MEMBER PROFILE FOR Giggzmcgoo-XBA
Average Overall Score Given: 7.61136 / 10
Total Forum Posts: 0
Reviews
Hotel Renovator
Do you think you have what it takes to wow, dazzle, and impress the various and vast guests and visitors with your interior design skills to get the 5-star rating you're after, or will you tank and have to rethink things? Well now is your chance to find out! Hotel Renovator is a simulation game where your imagination is put to the test with the tools and choices you've been given, along with the layout specifications and special requests from the guest. So find out if you have what it takes to become an owner and operator of what could become a 5-star Hotel establishment.Hotel Renovator Five Star Edition comes with five additional furniture packs to help you on your renovation adventure. Those packs are steampunk, gym, palace, futuristic, and kawaii, giving you a much more broad selection of over 2000 choices of design other than just the basic. These extra items is what I found added to the enjoyment of the design process, to help come up with some pretty cool and interesting rooms that make me want to stay in my rooms.
The whole narrative of Hotel Renovator has a mild amount of interest as you go through, but I do end up enjoying the process of the actual renovation more than the storyline. Anyway, as it goes, the story is that you have a family member who passed away and you inherit a hotel that is run down, broken, and busted, and now it's your job to bring it back to some form of glory. Problem is that there is garbage everywhere, broken furniture, and everything looks as though it could be hundreds of years old.
Maintain the cleanliness and complete challenges that arrive during the game to gain that coveted 5-star rating so lots of people want to come to your hotel. Some of the challenges can be as easy as finding someone's missing wallet, to custom designing a room for a vampire who in the end just wants to sleep in a crate in your basement, whether he likes your design or not.
Other fun challenges come up as well such as helping a wildlife enthusiast catch his iguana that is running around the hotel and build some shelves in the room he is staying in for his pet to run around on. All of these kinds of things happen while you need to continue to set up your hotel for the guests. You will also get packages sent to you from unknown senders that give you clues and hints as to the history of your family and the hotel. This is all part of the story mode, but there is also a sandbox mode that lets you focus on just redesigning the hotel in whatever way you see fit!
For you to learn how to play the game, the tutorial is well laid out and plays just like a regular level so you know exactly what to expect. This is where you'll learn how to demolish and clean. I suggest doing full demolition before placing anything so that you get to see the blank slate and plan it out before you place things and waste funds, because just like in real life, the resale value is never what you paid. Throughout the game you will also find literal easter eggs all over the hotel, and there are golden easter eggs that give you surprise rewards when you find them.
The item selection menu is as intuitive as it could be because it's a scroll menu, limiting your ability to see your full options. I would have loved it more if they moved the items menu to the Tablet so that I could scroll through that like a catalog instead of a scroller. I do enjoy the amount of options available to customize the items you choose in your renovation though. You can select your item of furniture and then you can customize the material used to make it, however, I do not like that the options are based on the look and don't tell you what that actual option is. Am I using teak, marble, or maybe pine? What is it? I do like to know this kind of information even though it's just a game.
A huge tip for you that I found to be super frustrating and made me almost want to give up completely, which would have brought this review to a very short end, is there is no autosave feature. That means if you forget to save right after you have put a huge amount of work into a space, you will lose all of it, so make sure to save every time. This brings me back to when I was learning to use a computer back in the day when you could write forever, something happens, and I hadn't saved, having to start from scratch all over again.
As your hotel continues to improve, grow, and become more popular (getting higher ratings), you unlock more options to design your spaces with. You begin with 1-star items to get you started, and as you go along and improve, your item ratings also increase to help you build a more impressive design, meaning you can go back to your first spaces and upgrade them to get higher ratings from your guests.
The NPCs in the game are rather amusing to watch as they check out the spaces you create and book. There seem to be no barriers for them they will walk into your space and check out each of your design elements, even if that means standing in the middle of the bed in the room they are looking at. I even found myself in the game standing in the wardrobe while looking at a wall design I just installed, adding a bit of humor to the game. I had a wedding group booking at one point and when all the guests gathered in the restaurant, they just circled each other and it looked like they were doing some ritualistic circle dance.
There is no multiplayer option, however, there is an online community where you can share your designs and get inspiration from. The gameplay is really easy to learn and understand as you go through the campaign, and as you go along, your tools become easier to use as well. You eventually get better tools like a vacuum instead of a broom and a sledgehammer instead of a crowbar, making larger areas of change happen instead of just small squares at a time.
The graphics were designed using Unreal Engine 4 which makes this game appealing to the eye, and in my opinion, is really enjoyable to see the designs you've created. A downside however is kind of like the "What color is this dress? Blue or Gold" thing that was going around the internet a couple years ago, because the depiction of light in the game doesn't necessarily portray an accurate account of what your color choice will look like. The soundtrack was very pleasant compared to some of the other renovation games I've played in the past. The music that plays is based on the challenge you are doing, and I found to fit very well. I didn't even have the urge to mute the game and listen to my own playlist.
Overall, I have found Hotel Renovator - Five Star Edition to be quite enjoyable and easy to get into despite the things I wish were improved, like the items menu and the NPCs. So if you're into building designs, operating a hotel, and pleasing random guests, all while learning about your character's family and hotel history, then I would say this is a great game for you to spend hours on.
**Hotel Renovator - Five Star Edition was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Suggestions: Please include an autosave.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Baldur's Gate 3
Let's go on an epic adventure together into the forgotten realms with a story of survival, teamwork, and the ultimate lure of complete power! Welcome to Baldur's Gate 3, the adventure game of 2023! The third installment in the series is based completely on the real-life tabletop game called Dungeons and Dragons. Baldur's Gate 3 was developed by Larian Studios over 7 long years and is finally here for all players to enjoy.A whole lot of you may or may not know, but Baldur's Gate 3 came about because the developers were invited for a drink by the Wizards of the Coast (D&D creators), and in this meeting there was one question posed to the Larian folks "Will you take us back to Baldur's Gate?". It was a request they couldn't refuse. I was lucky enough to get to review Baldur's Gate 3 and given the Deluxe edition that came with some pretty sweet bonus content, including but not limited to, the complete soundtrack, beautiful artbook, as well as character sheets! I'm not a regular player of D&D and I had never played any of the previous Baldur's Gate titles, so I found Baldur's Gate 3 to have a huge leanring curve for myself. Finding the Custom difficulty mode was a great help in this endeavor because it gave me the ability to adjust the gameplay to my gaming style.
When my wife found out that under the custom game mode players can adjust various settings to improve their experience, including how enemies react/respond, proficiency bonuses for those that aren't experienced players, showing or hiding prompt reactions, NPC health, failed perception rolls and passive rolls in dialogue, her interest in the game was piqued. She then said to me "Playing in the Explorer and Balanced difficulty levels was still frustrating for me. So learning that I could adjust these parameters helped reignite my interest in playing the game.". Another really cool feature is the ability to choose from three difficulty settings to decide how challenging you want the game to be, this gives you things like the ability to use weighted dice to help you get the advantage, or play tactically for hardcore style challenges.
When you begin the game you start with the task of creating your character, and because of the multiple options to choose from this can take quite a bit of time. You get options such as D&D archetypes like Teifling, Wood Elf, Human, etc. You also get to pick if you want to have hemochromatic eyes, tattoos, freckles, as well as how intense you want them to be seen. You choose a guardian and customize their look as well and this can take a long amount of time depending on how detailed you want to get. Having a lot of customization in character builds is always an enjoyable, however a time-consuming process in great RPGs! In Baldur's Gate 3 I enjoyed that they used a sliding scale adjustment for each option because the precision is more accurate in my opinion. I do however wish there were more options for body type, height, and weight. I found it cool that if you start playing the game and you're not happy with your look, there is a magic mirror you can visit that gives you the ability to make changes. You can choose between 12 classes and 11 races directly out of the D&D handbook to create your own in-game identity, and if you don't want to spend the ample time it would take to create who you want you can choose an origin character like Karlach the Teifling. She is an absolute beast.
What do you say we talk a little more about the character choice process? With 31 sub-races above and beyond the 11 base races (Human, Githyanki, Dragonborn, Halfling, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Tiefling, Dwarf, Elf, and Drow), 46 sub-classes that branch out from the 12 classes you can choose from as well. With more than 600 different actions and spells in the game it gives you true freedom and near-limitless ability to interact with your environment in the hand-crafted world that has been given to us. Your legacy is completely yours to create and leave behind in the game. By the way, max level is 12, so while you may feel like you're playing forever, there is an 'end' eventually.
If you have never played D&D but are still interested in the game and want to see the intriguing story, then I suggest at the start to pick one of the seven origin characters because they already have a full backstory and storyline available to play through. Each has their outlook on the world, traits, and goals that they are set to achieve. The active narrative will guide you through the game but your decisions determine the way the story will go. If you don't want to play an origin story you can still find them and recruit them to join your adventure giving the possibility to use their skills and knowledge to help you through your own personalized adventure.
Once you have finished the lengthy character selection process you can finally begin your journey. You wake up on a giant dimension-crossing alien ship that you later find out belongs to the Illithids, or Mind-flayers. You have been implanted with Illithid tadpoles through your eye, so as you go through the memory of the process you see this white worm-like thing with a mouth that reminds me of Pennywise from the movie It. The intent behind giving you this tadpole is to transform you into an Illithid, only that didn't happen, and all of a sudden the ship is being attacked by Githyanki warriors. The battle frees you from your pod and you find some others in the same situation and choose to free them or not, either way, you must get to the helm.
You steer the ship and crash it at Faerun. As you go along you learn that there are mysterious abilities awakening inside you caused by the Mind Flayer parasite planted in your brain. The biggest decision of all is do you resist and turn darkness against itself, or embrace corruption and become the ultimate evil. I found the storyline to be perfectly on point, beautifully written, and packed with interesting side stories and a whole bunch of quests. Being someone who has only dabbled in the classic tabletop, but is in absolutely no way well versed in anything D&D, it meant Baldur's Gate 3 seemed to take forever to get through, very difficult to defeat enemies, and feels like you've lost many hours for very little progress. However, I wouldn't have it any other way. Baldur's Gate 3 is an RPG, action-adventure, heavy on the strategy.
Baldur's Gate 3 was created using Divinity 4.0, giving the ability and freedom to explore and interact with many different objects, people, walls, rocks, dirt mounds, and so many other things. If or when you come across Scratch the Dog and you befriend him, he will chill at your camp till you want him. able to join you and search for treasures and other things. This gave you more freedom to keep doing whatever you want until he finds something for you.
Everything in Baldur's Gate 3 is turn-based on the D&D 5e ruleset, meaning that play is decided based on initiative rolls with factors drawn from your advantages as well as disadvantages form your character sheet. It brought me back to those choose-your-own-adventure games and books I used to use as a kid. I did however find the game to be long-winded, but maybe that's because I kept having to go back a save point. After all, I died and either forgot to save closer to where I was, or I ended up realizing I was not going to win and had no escape, so I was glad there is the ability to go back to previous saves whenever needed.
Just like in most RPG free-roam games out there, the secrets and hidden gems are vast and many throughout the game. More often than not it is very much in your interest to spend some time talking to the people, search through their stuff, and gather valuable and a lot of times invaluable stuff like rotten food (useful sometimes for throwing and characters or in battle).
There is online multiplayer available for up to 4 players so you can join forces with your buds in combat and simultaneously destroy your enemies together. An added benefit is you can still be in a party with your friends but split apart and continue your journey either strategically to help each other continue in the game or go against them. Relationships aren't the easiest things to maintain, so you may end up completely betraying those in your party or others you interact with. It all comes back to choices. I suppose that's one of the coolest things as that 100% of the choice is yours to make at every turn.
I got the chance to play a little bit of online multiplayer with a friend and it was really interesting because when in a dialogue with another character, your buddy gets the chance to vote on the answer they think you should choose to direct the story. The downside of this is if your pal who starts a conversation and decides not to give you time to vote and chooses whatever dialogue option they want, it may not be very inclusive on your buddy's side, but that's the openness of the game. Just don't forget your shovel, you never know when you're going to find a mound of dirt to search for treasure in.
I read through some info while researching Baldur's Gate 3 that said there are 174 hours of cinematics programmed into the game, so to me that means no matter what choices you make for your player or throughout your story, there should be a new experience for you to see. No matter what you shall go on, even across multiple playthroughs.
I haven't experienced this yet in my game but hopefully soon, relationships. That's right, with impending wars, invasions, and epic adventures, you will forge new relationships everywhere you go. The devs have given everyone their own moral compass that undoubtedly will determine the reactions and responses you get in those interactions. There's a good chance you could find yourself a sweet honeypot to come back to from your adventure to "release tensions" so to say. So, will you 'wham bam thank you ma'am' or will you settle down and let your heart make your choices?
Something I'm very unlikely to ever try is live streaming my play, mostly because I just don't do that. However, the developers have made it so that there are 3 different streaming options for you to choose from. You can disable nudity and explicit content either together or separately to make it safe for any minors who may end up watching your stream, and even twitch integration so you can still interact directly with whoever is watching.
I think I can sum up the graphics in one word, "beautiful." The world you get to explore was built so amazingly and detailed that sometimes I just stare out from a peak and enjoy the vistas. There are also many cool areas you get to adventure through, from Bensenville Forests, castle basements, underground spider caves, and mountainous terrain. Not to mention the beautifully cinematic cutscenes. Bravo to the animators, they guys nailed it. The deluxe edition came with some pretty sweet bonus content that I want to turn into real hard copies. The digital art book is an amazing and a beautiful insight into how the game came to fruition with detailed descriptions of every character in the game. It reads very similar to if you grabbed yourself the latest D&D players guidebook. There are pages about monsters and creatures, armor, weapons, and locations as well, including a world map.
There is also included in the bonus stuff full character sheets for each of the origin characters. This is a cool thing to get if you are looking to start a tabletop D&D game or want to bring one of them into your current game. You also get MP3 and WAV format versions of the original soundtrack, giving you the ability if you want to listen to an enhanced version while you play instead of the one in-game, which is still amazing to listen to in itself. The audio within the game were also very well done. When you hit something or someone it sounds as it should, and the voice acting for the characters was flawless, memorable, and sounded as my head imagined each character would. Also, the background ambience of the environment from the birds, to the water, to trying not to make noise to sneak up on enemies sounds impeccable.
Baldur's Gate 3 hits just right in all the places, from making important character decisions, to the things you hear from eavesdropping on NPC conversations, free exploration in a vast world, and group play alongside friends. With so many options, from how you look to the way each scenario plays out, the possibilities are damn near endless! I would recommend Baldur's Gate 3 to anyone really, regardless if you're a fan of RPGs, a new D&D player, D&D veteran, to anyone interested in checking it out just because of the hype. Do it, it's absolutely worth it.
**Baldur's Gate 3 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 9.7 / 10
ONE PIECE ODYSSEY
Do you have what it takes to join Luffy and work together with the Straw Hat Crew to set sail once again? I don't think I do mainly because I've never seen this show before. Even though I'm not a fan of this super popular anime show that I've never been interested in, now that it's a turn-based 40 hour RPG I thought to myself "Sure, why not?". I did some research on the game, not so much on the show itself, and found that this game was one that has been highly desired and requested by fans. The developers have been working on this game for many years. I discovered that it took so long because the author of ONE PIECE, Eiichiro Oda, and the developers wanted to commemorate the brand’s 25th Anniversary. Because Eiichiro Oda contributed to this project you will find both new characters and monster designs as well as changes to the main plot.The main storyline of the game is as follows; During their voyage along the Grand Line, Captain Monkey D.Luffy and the Straw Hat Crew are caught in a sudden storm at sea. When the storm subsides they find themselves stranded on a lush, but mysterious island called Waford. Now separated from each other they must find all the crew and set out on a new daring adventure filled with marvels of nature, powerful enemies and strange encounters with island locals. While exploring, they come across mysterious ruins and never-before-seen monsters. Other than the Main Episode, players will also find rich Side Episodes and Battles to get into with the Straw Hat Crew in a different ONE PIECE universe.
You get to play as the entire crew of Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, Robin, Franky, and Brook! To me it seems like they are a gang of loud boaters who go on adventures and Luffy just always wants to eat. There are some crazy moves in the battles like Luffy’s Gum Gum Bullit, and Zoro’s ability to cut down barriers. I didn't know Luffy was basically a Japanese stretch Armstrong. The Scramble Area Battle is the basis of the turn-based fights where you will move around through multiple battle areas, combined with the Dramatic Scene system gives you the ability for the battle to further develop into unexpected and random situations.
The gameplay is very much your typical RPG style, similar to games like Elder Scrolls with the open world and the interaction with inhabitants and objects. You can choose to run manually or with auto run, and there is a handy auto battle mode for if you're feeling like the battle might take awhile or if you need to grab a quick snack or bathroom break. The dialogue is quite extensive and is in Japanese with subtitles. Some of the creatures in the game are pretty cool until they are trying to kill you, like giant lobsters, crabs, venus fly traps with legs and various bad guys, including a giant gator that is very hard to beat without lots of food and such for healing. I really enjoyed the ability to customize your battle turn order, especially when you get defeated only to realize you have a whole other team to use.
To level up your characters and make them stronger in battle you need to take time in your areas and find the special cube fragments that are specific to each character. You then open up the crew menu and enter the skills to make use of the cubes. You can upgrade your battle skills as well as the field skills, giving you the ability to smash things like crates and blockages easier. There is a stamp that gets completed as you level up, and a full stamp means max level.
The soundtrack was composed by Motoi Sakuraba, well known for his musical contributions to the Dark Souls and Tales of series. The soundtrack fit well with the scenarios that you encounter, but also felt impartial to the soundtrack. That doesn't mean it's not good, it's just not really my style. The visual aesthetics are quite appealing and the scenery is pleasant to look at, however most of the graphic details went into the characters themselves as they are quite detailed. I give this credit to the ONE PIECE author being so involved in creating the game.
While I did enjoy ONE PIECE ODYSSEY as an introduction to ONE PIECE, and the general gameplay was enjoyable, I did end up getting a little tired and bored of the general repetitive nature. That being said, that's probably just a 'me' thing. If you're a fan of the show you'll likely really enjoy it for its authenticity. I do think it's a solid enough rpg but I wouldn't say I'm in love with it quite yet.
**ONE PIECE ODYSSEY was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Suggestions: I think it would be cool if this game included local multiplayer.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum
Join me in a great adventure back in the past, kind of like Marty Mcfly, minus the Delorean. Go back to the 80's when you had to have a NES and a pocket full of Garbage Pail Kids cards to be considered “cool”. Well, wouldn't it have been cool to get a video game that combined those two dominant forces? Well, thanks to iam8bit, alongside those developers; aka time-travelers, at Retrotainment, and the people at Topps, our dreams have finally come true! Not only does this game play exactly as a classic NES game does, but these amazing people have also created an All-New Garbage Pail Kids NES Game on a real, functioning NES Cartridge!Garbage Pail Kids is literally everything you ever wanted in such a combination of awesomeness. The game is described as an old-school platformer featuring four playable GPK (Garbage Pail Kids) characters, six disgusting secret-filled levels, and its own trading-card system. It’s a complete throwback to the golden era of gaming. I really couldn't agree more with this statement, as Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum brought me straight back in time while sitting on my couch. There is so much awesomeness in this package that I can't even get into it because I want it so badly. Maybe Santa will be good to me this year?
