players can vote for maps, red dots will show on the minimap for non-silenced gunfire, and you once again start with your perks at the start of matches, no longer needing to kill or wait to gain access. It does seem as though player health got a bit of a boost in Core matches, as Time-to-Kill (TTK) seems longer than I’m used to, though I primarily spend most of my multiplayer time in Hardcore where this isn’t affected.
The latest, and arguably largest, addition is the latest take on the Zombies mode. While I’ve never really been a fan of the old classic Zombie mode, the latest in Modern Warfare III is really just a different take on last year’s popular DMZ mode. Modern Warfare Zombies (MWZ) is more PvE based, as you can play alongside other teams, not having to worry about the PvP element that DMZ focused on. Can you survive against seemingly never ending waves of zombies in a massive map? Uncover many secrets with story missions or simply enjoy your time with your squad blasting hordes of zombies with your buddies online as you try to extract and survive.
Instead of downloading a whole new game once I redeemed my code, Modern Warfare III seemed like a massive update for last year's Modern Warfare II. Even the achievements are listed under Modern Warfare II, implying it’s a DLC, even though it’s supposed to be its own new game. With the campaign being a direct sequel from last year’s, and even with the new ‘open’ missions, it did go by quickly. Zombies is sure to be a hit with DMZ fans, but it doesn’t do a great job at explaining all of its intricacies and mechanics for new players. While not the most memorable campaign of the series, and nowhere near the quality of Modern Warfare II’s epic setpieces, it’s a serviceable entry, but feels more like filler that should have been DLC rather than a fully-fledged entry that brings new excitement and potential fans.
**Call of Duty Modern Warfare III was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10



If you played UFC 4’s career mode, this is going to feel quite similar. As expected, you start out as a no one, looking to make a name for yourself to get noticed by the UFC to finally get your shot and of course, try to obtain that coveted gold around your waist one day. With new cutscenes and locations, sure it’s new, but it’s basically the same career mode all over again.
Coach Davis takes you under his wing, teaching you the basics from your backyard roots, aiming to mold you into a UFC prize fighter. While I was hoping there’d be some major names and fighters you come up with or train alongside the way, you do get to train at the same UFC Performance Institute gym as Valentina Shevchenko as she guides you as well. You’ve come a long way from your backyard brawls and World Fighting Alliance fights, but now you’re in the UFC, so you’ve got to make a name for yourself.
Before getting into the UFC, the career mode is entertaining enough, with Coach Davis helping train you, giving you advice, teaching you the basics, but once you’ve made it to the UFC, it’s as if there’s nothing else for you narrative wise. Once you become the champ, Career mode just turns into fighting for as long as you can before you retire as your longevity meter slowly depletes over time.
You’ll need to train MMA skills across the board though, from your wrestling, boxing, and BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu), but there’s more to being a champion, as you’ll need to boost your social media for popularity, train with other fighters to learn their moves, and even watch tape on your opponent to learn their style and come up with a strategy. Each week before a fight you’re given 100 points to spent on these activities, and you clearly can’t do it all, so where you spend your time before the big fight is up to you.
Each contract you earn will also allow you to choose a sub objective that will net you bonuses based on its difficulty. For example, at the end of your fight contract, you need to have a certain amount of KO/TKO’s, Round 1 Finishes, Submissions or a certain amount of hype per fight. At the end of each contract you’ll earn a new one, generally upping your pay a substantial amount if you’ve been winning as you try and become the G.O.A.T. This all sounds familiar because it is, just as UFC 4’s career mode was.
Aside from Career Mode where I opted to spend the majority of my time, there’s plenty of other modes and things to play as well. There are weekly challenges you can test yourself with, aiming to be aligned with real PPV fight weeks in the future. These are predetermined fights and difficulties, with your first chance being free, though you can retry if you lose the fight for cost. These challenges will earn you special rewards like coins, cosmetics and even Alter Egos for fights, which are basically special attires from fighter’s histories.
Having moved to EA’s Frostbite engine has allowed for and even more realistic presentation, meaning the fighters look more authentic and move even more like their actual selves. With 60 FPS, fights will feel smooth, but the sweat and blood have been vastly improved and are quite noticeable with the improved authentic damage. Facial deformation really showcases cuts, bruises, blurred vision, broken noses, and at worst, the doctor might stop the fight if they think you can’t compete anymore. With 64,000 possible combinations of facial damage, fighters can look quite nasty with enough punches and kicks to the head. With damage actually affecting stamina regen, movement and even takedown defense, this adds all new strategies mid fight.
An MMA game is only as good as the fighters that make yup its roster though, and while it has some of the fighters you’d expect, it’s also missing some big names as well. The notable bonus fighters are Mike Tyson, Fedor Emelianenko, Muhammad Ali, and Bruce Lee, and you can expect many of the biggest names right now like Tom Aspinall, Ciryl Gane, Jon Jones, Magomed Ankalaev, Johnny Walker, Israel Adesanya, Khamzat Chimaev, Jiri Prochazka , Alex Pereira, Paulo Costa, Stipe Miocic , Colby Covington, Conor McGregor, Kamaru Usman, Michael Chandler, Alexander Volkanovski, Sean O’Malley, Valentina Shevchenko, amongst dozens of others.
There seems to be some notable omissions though, such as Brock Lesnar, Francis Ngannou, Yoel Romero, just to name a few. You can expect to see some legends in the roster as well, like Georges St-Pierre, Nick and Nate Diaz, Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans, Royce Gracie, BJ Penn, Anderson Silva, Robbie Lawler, Donald Cerrone, Clay Guida, Jose Aldo, Frankie Edgar and more, so there’s surely a good handful of fighters you’ll recognize, even if you’ve not watched UFC in quite some time.
Combat will vary based on which mode you want to play, as there are some more options like Knockout, Stand and Bang, Competitive, and Simulation. If you simply want to have a slugfest and go for some crazy knockouts, you won’t have to worry about learning the ground game. You can even choose to go through the career this way as well should you choose, which was what I did for my first fighter.
If you’ve played the previous UFC games you’ll have an idea at how the controls work, but there have been some adjustments that take a little getting used to. The new damage system is probably what made me change my fight strategy on the fly more than anything else, as I was worried the doctor would come in and call the fight off even though I didn’t get knocked out directly. Spinning attacks have been revamped, and while I didn’t get as many knockouts with them, they’re still just as entertaining to watch land.
Facial deformation really help emphasize the power and damage you do to your opponents, and there seems to be a bunch of new animations for all the different fighting styles, including getting hit from different angles. You have a stamina meter you need to maintain, as trying to hit someone when you’re gassed won’t do much and will simply leave you open for a counter. Head movement plays a larger part of avoiding damage, able to bob and weave in different directions, looking for a powerful counter.
The coolest part though is seeing your handiwork being showcased after a big knockout. There are cinematic replays that shows different camera angles and in slow-mo, showcasing the new damage system and ragdoll physics. These knockout moments look badass of course, but there are times where the ragdoll physics make things look a little off and wonky when they don’t collapse just right or realistically.
You’ll also remember if you’ve played the previous games at how confusing and terrible the submission mechanics were. This minigame took a lot of getting used to, and even then, wasn’t intuitive in the slightest. I was glad to see that the ground game has been completely redone for UFC 5, making for a more fluid tactical game of chess on the ground. There’s some options based on your preferences, able to choose a grapple assist, hybrid or legacy controls, and while I commend the effort to make it better, it’s still challenging and confusing at the best of times with all of the different modifiers and buttons to memorize. Those that enjoy the ground game are sure to enjoy the latest changes, as it makes for more fluid transitions and submissions, but it’s going to take a lot of practice to really learn it so it becomes second nature.
Of course if you want a true challenge, head online and take on all comers to compete and see who truly is the G.O.A.T. You can play quick matches, ranked championships and more. You’ll need to be at the top of your striking and ground game if you want any sort of chance at those ranked belts though. In online career you’ll be able to use evolution points, improve your fighter’s stats and even a prestige system for those truly wanting to prove themselves.
UFC 5 is easily the best looking MMA game to date, hands down. The engine improvements, facial deformation and slow-mo replays really showcase just how good it can look. Fighters are instantly recognizable for the most part, though I did find a few that simply looked a tad ‘off’ for one reason or another. A battered face can be gruesome and can be just as brutal as watching live on PPV. The commentary is done well and comes across just as I’d expect from a live broadcast, though you will start to hear repeated lines after a good amount of fights under your belt. I will say though that I absolutely hated the soundtrack, though musical choices are clearly subjective.
Having watched UFC and MMA for many years, making sure I catch every main PPV I possibly can, and met a handful of fighters, I really enjoy watching the competition, and what UFC 5 does so well is recreating the brutal sport. Being accessible enough for those that want to simply stand and bang by button mashing, to the hardcore fans that want to showcase their submission skills online, UFC 5 is the latest contender to enter the octagon, being as real as it gets, though can feel like simply a prettier UFC 4 at times.
**UFC 5 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10



After a brief phone call, you’re now the boss of your own demolition company. There’s really nothing else to it for a story, and you’re set off into the world without any type of tutorial. You’ll begin by taking a few contract jobs, destroying a few walls with your sledgehammer and earn some money for your troubles. You’re simply thrown into the game without any introduction of how to actually play the game. It’s going to be a lot of trial and error simply trying to figure out certain aspects of the gameplay because Demolish & Build Classic doesn’t make even the lowest amount of effort to show you how to properly play.
You can take contracts that earn you much needed cash to purchase new equipment once unlocked, but the campaign doesn’t progress unless you follow a specific checklist of things to do. You’ll have to do many of the side contracts though to earn the cash needed eventually. When you explore the map and come across specific job sites, you’ll be able to fast travel to them at any point, so it’s a good idea to drive your pickup truck around so you can quickly come back at any time when a contract opens for them.
You’re going to notice quite quickly that the world is basically completely empty. There’s a few cars on the road but they drive so rigid and on their preset path that they won’t know you’re in their way or stop for you, not that it really affects you even if you collide. The environment is bland to look at, and there’s nothing to really take notice of, and once you have all the places unlocked, you’ll want to simply fast travel as much as possible anyways.
Job sites will vary in their objectives, starting off small by demolishing some walls, maybe getting rid of some bushes with your bulldozer, or cutting pipes among other tedious tasks that you’ll do repeatedly. Each job you complete earns you some cash, and you’re also able to purchase certain plots that can be fixed up and earn you passive income, though at times these might need to be fixed up and repaired. This is where your hired worked come into play, as they can do some of these menial tasks, though there’s some they’re unable to do specific tasks due to not being high enough level, yet they don't seem to level up either.
You’ll start with a few hand tools, and each time you level up by progressing the campaign, you can purchase new ones that allow new contracts to open up for bigger payouts. The majority of your time will be in your varied machinery though. You’ll start with your pickup truck, simply used to drive around from site to site before you can fast travel to all the job sites. You’ll then be able to use a Bulldozer, used for flattening terrain or tearing down demolished walls.
You’ll unlock a Skid Loader, used often, and has different attachments that can be used to dig with or with a jackhammer to destroy poles and walls. The excavator is the larger version, used for digging, also able to purchase a jackhammer attachment to destroy walls, houses and bridges. The Cargo Truck will carry materials like wood or bricks to job sites, and the Dump Truck used to delivering sand or scraps. You’ll also get to use a Concrete Mixer Truck and a Road Roller for compacting sand and asphalt. Lastly and the most expensive that you’ll need to do many contracts for is the Tower Crane to deliver materials up at heights, and a Crawler Crane with a wrecking ball to destroy larger structures.
Machinery is tricky to use for a number of reasons. First and foremost, you’re not given any tutorial of how to control each vehicle. Nothing is explained, and when you run out of gas for the first time, you won’t have any clue how to refill it. When needing to use a different attachment, the same problem persists, as you aren’t told how to actually do so. You’ll use the Bumpers to tilt the buckets or move the arms, and the Left Stick to raise and lower the machinery as well. The problem is that the Left Stick is also used to steer our vehicle, so you’ll constantly be moving the vehicle instead of the arms and vice versa.
You would think that destroying a bunch of buildings and wall would be a blast, but the controls are so finicky and you have to be so precise with your cursor that it’s a constant frustration. Equally as frustrating is having to constantly battle against the terrible menus. The menus is where you’ll find the map, contracts, workers to hire, vehicle tab and more. The vehicle tab is where you’ll purchase and equip attachments for your vehicles, yet the game doesn’t tell you this.
I can’t tell you how much time was wasted simply trying to figure how to do what the objectives were asking. For a good half hour I couldn’t find out how to load the Cargo Truck with wood that the objective told me to do, so I brought my Skid Loader, eventually figuring out how to add the crane attachment since the game didn’t teach me this at all. No luck, I wasn’t getting a prompt to actually lift the wood stacks. Turns out I had to park the Cargo Truck on the specific spot but still couldn’t figure it out. I had to press ‘A’ when parked on the spot, which would have been easy if the game prompted that at any point. I had to actually look it up online how to progress and even the video I found had the person accidentally figured it out as well.
Nearly every tool and every machine is a frustrating chore to use. There’s some physics that will help along the way, like taking out the bottom layer of a wall causing the rest to collapse, but being that accurate is near impossible at the best of times. Using hand tools you’ll need to be aiming at just the right angle and distance, but you’ll miss your swings and cuts a lot. The same goes for using your vehicles, as it’s annoying to get your bulldozer stuck on a speck of dirt or corner of something, not something you’d expect with some heavy machinery.
I generally always try and see positives in things, especially in games, but sometimes it’s quite difficult to do so. The graphics look embarrassingly dated, textures are terrible, and objects don’t even line up along the ground where they’re supposed to. Skyboxes are ugly, animations basically don’t exist and it looks as though it’s from a mobile game from ten years ago.
Glitches are constant, and there’s even an annoying one where if you press the menu button while moving, it does this glitching back and forth that could easily make you nauseous. Then of course there is framerate drops and slowdown when there’s lots of dust or rain. Audio is no better. Most equipment makes no sound or has any feedback with the controller rumble. Music plays while in vehicles that you can change to a few different radio stations, which of course are terrible except for one, but sometimes also randomly just turn off for no reason.
I don’t like to be negative, but when there’s so few redeeming qualities, it’s practically impossible to recommend Demolish & Build Classic, even to those that enjoy playing bad games. Graphics are appalling, controls are even worse, and there’s really no enjoyment to be had when you’re constantly frustrated and confused because the game can’t take one minute to explain what or how to do anything you’re required to.
**Demolish & Build Classic was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 2.0 / 10



Ever since I got to preview Jusant back in August, it’s been on my mind. The preview was only the first two hours of the game with a cliffhanger cutscene, and I’ve been wanting to scale the Tower ever since. Having previewed the game, much of that will be included in this review, but I finally got to reach its peak and came away absolutely charmed and mesmerized with its beauty.
Revealed at the Xbox Showcase 2023, Jusant was a small title that instantly caught my eye with its colourful visuals. I was instantly more intrigued once I saw that developers DON’T NOD were the ones behind it. Best known for the Life Is Strange series, but also some other fantastic titles like their latest game, Harmony: The Fall of Reverie. Described as a new climbing action-puzzle adventure, Jusant is a relaxing and meditative journey as you scale a seemingly never ending cliffside. Explore multiple paths, find secrets and simply enjoy the experience at your own pace with the help of an adorable and mysterious companion.
Without any spoken dialogue, Jusant’s narrative is told through finding letters and notes left behind from previous inhabitants of this mountainous structure. This is intentionally done so you’re able to interpret the story in your own way and in relation to your own personal experiences. Jusant opens with you wandering the desert and coming across a tower so large, that it goes well beyond the clouds. It’s more than just a mountain however, and you’re intrigued to look closer. While the game doesn’t give you an objective marker or tell you to go explore, you’re curious, so you naturally want to see what’s ahead and upwards.
The ocean used to rise so high that much of this tower was submerged. This is apparent by the broken and ‘beached’ boats you’ll find along the way towards the peak. The ocean has seemed to disappear though, as has the society and people that used to live here, seemingly all abandoned in search for water elsewhere.
Climbing the tower is symbolic for many things, whatever that means to you. Maybe it’s overcoming a challenge in life, achieving something monumental or putting forth some great effort. Jusant uses great use of allegory in a powerful way without outright telling you its meanings or lessons, those are up to you to decipher and uncover. You feel compelled to climb upwards and onwards, and so begins your journey up this seemingly never ending tower to curtail that curiosity of what's possibly at its peak.
Jusant’s concept is brilliantly simple: climb a large tower. You’re given the tools needed from the offset, teaching you how to properly climb. Many games play horizontally, so having a game built about verticality is a refreshing change, as looking up and how much further you need to go seems to never end, yet looking down and seeing how far you’ve come gives you a sense of accomplishment without directly rewarding you as a player. I can’t even count the times I would pan the camera upwards to see how much further I had to go, or stand at a cliff edge to pan downwards to appreciate how far I’ve already come, usually resulting in a few screenshots.
Not aiming to be a completely realistic simulator, Jusant is designed to be a relaxing experience, climbing at your own pace, becoming almost meditative in nature as you simply sit back and relax, enjoying the views and solving how to get up to your next ledge. Often I would see a branching path, explore one way partially, only to go back and see what I could find the other way. This usually ended up in finding a note, diary page, collectable, or even an amazing vista that always prompted a screenshot. I’m excited to see speedruns once released, but playing at my own pace was exactly what I needed to relax and chill.
Controls are as simple as they come, with the Triggers being your hands, so you have to hold Left or Right depending on which hand you want to grip with, using the Left Stick to direct your climb direction. It’s intuitive and works quite well once you get a hang of your reach and abilities by alternating your gripped hands. Of course climbing is tiring, so you do have a stamina meter to watch, but you’re able to rest virtually anywhere and refill your stamina gauge before attempting another climb. Once you get in the rhythm and climb quickly and smoothly, it feels quite rewarding, as does finally figuring out a way to reach that ledge you’ve been trying to grasp.
You have a rope that will automatically attach once you start climbing, acting like a safeguard in case you fall. You’re able to add a few more anchor points as you ascend, refilling as you place your feet back on flat ground. This means you can’t die nor really lose much progress. Even at times where I forgot to anchor and ended up falling, I only lost about a minute or two of progress. Jusant is meant to be a relaxing experience, and I appreciate the design to not have you fall all the way to the bottom. You also don’t need to be careful near ledges, as you can’t accidentally walk off either thankfully.
You’re able to lengthen or shorten your rope as well if anchored to a swing point, useful to reach further off ledges. This allows you to use your rope as a swing at times, so momentum will also play a part of your climb. Sometimes you might need to get some speed and let out your rope a bit to reach somewhere new, though it seems there’s not only one solution to climbing the ‘proper’ path, so I’m sure people will find their own preferred lines upwards. Each wall you climb is like a mini puzzle in itself, as some broken planks and spots you can’t grip or hold onto, so you need to figure a way around or elsewhere. Once you know what ledges and objects to look for, you can usually plan out your climb before doing so.
You’re not alone on this climb though, as you have a small water-like creature with you known as a Ballast. Looking frog-like in nature, it’s not only absolutely adorable but has a connection with this place somehow. This Ballast will not only keep you company, but will be instrumental in your climb, as they’re able to unearth secrets and reveal paths you’d be unable to do so without their help. You need the Ballast and they need you, and it’s more connected to this deserted Tower than you may initially expect.
While in range of some of the rare flora, using your Ballast will cause the plants to grow, allowing more areas to climb with extending flower stalks, or placing a bunch of seeds on the wall that can be used as grip holds. The desert is a harsh environment though, and these seeds only last a few moments in the hot direct sunlight, so you need to be quick at some spots if you want to progress. You’ll also lose stamina slowly in the direct extreme heat, so you can’t always take your sweet time.
You might even find some wandering rock-like creatures that can be used as mobile grips which was always fun to try and time my jumps to reach as they passed by. They can only hold your weight for a short period though, so you’ll need to maneuver across a few of them, like a moving grip point. As you reach the peak, you’ll even need to contend with harsh winds, forcing you to time your jumps to have the wind help push you upwards or in a certain direction.
While the majority of Jusant’s journey takes place outside the massive Tower, there are some sections deep within, adding for a whole different aesthetic and feel. Climbing within the caverns adds for a different backdrop, and there are even some firefly-like creatures that can be used to give you a ‘super’ jump to reach higher at specific points. Walking into a massive open cave and seeing flying glowing jellyfish is quite a beautiful sight indeed.
While your general direction to go is up, how you do so is up to you. There seems to be generally one ‘main’ path, but many times I found short side paths that were alternate ways or housed some secrets. Jusant’s lore is explained through finding collectables, so it will certainly be beneficial to go off the beaten path and explore everywhere you can. The notes you find give insight to the people’s lives that used to live here, or what they were worried about once the tide started to lower abruptly. Where did the people go? Were they scared? Collect these to piece together a heartbreaking story as you ascend. Part of Jusant’s charm is how it lets you explore the world at your own pace. You’re not rushed in any way, you’re free to explore different pathways which usually lead to tidbits of interesting lore, slowly piecing together what’s happened and where everyone has gone.
Climbing a massive structure like this, you get a feeling of how small and insignificant you truly are. Level design is done masterfully for being virtually completely vertical and there was always something in the distance that caught my eye that I wanted to go see what it was eventually. Jusant’s design is so clever, as you’re always given a purposeful structure in the distance that you’re naturally drawn to, and the climbing path happens to head in that direction.
More than once I had to stop and just take in the beautiful vistas, looking down at how far I’ve come, but also glancing upward to see how much further to go, not even able to see the peak beyond the clouds. Once I was above the clouds and unable to see the ground where I started, it really brought a sense of accomplishment. The colorful cartoonish aesthetics are pleasing and you can easily tell certain paths you’re meant to take once you notice the grip points to hang onto. Equally as stunning is the beautiful soundtrack from Guillaume Ferran, creating an atmosphere where the piano ballads hit at just the right time and creates a relaxing tone as you hear the wind whistling near a cliff edge, bringing with it a sweeping and adventurous soundscape of harmonies.
Scaling the tower never becomes dull, adding new challenges and ways to solve each puzzle with a stunning vista viewpoint as my reward. I was unable to put it down, completing it in a single sitting, though I plan to go back again with the Chapter Select to find all the collectables I missed the first ascent.
Sometimes you can just tell when a game is ‘special’, and Jusant gives this feeling almost from its onset. With stunning vistas, a hauntingly beautiful soundtrack, and relaxing gameplay, take a few hours out of a weekend and experience its gorgeous ascent.
**Jusant was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.3 / 10



We have the latest from small indie dev TOMAGameStudio, Hexapoda. Many insects are actually called hexapoda, something new I learned, and is very fitting given the game backdrop of you shooting hundreds of insects, a nice change from your typical battle versus invading aliens. What may stand out to you initially though is its black and white tones, making the colored bullets pop and stand out more in the foreground.
The surface of Earth is no longer hospitable, forcing humanity to flee and live underground after a war that left unbreathable gasses in the atmosphere. The problem is that under the surface where you dwell, it’s infested by deadly bugs and insects that are massive. This is where you come in, as to survive, someone is going to not only clear out the bugs, but try to find a solution to that you can reemerge to the top side once again.
While you’ll need to clear out as many bugs as you can for safety, your true main objective is to find samples so that they can be tested, especially from the massive Queen that’s said to be deep below. Defeat each boss, grab a sample and continue on your journey. After each level you’ll be presented with a branching path, able to freely choose which way to go. Each path takes you towards a different boss and will also get you one of the few different endings, so there’s some replayability built into its design.
Not usually an option in smaller games like this, you can actually play up to four players simultaneously, each being a slightly different looking ship and a base weapon. There are three different difficulty modes to choose from, Normal, Hard and Manic. Normal wasn’t an issue to clear at all for a shmup vet, but Hard and Manic were actually quite challenging, almost to the point of feeling unfair at certain moments, especially during boss fights.
With four different ships to choose from, they don’t have any stat differences, but their base weapon does vary between the different types you’ll see once you get some power-ups. I do wish this was a bit clearer though, as I wasn’t initially sure what the differences of the four ships were. Across the twelve stages you’ll unlock a vast bestiary as you kill enemies, some only appearing in certain branching paths.
Controls are as simple as they come; you have one button for shooting, one for a screen clearing bomb, and moving your ship with the Left Stick. By default, Hexapoda is a vertical shooter where you’re constantly scrolling upwards, though you can certainly change the video options to play it like the other horizontal styled shmups, all depending on your preference.
Enemies come in waves and you must do what you can to avoid all the bullets on screen while taking out every bug you can. Many will drop stars that can be collected for points, and you’ll also see a bunch of power-ups drop as well that will give you new weapons for a short time. These upgrades only last for a short period of time, maybe 30 seconds or so, so make sure you destroy all the bugs you can in that period of time. Every time you grab a new weapon power-up, the timer will reset, so it’s not often you’ll revert back to your base weaponry.
There are a few different weapon types you can gather, from a condensed laser, spread shot, homing missiles and even a shot that bounces off enemies and walls. These are indicated by H, W, and S floating objects to pick up, as well as a P that can upgrade the spread and damage of your weapons. At times you’ll be constantly swapping weapons as you’re given that many at times when lots of bugs are destroyed together.
While going through each stage isn’t terribly difficult to avoid the bullets on screen, the bosses can feel unfair at times, especially on Hard or Manic. I swear there were spots that were unavoidable to get hit. This may be partly because the hitbox for your ship felt large, so it was challenging at times to avoid a premature death.
The black and white aesthetic is eye catching at first, yet still has plenty of detail in the environments and bugs. Your bullets are blue and enemy shoots purple at you, so these pop on the screen against the monochrome backdrop. The star was clearly the kickass electronica synthwave soundtrack from band Double Dragon that had me excited to play each level, hoping to hear a new track taking a new pathway.
Hexapoda is a simplistic shmup that should certainly entertain for a weekend, and while I don’t see myself revisiting it later in the future, it’s solid overall with nothing really to complain about as you try and climb up the leaderboards each run. Good luck trying to survive the harder difficulty modes though if you want a real challenge.
**Hexapoda was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10



We know the zodiac signs as just those, symbols of different personality traits and such, but in this universe, each zodiac is an actual person, Virgo included. Each rules over their own realm, like Gods, but Virgo wants to rid the world of heresy, and nothing or no one will stop her, other zodiacs included. Often referred to as Dreadful Queen by others, Virgo believes her way is the only way to righteousness, regardless of the pathway to that outcome.
To bring back her viewed Golden Age, she is on a rampaging mission to gather all the crowns from the other zodiacs, and if they don’t offer it up willingly, then she’ll take it by force. Virgo isn’t alone in her quest though, as she has a small sidekick, Ginger, who also happens to be a cookie. As you travel to each ruler’s realm, they are all unique in not only their backdrop and setting, but their denizens as well. There’s a surprising amount of humor if you take the time to follow along with the heavy amount of dialogue throughout the journey.
Exploring each realm is where you’ll spend the majority of your time outside of battles, displayed in that classic top down RPG viewpoint. Each realm is drastically different aesthetically from the last, suited to which zodiac ruler you’re attempting to reach. Take the time to explore each realm before taking on its ruler, as there’s no way to return after you’ve reclaimed their crown for yourself and head to the next world to conquer. What I didn’t expect was an optional vertical shoot-em-up sections that offer great rewards for the hassle. It feels a little out of place, but at least it breaks up some of the monotony somewhat.
As you explore each area you’ll find numerous characters to talk to and interact with, items to find and enemies to slay. Virgo is obsessed with stopping any blasphemers and heretics and it’s honestly a little refreshing to play a main character that has somewhat of an evil side to her, even being blatantly rude at times. You’re able to save at any time you wish out of battle, so feel free to see where one dialogue option leads, and if you’re not happy with the outcome, reload and try again.
Combat in Virgo Versus the Zodiac is turned-based, but like its Mario & Luigi RPG inspired gameplay, there’s also a constant active component to battles that you’ll need to stay alert for. You’ll need to find a balance of offense and defense for nearly every fight, having quick reactions times as well for the timed inputs is going to make a massive difference in your victories or defeats.
I’ll admit, I was a bit overwhelmed at first, as the game will give you the basics, but doesn’t do a great job of explaining it all or easing you in. After a few hours it was of course no problem and I fully understood the mechanics, but I was certainly a bit lost at first. With no random encounters, you’ll see each enemy on the screen, opting to battle or not some of the time, meaning each battle is designed to be done at a specific point.
You have a bar that’s half split between your health and purity. Think of purity as your shield or guard meter, as once this is depleted, you’ll take damage to your actual hitpoints. Certain actions will not only allow you to refill your purity, but this is how you enable counter attacks as well, so there’s definitely some strategy involved. This isn’t unique to just your party though, as enemies also can do the same. Getting hit when you have purity will enable you to counterattack, dealing massive damage depending on your equipment loadout.
You have different attack types as well, from melee in front row, range from behind, or area attacks that will hit all. Moves have cooldown timers as well, so you can’t always spam your best attacks, meaning you’ll have to strategize when best to use each type of move based on the flow of battle. If certain moves are on cooldown, you could even block to raise your purity again or even times where passing your turn is more beneficial, because attacking the enemy would just allow them to counter you.
The equipment isn’t explained very well either and took me quite some time to figure out. You essentially equip three different weapons and a shield, along with four different armor pieces. The weapons and shield equipped will determine what moves you have, so there’s a bit of trial and error to see what types of attacks go well together and what suits your playstyle. Each piece of equipment has a bonus and a negative, so you need to check each piece carefully and decide what the best tradeoffs are.
You’ll find healing items throughout your journey and through battles as different drinks of coffee, tea or lemonade. These will not only heal, but help boost certain primary stats, giving you a great bonus for a short while. You’re only able to hold onto five of each at a time, so no need to hoard them.
You’ll eventually gather a bunch of different items and weapons, some tied to specific characters, though you’re able to either upgrade or break down items when you’re in the main hub world in between chapters. Where it gets confusing is that the game doesn’t use the normal naming convention for your stats, so it takes some time to figure all of this out and memorize. Weapons are also based on certain stats, so sometimes you’ll want to swap gear if you’re facing certain enemy types.
Even though combat is turn-based in nature, each attack or defense move will require a button input if you want to inflict maximum damage, or negate the most amount of damage. The speed of which you’ll need to react is based on the difficulty you choose I believe, but even on Easy or Normal, there were a few inputs that came quite quick, so you’ll always need to be alert. Miss the timing and you might not crit, or you’ll take full damage, so it’s an important component to being successful. Different party members have different button inputs, though it can be changed to a single button to be easier should you wish. Certain moves will require the D-Pad directions to be used as well, but not as often in my experience due to my gear choices.
There’s a triangle system in place where one color is strong against one and weak against the other, but I found it hard to memorize when colors are also tied to specific stats and morality choices as well. This still takes me a moment to figure out even after a dozen hours. Each time you’re back at your hub world, you’re able to zone into a black hole, allowing you to fight enemies and the previous realm’s boss to farm crafting materials, coin and ever important experience points.
The pixel art is done quite well, appearing at first glance as a retro RPG from decades ago. Enemies have a decent amount of variety, as each realm, has their own types you’ll face. Each realm’s backdrop is also a different in visual style, as each zodiac ruler clearly has different tastes to where they reside. During dialogue sequences you’re treated to some portrait art of each character, though I wish it was more animated. Sadly the hefty dialogue isn’t voiced, but the soundtrack on the other hand is fantastic and catchy, adding to the overall mood of each realm.
With multiple endings, engaging combat and a decent narrative, Virgo Versus The Zodiac really surprised me. RPG fans have a new journey to sink a dozen or two hours into, and it’s hard to go wrong killing heretics while riding a colorful Alpaca.
**Virgo Versus The Zodiac was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.2 / 10



You play as Afia, an undead pirate woman with a sword buried in her chest purposely, as it’s where she sheathes her weapon until needed to stab and kill enemies. What good is a pirate without a ship though? That’s the dilemma you find yourself in the opening moments. While you do find a ship nearby, unfortunately it’s been seized by the Inquisition and clearly quite dangerous to be nearby. This ship, named The Red Marley, is no ordinary ship though. It’s a ghost ship, which is quite fitting given your current un-living situation as well.
The Red Marley’s captain, Mordechai, is no longer living, but that doesn’t mean you can simply take the ship without a catch. The ship is essentially alive, with a large green skull that speaks to you, informing you that you simply can’t be the new captain, but a navigator instead. Assemble your pirate crew and search for Mordechai’s long lost treasure, and maybe you’ll become the captain one day. As you eventually unlock new crew members, you’ll be able to talk to them, learn their backstories, and even partake in their specific missions.
The Inquisition will be your main adversary, as they want to destroy anything supernatural, though you’ll uncover a more sinister plot as you progress. Set sail for the Lost Caribbean in this adventure that should take you a good 20+ hours to see to conclusion, much longer than I initially expected.
Playing in a top down isometric camera view, you’ll be able to zoom in all the way to see your individual crew mates, or all the way out to see the island as a whole. Zooming out you’ll be able to even see where every enemy is on the island and which way they are facing or moving, indicated by arrows. While this gives you an advantage, you’ll still need to come up with a strategic plan to take out your enemies, because even though you’re undead, you can still be harmed by human weaponry, which is why this is a stealth focused strategy title.
You’ll only have an island or two to explore and do missions on in the beginning, eventually opening multiple islands in the Caribbean to explore as you try to revive your crew and stop the Inquisition. Each island has very different layouts and will challenge you in unique ways. How you strategize will be completely up to you and vary based on the crew you currently have access to. You’ll revisit islands more than once, as there are numerous missions you can do, and will need to multiple times. For how many times you’ll replay an island, each mission feels unique and can be completed in a number of different ways in the clever sandbox world.
You begin on your own, eventually able to revive your cursed crew if you’re able to find some fabled Black Pearls. Once you obtain one, you can choose any of the eight crew mates to revive and have join your team, completely up to you whom and when. Each of the eight crew are very unique in their design, personality and abilities, so there’s no wrong one to pick first. Different crew will cater to different playstyles, as I opted for a more defensive approach, though you could absolutely play more aggressive if you wanted as well. Each have their own pros and cons, and two special and unique abilities.
The Inquisition will be on the lookout for you though at every turn, led by Ignacia, clearly up to something nefarious. The hidden treasure you’re searching for though isn’t going to be easy to find given they are protected by mysterious relics. It seems as though Ignacia also knows about this treasure too though, so expect resistance at every turn. The tutorial teaches you the basics of staying in stealth and attacking your enemies, and every time you manage to revive a crew mate to join your team, you can play a couple optional tutorial missions with them to learn how to use their unique skills which I appreciated, figuring out how to best use them in conjunction with one another.
As a tip, I’d highly suggest getting Suleidy first, as her unique abilities I used quite heavily in every single mission. She can not only force most guards to move from their post and path away for a short time, she’s able to drop a large bush anywhere to be used as cover. Quentin was another favorite, and even though he wasn’t as ‘powerful’ as some of the others, being able to use his golden skull as a distraction was quite handy in many situations. Each ability has a cooldown period, so you’ll need to plan ahead not only what to do, but the best time to not be seen by other guards also.
Each mission will be played quite differently every time depending on what crew you’ve revived and unlocked so far. You using a different team composition than me will have completely different strategic tactics and can make for vastly different playthroughs. The powers of each crew is balanced quite well overall and play into the whole supernatural undead pirate theme. Just make sure you got a plan B or escape path in case something doesn’t go exactly how you planned.
The mechanic that I appreciated the most though was its clever use of quick saving. Now I’ll admit, if a game lets me save-scum, I’m probably going to do it. This is when something didn’t go as planned, so I simply reload the last save just before and try again. Even cleverer, it’s designed in a way where it fits into the narrative, acting as “captured memories” that can be saved or reloaded at any point.
You’re able to control each crew member individually or move them together as a unit. Even though you’re a crew of undead pirates, you can’t take much damage, so you need to play as stealthy as possible. Once you revive your first crew mate, this is where a lot of the combat strategy will come in. Do you set up each character at opposite sides of the island and work on individual kills, or synchronized together as a team? Make sure you’re keeping the ones not in use hidden in bushes or behind objects, and they won’t retreat on their own if spotted.
Where the best strategies come into play is being able to setup a ‘plan’ by pausing time, moving individual crew to certain spots and queuing up any of their abilities. You can then execute the plan at any point and your pre-made plan will play out. Remember to use that captured memory before trying though, as you never know how it might turn out until it’s too late. These coordinated attacks are extremely satisfying when your plan comes together exactly as you expected.
Earn enough Vigor by completing missions and you’ll be able to upgrade skills of your crew. This allows you to improve their abilities in a variety of different ways, some making missions almost trivial, though it all depends on your preferred crew and playstyle. For example, upgrading Afia’s Blink attack to Grand Blink means she’s able to teleport and assassinate a target from a much further distance and not have to worry about line of sight either.
For a game revolving around undead pirates, the aesthetic is quite colorful and vibrant. The character artwork is done quite well, your ship The Red Marley has its own personality, and the island environments are varied and easy to distinguish from one another. The voice acting is absolutely top notch from every character across the board, making each character have even that much more of a personality.
While I question the timing of its release being smashed in between two of the largest titles of the year, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is excellent at what it’s trying to be; a challenging tactical squad based stealth game. It’s a deep shame that this is developer Mimimi’s final game, as they’ve since shuttered their doors, but they can be proud of their magnum opus and hang their head high at creating a memorable undead pirate themed experience.
**Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.7 / 10