I could gush about this game for hours, but I’m sure what you’re really here for is the gameplay review. The story starts after the Adam-Bombpocolypse and the events of fury load. You find yourself playing the character Mad Max and begin at a factory where they make fresh gum. One of the workers tells you to get him six ingredients so he can make you a stale gum generator. You head out with your pals; Leaky Lindsay, a cute pigtailed girl with a snotty nose, Luke Puke, a redheaded boy with a bad case of indigestion and Patty Putty, a baby made of you guessed it, putty. Mad Max is super excited to be on an adventure with this ragtag team of kids with abilities like snotty, projectile vomiting and a bouncing baby. Before long you find yourself under attack by various nefarious villains and must fight your way through each of the levels and defeat the bosses. You get a part of the generator for each boss defeated. Once you’ve collected all the parts return them to the factory and you will get your stale gum.
Even though this game is currently only a single player, I think it would be great as a multiplayer team game. Something to keep in mind is that because this game is modeled after the classic NES titles, and there are also no upgrades. Everything in this game screams classic and retro, right down to the 8-bit graphics and the smaller play screen with a cool frame of the four characters in the game. The soundtrack was created by Thomas Cipollone and consists of eleven tracks that last about 20 minutes. These tracks are also available for purchase to download if you are interested. I didn’t choose to do this, but if you do, something really cool of note is that the proceeds actually go to the artist and not to the game company. So do your part and support indie game developers because they do things like this and usually don't get much recognition.
Nostalgic gamers will be sure to enjoy the option of purchasing the exclusive bundle. This gem of a package comes with a real NES exclusive cartridge, in either Mad Mike Blue or Stale Gum Pink, shipped blind and at random. Also included are exclusive pixel art GPK trading cards and a forward from the writer of the game Adam F. Goldberg, as well as the full-colour premium instruction booklet. All contained together in a cool retro-style box.
Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum is everything we have all dreamed about. It plays on the classic game system with a true to the era difficulty, graphics, and sounds. The control system makes this possibly one of the best 8-bit games out there and I absolutely loved this trip down memory lane when I used to purchase GPK cards as a kid, complete with stick of stale and hard gum.
Suggestions: It would be really cool to be able to play this in some sort of multiplayer aspect. Whether that be Player 1 and then Player 2, think Mario brothers, or multiplayer/same screen. Either way, some sort of multiplayer ability would be a great addition.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Them’s Fightin’ Herds
Them’s Fightin’ Herds is an indie 2D fighting game featuring a cast of adorable animals designed by acclaimed cartoon producer Lauren Faust. So if this game reminds you of My Little Pony then that's why! The developers found a way to blend accessibility with streamlined fighting mechanics to create an in-depth and familiar combat system. This game has something for everyone, and the main story mode reminds me of my Gameboy Color when I used to play Pokemon because of the way you travel through its world and have to talk to every character you come across to find out what you're doing.Some of the key features are the 4-button mechanics and systems in battle mode, the story mode having an episodic adventure with exploration, lots of combat, minigames and boss fights. You can also battle your friends locally or globally in 2v2 battles. Practice your skills in training mode, customize your avatar, explore with your friends in the top-down visual pixel lobby and listen to dynamic music chosen to adapt to the characters you are battling.
The story begins in the world of Foenum in the capital, Reine, with the Council of Ungulates having an emergency meeting. Chief Anga starts the discussion of the predators, the main antagonists in the game, returning by claiming there's a survivor - Ribbon, who tells her story of encountering a small pack of wolves. When she was chased down and cornered, the wolves demanded to take them to the Prophet's Key. But the dawn came just in time, blasting the predators with morning light and turning them into smoke. Just as they were disintegrating, they warned her of the predators' return. After listening to the story, Kalimat insists that the legends of The Prophet's Key are true, and they must seek a champion to find the Key. While Chief Anga is initially skeptical, she admits it must be taken seriously. However, she believes it won't be easy to settle on one champion, so she calls all nations of Foenum to choose a champion of their own, and they will battle each other for the right to seek the Key.
In story mode, you start with Chapter One, currently the only chapter that is available, with new chapters coming out as a free update to be released in chronological chapters as they are completed. Chapter One is all about Arizona’s journey to become the Champeen of the prairies. She overheard the counsel talking about the key and talks with her father whose name is Texas as he tells how the predators were banished from foenum. When no other cattlekind chooses to step up and take the role of champion, Arizona fights for her right to... fight!
Now she has to travel through salt mines and other challenging landscapes. When she meets Madison, who seems to be stuck where she is due to a collapsed bridge, she is convinced to spend the night. Unable to sleep, Arizona finds a scouting wolf and ends up following it into a salt mine. Battles ensue and travels continue. You need to mine salt throughout the game as that is your currency to purchase outfits and gear to build up your character.
The controls are simple enough when playing once you find out what they are. It's a little confusing at first because you would expect that their controls would match the controller's layout, but just because they have matching colors doesn't mean they match the button. Because of this I strongly suggest spending some time in the tutorials to figure them out before heading into combat. However, once you do have them all memorized, Them’s Fightin’ Herds is pretty simple to figure out, it reminds me of Street Fighter but with ungulates.
Originally the art was set at 1280x720 which is what the Skullgirls Z-Engine supported when they started working with it. Now, all the artwork is set to a native resolution of 1920x1080, making it look so much more impressive even if you are set to higher resolutions. The soundtrack is excellent with really cool variations on themes depending on who is fighting against each other and who’s currently winning. Also they have made available the entire soundtrack for purchase with all proceeds going to the artists, a cool thing to do in a world where artists don't always get the full funds.
Overall, Them’s Fightin’ Herds has a lot of dialogue to read, cool soundtracks, wicked action adventure and My Little Pony went badass kind of feel to it. The controls are easy to figure out for the most part but the amount of dialogue to read was a bit of a downside. While there was only one episode available to play at this time of this review, I look forward to continuing the adventure in the future.
**Them’s Fightin’ Herds was provided by the publisher and reviewed on Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 7.7 / 10
Serial Cleaners
New York 1999, it's New Years Eve, and the four man cleaning crew has gathered to reminisce about past jobs and what got them started. Serial Cleaners is the sequel game to Serial Cleaner, which was the developer's gem released in mid 2017. This single-player, stealth action, crime game is one of the bloodiest games I think I've ever played, and I play Mortal Kombat. You alternate between playing four very different mob cleaners, taking on all of the bloodiest jobs that became available in the 1990's.As they all continue to share the details of their stories they eventually stop matching up, and the truth behind what they really do becomes revealed. Your job, whether you want it or not, is to clean murder scenes for the mob in this 90's drenched fantasy, inspired by cult movies "Reservoir Dogs", "Pulp Fiction" and "The Usual Suspects". It brings you to various locations, tasking you with cleaning up dead bodies, evidence and blood, all while not being noticed doing illegal things by passers-by and cops.
With four unique characters, each with different skill sets and styles, this stealth action game has intuitive controls with a non-linear storyline and choices to make that determine what happens next. Serial Cleaners is more of a problem solver than a puzzle solver. The game gives you something called the 'Cleaner Sense' to make important decisions about what needs to be cleaned and learn what, and who, is around nearby that might affect your ability to complete the job.
As the storyline continues you play as each of the cast, so here's a little intro; You have Bob C. Leaner - he's well-rounded, his playstyle is slow and methodical. He uses the environment to hide and confuse the officers but can quickly retreat by sliding over the pools of blood, but that means you will have more to clean up after. Next, we have Vip3r Erin Reed - tech skills and overall smarts make up for her short stature. She can short-circuit electrical devices from a further distance and hack computer terminals to get an advantage over the patrolmen. Lati Latisha Thomas - prefers to hightail it out of view rather than hide. She uses her surroundings to her advantage by jumping, climbing and sliding over obstacles. Last up, we have Psycho Haldor “Hal” Boen - rough, dirty and couldn't be subtle enough to save his life. He can’t hide easily. Along with the hoover, Hal always carries his old trusty chainsaw. Cutting dead bodies to pieces and throwing limbs around potentially at officers to knock them out and hide them instead of him hiding.
With a unique art direction inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat's street art and postmodernism, for those of you who don't know who he was, he was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980's as part of the Neo-expressionism movement. I think the developers have really shown that well given that is the style they were going after and nailed it on the head. Otherwise, the 60FPS seems perfect for playing, as not only does the game have influence from great movies of the past, but the aesthetic design helps portray that you are playing a game in that era.
The soundtrack was created with Joshua Eustis. His idea when creating the soundtrack was to just riff off of existing well-known tracks from the 90's. His choices in what you hear are based on who you're playing in an effort to express the rooted subculture, but he managed to do it in a way that each track related and influenced each other which really brings you back to the 90's in an almost nostalgic way.
When I first started playing Serial Cleaners I was very frustrated because I didn't see any way not to get captured, so I put it down for a couple of days. Once I went went back to it, I have since changed my tune. Serial Cleaners is very bloody and gruesome and at times annoying. Still, once you figure out that you need to learn the patrols and see what kinds of things you can do to distract the officers, this opens up a fantastic opportunity to mess with cops in ways you can't necessarily do in real life, such as hacking a computer and turning the lights off on the other side of the room, or using a chainsaw to make an officer pass out from fear. I also really got a kick out of the fact that when you are cutting up a corpse, it gets censored. I have really enjoyed Serial Cleaners, I just suggest that if you have kids, play this one after they go to sleep as it is quite bloody.
**Serial Cleaners was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Construction Simulator
Construction Simulator has made a comeback, so get to work! Hop into your heavy-duty machinery and get building with some of the most accurate recreations of real-life machines I may have ever seen. With great details put into each aspect, from the the hydraulic lines to the accurate decals. Also very notable are the real world brands available. Big recognizable names like Caterpillar, Bell, Bobcat, Kenworth, Liebherr and Mack Trucks, but in this edition, you now have access to new partners like Daf and Doosan giving you access to over 90 options.Build on two maps inspired by landscapes in the USA and Germany, with over 90 tasks available to be completed across both. Each map has its own campaign, allowing you to become the owner of your own construction business alongside your mentor, Hape. Expand your fleet and grow your business so you can get bigger and more interesting contracts. Make use of all your skills by renovating things like the waterfront, or cleaning up the inner city. On the German map in particular, you will find beautiful scenery based in Southwest Germany. In Friedenberg, your mission is to help create solutions for renewable energy and improve the infrastructure in the campaign, but aside from these larger tasks, you will get assigned smaller ones so you can experience every aspect of the equipment you have access to.
The Extended Edition (basically Deluxe version) gives you additional design options for your PPE with available customizations to your Helmet, Ear Protection as well as Eye Protection. You can also choose a sleek sports car to drive around each map and see what you have created, you may even find a bobblehead of your old pal Hape on the dashboard.
In the Campaign, there are four main people in the city who run various projects: Transport, Cultural Heritage, Renewable Energies, Prestige Projects, and one final project. I found while playing that having previous construction experience, as well as knowledge of the machines, is helpful in completing the jobs. Once you have done a few projects and proven yourself, so to say, you can hire helpers to do some of your tasks for you so you can continue with other things. I found it incredibly useful to be able to fast travel when your dump truck is full so you don't have to waste a lot of time actually driving back and forth. There is also the ability, when you need to refill something like your cement truck, where you can jump into the truck and select an option to refill so you don't have to leave the site.
Not only can you grow your construction empire, but you can also invite up to three friends to join you. Coordinate and build together to finish contracts even more efficiently. This is unfortunately not available in local multiplayer. I did not get the chance to try with my friends, however I did discover maybe a bit of a loophole in how to complete certain aspects of the job. For instance, if you need to dig a massive hole in the ground, if you pay attention to your completion levels, you will find that you don't need to dig the whole thing out, which makes the job go slightly faster. Otherwise, you will be digging for many hours.
The visuals are similar to most simulators out there, and while you won't find the same amount of detail in this as you do in Microsoft Flight Simulator, there is quite a good amount of detail in the realism put into the materials and the finished product; from simple things like the clouds in the sky rolling by, to the details on the machines. The glare from the sun on the horizon is also very well done, with little details like falling leaves blowing in the breeze to even the doorbell on the finished structure. However, the in-game physics could be improved as they just aren't quite where I would like them to be, especially for a simulator.
The audio for the machinary I found to be quite accurate to the real world machinery, being they are just as noisy as if you were living next to an ongoing build in real life, and I found nature sounds, like birds and the wind, to be soothing and almost relaxing, until you start backing up a big truck and all you hear in the 'BEEP BEEP BEEP'!
I found Construction Simulator packed with all kinds of neat little 'treats' as I played, like the fact that you can overfill your transport vehicles, but you get a warning that it's going to happen. You can also spill your dirt if you happen to overestimate your distance and dump your load. I found it entertaining that sometimes you have to shake your bucket because dirt got stuck. I had a friend play this game who used to be in the construction industry, and every time, he made a comment about how he had driven that exact machine or the part of the job in-game was something he had actually built. I had felt like I was contracting out my work so I didn't have to do it. So if you like simulators or you are really into construction, maybe you know someone who is, Construction Simulator feels like maybe after a few turns with someone experienced in the machines I could almost use these in real life.
**Construction Simulator was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
NBA 2K23
Well, it's that time of year again my friends, the newest edition in the NBA 2K franchise, and it's pretty impressive with the new additions and content this year. NBA 2K23 starts off with Season One which features the following new content: MyCAREER, MyTEAM, and The W, now offering new Level 40 rewards including a Golf Cart and a Hoverbike, while the MyTEAM mode has new cards and game modes, better accessibility, more customization and endless lineup combinations. The Season resets every six weeks.Some of the gameplay enhancements the team has included this year that are totally worth keeping an eye out for while playing are the new skill moves, animations and player builds designed to create a hyper-realistic experience for players to feel even more immersed in the game. New enhancements focus on shooting, the Pro Stick (Right Stick) has been enhanced to help create skilled moves, adrenaline boosts, better defense, badges, takeovers and even the AI gameplay. Last year's focus was on the defense so this year only makes sense to focus on offense.
One of the coolest upgrades this year is the addition of Pro Stick gesture combos also known as double throws. This is the action of flicking the stick in one direction, letting it return to the center, and then quickly moving it back to the first direction. Also, they have added switchbacks which is almost the same as the double throw, only instead of after returning to center you quickly move it in the opposite direction. This changes the way you both shoot and handle the ball on the court.
New commands included this year allow for the expansion of dunking controls to let you dunk exactly how you want without firing off a skill dunk you weren’t expecting. When driving to the basket with the sprint trigger held, the new Pro Stick control map for dunks is as follows:
UP = Two-Hand
RIGHT = Strong Hand
LEFT = Weak Hand
DOWN = Rim Hang
UP-UP = Flashy Two-Hand
DOWN-UP = Flashy One-Hand
UP-DOWN = Normal Skill Dunk with meter
DOWN-DOWN = Rim Hang Skill Dunk with meter
This also includes improvements to the game physics, including control over rim hangs which adds more to the entertainment value of the game. This is done with the new simple controls. Use one of the new rim-hang dunk gestures mentioned above and when you drive toward the hoop, keep the sprint trigger held and when the player gets their hands on the rim you’ll hang indefinitely as long as you keep the trigger held. Another cool thing to go with this is you can use the Left Stick to adjust the momentum of your swinging body and the Right Stick to pull yourself up on the rim. This is all done through a physical simulation, as opposed to canned animations (available on Next-Gen only), but watch out for 'techs' if you hang too long in NBA games.
This year the Jordan challenge game mode features 15 playable moments from his amazing career, allowing us to play through the legacy that started in his college career to the 1998 NBA finals game-winning shot. This mode also includes interviews with top NBA legends talking about Jordan's career-making moves. In the new MyCAREER mode, you get to experience one of the most involved storylines in the game franchise's history. Start off with the NBA Draft, challenge players to improve performance in the NBA, and navigate through the off-court career with new ventures like clothes, business, and music.
In the WNBA game mode this year that is only available on Next-Gen consoles, they have brought all new community goals, all-star games and the Commissioner's Cup. This year seems to be far more community oriented, and to complete them you need to work with other players. Each Season will have six weekly challenge goals to complete. If the community is able to reach the collective goal in four out of the six weeks in that Season, every NBA 2K23 player will receive a reward.
In the MyNBA mode, this is where you play the 'What If' game. For instance, What if Kobe and Shaq never went their separate ways? What if the Houston Rockets selected Michael Jordan with the No. 1 overall pick in 1984? This is also where you can recreate moments in NBA history and make league-shattering moves in Eras. According to the creators, an “Era” is what we call a specific point in time that you can start playing a new MyNBA save. All you need to do is pick your Era and play. You can still tweak your roster and settings as well, so long-time fans still get to do what they like in this mode. Last year's experience is now being called the “Modern Era” so that those fans can still do the online league and friend play. There are four Eras available to play: Modern, Magic v. Bird, Jordan, and Kobe.
The MyTeam experience this year lets you play Triple Threat matches online in co-op and clutch time settings, as well as more freedom due to the removal of contracts. The top highlights from NBA 2K23 is for sure the Triple Threat Online: Co-Op. This new game mode allows players to partner with friends for 3v3 online gameplay across different variations. Party Mode, Co-Op and Competitive Online. Unlimited, which allows you to play prestige tiers to unlock more rewards, every win provides a vault opening, complete with leaderboards and special icons that let others know if you are top 10, and if you have completed all tiers and prestige for the season.
Single play clutch time is a face-paced mode with a 4-point line to take your best starting 5 and compete against the AI. Starter Cards lets you choose between All-Stars Ja Morant, Jimmy Butler, or Joel Embiid to lead their collection. Players will get to play with their Starter Card choices in a Triple Threat game before finalizing their decision. After 10 games in any MyTEAM mode, you will earn a 90 OVR Amethyst Fred Jones card to jumpstart your team. There are also Exhibitions where players can send their player cards outside of their 13-player lineup on vacation around the globe, returning with a special reward from their mission. The Trophy case is also really cool where you can earn top-tier players from each franchise. There are 15 event cards for each franchise. By showcasing key moments of their history, players can earn a Pink Diamond player for each team as well.
But the coolest returning feature this year is the MyTEAM Unlimited Tournament. The $250,000 MyTEAM Unlimited Tournaments return this year for each console generation. Reach the Emerald Tier in the new Unlimited before the first GameDay on October 15 to participate. The finalists will be brought to an in-person setting to crown the $50,000 Console Champions and the $200,000 Grand Champions. So you better start playing now if you hope to get the chance.
With so many features and parts to NBA 2K23, there is always so much to talk about. This also includes the city, which brings fast travel stations, affiliation zones, new additions like the Block and Theatre, as well as a Dreamville Studio where you can attempt to get noticed by soundtrack exec for this year's game, J-cole. Do you have what it takes to impress him and get in his good books to help you take control over the city?
There is just so much to talk about, and really more worth experiencing than just reading about. Upgraded graphics with really impressive hair and skin, the ability to download the app to scan your face and put yourself into the game, and even the real contest, there's simply a massive amount of things to do. Make sure you also check out the shoe creator, which lets you design your own kicks and for your created player, give power-ups to give you that on-court advantage you have always wanted, and I absolutely love it. Definitely give NBA 2K23 a chance. Yes, the controls can be hard to learn but if you practice and work at it and do the drills, just like in real-life ball, you too can show you have what it takes to make it in the NBA.
**NBA 2K23 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 9.3 / 10
You Suck at Parking
Have you ever seen a parallel parking stall on the other side of the street and thought I could drift into it? But then you remember you like your car and everything is expensive if you crash so you don't? Well, You Suck at Parking might be the solution for you, or just a frustrating game, I'll leave you to decide. The main goal is to race to the parking spots and stop in them within the time limit. The fewer the attempts the better the score.This simple yet frustratingly challenging game is full of customizations in this ever-evolving parking simulator. Slam on your brakes, hit the E-brake, slide right into that parking spot, and do it within the time to unlock more design choices, mechanics and new cars. Play through more than 100 levels that only get harder as you play through one level to the next. One thing is for sure, in the first 30 minutes of playing You Suck at Parking, you will spin out and around, run out of gas, hit barriers and fall off a cliff before you fully understand what you need to do.
The gameplay is very simplistic in nature, however, very frustrating in its own right, because once you hit the brakes or come to a stop that's it, you are parked and a new car populates. There are burner walls that torch your car if you touch them, police that chase you, giant fans that blow you around and no promise to see all of them on every level.
With three vehicles to choose from, a car, truck or van, and the ability to choose from various colors and pattern designs, as well as different effects for your car such as the reaction for when you park, your boost trails and even the way you explode. However, there is a Parking Pass that works just like F1 22’s Podium Pass or Rocket League’s Rocket Pass that gives you cosmetic parts like bull horns for instance.
The design of the levels was a bit of a surprise because just when you think you’re in the swing of things, a police car or more starts to chase you, and if they catch you that's it. You may even get turned into an ice cube. With no reverse gears to fix something you accidentally did your options are to reset the level of your car when mistakes happen.
That’s the basics of the game, you can play online with your friends, you can play by yourself, and you can even try it for free if you're an Xbox Game Pass subscriber and find your own opinion. There are no real upgrades, but each level is really only a couple of minutes long, with the goal to be to locate the parking spaces and stop within, or just on, the lines. Finish within the time limit and ensure you have at least one tire in the stall and you're ready to go.
The parking pass has a payment option to up the chances of some potentially cooler designs for your vehicles but it is not necessary for completion. As you play through the challenges or online matches, this is your level progression and also unlocks items. You progress through levels that in turn unlock items to refresh the look of your vehicle. The long-term appeal of the Parking Pass is the online multiplayer.
Up to eight players in total can tackle some of the wackier level designs, across four rounds, with the aim of parking in all nine spots first. As frustrated as I became while playing, it hilariously reminds me of the mall parking lot on Boxing Day. Unlike the real world, however, you don’t get involved in road rage or have any of the physical problems of any real-life parking struggles.
Gameplay is smooth at 60 FPS and the track designs combined with the drivability of the cars are reminiscent of pole position, except you aren't racing to the finish, you are racing to park terribly. The soundtrack seems like they are trying to calm you down while getting you frustrated with the difficulty of the game. You may want to throw the controller but the calming music at least makes you second guess the poor choice.
Overall, I thought I was going to be more impressed with You Suck at Parking, but as I played it more I found myself feeling like I had done the same exact thing before in the previous dozen levels and that there was no real change in what was happening, just that it got more difficult to park.
**You Suck at Parking was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
Bright Memory: Infinite
Come and take a quick trip on a fast and short ride into the future. This game brings a new light to FPS and action games as it fuses the two together in an almost beautiful harmony of gaming. Developed in FYQD studio using Unreal Engine 4, the game is an excellent insight into what might be in the future of gaming. With the ability to combine a variety of skills and abilities to create awesome combo attacks, this game is a welcome change-up for a regular FPS player who might want a short game to spice up their playing.Zeng Xiancheng is the solo indie developer for Bright Memory: Infinite and has proven that it no longer takes the number of professionals of times past to create such an amazing game from its graphics to the gameplay. I have to agree with what many are saying and that Bright Memory: Infinite is a equivalent to AAA knockout.
In Bright Memory: Infinite we enter the world of a futuristic metropolis in the year 2036. Black holes appear in the skies all around the world and nobody really knows why. Through the narrative we find out that there is an archaic mystery afoot. You play as Shelia, a 21 year old army brat who lost both parents when she was six. The founder of The Supernatural Science Research Organization (SRO) raised her, and she spent years training in various military training and excelled above everyone else. She appears to have super-human abilities herself, making her one of the Ultra-Elite among the SRO emergency inspection team.
I really enjoyed the mix-and-match possibilities of the skills and abilities to create awesome combos on your enemies. Your sword allows you to cut, slash and slice through crowds of enemies and even use it to block incoming attacks. You also have the ability to customize the guns with a variety of ammunitions. You can choose between homing missiles, incendiary bombs or even sticky grenades depending on your mood and situation.
The graphics achieved in this game use the most current programming tools available in Unreal Engine 4, and it really speaks for itself the moment you turn this game on. 4K/60FPS is the default, but there is also an included option to have an even smoother combat experience with 120 FPS if you have the display that can support it. This might be one of the most impressive graphics in-game I have seen so far with how much is happening on screen at once.
The sounds in-game were composed by the same team who did God of War 3 and Resident Evil 2 Remake, so you know it's a fantastic soundtrack. Little sound tidbits within the game are so realistic that I actually thought my phone was vibrating beside me, but it was actually the one in the game. For some, the music in the background might be a little distracting or it might bring you further into the game, it all depends on your style. I quite enjoy it because it helps me get into the action and focus.
The upgrading seems minimal as you can only do it at certain points within the adventure. You have to collect reliquaries in order to do any upgrades but there are still a ton of different skill upgrades to choose from. The sword in the game is probably the most powerful in the fact that it can block attacks and also slice and dice your enemies.
Overall I really did like Bright Memory: Infinite. The amazing graphics, the fact it was created by one person, and the storyline are what made me enjoy it much more than expected. The biggest downside though is that I wish it were longer. But the more you play, the more you upgrade Shelia, thus becoming more powerful, which I really enjoyed. I love that I was able to change her costume as well as a number of different skins for the weapons she uses.
If you're a fan of fast-paced first person shooters, Bright Memory: Infinite is definitely a game for you. There is a distinct smooth combination of ancient Chinese mythology style combined with futuristic technology. While quite a short game, able to be completed in a single sitting, it was entertaining from start to finish.
**Bright Memory: Infinite was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Adventures of Chris
Join the adventure in this 100% autobiographical journey that takes us back in time to 1995, where we meet a chubby, dorky kid named Chris. On his way home he gets kidnapped and warped to another universe where he gets mocked and turned into a balloon by a very bratty and annoying little vampire. This is a story-driven 2D adventure platform game with tons of jokes, quirky villains and adventure!We start out with Chris on his way home when he starts to hear a strange noise out of nowhere that does not appear until he is outside his home. When a portal orb appears above him and kidnaps him he then arrives at a castle lost and confused. Chris then enters with the purpose of finding a phone to try and get home, which is when he comes across a whiny vampire planning his own birthday party. There are kids locked in a cage put there by the vampire named Count Junior.
Explore eight different locations around the world with no specific play order. Advance Chris’s skills and strengths to turn him into an unlikely but plausible hero, learn spells and new techniques and defeat strange villains. The villains have no real set pattern to how they attack or when, they just fire projectiles at you and you are left to figure out what you need to do to defeat them. This was a massive struggle and a source of frustration.
The story on this game is packed full of humor, and as we move along in the narrative we learn that around the same time Chris was kidnapped there were seven other children from around the world taken as well. When Chris meets up with Count Junior he gets heavily mocked and then gets turned into a party balloon. Chris then manages to escape and follows a mysterious trail of cookies, lost in a 90’s style cartoon universe, which Chris then finds himself in a mysterious balloon world in the sky. Some believe he is the one to save them all, others are more skeptical.
Upgrade your gear and knowledge and a few other things while floating around the cloud place. See the Seamstress for armor, Baker for health and magic upgrades, and visit the Library to improve your knowledge as you find the missing encyclopedia.
Chris Guin and his team get a huge round of applause from me for what I think is a great triumph in the 16-bit gaming world. When he was in the 7th grade Chris used a tool called Klik 'n' Play to create a game that was full of inside jokes and other aspects of popular games of the time. Years later he rediscovered his creation on a hard drive and thankfully he decided to rebuild and improve the game with his knowledge from programming training, except he wanted to do it the way his 13 year old self imagined it. With the deliberate influence that comes through in the graphics design and gameplay, Adventures of Chris does a great job bringing me back to the early days of great classic platformer games.
The soundtrack score has been melodically planned to bring back memorable hook-driven melodies that bring us back to the old days of gaming where the tracks were 'earworms' that stayed with us and still to this day, bringing us back to the old days of gaming. The sound design in Adventures of Chris seems to be a great homage to the past and the indie games the developers loved. With inspirations coming from great games like Crossing Souls, Owlboy, Delta Rune and Shadows of Adam. If you are interested in hearing the soundtrack outside of the game there is a spot on the game's website where you can input your email and get it delivered to you as well!
With the reminiscence of the past and the continued challenge, Adventures of Chris has turned out to be a lot of fun to play. The dialogue throughout is hilarious and really adds great humor. Overall, Adventures of Chris is worth playing, especially if you were a gamer in the ’90s, so see if you can find the hidden gems curated by the developer. I found that the fact that someone chose to make a balloon world in the sky as if there was a place that our balloons we let go of as kids actually went somewhere instead of just popping or becoming a hazard to nature. Give this game a try, I promise you will laugh!
**Adventures of Chris was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Autonauts
Have you ever dreamed about creating an army of robots to do all your menial tasks but are concerned that they’ll eventually overturn humanity?! Have no fear, Autonauts are here! Developed by Denki, the Scottish game development team that brings us such titles as Denki Blocks!, Codename: Kids Next Door and many more great games over the years. In Autonauts you're sent out to travel throughout the universe to find uninhabited planets with the purpose of setting things in motion using the power of automation.There isn’t much to the story in this game. When you first start out we see our main character Autonaut in a rocketship setting off to build their own civilization. This is where we set the game options such as whether or not you want a tutorial, the type of planet (large or small) and the type of game you wish to play. There are three options for game style. Settlement; is where Autonaut codes, creates and automates to build a settlement from the ground up. Free; if you want to play with everything unlocked and build a settlement, and Creative; you have the freedom to automate without limitations. These are similar to the structure in other games better known as career or story mode and sandbox. I personally chose the full adventure of Settlement and liked the challenges it presented.
Once you have chosen your game mode, you set off on tasks to get the ball rolling on building a settlement. From harvesting a simple stick and stone in order to make an axe, you then continue to make more things from the blueprints available in order to start building your worker bots. As you go along the building and development you then begin to teach your bots how to do these tasks for you.
If you’ve chosen to do the tutorial Otto-0, your personal guide bot will give you basic knowledge on how to get what you need from exploring your new world to establishing industries and researching. However, be aware that Otto-0 only teaches you the basics of the game and the programming of your bots. It may take some creative thinking and extra time (or a good wiki page) to figure out the more intricate programs your bots can do. This is one of the enjoyable aspects of the game and certainly one of the aspects that I think about even when not playing the game.
The first industry you will learn to create is your lumber yard. Here you will need to program bots to carry out tasks like digging holes, planting seeds, cutting trees into poles and making products from those poles. Once you’ve figured out how to make all your products you will need to build somewhere to store them. While that might seem easy, the difficulty comes in when the bots only have so much KB of memory, and each task you program them to do costs precious KB's of storage space.
Figuring out how to program the bots efficiently with the little KB available is indeed a challenge and quite a lot of fun. It does help that the developers have included upgrades for the bots. These range from memory chips to extra hands and even a backpack. So far I have mostly used the memory upgrades since this allows the bots to carry out more commands. Basic bots have one upgrade slot while the more advanced bots have two.
To advance through the challenges you’ll help Autonaut research new technologies and build your transmitter ever higher as you complete plans to progress through the Settlement Hierarchy. Starting with Stage 1: Infrastructure and progressing through the plans until you reach Stage 8: Metropolis. Each stage is significantly more difficult than the last and requires different strategies to complete. In order to research you need to start your civilization of Folk that provides you with Wuv. Wuv fuels the research station. I thought that this was a super cute addition to the game and it’s relatively easy to keep your Folk happy enough to provide Wuv.
Autonauts has a pixelated Minecraft-style design that I find to be quite cute, almost like pixelated chibis. It is certainly an adorable approach to a coding game. I read on one of the wiki pages that the bot variants are modeled after famous robots such as R2D2 and Rosie from The Jetsons. Once you start advancing your research and get more bots parts this becomes a great way to customize your team of bots. The background sound is reminiscent of early COM Nintendo soundtracks punctuated with beeps and boops from your bots. The first time I heard the bot sound I was pleasantly surprised.
Autonauts is a great game for anyone to play., from kids through adolescents and even adults. Some understanding of coding would be an asset but isn’t necessary to learn and enjoy your time with it. With the ease of learning this game, the challenges and the creative problem-solving involved, Autonauts is a game that you can easily enjoy for several hours at a time. I certainly enjoyed playing it and look forward to several more hours spent automating Autonauts' cute little world.
**Autonauts was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong
I'm sure that everyone at some point in time has thought 'what if Vampires were actually living among us?'. Are they really what we have been led to believe? Well now is a chance to find out as you take over and play as these monsters in high society where the lines between real and supernatural are blurred. Enter the dark world of Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong, a narrative based role-playing video game developed by Big Bad Wolf and published by Nacon. Based on White Wolf Publishing's tabletop role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade, and part of the larger World of Darkness series, Swansong is all about the choices you make to determine the fate of three main vampires and the secret society known as the Boston Camarilla.The narrative brings you into the secret society to play as three different vampires all 100+ years old, each from different clans, and don't share the views of the Camarilla. The “heroes” of the story are Galeb, an intimidating man of clan Ventrue; Emem, a "seductive Amazon" of clan Toreador; and Leysha of clan Malkavian who relies on spreading madness and supernatural insight. All three of our heroes are tasked with the job of investigating a shootout that happened at a party.
Each hero has their own abilities that are upgradable to suit your approach to uncovering the truth. Use their powers to find the happy balance between the human and animal sides where every decision you make determines how the story progresses, so make sure you choose wisely. You also choose whether you are intimidating, stealthy or seductive, no matter which you choose the important thing is satiating your hunger for blood.
Meet Hazel Iverson, known as the prince of the Boston Camarilla, who leads with an iron fist and is insistent on asserting her power and gaining the respect of the Masquerade, also known as the vampiric law, whose purpose is to ensure the human population never discovers the existence of the creatures of the night. Hazel is the one who sends you to your missions, not including side quests from others.
As I mentioned above. you get to choose the direction of the story, the downside of this is you must pay for the consequences of what you choose during the investigation and also during social interactions with other characters. Make sure you keep your wits about you when choosing your responses, as some of the consequences select the fate of your hero and the Boston Camarilla, some of which might not be apparent until later.
When I first saw the trailer for Swansong I was pretty impressed with the graphics, but upon spending more time within its dark world and playing it, the graphics for Swansong revealed to me that they were not the main focus of the game. There are some positives when it comes to its aesthetics though, like how well the environments are detailed with lighting that gives the world a bit of life. There's also many points of interest to look at relative to the investigation which helps keep you interested in what you're doing. While playing I did suffer from a handful of graphical glitches where textures just failed and all I saw was blues and greens pixelated on some character's faces for a large portion of dialogue.
These glitches combined with various other misses in the game made the whole experience fall short for me. The long story dialogue was also a bit of a problem for me as it felt they went on forever and overstaying its welcome, so I often found myself not paying attention and just pressing the button to continue until there was a choice to make. The sound design is about on the same level as the graphics for me, as I enjoyed the mix of jazz, hip hop and rock, but there was a distinct lack of environmental sound design.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong is sure to be enjoyed by fans of the genre who will enjoy their time with a narrative heavy experience. At the same time, seasoned RPG players might have higher expectations than they will receive from Swansong. To be more specific, if you're a fan of tabletop RPGs or have pre-existing knowledge of the predecessors then I'm not sure Swansong will be for you. I have overall enjoyed Swansong despite all my complaints as it has a well thought-out storyline and great mystery to it, which ultimately is what truly kept me interested in continuing the journey but it is quite expensive when not on sale.
**Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 5.5 / 10
Behind Closed Doors: A Developer's Tale
Have you ever thought for a moment about what it is like in an indie game developer's day? Well, in Behind Closed Doors: A Developer's Tale you get to do exactly that. Developed by Polygonal Wolf and published by Sometimes You, it is a pixelated adventure in Ethan's life working for a lame boss at an indie video game studio. That is until something extraordinary happens after the phone rings in the middle of the night and you're no longer at home.From this point on, instead of waking up doing your daily routine and going to work, you end up in an alternate dimension talking to a 'lost spirit' who sends you to battle your way through various trial levels where you have to go up against some basic but rather annoying baddies that you have to fire weapons at for a set time length. Some of them are blue blobs with eyes, that if they touch you it means you lose a life out of your three available health.
As you move through these trials you return to talk to the nameless lost spirit to find out that your mission, whether you want it or not, is to find the parts to a staff for some unknown end goal. So you travel through some caves full of bats, coins and lots of spikes that hurt, to get to the boss dragon at the end so you can claim these staff parts. You are led to believe that you are doing this for the lost spirit. Maybe you are, maybe not, either way your true goal is to get back home. Will you make the right decision to achieve that or will something else happen? Guess you will need to play to find out.
This game uses classic 8-Bit audio, garish colors and basic reto visuals to transport you into an old-school-style game world that kind of reminds me of the graphics from the original Pokemon on Gameboy. The use of bright colors and simple animation is what makes Behind Closed Doors: A Developer’s Tale very old-school in design from the classic era of gaming. While I did enjoy strolling around the different locations and the combination of genres, I still found myself bored and frustrated by having to replete levels because I died. The seamless switches between side-scrolling and top-down shooting were greatly appreciated, though I still don't think it did enough to break up the monotony.
Along with the graphics above, there is a basic soundtrack that has your typical highs and lows of old-school-style gaming. I did like the implied nod to the past with some of the sound effects from collecting coins and firing guns, but the soundtrack itself fell short for me as there was not enough variety of songs played throughout, which makes them just become tiresome after the umpteenth attempt to pass the level.
The user interface is good considering the simplicity of the game. When there is a task to do, a clear and readable word bar pops up and tells you exactly what you need to do. The weaponry usage is straightforward to use, and maybe that is to make up for the controls that were a little tricky. Because of the slippery controls, you will fall to your death and slide into hazards, causing you to re-run the level multiple times. For this reason, the controls for me were a major letdown considering the current tech and tricks available today to avoid this.
While I did find the overall gameplay to be quite a miss, I did enjoy the unusual concept of a game within a game meta, but it left me with a manic feeling of what I am doing in this game. While I really enjoy the concept of Behind Closed Doors: A Developer's Tale and the inclusion of various game styles, it felt as though this could have been executed smoother. Make baddies respawn, add more tracks, give me a little more to do, not just run in circles, and this game could have a lot of great potential. For the low price listed, give it a try and see if you agree or think I'm off my rocker!
**Behind Closed Doors: A Developer's Tale was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 4.5 / 10
MLB The Show 22
Hello baseball fans, it's that time of year again! Spring is in the air and so are the baseballs, which also means it's time for a new installment to a long-loved sport in the video game world. The 17th installment of MLB The Show brings some sweet improvements to the game like a new pinpoint pitching system, cross-platform and cross-play progression and other really cool features. This year's cover star is the newest legend in baseball, Shohei Ohtani, well deserved for such a young star in the sport.There have been many improvements to MLB The Show 22 that really make this game a homerun. The new pinpoint pitching system is really cool for people who really like a challenge. People like myself who don't have a long history of playing MLB video games might prefer the classic or pulse pitch though, because all you need to do is choose your pitch and time your press to the circle for optimal pitching. I absolutely love that there are multiple options available for virtually every aspect of the game, giving you the choice of difficulty or involvement in the game from simple controls with single button input or dynamic difficulty that will continue to monitor your play and level of ability. For example, if you foul all the time it will lower your difficulty automatically, whereas if you homerun every hit it will adjust to a more difficult level to increase your challenge.
Then there are precision controls which is the pinpoint pitching system, new to this year's version. This mode may be the most challenging of the bunch. After selecting your pitch and location, you initiate the pitch with Right Stick down and must follow a gesture presented on-screen as closely as possible. Further, you must perform the gesture as close to the speed shown on-screen. Every pitch has a unique gesture, with breaking pitches tending to have more difficult gestures to copy. It's a really unique style of play that is challenging, but gives some rewards for those willing to adapt.