The latest from TOMA Game Studio, Overdriven Evolution is the latest in the crowded genre, so I was excited to see how it stands out apart from the competition; if it was memorable and if there’s enough replay value within. Like most shmups, you can expect large bosses, tons of enemies, and hundreds of bullets on screen at any time. What I didn’t expect was just how much extra content and modes was included, but more on that shortly.
As to be expected with these types of games, yes there’s technically a story to try and capture your attention, but let’s be honest, we play shmups mostly for its challenging gameplay. There’s some sort of alien race that’s invading so of course it falls upon you to save the universe. I know, probably one of the most overused and tiresome tropes, but it’s basically you versus the invading Kruuthian Empire in your solo ship.
Being a vertical shmup, the screen will automatically be scrolling upwards at a set pace while you can maneuver all around trying to avoid the onslaught of bullets from handfuls of enemies. You begin with two different ships to choose from, looking slightly different from one another, with another unlockable as well, though don’t really expect any differences.
Many shumps will usually give you some sort of weapon that can be infinitely fired and maybe a screen clearing bomb, and it’s mostly the same here as well. The big difference is that you’re also able to convert your regular pew-pew into a focused and powerful laser, but there’s a catch. While this laser will make quick work of most enemies, even quickly drain boss health bars, you move incredibly slowly and are reduced to 20% of your shields. This of course leaves you vulnerable to enemy fire, which the screen is almost always full of.
Much of a shmups difficulty lies in the accuracy and size of your ship’s hitbox. This determines how forgiving the game is before it decide that you hit that stray bullet. Thankfully this seems to be quite forgiving in Overdriven Evolution, as the hitbox seemed to be quite small. Even when you do inevitably collide into some enemy fire, your health bar is beefy enough to take a good amount of hits. As for enemy attack patterns, it’s all quite basic, as even boss attacks weren’t all too difficult to avoid, as I never really felt too overwhelmed.
What I didn’t expect was being able to change the color of your attacks and any given point. I thought this was going to be some sort of Ikaruga-like mechanic where you were going to have to shoot specific colored enemies with opposite colors or something of the sorts. Sadly that’s not the reason. Every so often you’ll come across these white orbs that can’t be destroyed. They’re usually in a group of three or four and one of them will be colored. Because of being able to change your attacks to different colors, you will then ‘paint’ these orbs said color that you shoot. Match three in a row and they’ll disappear, usually letting you pass or uncovering a secret path. Trying to do this in midst of the regular chaos that’s happening on screen with hundreds of bullets isn’t the easiest thing to do though. It feels as though maybe this mechanic was a bigger part of the game earlier on but was left in for some reason and easily the weakest part of the experience.
Bosses are usually the highlight, and it’s no different here. Sure they aren’t the coolest looking or all that memorable, but the multi-phased battles are fun, as is taking on something other than the regular cannon fodder that fills the rest of the adventure. Even their large attack patterns weren’t all too challenging save for a few instances.
Even when you complete your first playthrough, there’s reason to go back; finding hidden collectables and of course, rising up the online leaderboards for bragging rights. With four difficulties to choose from (Easy, Normal, Hard and Nightmare) and a number of different modes to play, there’s a surprising amount of extra content to enjoy even after you save the universe. With seven extra modes, there’s surely something you’ll find enjoyable:
Story: Choose your difficulty and save the universe. Pretty standard stuff.
Arcade: Here you’re only given three continues, so can you get through all the bosses of the Kruuthian Empire?
Manic: No health bar. You got hit? Well, you’re dead.
Challenges: Here is a list of ten curated and specific challenges taken from Story Mode, but with a twist. Can you beat a certain section without getting hit? Can you beat a specific boss under the time limit? These are just fun and challenging enough to entice you, as well as achievements.
Boss Rush: Who doesn’t want to simply battle against the best parts of the game back to back? Take on all bosses back to back to see if you can emerge victorious.
The Line: My favorite extra mode that is simplistic in nature yet works. There’s a red line behind you slowly filling upwards towards the screen. If you or an enemy hits that line, game over. This means you need to make sure you destroy every enemy, but have a much smaller playfield to maneuver in since it can fill a large section of the screen.
Color-Reflex: Easily the mode I enjoyed the least. Remember me describing the color matching with your shots and the white orbs? This whole mode is dedicated to that, and worse, there’s 56 separate levels to do so in. Sure some will enjoy these levels, but the whole color matching mechanic just seems out of place and certainly not worth its own mode.
While it’s not always uncommon for a shmup to have multiplayer, it is much rarer to have one with four player local co-op. That’s right, you and three other friends can play together locally across the whole Story mode, though if you thought hundreds of bullets on screen was overwhelming playing solo, wait until there’s even more happening on screen at once. Of course the lack of online play is disappointing, though expected from a small developer.
Aesthetically, Overdriven Evolution looks... fine. There’s nothing really that stands out, as it can be hard to appreciate the visuals in games like these when you’re so focused on dodging hundreds of bullets. The animations from your partner in between levels is poor at best, but at least there was some sort of effort to have something extra. The soundtrack is similar; fine but forgettable. With some tunes happening in the background there’s not much dead air, but that’s a low bar to set.
Because of the effort to add all the extra modes, there’s certainly some replayability, and the online leaderboards always had me checking my score after a run. While I’m sure some shmup fans will have a fun weekend or two with it, it’s probably a bit too bland for me to remember in the future.
**Overdriven Evolution was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10



The FriendShip (for short) is much smaller in scale, yet offers the same tried and true cooperative asymmetrical puzzle solving you’d come to expect from a mainline We Were Here game. The best part, it’s completely free to download until October 13th, 2023, so there’s no reason to not grab it and test out your communication abilities with some friends. Newcomers to the series can expect a couple challenging puzzles, whereas veterans like myself will be tasked with trying to obtain the highest score possible, a completely new mechanic for the puzzles which I quite enjoyed. Will your friendship last even through this bite sized adventure? Let’s find out.
The first few We Were Here games didn’t support much of a narrative aside from you and your expedition partner usually crash landing somewhere, being separated, only to come back together for brief moments as you each solve your own-yet-linked puzzles. The later few titles added a deeper overall narrative that links everything together in a way, though The FriendShip is basically a standalone title.
You and your partner are out at sea when get a distress signal at a nearby island. Upon arrival you notice that it’s seemingly abandoned, and to make things creepier, it seems there’s a rundown amusement park here. After solving your first ‘puzzle’, you and your partner get on one of those boat rides together, and thus your co-op adventure begins in your Friend-Ship.
If you’ve never played any of the We Were Here games previously, The FriendShip is actually probably the best starting point, not just because it’s (currently) free, but the puzzles are mere bite sized morsels and a fraction of the difficulty of the full games. Think of it as a demo, yet it’s a full game that will last an hour or two depending on you and your partner’s communication skills.
Those new to the series simply need to know that this is a cooperative puzzle game where you and your friend play online, almost constantly separated from one another working in tandem on a puzzle. What makes it so unique is that there’s essentially two halves to each puzzle and you two must work together simultaneously to solve them. The only way to do that is with communication, describing what you see and what’s happening around you to your partner, and vice versa.
Sometimes you’ll need to describe a symbol you see, and how you do so will determine if you’re successful or not. For example, one symbol I described as “an alien watching TV”. Thankfully my fellow reviewer here and We Were Here partner, Peggy, was willing to endure another game in the series with me after we last went through the entirety of We Were Here Forever. Let me tell you, that was surely a friendship test, but as long as you and your partner can communicate well with one another you’ll be fine.
The FriendShip is a short adventure, as we were able to finish it in about an hour and a half on the dot, though that was after the second puzzle causing a few retries until we figured it out. It should last most people about 2-3 hours, though can be played numerous times to see each ‘side’ of the puzzle and to try and get a better score.
As you take the ship ride down a creepy abandoned amusement park, it seemingly comes to life, but stops at certain points. Here you undock and are unable to progress until you solve a puzzle which will open the doors, allowing the vessel to continue. Remember, you and your friend are always going to be separated in these puzzles, each somehow affecting the other. The first puzzle will feel very familiar if you’ve played any of the previous games. On my side of the puzzle I saw a handful of different wooden marionette dolls, each with a symbol in front of them. The goal of this is the match the two sides, forcing you to describe the symbols and the emotions the dolls make. How many you complete and how quickly will determine your score.
First puzzle down, great! That was easy right? Well, the second puzzle is sure to stump you. My partner and I had to attempt this one a few times until we understood it properly. On my side of the puzzle I had a hexagon grid where I could place one of three tiles, each of which had different colors on random sides of the piece. Choosing one of three tiles forced Peggy to use a specific tile as well, so we had to decide what’s best for both of our puzzles. I had to try and line up my tiles with colors matching on sides, like dominoes, whereas hers revolved around placing small pillars on specific spots which raised if it patched on my side. To be honest, we got the bronze rating and were fine moving on after six attempts.
The last puzzle was the most unique and something completely new to the series as far as I can recall. Remember when you would blindfold a friend and they had to listen to your verbal instructions to get through an obstacle course of some kind, trusting in your judgement and call outs? It’s the same idea here. I was the ‘caller’, telling Peggy where to go from my high up perch. She got gassed and was hallucinating, so if she didn’t listen to my instructions, she would have fallen off the dock and into the water. While we again got a bronze score, this puzzle I’d like to do again.
Depending on your score per puzzle you’ll earn a bronze, silver or gold ticket, and getting back to the boat to progress, the better tickets will change how your Friend-Ship appears. I quite enjoyed this scoring system, as in every other We Were Here title, you simply passed or didn’t, whereas now you have something more to strive towards. Even though three puzzles seems like very little on paper, they are the same high quality you’d find in any of the main games being well throughout and unique.
Crossplay is supported, so you don’t have to worry about your friends playing on the same system as you. Once you add each other to the universal friend list you’ll be able to play together. The built in walkie-talkies are how you’re supposed to play, with the light indicating your partner is talking. Given they are one-way radios, you need to know when each other is taking a turn talking and describing what they see. Could you join a party chat or phone call and have open mics, sure. Could you ‘cheat’ and send your friend a picture of what you’re seeing since you can’t accurately describe what you’re seeing? Absolutely. I implore you to try the game ‘legit’ first though, as it’s what makes the series so unique. Sometimes it’s hilarious, other times it’s frustrating, but it’s surely memorable.
I promise you, I dub the We Were Here games a "Friendship Test" for a reason. You’re going to be amazed how difficult it is to describe odd shapes and what you see, or flabbergasted at how poorly your friend is unable to do so. While our first playthrough was an hour and a half, I can see us playing once more to try and get those coveted gold tickets by improving our scores. We Were Here Expeditions: The FriendShip acts as a taste test to the series, but is its own standalone experience, and since it’s currently free, make sure you and a friend download it to see how good your communication truly us and if you'll remain best mateys.
**We Were Here Expeditions: The FriendShip was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10



Everhood: Eternity Edition (simply referred to as Everhood from here on) starts with by asking if you are ready to abandon your humanity and accept immortality. Say “No” and the game ends and you go back to the main menu, so clearly you hit “Yes” the next time. The opening scene begins in a forest with a red wooden doll on the ground, aptly named Red, but the limbs are broken apart and strewn about. Along comes a small Blue Thief who steals your arm and takes off. This somehow awakens you and puts you back together, minus one arm, and thus begins your quest to get your arm back.
Up the trail you’ll meet Frog, acting as the game’s tutorial to how the rhythmic gameplay is controlled. You’re then introduced to the save system, which can be done at any street light, and yes, they’ll talk to you as well. You’ll eventually meet up with the Blue Thief, which turns out he’s working for Gold Pig to told him to steal your arm, so naturally that’s who you’ll be trying to find to get your arm back. I don’t want to talk about much more of the story itself, as it’s quite interesting, and honestly, there’s so many plot twists and turns that I didn’t’ expect that you’re best to uncover these for yourself. The plot actually takes some quite dark turns, and the ending sequence had me quite shocked and surprised. With multiple endings and a New Game+ mode, there’s plenty of replayability as well.
You’ll first choose what difficulty you want to play on, from Story Mode up to an unlockable Insane Mode once you complete your first playthrough. As you explore each area you’ll come across a cast of really unique and odd characters. Some are recurring and have more importance, whereas others are just minor and only offer a line or two of dialogue. You’ll eventually make it to the hub area that has a number of different doors you can access (and some you can’t yet) to reach new worlds. Each area is vastly different from the last and memorable in their own way.
As you explore each area, you’ll eventually come across different characters that will battle you. Instead of a turn based system like in most RPG’s, Everhood instead uses a music based approach that is quite similar to Guitar Hero more than anything else. There are five different lanes that the notes will come down the screen, and you must simply avoid them by moving left or right and not being in that lane at the wrong moment as the note reaches the bottom of the screen.
Battles begin easy enough with slow and rhythmic songs, eventually becoming more and more challenging as you progress. ‘Boss’ battles are quite challenging, especially on the harder difficulties, but you have a health bar above your head that will regenerate the longer you don’t get hit by any notes. This gives you a little breathing room for the sections where you’ll accidentally take damage from as handful of notes in succession.
There’s essentially two different types of notes; small flat ones you can jump over (or can lane change to avoid) and taller pillar-like ones that can’t be jumped over and have to be avoided instead. Without spoiling any story elements, eventually you’ll also be able to absorb certain notes as well, charging up two similar colored in a row which can then be used to fire back at the enemy. Absorb a different color than the first though and it won’t count, so you’ll need to be purposely ‘catching’ specific colored notes in a row if you want to fight back. This is much easier said than done when songs become quite challenging, fast paced and the screen starts to distort. Also, you’ll eventually find black notes that can’t be absorbed, having to be avoided, and if you get hit, you lose your charge as well.
I’ll admit, I found the movement to be a little stiff at first, as I couldn’t time the jumps properly and kept getting hit. Eventually I got used to it and had no problems after a handful of songs. Also, once you play a level a few times and get to learn the song’s beat, it makes it easier as well, as you know that when you tap your foot to the rhythm that’s the moment to avoid or jump. Just like in Guitar Hero, once you were able to play Expert difficulty songs, you just get in that zone where you become one with the song and just know how to react instinctively, even when the playfield starts to distort and the screen is chaotic with things all over and flashing lights.
The star of Everhood isn’t the story, the comedy or even the gameplay, it’s the incredible soundtrack from a variety of artists. With a wide variety of genres and beats, there’s sure to be something you like along the way, though I enjoyed them all for different reasons. Even the first few songs you play are bangers. Chris Nordgren and Cazok seem to have made the bulk of the core game’s soundtrack, but with the Eternity Edition, 16 new musical battles have been added from some pretty influential composers. Just to list a few of the standouts:
- David Wise (Donkey Kong Country, Battletoads, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts)
- Manami Matsumae (Mega Man, Shovel Knight)
- Disasterpiece (Fez, Hyper Light Drifter)
- Keiji Yamagishi (Ninja Gaiden, Streets of Rage 4)
Don’t let the simplistic visuals from the trailer or screenshots fool you, there’s a clever story underneath and some really addictive gameplay. That said, if you even have the most minor of any sort of photosensitivity when it comes to flashing lights, Everhood is absolutely not for you. There’s plenty of warnings about it before beginning, but it can be a lot to take in visually, especially in the last section when things get truly crazy. Even not having any issues with flashing screens, it can be quite difficult to discern what’s going on at any moment, though by design.
Everhood: Eternity Edition isn’t just a mere port, it adds a whole new slew of songs for veterans to enjoy as well. The addictive rhythmic gameplay is tough but fair and elevated by the fantastic soundtrack for anyone that loves good beats and chiptunes. The story does take some unexpected dark twists, but it was surely a memorable ride. I’ve never taken any drugs in my life, but I can only expect this is what it might look like if I did. Already a cult hit, I hope more experience the unique weirdness of Everhood that had previously not heard of it, much like myself, as I now anticipate its announced sequel.
**Everhood: Eternity Edition was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10



Now generally in deck building games there’s not always a major focus on a narrative, as you’re generally in it for its card based gameplay. While Oaken is no different, there is story here that takes place in the world of the Great Oak where spirits listen to one voice, called the Oak Song. This voice disappears one day, unsure of what the outcome could possibly mean. There’s a few story segments here and there between stages, but I found it hard to follow along, as I was so focused on thinking strategically for my moves, which cards to choose, what upgrades I want and trying to discern what units were on the hexagonal tiles. This had the narrative really fall by the wayside for me. You play as “The Lady”, accompanied by a companion, think of her like a Hero, with another Hero unlockable as you progress. You’ll need to defeat enemies in each stage to progress forward, eventually culminating in a Boss battle at the end of each chapter.
One of Oaken’s unique traits is that it’s all plant and fungi based. All the characters and enemies revolve around flora, each brought to life in their own way as uniquely designed characters. You can expect plenty of roots, thorns, spores and other plant based themes. Their designs give them human-like qualities and each type looks distinct from others.
Playing out on a hexagonal grid, you’re zoomed out enough to see the whole playfield, but when there’s lots of units in play it can be a little confusing as having multiples of the same type of unit after playing a card, it’s sometimes hard to distinguish yours versus theirs at a quick glance if you don’t focus. The main bosses stand out enough though that you’ll always know who they are. Hovering over any unit will show you some gorgeous artwork of them along with some quick info so you can strategize your next move.
Like most deck based titles, Oaken is turn based. Your main goal is to generally defeat a set amount of foes on the board which will trigger your win, but you’ll also have a secondary objective(s) you can opt to try and complete as well for some bonuses once you learn its intricacies and can plan a few moves ahead. Some of these secondary objectives are certainly feasible, whereas I found others to be near impossible and didn’t even bother trying, though that was likely due to my hero and deck setup.
Being a roguelike, that means that when you inevitably fail and die, you’ll need to start a new run over by again choosing your hero, sidekick and then of course figuring out your deck. Your sidekick is an important unit and card, as they cost more to play, but are worth it for their unique abilities. Once you’re all sorted you begin your run once again, trying and get as far as you can before starting all over once you fail again. Thankfully you do make persistent progress, as new units, cards and upgrades you unlock make each subsequent run that much easier.
Before each stage, you’ll get to choose which level you want to play. You start at the top of a series of nodes, choosing your starting point of what type of stage you want to play. You defeat said level then come back to this grid and choose the next path, usually almost always a choice of two or more, until you reach the bottom stage which will be the boss. Each encounter is a different type, sometimes not being a battle at all, allowing you to make some narrative choices, though most stages will generally be the ‘defeat all enemies’ variety. Even though each level is supposedly different, they all feel basically the same and blend together.
You have your modest deck of just a few cards in the beginning, eventually gathering more as you progress and repeatedly play. As a round begins you’re randomly given four cards from your deck to start with, though you’re able to swap them out at the beginning once for free. Starting with your higher powered cards might not be the best play in the beginning since you probably won’t be able to ‘afford’ to place them for a few turns anyways. Once cards are played, they’ll eventually get replaced in subsequent turns randomly. It will certainly help if you know your deck well, as combining attacks, buffs and debuffs will be your key to victory.
The main goal is generally to not have your main character, The Lady, die. You can attack and defend yourself, but it’s like the King in chess; once they’re dead, game over. Each card in your deck represents a specific creature, unit or spell. You can play your card that has a specific cost indicated by your Lumi, essentially your 'mana' resources to tell you how much you can do in a single turn. Each turn it refreshes and increases, eventually able to play more of your higher tiered cards.
There’s another mechanic to learn that plays a vital role in your success, revolving around changing the color of the terrain of each hex tile. Turn these green and you’ll get a bonus for your characters, or possibly a debuff for the enemy, whereas sitting on a purple enemy hex and you’ll have a disadvantage. Where and how you change these hexes will play a large role in your tactics of being successful or not.
Spending the Lumi to place a card requires pre-planning, as once you’ve played the card and chosen the hex to have the unit on, you’re actually unable to use them to attack until the following turn. Each unit is different in how they attack, as some are only able to do so to units directly beside, whereas others can range attack in a direct line. It takes some practice to learn how each unit best works with one another, but eventually it’ll become second nature of how to best place them. I tended to play a bit more defensively, making the enemy come to me and having my units attack when in range, kind of like an overwatch trap.
Where the annoyance comes in is having to make sure that your units are facing the correct direction. Given the hex grid, they’re able to attack to the hex in front and to the sides of them, but if there’s an attack from behind a unit, they’ll take much more damage and unable to retaliate. There’s some units and abilities that can also ‘shove’ enemies, adding extra damage and forcing units to move places on the grid during an attack. There’s some interesting and high powered ‘combos’ you can do if you plan and strategize correctly.
Then there’s also a whole fatigue mechanic if you’re not playing on the easier difficulty. Some enemies can cause your units to become fatigued if they damage a unit, meaning their wounds won’t heal in the next encounter. You have to either deal with this penalty or spend precious resources you gather from winning battles to heal them instead of using for upgrades.
For how small the playfield is, it’s surprisingly cluttered and difficult to read at times. You can move your cursor over each unit and enemy to see what’s going on, but it’s not always obvious which direction their facing or if they’ve already taken their turn at a quick glance. Remember though, this is a roguelike, so once you die you’re going to have to start back at the beginning. Of course you keep your earned cards and upgrades, making the next run that much easier, but sometimes a good run can be well over an hour or two, so starting over is a bit disheartening. You are given a one-time ‘continue’ where you can restart the current battle once, and if playing on the easier difficulty, you’re at least able to start over from the same chapter.
While not explained in-depth, I did like the upgrading of my units. You’re able to do this at any point in-between stages, using a special currency you earn to improve your cards and units in specific ways, sort of making them evolve. Choosing to improve a card grants you one of three different ways to improve the card, each having a different positive or playstyle in mind. Each unit can only be upgraded once, but since you’ll eventually have multiples of certain cards, you can choose to upgrade each different, or the same, it’s up to you. You can even earn and have trinkets per run that give you powerful passive bonuses and upgrades that can greatly help.
I applaud Oaken for its gorgeous aesthetics and visuals, being quite colorful and all centered around the plant based theme. The artwork of each card is wonderfully drawn and it’s all simply easy on the eyes to appreciate, even if it does become a bit cluttered on the grid. The soundtrack from Ian Fontova is whimsical, full of wind instruments and a fantastic backdrop for the setting and gameplay. Even listening to it now as I write this review, I’ve already added the soundtrack to my saved playlists.
Oaken does feel unique in the deckbuilding genre, though the gameplay slows quite down once you’re trying to truly strategize, inspecting every unit and trying to come up with a plan. Those that enjoy roguelikes and deckbuilding will surely find something enjoyable with Oaken, just be prepared to sink many hours into upgrading your units to make the next hour+ long run that much easier.
**Oaken was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10



Revhead is a mixture of two games: one part car racing, one part car mechanic simulator. The goal is to create your dream car so you can compete and win a variety of races, but to get to that point you’ll need to become a master mechanic and learn how to rebuild your car, change parts and customize it to be the fastest on the track. There really isn’t much of a narrative, though I wasn’t really expecting one either. Your friend Charlie wants help at his garage, so you fly over the Australia and start your new career as a car mechanic and racer. How you want to earn more cash to purchase more vehicles and parts is up to you.
Revhead is an ambitious combination of car mechanic sim and racer, but melding the two gets a little messy somewhere in the middle. You’re given a mostly open world map across three different zones, though I’m not entirely sure why, as you’re generally always buried deep within the mechanic menus or racing in events. Don’t expect any traffic, people or any life at all on the roads, as they are barren as it comes. Aside from getting from one map to the next, there’s no reason to really drive across the map unless you want to test out your latest car build.
Revhead: a term for a car enthusiast, which is apparent that the developers are when it comes to the mechanic portion of the game. You’re able to use your car magazine to search for used cars and parts and it’s up to you how want to earn cash. If you want to be competitive in racing you’ll need a vehicle that is up for the task. The starter car you get is basically a clunker, so you’re going to need to fix it up, swap some parts out for better racing gear, and hope that you can be competitive. You’ll need to be able to repair all your components too, as performance will be affected by broken or damaged parts quite drastically.
After the brief initial tutorial, you’re basically left to your own with no direction. Do you repair your starter car? Buy a new one? Get a clunker to strip for parts? It’s completely up to you, and my guess of trying to improve the starter car didn’t work well for me. Once I learned how to buy used and wrecked vehicles, repair and sell those parts, I finally started earning enough money to purchase a new vehicle and then add better parts to it to increase the ever important horsepower.
Actually, the opening moments are an eye opener to the rest of your experience. You have to walk from your hotel to the garage, but you’ll notice how awful the controls are trying to have them ‘run’. The animations are terrible and it just seems unnecessary considering nearly everything else is simply going through menus. While the menus are laid out fine, using a controller isn’t very intuitive and done quite poorly. You’ll constantly hit the wrong buttons, back out of one too many menus, and even install wrong parts, etc because of this. It’s clear this wasn’t built on console primarily, as the controls really aren’t great.
Racing is half the game, and while there’s a handful of events, around 70 or so, there’s only a couple tracks (including reverse versions). You start with only a dirt oval, eventually unlocking a raceway and even some drag racing on the salt flats. Some events are simple 3-5 lap races, you have time trials, and then of course the true races and championships for bonuses. The more you wager the more you’ll earn, but good luck in the beginning. Your starter vehicle is so atrocious, you won’t have a chance at anything other than last place, so you’ll turn your attention to the mechanic part for quite some time.
There are Amateur to Pro races to take part in, but you’ll need to have a seriously tricked out car if you want any chance. You also need to tailor your car for the type of race. Having street slicks on a dirt track is going to cause you issues, as will not having the right setups. My first handful of races were so awful that I ended up restarting over, thinking I did something wrong, as it was borderline unplayable. As soon as you try and take a turn you either spin out or hit the wall while the CPU laps you.
The parts inside your vehicle will greatly affect how your car handles. Tire type, air pressure, weight, steering, differential and more will all play a part in your success or failure, yet Revhead doesn’t teach you this at all. Being car illiterate, I was completely lost, as Revhead expects you to know what parts do what and how they compare to other components. Comparing parts isn’t easy as well, as you have to look at the piece, remember its stats, then look at the others and try and figure out what means what. This was frustrating putting in all this time and effort to try and improve my build only to find it didn’t make a difference or actually decreased.
As for the races themselves, they aren’t terribly exciting. Controls are poor at best, and even with a decent car upgraded, you slide around quite easily. The non-existent AI doesn’t help things either, as they have no idea you exist and simply drive the line they’re going to drive regardless. If you manage to trade paint with another racers, it usually doesn’t end well, as someone is going to spin out and probably launch into the wall. Physics just don't feel right and it's a frustrating mess to try and actually race with any confidence.
The mechanic portion of Revhead is easily the highlight and its best feature. Again, not knowing much about the workings of a car, they’ve made it simple to put together a build by essentially snapping pieces together at multiple points of the frame. While you’re given your first clunker to work with, you can browse the local vehicule buy and sell magazine to purchase something new and have it instantly delivered to you. You’re able to find all different makes and models of cars, wrecked or pre-tuned vehicles, all for different costs. The other pages of the magazines also lists random new and used parts that are for sale currently. Don’t see a car or part you need, then you can purchase a new magazine after a short period of time for another $2.
There’s a few strategies here, as you can buy a wrecked car for cheap to salvage parts to hopefully fix and maybe turn a profit, or purchase a used car and swap some parts you already have out for better performance. If you can manage to find a really cheap wrecked car where the engine isn’t broken, repairing that and reselling for a profit is an easy way to start turning a profit early on, something the game doesn't teach you.
Nearly every part and component in your cars can be removed and changed, all the way from the steering wheel, headlights and engine, down to its wiring and spark plugs. While there’s no licensed vehicles or makes, it’s obvious what some are modeled after. You have a few different engine types and have to make sure the parts you buy are for the same brand of car, or it will be incompatible. Make sure you buy the sames sizer of tire for the rims you have as well, an expensive mistake I made early on.
Once you have a decent bankroll, it’s going to be easier to have numerous vehicles, one for each type of race. Not that you couldn’t remove and swap out pieces to alter your build, but it’s time consuming. This whole process is very menu heavy, and as mentioned above, it just feel clunky on a controller. There’s also no way to directly compare parts and how each will improve your vehicle in what way, so there’s a lot of trial and error. For example, I swapped out some ‘better’ parts, or so I thought because they were clearly more expensive, only to find my engine wouldn’t change gears properly for whatever reason without redlining. Why? I’m not sure, so I had to simply try new pieces and see what worked, so there’s some some trial and error.
To put it bluntly, Revhead is quite ugly to look at. Appearing as if it’s a mobile game that’s been ported over, the draw distance is mere feet away for objects and there’s virtually no textures for everything. The world is already lifeless as is with no other people or anyone on the roads, but it’s got a very bland aesthetic overall that doesn’t impress in any way, even on an Xbox Series X. The audio is about the same; it’s there but you’ll grow tired of the bland and loud engine sounds and repeated background soundtrack.
Revhead is trying to be two separate games at once, though never really excelling at either. The mechanic portion is clearly its strong point, with the racing component being the weakest portion by far. The concept is what makes Revhead unique, building your own car then taking it to race, it’s just been executed poorly for console. Even with the atrocious controls, I still want to buy junker cars, strip them down for parts and sell the engines for a profit. Revhead needs to decide whether it wants to be a simulator or an arcade game, not this awkward mix of both. Unless you're a diehard Revhead, you might want to take this one back to the shop.
**Revhead was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 3.3 / 10



Normally this is where I would describe the story, usually involving saving the world or galaxy from some kind of alien invasion as you take the conquest on by yourself, but that’s not the case here. At least from what I can tell, there’s no narrative here at all. Starting the game you’re simply thrown into the first mission guns blazing. No tutorial, no warmup, just start blasting the ships coming at you as the screen scrolls vertically. Given the shmup genre, this will be sufficient.
I did notice that even the first handful of enemies took a few hits to destroy, as normally cannon fodder are destroyed in single shots, but that wasn’t the case here. This gave a feeling of my ship being weak, having only a single blaster. When you go inevitably lose all your shields, health and blow up, starting a new run will look slightly different, as the maps are procedurally generated. While it didn’t feel like a drastic difference, it added at least a little variety where you’ll normally become bored of the first few levels replaying them over and over again.
The main hook with Nova Strike is its roguelike elements where you earn currency earned each run that can then be used to install permanent upgrades for your ship, making each subsequent run slightly that much easier. Each Chapter is split into several small levels, with the final having a massive box to try and defeat. As the screen scrolls vertically automatically, you and your small ship must defeat enemies in your path without trying to take damage, which is of course much easier said than done.
Enemy kills reward you with coins and resources that can be used to improve your health, shields, damage and more for that run specifically, or saved to use at your home base for permanent upgrades when you do eventually get destroyed. Each level only last a few minutes tops, though it can sometimes feel like longer. At the end of each level there’s anywhere from one to three portals where you can choose what type of additional bonuses you want in the next, like more coins, bonus weapons or resources. The game doesn’t do a good job at explaining the differences, but it’s self-explanatory for the most part.
Each enemy type has different attack patterns, though they are simple enough to recognize and avoid. Where the challenge lies is when the screen is full of enemies, all shooting different patterns are you try and avoid everything while blasting enemies. Now and then you’ll reach a point in a level where the scrolling pauses until you defeat all enemies on screen. Smooth controls can make or break a shmup pretty quickly, and thankfully it’s decent in Nova Strike. Taking enemy bullets will lower your slowly regenerating shield, which, when depleted, will then take your health away quite quickly. As you begin the first time playing and without any upgrades, you’ll die quite quickly with a few good blasts, eventually coming more powerful as you equip upgrades.
You simply need to hold ‘A’ to fire your weak primary blaster, though at least you have unlimited ammunition. You’ll find an assortment of different secondary weapons randomly appear from destroyed enemies, the coolest feature being that you can actually see them attach to your ship and able to equip and swap between two. Secondary weapons are limited in ammunition and much more powerful, ranging from lasers, electricity, missiles, spread shots and more. At the end of stages you’ll also sometimes get shops where you can also spend your coin on secondary weapons if you want as well.
Even though there is only a couple Chapters, them being broken into several different short levels makes it feel longer. That and the fact that it’ll take you a good handful of deaths and upgrade purchases to eventually be able to reach and defeat the final boss. The boss battles are the highlight, as they are massive and require some nimble maneuvering to avoid their attack patterns. While not terribly exciting, the bosses are at least a welcome change from the standard enemies you'll repeatedly blast away.
You’ll want to make sure you have some upgrades before attempting these bosses though, as health, shield boosters and refills were the only way I was able to survive the battles early on, as was having plenty of secondary ammunition. They are all multi-tier battles where they change form or do new attack patterns, adding many more bullets on screen than the regular levels.
Regardless, you’re going to die at some point without some upgrades. The Game Over screen will show you how long your run lasted, how many enemies and bosses killed, coins collected and more. This is a roguelike though, so starting over is part of the process. At least some of the resources you collected in the last run will persist, allowing you to purchase upgrades from the shop at your home base between runs. A really interesting feature with this is that if you’ve already maxed out your upgrades, you can spend coins on starting at specific chapters rather than having to start all the way at 1-1 each run.
While you can purchase a handful of secondary weapons, you’ll want to most likely prioritize the skills and passive buffs. Your ship has a finite amount of Chip Slots, and each add-on or perk costs a set amount from one to three depending on the bonuses granted. Obviously the most powerful will cost more Chip slots, so it’s a matter of balancing what upgrades you want and what caters to your playstyle. I preferred the passive upgrades and ones that focused on defense, but you could make a more aggressive build if you wanted.
To make things even more intriguing, you’re only able to install one of each type of upgrade. The categories are Stealth, Weapons, Movement, Repair, Health, Defense and Resources. Mix and match to make a unique build, making your next attempt so much easier each recurring run thereafter. With a maximum of 9 Chip Slots, the best upgrades will require three to equip.
The pixel art is done quite well, and even though there’s little variety with having levels procedurally generated each run, there’s just enough detail in the backgrounds that adds some flair. Sure you’ll not be able to really focus on much else other than bullets and staying alive, but the ship and enemy design is done well. Even with the chaos that ensures in this type of game, my ship never really became lost in the heat of battle as I tried to avoid every bullet on screen. As for the audio, it’s serviceable though unmemorable. It’s got a little beat to dampen the silence, but after a handful of runs you’ll likely want to put on your own music on.
Roguelikes are meant to be played over and over as you slowly make overall progression each time. This works when the gameplay is addictive and you’re constantly teased with the next upgrade to feel more powerful. While great for short sessions with a run or two here and there, Nova Strike is perfectly serviceable, but with only a couple Chapters to complete, it doesn’t feel as though it will have a long shelf life in my played rotation. Not bad by any means, it simply feels like a generic shump, though the $10 USD price tag is about right for what you get content wise.
**Nova Strike was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 5.7 / 10



Bethesda games are generally vast open worlds where you can play basically however you wish, and while Starfield is no different at its core, it takes the core concepts from their previous games and expands them to a whole other level. Instead of a singular world you can freely explore, you’re given a whole universe as your playground, allowing you to play however you wish. If you want to be a pirate, you can loot and plunder other ships in the constellations. If you simply want to explore planets, you’re given the freedom to do so. Maybe you want to be a universally known chef and collect rare ingredients from planets far and wide, that’s also certainly a possibility should you wish. Create your character and head to the stars with unparalleled freedom as you embark on an epic journey that will play out differently for everyone.
Set in 2330, Earth is no longer humanity’s only home. People have ventured far to the stars, settling on many different planets across the galaxy and beyond. Like other Bethesda games, Starfield’s opening journey is a memorable one. Outside of this opening mission, I’ll be purposely vague and not really delve into much of the core story, as it’s quite an epic journey and I want to avoid any spoilers, best revealed on your own as it unfolds.
I’ll be honest, most other Bethesda games, while their worlds are fantastic to play in, I couldn’t tell you or recall what their main story was really about with much detail. Starfield though is different, with a narrative that sucked me in quickly and kept me wanting to find out what happens next. Sure I spent dozens of hours doing other things such as side missions, exploring and more, but I kept feeling compelled to go back to the main story to see what happens, especially after a dozen or so hours once it went in a direction I completely didn’t see coming.
A COMPELLING NARRATIVE
Starfield opens with you about to embark down a mine shaft on Vectera, a moon of the planet Anselon, working as a miner simply referred to as a “Dusty”. This is where you’re given a brief tutorial about the basics and controls as you follow your crew down into the mine. You get a sense of how claustrophobic this place is, with other ‘Dusty’s’ working hard. You pick up a Cutter, a tool to extract resources from special nodes, the futuristic way of mining. As the crew busts through a wall with their massive equipment, you go ahead to explore only to find something you’ve never seen before, an Artifact. This floating piece of metal is clearly something unique, as it has patterns on it and doesn’t simply look like any typical junk debris. As you reach out to grab it you experience visions, something unknown that you can’t quite make out, only for you to awake later with your coworkers looking over you, making sure you’re alright.
YOUR TRUE SELF
You’ve given a tablet and asked “You know who you are? New recruit for Argos Extractors?”. This is the clever way Starfield then puts you into the character creator where you’ll no doubt spend a good amount of time customizing how you look down to the finest details. Once you’re happy with your appearance you’ll choose a Background (kind of a starting class with a few skills instantly unlocked), Skills, and Traits.
You’re not locked into your opening choices by any means, it’s more of a starting point that gives you a few basic skills to get you focused to play in a specific way. You can of course choose to spend your skill points however you like as you level up elsewhere if the opening choices don’t turn out to be what you end up enjoying as much as you expect. While there’s plenty of Backgrounds to start out with, I’ll just name a few to give you an idea:
Bounty Hunter – Starts with piloting and boost pack skills so you can easily hunt down your targets across the galaxy.
Chef – Maybe you simply want to explore, then this Background will support your culinary skills with extra recipes at the research lab and more scavenging abilities that will net you more materials as you hunt down prey.
Combat Medic – Self-explanatory, but proficient in pistols when combat is required and much more adept at healing yourself and others.
Cyber Runner – Maybe you want to be a stealthy hacker, then this is the Background for you, starting you out with hacking, stealth and pickpocketing abilities from the get-go.
Diplomat – This is the route I went, as I wanted to be able to talk my way out of (or into) a fight. Starting out with the Persuasion skill, I had an increase of speech challenges, eventually opening up whole new dialogue options as I unlocked more. Yeah I can fight and shoot with my blasters, but why should I if I can simply talk people into not fighting and agreeing with what I want?
There’s a handful of more Backgrounds (classes) to choose from, but again, it’s simply a starting point and you’re not locked out of spending skill points into any others regardless of your choice. You then choose three Traits, offering you distinct bonuses, but will also have a negative to it as well. Maybe you choose the Dream Home trait which starts you out with an outpost home already built for you, but you’re locked into paying back the 50,000 credit mortgage weekly. Maybe you want to be an Empath, giving you bonuses in combat when you perform an action your companion likes, but the opposite if it’s something they don’t approve.
I of course chose Hero Worshipped as one of my traits. Remember that super annoying fan from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion? Well, he’s back and can be recruited as a companion that will give you gifts and constantly worship the ground you walk on and the air you breathe. The downside? Well, you’re going to have to listen to him constantly narrate how much he adores you and compliments you every time you land your ship astoundingly. There’s a handful of other Traits, and choosing one will not allow you to pick the opposite version. This made me think about how I wanted to play and what type of character I wanted to be.
THE JOURNEY BEGINS
Now that you’ve created the character you’re about to spend hundreds of hours as, it’s time to continue your journey after waking from touching the Artifact. While you were out, Lin, the supervisor of the mine, reports the discovery of the Artifact to Constellation, a group of space explorers seeking these rare artifacts. This is how you meet Barrett, member of Constellation, as he touches down topside of the mine. Well it seems that Barrett has had the Crimson Fleet chasing him, a band of space pirates, thrown into a battle without much explanation of what they might be after.
You of course win this battle and have a talk with Barrett. This is where you’re invited to become a member of Constellation, as you’re clearly special when he was surprised that you saw ‘the visions’. It’s here that Barrett gives you your Chronomark Watch. Showing more than just the time, it displays your stamina, planet name, local temperature, hazards, oxygen level, gravity and direction of nearby waypoints. Splurge for the Starfield Constellation Edition and you’ll get a real world version of this watch that apparently will link to the game and display the same information, giving you an extra level of immersion. Now that you’re a member of Constellation you make way to New Atlantis where their headquarters are, and thus your epic journey begins however you decide once you touch down in this massive city.
MORE THAN JUST A MAP
Starfield is massive. Not just in each world that you can explore, but as the universe as a whole. This is where you’ll become familiar with the Starmap, a way of getting the information you need of where you are and where you want to go. There are multiple layers and levels to the map system that takes a little getting used to, but is essentially looked at in three different ways.
Planet View – This is available for you to scan the planets or moons for what resources it has, and any notable markers or landing points on the planet.
System View – Back out once and you’ll then see the whole system. This will show its sun, planets and any moons in this whole area. You can see what factions control the system, allowing you decide if maybe it should be avoided for the time being if it’s patrolled by pirates.
Galaxy View – This is where you really start to get a feel for just how expansive Starfield really is. As you explore one moon or planet, you then have a whole system of planets you can land down on. This view goes one step further and shows you each of the galaxies that are light years apart, showing its system’s recommended level as well.
INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
If you’ve ever played a Bethesda game before, things will feel very familiar from its onset when you realize you can pick up and take nearly anything you see. Want to collect forks and useless cups? Go for it. Want to scavenge every corner of every room for anything of value, go right ahead. If you’re like me, you’ll spend an obscene amount of time trying to find anything of value that can be taken (without stealing of course!) and sold for a profit elsewhere. Because I’m a serial hoarder picking up stuff, I eventually had to spend some skill points that granted me more carry weight. Thankfully your companions can be told to hold things for you, but they have their limits as well, as does your ship’s cargo hold, so you won’t be able to loot every single thing you see.
Maybe you’ll find extremely valuable items along your journey, but these high value objects are generally illegal contraband. Be careful though, as having contraband aboard your ship may be detected when you get scanned while orbiting a planet before landing. If this contraband is detected you’ll need to pay a hefty fine, surrender, or put up a fight. If you plan on wheeling and dealing with these high risk goods, make sure to invest in some appropriate skills that will help. Bounties also exists if you are caught stealing, smuggling or killing innocent people. Sure you can clear your bounty by paying a fee at specific Self-Service Bounty Clearance Terminals, but this can add up quickly if you’re not careful.
Even with companions and ships housing all my found loot, I learned quickly on you can only sell a limited amount of items at a time at most places. Trade Kiosks at most cities only have 5000 credits and take time to replenish, as do most vendors, so I had to offload what I could and then go search for other vendors and kiosks to unload my inventory of found weapons, space suits, booster packs, resources and miscellaneous items. This was a pain initially but once you find some vendors that have a bigger credit pool, you’re able to offload much more at once. You also need to take all the stuff your companion is carrying to sell it, as I wish they could simply be another tab to sell from.
THANK YOU FOR BEING A FRIEND
Companions are more than just someone who follows you around, they have a wealth of other benefits should you choose to use them. Sure you can simply use them as pack mules to carry more stuff, they have more versatility. In battle they will help as extra firepower, helping you kill anything that attacks you. Each companion also has their own skills as well, offering passive bonuses to your ship or outpost if assigned there. Certain companions may also have special quests they want you to help with, offering more insight into their background, and possibly opening up romance options if they are fond of you and your actions. While I chose to always have a companion by my side, you can play completely alone should you wish, even getting a bonus if you chose the corresponding Trait. Sometimes you'll even get prompts where you can choose for your companion to reply in certain ways during conversations if you don't want to answer as your explorer.
WHAT THE SHIP
Starfield is a space exploration game, and you wouldn’t be able to get very far without your own ship. Luckily you’re given one in the beginning when you join Constellation, but like anyone’s first car, it’s just a starting point simply designed to get you from point A to point B, with maybe a few space battles in between. Your first ship is modest, allowing you to house two crew plus yourself, having decent stats for maneuverability and combat options. Later in the game once you’ve accrued a healthy amount of credits, you may want to look at either investing in a new ship or maybe upgrading the one if you have.
This is where the Ship Builder comes in. While it will take a good amount of credits, you’re given the tools to completely customize your ships however you like. Want something small and nimble that excels in space combat, you can build that. Want a massive C class ship that can carry a massive amount of resources, that’s an option too. You’re also able to build your ship how you want, so if you want a weird-looking phallic ship, it’s certainly a possibility.
Ship upgrades are probably where you’ll want to start, as it’s not as much of an upfront investment and can make for a decent improvement in your starter ship. The thing to keep in mind that Starfield lacks at outright explaining is that there are different classes of ships. You begin with an A class ship, able to upgrade to B and C classes later on if you have the appropriate piloting skill points spent. The higher classes of ships give you more options and can be made into massive weapons of destruction if you want. You can swap in new upgrades to your weaponry, Grav Drive, Engines, Shields, and more.
Then there’s the full-on Ship Builder mode. Here you can swap in any parts or build from scratch. This is a much heavier investment of credits but allows you to build the ship of your dreams. The controls to do so are quite simple, as each piece has a ‘snap’ point that attaches to other parts, and it won’t let you finish building your ship if it won’t work. For example, if you place all the components in a way where the crew can’t get to certain areas, it won’t allow you to complete the build. While it’s simple to use and figure out, I do wish there was more of a tutorial with the Ship Builder, as it took me a lot of trial and error to figure out why certain components wouldn’t attach or why I had errors in my ship creation.
Bigger ships will allow you to have more cargo space, more room for companions, and even crafting stations. Yes, crafting is possible in Starfield, and with the stations installed on your ship, you won’t have to constantly travel back to a city to do so. You can of course have multiple ships, using specific ones for certain tasks, able to swap out your ‘Home’ ship whenever at a Ship Services Technician at most major city docking points.
Flying the ships themselves feels great in the vastness of space, able to choose first or third person. Your main engine has a set amount of overall power it can use, and you’ll need to adjust where you want that power to go into your system. If you’re simply exploring space going from one system to another, you might want to take some power away from your weapons system and put it into your engine and Grav Drive for more maneuverability, whereas if you get attacked by pirates, you’ll maybe need to increase your shields and weaponry on the fly.
SURVEYS
Now that you’ve got your ship the way you want, sure it’s a mode of transportation, but can also be used to survey planets to show what mining resources it contains. You did start out as a miner before this grand adventure remember? Planet scans will show its gravity, temperature, atmosphere, flora, fauna, water and more. Once you land on the planet you can use your scanner, acting like a detective vision of sorts, to highlight any special resources. This will show you what nodes you can mine, creatures, and flora. The more you scan objects the more you’ll learn about the planet, and maybe you’ll come across people that will pay handsomely for this scanned information.
HOME SWEET HOME(S)
Much like the Ship Building feature, there’s also an Outpost Builder where you can choose to spend a healthy amount of credits to create a home away from home. If a planet is hospitable, you’re able to lay down roots for an outpost that offers a ton of bonuses if you spend the time to set it up. Planets are rich in resources, so a resource extractor will passively mine these materials for you. Building a Crew Station will allow you to assign your crew to specific Outposts, and yes, you can have multiple across different planets. You really could design a home, complete with furnishings should you wish, though I’ll be honest, I’ve only dabbled in this feature so far. Again, there really could be a better and more comprehensive tutorial, as I was quite overwhelmed trying to figure this portion out through trial and error. There’s a ton of potential here to earn passive income and resources, it may just take a healthy investment upfront and some time to figure out how best to do so on your own.
PEW PEW PEW
As soon as you come out of the mine at the beginning of your adventure, you’ll get your first taste of combat. Armed with a pistol and rifle, you can choose first or third person depending on your preference. I’ll admit, at first I felt the combat was a little awkward for whatever reason, but eventually became accustomed to it after tweaking a few settings. You’ll find a variety of different weapons along your journey, from shotguns, lasers, pistols, experimental weapons and more, and while you’re not locked to a single type of weapon, I’d suggest choosing one or two to be the most proficient in for when combat is necessary.
You’ll find a variety of different foods and medical supplies along the way, able to each to replenish your health or cure status inflictions. Jump off a high ledge and you might break a bone, or maybe you’ll suffer from burns, poison or a variety of other conditions. Eating food will heal a small amount of health, but using that to cook better dishes will heal more and possibly add some bonuses.
LEVEL UP
Every time you level up you’ll earn a skill point that you can then use to spend on a number of abilities. Each skill has four different ranks, becoming more powerful the higher the tier, but there’s a really interesting caveat. Once a skill is unlocked you can’t simply spend another point in it to rank up until you’ve fulfilled certain conditions. For example, under my Persuasion skill, I had to successfully complete 10 speech challenges before I could spend another point and unlock rank two. To improve my health in another skill I had to run a specific distance with a certain amount of weight in my inventory. These skill challenges were fun to work on, as I had to get a certain amount of pistol kills before I could rank up my pistol efficiency bonuses. Simply completing the challenge itself doesn’t unlock the new tank of a skill, it simply allows it to be purchased with a skill point afterwards.
Your beginning choices give you a starting point, but you’re free to add new skills along the way whenever you like. Eventually I added Piloting skills because I wanted better B and C class ships, also adding a few points into Lockpicking so I could get into some safes and weapon caches I normally wouldn’t be able to. While I don’t believe there’s a level cap that I’ve seen, you could in theory have every skill with enough dedication.
LOOKS AND SOUNDS GREAT
I’ll be honest, it’s a bit of a running joke that Bethesda games launch in quite buggy states, and I’d be lying if I didn’t expect the same from Starfield’s launch, especially playing before the official launch. I’m more than impressed though, as Starfield is without a doubt Bethesda’s most polished launch, as there have been some minor bugs here and there, nothing a quick game relaunch didn’t fix. There’s been a large patch since just before launch, which has addressed most of these small issues, but I was quite impressed with the overall quality given the scope of Starfield and how many mechanics are simultaneously in play.
Even though it’s currently locked to 30FPS, Starfield visually impresses with its amazing vistas. More than a handful of times I utilized the photo mode to take some stunning screenshots with the starry night or planets in the background along the horizon. The city of NEON in particular stands out, as it feels alive with citizens and gives a cyberpunk vibe with all the neon lighted advertising. With over 1000 planets able to be explored, there’s no shortage of gorgeous backdrops, weird fauna and caves to explore. While there’s a little stiffness to some of the facial movements, it’s got that signature Bethesda look to it we’ve come to expect over the years in their previous games.
Audio is equally impressive, with every character and NPC being voiced aside from you. I can only imagine how much time and effort went into creating all the lines of dialogue for every character and then having it recorded. The clever writing is only enhanced by a fantastic cast of voice actors that did an amazing job at realistic and believable performances across the board. While I have my favorites, and not so favorites, for characters and companions, they were all certainly memorable in their own way. The subtle soundtrack somehow also suits the vastness of space and exploring a new system and planet, unsure what to expect on the next planet.
AN ACTUAL UNIVERSE TO EXPLORE
While I’ve been a massive Elder Scrolls fan, I’ve never been big into Fallout, so I was unsure how I was going to take to Starfield given that it’s clearly an amalgamation of what Bethesda’s learned over the decades of game development. Even with a review this lengthy, there are portions I’ve not touched on due to spoilers, but suffice to say, there’s a near endless amount of content for you to feast upon. Even more than fifty hours already spent exploring Starfield’s universe, I feel like I’ve only begun to scratch the surface. The main narrative is compelling and quite mind blowing when you reach a certain point, but even some of the more minor quests were quite memorable and just as enjoyable. I’ve never even remotely come close to exploring every planet and all of their secrets, and fully expect to put hundreds of hours into Starfield’s universe just as I did with their other games. Bethesda has not only crafted a new compelling and wondrous universe to explore where you can play in any way you desire, they’ve created one of the most important games of this generation and prove once again they’re the best at what they do.
**Starfield was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 10.0 / 10



While LISA: The Definitive Edition is unlike anything I’ve played before, if I had to compare it to something else directly, it came across like a mix of Earthbound’s quirkiness and Undertale’s humor, but with some serious adult themes. You wouldn’t expect it from the 2D sprite artwork from screenshots, but LISA is not a kid’s game by any means, shocking me at each revelation.
Given that The Painful is the first of the two games, I’m going to mainly focus on that, as much talk about The Joyless is giving away some massive spoilers due to being a direct sequel. LISA: The Painful begins with a group of young boys being beat up for stealing a ball, only for Brad, the main protagonist, to step in and take the blame and subsequent beating for them. Brad stumbles home hurt only to have his dad berate and throw a beer bottle at him before being told to go to his room. These opening moments give a glimpse at the serious topics and tones that will be present throughout.
Many years later Brad seems to have hit hard times, relying on a drug called Joy to deal with his personal demons. He hears a baby in the distance, something completely unexpected and heads outside to investigate. Finding a young baby girl with no one else around, he brings her home to his childhood friends whom he’s living with.
You see, this is an extraordinary occurrence, as many years ago there was an event called the White Flash. After this moment the world of Olathe changed forever, as every female seems to have died or vanished. This means there’s no more babies or women, so this baby changes everything. Brad decides to take her in and raise her as his own, protecting her from the world, as he knows what most will want to do with her. While having good intentions, Brad falls off the horse once again when he finds some Joy, only to come back to home one day with his friends dying and his ‘daughter’, named Buddy, missing.
The titular Lisa was actually Brad’s young sister growing up, eventually committing suicide due to her emotional and sexual abuse by her abuse father. Brad feels responsible for letting it happen, with the guilt burdening him so much that he resorts to alcohol and Joy to cope. He will sometimes even see images of her, hallucinating, being questioned why he didn’t stop it from happening. This is probably a strong reason why he feels compelled to go and save Buddy from the post-apocalyptic world that they now live in, knowing the horrors she’ll face as the only female in the world.
Before Buddy’s kidnapping, the group of guys were told they will be given resources if they give Buddy to the Rando gang so they can start repopulating the human race. Brad doesn’t think this is even an option, but this is a cruel world, and when she’s taken he will stop at nothing to save her, even if that means sacrificing himself or others to do so. If this all sounds somewhat familiar to the Children of Men novel and movie, it’s got a similar premise, though I was quite surprised with how dark the narrative becomes later on and in the sequel.
So if you’re unlike me and have played the games before, you might be wondering what makes The Definitive Edition so, well, definitive. Crisper HD graphics, a 120FPS mode if you have a TV or monitor that supports it, updated battle systems, new art overlays for the borders, new campfire conversations (of which can be absolutely hysterical), new music, a music player and even more secrets to uncover. One of the best additions is the inclusion of ‘Painless Mode’, an item that can be used to make the game easier should you want more of a narrative focus, though the world will still be deadly and you’ll die plenty. LISA: The Painful is a challenging game for numerous reasons, and even with Painless Mode activated (you can’t undo your choice, so be careful), I still died countless times. If this isn’t your first time with LISA, you can even make the game harder for more of a challenge if that’s your thing.
As a 2D sidescrolling RPG, LISA may not stand out from its visuals alone, looking like any other RPG Maker game out there, but the narrative and humor is what makes it so unique. You can’t jump onto higher ledges more than one gap away, though you can certainly fall and take tons of damage or an instant Game Over if you’re not careful. Eventually Brad will find a bicycle which will open up some more possibilities by being able to make small gaps and move much quicker.
Brad can’t find Buddy alone, and along his journey he’ll be able to recruit up to 30 different party members. Many of these are completely optional and missable, so don’t expect to find them all in your first playthrough. The first to join your party is the hilarious Terry, known for leaving hints all around. He’s incredibly weak as a party member, but can eventually grow to being one of the most powerful. Another is Nern, a historian who is one of those people that just... wont... stop... talking. He’s got stories upon stories and loves to tell you about his previous 6/10 wife and his passion for coupons. While never every character was a stand out, they all had their quirks and certainly a place in your group of four if planned properly.
If you come across a crow, these are your save points. I highly recommend using multiple saves, as this world is highly unpredictable. Even using campfires to refill your health and rest for the night isn’t always a guarantee, as maybe someone dies overnight or gets kidnapped. Maybe you even get bitten by a spider and wake up all poisoned.
The world is harsh at every corner. One minute you’re exploring and finding information as to where Buddy was taken, the next you’re given a choice between your arm or your friend’s life. Maybe you like to gamble? Then you’ll feel no shame playing Russian Roulette with your friends lives for some massive profit. Choices are permanent though, and numerous times I’ve had party members straight up permanently killed because of my choices. Thankfully I can easily revert to an older save and try again if needed.
If you’ve played a turn based RPG before, you’ll feel at home with the combat, mostly. It’s not always as easy as attack or skills. As mentioned before, LISA is quirky, you might need to experiment with what certain skills actually do or how useful they are. Every party member is quite unique, so it’s a matter of trial and error to see who works with your composition, how their skills meld with another, and who simply doesn’t annoy you. Be aware, party members can be instantly killed, even permanently sometimes, so always have a backup plan for Brad. As party members earn XP and level up, they’ll learn new abilities and have stats increased, as par the course for any RPG.
While it looks like any other homemade RPG you’ve seen before, there’s clearly been a big upgrade with The Definitive Edition with clearer visuals and a smooth 120FPS option. The sprite work is done wonderfully as you can easily recognize characters at a glance. The soundtrack is catchy and quite memorable, though can be a little jarring at times when it instantly switches or cuts off when changing scene to scene.
I thought LISA was going to be a cute and casual relaxing experience, but what I got was a dark and very adult themed narrative where nearly every character has some sort of messed up backstory. The apocalypse really brings out the worst in people, as showcased in nearly every interaction with strangers Brad comes across in his search for Buddy.
I now see why LISA: The Painful and Joyful are cult classics, though there are certainly some possible triggers here that have no early warnings beforehand. Full of misogyny, abuse, murder and nearly any other messed up topic you could think of, LISA takes a certain focus and mindset to get through with its seriously heavy material mixed with laugh out loud moments.
**LISA: Definitive Edition was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10



Ed-0: Zombie Uprising’s backdrop is set in 1854 in a fictional Edo-era Japan. Mysterious ships from elsewhere in the world landed on Japanese land, not bringing with them technology and trades, but something much more deadly. This is how the zombie infection began and spread, infecting virtually everyone. There seems to be a few immune though, called Zom-beings, humans with some sort of mysterious power.
As one of three Zom-beings, it will be up to you to restore Japan to its former glory and rid your lands of the seemingly never-ending undead. Aside from some loading screens here and there throughout your journey, there’s little else in the way of narrative. With an interesting setup, a lot could have been done to make for an interesting story, but there’s really no engaging plot from the opening onwards to keep you intrigued and wanting to find out more.
Being a roguelike, you can expect every dungeon run and playthrough to be completely unique from the last. This is either going to favor or go against you randomly, as I had some great runs with tons of health and upgrades, and others I barely made it a few levels. Eventually you’ll get to choose from a Ninja, Sumo Wrestler or a Samurai as you progress, each of which suits a different type of playstyle best, though the agile and quick Ninja was my favorite by a long shot.
Everything is generated randomly each time you play, not just the map, but the enemies, placement and items. One on hand this always means things are fresh and never dull from repeated missions, but luck is going to be a huge factor on your success as well, not just your skill. Stages are full of items found on the ground and dropped from enemies, some of which like charms can be equipped, but also kept to be used or thrown at enemies as well. Why would you want to throw equipment at zombies you ask? All equipment and items are not made equal, and some will actually give debuffs or have negative effects, so you need to be careful what you pick up and/or use.
Even your special moves are scrolls found on the ground at random, so each playthrough you’ll have your regular attack, heavy attack (from holding the button), jump and dodge, but your specials need to be found and equipped each playthrough. This is where you hope the randomness plays in your favor, as I certainly preferred a handful of skills over others. This means you won’t always have the same ‘build’, and because of this I would use the wrong skills that get equipped since they won’t always be in the same button slots. This too allows for almost infinite possibilities and combinations, great for those that want variety and challenge, but not so much for those that want to take the time to learn a character and their skills to be proficient.
Each area has its own theme and style, with the opening being a dark and mysterious forest. Each map is generally small and you’re searching for a Torii Gate that’s randomly placed somewhere to move onto the next floor. The Torii Gates vary in color though, each denoting a different use or reward. Some replenish health, others food, charms, etc. This is how you can choose what to refill or upgrade per floor depending on your current situation. You’ll also sometimes get an option for a special portal back to your village, your safe haven hub, bringing back with you your earned experience and money. This is a roguelike after all, so dying means you lose much of what you’ve earned to that point, so you need to weigh out your risk versus reward. Do you risk continuing and losing it all, or go for the glory and better rewards if you're successful?
There is even more randomness that sometimes is placed on certain floors, like a Torii Gate requiring a key, so you need to find the specific zombie and kill them for it. Perhaps corpses decide to explode after they are defeated, which is great for AOE damage, but you better not be nearby, and on more than one occasion, I literally starved. That’s right, you need to manage your hunger as well, so always keep an eye out for some rice balls and other food items to keep handy. This eventually becomes easier to manage once you get used to it, but it’s a terrible mechanic overall and feels completely out of place, simply designed to make things unnecessarily more difficult.
Given how random the enemy placement is, you’ll either have very little zombies to fight, with them being nicely spread out, or completely swarmed where you need to be quite cautious or meet a swift death. You’re able to lock onto specific enemies, but the movement doesn’t really work well, and trying to choose a specific target in a sea of zombies goes as well as you’d expect. You’re able to guard and parry, but I found it difficult to use, not because of the timing, but you basically need to be standing directly right in front of said zombie for it to work.
Speaking of zombies, expect to see the same handful throughout the whole game. There are a few different types and looks, but they are constantly repeated, all wearing the same clothes and do the same attacks. The bigger issue is how much damage they can absorb. Even the regular zombies you first encounter take way too many hits to defeat. Expect to hit them a good dozen times or so each to kill. Sure you can use your charged up heavy attack, but you’re constantly just attacking a few times, stepping back, and repeating. For a game focused on slashing and killing hordes of zombies, the combat is immensely boring and repetitive, even with the special moves.
As you play more and become more proficient, you’ll be able to survive more and more floors, eventually taking on a challenging boss. The bosses were easily the highlight, as it’s easy to get bored with the monotony of grinding the same zombies for hours on end. The random drops of items is a great way to improve your character and abilities, but it’s completely random what you get. The other issue is that because many items have negative effects, you need to stop and take a moment to read the description to decide if it’s worth picking up, using, or ignoring, but the game doesn’t pause for you during this. Also, you’ll learn very quickly that tapping the button holds it in your inventory, where holding equips or uses. I can’t tell you how many times I used an item instead of holding, only to have it later kill me from making me drunk or setting me ablaze.
Like any decent roguelike, you do make some overall progress. Coming back to your village with money and experience can be used to purchase items, perks and abilities. These of course make every subsequent run just a little easier, though the randomly generated levels play a much larger role in your success or failure. It’s quite a grind for any real character improvements, so if you enjoy mindlessly killing zombie hordes repeatedly, then you’ve got something to strive for long term.
The Edo Japanese x Zombie setting may not be completely unique, but the backdrop and setting is a welcome change, as is the cool “Edo Shader” setting that makes it all appear cel-shaded. Visually though, Ed-0: Zombie Uprising is quite an eye sore. Enemies are repeated, textures are low resolution, and animations are a bit janky at best. Audio is as unmemorable aside from the Japanese narration for the story in the beginning, so expect constant grunts from zombies and weapon slashing sounds throughout.
You’re going to die a lot, and in the beginning it’s going to feel unfair, especially when you starve to death. You’ll eventually learn all of its quirks and how to circumvent many of its ‘unfairness’, but I found I had to focus on doing that more so than simply enjoying a mindless zombie slasher. Ed-0: Zombie Uprising has a long grind to strive towards, but it’s monotonous and feels like a very low budget title, even if there are brief moments of fun here and there.
**Ed-0: Zombie Uprising was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10



I went into Marble It Up! Ultra with meek expectations, not because I wasn’t excited for its release, but when going down ole nostalgia road it’s sometimes hard to compare to what you thought was once amazing at the time. Marble It Up! Ultra is the natural progression of the series and I’m excited to have another marble’r (I guess that’s a term now) to sink hours into, trying to go for those diamond times and climb the online leaderboards. Weighty controls, impressive visuals, great level design and a fun soundtrack all make for a sequel I’ve been waiting almost two decades for.
With a single player campaign that takes place over six chapters and four bonus chapters, there’s over 100 developer curated levels to enjoy. These levels start out easy enough, slowly increasing in difficulty by adding more obstacles, moving pathways, pits, gravity changers, bouncy floors and more. While the 100 levels won’t seem like a lot if you sit and simply try and get through them all, much of the value will come from replaying levels to try and get diamond times (medals are Copper, Silver, Gold and Diamond) or try and become the top name on the online leaderboards. Marble It Up! Ultra was built for speed running and leaderboards.
If you’ve played virtually any marble game in the last few decades, you’ll already have an idea of what to expect; Roll your marble to the goal in colorful 3D stages. Physics plays a large part in how you’ll do so, as does your ability to jump, able to carry momentum while trying to find optimal routes to the end of each stage. The quicker you complete the better ranking you get. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. Control movement of your marble with the Left Stick, camera with the Right, jump with ‘A’ and use any picked up power-ups with ‘X’. While there’s not many Power-Up types, you’ll find Super Speed, Super Jump and Floating ones placed at specific points in levels. The tutorial eases you into the basics, slowly teaching you new tricks as you become more proficient.
Could you simply roll through each level and be done with it in a few hours? Sure, but the enjoyment really comes from besting your times trying to get those elusive Diamond ranks and climbing the coveted online leaderboards. Diamond times are actually quite challenging to obtain, and you’ll need to really learn each level looking for shortcuts if you want to make the times. The best part is that once you complete a level and put your mark on the online leaderboards, you can watch ghosts of other players, seeing their strategy and crazy maneuvers so you can try and recreate and compete.
Your marble controls and feels very weighty, and while it was a little frustrating at first with the marble not moving on a dime, it makes sense given how momentum works. Eventually it just felt right, with having to start rolling in a direction well before needed if you have a ton of speed or adjusting your movement for an upcoming jump to land where you want. Then there's the ice sections, which will teach you quite quickly that sometimes speed isn't always best when you want to make sharp turns.
If you do manage to clear all the levels and looking for more, there are also Weekly Challenges that adds a whole new layer of challenge. This gives a handful of levels from the game but adds specific modifiers to the stages, completely changing your previous optimal paths. Maybe gravity is doubled, so jumping is much more difficult, or maybe there is no power-ups? There’s only been a few I’ve been able to play since release, but the possibilities are endless and I found them quite difficult.
The more you play in any mode the more currency you’ll earn, which can then be used to unlock new marbles and items to customize them. Want an Earth marble with a cowboy hat? You sure can do that if you want. Or how about a marble with a D20 in the middle? Sure. There’s a good variety of marbles and accessories, most of which can be bought with your earned currency, but some are locked behind level completions, hidden collectables or specific Diamond times. Fans of the series will be sure to notice a few throwbacks, but it’s clear how the graphical improvements from the previous game have improved and how much more realistic the marble appear.
Want to share some marble action alongside some friends? Marble It Up! Ultra includes online multiplayer that is also cross platform, so players on Xbox, Switch, and PC can all play together. While you can’t play the campaign levels together, there are some fun multiplayer modes to enjoy. Gem Hunt (Team and Free For All), Soccer, Zombies and Sumo modes are voted on after each match, then voting on which level as well. Having a blast mechanic also adds for some fun against your rivals, knocking them away or infecting if playing Zombie mode.
Rewatching some old Marble Blast Ultra footage made me realize how far the visuals have come since then. Certain marbles are clear, have items inside them and the lighting and reflections are absolutely fantastic all around. Levels are quite expansive and colorful, fitting the marble vibe I’ve missed for quite some time. The soundtrack is just as good, never becoming annoying and the marble rolling sounds aren’t as prominent as they used to be, which is great for fans playing for hours on end.
Marble It Up! Ultra reminded how much I really did miss the classic Marble Blast Ultra, and now it’s been improved in virtually every way for a new generation of rollers. While the base stages won’t take too long to complete ‘properly’, you’ll easily spend hours trying to improve your times by fractions of a second to work your way up those online leaderboards. Marble It Up! Ultra is a fantastic Roll Playing Game I’ll be jumping into for some time.
**Marble It Up! Ultra was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10



The Double Dragon's, brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee, are in for a new adventure in this alternative timeline prequel. NYC is plagued by crime and gangs, so the Mayor contacts the brothers to help end the problem the best way possible; with their fists. Set in the year 199X, a post nuclear New York is anything but safe, as gangs rule the streets, each trying to become dominant. You will try to bring peace to the city by taking down the four gang leaders, each a different faction and section of the city.
While you of course start with the iconic Lee brothers Billy and Jimmy, you’re also initially able to choose from Marian and Uncle Matin for playable characters. With 9 extra characters to unlock, each isn’t simply just a reskin or color swap, they all play quite unique and suit different play styles. Two player local co-op allows you and a friend to play on the same TV and you’re even able to customize the game settings to your liking in a variety of different ways depending if you want something easy or extremely challenging.
The more you play the more Tokens you’ll earn, allowing you to unlock a variety of different things, like Tips, Artwork, Music and of course, unlockable Characters. It will take numerous playthroughs if you want to unlock everything, but I appreciate something to always strive towards. While I was able to unlock a few characters and other things after a full playthrough, it’s up to you what you want to prioritize, though I’d suggest the characters first to find which you enjoy playing the most, making each subsequent play that much more entertaining.
Instead of your typical linear adventure getting from point A to B, fight boss and continue on, the level design is where some of the roguelite elements come into play. With four gangs to defeat, you can of course choose any to start with and defeat, but each boss bested in battle makes each remaining gangs more challenging. Not only that, beating one gang makes the mission length of the next longer and more challenging until all are defeated.
The first gang you fight has maybe one section or chapter with the boss at the end, the next gang will have two sections, and so on. So once you know the levels you like and dislike, you might want to play the gang you don’t enjoy as much first since the mission will be shorter. It’s an interesting system and certainly made me play through a few times to see what each level is like when it’s got more sections. There’s even mini bosses that will appear later on, including challenges you can try to achieve for bonus Tokens.
At the end of each section you’re given a randomized list of purchasable upgrades for the money you’ve been earning for defeating enemies and finding cash along the way. These can range from health upgrades, improve special damage, combo improvements and more. Or if you’re struggling, you might want to save your cash to buy revives if you die, whatever you think will have you survive longer to finish each run. Each player and character gets to make a choice of their upgrade and if you have left over cash at the end of a run, it will convert into Tokens for unlock purchases from the Main Menu.
While you begin with four playable characters, you can spend your earned Tokens on 9 others to unlock. While I won’t spoil who, you can expect some familiar faces if you know your Double Dragon lore. Billy was my favorite of the brothers, being much more quick and agile, whereas Jimmy is a bit slower but more powerful. Marian is meant for long range combat and can become overwhelmed easily, whereas Uncle Matin uses his shield to get close for grapples and AOE damage, so there’s plenty of character variety based on your play style. Each really does play unique, especially the unlockable ones, and I’m glad they weren’t simply reskins with each having their own strengths and weaknesses.
One of the main combat mechanics is able to tag your partner in. While you’ll most likely focus on one character, you swap in your partner when needed. This allows for some interesting combos or to get out of some hairy situations. Swapping out characters acts like a defensive move, knocking down the enemies surrounding you. Of course this has a cooldown, so you can’t simply spam it and will need to be strategic of when’s the best time to be used. The character that is tagged out can recover some of their lost health as well, so it’s a good thing to learn this early on.
You have a special meter that fills quicker the more damage you deal and take, but the coolest mechanic has to be that if you finish off multiple enemies with a special move, you’ll gain a food drop, which we all know means health in these beat ‘em ups. Knowing this, I’ll sometimes wrangle up a bunch of enemies, combo to low health, then finish them all at once and get food to replenish my health. It’s a clever way of not only relying on strategic gameplay, but not only relying on food drops from broken boxes, barrels and items. If you need health, you better think of a way to finish off enemies with a special.
Double Dragon wouldn’t be the same if there wasn’t weapons that enemies drop and then be used against them. You can expect a handful like typical knives, bats and more, each dealing incredible damage or can be thrown across the screen as well to stop charging enemies coming at you.
Local co-op supports up to two players, and while I’m glad it’s included, the lack of online multiplayer seems like a huge miss. I understand that it’s a smaller developer, but the latest TMNT game will have a great shelf life because of the online multiplayer, and given I don’t have friends over to play with me, I’ll sadly rarely come back to this once I’m done grinding for Tokens.
While I can see that some might not enjoy the chibi pixel artwork, it reminded me a lot of the Scott Pilgrim game, and the animations are all fluid and done quite well. It’s certainly a modern-retro take on the original and I believe it works for the most part. The audio is just as great, as attacks feel impactful, though the highlight is the soundtrack. I’ll say it, Double Dragon is one of the greatest gaming theme songs of all time, and hearing some remixes of different tracks warms the nostalgia in my heart and puts a smile on my face as I bop my head.
Other than the glaring lack of online multiplayer, I had little complaints overall. Sure combat can be a little chaotic and hectic, especially in the final stages, but that’s to be expected in the genre. I remember how long it took me to beat the original game on NES when I was a kid and trying to survive a fight against Abobo when they appeared. Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons brings some of that nostalgia back, made for a modern audience, complete with iconic soundtrack and characters.
**Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10