Playing any of the field positions is also simple and rather fun to play. I found that I would get the rush of chasing a Pop Fly or diving to catch the Line Drive that I used to get playing real ball, only now I won't hurt at the end of the day from all that physical activity. However, this takes a lot of practice to figure out some of the specifics, like knowing what to press to pass to specific bases for an out. I feel I could use maybe a little better explanation of how to do these, but otherwise it is just like playing a real ball game and I love it.
I must say, even though I need to work on my skills more, one of the highlights of this game for me has been the different challenge modes included, like the Challenge of the Week where you must bat to the best of your abilities for the best score on the online leaderboards. I have also really enjoyed the Home Run Derby where the challenge is to hit as many homeruns as you can in four minutes.
As is with most online gaming these days, this game is no different,so you must have an internet connection as well as platform-specific online subscriptions and link it to the game's account. With this comes the addition of cross-play and cross-platform progression, which is also now available on Switch. I also tried online play with a friend where you can host a room or join one and play either 2v2 or 3v3 against other online players. I had a ton of fun playing online with my friend because of the fact that we played on the same team against other player teams from potentially anywhere in the world. However, I also had a harder time adjusting to this mode because it seemed like the controls were a bit different, but really I just wasn't paying enough attention to the screen to follow what I needed to do.
The new Stadium Creator exclusive for Xbox X|S and PS5 is very in-depth with what you can create. You pick the type of field, the pattern on the grass, type of stadium seat color as well as the stands themselves, name it, and finally say when it was built. This totally gives you the ability to build your own family stadium. When I first looked at the creator I was very intimidated, because most creators I have experienced have been difficult to maneuver and understand without a lot of time spent trying to figure it out, but with MLB The Show 22 I found it very well explained in the tutorials and the manipulations were also easy to understand.
This year they have also upgraded the Franchise Mode with improvements to the Trade Logic system, contract tweaks, offseason Free Agency adjustments, better Roster Logic, and a more accurate and Ohtani-like expansion of using 2-way players.
Diamond Dynasty or as I am calling it, NFT Dynasty, is where you play, collect and build on your fantasy team and bring them to life. Collect new cards for every login when you open the game, buy, sell or trade on the games market. I've seen a few cards listed on there for more than 130K in-game funds, which is crazy. There is also a new Mini Seasons mode, where each season you face new challenges against a new set of competition. Card collecting can be addicting and begin a slippery slope as soon as you open your wallet, so be careful.
As a casual fan, I really enjoy that I can play a basic level game and still have a competitive edge as opposed to some games where you can only play against similar skill levels. A real bonus for me in MLB The Show 22 is how much control you as the player have in how you wish to play the game.
With the seamless performance, it is really easy to lose yourself in the moment with targeted 60FPS gameplay and 4K resolution. I was really impressed with the graphics put into the development because I turned on the game for the first time I seriously felt like I was on the field batting against some of the best ball players out there with how realistic the presentation was.
There is something to be said about the attention to detail put into the creation of the likeness between the game and the actual human player. I got very excited when I discovered that I could bat as babe Ruth himself. The sound quality is equal to the graphics, as the crack of the bat hitting the ball outta the park, to the umpire hollering 'You're Out!", down to the soundtrack that is well compiled. I love the commentating that follows your activity on the field, as it really brought me to feel like I was watching a live game and sometimes even playing in one at times.
My overall opinion is really just asking myself why I didn't play the MLB The Show franchise more throughout the years. I can only imagine what kind of difference has been made with each iteration. This year for sure has made me a new fan, and I plan to continue to check out the franchise as the years go on. I found I want to log in every day to see what new cards I was getting and to see if I could improve my skills more and more, and they have. I will definitely play this homerun more throughout the year.
**MLB The Show 22 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
WWE 2K22
Let’s Get Reaaddyyy To Ruummmbblleee!That's right folks, they made us wait a year so they had time to improve, and maybe even master, the shortfalls and disappointments that were given to us in WWE 2K20. With massive improvements to the gameplay engine, new controls and well-improved graphics. WWE 2K22 might be the best improvement to come to the world of videogame wresting and the realism that keeps us so enthralled and always coming back for more matches!
This year, the cover feature is the global icon of Lucha wrestling, Rey Mysterio, the very man who created the path for many agile and high-flying superstars to enter the ring and make their way in a fast-paced incredible and entertaining sport. I applaud the designers and the team that bring us these games for taking the year to rebuild from the ground up and take the time to make this game everything that it could be without losing the basis of the core game. The nWo 4-Life Edition (which was provided) gives the inclusion of playable nWo Superstars, two awesome arenas, the nWo Wolfpac Championship & all of the bonus digital content included in the WWE 2K22 Deluxe Edition.
The single-player story mode is pretty cool, as there is an entire intro told to you by Rey Mysterio, telling you how it all began for him and how he made his way in the business, discussing matches and some of his most historical moments. With the use of the new 2K Slingshot technology, there is an almost seamless transition between gameplay and archival video to give a fully immersed feel. Happy Anniversary to Rey!
The improved visual concepts have made a world of difference to me from previous releases, and if I wasn't holding onto a controller in my hand I would believe that I was sitting watching the matches either in person or on the couch in my home. In previous versions, I have often found myself more frustrated and tempted to throw my controller because the controls were challenging to master. In WWE 2K22 I have been able to take what I feel to be full control over my motions and ability to improve my skills. For me, this improvement has made the game feel like it's better-rounded than previous years.
Another amazing feature of with WWE 2K22 is how they have tweaked the physicality of the objects that can be used, such as when you hit a table it will break more authentically to create that epic unpredictable moment that made me fall in love with wrestling as a kid all those years ago.
Have you ever wanted to be a general manager in the WWE? Well then give the new MyGM mode where you can take on rival GMs and fight to become supreme against the other shows managers by creating the best championship showdowns, pay-per-view events, and once you've reached the top, go back to being a superstar and still have the ability to call the shots from backstage.
This year the 2K series has included the MyFaction mode where you get collector cards of wrestlers, build a team with a manager and play in single-player mode to build a strong faction to rival the iconic nWo faction! Play weekly events and get regular updates so you can manage, collect and upgrade your superstars. Win matches to obtain points that are used to purchase more card packs and contracts. Obtain tokens to unlock more superstar cards and legends. There is an option to use a virtual currency in this mode but I find it rather unneeded because anything you can get with this currency is unlockable with tokens. Throughout the game, you also earn store tokens which are used to buy more wrestlers to use in the game that you don't get right away when you start playing for the first time, which I think is a cool aspect rather than spending a bunch of money on DLC content (which of course is also available though).
The MyRise feature of 2K22 is something I have always enjoyed because it gives you the chance to create your own wrestler and experience what it's like to be a recruit in the WWE and go through the performance center to train and work your way up the ranks to become the next WWE Superstar! There is also new this year, unique divisional storylines built in to give you the chance to interact with the superstars and experience your individual experience.
The character creation mode this year is really impressive because the customization makes it way more possible to create a realistic version of yourself in the game or someone completely different. Options include but are not limited to birthmarks/blemishes, eye color, skin color, scars, teeth and many more choices, which could leave you creating for hours if you want, or choose to simply create with the superstar wizard for a quicker build option.
Multiplayer is available online or locally and is as you would expect. Choose your wrestler, your match, your rules, weapons, arena and off you go. The one thing I found disappointing was that if you want to be on the same team as your friend, there does not seem to be an option to include a CPU player to wrestle against as a team. Otherwise, have fun beating up each other virtually instead of in-person... or do... I'm not the boss.
The visuals in this year's edition are by far the greatest to come out of the 2K studio, bringing a far more realistic look to the wrestlers and makes them look like they are supposed to, not just a shiny, poorly blended and a lack of definition style from the past. I really give kudos to the developers for taking the time to make this massive improvement as I find it makes a difference in the enjoyment for me when playing. I will however say that I think the hair details need a little more work as it still doesn't quite match the efforts that were put into the rest of the realism, but don't let that take away from the brilliance that has been included and worked upon.
Let's talk about the audio portion of this game, as the soundtrack curator is the “Devil” himself, Machine Gun Kelly! I call him the devil because of his feud with the Rap God Eminem. I have been a fan of both for a long time but so far I think that MGK has nailed the soundtrack for 2K. I find myself rocking out and headbanging my way through the game when I'm not fighting in a match. I might even make a playlist out of the songs chosen for the game, as for the in-game sounds of the crowd and the matches brings me right back to watching on TV back when I used to watch WWE every week. I honestly have no complaints in this department, so great job folks.
Over the years I have been such a fan of the WWE and everything they have brought to their fans, I have played many versions of their videogames, and up to this point I have enjoyed, but not really loved, to continue going back to the older games as I get discouraged by the more previous iterations. But all hail the WWE 2K22, because I do believe that this is the best version we have ever seen so far. I hope that 2K continue on this path of improvement and continue to blow my mind further every year with as many improvements as this had. The control system and playability have become more easily understood and better controlled overall, which I found to be a big bonus because I often get discouraged from playing if it doesn't have a well laid out and easy to understand button layout.
WWE 2K22 has been a total hit for me and I’m really happy that I was lucky enough to get this for review, as it is just Too Sweet! As the nWo often said, "Whether you like it or you don't, learn to love it, cause it's the best thing going today.".
**WWE 2K22 (nWo 4-Life Edition) was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Super Toy Cars Offroad
On your marks, ready... Get set... Go! It’s time for oversized adventures in tiny, shrunken offroad cars. In this arcade-style game, you race against opponents on tracks with all kinds of conditions, from sand and dirt to snow and other conditions. Super Toy Cars Offroad gives us fifteen different tracks and twenty or so different vehicles to choose from. You may choose from ATVs, trucks and even drift cars. It’s up to you to find the car that best fits your driving style to suit the course conditions.Once you load up Super Toy Cars Offroad, you’re shown you get a simple menu with a few options to choose from. You have your standard Quick Race mode where you choose from the available options for racing that the game has. You can choose to race against the CPU or with a second player for some split-screen action should you wish.
In this offroad adventure you will race against other opponents to be the first across the finish line. Most of the rules are not unlike other racing games. With powerup orbs you can destroy your opponents and find not so hidden shortcuts. The challenge in Super Toy Cars Offroad seems to be staying on course and not being trapped under oversized debris. If this isn’t quite challenging enough for you there are also elimination events. These events are similar to regular races with the exception that the goal is to be the last car standing. Every few seconds the player in last place will be eliminated. If this still isn’t challenging enough for you there are also DEATH RACES! Much like the elimination races, the Death Races work like normal but with powerups and a certain number of laps to be completed. The exception here is that if an opponent destroys your vehicle the race is over for you and you're out.
Not quite happy with how a car performs? Just tweak it! Vehicle specs can be tweaked to adjust your driving performance as well as overall aesthetics. In addition to tweaking the specs of your vehicle, some levels have a big golden wrench that you can obtain and use to upgrade your vehicle.
One of the ways this indie game is made better is because of the split-screen inclusion that allows you to play local multiplayer. Because Super Toy Cars Offroad is an arcade-style racer with aspects that remind me of Mario kart, this makes it more of a great game to play with the kid in your life. If you have multiple kids then Super Toy Cars Offroad could be a great tool to teach sharing while waiting their turn.
The graphics in Super Toy Cars Offroad are rather aesthetically pleasing for a racing game of this level, even if basic. I thoroughly enjoy the fact that the cars are smaller than the environment and the obstacles are enlarged. Maybe this is what it would feel like to be in the backyard of Honey I Shrunk the Kids movies from back in the day, but with today's production skills.
The soundtrack the developers chose to use really amps up the game to the point that I would enjoy listening to it when not playing the game. I did a little research and if you share this feeling after playing, one of the developers actually has shared that you can download the soundtrack for free from their Bandcamp on The Spin Wires [www.spinwires.com] which is a great offering.
While I am always a fan of racing games in general, and while super toy cars off-road is a lot of fun to play, the wow-factor kind of missed the mark a bit. I found there was not a general feeling for me that I NEED to play this game forever or very long, but more of a 'hey this is fun in a play with your nephews intro to racing games'.
With the mainstream race-type choices and cool car selection, I don't think Super Toy Cars Offroad is a total bust, but it's not quite making me fall off my chair with excitement either. Some say Super Toy Cars Offroad is a great and fun little race game with challenges, but I didn't find it overly challenging. Buckle your tiny seatbelt and give it a try, if you don't agree with me that's fine too. See you on the tracks.
**Super Toy Cars Offroad was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Vagante
Do you like adventure games? How about games where no two levels are ever the same? Where death is the end and you have to completely restart the whole adventure a new every time? Well, then I think I may have just the game for you. Head out into the dangerous adventure world set at the edge of the woods and hunt for unfathomable treasures. Many have tried and failed, will you be the one to gather the riches and have an excellent adventure? This roguelike action-adventure RPG has a playstyle that will frustrate you yet give you a sense of accomplishment all at the same time. With its permadeath and procedurally generated levels, monsters and loot, Vagante has the ability to keep you playing for hours.Vagante is very customizable to how you choose to play. Every time you start the levels over after a death, you can choose your class, skin and background. As your play continues, you level up, upgrade your skills, find or purchase new weapons, unlock treasure chests and defeat large monsters like goblins and dragons. There are also multiple adventurers that you can choose play as the Knight, Rogue, Mage, Wildling or Houndmaster, and choose the class that you feel best suits your play style, but be aware that this selection does not mean that your stats will change, it will however greatly affect how your adventure goes. If you choose the be a Knight or a Wildling you will be melee fighting through your travels, if you choose to be Rogue or Mage you have options in your fighting style as they are a more versatile adventurer, and the Houndmaster is a cool option as he comes with a companion.
The Permadeath and permanent specializations unlock system is a cool aspect that gives players the ability to progress further in the adventure that will work with a broader range of playstyles, the characters won't be technically stronger, but instead their experience and learnings will make their skills improve over time, kind of like an 8-bit D&D game. With the ability to find potions and magic to enchant and upgrade your skills and attributes throughout the game, there are many different ways to play which really adds to this game's ever-changing and potentially never-ending style.
Vagante’s gameplay and styling really remind me of the Diablo series in the system of magic that they incorporated. Throughout your travels, you will find a variety of scrolls that give your character magical effects that can be used before they disintegrate. These scrolls include effects like magic mapping, removing curses, learning spells and identifying equipment you pick up. I think my favorite one so far is the magic mapping because it brings light into the full cave so you can see what's coming before you get there. This game also gives me some reminiscence of playing Terreria with its similar monsters and other graphics. It’s like playing the adventure version of a sandbox game.
There are many hidden secrets in Vagante that get filed into the book of secrets, which keeps track of the things you have unlocked like backgrounds, classes, music and more. Some of these secrets, in my mind, also include the various shrines around the caves I've discovered through various attempts, that if you destroy the shrine, you will most likely die, which means you have to start from the beginning all over again.
This game also gives me some reminiscence of playing Terreria with its similar monsters and other graphics. There is not a lot that is memorable about the audio within Vagante, but the footsteps sound like footsteps and the soundtrack fits the overall tone and gameplay.
Vagante supports up to 4 players local and online co-op, so you can join your friend's adventures anytime. With online play, I found there was no access to the tutorial, so I strongly suggest doing a run through solo before you head into joining others online, however, you can run the tutorial with your friends in local co-op, so even if your friends haven't played but come over and play you can run the tutorial with them. This game is a lot of fun both solo and multiplayer and I think this game will continue to live in my game library for when I have friends over that want to play or I see others on my friends list going for a few runs.
Overall, I have really enjoyed the overall challenge and experience of playing Vangante. With the ever-changing levels I often have felt frustrated every time I die and have to restart from scratch again, but the bonus is that you earn XP and level up each time, slowly making overall progress. So while you may feel like it's one step forward and two back, there is a great sense of accomplishment as you progress, even if it's quite slow at times. Vagante will be on my recommendation list to anyone who loves a good challenge and enjoys the fact that no two runs are the same.
**Vagante was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
MXGP 2021 - The Official Motocross Videogame
Welcome to the newest installment of the official Motocross Videogame. Immerse yourself in this fast-paced, dirt bike racing game where you can experience all the tracks, riders and bikes to ignite the passion of Motocross! Do you have what it takes to finish first in this lively and realistic racing game?Race on legendary tracks from historical races of the past, experience the most exciting tracks like Ottobiano, one of the largest venues in Europe for motocross, Ernée, Leon, and Agueda. This game has something for everyone who loves the genre of Motocross racing. Whether your goal is to just hit the ground running and race the tracks or if you’re trying to make MXGP racing history and get your name to the top. With updated features and improved gameplay, MXGP 2021 - The Official Motocross Videogame is still one of the more difficult games I have experienced. Figuring out how to control my bike has been a massive learning curve. There have also been new multiplayer modes included so you can challenge the champions included within, or even challenge friends and others from around the world.
MXGP 2021 does an excellent job of making you feel like you are not just sitting on the couch playing in front of a screen, as I found myself, many times, trying to dodge the mud flying into my face. I also found myself fully getting my body into the motion of being on a bike, trying to lean and turn with my bike through a corner, or almost feeling the pain when you bail. I found this to be even more intense with the view through the riders’ own eyes where you see what is in front of you through the muddy goggles as you race across the tracks.
I’m sure there are many fans of the sport that wish they could create epic and extreme tracks for the pros to evaluate and race on, am I right? Well, you can with the track editor, where every aspect of the track is up to your imagination, right down to the type of terrain. Go ahead and check out what kinds of exciting tracks others have created and download them so you can master them or take on new challenges.
In online multiplayer, developers Milestone have included the ability to challenge opponents on custom tracks, create an event, and be be the Race Director so you can interact with other players. I did give the online mode a try, but due to my less than excellent motocross racing skills, I got very discouraged by always finishing last. I later turned the game back on and put more time into playing career mode. Once I played more and got a better handle on the controls, I began having more fun and stopped finishing in last place.
I have always been keen to see what kinds of graphics come about as gaming improve through the years, and the visuals in MXGP 2021 do not disappoint. I was really impressed with how detailed the tracks are, as well as the signage, logos, gear and spectators. The sound design for me was very typical for what the game is, though for someone new to the motocross game genre I thought it was pretty cool, but from what I have read about the previous iterations, MXGP 2021 is very similar with some yearly minor improvements.
If you are a regular player of the yearly MXGP titles, you most likely already have your opinions about the series. I did have to give MXGP 2021 a solid couple of weeks to figure out how to control the bike properly, and at least a dozen races before I began to have a good understanding of what I needed to do to win, so if you love a good challengem, MXGP 2021 - The Official Motocross Videogame is a great value for the price. If you get frustrated easily and are less likely to complete the effort needed to begin to win races, then I suggest you keep looking. I have enjoyed the challenge and will continue to work to get better to make that podium finish.
**MXGP 2021 - The Official Motocross Videogame was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Bassmaster Fishing 2022
Clean up your boat, prepare your poles, lures and bait because it's time to hit the water in this new competitive big bass fishing game that is now available to buy and on Xbox Gamepass! This game is filled with fully licensed Bassmaster Pro series fishing championships, complete with varying levels of skill from amateur to elite pros. Take the chance and see if you have what it takes to catch the biggest fish against some of the top pro anglers in up to eight real-life replica bodies of water, or complete challenges as any of the ten available pros. There is also a chance to compete against other anglers from around the world in multiplayer online mode. Also, if you pick up the Deluxe version gain access to exclusive wraps, equipment and more.A little bit of what the actual Bass Master fishing competition is for those who are not into fishing or have not heard about it. The Bassmaster tournament leagues, events and media platforms are the worldwide authority on bass fishing and keeper of the culture of the sport. The organization takes huge pride every year in its tournaments and events, spanning from open series for any age or skill level all the way up to the Bassmaster Classic tournament! They really are the place to go for all things bass fishing.