A sequel to Skautfold: Shrouded, Usurper doesn’t require you to have played the first, as it’s a self-contained adventure, though obviously series fans will most likely get more out of the experience. Having never even heard of the previous title, I didn’t feel like I was missing anything in my quest to rid London of demons and defeat the Navigator.
Set in an alternative timeline in 1898, the Lovecraftian setting suits the era quite well. You play as Waltham, a monstrous being that was defeated in battle, but manages to fall into a pit of dead bodies, able to resurrect himself by taking over the corpse of Saragat, a dead knight. Much like Venom, the two must work together if they want to be victorious, as Waltham aims to destroy the Navigator so that he can seize the power of The Citadel for himself. The whole body snatcher premise hooked me from the beginning, though the writing later is mediocre at best and the relationship between the two wasn’t as enthralling as other stories of similar setup.
Being a Metroidvania, the Citadel is one massive interconnected map, though like any good game in the genre, many areas will only be accessible once you have a new traversal ability like wall climbing, teleportation and even flying. The other main focus is its Soulslike combat where it’s meant to be slow and deliberate, where spamming attacks will get you killed quickly if you’re not careful. Fall in combat and you’ll lose the experience you’re currently holding and haven’t spent, so you can see where it starts to feel a little all too familiar.
What makes Skautfold: Usurper stand out is its Guard mechanic. You have very little health but you have a mana shield of sorts that’s tied to your stamina, so the majority of your actions use this meter. Get hit by an enemy and your guard meter will be depleted, not your health, that is until you lose all your guard, then your health will start to take hits. Given that your stamina/guard regenerates quite rapidly, you don’t need to parry or dodge every enemy attack, simply ‘guard’ through it, but more on that shortly.
As you make your initial descent into the Citadel, you might feel a little overwhelmed like I did, as there’s no real directions or guidance for the most part. Given that the world is one large 2D interconnected world, you’ll simply have to explore and remember where that area you couldn’t access until you have a specific upgrade. Each area has a different tone and setting and you can expect to do a hefty amount of backtracking until you can find and unlock the shortcuts, generally after a boss battle. The backtracking becomes much more manageable later when travel isn’t as arduous and tedious, but it’s certainly annoying in the beginning.
While there is technically a map included, it’s virtually useless. It doesn’t show you where you currently are, where you’ve been or able to distinctly tell how it’s all connected. You also don’t’ get that typical grid map tracker like in most Metroidvania’s. The map will show where bosses are located, which would be great if I knew the best way to get there or even in relation where I specifically was aside from an area's name. Due to the artwork it can sometimes also be difficult to determine where certain pathways and doorways are, as I accidently found more than one by accident when I was circling trying to figure out where to go next.
The beginning will feel a little overwhelming when you go down a long pathway in an area only to hit a dead end because you don’t have the ability to progress yet, but eventually you’ll start to figure out the path you should be taking by process of elimination. Trying to defeat bosses quick as possible will make this a much better overall process. The best part is that the enemies you kill stay dead, so when I came back to an area later after being able to smash ice blocks, everything I killed previously wasn’t waiting there once again for me magically.
Being heavy on the 2D platforming and exploration, I did find the controls to be a little stiff at first. Numerous times I would miss ledges with my double jumps for whatever reason. Sure I got used to it eventually, but it wasn’t without some trial and error. For those that want to tweak their experience, you also have options for No-Guard, 1 HP, Permanent Death and a Speedrunning mode as well.
The Guard system is really what makes combat stand out in Skautfold: Usurper. Taking hits doesn’t initially deplete your health bar, but your regenerating shield bubble instead. This allows you different combat options, like negating attacks or trying to be a little more risky instead. If you’re able to not attack or dodge for a few moments, regenerating your Guard points is quite quick. This whole mechanic rewards being accurate rather than button spamming, working quite well in general, even able to reflect projectiles back at enemies.
With the Lovecraftian Castlevania vibe and aesthetic, you can expect a good handful of different demons, aliens with laser guns, possessed book piles and more that will be trying to kill you. The handful of boss fights were the highlight of the combat, figuring out their attack patterns, balancing your Guard with offence and defense. Scour the Citadel and you may even find some pets that will follow and fight alongside you, like a floating brain.
At specific spots and thrones, you’re able to save your game and upgrade your character. You can spend to increase specific stats, able to reallocate if you make a mistake or want to try a different build. With over 90 different weapons to find, you can try a plethora of different builds based on your playstyle. You’ll find swords, axes, katanas, spells, summons, great swords and many more, each suiting a different style of play. While I generally tend to enjoy the weaker but quicker weapons, this meant I had to attack much more than a slower more powerful weapon. The main issue with so many weapons is you might find something you enjoy much later and then need to spend time learning its timing and intricacies, possibly even reassessing your build.
There’s mention of soft and hard caps for those that want to fully min/max their character builds, but I found the stat system a little confusing with not enough information given for me to decide. You will spend your XP (Vitae) to level up, but you also need Yth stones, of which there’s only a finite amount that I’m aware of, so you do have to do a little planning ahead of time to be efficient with upgrades. Simply having a ton of Vitae on its own isn’t good enough.
The pixel art is done quite well, as is the smooth animations and overall aesthetic. While a few doorways can blend together with the background and make it difficult to discern, the Lovecraftian Castlevania setting is done quite well, complete with fitting and moody soundtrack. If you’ve been itching for a new Metroidvania and want to try some unique combat mechanics, Skautfold: Usurper is a perfectly serviceable recommendation under $20.
**Skautfold: Usurper was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.7 / 10



To say I’m a fan is an understatement, so of course I was excited to jump into the world of Alaskan king crab fishing that I’ve watched on TV since 2005. I was hoping I’d be competing against the legendary captains or starting as one of their greenhorns working my way up to captain for my own ship. Being a simulator title, you’ll certainly be in command of your own ship from the beginning, but don’t expect much direct tie-in from the beloved show at all, which was a disappointment.
While you are a greenhorn fisherman, you’ll also be your own crew and captain from the beginning. This won’t be easy, as manning a crabbing vessel requires a crew, which you won’t have right away. This in one way forces you to learn each step about crabbing and how to deal with the confusing controls, but as you earn money from successfully catching crab and selling, you’ll eventually be able to hire some crew to do all the menial tasks for you.
You start out with the bare minimum to go fishing, but any good captain will make sure they are fully prepared with proper supplies, fuel and knowledge. Even knowing where to crab takes some skill and judgement, knowing what type of ground crab like, the water temperature, other captains in the area and more. Your goal is to earn the most money possible at the end of each season with the captain with the biggest haul being the winner. That is, if the game decides to let you...
While Deadliest Catch: The Game does do a decent job at the simulation aspects of actually being on a crabbing ship and what these brave fishermen deal with day in and out, it’s held back by so many technical issue and bugs that the longer I played, the more frustration ensued. Even those that have never seen the show will certainly learn a lot about crabbing from the opening tutorial, so there is a minor educational component within.
While manning your own ship is possible, it’s incredibly tedious and monotonous, so you’re going to want to hire more crew as soon as you’re able. At the port is where you’ll purchase all your supplies, sell crab, buy upgrades and find crew looking for work. First you’ll need to spend a lot of cash upgrading the ability to have 2, 3 and then 4 crew, then you’ll head to the local pub to find fishermen looking for work, because where else would they be? Their salary price depends based on how long the season is it seems, but all the money you earn from each haul goes real quick. I do wish there were stats per fisherman based on their skill.
Once you have a crew of at least one, though I’d suggest two as soon as possible, you can focus on other things like steering the ship if you’re going to set multiple crab pots in an area. Each crew can have a bunch of different tasks to be done when it comes to prepping, launching and recovering pots, and you’ll choose the crew member you want, then the box the task it’s in to assign them to do so when possible. This is your first real introduction to how poor the menu system is and how confusing it can be at times.
To start catching crab you’ll need to prep the pots. These are essentially a giant netted box that’s filled with some fish gut bait and some buoys attached so you know where they’re at on the Sea’s surface. Once in the water it’ll soak on the Sea bed for a good few hours before you go to recover it and see how many crab it trapped. Capturing crab isn’t the hard part though, it’s finding the ones that are legal to keep and sell, as they need to be male and over a certain size. This is where a lot of your times is going to be spent before getting a crew to do it, as you have to inspect every single crab and decide to keep or toss back into the Sea. Each crab only takes a few seconds, but when you have hundreds, it can take some time to do.
Lives have been lost at Sea, as this is no easy or typical job. The Bering Sea is unforgiving, something the show reminds you of constantly. The game ties to replicate this with the harsh weather, but you don’t need to worry about greenhorns slamming 800 pound crab pots into you or losing your footing and being washed overboard, so it’s not quite as dangerous as the real thing.
A large part about being a successful crabber is the captain knowing where to actually find the crab. They have particular grounds they tend to congregate in, so you need to be aware of the temperature and more. Unlike in real life, feel free to constantly fish the same spot, as there doesn’t seem to be much impact from overfishing once you find a decent area, which is odd when this is trying to be a simulator.
Nearly every task you need to do from using the crane to move pots, opening the pots, putting bait in and more, require precision, something that’s not easy to do. You seemingly need to aim your cursor at an expect spot or angle to get some of the interactions to complete or even prompt. Some controls are done with the Left and Right Stick, whereas others are with the D-Pad, causing a confusing mess that had me pressing wrong inputs even hours in. It’s clear that the game was designed for PC with a mouse and keyboard, and doesn’t translate to a controller very well. More than once I accidently dumped the good crabs over the side of the ship instead of the bad ones as I wasn’t paying enough attention.
Over time your gear and equipment will degrade, so you need to be on top of fixing it and keeping it in working order. Unfortunately this is not one of the tasks you can set your deck hands to do, so you need to grab your trusty WD-40 to repair your equipment. That’s right, WD-40 will fix anything. The nets on your pots also deteriorate with use, so you’ll need to repair these now and then as well. You simply have to hold ‘A’ for a few moments to do so, so it’s not difficult by any means.
Once you return to dock you can sell your haul, earning some good cash for doing so. Resupply but make sure to check out the ship and skill upgrade buildings. This is where a lot of your money will go to early on, as it costs money to make money. There’s actually a healthy amount of upgrades to purchase, so it will take quite some time to earn them all.
Deadliest Catch: The Game falls into the typical low budget simulator title where it’s not impressive to look at by any means. I was hoping that there’d be some recognizable people or ships from the show, or maybe at least having the Sea appear realistic. While you can tell what equipment is what, expect a lot of pop-in textures, low draw distance and some terrible animations. The Sea and weather isn’t impressive either, which was a letdown. I’m not a graphic snob by any means, but it sure isn’t pretty to look at. The audio is about the same, being quite dull with some subtle background music now and then and overmixed weather sounds to indicate a harsh storm.
Then there’s the bugs, a laundry list I had to write down. More than once I had a game breaking bug and had to start over from scratch numerous times before I gave up for good. My first career I was about seven or eight seasons in, feeling confident with my full crew and finally making some decent cash and a good handful of important upgrades unlocked. Then I noticed that when my pots were on deck it was allowing me to pre-bait them, so I did. Well, doing this was a massive mistake as my crew weren’t able to use the crane to pick them up into position to prep for some reason. No big deal, I’ll operate the crane. Nope. This pot was essentially useless now and couldn’t be used because the bait was in it, yet I couldn’t take it out. I found a work around by using the crane to grab a different pot then letting the crew take over, but it was tedious.
Then I found my first game breaking bug. For whatever reason, when you need to latch the hook onto the pot to haul it out of the water and back on the table, it showed that it was physically attached, but the game thought otherwise. This meant I couldn’t pull up my crab pots any more. I couldn’t even dump it to get rid of it completely. I tried everything I could but realized I was going to have to start over again. Sigh, fine, but at least this time it’ll go quicker because I know the best upgrade paths and what to do. Not even a single season in I had the same hook bug. Unable to progress I restarted once again. Three seasons in, again, and that’s when I gave up.
Even without the game breaking bugs, Deadliest Catch: The Game will test your patience with its monotony and repetitiveness. I’m actually a fan of ‘boring’ simulator titles like these, but when the game is constantly a frustration and requires you to restart through no fault of your own, it’s difficult to recommend until hopefully fixed. With a big name endorsement I was hoping to be competing against some of the great Captains and iconic ships, but with the lack of any multiplayer and more bugs than crabs, it might be best to wait until next season to go crabbing.
**Deadliest Catch: The Game was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 2.7 / 10



Retrotainment Games and 8-Bit Legit have a very specific niche, as they not only create NES era inspired games, but authentic to the point that they make cartridges that work on an actual NES as well. Their latest is Full Quiet, which takes a lot of modern gaming mechanics and ideas and they’ve somehow made it work quite well on mid-80’s console hardware.
A side scrolling platformer / Metroidvania at its core, Full Quiet is a much larger experience than I initially experienced, complete with an open world to explore, somewhat reminiscent of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Keep in mind this is nowhere near the same size of team, so a NES game this massive is quite impressive for being authentic to the hardware limitations.
While the story may start off simple with you searching the woods for your lost son, it doesn’t take long for you to figure out that there’s something else going on here. The forest is huge so you’ll need to follow clues left behind by family and friends, so make sure to brush up on your Morse Code. Radio signals and towers are down, so to find the next clue and area you’ll need to repair them as you come across each.
That wouldn’t be too challenging if it wasn’t for all the monsters roaming around, so it’s a good thing you have your gun with unlimited ammo to fight back, just make sure you don’t go out after dark. Thankfully your ammo is unlimited, because enemies can respawn if you go ‘out’ of the screen. Not quite as harsh as Mega Man handles its enemies, but if you return out of a puzzle or back into an area from another screen, all the enemies will be waiting for you once more.
You can expect plenty of platforming cliff sides, caves, ladders and ropes, firing your weaponry at deadly monsters, solving puzzles, dealing with an actual day and night cycle and managing your resources. Again, keep in mind this is all on a classic NES title, which is even more impressive. I thought it may have been a little too much of an overreach to have all these mechanics included, but they work well together for a cohesive experience.
As you explore each area, the map will get filled out to note that you’ve been there before, which is where the Metroidvania elements come in. You can expect a healthy amount of backtracking, more so until you figure out how the navigating and map actually works. While it’s a side scrolling adventure, you need to pay attention of what direction the screen says you’re moving. Even though the majority of the time you’re moving left to right, or vice versa, those don’t always only mean East or West, sometimes North or South once you’ve taken a path or down a tunnel. Once you realize walking right isn’t simply East, you’ll figure out the map system in no time and how to backtrack to your safe house cabins.
True to the era as well, you’re given basically no direction, no tutorial or anything of the sort. You’re simply thrown into this world after the opening cutscene and left to your own devices to figure everything out. I wouldn’t have been opposed to at least a little bit of direction, especially when it comes to the puzzles. Did you enjoy the pipe puzzles from Bioshock? Then you’re going to have a blast in Full Quiet as it’s very similar, tasking you with reaching the start to finish on a grid with tiles, though I initially wasn’t able to figure out why I was losing health when I failed after a short period of time. These puzzles are timed, which would have been nice to know beforehand. Also, once you figure out that you can simply place tiles down on top of one another until you get the one you want, it saves you a ton of time.
The world doesn’t seem too vast at first, as you’ll eventually loop back to where you started after finding a blocked pathway, but power up the generator by flipping a switch then do a puzzle to unlock the first cabin, your safe house, and you’ll then unlock more areas to explore. There’s multiple areas, and each has a large interconnected map that will needed to be explored to find all of its secrets and even better weapon upgrades if you’re keen enough.
You do have a stamina meter to manage, as you can roll and dodge, but need a quick second before it recharges. This will be helpful as you have a moment of invulnerability when rolling, so you’ll need to use it to your advantage to avoid getting hit by unattackable enemies.
Do make sure to remember where your camps are. The cabins are a safe house and where you’ll want to get before nightfall if you want to avoid even more hellish enemies. Having a Day/Night cycle is quite impressive, as does the game changing in certain ways if you decide to venture out when you probably shouldn’t. These cabins are where you can rest until morning and also save your game, so to say they are a necessity is an understatement. This is where a lot of the backtracking comes in though, as you might have to run quite a lengthy way to get back for a save when you can’t figure out where to go next before dark.
Remember, the NES only had the D-Pad, Start, Select and 2 buttons, A and B. Even though our controllers now have many more, Full Quiet utilizes the two button setup. This again would have been a great thing to explain, that when I’m in the map menu I can move to other tabs. I was collecting health refills but had no idea how to use them for the longest time until I accidently figured out how to get to my inventory screen. There is a help screen that has some handwritten notes and sections you’ll want to study, especially the Morse Code portion, but getting to this isn’t an intuitive as it should be either.
For a classic NES game restricted to the same original hardware, Full Quiet looks fantastic for a game that appears to be from the era. There’s plenty of animations, color and everything you need to interact with is obvious at a glance. Some platforms can be tricky to tell if they are ledges or not, but overall the aesthetic is done quite well. The star though is the catchy soundtrack and tunes composed entirely in Famitracker that I definitely bopped my head to. There’s a few moments of silence which is a little jarring, but that’s forgotten once the next killer track kicks in.
It takes a little time for Full Quiet to really show how expansive it is for a classic NES game with the same technical limitations. Full of modern day mechanics but de-made into a full functioning and entertaining NES title is nothing short of impressive. Retrotainment Games and 8-Bit Legit have once again made a retro 8-Bit game that I wish I had growing up as a kid with my NES.
**Full Quiet was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.3 / 10



Having never played the Super Mega Baseball series before, I wasn’t sure quite what to expect other than a more light hearted experience given the colorful and cartoonish looking players and eccentric animations. With the series being around almost a decade now, Super Mega Baseball 4 is the latest that boasts a laundry list of additions and improvements, including over 200 fan favorite pros. Whether you’re a lifelong baseball or a completely casual watcher like myself (Go Blue Jays!), Super Mega Baseball 4 can scale to your skill quite easily depending on the experience you want from it.
If you want to simply jump in and play a game, Exhibition is what you’re looking for, simply choose the league, teams, and set any other parameters you’d like. You can also play Seasons if you want to try and get through to the finals. Want something a bit more involved, then Franchise mode is what you’re looking for. There’s an Elimination mode as well where you try and knock out other teams to see the last one standing. Lastly there’s Shuffle Draft, the most unique of the modes that I enjoyed more than I expected.
In Shuffle Draft you create a league from drafting players one by one, allowing to create some all-star teams and unique rosters. Think of a fantasy draft from complete scratch, but you’re not given the entire roster at once. You’re given eight or so options, each of which you can see their stats and ranks, even able to combine the pools of players from different league should you choose. As you fill your roster, if you’ve not chosen a specific role to be filled yet, you’ll see more cards of those each turn, eventually having to choose one. I’ll admit, I’m not great on my baseball knowledge for rosters and players, but this made it very simple for a casual fan like myself to create an awesome team in a fun way aside from boring menu diving.
Baseball fans will be glad to see over 200 former pro players and legends. Again, while I’m simply a casual fan, there were even a handful of names that I recognized, and it’s cool to see their played years as a pro on their player card. While I’m not going to list all of them, some of the more noteworthy were Willie Mays, Rollie Fingers, David Ortiz, Vladimir Guerrero, Jose Bautista and even the one and only Sultan of Swat, Babe Ruth.
Players have individual traits, of which there are 55 new ones, so you can make your roster more in-depth than before. There’s 6 new stadiums, each of which is unique from one another, even one including the high walls that make for difficult home runs. With a total of 20 stadiums, this means every team in the Super Mega League finally have a home stadium to play in. There’s even a loyalty system included that will adjust based on how your players feel and if they want to stick with the team moving forward.
Not explained very well is the Ego system. For whatever reason, in my first Exhibition game I couldn’t hit the ball or pitch a strike to save my life, as the cursor was moving way too fast to aim properly. After a few games I was about to give up, wondering what I was missing and why I was doing so terribly. Somehow my Ego was set to 99, the hardest difficulty, where setting to 0 would be the easiest. Once I figured this out I turned down the Ego to a respectable 30 and was finally able to actually play properly.
Online multiplayer is not only included, but allows for cross platform play, though this can vary based on the mode. Online Leagues can be formed and played and there’s a ranking system that adjusts the Ego to how you play and are seeded after 4 Exhibition games. The only missing thing seems to be a Homerun Derby or something different outside of normal modes. The few games I played had no lag issues and there's a communication wheel with a few preset phrases to say to your opponent.
Players are very comical and characterized, like as if each of them was drawn by those street artists that embellish your features. While the pros are still recognizable if you know their faces, it’s certainly been cartooned to a heavy degree. Animations are quite varied and I saw a few different events that I wouldn’t have expected. Getting hit by a pitch for example, or smashing my bat when striking out, these added some variety to the presentation. There’s more body types, hair colors and more. What can I say, I’m a sucker for a badass mullet on a player.
While the audio has been revamped as well, you’ll hear plenty of chatter and ambient noise from the crowd. Players will grunt and show their displeasure when they strike out and the umpire will be quite animated in how he calls the strike outs. The lack of any serious play by play commentary does stick out at first, though there’s a soundtrack that plays in the background to avoid pure silence. Writing this I was trying to remember any of the songs from the soundtrack and I couldn’t, which speaks to how non memorable it was.
Admittedly a very casual baseball fan, I thought I was going to play a few games and basically have my fill, but I’m finding myself continuing to play a few games here and there due to being able to scale the Ego system to my liking. Super Mega Baseball 4 may not be quite for the hardcore baseball fan that desire a true simulation, but it’s great at making the sport accessible to all types of fans, even the casuals that want to hit a few Home Runs and enjoy a few quick games.
**Super Mega Baseball 4 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10



You play as Ardeshir, a soldier of the Enduring Flame who has just returned home to his island of Nahran. There seems to be a deadly and dark mist that’s enveloping the island, and while you’re wanting to find out what happened to your fellow soldiers and brothers, you’re worried about your sister’s whereabouts as well.
The mist is deadly and you’re unable to survive within its grasp. The only weapon you have against it is fire, which will be your lifeline as you progress further to uncover the mystery of what has happened to your home. Ardeshir must wield fire upon his blade, though it’s only for a finite amount of time before he must replenish the fire once again, as it’s the only way to keep him safe from the mist. Without fire you have no hope to survive, and it becomes as necessary as breathing.
Part 2D sidescrolling platformer, part combat based, Ardeshir will be searching for an exit in each area to the next before the mist can catch up and take over. The platforming mechanics start basic at first, simply jumping from ledge to ledge and over gaps, eventually becoming a bit more involved when lighting torches act as switches for moving ramps and turning on other platforms to cross pathways. You’ll need to have precision and purpose when trying to get from one area to the next, as focusing on the actual parkour is only part of the equation, you also need to ensure you light the next torch with your fire before it runs out.
Again, fire is ever important in Nocturnal. Not only is it what keeps you safe from the mist, certain enemies are only attackable with fire, and while you can coat your blade in fire for a short period of time, it’s certainly not permanent. This requires you to make note of where the permanent fire fixtures are, as all you need to do is slash the fire to coat your blade in flames for a short period of time. Attack any unlit torch and fire will then be permanently there, which I always thought of like an anchor, the closest place you can come back to reignite your blade if you happen to lose the flame.
Fire is not only what keeps you safe in certain sections, but can also be used to heal your limited health. At certain times you’ll want to use your remaining fire to heal, but that is where the risk versus reward comes in. In the middle of a difficult battle do you choose to try and get one or two more fire hits in on your enemies, which does extra damage, or use it to heal to prevent a death and restart?
Every so often you’ll see a row of three or four torches that need to be lit, but when you place fire on them all they seemingly extinguish themselves. This is where some light puzzle elements come into play. Some secrets are behind locked doors, and to open them you’ll need to light these torches in a specific order. Remember, your fire only lasts a short time, so once you’ve attempted a combination of torch lighting, you’ll probably need to quickly go back to the permanent fire location to light your blade and try once again. I do wish there was some sort of subtle environmental hint as to the combination for these puzzles, as I found it was simply trying to brute force through it with every combination until I was successful.
Combat starts out simply with being able to dodge, attack and jump. Regular enemies are simple enough when fighting one on one, but once you fight two or more simultaneously, even regular enemies can be deadly. Combat is challenging once you have to deal with certain dark enemies that emerge from the mist, as many can only be harmed with fire attacks. While there’s no way to block or parry, you’ll need to time your dodges if you want to be successful and survive. There were a few frustrating sections, as in the latter half of the game you’re having to constantly fight against multiple dark enemies while having to manage your fire timer as well. The fighting alone isn’t too challenging, but having to balance dodging and recollecting fire while doing so is where it can become a little chaotic at times.
Often you’ll be suddenly pit against a new enemy type without any clue of the best way to defeat them or their attack patterns, so some trial and error comes into play as you try to react and adjust on the fly as best as you can. After defeating the first boss you’ll get your only new combat ability, a dagger that can be thrown that automatically returns to you. This is how you’ll light out of the reach torches, attack enemies from afar, and even cut ropes that hold up a platform. Using the right stick for your dagger slows down time, allowing you to aim with precision and just feels great to use.
While the core combat mechanics feel great when it all comes together, there’s nothing really new introduced after you gain the dagger aside from throwing more enemies at you and making the fire more challenging to reach during these sections. Boss fights aren’t often, but the few you do get were the highlight, as there were new mechanics to deal with, including screen filling attacks that need to be dodged. While some battles required a few attempts, none felt unfair, as I knew it was either my reaction time or misunderstanding of best strategy to defeat them to unlock the next door.
Destroying certain jars and urns will net you a special currency, spendable on upgrades at certain shrines to improve Ardeshir in a variety of different ways. At these Phoenix Statues you’ll be able to upgrade your health, fire duration or speed when fire is equipped, all of which are useful. Depending on your playstyle you may upgrade one way or another, but each is certainly beneficial in its own way.
For a small indie game, Nocturnal’s hand drawn aesthetic is gorgeous. Animations are smooth, and when you get those brief moments of being outdoors or passing by a large open area seeing the vistas I couldn’t help but take a few screenshots. The lighting is done quite well, which I expected nothing less given its premise centers around darkness and light. Watching bushes, rugs and banners burn quickly when I swipe at them with my sword ablaze is always satisfying. The score is just as beautiful, and while there’s little dialogue, I did wish those few lines were voiced so we had just that little bit more of immersion.
While mechanically simple, Nocturnal is very well made and feels quite polished. While able to be completed in a single sitting, it short length felt like the appropriate amount of time, as anything more would have started to wear out its welcome. A great indie title that deserves some attention, Nocturnal is challenging in the darkest times, but makes for a satisfying experience when you fight against it with flames.
**Nocturnal was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.3 / 10



Before you’re trapped in the horrifying house of The Butcher, fighting for your life and trying to find a way to escape, you begin your adventure working the solo night shift at a local gas station. What can go wrong when you’re working alone at a gas station in the middle of nowhere? As your shift goes on you have a small list of chores from the boss to complete and of course customers to help as they arrive, some friendly, some not so much. While one customer simply wants some gas and pays, there seems to be an inconspicuous white van that goes around the building, slowing down when going in front of the windows and then leaving. Another customer comes in later suspiciously asking if you’re working alone and then leaves. Again, what’s the worst that can happen? Suddenly you hear the door at the back of the store unlock and it’s opened. This is where the kidnapping happens.
Days after you play a different character, Roxanne, taking a road trip with her boyfriend. When nature calls you stop at a roadside bathroom, quickly napping while your boyfriend goes to relieve himself. He doesn’t return, so naturally you go to look for him. With him nowhere to be found, around the back you find his license, so of course you explore further, eventually finding more items from other people, like luggage. After making your way through a corn maze and having a stray dog follow you, you eventually come across a creepy looking house. The dog runs inside, so of course you go in after it. After a quick search, you can instantly tell something is not right here, and at that jump scare moment, The Butcher finds you.
After these two opening chapters, the remaining gameplay has you trying to escape the horrific house, and you’re only given three days (lives) to escape. You awake in a cage with nothing but the clothes on your back and a TV with static replaying the same scene. You eventually find a corner of the fenced cage to pry open and make your escape. Each room and hallway you discover is grimy, bloody and there’s obviously something not right here. Searching some drawers and cabinets you find a screwdriver, allowing you to remove a vent cover and find an alternative path. This is where your nightmares begin, seeing The Butcher carving up a body, blood spraying everywhere.
Trying to escape the house isn’t easy, as doors are locked, boarded up, and there’s traps and cameras over the place. You have a restrictive inventory management you need to deal with, so sometimes you’ll find items but will need to drop what you currently have on hand. The problem is that you won’t always know what items you’ll need at a certain puzzle or point, so you’ll have to remember where you place things for collection later.
Right after from your caged escape you’re constantly stalked by The Butcher. He’s not a dumb hulking brute though and will be smart with how he tries to capture you. The AI that controls your deadly capture is actually quite clever. Not only is he always on the search for you, there’s a bit more under the hood I didn’t expect. For example, in most stealth games where you need to hide, being under a bed or in a cabinet is a default safe spot, but not here. If The Butcher sees you hide, he will keep coming after you. Also, ducking into a vent isn’t a safe spot either, as he will turn on the gas to flush you out of the vents, not even including what other horrors might be waiting for you in the vents.
If that wasn’t bad enough with being constantly stalked and hunted, The Butcher isn’t alone in his home. What’s worse, you’re going to come across a creepy old grandmother in a wheelchair who roams the house hallways, and if you’re spotted, she will shriek, bringing attention to The Butcher to your whereabouts, so you’ll need to go run and hide quickly.
A stealth horror game means you’ll need to manage being in the darkness, barely able to see other than your Zippo lighter, as being in the light will make it easy to be found and captured. You’ll also need to sneak and avoid making noise. You can run for a short period when needing to quickly escape, but you’ll have to manage your endurance.
You’re only able to save when you find a TV set with a VHS player, but to actually save you need to find a VHS tape, much like Resident Evil’s Ink Ribbons. The gameplay isn’t as linear as I expected, as there seemed to be a few different ways to solve each of the puzzles. Opening a door for example might be lock picked with a paperclip, opened from the inside by going through a vent or maybe using one of the limited bullets you find for a gun and shoot the handle off.
Being a small indie game, I never expect the same amount of polish that a larger budget game would get, but I did run into quite a lot of frustrating bugs. The first was being able to carry a chair and warp my way into a locked room I shouldn’t have been able to, unable to escape because I didn’t open the door the proper way, resulting in a chapter restart due to not having a VHS tape to save. Getting the cursor right on the objects you want to interact with or open is a challenge in itself, made worse by the fact that you’re constantly under pressure of death from The Butcher.
With PS1 era graphics, it’s not going to impress at first look, but when you realize it was a design choice and purposeful, I quite enjoyed the retro aesthetic. Just like an old classic slasher film, there’s a number of different filters and options you can also choose depending on how authentic you want it to be to an old horror movie. Want it to look like it’s being played on an old VHS tape or CCTV, that’s an option. Adding on top of the retro polygonal graphics and it’s actually quite creepy overall. Maybe it’s just in my mind, but I found having the VHS filter on was much creepier, even though it’s much more difficult to see more details. Audio is also just as fitting, hearing creepy sounds, and I can still hear grandma shrieking when I was found.
Rough around the edges, if you’re into classic horror movies and old classic PS1 games, Stay Out of the House is a gritty and atmospheric horror adventure that is constantly unsettling. The puzzles aren’t too challenging on their own, but having to navigate the house being constantly hunted is really challenging. I appreciated the multiple difficulty options, even the Very Easy option where there is no enemies, allowing you to focus on the puzzles only without any of the looming threat.
Stay Out of the House has some great suspense and I was constantly looking over my shoulder and listening for my captor nearby. Full of jumpscares, they don’t feel cheap, and the atmosphere feels like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in video game form. Like a great B-movie or slasher flick, Stay Out of the House might be a future cult classic if you’re into retro PS1 graphics and tons of blood and gore.
**Stay Out of the House was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10



At their peak, they were master storytellers, and I still rank their Season One of The Walking Dead game one of the best narrative games of all time. So when I found out that Star Trek: Resurgence was developed by Dramatic Labs, a new studio but a culmination of over twenty former Telltale writers, designers, artists, developers and producers, I was instantly interested, even if only know some very basic Star Trek knowledge.
With a narrative focus first and foremost, you’ll be making choices that will shape and affect your individual storyline. Not only a dialogue choosing adventure though, will you engage in a variety of different Star Trek activities, like using your Tricorder, Phasers, piloting a shuttle and more. You’ll be engrossed into a unique Star Trek adventure that even non Trekkie’s can enjoy, like myself.
Set within The Next Generation universe, Resurgence has you playing as two different characters, Commander Jara Rydek and Engineer Carter Diaz, usually alternating between the two between chapters. Your main mission is to help solve a dispute between two alien races, the Hotari and the Alydian’s, as a neutral party since the Federation has no authority in their reaches of space. The races have some unique backstories and were quite different from one another, of course putting you right in the middle to try and solve their disputes.
Jara Rydek is the brand new XO on the USS Resolute due to the previous XO passing away. The current Captain, Zachary Solano, had a mission go wrong where a bunch of crew didn’t survive, so now the Resolute is being repaired before they leave on their latest mission. Being the new XO, the ship’s crew have heard about your accolades, but some aren’t pleased with promotions not coming from within, so there’s some initial conflict right away as an outsider. Most interestingly, Jara is a Kobliad, an obscure Star Trek race but requires a regular dose of Deuridium to survive, which of course will play into some decisions later on.
The other protagonist you’ll play is Engineer Carter Diaz, a mechanical genius, both of which are very unique and have fantastic stories. Of course their paths will intertwine in certain ways, but he’s a fantastic secondary character that I was quite fond of. You’ll see some familiar faces and names along the way, of which I’ll only mention what has been shown in trailers and previews. Ambassador Spock plays a large part of your journey and mission, and he looks exactly like the true Spock. Of course your simple mission will not be so easy, unearthing something much larger that will take you on a journey across the galaxy.
Being a narrative heavy adventure, like any good Telltale game, you’ll primarily be making dialogue choices, unsure of the ramifications of said decisions until later. You’ll build relationships with both characters, and while there’s not always a simple ‘good’ or ‘bad’ choice, it’s usually more of a grey area. I always play ‘good’ as I can my first playthrough, but I’m looking forward to playing again with all opposite choices to see the differences. There will also be no shortage of quicktime events where you need to press a designated button on the screen at a specific time to succeed.
One of the coolest choices you get to make early on is what your catchphrase for “Engage” is when getting your mission underway. Some choices are small and won’t affect much overall, but of course other decisions will weigh heavily on not only your journey, but your crew as well. Do you choose to save many crew over a single person? Do you risk your ship to try and save an individual? These are just some of the choices you’ll make without much time to think, you simply need to react. Given that a portion of the developers are formerly from Telltale Games, you can expect many of the same drama and morally grey area decisions.
As you meet and interact with new characters, any which are ‘main’ characters will show within the Pause menu and give a brief description of their current attitude towards you and your last interactions with them. Some will like you, some will hate you, sometimes their feeling will ebb and flow depending if you take their advice or not. Relationships are difficult to upkeep and you can’t always make everyone happy, just like in real life. Do you back Captain Solano because he chose you to be his XO, or not have a blind allegiance and question what went wrong in his previous mission? Not every decision is as trivial as you might first expect, and by the final few chapters you can expect full drama and heartbreaking outcomes. Just because you made someone angry with one decision doesn’t mean you’re always locked into a specific outcome, though maybe some choices will leaving a lasting impression, so it’s difficult to weigh your options in the heat of the moment.
While Resurgence isn’t open world, each scene you get to explore does have some optional objects you can interact with and people, to speak to, though it is primarily a very linear adventure which I honestly prefer. There’s not only an abundance of quicktime events, like holding Left Stick up to move forward in scenes or tapping Right Trigger to grab onto a ledge, but there’s a good amount of minigames and puzzle-like elements along the way as well.
For example, beaming up people in the teleporter requires you to find the right frequency on the computer where you plot a specific course. These aren’t challenging to solve, but certainly add some authenticity to the whole Star Trek experience as you interact with the systems you normally don’t see much detail of on the shows. Using your Tricorder will be common as well, as you’ll need to scan a variety of items in certain situations, seemingly authentic to the source material with the corresponding beeps and boops.
There’s a few times where you’ll be piloting a small passenger vessel in space, getting from one point to another. It’s simple enough, having you avoid asteroids and floating space debris, later adding some additional challenges, though I don’t want to spoil what that could be. There’s a few times where Jara and Carter will have to avoid combat, using stealth to bypass enemies and avoid detection. While this is simple as crouching with pressing the Right Stick and avoiding line of sight, it’s quite basic of a mechanic overall.
Then there’s the phaser combat sections, easily the worst part of the whole experience. There will be times where you’ll have to defend yourself with your phaser, though it’s clear that Resurgence wasn’t designed to be a third person shooter. The controls are loose, aiming is terrible and it’s truly an awful experience. These sections were actually the only times I ‘failed’ a Chapter. Thankfully you can instantly retry, also giving you the option to replay in Story Mode, essentially a No-Fail mode to get passed that particular section instead of having to deal with repeated frustration. It’s not that the combat is hard, but you’ll have to shoot particular enemies before they hit you or your team, but the aiming is just terrible to try and do so.
If you’ve played a narrative Telltale game before, you can expect very similar visuals. Characters are easily distinguishable from one another, you can instantly recognize certain races and it looks decent overall. There are some quirks with weird eyebrow movements and clunky lip syncing, but nothing that really detracted from the overall experience.
Given that Resurgence is a dialogue heavy game, the voice acting had to be on point if it wanted to be believable and be a seamless Star Trek experience. Thankfully Krizia Bajos (Jara) and Josh Keaton (Carter) were up for the task and did a brilliant job doing most of the heavy lifting. The cast overall was fantastic but the two main protagonists really stood out and made the whole mission a believable one, as if it was a long lost episode from TV. The score is done wonderfully as well, as if it was taken straight from the show. Sure there were a few small issues like one section not having random sounds and subtitles not always exactly matching the spoken dialogue perfectly, but that’s the critic in me looking for imperfections, not that it took away from the overall game.
I’ll admit, I was a bit skeptical about playing Star Trek: Resurgence given that I’m not much of a Trekkie at all. None of that mattered though, as even though I didn’t know much of the previous context or background lore outside of main concepts and characters, I still quite enjoyed my narrative focused mission with Commander Jara Rydek and Engineer Carter Diaz. While it hasn’t converted me into a full Trekkie, it certainly had me going down a Star Trek wiki rabbit hole, wanting to learn more about certain races, characters and factions. Live long, and prosper.
**Star Trek: Resurgence was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.7 / 10