So, let's take a look together at career mode and start out with the creation of your own angler. I found there were not a lot of choices in what was available to make my angler look like me, but I think that’s because they base the looks in the game off of real-life anglers, however, I still enjoy when I get to try and re-create myself in games. You can use this creation to compete in the college, open and elite series, working your way up the ranks and progressing through to the Bassmaster Classic to prove you can be the champion of big bass fishing.
These tournaments take place in eight real-world venues from Canada and the USA, and these bodies of water recreated in-game are loaded with lots of various open stretches of water and dense backwaters, you may even find some underwater structures while you’re fishing for bass.
Let’s discuss the new ability to play as possibly some of your favorite elite pros from the Bassmaster Classic. You now have the chance to choose between ten different elites, including, but not limited to, playing as John Crews, Skylar Hamilton, or back-to-back champion Hank Cherry, who has participated in over one hundred tournaments with a total catch weight from those tournaments being over 3500 pounds (that's a lot of fish). Not only can you play like the pros, but you can also kit yourself out with all the same gear and sponsorships that the pros get as well.
Join the Dovetail Discord and meet other enthusiasts to talk about the game learn some new tricks and tips about landing the big fish, or just feel like you are more part of the community, also getting first access to news and updates. This is a nice addition if you find yourself getting frustrated with how difficult it can be to catch fish if you don’t know how to find them.
Bassmaster 2022’s multiplayer system has global leaderboards, cross-play modes and the Bassmaster Royale, giving you the chance to take on other online anglers to see who can catch the most fish in the elimination challenge. You can also choose to just have a relaxing fishing trip with your friends should you wish. This mode provides a chance to fish in different venues, learn the lay of the lakes or just have a chill fishing time and show your friends your gear and aesthetics as well as any fish you catch. I had fun taking photos of my friend and me while both held the fish we caught.
There were a few instances of what seemed like the lag in the online mode, which seemed to cause my friend to miss landing many catches that day. We also tried to do an elimination challenge but unless you have a minimum of eighteen players online there will be little chance to participate unfortunately.
The audio within Bassmaster Fishing 2022 are accurately close to what you would experience if you were to go fishing. You can hear the birds that are in the area when you are watching your lure in the water waiting for a fish to bite, it sounds like you are underwater when watching your lure under the surface, and the boat engine sounds like a real one too. So, there was great effort put into the sound design and an excellent job was done on that front.
The visuals are pretty decent too when playing the solo tournaments and basic fishing within the different areas. I did, however, notice that in online play the picture seemed to be a little glitchy at times which may or may not have led to my friend’s inability to land fish properly. The details that went into the creation of each fish had a very realistic look with even their fins moving realistically in the wind when posing for a picture. The underwater view was also a nice touch because for me it seemed like I was watching an online fishing video, the downside here was when the fish would populate in the area, they seemed a little drunk because they appear in a vertical position and suddenly switch to horizontal, not at all like real fish.
Overall, I think this might be the game that has come the closest to the real-life re-creation of fishing tournaments I have played to date. It certainly has the best tutorial explanation of what to do, easing you into the experience. Aside from the few glitches that I ended up having fun with, like yelling at drunk fish to straighten their lives out, this game is simple to learn and just a little bit more than your next boring fishing game. Don’t get me wrong, I still might nap while playing, but I’ll still have fun!
**Bassmaster Fishing 2022 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Pumpkin Jack: New-Gen Edition
Join the spooky side as the Mythical Pumpkin Lord in the new 3D platformer Pumpkin Jack! Jump right into the epically cool adventure through a different world and help in the battle of good and evil. You are now doing the bidding for the Devil while going after your greatest enemy in a quest that will take you through the Boredom Kingdom.As the story goes, once upon a time the world was peaceful and boring, so the devil cast a spell creating eternal night. The humans didn’t like this exciting new world. They couldn’t handle being torn limb from limb by the occasional monster. They called on their champion, The Wizard, to put an end to the curse. The devil in turn created his own champion, by stuffing the soul of Jack into a pumpkin and giving him one mission; find The Wizard and destroy him.
Start out your journey as Jack and complete the tutorial, meet your friends, a haughty Owl sent by the devil to keep tabs on your progress and guide you through your game, and a snarky Crow who will help you through your journey and provide a distant attack against your enemies. The scripted banter between Jack and the Owl, and Jack and the Crow are packed with humor and really add a great sense of character to the experience. As a side quest through the game, check thoroughly around every corner for crow skulls to collect, and by collecting these skulls you can buy skins from the merchant who is a dead salesman. The skins are described to you as actual skin from others so you can dress as a variety of different people, I really like the lumber skin, so you can be lumber Jack!
The save points within have been integrated so well that it's not just an orb to collect, you have to drink the magic potion from the cauldron of green goo to save, with one of these cauldrons at the end of every section. The way the camera controls are programmed, you'll never lose sight of what you are doing, making it very easy to control and maneuver which is a must for games in this genre. Much like in other platformers, take some extra time and look around and destroy objects around you to refill your health bar.
There is a new exclusive features included in this next-gen version is ray-tracing. This is a technique for how light is modeled in transport, using a wide variety of rendering algorithms to generate a digital image. This makes the experience that much more realistic and enjoyable. As well, the amazing graphics put into this game are high-quality 4K resolution in performance mode and get 60fps, or you can switch to quality mode and get 30fps. The soundtrack to this game is full of spooky melodies and creaky wood to set the scene for a fun thrilling adventure.
Overall, I found Pumpkin Jack: New-Gen Edition to be a lot of fun with mixed with a good amount of frustration. The bosses have a great level of difficulty and the hunt for crow skulls to buy new skins for Jack is a cool addition to keep me playing. If you’re a fan of the spooky and want a game that you can finish within a handful of hours then Pumpkin Jack: New-Gen Edition is definitely for you! It's just a great bit of fun in a short game that is definitely on my recommended games list for any platformer fan.
*Pumpkin Jack: New-Gen Edition was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S*
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
BATS: Bloodsucker Anti-Terror Squad
Welcome to the Bloodsucker Anti-Terror Squad. Step into this excellent throwback game that makes you feel like this could have been an awesome animated show from way back when I used to wake up early to watch cartoons. This fast-paced bloody action-packed brawler-shooter game is everything I didn’t know I wanted to play in an indie 2D platformer game. It has fast action, massive frustration and just the right amount of nostalgia all packed into five levels where timing and patience are the name of the game. You use the D-Pad to move, attack and open doors. Collect the blood of your enemies to build up your super vamp power. Defeat Scorp and unlock your fellow teammates then move onto the next stage.Meet Count Bloodvayne and Squirt. Bloodvayne is a Victorian era vampire who worked for Scotland Yard and was hunting Jack the Ripper when he was bitten by a creature of the night. Squirt is the team mascot. When we first meet Bloodvayne we find him in his secret lair, and Squirt wakes him from his slumber to tell him that Scorpion Supreme has taken his team hostage at S.T.I.N.G headquarters. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to bring hell to the headquarters and rescue your team.
You start as Bloodvayne for the first level where you’ll go through the tutorial, but it is pretty easy to understand once you get going. When I first started playing I died quite a lot though. The enemies running and shooting at you, swinging blades, fire and other obstacles were quite the challenge, and there were many points that had me yelling at the screen, threatening to throw my controller and just angrily shutting down my console. This anger was a great motivator to get me to finish the game though, as I laughed, I cheered, I conquered and ended up absolutely loving this BATS: Bloodsucker Anti-Terror Squad.
One of my favorite characters in the game was Sergeant Sabre, the half-human half-vampire musclehead who reminds me of a 16-Bit rendition of Blade. My other favorite player to use was Rick Ghastly, a ninety’s boy band hunk turned vampire. He has the best weaponry in my opinion, a double-barrel shotgun. Take your shot with time trials mode, where you get to run the stages and set time records to give yourself a challenge or have your friends try to beat yours. There is also a boss’s only mode where you can test your skills against Scorp and prove you are better than him over and over again.
The graphics being 16-Bit would have you expecting minimal details and memories of early video gaming, but this wasn't the case at all. The memories are definitely there, and I was pretty happy with the full graphic quality because I could still read the dialogue and see clearly what was happening in each level, making it easy to navigate and enjoy. At first, the soundtrack was great for getting my blood pumping and ready for action, but it did become repetitive after time.
Aside from the basic retro-style soundtrack and the frustrations, I had an excellent time playing BATS: Bloodsucker Anti-Terror Squad through! The small number of levels and medium-level difficulty makes this a great little indie game, perfect for a quick gaming session to get your heart racing and the thrill of being a vampire. I will recommend this to my friends who want to try a new small indie game with heavy blood content and will also probably play through it a few more times. My overall recommendation is to spend the $12.79 (CAD) and give this game a spot in your library because it proved to be a lot more fun than I originally gave it credit for.
**BATS: Bloodsucker Anti-Terror Squad was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 8.3 / 10
NHL 22
Hold onto your hockey sticks folks because here comes what I think might be the best of the best of the NHL franchise from EA Sports. NHL 22 is the 31st installment in the series and I am so extremely excited about it! Built using the Frostbite Engine, NHL 22 brings its in-game graphics to an unreal, or should I say, hyper-realistic level. There are many upgrades that happened in the development, the most noticeable is the updated likeness and animation of the characters faces and movements. The eyes move in response to whatever is happening, and the micro detailing that went into the reproduction of arenas and uniforms. It feels like I am at a real hockey game, something I've missed for years now. You can even play on the brand-new franchise team, The Seattle Kraken!New in NHL 22 is the inclusion of superstar X-Factor. What does this mean you ask? Well, this is the new way that EA created for you as you play your created player to progress through the game like never before. EA Games took real life hockey player skills and abilities and then used that inspiration to integrate them into the game. There are two tiers to assign twenty-nine different X-Factor abilities to, Premier and secondary zones and have been separated into six categories: Shooting, Skating, Passing, Hockey IQ, Defense and Goaltending.This means your created player will have the ability to play as such hockey stars like Crosby with his “beautiful backhand” or Marchand’s “make it snappy”. This makes playing NHL 22 far more realistic to play than any other game in franchise history.
There has also been a massive update to in-game physics! Created to simulate more accurate and real reactions in real-life stick-on-stick or stick-on-body action to create more realistic puck battles. This helps with more actuate penalty call and less frustration when all you were trying to do was a poke check.
I am really impressed with the upgrades to the play by play calling in the game to be more accurate and less generalized calls on the play as it happens, and highlighting the X-Factor plays giving better understanding of how that play has affected the overall outcome of the game. In past versions of the NHL franchise you used to have to pause your game and change your gameplay strategies. Now you can do it without pausing the game, giving you more on-the-fly changes and strategy adjustments to help you win each game.
There have been many great improvements to the World of Chel as well, including, but not limited to, a reimagined user interface, new ways to upgrade and improve your custom player including adding boosts and the ability to adjust attributes and abilities. With a new navigation menu that has made the World of Chel so much easier to understand and maneuver that I find myself taking more time doing the challenges there and working on my created player equal to, if not more than, I play the main game.
Gameplay in Chel and the ability to create a custom loadout for several types of areas and modes. Chel also no gives you the ability to explore freely and with up to twelve friends in online play, evaluate your game skills in a variety of challenges to unlock prize duffle bags packed with boosts, gear, casual clothes, goal celebrations and many more options to really portray your personal style in your online hockey presence. There is so much to explore within the Chel that I cannot even lay it all out here for you as much as I would love to, as it is far better experienced than read about.
Ok, lets take a look at the wonder of NHL 22, which is its graphics! Before NHL 22 I wasn't familiar with EA's Frostbite engine that is used in other games, so I did a little research so that I knew a little bit of what I was talking about. The Wiki description states, “Frostbite is a game engine developed by DICE, designed for cross-platform use on Microsoft Windows, seventh generation game consoles.”. This is the technology that gives you that new, vibrant, super realistic look of the game where the jersey looks like you could feel the texture. The eyes of the players move when something happens in the play during the replay and the ice splash recreation has also seen a major facelift during replays.
This years entry has brought the EA NHL series to a whole new level and it makes me excited to see what comes in future iterations. I have been playing EA's NHL series for many years, and over the years I have seen the minor and major upgrades and improvements that have come yearly. I am extremely impressed with this year's entry, making NHL 22 easier to navigate with more options for gameplay modes, all without taking away from the experience that has continued through the years. Same game with massive improvements and I love it!
**NHL 22 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 9.6 / 10
A Gummy's Life
Have you ever wondered what would happen if the gummy candies you eat came to life and just wanted to beat each other up? Well, A Gummy's Life is the game for you if so. Can you prove to be the champion to rule over all sugar? This new game from developers EP Games is a button mashing, physics-based combat battle royal. The name of the game is to kick, punch and grab your opponents to be the last one standing to win. You win when you are the last gummy standing; simple to understand. Play in game modes like King of the Hill or Team Deathmatch against up to 8 players in cross-platform online multiplayer mode or local split screen.There is a wide variety of gummy characters to unlock and playing brought me some slight nostalgia when I played as some of my favorite types of candy from my childhood like the Cola Bottle or the Gummy Bear. As you play and win more in the game you unlock more characters, as well as style embellishments and accessories like hats or glasses. When you select your gummy of choice you then have the option of color and style to personalize them however you wish with what you've unlocked so far.
When setting up your gameplay you choose your difficulty, how many AI you want to battle and what arenas you want to battle in, of which there is a choice from fifteen different arenas. The gameplay I found rather difficult to understand based on the physics-based combat, reminiscent of Human Fall Flat, as I found it made it challenging to make out who is hitting who or if I just kept running around in circles getting hit by other gummies. So pay attention to how much gummy juice is all over the ground, as that seems to be the only way to tell who has been hit and damaged as there is no health bars to tell you otherwise.
I have not really figured out the right timing for taunts within the game yet as I always would just end up getting punched out and thrown off the side, left to wait for everyone else to be eliminated before the game would move on or end. But supposedly the taunts will help you celebrate your victory or call your enemies attention to come and attack you. In the training arena you can hone your skills, though it should be noted that there are no actual instructions given or best practices, but you can check the basic controls layout in pause menu anytime.
The soundtrack and graphics match each other well, giving you the bubbly, bright and fun feeling that you would expect from a game about gummy candies coming to life with the sole purpose of beating up other gummies for whatever reason. You can even see the sugar crystals on some of the gummies, making it look more authentic to the candy.
I can see how this game would have a great appeal to kids of all ages as there is no weaponry available in game, and its mostly just hitting, kicking and punching. However if you have a child that is prone to doing this in real life, I might avoid this game as I wouldn’t want kids hitting me in the hopes that I'll spill my juicy guts all over the floor. But as an adult playing this game there is always the fun aspect of being a gummy and getting to battle your friends to prove you are the greatest gummy in the world.
Overall, A Gummy's Life is your standard brawler game, so if you enjoy beating up your friends and doing it amusingly with gummies that have come to life, then I say go ahead and check this one out. I did find that I couldn’t handle long playtimes of this game though due to repetition. That being said, the asking price feels a little steep, listed at $25.99 CAD for a game that I see as a kind of break from your regular gaming choice now and then. I don’t know that I would have paid that, but I did have fun with it once I did a lot of practice in the training arena and become the Queen of the gummies.
**A Gummy's Life was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
ConnecTank
What do you get when you combine warehousing, shipping/receiving and bosses with unrealistic job requests? You get ConnecTank! Start your career with Fat Cat Shipping Inc. as a new delivery driver for Finneas Fat Cat the XV, the biggest tyrant in New Pangea. Being a courier is not always an easy job, and I would know given my day job, but If I got to drive mega destructive tanks at work I might have more fun with it. However, having to build your conveyor system inside your tank, assembling your ammo based on provided blueprints and protecting your tank can lead to things becoming quite chaotic.This super cute puzzle/strategy game, based out of Indonesia, comes from developers YummyYummyTummy Inc and Tamatin Entertainment, also featuring the comedic writings of famed writer Patrick Baker from Regular Show. This game also brings me back to the original game Pipedream. This game has a lot of humor packed with over 100 missions.
Based in the 23rd century, take control of your huge tank and maintain its operation while driving, assembling ammo and firing at your enemy. Gain rewards for completing task deliveries from your client and drive through deserts, forests and frozen tundra. No two journeys will be the same, connect your tanks conveyor system, follow blueprints to build your ammo and watch it travel the conveyor and be fired at your enemy. Beware of invaders in your tank that attack your conveyor and your ammo components, this is where having up to four players in multiplayer mode may come in handy, as you may need the help.
ConnecTank can be played quickly but chaotically, as each level may take five minutes or less to complete so long as you can plan yourself accordingly, so take a few seconds before starting the level to see where your start and end point is to help yourself get setup quickly, as your opponent has the same process, so pay attention to what is happening there as well. As you defeat opponents you obtain parts of their tanks to unlock new tanks for you to use, be aware that each tank has levels to finish as well.
As you play more levels and gain more coins, you can use that money to invest in new technology, kind of like an in-game version of Kickstarter called "GoTankMe!" where you invest in upgrades. For each prototype that you invest in you receive a free one to try out in your next gig, and once you invest it will now be an option to use in battle. This is how you upgrade your ammo and increase the number of modifications to your tank that give you boosts to help against your enemies or tech eating creatures that invade. These invaders can randomly appear or show up if you create ammo and it cannot make it the full length of your conveyor due to damage or lack of connection.
As you navigate and play through ConnecTank you meet new characters who help you throughout. Like when you meet Shan, he gives you the option to buy ammo, upgrade ammo or discard ammo. Not sure yet why you would discard ammo, but maybe that’ll come up later. Upgrading the ammo is pretty sweet and quite useful. You can upgrade any and all of your basic ammo, it just costs coins. This lasts the length of the gig, but once you start a new gig you start with your original ammo. If you lose a battle you forfeit the gig and lose money. It seems to be based on how many bots you destroy before losing.
The graphics and soundtrack are equally as cute as the game. With an art style that reminds me of the Miyazaki film "The Cat Returns", and a soundtrack that reminds me of something out of a cute anime show, I was left feeling bubbly and happy while playing. At some points I found myself kind of dancing along like I did the first time I heard the Super Mario Bros theme song.
I had a lot of fun trying ConnecTank in local multiplayer with my wife because we could really help each other out by communicating what scrap we were throwing next, what was needed or if there was a hole in the tank one of us could go fix it and still create ammo at the same time. A downside that my wife and I discovered was that when we played the game together, the save data only saved to one of our profiles, so when the other wanted to continue solo, the data wasn’t available and was started where that profile was last saved at. So, keep that in mind if playing locally.
ConnecTank is priced at $38.99 CAD, and while I feel that to be a little steep of a price, if you consider the number of levels and everything that comes along with that such as its addictive gameplay, you might disagree with me, but I did have a lot of fun working for Finneas Fat Cat the XV and wanted to keep going regardless. ConnecTank is cute, fun and a little bit stressful, also reminding me of being at work, only I’m not getting paid. I really like the character of Finneas Fat Cat the XV and the other big wigs that give you gigs to do because of the tongue-in-cheek sense of humour, like when Finneas mentions that he could destroy a scratching post out of frustration.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Islanders
Islanders: Console Edition is described by developers as a relaxing minimalist strategy game where you build cities on a variety of procedurally generated islands. This means that as you play, there will be no two identical islands. Develop your islands from small villages to large cities as you explore green grasslands, snowy mountains and deserts. Each island has its own unique advantages and challenges.Developed by Callum and Jordan of Grizzly Games, a German team with the goal of creating unique, replayable and immersive games. Originally released on Steam in Spring of 2019 with support for MAC OS and Linux added later that year, making this game playable on any platform. Islanders is great as a quick half hour break in your day as the beautiful colour schemes and easy game play help relax and reset your mind. Everything from the concept to the controls are designed to be straightforward and intuitive, even with a controller. It’s so easy even my mother could play it. Some reviewers from the 2019 release criticized the game saying that there was room for more complexity, however, I disagree. I think that it is simply perfect and clearly met the goal of the developers. This new and improved edition features more types of islands, a high score game mode and a sandbox mode.
Parents will love the fact that this game does not include weapons, explosions, online multiplayer or microtransactions. So, you can let your kids play this and be worry free knowing that they aren’t meeting random strangers, being exposed to violence or surprising you with mystery credit card bills.
The goal is to acquire points as you create unique island cities starting with either a Lumber or a Farming Pack. As you reach certain point thresholds more packs are unlocked. Choose which direction to lead your city: Do you want to focus on fishing and agriculture or cities and city life? The choice is yours. The potential points increase or decrease as you move each building around the island and as it comes in and out of range of beneficial or incompatible features. Placing buildings around the island also unlocks further islands, which is great because eventually you will either run out of space or lack the points to continue. When this happens open the new island map and begin a new city. This is how a game designed to be played in a half hour, though it captivated my wife for two.
The quick tutorial walks you through three basic controls that allow you to navigate the island. 'Left' and 'Right Trigger' rotate left and right. 'Left Stick' moves you around the island. Up and Down on the D-Pad zoom in and out. The controls that the tutorial doesn’t walk you through are selecting and moving your buildings. However, these are so basic that their easily picked up right away. A bonus feature with Islanders is the amount of Xbox achievements there are to unlock; every time we play, we unlock a few more which is always exciting.
While some people may find the simple graphic style with the minimal colour schemes a little dull, we found them attractively calming. My wife sometimes becomes overwhelmed by too much visual stimuli which certainly wasn’t the case with this game. The combination of the graphics and the melodious soundtrack, with the notes of the sea breeze and chirping birds mixed to the tranquil piano tunes, provided the brain break my wife desperately needs after a full day surrounded by children.
Overall, I found Islanders: Console Edition to be a little under-stimulating, while my wife found it truly enjoyable. She appreciates the calming nature of the game combined with the ability to be competitive in the leaderboard. While we’re not 'wowed' by the quality of the graphics, we do feel that the developers hit the mark with what they were after. We recommend Islanders for anyone that likes Sim City or other such puzzle and strategy games as well as anyone, young or old, needing a quick brain break.
**Islanders was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Hot Wheels Unleashed
Have you ever played with Hot Wheels on that classic orange plastic track, launching your favorite car and wishing that you were behind the wheel experiencing every aspect? Your wait is over because it has arrived! You’re going to need to clear your schedule because Hot Wheels Unleashed is the kind of game that you can play for extended periods of time. It is exactly what we dreamed about as kids playing with those 1/64 scale die-cast imitation cars. You even begin the game on a city map, just like the rugs we played on back in the day in our rooms. The City Rumble opens onto a map with medallions showing the location of races. The first few races start you out on relatively easy tracks, providing a space to become accustomed to your Hot Wheels cars and the overall gameplay. From there the tracks become more challenging with forked tracks, loops and even the big red T-rex from the iconic Hot Wheels T-Rex Rampage play set.Play levels in City Rumble to unlock awesome rewards such as blind boxes, new cars, gears (for upgrading) and customizable pieces to decorate your basement. There are so many different items that you unlock as you play the game that it becomes addictive, including profile backgrounds, tags and profile cards. It’s pretty great that as you unlock more rewards you gain more track pieces for your custom track builder as well.
One of the coolest features of this game is the ability to create your own tracks. The track builder is an incredible track laboratory that had the undivided attention of the developers for more than two years. When they were done developing it, the track builder system was then the basis for the track creation for the rest of the game, making it feel like you are one of the developers. You have your choice of the same six settings the main game is played in, as well as a specially designed wide open track room. Now you can build your very own track design, and there literally isn’t a thing you can’t do to these track pieces. You can choose to build a circuit or a course, though I especially love the T-rex head as a starting point. After you have positioned the start, you can then create the body of your track. The possibilities are endless, so take a few moments to become accustomed to the view and controls as you manipulate the track. After you’ve built a track be sure to validate and share it to the community for anyone else to race on and enjoy, that way it can be downloaded and played by the community. I had a hard time with the point of view for the track builder, but as I continued to build I did get used to it the more time I spent with it. I really can’t say enough about this track builder. There is so much to be said but it’s better if you experience it for yourself.
The graphics in Hot Wheels Unleashed are certainly appealing to the eye. From the map in City Rumble to the races themselves, it really makes you feel like you’re driving the toy cars on real Hot Wheels tracks. Giving it more of that feel, if you pay attention to your surroundings a little bit as you travel through the track you will notice that you are actually in each setting with the track interacting with objects in the space, like when driving through the ventilation system in the room. As for the soundtrack, I found it lackluster, so I turned down the general game volume and turned on my personal playlist while still enjoying the sound effects.
If you are less of a builder and more of a race-only type of player, there are lots of options for you as well. You can play offline multiplayer in splitscreen, or online with up to 12 of your buddies or the community in public or private lobbies, but keep in mind that your competitors are only allowed through same brand of system that you are playing on. You can search through the library of tracks built by the community or download your favorite ones and race against your friends on them as well, so there's virtually infinite tracks to race on.
When it comes to the actual racing, Hot Wheels Unleashed checks most of my main racing game must haves. Obviously, with the crazy fun and fast tracks, time trials complete with a time goal to beat as well as a quicker finish time that is called the Unleashed goal. Gain speed from the start by timing your launch perfectly and drift around those wicked corners to refill your boost meter. This really got my heart pumping, and I could really feel myself driving! Punch the boost to make epic jumps and use your Right Stick to steer your vehicle as if it had magically become an airplane to maneuver your car for the perfect landing to keep your speed and stay ahead of the pack. Sometimes you might even need to complete an epic flip over a gap and still time it to be able to not crash. It was awesome!
Every vehicle has a rarity level based on how difficult it is to find, which slightly increases its attributes. It brings me back to when I used to hunt down the newest batch of blind boxes at the nearest toy store in hopes of finding the rare and legendary cars. Once you have those cars and you have collected enough gears, you can upgrade your cars' rarity, boosting its performance on the track.
Overall, I loved Hot Wheels Unleashed both for its gameplay and its ability to bring me back to my childhood by bringing my dream tracks to fruition in the track builder. I can easily recommend Hot Wheels Unleashed to pretty much everyone who even once got the joy of playing with Hot Wheels 1/64 scale die-cast imitation cars. The livery editor is a cool addition as well; I mean sometimes you just need to have an all-purple multi-texture paintjob in your car collection, which is exactly what my wife did. I was really surprised when I discovered that my wife was just as excited about this game as I was. In previous racing games she would only race with me for maybe an hour tops. Hot Wheels Unleashed on the other hand had her racing with me for a couple more hours at a time. I personally spent the better part of two days simply playing, not just for the review, but out of pure enjoyment, as I had a ton of fun and will continue to play it for a long time to come, trying out the community made tracks.
Is Hot Wheels Unleashed the best game of the year for racing games so far? In my humble opinion, it blows other racing games out of the water on sheer fun and entertainment, or should I say, right off the bright orange track! Make sure you check Hot Wheels Unleashed out on release day, as there will be DLC available with even more than the 66 initial available cars, 40 tracks and much more, including Season Passes.
**Hot Wheels Unleashed was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 9.5 / 10
WRC 10
I’m so excited about WRC 10! I have always been a fan of console racing games and can still remember the first time I really got into the racing genre. I was playing my friend's original Xbox, you know the original one that came out in 2001, and was playing Project Gotham Racing, sitting there for a full 8 hours. No snacks, no bathroom break, just fully involved in playing and thoroughly enjoying it!So, when given the opportunity to play and review WRC 10, I got so excited that once I started playing, I was dreaming about playing it when I couldn’t. That hasn’t happened for me for quite a while but goes to show how enjoyable it was. WRC 10; also known as WRC 10 FIA World Rally Championship, is a racing/simulation video game developed by French developer Kylotonn and published by Nacon. WRC 10 is the latest in the series and is also the official game of the World Rally Championship.
I’m telling you right now, if you love racing games as much as I do, then WRC 10 will not disappoint. It is full of amazing sound details, winding switchback roads, official rally cars and customizable driving conditions. Not to mention the speed, adrenaline and everything else you could ask for in a racing game. For instance, I’ll bet you never thought a video game could make you feel like you were in the car driving, but the development team really went all out on the details with hyper-realistic and ultra precise physics built into the way the engine reacts. So you can feel the force, turbo and braking of whichever car you choose to race through the vibrations in the controller, as well as the varied terrain of each track.
Followed by the insane amount of detail that went into even the minor sounds you hear while racing, I watched a developer YouTube video about how they created such a realistic sound for the game and was more than impressed. They brought the actual cars that are used in real races and that you can drive in the game to a live racetrack, attached twelve microphones to the vehicle (both inside and out) as well as well placed mics around the track to get a full 360 immersive sound experience as if you were in the car. I remember when I was really into playing Forza, I looked up the way they integrated the car sounds and found out that they took the actual cars for that game into a studio and recorded the sounds that way, which was cool, but WRC has surpassed that.
Quickly becoming known as the best of the best from all over the world, WRC 10 one has fully restored my faith in the ability of developers to reinvent and reignite my passion for a great driving game. As I took part in races to reach the 2021 season podium, I also relived and experienced the rush of racing in the past with legendary cars from WRC competitions as far back as the 1970’s in the 50th anniversary races.
Developers have added a bunch of new never-before-seen content in this new edition as well. Try your best in the four new 2021 rallies held in places like Croatia and Spain. Go through 6 historic rallies including Germany and Argentina. Do your part with 52 official teams from the 2021 season including WRC, WRC2, WRC3, and Junior WRC. And don’t forget those 20 plus legendary cars from manufacturers like Audi, Mitsubishi, and Toyota.
Start yourself off in career mode where you will experience a very life-like and complete career which consists of not only the driving but also viewing your full career information on the driver card. This includes an overall stats section, history, stunts, complications, online and offline stats, rewards and coaching. Then check out the livery editor, where you can create and design your own team and add your colours and decals to contemporary cars.
Get in touch with your competitive self and try your skills in the daily and weekly challenges, or head into the club and create your own competition, check your final scores against the rest of the community no matter what your skill level is. I love that because it means there is more inclusion. If you do want to spend more time improving your skills and getting to know the tracks better, you can complete challenges, training, or test races. I really enjoy having the ability to choose the time of day and type of weather for each track as well, making for some very unique and challenging races.
There is a great selection for multiplayer between playing online with friends or other people in the world. There is also a great splitscreen option so you can play local with someone beside you on the couch. I had the most fun with the ability to play splitscreen both with my wife and my friends. We picked a great track and chose to play winner gets next, so whoever had the best time at the end of the race got to play again and someone else got a turn. We had a lot of fun doing this. Something I did notice that kind of took away from the local match option was when the second player is selecting their car, if they back out of the category it requires them to select an Xbox player account every single time. I haven’t gotten the chance to play any of the online multiplayer options yet though due to lack of online players, so hopefully down the road the community will grow.
In the livery you can create custom paint, use premade decals, or create your own to showcase your own style. The graphic design that was put into this game are so realistic that you feel like you’re there. I was impressed that when any damage was done to the track, if you restarted the race all the damage was still there.
WRC 10 is absolutely amazing! The biggest downside is the learning curve, but the effort is well worth it when you take the time to master its handling. You can choose your tires and their position to suit the track and or your driving style and well as choose between auto and custom settings of the braking, suspension and other fine tuning. The amount of customization that is available for the player makes WRC 10 easy to get into regardless of your skill. Now we just need the ability to use a steering wheel instead of a controller and this would be an even better simulator.
**WRC 10 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 9.5 / 10
Fishing Adventure
Fishing Adventure is so much like your typical day out fishing that I almost felt like I was out on the water. There are over 30 different species of fish to try and catch in seven locations that are inspired by real world places. The game was designed to simply be what it is... fishing! Put your line and hook in the water and wait for a fish to bite, pull your line in and adjust your tension to catch a fish. Once you have caught a fish you decide if you want to sell the fish for gear money or release it for higher experience points.In this super simple simulation fishing game you have the choice to complete different challenges to unlock the next country. You can also just go basic fishing and save up enough to unlock the next area should you wish though. The game description says there are tournaments and daily rewards, but I have seen no actual evidence of this. One of the best features is that you get to try out replicated real world equipment.
There are a few ways to play Fishing Adventure; just enter the first location and fish for whatever you want to try for or walk around the body of water to try different locations of the lake. Hold down the 'X' button to cast out your line and just wait, just as you would in real life waiting for that nibble. Hold the 'Right Trigger' to reel in and hope your fish doesn’t break your line. you are able to adjust the line tension on the fly if needed if you manage to snag a big catch or a feisty fish that doesn't want to be caught. You can play challenges to catch a set amount of weight or certain fish and unlock more locations or just purchase the area to unlock it, but that can get quite pricey. There is also no real need to spend your earnings on unlocking areas when you can complete the quests to unlock them for free. So, I suggest save your money and buy the gear to be able to catch any range of fish when you're working on the challenges.
The seven locations you can fish at include, Canada, U.S.A, Haiti, France, Germany, Norway and Poland. As you enter each location you are greeted by a short introduction to that area. Once you have entered a location you can purchase a boating license to take your fishing experience out onto the water. As you level up, better gear is available to purchase in the shop though it's locked behind your level progression. It seems that at least one of the brands of fishing gear in this game is a real-life brand, Sakura, a gear shop based out of the UK.
The graphics for Fishing Adventure are about as simple as the simulation itself. The backdrops are very low resolution which made it difficult to try and compare the possibility of the real-life replication aspect, especially with the muddled backgrounds and minimal animations. Other than the fish detail portrayed in the game, everything else is not very exciting, including the environments as you walk around the pond or lake to try and find that sweet fishing spot. With no real music track that is worth listening to, you really will feel like you are fishing on your nearby lake, though you can hear nature sounds that try and immerse you into the relaxing hobby.
All that's missing is a “hey bud, pass me a beer." DLC. I guess for now I'll just drink a real one and take a nap while I wait for a fish to bite. I don’t think developers MasterCode could have made Fishing Adventure any simpler, and it takes a lot of mundane grinding to get enough money to buy the best gear, though that's no different than real life I guess. Therefore, you could be dared to say this is an accurate fishing simulation because its exactly the same as fishing in real life for the most part. Seriously though I find myself conflicted because as I’m an avid fisher who enjoys going out fishing in real life whenever I get the chance, but with Fishing Adventure I found myself kind of struggling to stay interested, as the gameplay came across more of a mobile game than a console game experience.
**Fishing Adventure was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
Skydrift Infinity
Take flight in Skydrift Infinity! This remastered action-packed arcade flight racing game comes from developer THQ Nordic. Skydrift Infinity was developed with the purpose of focusing on the pure experience of flying a variety of cool vintage, modern and fantasy based planes in a variety of races and tracks. Choose from 16 different with four unlockable liveries to choose from for each.The name of the game is to be first and best overall! By any means necessary, overtake your opponents or shoot them down if need be. Take part in Deathmatches, Armed Races, Power Races, Speed Races and Elimination Rounds using a wide range of aircraft maxed out with everything from speed to armor and weaponry. Challenge your friends, against the computer or find an unknown challenger from anywhere in the world. There is also an option to explore around islands used as venues for races, making use of an arena mode where you can let loose and fly between races.
Experience bright and colorful scenic views while racing through canyons, tundra and tropical islands, however there are not a lot of different courses to race. There are five different game modes to play by yourself, against the computer or online against up to 8 participants, if you can find anyone other than your friends online, or on the same system in split screen mode. Don’t let all the multiplayer options fool you though because with the lack of player count we encountered, Skydrift Infinity feels very much like a solo player game at times. The online leaderboards almost prove how few are playing this online unfortunately.
While in Power Races there are six different power-ups available. You can capture and use up to two different powers in your plane’s arsenal, then collect a second of the same power-up to increase the strength of your existing items. While these power-ups are good and helpful in battle, some have way more power to them like the rockets and the guns, while others seem to make less of a difference overall. You also have the option if you need a speed burst to keep your lead or are just not happy with the power up you grabbed, you can absorb your power-ups to refill your speed boost meter.
In 2011, the original Skydrift released on Xbox 360 which only had eight planes to choose from and only three game modes. I never played the original Skydrift, but it looks nearly identical in terms of gameplay. Oddly, you can sue the Right Stick to tilt and bank your plane to try and make it through some tight spaces, but this created a few issues for me. When using the Right Stick to tilt your plane the controls used to fly the plane do not change. An example of this is if you pull down on the left stick, it makes the plane fly upward. In most other flight games, if you turn completely sideways, then pull back on the stick to go “up” it's supposed to bank the plane super hard in relation to "up" for the cockpit. This isn't the case here though, as Left Stick never changes your "up" and "down", regardless of your aircraft's orientation.
The battle throughout the races I found to be exhilarating and fun. Especially when you get blown up and hopefully get revenge on the mother trucker who blew you up in the first place. As always, I thoroughly enjoy when I get the chance to battle my friends and hopefully destroy them in games, as it brings out the competitor in me. This game is great as a multiplayer game, and I think I would have been rather disappointed if it had not had that option. So, this is definitely on my list of recommended multiplayer games if you can get a few friends to also pick it up.
I found the controls to be really easy to understand and figure out which meant I could spend less time trying to figure out how to play and a lot more time and fun shooting my opponents down so I can come in first place and be the best of the best. Well, at least in my dreams I am. Guess I need to practice more before I can be the top gun. Overall, Skydrift Infinity is a bunch of fun and minor frustration rolled up into one really entertaining game if you have some friends to play with online.
**Skydrift Infinity was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Fishing: North Atlantic
Ever wonder what its like to fish in the North Atlantic coast of Canada, Nova Scotia to be exact? Well, thanks to developers Misc Games, based out of Norway, Fishing: North Atlantic is literally that! Explore precisely replicated ports, upgrade your vessels and gear recreated in game from licensed partners like HERMES and Moen Marin as you progress through a commercial fishing career. Fishing: North Atlantic is the sequel to the simulation game Fishing: Barents Sea. Take control of your boat, one of 27 replicated, hand-crafted boats that are available in real life from fishing industry partners, and manually drive or fast travel to various points in the ocean on the map or to different ports.
With the ability to fish with 7 different fishing methods from harpooning to trawling, and even lobster fishing, with a lot of patience and possibly some tutorial videos to help you get it a little more. This sim game has the ability to teach you better fishing methods or try out some methods you may not have real life access to. The game has 10 varieties of fish to go after, including swordfish, tuna, cod, haddock, and mackerel.
Battle with very large fish and pay attention to how much fight the fish is giving you or your will break your line and lose your catch. Also experience very real coastal weather that was collected and input from actual weather data collected in and around Nova Scotia, so you really do feel like you are in the area.
Once you have your capacity of fish, return to the port of your choice, so long as you have enough fuel, and sell your catch for what ever the current sale price is for your catch. While I was playing, the better priced catches were swordfish, tuna and lobster. While you are at port you can also repair any damage, which I had to make use of since I got run down by a ferry on my first trip out and sank. You can opt for insurance so you don’t have to pay every time you need a rescue as well which is probably a good idea early on in your fishing career. Hire fishers to work on your boat and help you pull your net or deep lines in. Go to the bar and buy tips on the best fishing spots, and you can even make use of a time skip so you don’t have to wait for bad weather to pass.