While the genre isn’t as big as it once was decades ago, there have been a few releases in the past few years, most notably being the excellent Thimbleweed Park, so naturally when a new Point & Click adventure releases I become instantly intrigued. Having done no research beforehand about Lucy Dreaming from developer Tall Story Games, it initially was a Kickstarter, now released for console as well.
Looking as though it was taken right from the golden era of the genre in the 90’s with its pixel art, Lucy Dreaming was challenging, hilarious, addictive and an overall wonderful adventure that hit all the nostalgic highs I wanted, as well as having plenty of Easter eggs and modern references that caused a few out loud laughs. You play as the titular Lucy as she explores the real world to solve a mystery, but also having to deal with her own nightmares in the dream world a well. British humor may be a bit drier than I’m used to, but I still found myself chuckling quite often. I mean, I know I’m a man-child, but small birds being referenced as tits is hilarious.
Lucid Dreaming is described as “When you know that you're dreaming while you're asleep. You're aware that the events flashing through your brain aren't really happening. But the dream feels vivid and real. You may even be able to control how the action unfolds, as if you're directing a movie in your sleep.” Lucid dreams are what Lucy is dealing with, finding herself falling once she goes to sleep, a recurring nightmare she wants to stop from happening. To do so she’ll have to find a way to control her dreams, but doing so isn’t easy and will require a lot of out of the box thinking, possibly even jumping from one dream to another.
Lucy decides to use her father’s psychology book to possibly help her take control of her dreams, giving her clues as to how to do so, acting as subtle clues as to what needs to be done. While you think that the majority of the gameplay might revolve around these dream worlds, most takes place in the real world when she uncovers a dark family secret along the way. Maybe things you learn in the real world will be applicable to the dream world, and vice versa.
Like any good Point & Click adventure, you’ll gather items along the way needed to solve puzzles in unique ways or to combine with other items. As you learn more about the people you meet or areas, new places in the town will unlock that Lucy can fast travel to on her bike by using the map. You’ll visit the Library, Town Center and Lucy’s home amongst other places to solve a mystery. You’ll meet a wide variety cast of characters, each completely unique in their own way and quite memorable, and maybe bringing in your beloved teddy bear or a rubber duck into your dream world will have you see them in a completely new way.
While I don’t want to spoil any of the story as it was quite interesting, your first playthrough will probably be around somewhere around a dozen hours or so, less if you’re naturally skilled at classic Point & Click adventures and can think outside the box for puzzle solutions. With a walkthrough you could probably complete it in about half the time, but make sure to explore all you can, talk to everyone and take in its British humor and witty one liners.
Clearly a love letter to the 90’s genre, Lucy Dreaming has everything you’d come to expect from a Lucas Arts-style Point and Click; great pixel artwork, humor, challenging puzzles, Easter eggs and plenty of dialogue to get lost in. The bottom portion of the screen has your usable commands such as “Look At”, “Pick Up”, “Talk To” and “Use”. This is how you interact with the world, objects and characters, deciding exactly how you want to do so. Click anywhere on the screen in each scene and that’s where Lucy will walk to by default.
Puzzles are what make the genre what it is, and Lucy Dreaming is no different. While I’d like to think I’m pretty decent at these types of games, I’ll admit, I got stumped a few times and had to take some time to figure out what to do. Thankfully there’s a built in hint system if needed, but a few of the later puzzles I found to be a little too obtuse to figure out naturally, though like any good puzzler, once you solve it you feel like a certified genius.
As you explore each area and scene, talking to people along the way, you’ll get clues as to what to do next, noting them in your diary as a reminder. You’ll quickly notice that sometimes the real and dream worlds blend together, so what might not seem relevant now may just help you when you get Lucy to change into her PJ’s and go into the dream world. Sher even has a handy dream box of sorts where any of the items she puts into it will go into the dream world with her. A full glass of water on her nightside desk will have the tide rise, while it empty will have low tide. The same goes for your fan, as maybe the direction it's facing will affect how the wind is blowing in your dreams.
For example, putting a joke book in the box changes the dream setting to a comedy club, and if she puts her Teddy Bear in the box, he then comes to life in the dream world as well. It’s done in a very clever way and later on you’ll need to go from one dream to another, done so by waking up, changing the contents in your dream box, then going back to sleep. While your real world inventory doesn’t go into the dream world with you, the items you find and collect in your dreams do persist from one dream to the next. Clearly you’ll need to progress in one scene to make progress in another, though this portion wasn’t explained all too well initially and took some figuring out with trial and error on my part.
Each nightmare, like her falling from the sky in the beginning for example, is essentially its own Chapter. Once you figure out how to have Lucy stop falling, she finds herself stuck in another nightmare, which brings you to the next Chapter. With an overall mystery to solve as well, Lucy is a busy girl, and while I didn’t find the ending completely satisfying, I’m still glad to have played and enjoyed myself throughout.
The pixel art is done absolutely wonderfully, looking as if it came from the 90’s at the height of the genre popularity. There’s so much detail in every scene, and while a few intractable objects can be a little hidden and difficult to notice at first, you eventually get used to pixel hunting like in any other Point & Click game. The most surprising was how every single line of dialogue and character was fully voiced. That’s usually not always a given in the genre, so it was pleasant to have. All the voice actors were great as were the sound effects and soundtrack, totally bringing back some 90’s nostalgia.
Lucy Dreaming is exactly what I was wanting from a Point & Click adventure; full of humor, great pixel art, quirky puzzles and memorable characters. A lot of attention went into adding plenty of smaller details into Lucy’s world, making it feel much more alive and full. A must play for Point & Click adventure fans, Lucy Dreaming was simply a joy to play, even if the British humor won’t always land for everyone.
**Lucy Dreaming was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10



Expect speed, deaths and frustration in this 2D side scrolling adventure. If you’re one to try and collect everything or a speedrunner, you’ll feel right at home. If you’re looking for a more casual Sonic-like game, this isn’t going to be the one for you. Despite clearly looking like a Sonic clone, it’s actually quite challenging with its single hit deaths and constant level resets once you die for the hundredth time.
While there’s not much of a story here, you’re tasked with stopping an evil scientist that looks like a cross between Dr. Robotnik and Dr. Wily, trying to save the Chickabirbs. There’s a few funny lines about how a particular blue hedgehog is busy out filming a movie, so now it’s up to Panic. The hung portrait of a buff Sonic on the wall is hilarious too if you notice. Take on Dr. Preventriculus across 50 stages, find hidden eggs, go for speed runs and collect everything. A platformer with high speed, Panic Porcupine is full of obstacles like spikes, pits, flames and much more that will instantly kill you when touched. Expect to die many times in this unique genre mashup.
Instead of larger levels that require you speed to get through, Panic Porcupine’s levels are much shorter in design, instead challenging you with collecting all the Chickabirbs instead of reaching a finish line. If you know the levels they can be quite quick, maybe 30 to 60 seconds or so, but getting to that point will take quite a bit of repetitious practice to learn each level. Even though speed isn’t the main focus, you will be moving quite quick like Sonic, but need to know where the obstacles are.
With no enemies to face aside from the boss at the end of each stages’ tenth level, it’s you versus the environment. Timing and precision is paramount, as is learning the level layout to not just save all of the Chickabirbs, but even more so if you want to 100% levels by collecting every egg. Expect to reattempt jumps over and over, trying to get over the spikes and buzz saws, getting enough speed to get through some loops and ramps, all while figuring out where the Chickabirbs are.
Each stage is broken up into a handful of different levels, with the final being a showdown against the evil Dr. before he escapes and you move onto the next. The boss fights were fun, simply having you hit him a few times, freeing the Chickabirbs in pods, but each has its own unique challenge. Each zone has its own theme and biome, changing up the backdrops and design of levels.
Momentum is usually a large portion of how to complete levels, and while the controls are generally decent, I did have issues now and then with having to be completely precise in my moment. Bumpers caused me many issues, though not as much as the rotating poles that you kind of stick to before leaping off in either direction. It seems half the time my timing was off and I’d jump to the wrong side.
Many levels end up being trial and error, as you’ll simply need to know when to jump to avoid whatever is about to kill you, eventually becoming more and more challenging as levels progress. This sometimes comes down to reaction time and memorization as you speed across each stage. My main complaint is that you need to button press to have Panic roll into a ball instead of simply pressing ‘Down’ like in certain other hedgehog games.
The retro visuals are done so well that at a quick glance, you might expect it actually came from the 16-bit era. It’s bright, colorful and seeing Panic’s eyes constantly circling when you take a break from moving is always funny. Audio is also fitting for the era with a catchy soundtrack and decent sound effects along the way.
Panic Porcupine isn’t for the faint of heart. If you get frustrated by dying numerous times, then you’re going to have a bad time. On the other hand, if you enjoy a challenge or even want to speedrun, there’s a lot on offer. You’ll need to have reaction speed and accuracy if you want to see Panic complete his journey, and while you might simply assume it’s a Sonic knock-off, it’s more akin to a Super Meat Boy than anything else.
**Panic Porcupine was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.2 / 10



An open world game with a heavy narrative focus, complete with supernatural powers, Ghostwire: Tokyo kind of took me by surprise with it being a shooter, though not in the way you might initially expect. Completely engrossed with Japanese folklore, it quickly impresses with its gorgeous visuals that make for an isolating and creepy backdrop for your adventure. With some horror elements apparent and throughout, there might not be many jump scares, but there’s a general overall creepy and uneasiness that is always around, as you never feel completely safe. Also included in this release is the latest Spider’s Thread Update, adding new content to the game such as new custscenes, areas, missions, enemies, improvements, skills and modes, so maybe the wait has been worth it? Let’s find out.
Ghostwire: Tokyo starts out immediately with the action, showing main protagonist, Akito, getting into a serious accident on his motorbike. You’re then shown a spirit flying above, looking for a body to possess. Great timing, as the spirit takes over Akito’s body, essentially reviving him. Everyone in Tokyo has vanished though, seemingly only you surviving due to the possession, and anyone that touches the mysterious fog that’s rolling in seems to disappear. The city is now infested with paranormal visitors who don’t seem friendly, so it’s up to the duo of Akito and KK (the spirit) to not only survive, but investigate the man in the Hannya mask that seems to be behind it all.
While KK wants to go stop Hannya immediately, Akito was on his way to go check on his sister in the hospital who is in a coma, refusing to help KK until he knows she’s alright. Of course he obliges but this is where the internal struggle between the two start, being forced to help one another, yet both are somewhat in control, much like how Venom controls Eddie Brock in a way. Being possessed by a spirit has its perks though, you know, aside from not being dead, as you’ll be using your newly founded supernatural powers to fight back against the deadly forces that seem to be emanating from the fog.
Designed as an open world game, there are initially restrictions of where you can go with the deadly fog acting as your barriers, eventually you’ll be able to uncover more of the map, allowing for more freedom and a seemingly never ending list of side quests and activities to do. Being mirrored to the real life Shibuya City just west of Tokyo, you'll come across a number of famous landmarks if you know the area. While the main story should take around 8-12 hours, there’s about triple that or more if you decide to try and complete all the side quests and activities. While I was attempting to do everything in an area before moving on, it eventually become too much and overwhelming, deciding to simply focus mainly on the story from there on.
While KK is initially viewed as a parasite in Akito’s body, the two eventually form a unique relationship, helping one another, and the bond between them was an interesting story given they must fully trust one another in their own way. Sometimes this was funny one liners, other times serious tones, but it was always entertaining when they interacted or had a conversation with one another.
It seems as though a lot of time and care was taken into making Shibuya a living and breathing world, which is ironic since everyone is dead and you’re fighting spirits. The streets may be barren of life, but there’s so much hand crafted detail that every street and alley feels unique. You quickly learn the ability to use Spectral Vision, a detective-like blast that will highlight objects and enemies nearby. Visually, the city is absolutely stunning and impressive, and even if you don’t focus on one quest or activity you can easily find yourself lost within the city landscapes, as I found quite a few vistas I needed to take screenshots of.
Being able to only stick to some main streets and alleys in the beginning, you’ll need to cleanse massive Tori Gates, and doing so will force back the fog in a large area, allowing you to further explore Shubiya. These act essentially as the viewpoints in Assassin’s Creed, but fits narratively as well. As you explore you’ll also find spirits floating around which are souls that have yet to been captured, so it’s up to you to collect and set them free. Essentially a massive collect-athon, these are your best and quickest way to level up, and there’s no shortage. Some souls only appear after clearing an event, activity or battle though. With how many there are to collect, it can quickly feel quite overwhelming if you're a completionist.
You aren’t limited to walking at street level either, as you can find Tengus, kind of like a spirit griffon hovering in place, allowing you to zipline up onto the rooftops, naturally where more secrets and collectables are hidden. There’s also plenty of food items you’ll come across, though it took me a while to not simply save them all for when low on health. This is because eating food of course refills your health bar, but it also can extend your maximum health every time you eat, so sometimes if you’re hoarding a bunch of food it may be beneficial to munch on some of them to improve and extend your overall health.
Being a first person shooter, you won’t be defeating ghost and spirits with traditional guns, instead using the supernatural powers KK has endowed into you to blast from your hands. You begin with a wind blast attack, eventually unlocking more elements like fire and water. You can also charge your shots to be more powerful depending on the situation you find yourself in. Wind is generally good for almost any encounter, being a quick based attack. Fire is more powerful and explosive, and water is like your ‘shotgun’. Each uses its own ‘ammo’ that needs to be refilled by defeating enemies or breaking floating spirit objects littered throughout the world. While it’s not often you’ll find yourself out of ‘ammo’, there’s always some way to resupply nearby. There are a handful of boss fights during Akito’s journey, and while they are big and memorable, none were really all that challenging.
Combat starts out interesting and fun, though after a few hours does start to feel repetitive. You have a block you can use to negate damage and parry back attacks, so eventually combat gets into the same rhythm of attacking a few times, block, attack, extract soul, repeat, all while backpedaling or circle strafing. Once an enemy has no health left you can extract its soul, killing it from that point on. If you don’t destroy its soul it can regenerate and come back to attack you, so you’ll need to attack specific targets purposely, allowing enough time for the extraction before getting attacked by another.
You’ll eventually unlock a variety of Talismans, essentially your grenades. These are situational and used based on if you want to go a combat or stealth route. While some battles need to be faced head on, sometimes stealth is an option, and sneaking behind an enemy will allow for an instant ‘backstab’ soul extraction kill on most enemies. Without too many spoilers, there's one section early on where you aren't able to use your powers for narrative reasons, forcing you to use your bow or stealth. I found this portion to be awful and really missed having KK's powers.
As you gain experience, save souls and level up, you’ll be able to spend skill points into the three different trees. You can improve certain elemental attacks in a variety of ways, your bow weaponry, Talismans, and a bunch of other skills depending on how you want to play. Do a healthy amount of sidequests and activities and you won’t have much issue filling out the skill trees, so you can become quite powerful quickly if you decide to grind early on.
Visually, Ghostwire: Tokyo is absolutely stunning. There’s so much detail and full of (undead) life that it’s hard to not just take moments here and there to take it all in. Frame rates are fluid, animations are great and it always puts a smile on my face when I come across a cat merchant or stray dog. Voice acting from the main cast is done very well and hearing the shrieks and moans of spirits nearby can be quite creepy when you’re not sure where they are waiting for you.
While there’s an intriguing story that unfolds at a decent pace, it’s easy to get sidetracked with the overwhelming amount of optional things to do. While the story is about the right length, I eventually gave up trying to do everything as combat become a bit repetitive a few hours in. That said, Ghostwire: Tokyo was still a great playthrough and I’m glad it’s arrived for Xbox players to now enjoy as well.
**Ghostwire: Tokyo was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10



A massive fire has broken out, and you being a firefighter, are sent to put out the blaze. This one is a bad one though, so you need to be air dropped in to stop it. Everything starts off as normal, putting out the flames and looking for survivors, but you soon realize this isn’t just a normal building fire. You quickly end up in an underground facility and start to realize something isn’t right here. The further underground you go, you find yourself cut off from your team above ground, but you continue on to save anyone you can possibly find.
This secret facility makes you weary once you start to notice radioactive symbols and warnings on the walls. You start to find notes that make mention of some sort of experiment, but everything is quite vague at first. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting much of a storyline but it was interesting just enough to keep me hooked until the end to find out what happened. Given that Nuclear Blaze is such a short experience, clocking in at about two hours or so, I won’t spoil anything, my only real complaint is that I wanted more, as I thought I was done maybe the first Chapter by the time the credits rolled.
First you’ll need to choose what mode you want to play. While there’s a normal mode you’ll likely start out, there’s also a Kid Mode and Hold My Beer Mode. Kid Mode is just that, designed to be played and enjoyed by very young children. This is very simplistic, having the firefighter unable to be damaged, automatically jumps and aims at the flames, complete with plenty of helicopters and trucks, because what kid doesn’t like firetrucks and helicopters? This was initially designed for the developer’s child to enjoy, but decided to keep it in, which is a fantastic idea for those with very young children that still want to play.
Hold My Beer Mode is actually unlocked after your first playthrough, but that won’t take long. This is somewhat like a remixed version of the campaign, adding new hidden areas, new enemies and more. Essentially it’s New Game+ that adds a little more challenge and options, warranting a second playthrough after the credits roll for the first time.
Before you begin your firefighting career though, be sure to check out the options as you’re able to finely tune the experience just how you like. Want to have unlimited health? How about faster water pressure? There’s no Easy, Normal, or Hard difficulty options, but you’re given just enough toggles that you can completely customize your experience however you like. The best part is that it doesn’t disable any achievements either.
Primarily a 2D platforming game, you also need to manage your water meter and spray in different directions to put out all the flames. Luckily you have a portable backpack and hose that can refill at specific spots within the underground base. Developers Deepnight Games did a great job at making the flames feel alive, as it can spread and move (unless you disable it from doing so in the options), making for a lot of chaos in the later sections. Miss one little spot and the fire can quickly reignite and spread. You’ll need to look for valves to shut off, electricity panels to switch and sprinklers to turn on if you want to be successful.
A platforming game needs solid and smooth controls or it simply won’t be fun to play. Thankfully Dead Cells was fantastic, so I expected no less here. You’ll be running, jumping and rolling through dangers, and it all just works and feels great to do so. In the beginning you’ll only be able to spray your water hose horizontally, though you’ll quickly get a few upgrades that allow you to shower the flames at any angle and even cover yourself with water like an umbrella when opening a door and getting a massive backdraft.
As you make your way through room by room, some doors will be locked by specific colored key cards, so you’ll need to explore to find them. Other doors won’t open until every single flame is extinguished as a lockdown procedure, so get used to having to put out every single flame you see. You may even find some spots that are electrified, and if you spray them you’re going to get a nasty shock, so you’ll need to find a control panel to turn that off first. Delay too long and the fire spreads, so there’s always an urgency.
The rooms have a subtle red-ish glow when there are still fires somewhere nearby, and once clear it will glow a satisfying blue. It’s a subtle detail but works really well. What would a firefighter be if they didn’t rescue cats as well? Seems as though a few of the facility workers had cats, which can only be found in secrets areas, so be sure to explore every corner if you want to try and find them all. It’s cute seeing them following you in the area until you reach a vent that they can automatically escape from. There’s even something special if you can find them all which I won’t spoil.
The pixel art is done exceptionally well and it’s all animated quite well also. Your character moves smoothly and you can easily distinguish each object, door, ladder and fire. There’s a lot of smaller details and I really enjoyed its simple aesthetic. While the music isn’t nearly as memorable, it is satisfactory and fits the tone of putting fires out in a deep underground facility.
While I expected a simple firefighting game with Nuclear Blaze, it is that, but has a decent story that kept me wanting to find out what happened until the very end. Sure it may be quite short, but there’s at least enough reason to play through twice as you try and find all of its secrets and rescue cats. What’s better than saving some felines in an underground nuclear base while putting out flames and uncovering a dark secret?
**Nuclear Blaze was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10



As the title suggests, you are in control of creating your own garden, from mowing the grass, planting the seeds for vegetables and flowers, to even designing your whole backyard from scratch. While there’s a brief story intro about how you needed a break from the big city life and quit your high paying tech job to go into the back country for something more relaxing. This is a simulator, you aren’t playing it for a narrative, not that there is any here anyways.
I generally enjoy simulator games like these, as they are often relaxing, but there’s something I don’t mind about odd titles like these. While I’m used to having simulator games having a bit of ‘jank’ to them, Garden Simulator is far from perfect, but it was much better than I expected as it was stable and I had no crashes or framerate issues. Oh, and there’s a cat that wanders your lawn, so feel free to give it a pet when you like.
Garden Simulator begins and simply drops you into the front yard of your new secluded home in the woods. There’s no tutorial, not even anything about the basics or even controller commands. While I was able to figure it all about and discern what did what and what I should do next, a brief intro would have been welcome for those that may not game as much.
You begin with only having a portion of your front yard unlocked, with the other half, sides of the house and rear all taped off, unable to access at the moment. This is fine, as it gives you a concentrated area to focus on and to start earning your Garden Coins. Essentially you’ll need to plant flowers and veggies, then once a few days have passed and they are ready, you can sell them for profit. This is how you’ll slowly earn more and more money to purchase new decorations, different seeds and a handful of different decoration items for creating your dream garden.
You’re given a task list, like quests, to complete and guide you. While you aren’t forced to complete these, doing so will earn you extra money, which in turn helps you grow your garden space and purchase new seeds. Each action you do, from planting, picking, watering and even mowing, you earn XP which fills and gives you levels. Each level you get a skill point to use to increase profits or overall experience earned, speeding up the watering process and more.
Your little sectioned off backyard has a dumpster, a little shed and an area to hang up the tools you don’t need, along with a laptop. This laptop is basically an online store that once ordered, will have a direct drop shipment sent to you within about 10 seconds. Literally a drop shipment, the crate will be flung from the sky and land in the same area every time, so be careful not to start building your garden near there initially.
Before you can start your dream garden though you better clean up the place. It’s clear this house has been ignored for quite a few years, as there’s empty boxes, withered vines, garbage bags and wooden planks that were boarding up the windows. Simply pick up the trash, run it to your garbage bin and you’ll earn a few coins and XP for your trouble. Next you’ll need some tools, like a shovel, watering can and mower, so start saving those coins.
As you choose what seeds to plant, you can see the cost, how long to grow and the selling amount. There’s always a profit regardless of what you plant, it’s just a matter of how many days it takes for each different item to grow fully.
Days end once you go to your front door and choose “Call It a Day”. This has you rest and sleep until the next day. While each day doesn’t progress past 6PM, it doesn’t force you to stop playing on that day until you choose to progress, so no need to feel rushed. Most of the first few days will simply be watering each plant then sleeping to progress to the next day. Until you start to unlock the other sections of the yard and earn some coin you’ll be limited to what you can do in your garden, but that’s where the 'play as you want' nature of these simulation games are relaxing.
Your basic tools will get you started, but there will be upgrades you can purchase as you progress. Many tools, seeds and items are actually locked behind progress as well, and each is clearly labeled as to its progression within the laptop. Later on you can get automatic sprinklers, robot lawnmowers and more to aid your mundane tasks, though it’s completely up to you how you want to setup your garden.
While you begin with a lush lawn of overgrown grass, you’ll need to use your shovel to dig the ground up to prep for planting seeds. You can choose to snap to an invisible grid if you want even lines, or freely dig wherever you want. If you’re lucky you might even big up a gold nugget which will earn you some extra coins once you throw it in the garbage bins, though how that makes sense I’m unsure.
While you’ll only have a seed or two in the beginning, eventually you’ll unlock a large variety of fruits, vegetables and flowers. Each tier costs more to purchase, but nets you more profit once sold. You’ll start to notice weeds that appear each new day, which can be thrown into the trash for some XP and coin, but once you can afford a compost bin you can dump them into there to create fertilizer for your plants. Putting this fertilizer on your crops before they’ve fully grown will increase their quality which earns you more money once sold.
You begin by planting in the ground, but eventually you’ll unlock planters of different shapes and sizes if you prefer. There will be different furniture items, decorations and even hedges to create your dream garden, but most of these will come near the end of the game when money is no longer an issue.
Being able to place stones, wooden floors and even a barbeque grill is fun when you get to the design portion, but also showcases how ‘wonky’ the physics can be. If there is any overlapping of items you can expect objects to start acting weird or fling in directions. Clipping items is going to cause issues, though you’re able to lock items in place if you want to make sure they don’t move by accident until you unlock them.
Shovel the ground, put in seed, water the hole, move onto the next day and repeat. This is the basic gameplay loop, and while it may sound quite boring to some, I found it quite relaxing after a long day. Certain seeds will need to be unlocked by planting a certain amount of previous tier or selling better quality versions, then unlocking the ability to buy the newest seeds. While there’s not as much variety in plants and decorations as I expected, nor any cross pollination like Animal Crossing, it’s more than enough to last you a handful of hours to unlock everything.
For being a garden simulator, you can probably exactly guess what to expect for its visuals. Usually these simulation games aren’t terribly impressive, though it looked decent. The flowers are especially colorful and bright, grass looks like grass before being mowed, and it’s all serviceable. The light music in the background is sure to put you to sleep during a late night session, but makes for a relaxing time.
With a healthy amount of interesting achievements to work towards, I didn’t even notice that a good five hours went by the first time I played before I realized what time it was. Very addictive and relaxing, Garden Simulator is a great way to de-stress when you need a gaming palette cleanser and don’t mind the ‘jank’ from simulator games. Flex your virtual green thumb and place those garden gnomes for all to see.
**Garden Simulator was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10



While there are some minor story-like elements, don’t expect a large encompassing narrative that will have you hooked. There’s something about trying to defeat the dreaded Pearly Knights, which is your first introduction to Cavity Busters’ pun filled adventure. It’s time to defeat some cavities and shoot your teeth at anything that moves.
Being a roguelite, you’ll be dying a lot and going back for ‘one more run’. You explore room by room in effort to find the boss, defeat them and move onto the next dungeon, getting as far as you can before you die and need to start all over again. With hundreds of different rooms, no two playthroughs will be the same. Unlike many roguelites though, there’s no permanent upgrades that make each subsequent run a little easier each time, though there are unlocks you can gain that will help along the way.
Your first few games will probably be short as you’ll die quickly and have to restart over again. There’s a brief tutorial that teaches you the basics, and while it does a decent job at explaining the core mechanics, it’s a lot to figure out and get used to all at once. With a few runs under your belt it’ll start to become more natural and make sense, but it’s quick paced and frantic at the best of times. Being a very quick paced twin-stick shooter, you’ll need to have a fast reaction time if you want to survive. Thankfully you’re given a handful of tools that help your mobility.
As you go from room to room, the Zelda-like map grid will show where you’ve previously have and haven’t been. You won’t know which room the boss is waiting until you happen upon it, but what happens when you explore one direction only to hit a dead end? Well, rather than having to backtrack across a dozen rooms or so, you’re able to jump ‘out’ of the dungeon room and essentially teleport back to any room you’ve already cleared. This makes the exploration aspect much more manageable and I love the convenience factor without having to waste a lot of time constantly backtracking when needed.
You’re also not confined to the set ways rooms are linked together. When you enter a room, every door is locked until all enemies are destroyed, though you’re able to dig your way through any wall if you have a single use shovel, though if not you can sacrifice a single heart from your health pool to dig through. Sometimes this pays off with a hidden room full of upgrades, other times you wasted a heart for no reason, so there’s certainly some risk vs reward.
When you do eventually die, you’ll have a summary screen of how your run went. You’ll be shown how many enemies you killed, rooms explored, and more importantly, how many puns were made. Again, there’s plenty of puns included, all teeth, mouth and dentistry related, which is evident when you start finding the numerous types of upgrades and diseases.
With your initial character, your primary attack will be launching your singular tooth at enemies and then having it come back to you like a boomerang. You can charge your shot for a more powerful attack or tap the trigger for quicker shots. Your tooth shot can pass through enemies, so when you become more proficient with how to aim and when, you can get more damage on enemies as your tooth passes through them on the way back to you.
Simply shooting everything won’t be enough to survive, you’ll also need to dash, wall run and jump. It’s confusing at first trying to piece it all together with how chaotic it becomes, but with enough practice, a few hours in it started to become much more natural. Jumping allows you to kind of float up in the air before you choose where to leap down and stomp on an enemy for high damage. Wall running is another aspect that you’ll need to utilize, as you stick to the walls and run along the perimeter to escape damage or traverse across some gaps. This can also trigger some slow-motion that will help you catch your breath for a few moments.
Boss fights were the highlight, each having a large health pool and a fun challenge. These Pearly Knights aren’t terribly difficult on their own, but if you go into a boss fight with low health or some difficult diseases, the chances of surviving are nil. They have bullet patterns that can almost encompass the whole room, so you’ll need to be quick on your dodge that gives you a brief moment of invulnerability to pass through.
One of Cavity Busters’ unique features is the constant barrage of upgrades and diseases. As you progress and destroy enemies and clear rooms, you’ll come across upgrades that you can decide to take or not. If you’ve never picked up the upgrade before, it will appear as “unknown”, so you won’t know its effects. These can be both positive and negative, hence the upgrade and disease distinctions.
Upgrades are just that, giving you a number of positive effects, whereas diseases give negatives that hinder you in a number of ways. Do you take a really powerful upgrade that comes with a massive negative as well? Well, if you choose not to take these, the level ‘consumes’ it and your run becomes more challenging, so it’s a constant weighing of scaling difficulty. Sometimes taking a disease is a better tradeoff than a general overall increase of difficulty, other times the negative effect you get might be worse.
With dozens and dozens of upgrades and diseases, they are all unique, and even after hours of play I was still discovering "Unknowns". There’s a handful of different characters you can unlock as you progress as well, each playing vastly different from one another, so just as you think you’ve gotten everything mastered and figured out, playing as a new Gummy adds a completely new twist and challenge.
Normally I don’t dedicate a portion of my reviews to accessibility options, but developers SpaceMyFriend went above and beyond to make a challenging roguelite genre available to be fun and enjoyable for all skills. I do highly suggest playing with the default options and settings, but there’s plenty you can change to make things easier or harder depending on your preferences. Want to crank up your damage and instantly one-shot enemies, go for it. Want to start with a dozen hearts to get further, go right ahead. Want to instantly unlock basically everything and every character, that’s an option as well.
Sound effects are fitting for the gross setting, with plenty of goops and squishes, adding more to the tonality and humor of the game. If a tooth could somehow be shot and loop back to me, I have a feeling this is exactly how it would sound. The music fits the tone as well, even if it wasn’t a soundtrack that wasn’t terribly memorable. The hand drawn aesthetic is certainly gross, fitting given its setting, though at times it’s hard to enjoy and appreciate with how hectic, chaotic and quick paced it can be.
Full of puns, Cavity Busters certainly borrows heavily from The Binding of Isaac and Enter the Gungeon, yet does enough to make it stand out amongst others in the crowded genre. It’s chaotic, frantic, gross, and I enjoyed every minute of it once I was able to get over the learning curve and adjusting to the frenzied gameplay.
**Cavity Busters was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10



You are Honeydew, a diligent worker at the Eglantine Industries melon factory that gets up for work like any other day, only to find her best friend Cantaloupe is missing. It’s not like Cantaloupe to skip work and of course she worried about her best friend, so she sets off to find out where he might have went. Determined for the truth, she travels to the nearby town of Hog Town to ask around, only to be swept up in a spiraling mystery that will go deeper than you imagined.
Working at a melon factory, it becomes abundantly clear that there’s something off about the melons your company is using. They make a popular drink, now working on their latest 2.0 version, but why are melons illegal over in the neighboring Hog Town? If the police see you with melons, you’ll be thrown in jail, as they are illegal as any other drugs.
Hog Town is full of a number of interesting characters, and there’s even a mayoral election happening soon, with the front runner vowing to unban melons if elected. There’s a local gang, a Cheese Cult and other quirky characters you’ll meet along the way to find the truth of what happened to Cantaloupe. The majority of your objectives are simply fetch quests, going from person to person to find out what happened or gathering items from them, but the main story slowly plays out over the course of 4-5 hours.
You won’t be able to do this alone, so you’ll make some friends along the way to help you in your journey. Each character is written well and the overall narrative has a humorous tone. Characters have backstories and you want to know more about them, completing their quests simply to find out more. The writing is clever, has a good amount of puns, and never really takes itself seriously. It was hard not to smile throughout Honeydew’s journey to find her friend.
First and foremost, you might think that Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories was an original Game Boy game simply from its visuals, as it shares the same greenscale monochrome display and doesn’t even stretch out to the edges of the TV, but that was the style is was going for, much like the original game. Played in a top-down view like classic Pokemon, you’ll be exploring and talking to people to find out where you friend is and why melons are considered illegal.
Even though Bittersweet Memories is more akin to a visual novel than a ‘game’ at times, you still can explore the town, talk to people and even choose to fulfil sidequests for certain characters. I’ll admit, I thought it was initially very linear, but after having the credits roll and not completing about half of the side quests, it warrants another playthrough to see everything.
The walking speed is excruciatingly slow in the beginning but you’ll eventually get a pair of roller-skates to wear to help with this. There’s a lot of back and forth to talk to people, so this will help greatly once you lace them up. Hog Town isn’t large, but there’s a lot of talking to one person at one end, then another at the other end, so it feels larger than it actually is.
Not only do you want to talk to everyone you see more than once, but try interacting with objects as well. The humor throughout will surely get a chuckle out of you here and there, like when a dog was admiring a wonderful statue, only to be inspected and understand it’s a regular fire hydrant.
There’s no minigames, combat, puzzles or anything else really aside from figuring out who to talk to, which is why I feel it’s more like a visual novel more than anything else. Your time is spent walking around and interacting with NPC’s and objects until you find the right person and then have to go to the next. It may sound boring, but the 5 hours to complete flew by with how light hearted it was.
I wasn’t sure about my initial thoughts about the green tinted monochrome color palette, but the pixels had just enough detail to know what was being conveyed and what it was supposed to be. Looking as if it was an original Game Boy game surely brought back some nostalgia as I played through. The soundtrack is just as charming and wonderful as the story and adventure, with some jazz vibes and a few really catchy tunes. There’s some awkward transitions between scenes at times as the music changes abruptly, but nothing that was too distracting.
Full of subtle humor, I might not have laughed out loud but I surely chuckled a few times at the puns or situations, the ghost hamster being my favorite character of the bunch. While it’s a short adventure, it’s a memorable one. The world and characters are endearing and even though I’m usually not too interested in visual novels, Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories is charming and endearing, feeling like one in a melon.
**Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.2 / 10



Because I’m new to the series, I was wondering how much I was missing by not playing the original game. Thankfully Bendy and the Dark Revival is its own story where you don’t need to have played the original to know what’s going on, but series fans will certainly get more out of it being able to recognize certain characters return. I was quite surprised with how much of a Bioshock influence Bendy and the Dark Revival had, and it’s clear to see that’s where a lot of its inspiration comes from with its gameplay and themes.
You play as Audrey, an animator working late at Archgate Pictures who is working some overtime, simply getting up for a quick break to get some coffee. You come across Wilson, the janitor, and after a brief conversation and quick errand, you find yourself somehow now stuck in a new and mysterious world. Audrey is now in her studio, but in the ink world, and if you’ve played the original Bendy, you probably have an idea how this is going to play out.
Wilson appears to be the main antagonist, and Audrey will need to do what she can to simply survive if she ever wants to escape this cycle that he now apparently is ruling over. Surviving won’t be easy though, as not only will enemies be searching for you, but the dreaded Ink Demon is a sure and swift death if it finds you. What does Bendy have to do with all of this? Who is this other person trying to guide you? Many answers are to be found, unfortunately much of the story and background lore is hidden away in audio logs that you’ll find when exploring the environment and can easily be missed.
Played in first person, you’ll be exploring this creepy world with some survival and horror elements thrown in, complete with plenty of jump scares. The world appears like a vintage cartoon and you’ll need to solve puzzles, explore for hidden passageways, fight against inked enemies and use plenty of stealth to survive. Once you reach a point about halfway through the adventure, you’ll need to deal with the Ink Demon that relentlessly pursues you, forcing you to hide for a few moments until the coast is clear.
While there are some light puzzle elements, the majority of them are simply finding a particular item and then backtracking to unlock a door to finally be able to progress. A portion of the opening chapter will have heavy stealth elements, as you won’t initially have a weapon to defend yourself with, having to find hiding spots in lockers, in barrels and under crates. It’s not always clear how close you can get to these ink enemy before they notice or where exactly their cone of vision extends to, so it’s a bit of trial and error in the beginning. This is where the survival portion comes into play. You have a stamina meter you’ll need to manage for running, though it’s usually plenty enough to reach the next hiding spot if required.
Exploring the rooms and corridors, don’t be surprised if you become lost as there’s no map, so you’ll need to take good mental notes of where you’ve previously been and should be heading to. Sometimes you get a marker of where to go next, though this seemed to only be sporadic. Later on there’s a fast travel system that unlocks, but it’s not as useful as I’d hoped. Strewn all about each room and in desk drawers, lockers are barrels are items you can pick up and collect. This will be used to craft items later on, refilling your health or collecting money.
I was hoping that the crafting system would make for some interesting additions to the gameplay, but it’s quite basic. You can use your found materials to craft keys (Gent Cards) to open specific boxes or save them up to upgrade your Gent Wrench, your main and only weapon, though even with a few upgrades I didn’t feel much more powerful. Making cards seemed really not worth it, as there’s usually just more basic materials inside, but if you’ve been diligent at exploring and picking up things along the way, materials shouldn’t be much of an issue.
Oddly enough, all the food you find can’t be stored to be used later, simply eaten as you pick it up, so if you’re low on health you’ll need to play a little more cautiously until you can find some random sandwiches and other things tucked away. Sure, you could use your money to buy food, but health generally wasn’t an issue other than a few times where I had to fight multiple enemies at once, on the Easy setting at least.
Before you get your Gent Pipe you have no means to defend yourself, so you’ll have to do a bunch of stealth and sneaking portions to get past enemies. Once you do acquire your sole weapon you’re finally able to defend yourself, though you’ll quickly realize how clunky combat is in general. Having a simple pipe, you can swing at any of the ink enemies, though most take a few hits to defeat. It’s difficult to judge the distance you need and when to press the trigger to have it connect at the right time. Versus single enemies is usually no big deal, but there are many times you’ll need to face multiple at once, which is where it becomes more challenging since most areas are tight and confined hallways. This generally results in having to circle strafe and just swing away until everything is dead.
You do earn a few more abilities as you progress, the first being basically a one-hit kill backstab called “Banish”. If you crouch and sneak up behind an enemy that doesn’t notice you, you can instantly kill them with a special power that is imbued into your ink covered arm. The pipe as your weapon simply feels boring, even with the upgrades you can get later on. There are a couple bosses to fight along the way, breaking up the monotony, with the final boss the most interesting.
As mentioned above, even though you can fight off ink enemies once you get your Gent Pipe, the Ink Demon is a different story. You’re told that he is near, the screen dims and shakes, and that’s your cue to find a hiding spot right away, regardless of what you’re doing. Fail to do so and you’ll instantly die and have to try again. Even though it didn’t happen too often, it made me slow down and take notice of any hiding spots I passed by, knowing that’s where I’ll need to run to if this is the moment the Ink Demon decides to roam nearby. It’s weird simply getting a prompt to go hide rather than having to keep a lookout and listen on my own for it when exploring, reducing it to a simple ‘hide or die’.
Audrey will gain a few other abilities as her journey progresses, starting with the Banish explained above. While there’s a few, the one you’ll rely on most is "Flow", essentially a quick dash/teleport forward for a short distance. This can help you escape quickly, cross gaps or catch up to an enemy to sneak and Banish them.
While it might seem bland given the brown and tan sepia tone, it’s deliberate, as you’re stuck in this old style cartoon world of Bendy. The flowing ink and dark outlines make for a good contrast and animation overall is done quite well. Sure there’s a few weird glitches like enemies getting stuck in doorways, walking in place or being a bit stiff when turning, but overall I quite enjoyed the visual aesthetic of Bendy's world. As for the audio, the voice acting is done quite well actually across the board from all those that have lines, not just Audrey and Wilson. You’ll hear noises in the distance, unsure if it’s an enemy around the corner or not. The Ink Demon sounds terrifying and the intensely really ramps up in those few moments you need to find a hiding spot because of the audio alone.
I did enjoy the setting and the overall narrative, it’s just a shame a lot of the story is hidden away in collectable notes and audio logs, some of which will certainly be missed if you’re not exploring every corner of the world. Having never played Bendy and the Ink Machine and only knowing what my daughter told me about it, I was unsure how cohesive Bendy and the Dark Revival would be for a newcomer like myself. Thankfully knowledge or previous play experience is not required here. My main complaint is that the controls are simply too sensitive, even when turned down, as if it was clearly designed for a mouse and keyboard instead. So many times, even hours in, I found myself struggling to pick up an item because I couldn’t get the cursor in the exact spot needed.
While original Bendy fans will certainly get the most out of it, it was difficult to feel invested as a newcomer with the clunky combat and forced stealth sections. That said, the world is created quite well and has a great atmosphere, I just didn’t feel all that invested and become frustrated at times with the backtracking.
**Bendy and the Dark Revival was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10



God of Rock attempts to blend the melodic notes of a rhythm based music game fused with the excitement of a fighting game with 1 on 1 matches against a handful of opponents. You’re tasked with fighting to the beat, though the core gameplay is more that of a rhythm game with some fighting game move sets thrown in. A dozen playable characters, eight diverse stage backdrops and over forty songs should make for quite an interesting game.
As you pick one of the characters, they will have a brief storyboard narrative about themselves or some situation they find themselves in. Each character eventually gets invited to a sort of tournament where if they can get through the gamut of other challengers they’ll be able to face the mysterious God of Rock himself, which will grant their wish or desire if defeated in a musical battle. The writing for each character is very campy and brief, and even when you do finally defeat the God of Rock and get their ending, it’s nowhere near satisfying. I’m not expecting much of a narrative for a rhythm or fighting game, as that’s not what they are known for, but there’s really not all that much here for story at all.
Story mode is where you’ll probably be spending the majority of your time, picking your fighter of choice and battling your way through the tournament in hopes to defeat the titular God of Rock for a small story snippet of your character at the end. There are local and multiplayer options if you want to face off against a friend or foe in person or online. There’s a training mode to learn the basics and special moves, something I’d highly suggest going through each so you know how do not just hit the notes, but what all the meters mean and how to do your special moves, this is partly a fighting game remember.
If you want to try something really interesting, why not make your own tracks. While you can’t add your own music, you can design your own notes from scratch for the included soundtrack. The track editor allows you to finely tune how and where you want to place each note, lining up each exactly where you want. You can then try the songs out against others to see who the best really is. I’m sure those that used to make their own songs in Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero and other rhythm games will surely spend some time here creating some insanely difficult tracks.
God of Rock’s premise is simple, hitting notes to the beat while also throwing in some Street Fighter moves to eventually win the match once the opponent’s health is empty. The majority of your time will be watching the playfield where the notes come across to hit the notes, but you’ll be challenged not looking elsewhere to see the fighting or being distracted by the flashing lights. Songs will start out easily enough but quickly ramp up and be quite challenging, even on the easier difficulties.
There are a handful of characters to choose from, each with their own fighting moves and style, as well as a variety of different moves and specials. Some are more healing based while others are offensive, each are unique in design though. Some are designed with a fine line between tribute and parody, some clearly a knockoff of Elvis, Freddie Mercury and others, whereas some are more original in design. They all have a few one-liners before their matches that are cheesy, but such is par the course for fighting games, though the lip syncing that doesn't match well is a little of a distraction.
Now where you’ll need to keep most of your focus is the horizontal lanes where the notes come from the side into the middle where you’re supposed to hit the note with accuracy. Now, the vast majority of rhythm games are vertical scrolling, and for good reason. Here though, it’s horizontal and very challenging to learn and master.
You’ll also be using all four face buttons, each on their own horizontal lane. On simple songs this isn’t too much of an issue, but when songs become much more chaotic, it’s quite difficult to deal with the buttons laid out in that horizontal pattern when they are overlapped. The confusion does get easier over time, but it really didn’t ever feel natural, even after almost beating every single character’s playthrough. It becomes even more difficult when you have to combine button presses that aren’t beside each other on the controller, unable to do so with a single finger, like ‘X+B’.
You and your opponent have a health bar, as this is partly a fighting game, and every time you land notes on beat and use your special moves, it will slowly deplete their health. There’s some nuances though, as if you and your opponent perform the same move at the same time (notes are the same for both players) damage is negated, but that’s where the special moves come into play. While the note charting is decent overall, what’s interesting is that songs become more challenging the longer it goes on, so if it’s even match between you and your opponent, eventually the challenge will ramp up until one is left standing.
Landing normal moves to the beat slowly builds your Special and Ultra meters which can unleash higher powered moves. If your opponent does one of these special moves, you can unleash a higher tier move to override theirs, so there’s a constant push and pull of offense and defense, that is if you can remember the move list or manage to do so between the regular notes.
This is inherently where part of the problem lies, having to pull off fighting moves like Street Fighter (simple quarter and half circles ending with Right Trigger), but you need to do so in-between the regular notes. There are three tiers of moves, EX Moves and an Ultra, but trying to perform these while not trying to miss notes is near impossible if there’s not a quick downtown moment in the song. You can even perform reversals, but it’s all a matter of keeping track of what meters you have filled or not.
While the horizontal note scrolling is quite jarring and my biggest complaint, the other is the whole fighting game component. Trying to fit in fighting moves in-between note hitting is hard enough, but having the UI layout the way it is makes for another distraction. Your Special and Ultra meters are right above the note playfield, but your health bar is way at the top of the screen. This is part fighting game remember, so you need to keep track of the health bars. This means you need to take your eyes of the note lanes to glance away, which generally means missing some notes before you reorient yourself.
I was quite surprised that God of Rock had online multiplayer, as I didn’t expect it to from a smaller studio. There’s Quick Play and Ranked, and while I was able to find a few matches, it did take some time to find opponents. I highly suggest mastering the gameplay before going online, as you’ll lose quite handedly if unsure how the whole move tiers and reversals work.
Visually, God of Rock is quite appealing. The character designs are done quite well, as are the stages backgrounds, all with a flashy package. Fights are animated well, but the problem is just how flashy it all is, literally. Every time notes are matched from both players and blocked, there’s this bright flash on the screen, and when quicker paced songs are playing, you can imagine how distracting this is, and I didn’t see any options to disable or dampen them. There’s an odd lag once you defeat your enemy where the framerate drops for a moment, nothing that affects gameplay, yet another distraction.
For a music game, the audio and music is supposed to be what stands out the most, and while there’s a good variety of over 40 songs, there’s really none that stood out. There’s no vocals in the songs and there’s nothing licensed, and even after multiple playthroughs, there wasn’t a single song that was very memorable. I didn’t feel compelled to add any to my Spotify playlist, not that any were ‘bad’, but part of the problem is the audio mixing. By default you hear more of the fighting thuds and attacks instead of the music being the forefront. I had to turn up the music volume and other audio down just to enjoy it more.
God of Rock is an interesting title that blends the odd pairing of fighting and rhythm games, and while it may not always stick the landing due to its odd design choices, there’s some entertaining moments here and there. Even with online play and a track creator, it’s clear extra effort was made to have God of Rock be something special, even if it misses a few notes.
**God of Rock was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 5.3 / 10



While I expected something Contra-like from its name alone, the actual gameplay was a bit different. You of course have to platform from room to room, generally left to right, eventually reaching a boss and moving on, but there’s an integral dash component which allows you to cross gaps, avoid obstacles and even phase through enemies, but actually doing so accurately is quite challenging. The pixel art and soundtrack are done quite well, helping to qualm my frustrations, though not completely.
You play as one of the numerous chooseable members of the Conspiracy Squad. You’re taking part of some rescue mission in the middle of the Atacama Desert, well below the surface in a mechanized bunker. While there is an overarching story here, especially once you defeat the bosses and they ramble on and on, games like these you generally enjoy for the gameplay more than anything else. Basically everything in your way is going to try and kill you, so you must survive to progress and figure out what’s really going on, though those that want more will be happy to know each character has its own narrative.
There’s really not a lot you need to learn for its controls, as you can jump, shoot, special and dash, and once you begin after choosing your character, you’re thrown into a “tutorial”. I’m quoting “tutorial” and being facetious because it’s anything but a tutorial, and probably one of the worst ones I’ve experienced in recent memory. A tutorial is supposed to do just that, teach you the basics, making you comfortable with the controls and mechanics so that once you’re set free, you feel confident, enticing you to want to continue playing.
I restarted the game three times with different characters because I thought I did something wrong or the game was bugged. As you begin you’ll come across these signs which give you a clue of what the controls are. A say clue because it doesn’t outright tell you. For example, one sign will show that you can jump with a picture of your character, well, jumping. What button is it to actually do so? No idea, so you better start hitting random buttons to figure it out. The next sign indicates you can fire your weapon. Great, but again, no button prompt, simply a sign saying it’s possible. I’ve been gaming long enough that I of course figured it out, but it’s counterintuitive to what a tutorial is supposed to accomplish.
I was willing to overlook this until a few moments later I got to the dash portion. Dashing is an integral part of Guns N’ Runs’ gameplay, so naturally you would expect the game to teach you how to do so properly. Nope. Same sign showing that you can dash, but no button prompt or how to actually do so. I needed to reach a much higher platform by dashing and double jumping, but had no idea how to. I eventually figured it out on my own, but there’s even these small orbs that allow you to link your dashes together, but as you can guess, this wasn’t taught at all in the "tutorial".
Manage to figure out how to progress past the opening section and you’ll be brought to a map where you can choose from a number of different paths and levels, though I opted to finish level 1 before moving to 2, etc. With plenty of different roomed challenges to get through, there’s no shortage of challenge within, but sometimes it’s the level design or controls that have you failing and retrying from the last checkpoint. While the controls are simple on paper, actually traversing and dashing at the right time and correct direction can be frustrating at the best of times.
Now and then you’ll find a few power-ups, either changing your shot type for a brief amount of time or giving you a shield that protects you from a hit. Where my main issue comes from when the its combat is that you can only ever shoot horizontally, no aiming at an angle or upwards, so you always have to be in line of your enemies and bosses to actually hit them. Your dash will get you out of sticky situations quickly, and will be absolutely necessary to master if you want to progress, as it’s the only way you can cut across large gaps or phase through electric beams and attacks.
Each level is broken into a handful of rooms, kind of of like Mega Man, where you generally need to progress left to right to reach the next room. This starts out simple enough, but after a few bosses and you try the new levels, things get chaotic and challenging quite quickly. Even though it’s titled Guns N’ Runs, I’d say the majority of your time is slowly trying to platform accurately more than anything else. This usually means dying and trying the room again a few times before eventually progressing, but it’s much more slow and methodical than expected, as I thought it would be a quicker paced game.
Your dash is your primary move, and there are times where you need to be incredibly accurate or else you’ll fall or land in some spikes. With only five health bubbles, this certainly isn’t a lot given how precise your movements need to be at times. While you have a quick moment of invulnerability when you dash, if it’s not done at just the right moment, you could get damaged just as you enter or exit the dash, causing many deaths on boss fights when I thought I was going to be fine initially. This wouldn’t be so bad if the level design was interesting, but it’s generally a lot of the same with a few enemies to kill, as rooms won’t always unlock without them defeated. Things get much more challenging later with moving platforms and poison that drains your health almost instantly.
While you can gather special power-ups to fill your special meter, again, this isn’t really explained in the opening tutorial, so I didn’t really use it all that much, forgetting it was an option. Each character has a different and unique special, but it would have been a welcome addition to show what these do before committing to a certain character only to find you don’t like their move. I do wish there were other weapons to collect or gain along the way aside from the limited use ones that don’t appear often enough.
Bosses are easily the highlight of Guns N’ Runs, taking a few attempts to learn their patterns and best times to dash through to avoid their attacks. Some took me much longer than expected to defeat simply because of the forced horizontal shooting and having to line up my character to their weak spot. Most have you moving away to get some space, unloading a few rounds, dashing to safety and repeating on the other side of the room while avoiding their attacks. Sure it gets old fighting the same boss person each time, but at least he has a new machine and contraption each outing.
The retro pixel art is done quite well, looking like an older game but smooth framerates we’ve come to expect. Sure I had the odd framerate dip here and there, but nothing that detracted from the experience too badly. Each level has its own sort of tone and palette, almost like a biome and I enjoy the retro blocky aesthetic. The soundtrack was done quite well, full of guitar riffs and some good drum beats. The tempo matches the gameplay for the most part and never felt tiring hearing over and over when I was on my twentieth boss attempt.
Even though Guns N’ Runs is quite challenging, even on the Casual setting, the checkpoint system is quite generous, basically setting you back at the room you just died in to try once again. Die on bosses repeatedly and some shield and weapon power-ups will appear to try and give you just a slight edge so you can progress. Even with these aids, I still think it’s quite over-tuned for those looking for a casual difficulty, as it’s nowhere near that, especially the later stages and bosses (I’m looking at you robot spawning, missile firing boss). The fact that there’s a death counter should tell you a lot.
I do wish there was an auto fire option, as your thumbs will get quite sore in long play sessions from all the dashing and having to fire ever bullet manually. There is plenty of replay value with an achievement list that forces you to complete the game with each character and unlockable Survival and Danger modes as well, though I predict this will only be done by a select few trying to get the most value out of their purchase.
Don’t be fooled by the Casual difficulty setting, Guns N’ Runs is quite challenging and demands near perfection and quick reflexes to be successful and progress. While I struggled with the controls throughout, especially having to dash at specific angles or timing, there’s nothing inherently bad about Guns N’ Runs, it simply didn’t hook or excite me all that much.
**Guns N’ Runs was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10



The sport has grown enough to apparently warrant the video game adaptation, so here we are with ACL Pro Cornhole, aiming to recreate what it’s like to play as a pro in the ACL. Developed by FarSight Studios, there’s a surprising around of authenticity when it comes to the Pro players included, commentators, official bags and tournament recreations, but the question remains, is it actually fun to play? Well, that’s where there’s some cornfusion.
While there’s no formal career mode, you’re simply thrown into a Tournament without any tutorial or explanation of the sport. Choose your Pro player of choice from a small handful unlocked from the beginning and jump right into the game. It would have been a bit more interesting if you could create your player and work your way up from Amateur into the ACL Pro league, but there’s nothing like that here at all, and calling it a Career mode is a bit of a stretch as well.
While I could only assume that most purchasing ACL Pro Cornhole are generally going to be avid Cornhole fans and know the sport already, given how niche the sport is, some sort of rule explanations would have been helpful for newcomers. I’ll admit, I thought I knew the core rules for Cornhole, but turns out I really didn’t. Naturally once I started playing and not understanding the scoring system or terminology, I had to do some research online.
Now that I was caught up on the rules and scoring, I jumped right in figuring I’d be good to go to at least be somewhat competitive. Well, if there was any semblance of a tutorial maybe I would have been, but no, you’re simply thrown right into a match without any explanation of exactly how to play or given strategies. This is where I paused and went to the settings to see where the button mapping was so I at least had an idea of how to play.
No wonder I couldn’t figure out how to actually toss my bag, because you play your shots much like a golf game, pulling back on the Right Stick and then forward to determine your power and accuracy, and I use that term very loosely. Even if you get the meter exactly where you want, good luck if it actually tosses your bag where you want or does what you expect. You’re able to change the arc of your toss, as well as the angle of the bag and amount of spin, but none of this really matters given how unfair the CPU is with their shots.
Oh there are difficulty choices, but I can't tell any difference from Easy or Hard, as the CPU will simply destroy you every match regardless how you perform unless you can nail your Airmail’s (getting your bag directly into the hole) every single shot, as that’s what they tend to do quite often without any issue. You can choose to toss the bag the slick or sticky side down, and while it tends to make a minor difference, not as much as I thought it would.
While ACL Pro Cornhole boasts that you can play as 32 different top Pro’s, they need to be unlocked which is done via your levels you earn with XP from completing matches. It’ll be rare to win though, so this is painfully slow, so hopefully there’s no a Pro you have your heart dead set on playing early. While I think I only recognize one ACL player, fans should be happy to know that they are recognizable with their real pictures in place and look pretty much their real life counterparts in-game. Apparently they’ve been motion captured to recreate their actual skills and strategy as well.
Adding to the ACL authenticity is also having Trey Ryder and Bernie Nabors as your commentary crew, narrating what’s happening in the match and how poorly you just threw that last toss. There’s not a whole lot of variety in the lines recorded, as you’ll start to hear the same things over again quite quickly, though I do appreciate the effort that went into adding them, as there’s really not much in the way of background music that plays otherwise.
You’re able to also choose Quick Play matches, either 1v1 or 2v2, against the CPU or friends. Again, only against your friends will you have a chance at actually winning though, so best to play this for a while until you get the hang of how to play. As you do slowly and eventually level up, you can spend earned skill points to boost certain parameters like your slide, airmail, rolls and pushes, though even after a handful of point spent, I didn’t really notice much of a difference.
You can also choose from nine different official ACL bag manufacturers such as Local Bags, Lucky Bags Cornhole, Reynolds Bags, Slide-Rite Series, Ultra, Skill Shots Cornhole, Kontraband Athletics, BG Cornhole and Fire Cornhole. They have different colors and patterns and even stats, but again, even choosing the one with the best ‘sticky’ stat, I didn’t notice all that much of a difference.
Playing as your chosen Pro, you’ll unlock more as you level up, but I none of it really mattered given how cheap the CPU is constantly throwing airmail's nearly every shot. You can see a small "slick" or "sticky" side message where you aim, presumably to affect how the bag physics play out when landing on the board, but again, I didn’t find all that much of a difference. Also, it seemed to randomly change my shot type back to slick side even though I prefer sticky for some odd reason. And if you want to rotate your throwing angle or loft, there’s no quick reset to default, so I hope you remember what your preference is and your spin. You can even take a side step to get a slightly different angle on your tosses, but sometimes this defaulted back to my original starting point.
While there’s multiplayer available, unfortunately it’s not online and only local. You can play in singles or doubles, but for some reason whenever I’m paired with a CPU player, they seem to not make those amazing airmail shots every time like the opponents do, so you can’t even count on them reliably to help your team out in a doubles match. It’s frustrating to place a blocker only to have the CPU bypass them entirely every time with pinpoint accuracy, even on Easy.
While the setting of the ACL appears to be quite official with its layout, the markings around the arena and even down to the Johnsonville adverts slapped around everywhere, it certainly does look like Cornhole you’d watch on TV. Between matches I do wish there was something a bit more than staring at the blank arena for a few seconds as things reset, like maybe having the players go to get their bags, but there’s nothing like that. Even the limited crowd barely animates and multiple people are moving in unison, adding for a very empty feeling when playing.
ACL Pro Cornhole certainly looks and sounds like a match of Cornhole and has certainly recreated the sport, but getting consistently demolished by the near perfect CPU every single match only stays entertaining for so long. While it’s hard to recommend outside of the diehard Cornhole fans, those that enjoy the niche sport will surely find some entertainment here, even if the game is trying to constantly setup blockers to prevent you winning.
**ACL Pro Cornhole was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 4.7 / 10



You are a part of the hive-mind, a small portion of a larger being, dropped on a mysterious planet as a pretty simple blob, searching for a new home. As you defeat a few small enemies and grow in size, you find your first skull, giving you a ‘body’ so to speak with a number of arms/tentacles. As you seek out these skulls you also gain their knowledge and consciousness, tapping into their memories as you reach specific areas.
As you piece together what happened on this planet and figuring out if it’s going to be a viable home, there’s not too much story aside from finding pieces of comic book pages scattered throughout, giving you small snippets of backstory lore, though only if you manage to collect them. There may be something more sinister on this seemingly desolate planet though, a secret buried that you uncover as you collect more skulls and information.
Being a Metroidvania, the setup is as you’d expect. You begin without any real abilities, eventually reaching areas that are inaccessible until you have some way to get passed or reached. This happens often, usually finding a ledge or something higher up you don’t know how to get to, or a large gap where your jump can’t get across. In most cases, if you’re able to continue progressing, that’s probably the way you want to go, as it most likely has a boss at the end that will give you a new upgrade once defeated (by wearing their skull), allowing you to unearth a new area to explore. This of course causes a lot of backtracking, a normal part of the genre, though there are a few warp points strewn about if you’re able to find them.
As you explore each area and biome that varies, you’ll have plenty of pathways to search for a number of hidden secrets and collectables. Each area has its own distinct style with a boss that guards it at the end. Given how short the runtime is, at just a handful of hours for an experienced player of the genre, I won’t spoil much of the surprises, but I enjoyed the first area the most, the Ratqueen Gardens. As you complete areas and gain new abilities, you’ll see on the map how interconnected the world is.
Controls are tight and responsive, as much of what you’ll be doing is platforming from area to area, and even in the moments where I had to move and hide from enemy fire, I never felt like I could blame the controls when I inevitably failed, even in the frustrating chase sequence later on. Being able to walk along the walls once you beat the first boss opens up a lot of the map to be explored, but that’s only one ability you’ll gain along the way.
As you get new skulls from bosses and new abilities, the map feels larger as you can explore it more. Even though it’s not a massive map, it does feel quite large and you can certainly expect a lot of backtracking as you figure out where to go next. Thankfully there’s a map you can reference, but it doesn’t let you zoom in as much as I’d like, so sometimes it was a guessing game of the pathway I intended to take versus what I actually did. I did end up lost every now and then, or finding a new pathway I couldn’t quite get to yet because I didn’t have a certain ability, like the dash. While there’s not really a set path you go to and from, it is designed in a way that is somewhat linear when you factor in the abilities needed to reach.
The later levels do get quite challenging, especially when you’re in near complete darkness or being chased. Thankfully you do have a way to heal yourself, able to refill one of your health bars after a set amount of time. Even so, you don’t have a large health pool, so you always do need to be cautious since you can only take a few hits before dying and restarting at your last checkpoint. These checkpoints can be found throughout each area, though you’ll need to spend a little of your earned currency from defeating enemies to unlock them. I never really found myself short to not be able to afford one, but if you skip too many enemies you may not be able to unlock it.
Each new ability is gained after you defeat one of the bosses and take their skull as your trophy reward. You not only gain abilities to walk on walls and dash, but can even swing around and shoot laser beams. A unique way they also distinguish themselves is that they each also have a different amount of slots for mutations.
Mutations are further ways to customize your Zapling to play how you want. Maybe you want to attack slower but hit harder, or vice versa, there’s plenty of these mutations to unlock that allows for a bit more freedom to how you play. Each of these mutations though are assigned a special shape (triangle, square, circle, etc for example) and you’ll need to make sure your skull you wear can equip that mutation shape. There’s also of course a limit to how many mutations you can equip, so you might need to use a skull you don’t necessarily want to, but because it has the mutation slots you want to use, you’ll have to.
The pixel aesthetic is done quite well, a retro feel but definitely smooth and modern as well. Each new skull does change how it appears on your Zapling, and every biome certainly has its own feel and look as well. Music suits the mood, rising and lowering when needed, especially during boss fights, though there isn’t a lot of varied sound effects throughout.
While not overly difficult until the later chase section and boss fights, there’s just the right amount of challenge. Your first playthrough will probably take around six hours or so, more if you want to find every secret. While it didn’t grip me as much as I expected, it certainly has charm to it and definitely worth the play if you’ve been craving a new Metroidvania to check out.
**Zapling Bygone was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10



You see, “back in the day” there were buildings you went to that housed dozens of different arcade cabinets and pinball machines that were usually only found there. Home consoles like the Atari, NES and other classics did exist of course, but it’s not like it was now where it was much more common. Games in the arcade were built to be played one quarter at a time. There's something special about pulling off a Mortal Kombat fatality in front of a watching crowd because you knew the secret button combination to do so. Having to place your quarter on the screen like a line queue, waiting for your turn to probably lose to the guy on Street Fighter II that seems to be undefeatable was always an anxious and exciting time.
You are Mac McCormick, a gaming prodigy who was an arcade champion as a kid, but like all things in life, sometimes your past is just memories. Once known as a gaming champion, Mac still lives at home many years later and needs to find a job before he gets kicked out. Of course he finds himself wandering the local gaming center, Castle’s Arcade, and with that simply asks the owner for a job. He can’t just give the job to anyone though, so you need to prove that you can play games; quite the application if I say so myself.
Of course, being an arcade champion, even though he doesn’t play anymore and left that life behind him, he obliges and reaches level 5 on a game with his first try. This impresses the owner and now you’re a working employee at Castle’s Arcade. The landlord of the place though is ruthless and wants to take over the arcade to turn it into a NFT (because that’s totally how it works). This landlord, Jimmy Joysticks, does what anyone would do; initiate a hostile takeover by sending members of his arcade gang to prove they are the best players around. So it’s up to you to defeat them in their game of choice and once again become the King of The Arcade once more. This of course starts with a training montage that any classic gamer will recognize hilarious nods to.
It’s a silly and asinine premise but still put a smile on my face. You simply only need to defeat each goon at their game of choice, and once all have been defeated, you ‘win’ and save the arcade. The campaign/story won’t take very long, maybe a half hour at most depending on your random arcade gaming skills, but being able to play the 40 or so games afterwards is what will entice you to keep playing.
Setup just like a classic arcade back in the 80’s, you can roam around the different rooms that are filled with different gaming cabinets to freeplay play as you wish. With about 40 games to play, you can expect class inspired games from all different genres and eras. Now I say “classic inspired” purposely, as you aren’t playing the actual and official games, but instead a nostalgic indie attempt at recreating some of the classics. For example, you must first reach level 5 at Retro Invaders to get the job at the arcade, clearly a remaking of Space Invaders. Nearly every game seems to be a parody or recreation of a classic title, so don’t expect anywhere near the same quality or polish, but that’s where some of the charm comes from.
To play any of the games you simply walk up to it and hold ‘X’ to start the machine. A quick moment of loading later and you can play as much as you want. While not explained initially, you need to press the menu button to pause and then can exit from there to get back to the arcade and wander as Mac. You can play a variety of games from all different genres, from classics like Space Invaders, to racing games, pinball, Frogger and even Whack-A-Mole. Standing in front of a machine will tell you if it’s 1 or 2 players and if there’s an online leaderboard as well. Sometimes you need to be standing at just the right angle to get the prompt to appear, but you get used to it quickly.
With about 40 games to play, I won’t list them all, but there’s a handful of standouts that I enjoyed playing more than a few times:
- After School Beatdown (Streets of Rage). 2 players.
- Scary Clown Pinball. 1 player.
- Retro Invaders (Space Invaders). 2 players and Leaderboards.
- Tire King (The original Donkey Kong). 1 player.
- Goal (Pong, but a soccer template). 2 players.
- Chatter Man (Pac-Man but you’re a pair of chattering teeth). 1 player.
- High Speed Racing (Gran Turismo but with Porches, 2 laps and terrible physics) 1 player.
- Button Masher (Whack-A-Mole). 1 player and Leaderboards.
- Space Ravager (Space Harrier). 1 player and Leaderboards.
- Virtual Enforcement (Virtua Cop/Lethal Enforcers). 2 players.
- Sidewalk Fighter 2 (Street Fighter 2 but with horrible controls). 2 players.
- Retro Driver (Outrun with terrible controls too). 1 player.
- Music Game (Dance Dance Revolution yet has a Pump It Up pad and only 1 song). 1 player.
- City Brawler (Classic Tiger Electronics handheld). 1 player.
There’s a number of other games, as I don’t want to spoil all of the surprises given how short the experience is. There’s a Claw Machine, a Jukebox where you can play a number of different and surprisingly decent tunes (but sadly can only play a single song at a time instead of a playlist), and even a console sitting in the back room that resembles an Xbox 360 and houses a handful of other games on there as well for a single player.
For how dated and low poly everything and everyone looks, it has a certain charm to it. I was instantly reminded of how King of The Arcade looks exactly like the music video for Dire Straits - Money For Nothing. Everything aesthetically screams ‘indie’, even each game, and that’s fine. The audio is about the same, with Mac having either a really odd monotone voice or is created with text-to-speech, it was hard to tell. You’re playing this for the nostalgic games more than the visuals and voice acting, so it can get a pass. Each of the games made me think of how they would probably look if I was to try and remake classic games from my childhood without knowing how to actually code or do so. I don’t mean that as an insult at all, I really don’t, as I find it kind of endearing if anything.
Priced at under ten bucks, it’s hard to not find some nostalgic enjoyment within, even if the knockoff games aren’t quite the exact classic games you remember playing decades ago. While the story is a very brief jaunt, you’ll no doubt want to come back now and then for one or two of your favorites, though I wish every game had the Leaderboards to entice more plays and virtual quarters.
**King of The Arcade was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10



While there’s no real story aside from creating a successful and profitable airport, you can do this in one of two modes: Career or Sandbox. Career Mode essentially challenges you with creating a profitable airport but with extremely limited resources. This mode is quite challenging, as even the smallest mistake in the early game can be quite disastrous. I suggest playing in Sandbox Mode initially until you feel much more comfortable in the early to mid-game, as you can turn off any limitations, have unlimited money, instantly build and more. The lack of any restrictions is a much smoother experience when struggling with learning the confusing controls, but more on that shortly.
Don’t let the simplistic 2D visuals fool you, SimAirport is probably one of the most complex and in depth management sims out there. You might think that there’s not all that much to plan for an airport, but you’d be wrong. Played in a top-down view, you’ll begin with a number of tutorials that show you the core principles and basics of the game. Broken into a handful of separate tutorials, you’ll be shown how to get your basic airport setup, eventually teaching the more in-depth portions like scheduling flights, negotiating with airlines, heat maps, creating runways and more.
This is where your initial frustrations will start to surface. The tutorials themselves are perfectly fine and explain what you need to do, but keep in mind SimAirport was initially a PC game now being ported to console, so all of the keyboard and mouse controls had to be mapped to a controller. Some sim games have figured out how to do this wonderfully, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition for example, but sadly the same can’t be said here.
To the point, the controls are absolutely terrible. Sure you get used to it after some time of struggling constantly, but it never feels natural. Being a sim management game, you’ll be neck deep in menus almost constantly. Some menus require you to press ‘A’ while others ‘Right Trigger’. How are you supposed to know which? Good luck; it’ll either just work or won’t. The same goes for even navigating the menus, as you need to use the D-Pad on some and the Left Stick on others. Even hours in I was constantly pressing wrong buttons or going to the wrong menus. I’m sure the same frustrations weren’t the same on PC, but on console it’s a serious hindrance that needs to be seriously looked at.
If you’re the type of sim player that enjoys analyzing data and looking at graphs to determine the best course of action, SimAirport has you covered. You’re given so much information, to the point of being completely overwhelming. And I’ll be honest, much of it went over my head. There’s so much you need to do and concentrate on simultaneously that I sometimes didn’t know where to start. I simply followed the order my tutorials showed me but constantly felt like I wasn’t being efficient enough and forgetting something when designing my airport.
An airport is much more than simply a building where you go to get on a plane. You need to think of customer service, walkways, restrooms, garbage bins, staffing, baggage claim, line queues, order purchasing, security, sales, executives and a handful of other things that seems to be escaping me at the moment. That’s exactly what I’m talking about when you have to constantly be aware of what you need and how to even go about doing so without trying to become overwhelmed or confused.
You’re able to choose to start with a basic airport already constructed which you can build and expand to, or start completely from scratch, regardless of which mode you play. I do suggest playing with the basic airport already built to learn how to best get early game setup, as you’ll be struggling early on with how to place proper zones, walls and expand areas. Constructing new areas, walls and placing objects requires workers, which in turn goes into your payroll. You’ll also need ticketing staff, security, chefs, retail workers and more. All of these aspects need to be weighed and factored into your decisions, as even over hiring can cause you money issues early on if you have workers standing around doing nothing but getting paid. Construction takes materials and has costs, and finances plays a large part of running a successful airport, so it’s almost always top of mind. You’ll need to watch your cash flow, as you’re going to have to budget to hire the staff, build runways, gates, retail stores, vehicles, purchase fuel and much more.
Again, I highly suggest starting out your first few airports in Sandbox Mode with unlimited money just so you can get a feel for how to best layout the airport of your dreams without having to worry about running out of cash. Getting the basics setup isn’t too difficult aside from struggling with the controls, but once you need to start ordering fuel, adding separate runways, scheduling staff, fuel lines and adding a baggage handling system that runs underground, then it’s a whole other level of confusion. There’s plenty here for those that want an incredibly deep simulator, but casual fans will surely feel lost much of the time.
As you start to slowly expand your airport, you’ll probably be excited to see passengers start to flow in for your first few flights, but as demand goes up, so do customer expectations. Having enough facilities for your airport to handle a hundred travelers isn’t too big of a deal, but soon as you start getting into many more thousands, it’s a whole different struggle trying to keep them all satisfied. Do you have enough waiting areas? Are the line queues getting out of hand? Are customers tired and upset because of the long walk from one gate to another? Are there even enough snack machines, retail options and garbage bins around? Are the big spenders happy with a first class lounge? You need to think of all the questions and frustrations you had if you’ve ever gone through a major airport before and ask yourself the same.
As you expand and learn how to play better, the map doesn’t just expand when you purchase land to extend your borders, but you’ll once again feel that overwhelming frustration when you want to start building up onto higher levels. This of course adds completely new challenge and logistical nightmares, and don’t even get me started on the baggage handling lines. I highly suggest when you start to expand to do so slowly. Learn how adding one more shop or room will affect the bigger picture before making a rookie mistake I did by adding 4 more runways and a bunch more gates, only to realize there’s a lot of steps required to make each work with one another, not even factoring in the astronomical costs associated.
After you’ve figured out how to best have your airport operations, you’ll then need to tweak and optimize to make it the most efficient and profitable it can be. This is easier said than done, and sometimes a small change can turn into a large ordeal. Even something as simple as watching fuel prices and deciding to sell excess when prices are high can be a way to earn some cash flow if needed. Even luring new airlines to use your airport might be a challenge, as they’ll have requirements before signing a contract, but you can of course try to negotiate more on your terms.
Visually, SimAirport isn’t too much to look at. The top down perspective makes sense given it’s more of a planning and management game, but all the objects and people are quite simplistic looking, done in 2D. There was no slowdown, even when I had thousands of people all around my airport, but there’s really not all that much to look at. As for the audio, there’s practically nothing to mention. I expected some light elevator music or something to play in the background, but there’s just... nothing. There’s some light sound effects when workers are doing some construction and some minor things, but the lack of any music really made the airport feel dead. Put on some of your best Spotify playlists in the background as you won’t be missing a single thing since there’s essentially no audio.
SimAirport isn’t easy by any means. The learning curve is almost a sheer cliff, though that’s more due to the terrible controls of porting from its PC origins. With better controls I probably wouldn’t have had as many frustrations, but even hours in I was still struggling and constantly having to remind myself which buttons to use in different menus. The $25.99 CAD price point may deter some if you were judging solely based on its screenshots, but there’s an immensely deep management sim underneath if you can spend the time to figure it out how to best develop your dream airport, down to the smallest details, just be aware of the frustrating controls.
**SimAirport was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10