Upgrade your equipment or buy bigger better boats to have better chances to not sink your boat and have a larger number of retainable catches, stronger nets and fishing lines. You also have the ability to rename and repaint your boat anytime you want. My favorite fishing method was the harpooning because it was the easiest method for me to figure out, though maybe I'll get better as I play more. This simulator was really tough for me as I have never been ocean fishing, so I had to look up tutorial videos online to get a grasp of what I had to do, something I wish was covered more in-game.
I found manually driving the boat to be a very slow process, especially when you take on a quest to deliver something from one port to another and you are not allowed to fast travel... I actually fell asleep once while driving the boat! But the benefit of doing these deliveries is that once you complete it you build a better reputation in each port, which makes selling your catch much more profitable.
Overall, I had a lot of trouble learning to play Fishing: North Atlantic early on, but I still had a lot of fun being out on the water and catching fish. I was pretty excited to give this game a try and do the review because I really enjoy going fishing in real life. I primarily go lake fishing though, so this was a whole new and completely different experience for me, and I did feel like I really was there fishing on the boat at times. Even my wife started to get seasick while sitting on the couch and watching me play. Commercial fisherman will no doubt find enjoyment in the simulator aspect, a niche genre for a specific audience.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Crash Drive 3
Can you 'Catch the Drift' in the latest ultimate driving playground? Crash Drive 3 is full of competitive events, open world exploration, explosions, tanks, loops, ramps, tunnels, ferries and full cross platform play. Initial opinions of this game made me think this was going to be a simple short game that probably was not going to be all that fun or have much longevity. Well, I'm glad to report that I was so wrong! This not so serious fun little arcade open world race game is a great amount of fun and entertainment. You can play for a short period when you only have ten minutes or like be like my friend and I who played it for 3 hours straight, not noticing that much time had gone by.Take part in random spawning events every minute or so that give you a set goal and timer to achieve that objective. There are a total of ten different events including destroying a giant beach ball, collecting coins, cops and robbers, king of the hill, tag items, races, stunts and more. The best part is that if you do not want to participate in any of the events, you do not have to, but each event you win you earn coins added to your bank to use towards upgrades and buying more cars. The more players in a lobby that participate, the more potential for earning you have, like how at a carnival if the whack-a-mole was completely full of players you played for the largest stuffed prize. Play against your friends and frenemies to earn the most cash and have the coolest vehicles and customizations.
Explore the frozen arctic, a desert full of ramps and loops and forest with a castle. The Tropics has a sky arena to battle opponents in tanks by blasting them with your cannon, or just crash into them and push them over the edge to score points and dominate in order to level up and buy new tanks. There is even a moon level with a rocket and low gravity! Crash Drive 3 is packed with insane stunt chances, tons of details, and even some easter eggs if you can find them. This game is full of different ways for you to play solo, with friends, cross platform, or follow each event and see how well you can do. There are so many secrets in this game I do not know if I will ever find them all.
Everything you do within each level, mode, vehicle, ramp or event progresses you farther in level and wealth to use towards upgrades and maxing out your cars. Since I have been playing the pre-release, obviously there are not very many other people playing, but when I was playing with a friend, we did get to play with about 5 or 6 other people and had no issues at all. This is when we discovered that the more opponents to play against, the larger the prize pool and winnings became, so it pays, literally, to play with others online (since there's no split screen mode).
Battle in the King of the Ring challenge and bash your opponents out of the ring to obtain the longest time spent as the King, or travel into the tropics and switch to a tank so you can battle it out and fire your cannons at each other with the goal of killing your opponent as many times as possible until time runs out. Once the time runs out, wait another 30 seconds and another match will start.
Crash Drive 3 is not to be taken seriously because it is a very lighthearted and simply a fun arcade game with ten different events that take place randomly every 30 to 60 seconds. You can participate in them or simply just drive around looking for collectibles or trying to achieve various objectives within each world. Doing stunts in this game are super easy and fun because there are no consequences to your vehicle should you crash, but you do get more points for perfect landings. Challenge accepted!
Max out all your stats for your cars and trucks to increase your player level and unlock the ability to buy new cars and customizations. With the ability to collect over 50 different vehicles (including a delivery truck!) with vast customizations like funky antenna, boosts (exhausts), and the ability to change your license plate style, you can really show your friends who’s the boss when you're sporting a badass monster truck or limo. Anyone down to race a solid gold car?
This game is so simple and fun to play that over the headset I heard my friend’s non-gamer wife say that she would even play this game; a big win in my opinion. It is like a big virtual playground for all ages that is very simple to pick up and play without any need for explanation. This is a great multiplayer game for anyone one whether you are super competitive or just like to mess around and have fun online with your friends in game. Again, the fact that you're given the option to partake in events or not was the best part, as sometimes I simply wanted to drive around, explore and search for hidden collectibles and not want to try and bash a giant beach ball around the map for a few minutes.
Some of the downsides are that if you do not like a specific event and do not want to play, you cannot really stop the event from happening. You can choose not to participate but the event will still continue and possibly impede the goal you may be trying to complete instead; a vote or veto option would have been a great inclusion. You will need to log quite a lot of hours if your goal is to unlock every vehicle and max all of them out. And it can be exceedingly difficult to find your friend within the worlds unless you are close by, as the nameplate doesn't always stand out as much as it should. Also, when playing with others online, unless you have the same worlds unlocked which takes time and money to do so, you can not play the same worlds together or have them join you until they unlock the later levels. There is also no way to simply type something on the chat, as there are only preselected phrases accessed through the D-pad. None are deal breakers by any means and didn't impede the fun I was constantly having playing online with friends.
Crash Drive 3 turned out to be so much more fun than I initially anticipated, full of laughs and the good kind of swearing at friends when they overtake your score or steal your tags in a stunt event! I can fully recommend Crash Drive 3 if you are looking for a chill game with an edge of competition and an open world exploration that doesn't force you to partake in every challenge, but I had a lot of fun trying to win each time I did.
Suggestions: I would like to see the inclusion of paint options when customizing vehicles. I would have fun putting my own decals on some of the available cars.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Empire of Angels IV
BRING ON THE GIRL POWER (and their underwear)! This simulated life RPG, developed by SOFTSTAR out of Taiwan, features beautiful 2D/3D graphics with strategic turn-based combat and a huge cast of gorgeous female characters in hilarious battles. For the first time since the series began in 1993, Empire of Angels arrives on console for Xbox fans to now enjoy.Welcome to the Land of Asgard, the kingdom of Valkyrie! Join the Namtar Investigation Team as they patrol the land. Niya, captain of the Valkyrie Kingdom’s legion, witnesses a shining orb fall from the sky. Then a plague arrives that infects people and makes them to commit mindless violence. Your job is to help Niya maintain order and restore the peace.
Empire of Angels IV reintroduces the history of Asgard, its lore, characters and mechanics, so even someone with no prior knowledge of the series can enjoy this adventure. A deep fantasy theme full of political intrigue and the looming terror of war is balanced by light-hearted character interactions. This game has its fair share of humor as you shatter your all-female opponents’ armor leaving them in their birthday suit. Needless to say, it is a lot of fun with all its humor and challenging strategic decisions.
Choose you team and their placement in the grounds. Each character has a set range they can travel as well as distance for attack. Some have healing abilities and all have a different type of attack, from broad swords, arrows to magic and more. Defeat enemies or scare them off in their underwear. Battle against spiders and different creatures, as well as possessed characters.
The unit functions are found in unit menu. Here you can see all your characters and the details of your current team. You can switch roles and find hidden quests for specific characters in the lead role which then creates more levels to explore. The unit system shows you the 'tech tree' where once you have enough merit stars you can turn them in for your class advancement. Also, in the tech tree you will see the unit types that can be progressed through the current tree, so there's plenty to delve into should you put the time into it.
There are three interchangeable basic unit classes, soldiers, clerics, and archers, and you can switch between the three, which is a great way to highlight the enemies' weaknesses. Once you have an advanced class you cannot downgrade to a sub-class. Every class has a 4-star unit to upgrade to, no matter what tree you choose to follow. Aside from just obtaining rank requirements, there are also side quests you must find and complete. These can only be found by cycling through each character on your team to find these hidden levels.
As you progress through the game you will be given the power of summoning, allowing you to add pets to your line-up. Each pet has its own special powers and abilities, so you just need to find the ones that work well with your play style. You can only find new pets by completing side quests in previously played areas, so finding all of them is a bit of a pain in the butt, but the effort is worth it for the additional firepower and pays off in the end.
I really enjoyed the witty banter between sexy anime Angels without wings that was included within the explanations during tutorials. You can also try other hunting grounds by challenging them, and is a great place to level up if you are struggling.
Empire of Angels IV is a lot of fun and visually appealing with the 3D graphics and the beautiful anime style art. The vast ability to customize your team and their skills is a great way to play and find what works best for you to achieve your goals. I found it had great tutorials of how to play and what each character can do, easing me into the strategic gameplay. There is a lot of dialogue, but can be easily skipped if you are not the type of person to sit through and read everything. This old-school turn-based game is a great homage to the classics in the RPG world with bright colorful 3D imaging upgrade that really brings it to the current level of other games developed more recently.
When I first looked at Empire of Angels IV I was worried about how the translations would work out from Mandarin to English but once I started playing it was very well put together and easy to follow the story. With so many characters available once you have them, pets to summon and roles to choose from, Empire of Angels IV has the ability for you to play for many hours depending on how much time you want to sink into it. So, if you enjoy classic style turn-based RPG with beautiful graphics and sound that matches, I suggest you get check out Empire of Angels IV because it is a lot of strategic fun!
**Empire of Angels IV was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox One S**
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid Super Edition
Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid Super Edition is the latest version of an old classic franchise. It has great graphics and details in its artwork and style of design that Power Ranger fans will enjoy. As for the general gameplay and comparability to other major fighting games... I do not think it really holds a fighting chance against the classics like Mortal Kombat, Street fighter or Tekken. Battle current and classic Rangers and enemies in teams of three against the CPU, your friends online or in your home on the same system. You can be a master battler and train to use specific button combos or be a classic button masher to get the job done. Your battle team choices have endless possibilities.Lord Drakkon has decided its time to take out the Empress and reign over the realm in his overall quest to destroy the Power Rangers! (some things never change). Play through the story mode and battle the villains that Lord Drakkon sends after you, but you do not get the choice of who you play as during story mode so every level you are a different fighter as you progress.
The combat flow and smoothness of the game is decent like other popular fighting games, but I find I am not as excited about the Power Rangers the same way I am with Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter. When it comes to the 1 on 1, vs 3 on 3, I noticed the biggest differences were just the length of the matches, as with 3 you get more of the chance to kick ass. But as for overall flow of the fights I did not notice a big difference. If you do not want to fully switch your active player you can call on one or both of your backup characters to create a triple combo hit between your team mates on your opponents as they quickly tag in, do their move, and return.
If you splurge and purchase The Super edition, you get all the DLC from Seasons 1, 2 and 3, as well as the Street Fighter pack. This is a lot of DLC, not just interesting and unique skins, but characters as well, rounding out the roster by quite a few. Within this DLC you then get to add all of the following to your roster of fighters and different costumes they wear.
Season One Pass: Jen Scotts - Time Force Pink Ranger, Trey of Triforia - Zeo Gold Ranger and Lord Zedd, as well as the exclusive Red Dragon Shield skin for Jason Lee Scott.
Season Two Pass: Anubis 'Doggie' Cruger - SPD Shadow Ranger, Eric Myers - Time Force Quantum Ranger and Dai Shi - Jungle Fury Villain, as well as the exclusive Tommy Oliver MMPR White Ranger Skin
Season Three Pass: Robert 'RJ' James - Jungle Fury Ranger, Lauren Shiba - Super Samurai Ranger, Scorpina - MMPR, as well as the exclusive Dai Shi Phantom Beast King Skin.
Street Fighter Pack: Ryu, Crimson Hawk Ranger and Chun-Li, Blue Phoenix Ranger as well as their Angel Grove Class of '93 Skins exclusive to Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid.
My favorites to play in this game have been Tommy in the White Ranger skins as he seems to be one of the easier to manage and best Rangers to use, I also have the most wins with him on my team. Goldar is currently my most used fighter, as I like him for his size and abilities while still having enough of a response time to not just get obliterated like some of the other fighters. The other character I have been using on my team is Scorpina for her speed and powers as well. I was disappointed to see that Rita was not included in any of the DLC packs because I think she's such an iconic character from the show and would have been a super cool option as a playable character.
Within the game you can battle your friends in local or online play with 3 characters each and a time limit. The person with the least damage wins like most other fighters. I have a lot of fun with this against my friends online. We can just log on and battle with either the same teams or change it up every time. It really helped me figure out my best team combo.
If you are a really big fan of the Power Rangers (from any version or era) and want to feel nostalgic then go ahead and download Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid from Xbox Game Pass for free. If you are a major fan and want the extra characters and the coolest skins, then go ahead and get the Super Edition, but for me I do not think this would have been something I would have bought on my own as the cost for me does not equal out to the value since I'm not the biggest Power Rangers fan out there. I have had a lot of fun with the game and my friend online, but aside from that I would still likely choose Street fighter or Mortal Kombat for its mechanics if given the choice.
**Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid Super Edition was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox One S**
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
King of Seas
Welcome to King of Seas! A single player RPG pirate adventure game developed by 3D Clouds and published by Team17. After the navy kills your father and frames you for his murder, a couple of eccentric old pirates find you and take you under their wing, teaching you about life on the open seas. Take control of your own pirate ship as young Luky or his sister Marylou and set out on your adventure to become The King of Seas. But be warned, the navy will challenge and attack you in order to "test your mettle" and see if you have what it takes to become the King!As you become a more powerful pirate, you also build your own Faction and wage war! Broaden your horizons and talk to cartographers throughout the ocean to purchase map segments and to complete your ocean map. There are two main factions you see in the game; The Navy and Merchants.
When sailing my boat through the ocean, I noticed that it is very realistic to how an actual boat moves on the seas. If you travel with the wind behind you and with the way the ocean is moving you will naturally sail faster. You will also experience all types of weather as well, as creatures in the ocean like fish and large tentacles of the Kraken that will attack your ship if you get to close, and will cause damage (I hope you held on to a repair kit).
Travel the open seas and find shipwrecks that you can loot, usually resulting in spoils like repair kits or weapons upgrades. You'll also experience all of the night and day cycles, storms and even volcanoes. Choose to fight under a volcano and it might help you by hitting your enemies or kill you. I think the volcanos were a great addition to King of Seas as a fun little challenge to see if you can get the loot from the shipwreck without getting damaged.
Equip your ship with Cannon Barrages and collect cannon balls. You then can swap to different types of cannon balls that attack the sails of the ships. Your crew determines the cool down of your cannons and the hull is the remaining life of your ship. Attack Forts in navy ports in order to take control, but be prepared to fight off the navy ships that come to defend the port to destroy you, but as you build your faction, your allies will come to help you against the navy. Conquer ports and expand your domain to collect the more resources to upgrade with, as well as build and strengthen your faction.
When you go to any of the ports there are a few things you can do. Shop, repair your ship, banking and “speak to the governor”. In this section you can upgrade your fort, increase the population which will produce more ships and more clues in the tavern to help you on your quests, strengthen your military force which will make your port stronger and more defensible, and increase the wealth that your port will give you. You can also go to the Tavern to hire crew for your vessel, find quest clues and find sidequests to do and get rewarded for your efforts with things like repair kits, gold and experience.
As you upgrade and level up you gain more abilities and skills to help you on your quests. One of the abilities that I really thought was cool was one that lets you drop a decoy ship, so if you need to repair or loot and enemy ship comes to attack you it will go attack that ship instead as a diversion. Use your inventory to craft and customize your abilities and the looks of your ship, giving you full control over the way your ship looks and moves throughout the game.
Using the map is simple and easy to use, zooming in or out to see a more detailed view or a broader picture if the map. Finding your current quest marker is easy, just look for the big 'X', it always marks the spot! Throughout the game you will encounter pirates that are legendary and will test you and challenge your more than in previous battles to see if you really do have what it takes to become King Of Seas!
Overall, I'm glad I got to experience King of Seas, as it reminds me of other RPG games I have played like Diablo, where you have your character of choice and you move through the game obtaining things you need for quests and upgrading your character. This time though it is a ship, and you are the captain! At a max level of 60 you can get a lot of cool upgrades for your cannons and your ship to make you the strongest in the ocean with some effort.
The biggest problem I faced with King of Seas was that I wish there had been more spoken narrative, as there can be a lot to read at times, slowing down the pacing, but that is just my personal wish. I also think it would be cool to see some online multiplayer added so that you could play against other pirates to prove who the real online King of the seas truly is!
The ship battles were quite exciting and got me going and really into the adventure of being a pirate on the open seas. King of Seas can be a lot of fun if you give it the time to understand what you need to do and start to customize your ship. So if you like customizable RPG style games I absolutely recommend King of Seas for you.
**King of Seas was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox One S**
Suggestions: I think it would be cool to have the ability to take your ship into an online mode and play against other pirates.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
El Hijo - A Wild West Tale
My first impressions of El Hijo - A Wild West Tale when I watched the trailer and first played was just how cute this game is. I initially assumed it would be an easy and quick game to play until I discovered that there are 69 levels to play through. When I started playing, the graphics and colorful aesthetics were well done and initially caught my eye, as the character of El Hijo is cute and mischievous. He seems to be maybe 10 years of age or so and makes me reminiscent of sneaking around the house as a kid to see what I could get away with and not get in trouble before being seen and caught.The game setting starts out in an American style based on Sergio Leone's westerns, with gangs of outlaws, shady saloons and desert landscapes. The game prologue starts you out in a scene where a farmer teaches her son El Hijo how to sneak around the terrain before they are attacked by bandits who set fire to their farm, destroying everything in the process. The mother has a difficult choice to make on how to protect her son. When the gameplay actually begins, you become El Hijo who has been left at a monastery in the desert to protect him. The goal in the first 9 levels is to inspire the various children placed throughout the levels and escape the monastery without getting caught by the monks.
You maneuver through three environments. The first is the monastery, next is the desert, and then an old timey town full of crime and criminals. There is no real combat in this game as it is described as a non-violent stealth game. As you progress through the game, the combinations of stealth and puzzle solving gets more difficult, so make sure you look ahead and plan what your next move will be to avoid getting caught.
The controls and movability within the game are simple to use and understand without any major tutorial needed. When you need to find something to interact with there is a glowing blue dot and will tell you what to do to activate it, like hiding in a clay pot, behind a curtain, in a bed, bathtub or crouched behind a flowerpot. Just do not get caught by a monk, as they have visual ranges and sightlines that you need to observe before being able to move through the level. If you do get caught however you just respawn at your most recent save point.
Using various toys that you find throughout the levels you create distractions so you can sneak past. You can throw a rock to cause the attention of the monks or bandits in order to clear your way through, or it might even be a toy soldier that you deploy to get their attention. Either way do not get caught. Your end goal is to help El Hijo find and reunite with his mother.
While playing El Hijo - A Wild West Tale, my first impression was that I found it engaging yet frustrating when I was caught, but overall sometimes found myself getting kind of bored with this game as it went on. As I played more, I found it more challenging and a little more enjoyable, but over time I found myself less interested in playing because as I moved along in the levels the scenes and ways you must move throughout change, but the levels are essentially the same with a different backdrop. There is no multiplayer, as it is just you playing as El Hijo or sometimes his mom to make it through each area.
I will be honest; I did not finish the full game as I lost interest in continuing because of the repetitive nature. But once you play a few levels and learn the method to the gameplay it's simple and easy to play, so long as you can keep an interest in playing it. Fans of stealth and puzzle games should have no problem keeping interest, but others may fall into the same boredom that I did after a while.