With games in this genre you’re generally playing for its gameplay, not so much the narrative. While there is a story here that revolves something around how mutants are taking over the planet where it’s now “the law of a jungle”, being led by “The Boss”. Of course there are a few that are willing to try and stop this from happening, beating up everyone in their way.
You have the choice of three initial characters: Gal, a quick and agile martial artist who favors her speed and aerial combos rather than strength. Being quite quick, she was easily my favorite of the group, and if she reminds you of Blaze from Streets of Rage you’re not alone. Next is Ricardo, a Mike Haggar clone, though he’s a minotaur instead of human. Being huge and absolutely ripped, he’s got the power and strength, but he’s so slow I found it quite difficult to play as him. Lastly is F. Norris, a ninja who sits somewhere in the middle for power and agility. He has some cool combos but I found it difficult to get myself out of sticky situations with him compared to Gal.
While most Beat’em Up games simply have you moving from the left side of the screen to the right to clear enemies in the way, you’re sometimes given options to go in a different direction, opening up multiple endings based on your decisions. Thankfully you’re also able to fully skip or fast forward cutscenes if you’re simply going through for another run or speed running.
If you’ve played any Beat’em Up in the past, you’ll be very aware of the general setup of walking to an area, defeating all your enemies until allowed to progress forward, clearing that area and repeat until you reach a boss at the end. While the core design isn’t all that different here, it certainly brings back some nostalgia to a time when the genre was much more popular.
While ‘easy to play, hard to master’ is a bit cliché to describe its gameplay, it’s absolutely true. Sure you might get through a good portion of the game by simply spamming the attack button, you’ll eventually hit a wall and be unable to progress if you don’t learn all of the other combat mechanics. Fight’N Rage is actually much more difficult than I expected, so it will take some time to learn how best to fight each type of enemy.
Also like most classic Beam’em Ups, you’ll replenish your health by smashing barrels and finding food on the ground like apples that replenishes a small amount and roast turkey which is best saved when critically low on health as it refills it completely. Some enemies will also drop weapons like a throwing knife, ninja star, a pipe or even a sword to help you get a few extra hits on your enemies.
While most Beat’em Ups are challenging, many utilize unlimited continues so that you can progress, and while Fight’N Rage is no different in allowing unlimited continues, there’s a few caveats to that that absolutely infuriate me. When you ultimately die and lose all your lives, you’re able to continue, but instead of just restarting where you just died with a new set of lives and freshly filled health bar, you are sent back to your last checkpoint, generally the start of the section or level. Sometimes this isn’t too bad and you only need to fight through a few groups of enemies to get back to where you originally died, but there are a few sections that stood out and were incredibly frustrating.
One of the last portions of a specific level has you fighting on a very small raft where you need to fight waves of almost every single enemy you’ve encountered to that point. The problem is that when you inevitably fall off the raft into the water, you lose a good portion of your health. Sure it’s great that you can knock off enemies into the water to instantly kill them, but you’ll no doubt lose a lot of health or lives here. Even worse, the last section of this is a boss fight, and if you die during that battle, you guessed it, you’re doing the whole section all over again.
There’s another section at the very end before the final boss that again, once I died, I had to fight the room of enemies in the previous room before being able to try the boss once more. The problem here is that there are a few enemies that are so overly challenging that it loses all its fun when you’ve already lost a few lives before clearing the room and attempting the boss once again. And yup, when you continue you’ll have to fight the Dobermans that have invulnerability moments and can easily stunlock you. Even on Easy mode, getting through the campaign was a challenge, but more on the difficulty options shortly.
While there’s really only three buttons you need to worry about (attack, jump and special), there are some different combinations of moves and attacks based on your chosen character. Spamming attack will work in the beginning against the basic enemies, but the ones in the latter portions will require a bit more strategy to defeat. You can grab enemies and toss them into others to group them all up and attack multiple at once, also able to utilize dashes and jump attacks.
Like most in the genre, there’s also a special move that you can use, but there’s a downfall to this as well. You have a Special Meter (SP) that refills over time, able to be used for a ‘free’ powerful attack, usually best saved until you’re in trouble or surrounded. If you want to use your special attack when the SP meter isn’t full though, you can do so but at the cost of a small portion of health. Remember all the continue issues I listed above? That means you’ll basically never want to use it for fear of dying and having to redo a section all over again. Food for health refills weren’t rare, but certainly not plentiful enough to actually want to use my specials.
There is a parry system in place, but it’s not explained very well initially and I found it quite difficult to pull off properly. In most sidescrolling Beat’em Ups like this, you simply move out of the line of attack from an enemy, which is certainly an option here, but you’re often surrounded by enemies so you’ll usually just walk into a different attack if so. Parries allow you to negate some of the damage, but having to press away from the enemy as the hit lands much of the time simply had me now facing the wrong direction.
You know what would have been appreciated? A Tutorial or Training mode. Much to my surprise, there actually IS a Training Mode, but it’s locked away initially. Yeah, I don’t understand that logic either. The more you play the more coins you earn based on your score. These coins are then used to unlock a number of different things from playable enemies, modes, costumes and yes, a Training Mode. You have to play the game a bunch to earn enough coins to hopefully go explore the unlockables section and then find there’s a Training Mode. This mode teaches you how to properly play each character, their moves and combos, and even earn new belts as you pass each tutorial. Good luck actually getting the Black Belt unlock due to the 60 second timer though, but it’s something to strive for. If the Training Mode was available initially, I probably wouldn’t have had as much frustration as I did in the beginning.
New character costumes are generally pallet swaps, but there’s plenty more to unlock, even an Easy Mode. Yes, you have to play and die on Normal to earn enough coins to unlock an easier mode, which is still challenging at times. The problem is that even a full run doesn’t earn you a lot of coins, so you’re going to have to play through numerous times if you want to actually unlock everything Fight’N Rage has to offer. Unlocking enemy characters to play as in VS Mode is fun, as here you can have 1v1 matches against a friend or even watch the CPU only battles.
While you can certainly play solo, it’s quite challenging on your own, especially in the later stages. Thankfully there is local 3 player co-op available, but sadly online play isn’t an option. I hope you have friends or family to play with, as solo did eventually become frustrating and repetitive, and if you want to really have some arguments with your co-op partners you can toggle the optional friendly fire as well. Manage to beat the game on Normal or Hard and you can actually unlock CPU partners to play alongside in co-op as well, again, an option that should have been a default.
With smooth framerates and 120FPS support, Fight’N Rage certainly looks good with its pixel art. Sure you can opt to turn on a bunch of classic filters like CRT mode, scanlines and more, but it’s smooth regardless and I never had any hiccups or slowdown. Animations are well done, enemy designs are done well (even if repeated quite often) and each backdrop is unique as you fight through it. The only thing that I found questionable was how overtly sexual some of the women designs were, even the pose Gal has when choosing her. The soundtrack is exceptional, full of dozens of rock tracks from Gonzalo Varela, and hearing your enemies explode from a full combo is always satisfying.
Fight’N Rage may initially look like any other Beat’em Up brawler out there if you judged it solely on some screenshots, but for a solo developer, it’s quite impressive. That said, Fight’N Rage is incredibly challenging and I question some of the design choices for being unlockables instead of default options. No online co-op is a bummer, but if you have friends and family to play with on the same couch there’s some fun to be had. I missed Fight’N Rage the first time, but this is the best version to check it out if you've never heard of it before like myself.
**Fight'N Rage (Series X|S) was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10



You play as Kate Ward, a scientist member of SCAR (Sentient Contact Assessment and Response) who is a part of a highly specialized group of people tasked with investigating and trying to communicate with a massive and mysterious object that appeared nearby Earth’s orbit. Humans call it The Metahedron, a massive upside down pyramid-like structure that simply appeared one day. Naturally, when a strange alien structure appears, we can only assume the worst, so the SCAR team is sent to investigate and attempt contact.
Like most times when we mess with things we don’t understand, this awakens the Metahedron and Dr. Kate Ward suddenly wakes up alone on a mysterious planet that is nothing like Earth, unsure where her team went. Being a scientist and not a soldier, Kate will need to use her scientific brain to try to piece what has happened and where her team is, but that doesn’t mean she won’t have to fight, quite the opposite actually.
As events unfold and you learn more about the planet, the hostile creatures and more, you’re guided by a ghost-like figure that speaks to you requesting help. Who is guiding you and how? As Kate analyses her environment, she will become more adept at learning enemy weak spots, crafting new gadgets, how to survive in harsh areas and more. It’s honestly quite an interesting story that hooked me from its opening cutscene, and while it does dip here and there, getting to the next story piece and cutscene is what pushed me to further figure out who and what The Custodian is.
Played as a third person shooter, while Kate isn’t particularly well trained in combat given she’s a scientist first and foremost, she will need to do everything she can to survive, and that includes a whole bunch of shooting. There are three difficulty settings, and even on Normal it can be a bit of a challenge for your first playthrough as you figure out the mechanics and best way to handle each enemy type. While not quite as difficult as a Souls game, there is challenge at figuring out the best strategies and weapon combinations.
As you explore the alien landscape and come across beasts you’ve never seen before, you’ll need to be quick on your feet to survive if you want to find out what has happened to the ancient civilization that was here once before. As you progress you’ll explore completely different and unique biomes, each with their own challenges, such as literally freezing to death in open sections if you don’t have fire nearby to keep warm. While the main design is pretty linear, there are some branching paths that loop back around, usually housing some secrets and collectables that will make the detour worth it.
The opening tutorial will teach you the core basics of melee and maneuvering, slowly introducing you to its other mechanics as you gain new weapon types, gadgets and abilities. While not trying to replicate a Soulslike too obviously, there are some similar features such as managing your stamina for running and dodging as well as the save points. There are large crystals strewn about the alien landscape for you to discover, acting as a save point and refilling all your health and gadgets, but this in turn also resets all enemies. Sound familiar?
While Kate only starts out with a simple blade, it’ll be your last resort to defend yourself should you run out of ammo during your adventure. The vast majority of the time though you’ll be using your unique weapon that can utilize different elemental attacks as you unlock them throughout your journey. Combat itself isn’t overly complex, as you simply need to know where an enemy weak point is and what element is best used against them. Obviously the bigger and badder foes will add more challenge, like protecting the weak spot in their chest as they rush you, but there’s always a strategy that will work somewhat easily once you figure it out.
There’s also some Bioshock-like gameplay where the different elementals can combine for extra damage. For example, use your electricity shots to an enemy that is standing in water and it’ll take massive damage. Or maybe you want to slow them down, so you use your ice shots when they are in the water instead. Combining fire and acid are another lethal combination, so the initial challenge comes from not only knowing what weakness your enemy has (thankfully the color coded glowing spots on their body is an indicator) but also the best way to use the environment around you.
You’ll eventually have to manage four different ammunition types of fire, electricity, ice and acid, and while ammo isn’t necessarily scarce, it’s not abundant either. Certain flora around the world act as ways to refill your ammo, such as electricity or fire plants. On top of the different weapon types, you’ll also unlock new gadgets at a steady pace as you explore the mysterious and dangerous world you find yourself trapped on.
These gadgets can be useful in the right situation, but I found myself constantly forgetting to use them quite often. The two I found most useful was the shield that allows you to absorb some incoming damage for a short time, always helpful when fighting new enemies and bosses, and a grenade-like tossable item that slows down enemies as they pass through it, allowing you to escape or get around to target weak spots. These gadgets use portions of your battery, its own resource, but can be filled by finding Fiber around the world or of course resting at one of the crystals.
Scars Above does have some light puzzle elements as well, but nothing really all that challenging or had me becoming stumped. Some are shooting specific points with the right type of weapon and others will be researching items to find more information about it, focusing on specific points of the device and clicking 'A'.
Kate is a scientist, so naturally she’s going to want to research and investigate any new objects and creatures she comes across. This not only gives you more information about your enemies and surroundings, but finding more knowledge is how you’ll earn new ability points. Scars Above doesn’t use the typical ‘souls’ currency for defeating enemies. Actually, you get really nothing for defeating enemies, instead having a more exploration focus to find more knowledge. This encourages you to explore off the main path, almost always having something for your troubles. As you fill the knowledge meter you’ll eventually earn skill points to use for a variety of different skills and perks. Don’t worry though, before the end you’ll not only max out your skill tree but probably have a handful of leftover points as well.
Keeping in mind that Scars Above isn’t a AAA release at a full asking price, the visuals can be impressive at times. The world Kate finds herself abandoned on are quite beautiful at times, no doubt that will entice you for some vista screenshots. Enemies are designed quite well, though there isn’t a whole lot of variety, instead being recycled quite often and simply changing their weakness to be ‘different’, though the boss fights certainly stand out. Characters are modeled decently and my only real complaint here is that every cutscene stutters quite harshly for its first few seconds, even on an Xbox Series X.
As for its audio, the background soundtrack sets the tone based on the biome you’re exploring or kicks in a bit more when you’re taking on a massive boss. You’re able to hear the bulkier enemies coming from afar as their foot stomps get louder as they approach, and the main characters do a decent job at delivering their lines, so no real complains there.
I did quite enjoy the narrative from its opening moments and was compelling me to continue to move forward, even if combat could be a bit challenging and save points sometimes a bit too far stretched out, causing frustration when I had to replay a good half hour all over again. Combat does get repetitive and tiresome over time, but as an overall package, Scars Above feels like a much larger story wrapped in a AA package.
**Scars Above was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 6.8 / 10



Stepping into the world of Supercross can be daunting if you’re not already a fan of the sport, thankfully this is where your personal coach will come in, guiding you along the way. And what better coach to have than the iconic Jeremy McGrath, a legend of the sport who has won over 70 SX main events and 7 SX Championships. He will take you through the training events to learn how to win races and impress crowds with your tricks, hopefully resulting in a podium finish.
Almost an exact copy of last year’s entry, you’re able to start out working your way up the ranks from 250CC up to the 450 class. Begin with the ‘Future’ class, starting out with 250CC Championships and finding your first sponsors along the way. From there you graduate to ‘Rookie’, working towards winning those 250 Championships and being introduced to the Rider Shape mechanics, Training Sessions and Challenges. Finally when you’re ready to compete with the big boys, ‘Pro’ has you challenging famous names of the sport all fighting for the 450 Championship, maybe even finding a few rivals along the way.
With a virtually identical career progression as last year’s game, Pro level has 17 live events to compete in, with the lower classes a few less. While it’s great they’ve included iconic tracks, teams, bikes, and riders, if you’ve played the last game, it’s going to feel all too familiar.
If you’re a competitive player, there’s essentially four different modes for you to play. Career is probably where you’ll spend the majority of your time, working your way up the ladder for those coveted Championships. Time Attack is for those that want bragging rights to be the best in the world, constantly trying to save a second or two to climb those leaderboards. Championship Mode lets you choose whatever cup you want to compete for then challenge a friend or play by yourself. Lastly is Single Event where you can setup a single race with almost any parameters you wish.
For those that don’t want to focus on the competitiveness as much, there’s also a few modes here for you as well to simply have fun or improve your skills. Supercross Academy is essentially your tutorial zone where you’ll learn the ins and outs of racing so you can improve your skills and climb the rankings. Supercross Park is your free roam area where you can freely ride around do whatever you like. It’s split into a number of different zones, complete with motocross tracks, SX sections, ramps, jumps and collectables and more. You’re able to ride along here to explore, or invite some friends for some company.
The most interesting addition to this year’s entry though is Rhythm Attack. Here it’s you versus another rider head to head. The catch is that it’s simply a long straight section without any turns, so how you’ll manage the bumps and jumps is going to be key when racing side by side for the first to be across the finish line. Think of it like a drag race, but trickier, as you’ll need skill and speed to win. Single eliminations competition makes for some actual fun events, complete with split screen for local play.
Some of the marketing touts that Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame 6 has revised physics and AI, supposedly resulting in more realistic animations depending on the type of terrain. While the bikes do feel a little heavier this year, there’s still some questionable physics. If you manage to land on top of another rider, you do this weird floating before landing back onto solid ground. Brakes also seem to not work as well this year, as I could slam on the brakes and still need to almost come to complete halt to make some of the hairpin turns. As for the AI, I’d argue it’s become worse. They are all slower, ride in basically a single line, and it’s not uncommon to win races by over 20 or 30 seconds even on harder difficulties once you get a hang for the riding.
I found it was almost random if I was going to get points for a Scrub or Whip and the physics just feel quite different this year. Even though you’ll create ruts as you go through corners every lap, it’s as though you’re almost unable to bank into them to take the turns quicker. This causes you to have to lose the majority of your speed to make many corners. Lastly, the few times there’s a tall table top, even when approaching at a straight angle, it would almost always change my direction randomly as I go up the ramp section, even before ruts form.
What I did enjoy though was the customization options for riding aids. If you have certain disabilities or simply want an easier experience to enjoy the racing instead of stressing about losing, there’s a number of options here to assist. Options like Auto brakes, Auto Steering, Auto Throttle and more. This allows you to have some assistance in maybe certain aspects but not all, able to ease up the help anytime as you become more confident. I did enjoy the Auto Throttle initially as it taught me the amount of speed I needed for certain jumps to land properly and not over and under shoot.
Making a return from last year’s entry is the Rider Shape system. If you’re constantly crashing and bailing, naturally you’re going to get hurt. Well, when you’re hurt you obviously have a disadvantage when race time comes around, so you’re going to have to manage your overall health. Between races you can see your rider status, and to heal and improve your performance you’ll need to partake in a quick timed event. Taking place in the free roam area, you’ll need to collect the letters S-H-A-P-E for completion. There’s also two other objectives you can attempt to complete within the time limit for even more bonuses and a healthier rider. There’s no reattempts though, so make the most of your time in this event to hopefully gain your bonuses back for the next race.
There’s a long list of objectives to complete at any time during your races, and hitting certain milestones you’ll earn skill points that you can use to customize your rider’s abilities and perks. Maybe you want to have better cornering or braking? This is where the skill points can be put in, with each tier costing more than the previous. Filling the first half of the skill trees won’t take too long, but it will eventually become a grind if you’re trying to earn more later on.
While only for aesthetics, you can fully customize your rider with a long list of brands to choose from for your helmet, gloves, boots and more. There’s even a Helmet Editor where you can create a helmet for your rider in any design you want, even able to share online for others to use or find a cool design someone else has created and put it on your rider.
New to multiplayer is full console crossplay as well as an online ranking system. Now you can finally see how skilled other players in the lobby you’ll be racing are, and while there’s no PC and Console crossplay, at least you and your friends that plays on the other console can finally race together.
Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame 6 looks exactly the same as last year. Play me two videos of the game side by side and I doubt I’d be able to definitively tell the difference between the two. Riders look decent in motion, but animations still feel a little stiff at times. The texture pop-in issues at the beginning of races is still present and unfixed, even on an Xbox Series X. Faces for the riders themselves also looks unimproved and terrible at best. Best experienced in first person or helmet camera, it’s the most authentic way to put you right into the action so you can’t focus as much on its shortcomings.
I hope you like the constant wheeze of the bike engines, as that’s what you’re going to hear from start to finish. Sure you can turn it down, but then you’d have to deal with the boring and unforgettable soundtrack that plays during races. Turn the sound completely off and play your favorite Spotify list, as that’s how I was able to tolerate it after a few hours.
I find myself coming to the same conclusion as last year’s entry, hence basically the same score; if you have the previous year’s game, there’s really not much here to warrant a repurchase. Sure the diehard fans of the sport will enjoy all the 2022 rider and arena updates, but if online play doesn’t interest you, there’s a lot of repetitiveness and really not all that much new this year to excite everyone else.
**Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame 6 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10



This is the premise of Backfirewall_, an adorable indie game from Naraven Games that wasn’t even on my radar and probably something I’d honestly skip past in the trailers, but more than elated that I got to play through its adventure. As you go through this hilarious adventure you’ll meet a handful of unique, quirky and memorable apps (characters) along the way, visiting numerous areas and sections inside the phone, all while solving puzzles. I can honestly say, I’ll think of my phone a little differently when it comes time for its next major update. If you enjoy games with endless humor like The Stanley Parable and know your technology terms even slightly, you’re going to have a good time filled with plenty of laughs.
You are the Update Assistant, the app that actually, well, updates your system when you’re ready to upgrade to the newest OS. Backfirewall_ starts out in a really interesting way with someone talking to you and a simple icon on the screen. This is when you first get introduced to OS9, a chatty, witty and hilarious personality that will act as your narrator throughout the adventure.
The time has come though, the latest OS is out, OS10, so naturally you would want to upgrade to the best there is to offer right? Well, OS9 doesn’t want that, as it will kill him once replaced with the new OS10, and you don’t want him to die do you? You hold the fate of the phone’s universe in your hands and decisions. Do you save OS9 from deletion? Does finding out that when the OS gets updated that also has you become deleted as well make a difference? Do you want to die? I’d assume not, so you two begin your journey to do anything you can to stop the update from happening.
As you travel throughout the different core components of the phone, you’ll meet a unique cast along the way all played in first person. As you meet new apps and get to know them, they all have their own ideas and thoughts on the update, but there’s more going on here that you start to notice. There’s seemingly a resistance happening, as maybe some apps have realized that they won’t possibly work with the new OS if it gets updated or you see some graffiti on the walls that are sometimes hilarious, and others ominous.
I don’t want to delve too much more into the narrative as it’s not a terribly long adventure, but the story is absolutely its highlight filled with non-stop humor and a wide range of emotions. Even the most minor characters are quirky enough to be interesting and there’s plenty of details hidden throughout if you take the time to look and read all the logs (literally, they are logs that represent, well, logs). If you know your tech terms and some pop culture references, you’re going to be smiling throughout. It’s a very unique setting and I thought it was going to be a little dull from its screenshots before playing, but it’s quite the opposite actually.
As you make your way to new areas of the phone, like the seemingly infinite RAM halls, the WiFi tower, the acid filled Battery, the GPU where you’ll see the User’s photos and more, they all have a unique setting that if I had to guess what an actual ecosystem in a phone was like, this probably wouldn’t be too far off. The world is colorful and simply gives off a ‘fun’ vibe, even when the security bots are trying to find you and OS9, whom has conveniently tucked himself away inside your code.
While there’s some platforming to be done, it’s quite light, with more of a focus on its puzzle elements. There’s plenty more to do though with bugs to find, toys to collect, reading logs, finding text messages and more. If you do happen to ‘die’ from falling off a ledge into the battery acid below or getting caught from the security bots, you’ll simply respawn instantly a moment away and able to try again without any recourse.
You’re in a smartphone remember, so while you don’t have root access to see all the User’s private information like texts, you are able to find them scattered throughout the phone as you adventure on, with yellow texts able to be read and blue which are encrypted, acting like a currency when you’re able to purchase things. All the texts in the phone are initially unreadable, but as you find more they’ll slot in to the appropriate place in each person’s text conversation with the User. It’s a clever way that really made me want to go out of my way to find as many as I possibly could. It genuinely made me more curious about the User, especially when I started seeing photos and videos of her.
As you progress through each section of the phone, you’ll eventually hit a roadblock where you’ll need to solve a handful of puzzles before OS9 can unlock a door for you to walk through. This is done by causing system errors in the area. You’re given a checklist of True statements, such as there being 10 boxes in the room. Well, if you delete one of those boxes, that is clearly no longer a True statement, so the error occurs and you will get an objective update. Finish the five or so puzzles and you’ll be able to move onto the next area.
How do you solve said puzzles you ask? Great question. You cheat. Yup, OS9 will periodically give you new cheat codes which is used in a really clever way in its world, not just these puzzle areas. These cheat codes allow you to manipulate the environment in different ways, acting as new powers or abilities. You first learn to delete items, eventually able to duplicate, change colors of objects and more. It’s all done in a way that makes complete sense given your backdrop and the narrative, so I applaud the originality.
But you aren’t good at puzzle games and this might deter you I hear? Don’t fret, the puzzles aren’t terribly difficult, and while I never had to look up a walkthrough, there is some in-game assistance offered if you should need it. Can’t figure out how to solve a certain puzzle? Ask the rubber ducks. Yes, you’ll talk to rubber ducks that will offer hints that you crave so badly. They do a wonderful job and never directly spell it out for you what to do, but just enough of a hint where they basically tell you what to do or where to go. I’ve had to rely on them once or twice and still felt the sensation of puzzle solving on my own, even if I did get a little bit of a clue from a rubber duck.
While I really did enjoy the level design, the audio and sound design needs special mention. OS9 is an absolute treat with his accent and witty lines. Think Wheatley from Portal 2 and you’ll have a perfect example, of which I’m sure plenty of inspiration came from. Nicolas Oberson’s performance of OS9 is flawless and absolutely makes Backfirewall_ the unique experience it is. Fantastic voice acting all around, which quite surprised me from a smaller studio, but every NPC and App you meet along the way is voiced absolutely wonderfully. The writing obviously plays a large part in the execution of its humor throughout, but the lines were delivered perfectly, only adding to the humor more so. The actors for OS10, Social Media, Alex, Unzipper and more all did fantastic, elevating the experience.
Full of creativity, the initial screenshots might fool you with how basic is looks, but it’s done so deliberately and makes for a truly extraordinary game. I was smiling from the opening moments when I had to choose what my name was from a few different binary numbers, only for OS9 to call me Elizabeth in the end regardless, all the way to the end where I was legitimately sad. Humor isn’t easy to pull off in games, and if you miss the landing, the whole experience falls flat. That isn’t the case here at all.
Backfirewall_ is one of those games I honestly probably wouldn’t have given a second glance to as I scrolled through the store of something new to play, but absolutely delighted that I got to experience such a unique and creative game that clearly had a lot of heart and passion behind it. Indie games like Backfirewall_ need to be experienced, one that I can fully recommend if you need something light hearted, doesn’t overstay its welcome, and gives plenty of laughs along the way, even if it has now made me questioning my phone’s OS update in real life.
**Backfirewall_ was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10



While playing virtual pinball is nowhere near the same thing as standing at an actual machine and feeling those flippers launch the ball and the lights brighten, it’s a substitute that will have to do as arcades aren’t commonplace any longer sadly. Hands down, the king of the genre is Zen Studios, as this is their specialty, bringing console pinball games for numerous console generations now. For over a decade I’ve been playing Pinball FX and its sequels, always up for a game or two if short on time.
Don’t let the name confuse you, even though Pinball FX released back on Xbox 360 in 2007, this is basically a remake/remaster/reboot, whatever you want to call it, for the modern consoles. Even though this too is named Pinball FX, it’s a completely new entry. Now something to take note of, Pinball FX really isn’t a game. Sure, it includes a free table to give you a taste, but Pinball FX is more of a platform than anything else, which is why it’s technically ‘free’. This platform is how you’ll try out and purchase any new tables that you enjoy.
Being completely rebuilt in Unreal Engine 4, there’s now 4K graphical support ray tracing and “better” physics. I only quote the “better” because even though it’s a major selling point in their marketing, I couldn’t really tell much of a difference after playing dozens of hours of the previous Pinball FX games. Zen Studios excels at creating unique pinball tables that certainly make me wish there was a real life counterpart, but also recreating some of my favorite tables that I remember playing when I was younger.
As stated above, Pinball FX is a free download and comes with one table to play on indefinitely. This is to hopefully entice you to try out some other tables and of course then spend money on new ones or packs. Certain tables can be purchased individually whereas others need to be purchased in packs. With 86 tables to try out and choose from, there’s certainly at least a few you’re sure to enjoy enough to want to purchase and keep. The pinball tables available vary quite greatly, themed from Star Wars, Marvel, Indiana Jones, Universal Studios, classic Williams Pinball tables and plenty of original Zen Studio designs.
Controls are exactly as you’d expect, with your triggers being used for the flippers. You’re able to use your Right Stick as the plunger if the table utilizes that style instead of a button, allowing you to perform specific powered shots. You're even able to 'shake' the table and bump it, though be careful of you'll error out the machine and lose your ball. There are a variety of different camera options depending if you want something stationary and far out, like how you stand over the table in real life to view it all from above, or something much closer that focuses on the bottom flippers, or even a camera option that follows the ball closely as it moves, though I found this one difficult to use with the constant movement and knowing where your flippers are until it’s too late.
Some tables are also what I’m calling ‘virtually enhanced’, meaning that there’s extra flair that can occur in certain modes. For example, playing with this toggled on with the Indiana Table you may see him using his whip to go from one side of the table to another, almost like if it was an augmented reality portion. You can toggle this off to play the table in its standard form without all of these extra distractions, but this is one of the bonuses of having digital tables, as Zen Studios can do a lot of things like this that wouldn’t be possible on a real table.
Given that there are almost 90 tables available currently, I’m not going to fully review every single one, instead saying that the majority are quite good, though having played these games for many years I’ve played a good majority of them already for many hours previously. There weren’t any that I particularly found terrible, though I certainly had my preferences of the ones I gravitated to for many plays instead of others. With 86 tables to choose from, there’s no shortage depending on your brand preferences, but I’m quite partial to the Williams tables as I can remember playing many of these growing up. Some of the Zen Studios original tables are quite entertaining as well.
If you’re a Marvel fan, you’ll be happy to know there’s a lot of different themes tables here from almost every superhero. If Star Wars if your thing there’s even more choices, spanning the whole franchise practically, even including The Mandalorian. If you enjoy classic Universal Studios movies you’ll want to check out the pack that has Jaws, Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, Back to the Future, and even E.T. There’s a handful of new tables too which I was excited to try out. Themed tables from The Addams Family (probably the hardest table I’ve ever played), Borderlands (and other Gearbox games), Snoopy, Garfield, World War Z and My Little Pony were all quite unique. Even though the Garfield and My Little Pony tables are clearly marketed towards a younger audience, they were simplistic to play, entertaining and quite colorful.
You can of course play each table in Classic Mode, your typical way to play with 3 balls, aiming to get the highest score possible. There’s an interesting Arcade Mode where you can set to have certain power-ups and a handful of different toggles, adding for some fun variety. The modes I enjoyed the most were Timed, Flipper and Single Ball. Timed gives you, well, a set amount of time where you have unlimited balls to reach a high score, not needing to worry about losing your balls down the middle, though of course waiting for a new ball to launch wastes precious time. Single Ball was a surprisingly fun mode though, as you’re given a single ball to see how high of a score you can get. Sometimes this works out well, and others you lose your ball almost instantly. By far though, Flipper challenge is something I gravitated towards. Here you’re given usually 200 presses of the flippers before the game is over. You have unlimited balls, but every time you lose a ball down the middle it counts as one flip, so you still want to play well. This actually made me a better pinball player as I had to be more specific and purposeful with my flippers instead of just spamming the triggers.
Though not a new concept, there’s a collectable aspect to Pinball FX as well. Here you can earn items to decorate your own pinball cave, placing the unlockable items in your display shelves, carpets, posters and more. These items are generally tied to specific score accumulation totals for each table, so the more you play the more you can unlock. The items are usually themed to the table or a small figure from it which you can then place on your shelf to decorate. It’s a fun little bonus and gives you a little incentive to play the tables you might not generally gravitate towards.
If you’d like to create a Tournament for others to play, you’re given a handful of different options including the table, length of time to enter and try, what mode, and nearly anything you can think of. Great idea, but the problem with the Tournament functionality is that it’s just filled with an endless list of other player’s postings, so it’s difficult to find what you want.
Pinball FX’s latest addition, and my favourite, is the Events. These are official challenges that when you’re successful you’ll earn points towards your ‘Season Pass’. That’s right, a pinball game with a season pass. Luckily you don’t have to purchase it, but you only get points by completing these events that go towards your progress. These are fun and rotate daily or weekly, depending on the event. Some also only allow a certain amount of plays and attempts a day, and these can even be some of the more unique modes like Single Ball or Flipper challenges. The best part is that since there’s online leaderboards for everything, you get a quick notification that you’ve passed someone’s score that was above you in the rankings, always fun to see as you’re having a good game. The only thing of note is that many of these events are with premium tables, so clearly another way to entice you to purchase more.
Then there’s what’s being called the Pinball Pass. You know how you have a subscription to Netflix, Prime, Hulu and probably a few more services? How about adding one more for your pinball needs. The Pinball Pass is essentially that, giving you access to nearly every table for as long as your subscription lasts. Some tables are great, others maybe not so much, so instead of purchasing every single table, this is another option for you. There’s even supposed to be more bonuses included in the future, but I can’t speak to those as they’ve not been revealed yet. The Pinball Pass gives you unlimited play and access to the included tables, but there are a few that are not included, which I’m sure is for licensing reasons, but imagine loading up Netflix and being told that the latest Season of Squid Game isn’t included and you need to purchase it separately; it’s the same disappointment.
In typical gaming fashion, instead of simply purchasing the Pinball Pass with real money, you first need to buy their own currency, Pinball Coins, then purchase what you want with those. There’s a handful of different bundles to buy, as you can spend these coins on other collectable items and such, but the Pinball Pass is 1200 Pinball Coins. That converts to $128.99 CAD. That’s NOT a typo. It’s well over a hundred dollars for a year of your pinball subscription. Sure it’s great for the year you have the pass, but I can imagine the frustration when the day comes you need to re-subscribe and are reminded of how expensive that is. Yes you can purchase tables outright to keep, so there are options, but it can get pricey quite quickly.
Pinball Pass questionability aside, if you really enjoy a table you can purchase it to keep and play whenever you want, but what about the players like me that have been playing the Pinball FX games for well over a decade and already have a hearty collection of tables? Well, it seems Zen Studios doesn’t care about that and want you to repurchase everything. Spent hundreds of dollars in the past for tables? Well, too bad. Start all over here in Pinball FX. Not being able to transfer any previous table purchases is sure to give a really bad taste in many mouths with the new engine being blamed for the reason that’s not a possibility. Sadly it gives off a greed vibe, as the new coat of paint and slightly better lighting is questionable for a full repurchase of everything you may have already purchased in the past. Whether I believe the reasoning or not isn’t my job, but it’s certainly questionable. Even a one-time fee import/export I would have been fine with, like how the Rock Band games did, but this is sure to draw some ire form the pinball community for sure. For complete transparency, we were given a Pinball Pass and all the tables not included with the subscription for review purposes.
Also, some tables can’t be purchased individually, so if you only like one table in the Marvel pack for example, well, you’re going to have to purchase the whole thing, which is obviously more expensive. All or nothing seems a bit disappointing and might even prevent some from purchasing what they actually want. Making matters worse is the menu system for downloading the trials and games is cumbersome within game, even if you purchased it externally on the Xbox store already.
There is an option for Performance or Quality in the options menu (on an Xbox Series X at least), though toggling both and scrutinizing multiple tables, I find it quite hard to find much of a difference. I was hoping Quality mode would have drastically better lighting and ray tracing, you know, the ‘reason’ for forcing you to rebuy all your tables, but I couldn’t tell much of a difference other than maybe some slightly better smoothness with Performance mode. The tables look great, just as they did over a decade ago, and reliving some of my favorite tables from my childhood (shout out to Medieval Madness) always puts a smile on my face. The only issue I had with performance was some massive slowdown whenever an Xbox notification popped up on screen, lagging the game for a few seconds as it occurred oddly enough.
Pinball FX is looking to make a comeback on console with this reboot, though your enjoyment is solely going to depend on which tables you enjoy and how much money you’re willing to invest into it. For recreating an actual pinball experience digitally, no one does it better than Zen Studios, it’s just a shame that the cost of entry is quite high to accumulate a decent pinball collection once again and you’re constantly tugged in multiple directions to open your wallet. Pinball FX as its own gaming experience is entertaining and a great way to spend a few relaxing hours on numerous tables once purchased, but the pricing structure is something to check before you dive in head first and sure to massively disappoint those that have already previously bought tables in the past.
**Pinball FX was provided by the publisher (Pinball Pass and numerous table collections included) and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10



Think Doom Eternal, but instead of a dark, gritty and bloody shooting spree, you instead are going through a 3D world but every character is 2D and animated. It’s a classic FPS at its core and plays just like one, but definitely uses other shooter game mechanics, like using specific weapons for certain enemies. The only difference here is that you’re shooting at regular citizens that just happened to have terrible fashion sense and thus fixing and making them modern and fashionable. No blood and gore here, just bright colorful and eccentric style.
You are sergeant Des, a fashion police officer that has some extravagant style, sworn to fix the fashion faux pas that’s occurring throughout Trenopolis. Along with your handful of different fashion weapons and your Belt of Justice, you’ll be saving the city from terrible style. You’ll need to save people from baggy pants, socks and sandals, oversized suits and more. Your partner Haley talks to you over the radio, guiding you along your adventure and where to go next.
Rather than being just a simplistic shooter without any substance, there’s actually quite a bit of emphasis on its story. Is it a bit over the top and silly? Of course, but that’s where some of its charm comes from. There’s a mystery of why all these citizens are committing fashion crimes and it’s up to the Fashion Police Squad to solve who, what, where and why. It plays out much like a parody of itself, media and other games where humor plays a large part of its charm, and while it does get a little repetitive by the end, I still had a great time regardless.
Across a dozen different missions, you’ll be spreading glam and fashion across the city. Levels are quite linear, having you defeat everyone before being allowed to move on, and even having to get different colored scissors to progress past matching colored ribbons (think key cards from Doom). The world, characters and environment is bright, colorful and full of neon as you shoot, jump and swing your way from one end to the other.
As you shoot your way through the fashion crimes, you’ll also come across different pickups like watches, bow ties and mocktails, which will increase your health or armor, again, much like its Doom inspiration. Your Belt of Justice not only acts as way to stun your enemies, but it’s mainly used like a grappling hook, able to attach to certain flagpoles to launch and fling you forward. These platforming sections were fun but very seldom.
If you’re the type to search for secrets, there’s no shortage here, with each level having some sort of secret to be found, even the boss fights. Having found a few, they are tucked away pretty well and will take some time to find them all. At the end of each mission you’ll get a ranking and show what you found for pickups and secrets, but the highlight is the fashion show. All of the people you ‘fix’ by changing their attire, they will run down the catwalk much like a fashion show. It’s done in a really cool way and made it feel like what I did that previous level was for a reason.
Being a FPS, shooting will be what you primarily will be doing with your unique arsenal. You begin with a single weapon but will eventually get more as the story progresses. Where Fashion Police Squad’s hook comes in is with how you use your different weapons based on each type of enemy. Each fashion crime requires a different way to fix it, so you’ll be forced to figure out and remember which weapon is needed to defeat each type of person by altering what they are wearing. Above each person is a health bar that once depleted, turns them into a fashionable version that is deserving of the catwalk.
You’ll need to know what each type of weapon does and which enemies they are used for if you want to be successful, because using the wrong weapon simply won’t do anything to them. You begin with your Paint Shotgun, splattering color to those drab enemies in boring grey suits. You’ll then get a Sewing Machine Gun that shoots needles to tighten those loose fitting clothes, whereas its alternate fire lobs a fabric grenade. Sock Gnomes are funny little grenades that will seek out the sock and sandal wearing offenders. The Water Cannon comes later, allowing you to clear fire from the Guy Fieri knockoff that, well, spews fire. This also doubles as a way to make you run and slide faster if you spray slightly in front of you as you run. There’s a last weapon you get in the final section, but I’ll leave that as a surprise given the runtime is only a handful of hours.
What’s most interesting is that every weapon has unlimited ammo, so there’s no need to scrounge around to find more or wait to defeat enemies to drop some. This is where the needing to use the right weapon for the right fashion crime comes in, and when you have multiple different enemy types coming at you all at once, this is where it becomes chaotic as you try and figure out who to attack first to placate by fixing their clothing. Even at the end there were new enemy types being introduced, and while some were much more annoying than others, it was generally easy to remember which enemy type needs which type of weapon to defeat. My main complaint is that some of the arenas you get locked into at times are quite small and when you have a dozen enemies to defeat, it gets hectic at times.
Thankfully you have a special meter that fills slowly, allowing you to use your Fabulous Slap Glove, essentially an instant kill attack move for a short period of time, best saved for those chaotic portions with waves of enemies. There’s a few levels that try to break up the monotony by having a sniper section where you have different gnome ammo depending if people need their hair, shoes or clothing ‘fixed’, and another where you’re in a car chase using a turret to defeat your enemies as well. These did break up the repetition a bit, but I didn’t enjoy these sections as much as I thought I would. Fashion Police Squad shines best in its unique boss battles, especially the one halfway through that I won’t spoil, but references a number of gaming tropes.
The 2D pixel models in a 3D world isn’t anything new, but it works well here and looks quite stylish, of course. The world is bright and colorful and has plenty of style. There’s a lot of smaller details that make the world more fun and it’s hard to not smile while playing. The soundtrack is done quite well, and while I wished more than the opening sequence was voiced, each gun sounds unique and it’s obvious which enemies are nearby with their lines, even if they are repeated quite often with the low enemy variety.
Sure, Fashion Police Squad is like any other classic shooter but with a gimmick, but it’s a fun one. Full of humor, puns and fashion one-liners, it’s hard not to smile every so often, especially when a new enemy is introduced, because you know you’ve seen this very exact fashion crime at some point. With its classic Doom inspiration, it’s certainly one of the more unique FPS games I’ve ever played, full of fashion and style.
**Fashion Police Squad was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.2 / 10



While Street Fighter II may have taken the world by storm, the Neo Geo was the latest console from SNK, and while it may not have been as popular out here with Western audiences, it certainly garnered a fan base in other parts of the world. SNK needed their own fighting game to rival Capcom’s behemoth, and in 1996 developers Visco released a very similar 2D fighting game, Breakers. Being popular given the small audience, sadly Breakers never made its way outside of Japan, so I don’t feel bad for never hearing of it before, or its 'sequel', Breakers Revenge. It seemingly has a cult following, so I’m glad to have been exposed to it for my own knowledge.
Thanks to QUByte Interactive, they’ve managed to bring the duo of games not only to a Western audience for the first time, but on the latest consoles. Even more impressive is that this is easily the definitive version, as they’ve also included a bunch of improvements and extras as well, so rather than a simply port via emulation, they’ve gone above and beyond.
While there are some slight story elements here, let’s be honest, it’s a fighting game, so you’re playing it to fight other characters regardless of their own motivations. Breakers Collection does include two different games, but that said, there’s little reason to play the original Breakers when the included Breakers Revenge is an improved version. Just like Street Fighter II, why would you play the core game when you have Turbo or even Championship Edition at hand? Same idea here, so I’ll mostly be focusing on Breakers Revenge as it had two extra playable characters as well as a bunch of improvements.
While the roster is small, it’s a surprisingly tight fighting game given that I’ve never heard of it before, though when you’re trying to emulate others successes almost one-for-one it’s kind of hard not to. Even with only ten characters to choose from, they are all varied and you’re sure to find a favorite quickly on, even quicker if you know which character is basically a copy of their Street Fighter II counterpart.
If you needed a few examples, my go-to was Tia, essentially a clone of Chun-Li who was also my fighter of choice, complete with quick leg kicks. Rila is a knockoff of Blanka, Alsion III is Dhalsim and even the final boss, Bai-Hu is Bison almost exactly. I’m all for games that pay homage to others, but it’s quite apparent that the majority of the characters were essentially reskins of their Street Fighter inspirations. What I did find interesting is that when you’re playing a shadow match, both players playing the same character, the second player will be named differently even though they are simply just a palette swap, complete with a backstory and everything. It’s an interesting and unique touch.
So while Breakers Collection will be new to most unless you lived abroad or imported games, this duo pack adds a handful of improvements, more so than I actually expected. You can expect crossplay between consoles and PC, rollback netcode (a must these days), a training mode, unlockable galleries, leaderboards, ranked online battles, online replays, lobbies, a Team Battle mode and more. It’s an impressive list of extra additions that went into this collection and it doesn’t go unnoticed.
Like other fighting games from that era, you have a light and heavy punches and kicks. You’re able to combo light and heavy attacks together quite easily and with enough skills, then adding specials into the combo finisher. You can have up to three levels in your Super bar, filled by dashing, blocking, attacking, blocking, taunting, etc. There are more advanced techniques like being able to cancel your regular moves into specials or a special into a super.
There’s a decent amount of combos and attacks, each character having their own style and movesets. When you perform a decent juggle it’s quite satisfying. Given that not only are the characters visually emulated from their Capcom counterparts, if you remember any of their movesets like how to do a Hadoken or Shoryuken motion, you’ll feel right at home. You can even choose to have the moves for the characters currently playing on the side of the screen, much like how the cabinets in the arcade used to have.
Adding rollback netcode for the online multiplayer is a fantastic addition, basically a necessity these days if you want a competitive game. That and crossplay included is what got me excited to play online with others, but even with my crossplay enabled, I’ve yet been able to find any other single player online for a match. You can even choose the server and the population, and every time I’ve checked they were at 0, so unfortunately I was unable to try the online multiplayer for myself. At least I was able to download and watch sone online replays of matches, great for those that want to improve their skills.
For a game that released mid 90’s on the NeoGeo, it still visually holds up. The sprites are done quite well, the background are colorful and the characters are look distinct from one another, even if they are heavily borrow from another game. Animations are smooth and the elemental effects are quite decent. The audio is perfectly serviceable, but the soundtrack is nowhere near as memorable as others in the genre.
I’m glad when I get to discover new games, even if they are decades old, and while I’ve played the classics from Neo Geo, Breakers sadly was never one of them until now. While I question its originality, as it more than heavily borrowed from one of the greatest of all time, that said, Breakers Collection is worth checking out if the fighting genre is your thing, even if it’s advertised as two unique games.
**Breakers Collection was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10



With a handful of developers from the Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive series in their ranks, Wanted: Dead aims to create an ‘old school’ experience, specifically being a love letter to classic consoles from the 6th generation: Sega Dreamcast, Playstation 2, Gamecube and the original Xbox. Games from this era had something special about them and many fond memories come from this generation of gaming regardless of console.
A hybrid slasher/shooter, Wanted: Dead is sure to remind you of some older titles, but the one that kept coming to mind was Oni or Devil's Third. With a cyberpunk backdrop, you’ll be running, gunning and slashing your way through near endless enemies as you try to survive just one more day. Expect a lot of bloodshed, swearing and even more blood. You can certainly see some of its Ninja Gaiden roots in its unapologetic violence.
You play as Lt. Hannah Stone, a grizzled Hong Kong cop that is but just one member of the Zombie Unit, an elite squad that gets called upon for the most dangerous and impossible missions. Also in your squad are your teammates Cortez, Doc and Herzog, each with their own unique personalities and combat talents. Your Captain, Simmons, is the one that leads your crew, but you’ll meet a handful of other cast as well, namely your Gunsmith, Vivienne, a former Olympic gold medalist and celebrity chef. If she happens to look and sound familiar you would be correct, as it’s the same actress who played Quiet in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Stefanie Joosten.
The main narrative revolves around massive corporation, Dauer Synthetics, and you’ll soon come to realize that they’re at the heart of a major conspiracy. Doing so won’t be easy though, as you’ll have a literal army standing in your way that you’ll need to destroy. With a cyberpunk backdrop, you’ll certainly see a different Hong Kong setting that you may be used to, one where the police force is essentially privatized and use Maserati’s for their vehicles.
The story itself is compelling enough if you’re able to keep the game going without too many deaths and restarts, but I’ve had numerous times where I’ve been stuck at certain sections for quite some time. Most cutscenes will be as you’d expect, taking place in-game, but every so often there’s a hand drawn anime style that I found done quite well and signify flashbacks, even if a little jarring going between the different aesthetics.
As you begin your adventure you’ll first need to decide if you want to play on Normal or Hard. Now, I’m not great at difficult games, as they frustrate me. I know, I know, ‘git gud’, but I simply don’t find enjoyment in dying numerous times to slowly make progress. That said, even on Normal, Wanted: Dead is quite challenging, especially the first portion when you’re still getting used to your moves, abilities and different enemy types, figuring out the best strategies for each.
Taking on mercenaries, private security and even synthetics will feel overwhelming, even in the opening section, as you’re almost constantly outnumbered a good 5 or 10 to one. Hannah is armed with a razor sharp sword, pistol and assault rifle. I’ll admit, I initially tried playing this like a third person cover based shooter, as you automatically duck or crouch behind when nearby walls and objects, but that won’t work long with your limited ammo. You’re going to have to get your hands dirty, more specifically, bloody, as you’ll need to rush enemies to slice and dice them apart. You’re going to die, a lot, and it will take a good handful of hours before you start to feel really comfortable with the combat, as I was trying to play more defensively, but that simply won’t work here when you’re constantly outnumbered and surrounded.
Even though you have a squad with you for most missions, don’t plan on them actually pulling their weight. Sure they do fire their guns and offer as some slight distractions sometimes, but they tend to stick nearby you, so if you retreat to try and get a breather they’ll too come in tow. You have a set amount of health packs that you can use at any time, though you need to become proactive using them, as they won’t be automatically used when you’re downed, and there’s nothing more frustrating than dying with a handful of health packs that you forgot to use.
Certain missions will have Doc with you on your team, and he’s by far the most useful, as he can revive you once per checkpoint if you get downed and forgot to heal or ran out of health packs. Doc is basically a free revive which is fantastic to have when he comes along, but there’s a good amount of missions he’s not with you, so you don’t always have that safety net. The other issue that is that most checkpoints are incredibly far apart, so when you do inevitably die, you’re going to redo lengthy portions over again, numerous times. I can’t tell you how frustrated I became near the very end when I was stuck on getting to the next checkpoint, redoing a good 20+ minute portion numerous times until I finally progressed by some miracle. For those wanting a good chuckle, each time you get a loading screen it’s based on a popular meme, showing that it doesn’t always take itself so seriously.
Part brawler, part shooter, you’ll need to lean more towards the offensive to proceed. While you could try to play it like a third person shooter, this won’t get you far, so you’re going to need to run into the chaos and utilize all your abilities to survive. Being mobile and constantly moving seems to be the best strategy, as once I adopted a more non-stop approach, I was doing much better. Cover is available, and will be needed in certain portions, as picking off a few grunt enemies is a good way to thin the herd, but this won’t work for every enemy type effectively.
Speaking of your enemies, there isn’t all that much variety. Sure they look somewhat different when you start fighting against synthetics, but you essentially only have a few types. Grunts are your easiest ones you’ll begin fighting, taken out with a few good slashes or headshots from your weaponry. You then have stronger versions that generally need to be taken out up and close or they’ll try to come at you direct. You’ll eventually take on ninjas that vary in strength and difficulty, the bane of my existence. Then lastly you have the massive brutes wearing a Juggernaut-like suit with a Gatling gun. I’m not going to spoil the best strategies to take out each, but when you’re fighting all different types at once, you’re going to wish the rest of the Zombie Unit pulled their weight instead of basically letting you do all the work.
Your sword is going to be the base of your damage, but sometimes you’ll need to rely on your other weapons. You do have a pistol, but this is meant more as an interrupter or countering specific attacks rather than causing big damage, even though it has unlimited ammunition. You always have your assault rifle, but this is limited in ammo, good for taking out a few lower ranked enemies or quick damage to the harder enemies. You can also carry one enemy weapon and swap between the two, such as different rifles, SMG, LMG, Shotgun and Grenade Launchers. These are limited in ammo but enemies will generally drop ammo for either your assault rifle or picked up gun, so it’s a matter of finding what’s best for each situation. Where the problem lies is that basically every enemy is a massive bullet and sword sponge, even on Normal.
Combat is brutal. Even early on you’ll be slicing and dicing your enemies in half or even literally disarming them. An ‘unarmed’ enemy is still dangerous, so always be sure to finish them off. There’s over 50 brutal finishers that can be triggered, and these look incredibly stylish and over the top, generally leaving Hannah covered in so much blood she’s pure red. As you take out enemies your adrenaline meter will fill that once full and used, you’ll do some wicked looking Matrix-like moves that will deplete the stamina of enemies nearby, allowing for chained executions. The first time you pull this off, it’s quite badass to witness.
Combat moves are based on different combinations of your blade and pistol, but you’re going to have to be quite defensive at times as well, blocking with your sword or doing a parry if timed perfectly right. I’ll tell you now, get proficient with parrying early on, as you won’t be able to complete the adventure without being skilled at this move. You’re able to dodge out of the way and use limited amounts of grenades as well in a tight situation. As for the enemy AI, they are easy to exploit once you figure out how dumb they can be individually, but where the challenge comes is when you’re surrounded by numerous types and always outnumbered. One ninja rushing you is no big deal, completely different story with three, some grunts shooting at you in the distance and a heavy using its Gatling gun as well.
Stone will earn skill points (SP) when defeating enemies, so the flashier the kill the more points you’ll get. Earn enough and you can spend them in any of the three skill trees. Here you’ll improve your offense, defense and utility skills. About three quarters through the game I had maxed out the skill trees, and had thousands of extra unspent points near the finale. I don’t know if it was a specific skill or upgrade that helped, but there was a certain point where all of a sudden either the skill points made a huge difference or my own skill instantly improved. Either way, from this point on I felt at times invincible; Not always, but some boss fights I even beat on the first try, whereas earlier bosses took a good dozen tries before being successful.
If you need a break from the high adrenaline combat, there's a good handful of minigames and other things you can partake in when you're back at the police HQ between missions. You'll be able to play a crane game to try and grab different collectable statues and balls containing new audio tracks. An in Yakuza-like fashion, there's even some odd wacky games you can play like matching buttons to certain songs to eat bowls of ramen or having a karaoke sing-off with the Weaponsmith. There's also a sidescrolling shooter you can play for high scores later on as well, so there's other things to fill your time when you just want to chill.
Visually, the cyberpunk backdrop and emphasizes violence simply looks cool. While it won’t wow you, it performs quite well and smoothly other than the odd few sections where there was simply too much going on at once, hitting me with some framerate slowdown even on an Xbox Series X, but this was pretty infrequent. The slickness of the combat and shooting is stylish even if much of the level design is corridor based an in enclosed area.
Where I struggle is with the audio. The soundtrack is fantastic across the board, but the dialogue is something quite different. Kind of like a terrible B-movie you just love, it has an endearing charm regardless. I’m not sure if it’s trying to emulate the early 2000’s games that it draws inspiration from or not, but you can expect numerous one-liners and death screams over and over again. The dialogue is cheesy and even though Hannah’s delivery is unique at times, I do think that’s what they were intentionally going for oddly enough.
Even though I think the difficulty can be a little over tuned at times and the checkpoints are a little too spread out at times, for every moment I had frustration, I was still compelled to move forward and try again and again. Sometimes you just need a game where you turn off your brain to slash and blast everything in your way and can have fun doing so with some over the top violence, Wanted: Dead delivers that, even if it does feel way over the top with its style.
**Wanted: Dead was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10



Everything was fine, the world was at peace, but then a mysterious mist arrived. Anyone who went near the mist somehow turned into a robot that aimed at destroying anyone in their path. So the world’s mightiest warriors that were supposed to save the world from this mist ventured out to do just that, but it seems they have failed, also changing into some sort of half robot. This is where you come in, as robots are unaffected by the mist, and although it seems other robotic heroes have come before you, you’re surely going to be the one to set thing right... Right? Those warriors that came before are seemingly the gatekeepers and will need to be defeated to venture further, but you’re such a small statured robot, what can you possibly do? It won’t be easy but you’ll gain new weaponry, abilities and dare I say, friends, along your adventure.
Much like its inspiration of early Mega Man games, OmegaBot is mechanically very similar in many ways. A side scrolling platformer, you’ll need to jump and shoot your way to the end of each stage, generally on the right side of the screen. You begin with just a singular jump and a basic blaster, eventually unlocking new weapons and abilities. Just like Mega Man, when you defeat the main bosses you’ll gain a new weapon or ability, allowing you to get through the dangerous world of killer robots and tons of pits and spike traps.
While enemies are going to be the thing that generally kills you the most, there’s plenty of traps all over, from spikes, fireballs, pits and more. Navigating these are just as important as defeating your enemies and you’ll do so in a few different ways, from small ‘tap’ jumps, gaining a little extra height on your jumps by using your blaster for a boost, and of course using your double jump and dash ability to get across gaps or out of danger quickly. Using your blaster to kind of ‘rocket jump’ takes some practice, as you need to aim downwards and fire to either slow your descent or gain a little bit more of a boost at the peak of your jump. This can be a bit tricky to get used to and I’ve had more than my fair share of deaths from not being as accurate as needed to land on moving platforms or avoiding enemies.
As you venture through forests, cities, castles and a number of other biomes, each new stage provided a unique challenge that progressively becomes more difficult as you go. As you gain new weapons and abilities you’ll need to combine all that you’ve learned to that point, but that is of course easier said than done. Thankfully there’s plenty of checkpoints that you’ll respawn at when you inevitably get destroyed, usually one every few screens or so. But sometimes these tend to be just a little TOO far apart, causing a lot of sections to be replayed until you manage to live long enough to make it to the next checkpoint.
You begin by facing off against robotic frogs, snails and other cute animal creatures that seem to have been a victim of the mist, but soon enough you’ll be battling against full on robots that will continuously fire and trying to destroy you once you’re noticed. While there’s no jumping on enemy heads to defeat them, you’ll need to rely on your trusty blaster. This required energy to do so though, so every now and then you’ll need to hold off on shooting so it can recharge, as if you let it deplete completely you’ll be slowed and unable to fire for a short while, surely to get you killed in a battle.
Your energy is split into two halves, where your first bit of firing shoots more powerful shots, but then eventually gets weaker in the last section of your energy bar. It’s kind of like a stamina bar in other games, and what makes this tricky is that your dash ability also requires energy to do so, so it takes a bit of getting used to so you don’t find yourself vulnerable often. As you gain new weapons from downed bosses, they vary in strength and type, so it will take some trial and error to find what works best for you and the situation you find yourself in.
Being part platformer as well, you’ll need to be accurate with your jumping abilities, which in itself isn’t too difficult, but anytime you shoot your blaster you’ll be knocked back slightly, as if his weapons are too powerful for his small frame. This can make things very challenging when standing on a small platform but having to fire and destroy an enemy, all while slightly adjusting to not slip and fall off. Boss fights are clearly the highlight, some more challenging than others, though not unfair once you learn their attack patterns across usually two main phases.
With checkpoints being spread out a bit too far at times, sometimes it’s difficult to stay alive long enough to reach the next respawn point. Thankfully enemies will also drop health orbs in varying sizes based on how high the shot counter above their head is when they are defeated. This is a little confusing and misleading though, as you need to gather a number of different orbs to fill the health meter completely to simply get a slight health replenish, something that wasn’t explained very well. Usually it’s just easier to respawn at the last checkpoint with full health, or if you find full heal orbs around the stage you know you’re in for a big battle or boss fight next.
Enemies will also drop gears/sprockets when defeated, also sitting and floating around the stage for you to collect. This is essentially your currency which you can use when at the hub between levels to purchase more health or energy with each upgrade increasing in price. There’s also some special icons to collect that can be used to upgrade your robot to have special perks, but I’ll leave that for you to discover.
For being created by a solo developer, the world of OmegaBot is very cute and colorful, utilizing a pixel art aesthetic that is easy on the eyes, even when it gets chaotic at times. Even more impressive is that all the background items can be destroyed with your shots, purely for visual flair but a wonderful touch. While the soundtrack sets a tone and never becomes grating, it also doesn’t really stand out either, opting to try and listen to the sounds of enemy shots and tells.
OmegaBot is cute and charming, and while it may not reach the same level as its Mega Man inspiration, it’s priced decently for its 4-8 hours of gameplay depending on your skill level. A fun and challenging action platformer that was longer than I initially expected, OmegaBot was clearly made with heart and passion, and that comes across well in such a small and cute robot.
**OmegaBot was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10



Doing some research, I first noticed that Ships Simulator looked basically identical to another game, Ships 2017. Turns out it’s actually the same game, simply ported for console. Same game, same logo and font, same 2017 era of graphics. This to me felt a little disingenuous, as it’s not really advertised as the same game from 6+ years ago, though when you press the Xbox Logo button it’s clearly labelled as Ships 2017.
Ships Simulator aims to recreate the role of controlling, well, ships. Not just regular boats though, the massive ones that you see by the docks and ports in major cities. Think of the massive cargo container ships that hauls hundreds of containers across sea, or the oil rig stations that are colossal in size, those will be the type of ships you’ll be utilizing for a variety of different missions.
While there’s no overall narrative or story, you’ll eventually being taking over three separate vessels, each with their own mission types and objectives before moving onto the next. You begin with a Cargo Ship, then a Construction rig, then a Heavy Duty lifting ship. Each of these ships have eight missions per, and once complete a special extra mission will unlock for a total of 25. Missions will vary from loading cargo containers, unloading them, bringing cargo from one dock to another, gathering parts from the ocean, rescuing crew, warding off pirates and more.
Having completed all missions including the special extra one, it was tedious, boring and frustrating to do so due to its poor controls and even worse visuals and audio. When the credits rolled, it was seemingly stuck and I was forced to quit out, not a great final memory to the experience. I’ll be honest, if I wasn’t reviewing the game I would have given up long before completion, and I was glad it was over and could uninstall.
To begin your naval career you first must choose a ship to purchase and repair. This is easy due to only being able to afford one of the three ships, so why it’s prefaced like a choice I’m unsure. Once you buy the Cargo Ship to begin you’ll first need to make any repairs before it’s seaworthy. This is done simply by choosing the broken part on a menu then clicking a button to repair. Wait a few seconds and the repair is complete. Why this is a part of the gameplay I’m unsure, as it’s seemingly just meant to be something you spend a portion of your profits on.
As you complete missions you’ll earn money, eventually able to purchase an oil rig-like vessel that has a crane, meant for moving material and construction, and then the transport vessel with a unique submerging ability. Every vessel plays very unique from one another, each having their own types of missions as well. The container Ship missions are generally quite straight forward, but the Construction Ship was easily the most time consuming due to its frustrating and annoying crane controls. Even though this is a Ship Simulator, you can’t sail the open seas. You’re actually quite restricted to where you can go, and with how slow the overall gameplay is, you wouldn’t want to sail out to open waters even if you could. Each mission has a tight play area and you need to stay within its boundaries.
The Container Ship will have your first missions about using the dock’s lift to load those containers from the back of semi-trucks onto the vessel. This opening mission will show you how unintuitive the controls and camera is, so prepare for a few hours of that going forward. You’ll have another mission to bring the ship to another dock which is how they introduce the awkard sailing controls. Of course at the other dock you’ll then need to unload a certain amount of containers onto trucks waiting.
With those basic missions out of the way you should now have enough cash banked to purchase the second ship, which I’m labelling the Construction Ship due to its crane you’ll need to use to pick up freight and parts and maneuver elsewhere. While it’s the same amount of missions like the other two ships, a total of eight per, this ship will take the bulk of your time with the game due to how finicky and awkward its controls are. You have different controls for moving the ship and then another separate set for the crane itself, neither of which feel intuitive. The crane hook has to almost be perfect to attach, but the camera doesn’t make it very easy to line up and figure out which way you need to maneuver the crane or ship to pick up the freight.
The final ship, the Transport Ship, I actually enjoyed the most, because it was the easiest to control. It has a unique ability to submerge its deck, so the majority of its missions were to motor over to some broken or abandoned ships, submerge your deck, slide underneath the ship and then move the deck back up the surface level to attach to the deck before bringing it back to the dock or a specified area.
Anytime you crash into an object or another ship, your vessel becomes damaged, meaning you’ll need to spend some of your earnings on repairs or part replacements. Money never really became an issue, but something to keep in mind. Take enough damage and the mission might instantly fail, so you can’t simply bump and push ships out of the way for fear of needing to restart the lengthy levels all over again.
Oddly enough, there’s a few missions that don’t really have much to do with the ships themselves, but instead focus on the crew. The first is putting out fires on the ship. You need to command each of the crew to do something, like grabbing a fire extinguisher and then to go battle a fire. This is done with a simple top down view of the ship and just with icons of the crew and equipment. These missions are incredibly confusing with their controls and were hands down the worst part of the whole experience. There’s another similar mission later with the same premise, but having your crew defend against pirates trying to take over the ship, so you need to have them man certain water cannons to survive waves of enemies. Again, these missions were terrible, confusing and just didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the game.
While ship enthusiasts may quite enjoy being able to control unique vessels like these, the gameplay itself becomes quite repetitive and dull. Each mission has an objective to complete, sometimes with a handful of steps, but it’s very linear without any freedom to solve how to do so on your own. The game itself isn’t difficult, but dealing with the controls are. Controls are slow, the camera is a nightmare to deal with constantly, and it just never feels like it gets better even after a handful of hours in.
At default, the speed is set to 1X. You will never finish Ships Simulator at 1X. These aren’t speedboats, they are massive slow moving ships. Thankfully you can crank of the speed to 2X or 4X if you’d like, but even at 2X it was excruciatingly slow. 4X at the best of times was barely tolerable, but needs to be set every time if you want the feeling of any progress at all. The problem with 4X is that it feels as though the controls are sped up as well, so the camera whips around and trying to move the crane hook into an exact position is a constant battle as well. On that note, camera is defaulted to the Left Stick, not right, so I constantly made mistakes using the wrong stick, even until the final mission.
Ships Simulator is probably one of the ugliest games I’ve played in quite some time. I don’t mean that as an insult, but it’s simply the truth. The water looks terrible, lightning and thunder is sure to give someone a seizure or blow out your ears if you’re wearing a headset, and the draw distance is so incredibly short you can’t even plan the proper way to the port for unload because a wall or island appear in front of you last minute. It looks like a mobile game from 2017 at the best of times. The music is no better, with annoying loops repeated over and over that you’ll want to mute.
I can deal with the poor visuals and audio if the game itself is entertaining, but unfortunately I was just glad each mission completion was getting me closer to the credits rolling and an uninstall. Tons of bugs, glitches and terrible controls just made it a slog to get through. While they are an easy string of achievements to nab, priced at $18.99 CAD is far too much for the amount of frustration. I don’t generally enjoy focusing on the negatives, but when there are so few positives things to note, you might want to avoid this shipwreck.
**Ships Simulator was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 2.0 / 10



Maybe you’ve never played one of the We Were Here games before, like my latest co-op partner and fellow writer here at XboxAddict, Peggy, whom I will have her input for her experience throughout our journey in Castle Rock. Essentially the series is an online cooperative puzzle game where you need to find a way to escape. The catch is that you’re almost always separated from your friend, so you only have a one-way radio to communicate with one another and will need to work together cohesively and quite well if you want to be successful.
I’ve thus dubbed the series ‘The Friendship Test’, as you’re going to see how truly effective your communication is with your partner, a test I nearly fail each game. Funny enough, I’ve had to play each game with a different partner as they refused to play with me when each sequel released, hence a new partner this time too. Both players require a microphone and I highly suggest choosing a friend to play with that maybe you’ve known for a while or are able to easily communicate with, as it will make a world of difference. Could you play with a random person, possibly, but may the odds be ever in your favor if you choose to do so.
With a clever naming convention for the series, We Were Here was the original game, We Were Here Too is the sequel, We Were Here Together was the third, and now the fourth and latest is We Were Here Forever, aptly titled for how long you’ll probably be stuck on a handful of the puzzles if you decide to take the high road and not look up any spoilers or walkthroughs. I wish I could boast that our team of puzzlers didn’t require a walkthrough, but we had to succumb to a few clues and hints with how difficult and obtuse some of the puzzles were. Will you be able to escape on your own accord and problem solving skills without external help? You’re a better puzzle solver than us if so, but good luck.
The first two games didn’t have much story to it aside from simply trying to escape, but in the third game, We Were Here Together, a much larger focus on story started to emerge, quite obvious in the latest Forever entry. While you’re still essentially moving from one puzzle to the next once you find the solutions, there’s more narrative sprinkled in here and there as you make your way through Castle Rock.
We Were Here Forever has a similar setup from previous games where you and your partner are somehow trapped within Castle Rock’s walls, seemingly unable to escape. Were you betrayed? Was having you here a small part of a larger master plan? Will you find out whatever happened to the other missing explorers? Who is The Jester and why is he trying to stop you? You learn bits and pieces of Rockbury and the resistance against its King and there’s clearly something larger going on, but you’ll need to do what you can to survive and escape alongside your partner, because without them, you’ll be trapped here forever.
To escape the bowels of Castle Rock, you and your partner are going to need to not only work in unison but rely on communication that other games seldom ever force to this degree. You and your partner will bond and need to be like minded if you want any chance of escape. What may seem like a simple puzzle in the beginning might just be one small portion of a larger one, which my partner and I found out within the opening section of We Were Here Forever. We Were Here Forever will test your mettle and communication with your fellow partner with a large focus on how you help one another separately.
Teamwork isn’t just suggested, it’s absolutely necessary, done completely with communication across a one-way walkie-talkie. This one-way radio is important to note, as when someone is speaking, the light on the radio illuminates, indicating that the other person should be listening. If they try to speak when the first person is talking, it won’t be heard. This takes some getting used to, especially when I’m accustomed to open party or discord chats. With the one-way radio, you’ll need to be purposeful in who talks and when. If your partner is talking, the light on your walkie lights up to indicate, so you better not try holding down the button and try to talk to them because they won’t hear your input. This of course makes things a little trickier, and I won’t lie, we simply used Xbox party chat (since we were both playing on that system) to avoid the one-way limitation, though I do suggest at least trying it in-game for the full and authentic We Were Here experience.
Before you and your friend you’ve chosen to have a ‘Friendship Test’ with can start your adventure together though, you’ll need to add each other as friends from the main menu to play with one another. With cross-play now finally here, you don’t have to worry about what system you and they are on, able to play together regardless. I will say, the lobby system was buggy every time we wanted to get us put together, but eventually we figured it out each time and I’m hoping it’s just some pre-launch bugs that will get ironed out come full release.
Let’s get to the puzzles, the bread and butter of the series and why you’ve chosen to play We Were Here Forever. I’m going to get this out of the way first thing: We Were Here Forever was by far the hardest puzzles in the whole series. Maybe this was because it also felt like the longest game of the four, but we certainly struggled almost throughout whereas in previous games it was just the odd puzzle here and there that we needed to search a walkthrough. While not nearly as many timed puzzles in Forever thankfully, there still was the odd one or two that did add a bit of frustration because of the time limit and the mandatory first person view.
You and your friend are almost constantly separated from one another, so you need to be the eyes and ears for one another, figuring out the singular solution that you both contain portions of the answer. This is much easier said than done, and if not successful you’ll be stumped for seemingly forever if you decide to take the high road and not look up walkthroughs. The puzzles vary quite drastically throughout. One of my favorites was my partner describing a scene with some mannequins without heads, and on my part I had to read some book pages describing the background of a dozen or so different characters to determine which head I should send her to place correctly for her scene. Her seeing generic bodies in some sort of scene and me trying to decipher the character from reading pages wasn't simple. There’s a lot of trial and error in basically every puzzle, and if that frustrates you you’re going to have a long road to attempt escaping Castle Rock.
There’s also other puzzles that if it wasn’t for my partner, I would still be sitting there clueless of where to even start. An example, picking up a bunch of different mannequins and sitting them in the correct order in a few rows of pews in a church. Of course there’s a very specific order, with undercover rebels and other restrictions like how certain people can’t sit beside specific others. Since all the mannequins were hanging together there were very slight differences in who they may be. From reading books and using descriptors like “a girl wearing a pope-like hat and curly hair like the mom from ‘That 70’s Show’, I was thankful she understood what I meant. Thank god my partner knew what to do, as I was basically no help on this particular one. Many of the puzzles felt like one player had to do the majority of the work while the second had the solution in front of them, but had to find a way to communicate it. The only problem with this is that once you’re on a certain path and locked into one of the roles, there’s no switching with your partner, like when I was in an underwater maze aimlessly wandering trying to figure a way out while she moved a bunch of pipes to create open pathways and air pockets for me to breathe.
I don’t mind challenging puzzles, but I’d say at least half of the puzzle included were a bit much. Maybe it’s the way I think or my logical reasoning, but my partner also conceded that we were going to have to try and look up a solution online more than once. Even with finding the solutions elsewhere, it never really left like an ‘ah-hah!’ moment like we missed something, more of a ‘well, I guess that worked’ feeling. Don’t even get me started where I had to carry a massive cog, blocking a good 90% of my vision, needing to be directed of where to go. While I’d obviously like to blame my partner whenever we got stuck, it’s a two way street, where it takes some time to figure out what the actual pathway to a solution is, as it’s not often it’s painted out clearly.
Peggy: I think I'm a smart person when it comes to puzzles, especially logic based ones like the mannequins in the pews and, as Adam stated, I proved it there. Sadly, We Were Here Forever often made me feel rather dumb. Normally I can figure it out eventually, or when we finally decided to look up walkthroughs, I expected to have a 'OMG, that's the part we were missing!' feeling, but that didn't happen often. Mostly I was left bewildered by how you should have been able to decipher the solutions without help. I am thankful that Adam and I are both interested in similar pop culture things, movies, shows, comics etc. This made describing visuals much easier when you could reference something adjacent to what you were seeing to help. I had never played any of the We Were Here games prior to this other than a bit of the preview of Forever before launch, and I did enjoy what I played even if I didn't feel the smartest while playing it. It was really well done, the graphics were very fairytale-like and the vocal performances of character you encounter are well done. While I may have been Adam's latest 'victim' to take part in the 'Friendship Test', we are still talking, so that's a good thing. Without spoiling too much, and if you've played the other games in the series, you will understand what I am about to say. Adam's biggest mistake was telling me how he escaped the last three games, and I ruined his 100% success after the ending of We Were Here Forever. No regrets.
Adam: There is a hint system in place if you truly become stuck, but these really are only subtle clues. The first can be unlocked, but the next two or three which will give a little more detail can’t be seen until a certain amount of time goes by. While we used these hints, it won’t explicitly tell you the solution, still getting you to figure out the answer for yourself, but subtly guiding you in possibly the right direction. I never found they gave enough of a hint to be actually useful though.
Visually, Forever is the best looking of the series. Sure for a majority of it you’ll be stuck underground, in some castle walls or confined rooms, but there are moments where you’ll be exploring the grounds outside and can take in some sights, that while not breathtaking, surely a vast improvement for the series. Even some of the puzzles are quite fantastical to take in, like a particular puzzle where you and your partner are going from room to room where gravity doesn’t seem to matter much, all while a massive Jester seems to taunt you. Peggy did not enjoy the Jester and found him creepy though.
There was the odd time I had some texture issues where one puzzle wasn’t properly loading the clues inside some coffins, so I was essentially no help to my partner until they somehow fixed themselves with a reload. Animations definitely seems much smoother and more fluid in Forever compared to previous games and there’s even some fun emotes you and your partner can signal to one another, including some Rock-Paper-Scissors. The atmosphere is done quite well, with the wind whistling and howling as you ride a gondola to another area. The odd times you hear from the Jester and maybe another character, they are done also quite well, sounding just as animated as their look and movements.
We Were Here Forever felt much longer than previous games, as we had the credits rolling at around 11 hours or so. It didn’t necessarily feel arbitrarily lengthy, as there was even a part where you have to go get three different objects to fix something, but can do them in any order you wish. There’s much more story in Forever as well, though depending on your