My wife and I both agree that El Hijo - A Wild West Tale is super cute and age appropriate for kids and adults alike as there is no violence or bad language. I mostly recommend El Hijo for young people interested in puzzle games, or adults who need a game cleanser or break from their main games now and then and want to complete a few levels at a time.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Spacebase Startopia
Hello Meat sacks! Welcome to my review of Starbase Startopia from developers Realmforge, best known as the creators of Dungeons 3. This game is a base building management simulator where you are the 'Command-R' of an old abandoned space station, guided by the Dynamic narrator AI “VAL” who does not really tell you any information of what you need to do, only criticizes your actions and tells you when an event is taking place on your space station.It all began with telgorians giving a flower offering that was taken as a sign of war. Only all the other races did not have the tech needed in order to win, so there was a meeting of the different species to come to a mutual agreement for happiness. You become the commander of an abandoned space station because you are the only humanoid with enough brain capacity to take control of the station. It appears that the station was abandoned because of too many alien enemies trying to take over the space station. Your job is to maintain the decks and expand into further ones as you make life sustainable on the ship.
Your job is to take command of a Starbase for all races to have access to basic needs like food showers, medical, energy, fun, and nature. Within the levels you encounter different scenarios that you must navigate through to complete each level. Throughout each level you get asked about different service upgrades that might improve the ability of each. Examples such as the recycling station that will give you the option of possibly a 50% increase of recycling and the results that it might have on your visitors, or 100% increase in productivity but it might make your spacebase messier due to leaky Telgrade visitors.
VAL is your narrator and guide throughout the game, and she is never too far to explain what the scenario is before you start and react to the choices you make, often with sarcastic witty insults because to her you are just a carbon-based life form with basic brain capacity. The AI 'VAL' does her best to guide you through the levels, but not without throwing a bit of salt in wounds quite humorously when you have made an interesting decision. With the update that went out in the second week of March there are now 3 voice options for “VAL”: GARWIN, ROBOT, or VAL. My Favorite is GARWIN because it sounds like a robot on autotune!
Your first scenario is all about one thing; earning energy through recycling. That is just a collection of garbage that space creatures leave all over the Spacebase and recycling that into the very energy you need to run your space station.
It can be challenging to become accustomed to the controls as multiple buttons and combinations are needed to open each menu, as there are a few different menus to become familiar with in order to keep operations running smoothly. However, once familiar with the menus and controls, Spacebase Startopia opens up and the real fun begins. Your mission is to create an enjoyable away station for your visitors. This includes a berth, a place where your visitors can get some food, a medical center where the sick can be healed and even a disco and an arcade. Hire visiting aliens to operate your various machines and essential services around your station. Sometimes if you are not paying attention because you are too busy cleaning, your employees will quit and you will need to hire new ones, much like other similar games.
When you start a campaign there are 3 separate options for difficulty; Cadet, Commander and Admiral, each of which has a different set of start point difficulty ranging from starting with all necessities already in place and active versus needing to fund and source all things from the beginning. As you go along in the scenarios and stages within the game, the difficulty grows as well. Before the recent update I found myself struggling to figure out how to use all the options and learn the game with little given explanations. Since the latest update though I have noticed that now, if you linger on almost anything in the game, an info bubble will appear explaining what it is. This is a big improvement from the Game Preview version because it now helps gain further understanding of what you are building and why. I also now have a better grasp of the controls after doing the new tutorials and playing Spacebase Startopia. I discovered the Research center is where you must unlock the services that you need and want on your space station. To complete research you need to have a set amount of energy and another resource, though this could use a little more explanation in a tutorial as well.
When I logged on to try the multiplayer modes, which is only available to online players, while in Game Preview with my friend we got very frustrated after one mission in each mode, due to the overall lack of given information and explanation of button usage and build descriptions. These little things seem to have been addressed now. Gameplay has gotten smoother and is more understandable as to what the mission and goals are. My friend was no longer trying to jump ship because all his guest were super angry. We managed to get a good plan going where one of us would place and or build required services while the other harvested on the bio deck or cleaned up garbage around the space station.
The game can be purchased for $69.99 and there is also a free trial so you can find out if you might be interested in purchasing the full game. If you purchased Spacebase Startopia while in Game Preview there was an exclusive offer of some bonus content like skins and extra alien races, like a pre-order bonus. The soundtrack is fun and helps get you into the game and the graphics are bright and colorful but the motion of the camera and the angles that you get could cause motion sickness so to be aware of that when considering a purchase.
Overall, I have really started to enjoy Spacebase Startopia because of the humorous comments from VAL about your various upgrade choices and chosen actions within each mission. I can wholly recommend Spacebase Startopia to anyone who likes simulation builder games with a good sense of humor through insults because VAL has quite the opinions about you and your decisions.
**Spacebase Startopia was reviewed on an Xbox One S**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Morkredd
When I first chose Morkredd for my latest review I did not fully know just what I was getting myself (and incidentally my wife) into! When you first start out, you have the choice of single or two player co-op. I strongly suggest you find someone in your home (or your best COVID-19 buddy who is in your bubble) to come over and play this game with you as I found it virtually impossible to play solo without constantly becoming frustrated.When you start your game, you are introduced to The Orb of Light. "The Orb gives Light, the Orb gives Life!" describes Morkredd perfectly, for if you find yourself in the shadows, even for a few moments, you are dead and start over from your last checkpoint. Morkredd is super difficult, challenging and requires a TON of concentration, as well as the attention to ensure you do not end up in the shadows and dead, having to start all over again. If you are looking for a casual game to relax to, I have to forewarn you, this is not the game you are looking for.
Morkredd has no explanations in terms of what and why is happening throughout your journey in the beginning. Two shadow figures (one male, one female) and the Orb are what you start the game with. In the first section the Orb flies and guides you through the darkness until you reach a checkpoint where the Orb stops floating and becomes a large ball of light. You, and your teammate must push and maneuver the Orb though the maze-like corridors while making sure not to trap either one of you in the shadows for a swift death, but this is going to happen quite frequently.
Once you get a good understanding of the two buttons needed to operate the characters to interact with objects and push the Orb around, Morkredd's next biggest challenge is getting the communication and coordination with your friend to complete the levels. Hit the pause button and it will tell you how much percentage of the game you have completed, giving you a rough idea of how much remaining gameplay you have, but of course it becomes much more challenging the further you progress. You may also want to strategize on what your next step(s) are at this time too.
To this point, it seems that are really no opportunities where you would have much to battle in this game, but I found the inclusion of some shadow enemies that, if given the chance to get close to the Orb, will pop it and you will regenerate at your last checkpoint, which of course means you must start all over again from that point. There is a way to kill these enemies though, By putting them in your shadow that the Orb produces, just as it would kill you.
I love that Morkredd kind of forces you to have a second player, because my wife and I found this game quite a challenge. A bonus aspect is that we found it to be a bit of a team building and communication tool to help us not only in game, but also a little bit in real life aspects as a way of giving us practice in communicating to achieve a goal together in a way that we may not have thought about before playing Morkredd. Who knew that a simple game could even be referenced as a real life tool?
You hear me rambling how much fun the game is with another person; however, I found it rather disappointing to to discover no online co-op was included, as I really wished I could play this game in an online multiplayer mode. Given how the fun the couch co-op mode is, online play with another person seems to be a missed opportunity. When I tried to play this game on my own, I found it so difficult to control both figures simultaneously that I think I made it to 5% completion before I begged my wife to play the game some more with me out of frustration.
Overall I found Morkredd to be super enjoyable and fun to play, especially as a game for an opportunity have a stay at home gaming and dinner night with the spouse. For those that like a serious challenge of a punishing game experience, try Morkredd solo. Sometimes a great challenge is just what might be needed to help give you a bit of a break from the normal gaming routing, or just something different from what you always play. Just remember to always stay in the light.
** Morkredd was reviewed on an Xbox One S **
Suggestions: I would think it would be a great inclusion to be able to play online with my friends.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate
I was going to start this review with the inclusion of the awards and recognitions of the game and the developers, but if that is the kind of information you’re looking for; chances are you already know them. Watching the trailer for this game alone tells you how awesome of a game Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate is! When the original Mortal Kombat released in 1992, I was 6 years old and not allowed to play. But once I was old enough I fell in love with the blood the gore, the super awesome special moves and of course the finishers! What’s not to love!?Well 29 years later, I’m still in love with the Mortal Kombat series, possibly more due to how far gaming development has come which allows dev-teams to be able to provide such amazing graphics and various other improvements that have come around through the years. Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate includes the base game with the addition of 2 Kombat Packs and the excellent Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath Expansion. This Ultimate Edition brings a total of 30 add-ons that you can purchase or obtain buy purchasing the packs in previous non-ultimate version(s) of the game.
This is the first time in the franchise that we have seen an expansion that continues the story line from the base game in such a significant way. The three playable characters added are Fujin, Sheeva and RoboCop! I got super excited when I found out that I could now play as RoboCop and other characters such as Rambo, Mileena (who hasn't been a playable character previously) as well as Terminator and the Joker. The variety of styles and looks for each character included in this expansion is also super cool and can be changed in the 'Kustomize' tab with the ability to buy classic skins from the original games as well, and awesome fan service for old school fans.
I became really invested with the storyline and will sit through it again despite the length for my first time through, but when I play again I'll skip over the dialogue due to it being quite a lengthy narrative, especially for a fighter. The revenant version of each character is a great addition to the storyline where good vs. evil of one's own self is included. Kombat Pack 1 includes six fighters including Shang Tsung, The Joker, and Terminator T-800, as well as a bunch of different outfit/styles to choose from when you unlock them. Kombat Pack 2 adds 6 fighters including Mileena and Rambo, the latter who actually sounds like Sylvester Stallone himself.
In this Ultimate edition you have the option to play two different tower modes: Klassic Towers and Towers of Time. Klassic Towers is the same towers mode we all remember from previous versions with five different towers to play. Towers of Time starts you out with towers training that you must complete in order to continue to the full Towers of Time mode where you can play seven different modes of towers, like Premier, Elementary, Rapid, Summon-able and Tag Assists to name a few. Within Towers of Time, if you decide to play online it has a 'race against time' mode where you compete against other online players to climb the ranks of worldwide high scores. Every week there are different rewards for being in the top 10%, so there's always a new reason to keep coming back.
Character/player upgrades are mostly done through the Towers mode as well. The more you play Towers the more you obtain the abilities, Koins, and other things you need so that you can go in and upgrade your characters as well as weapons. This mostly benefits your abilities to fight harder and survive in Tower modes. Characters are customizable as you unlock gear, cosmetics (e.g. character skins), intros, fatalities, victories and brutalities. Also, you can customize character alignments.
Something that I ended up enjoying more than I expected was the AI battle mode. Here you select your three fighters and opponents, then simply let the computer fight it out for you. I really think this is interesting because sometimes it's hard to see all the cool moves the characters have without hours of practice. Plus, seeing these fights in a sped-up mode is awesome!
Friendship fatalities are hilarious to see and the dancing that comes from those victories is so very pleasing as well. In the Krypt you control your character by walking through and using Koins to open chests that contain upgrades, weapons, unlockable items like character art, as well as Kollection recipes. Find the gong and hit it and you will unlock the forge where you can make new items with the things you've found in the chests within the Krypt. Also, if you find a spot in the Krypt containing Kronikas magic you can spend Koins to refill chests you've already opened before. Decide to pay tribute and you'll find rewards like Kronikas amulet.
In the multiplayer modes you can play against your friends in your own home, against the CPU, or anyone online. I have always, and I mean always, love the ability to battle my friend's when they come over for a gaming session. I am not going to lie, as nothing beats a few drinks with some buddies with some swearing and fatalities thrown in for good measure.
I have been a major fan of the Mortal Kombat games since I was a kid who was finally old enough to play. I hadn't been able to play the original Mortal Kombat 11 release, so I was very happy to find out that Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate included so many extras! I really enjoyed all the playable characters and upgrades available for purchase and unlock, as it gave something to always work and strive towards aside from getting better.
I thoroughly recommend Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate to anyone who has wanted to try a fighting game with substance, or who might be like me playing the series throughout the years. The graphics blew my mind when I first started playing, which makes me wish I had a 4K TV even more. I also found that I really got into the interesting story. And as usual for Mortal Kombat, the gameplay is amazing yet classic all at once. Overall, I found Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate as one of my favorites in the franchise and I wholly recommend it to everyone who is into this kind of fighting game, filled with plenty of blood and gore because it's effin' badass!
**Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate was reviewed on an Xbox One S**
Overall Score: 10.0 / 10
KINGDOM HEARTS Melody of Memory
KINGDOM HEARTS Melody of Memory, the new game from Square Enix and indieszero, starts you out in the World Tour mode, but there is a reason for this. This introduction to the game consists of music stages that summarize the the past tales of Kingdom Hearts up to this current point. I found this feature interesting as I have not previously played any of the Kingdom Hearts games, so to get a story summary in this nature was quite nice.In the main menu you have the options of playing World tour, which is the mode you need to play in order to unlock characters, items, materials, songs, etc that will increase the overall gameplay experience. There is also a museum that opens once you visit the track/freeplay area. In the museum you will find all the in-game content that you have unlocked, like the cut-scenes from the story, which enables you the ability to watch them again, should you wish, at your leisure.
The Track selection mode is a Free Play mode. It is best explained as a mode where after you find a song that you just really love to play, or one that you want to be able to go back and get a better score on, you are able to practice as much as you like. In this mode you can make a favorites list, you can sort the songs into categories, or you can play a song at random. I will admit that I was thoroughly excited when I discovered that I could playsome actual Disney songs, like "This is Halloween" from Nightmare Before Christmas, one of my favourite movies of all time!
As you progress along in the World Tour mode you unlock movies, videos and storylines from all the previous Kingdom Hearts games. Given that I don't have a very robust knowledge of Kingdom Hearts up to this point, I really appreciated the inclusion of this content as I had never played any of the prior games and had no real background information or storyline prior to taking on this review. It's a great way to allow newbies to the franchise to play the game and not feel left out of the long history of the narrative of past KINGDOM HEARTS games.
When you play through the first world during the World Tour mode you will discover that it is pretty much a tutorial of sorts. It's here that you will learn what buttons do what actions and how to control the various in-game characters. You start with a team of Sora, Donald, and Goofy, just like in Kingdom Hearts proper.
The gameplay is very simple in its function, but you can tell that a lot of time, care and energy went into the development of the music and the gameplay design in order to keep with the previous games, which helps to bring you, as a player, into the history of Kingdom Hearts. One of my favourite maneuvers was staying in flight for a long stretch of notes and having to control the flight direction in order to maintain a nice streak. In some of the music stages there may be a fourth guest character will show up and help you in some magical way to complete the song. There is also an ability to use a summoning star to get King Mickey to show up and be your fourth teammate, which I thought was a pretty cool addition.
The combat actions are simple enough to understand and get used too, and if you are like me, and have played a few rhythm action games before then you shouldn't have any issue at all. I did find that the game did not register the inputs when I thought I had the timing close to or right on the beat, but quite often I was told it was a miss. My frustration aside, as I played the game more and got some practice in, I did notice a slight change in the accuracy a bit; however, I still found that this issue still occurred. Thankfully, in the options you're able to calibrate the audio and video synchronization as most musical based games have.
Using the Team menu as you play, you will find the option to view your inventory and use Moogle's recipes to synthesize items with materials you obtain through game play. You can help the Moogle earn experience and gain levels as you synthesize more items. If you need to synthesize a specific item you can press 'Y' to find out how to obtain the needed materials and jump right to those music stages. You can also change your team as you unlock new characters in the World Tour mode.
There is also a Co-op mode and a Versus Battle mode. Versus Battle is self explanatory. In Co-op mode, you and a friend play some local couch co-op (same console) to keep on the beat and tempo of the tracks to defeat the enemies on the musical road. Working together is your best way to get the highest combined score. Scores and streaks are totaled at the end of each song and the average score is awarded. I thoroughly enjoyed playing the co-op songs with my wife as a way to get us both involved in something together rather than just zoning out on our phones and not paying attention to anything else really going on.
While I found the general gameplay and layout of Melody of Memory is enjoyable, my favourite gameplay experience has been with my wife and seeing how immersed she got into the gameplay experience. Our time playing the game provided us not only with some very fun times together, but we also got to see our progress working together as we completed each song, unlocked more tracks and then going back and trying to better our scores from the last time we played. I didn't run a timer, but I'm pretty sure we lost more than a few hours together on the couch. This may not seem like a big deal to most, but when you both work full time hours and don't have the same days off, and you find yourself too tired to want to leave the house, this game is a great way to spend time together to have some fun.
Whether your are a longtime Kingdom Hearts fan looking to enjoy the iconic music interactively or you just enjoy rhythm action games as a whole, this game will be for you. On the other side of the coin, if you are someone who wants to see what all the KINGDOM HEARTS fuss is about as someone new to the series, like myself, I can't help but say go ahead and give KINGDOM HEARTS Melody of Memory a try, as you won't be disappointed.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Liftoff: Drone Racing
Lift off-Drone racing is the latest game from LuGus Studios and astragon Entertainment, available on the Xbox One. Almost instantly when trying out Liftoff: Drone Racing and found it overall to be rather dizzying experience and difficult to control. However, the attention to detail in the graphics were really cool. But for me, the combination of the high tempo loud even when quiet sounds of the music and the buzzing of the drones left my head spinning and feeling a little on edge, so it's hard to recommend if your are looking for a game to relax with.Lift off-drone racing at first glance looks like maybe as a new person to the hobby I might learn something like... maybe how to fly a drone. Another thing I thought was maybe my buddy who actually flies expensive drones in real life would really like this game because Liftoff: Drone Racing looks like it might be really similar to the real thing, minus the cost of equipment of course.
Liftoff: Drone Racing is advertised as "Being the most detailed first person view simulation on the market". I thought to myself "cool, my buddy flies drones. Maybe I could learn and fly drones without destroying his equipment to the point where maybe I could fly some real ones without worrying about the cost of losing one.".
For those of you who are very into drones and drone racing you have probably seen this game, possibly even tried it. The guide through the game is Joshua Bardwell and (from what I can gather) is quite a well known YouTuber of drone racing and drone flying. Playing this simulator was the first time I had ever heard or seen anything about him, but from what I could tell he seemed to give fairly good instructions and explanations.
Visually, Liftoff: Drone Racing are well done for its context and I appreciated the the attempt at the realism with the minor details when it came to the drones' parts and movement. First off, I found the controls for Liftoff: Drone Racing to be very difficult to get a solid understanding of what to do and how to do so properly, even when going through the tutorial. I found my self often flying too high, landing upside down in the grass or in a body of water or also flying badly through lots of trees. This made for an incredibly frustrating experience, even with the assisted flight option turned on.
While playing, I found that I had a very hard time feeling like I had full control over the drone. Unless I had the assist turned on I would always end up just flying up and ending up out of the flight area and having it restart again. I must say that I hope that real FPV quadcopter racing doesn't include the dizzying aspect of what it looks like to fly a drone, as there were quite a few times that I was trying my best to zip around the course only to find my eyes becoming strained and really tired after, almost to the point of needing to close my eyes for a few just to reset them. Because of this I found the game to be rather difficult to get into. I later had my friend who actually flies drones try this game out with me, and maybe it was because of the Xbox controller (he's has a different controller preference) or maybe it's the basic unchanged settings, but he looked at me after playing for about an hour and proclaimed "There no way you can learn to fly actual drones with this game.".
The items and gear that becomes available to make and customize your own drones is pretty interesting though because you can design and test out what the equipment reacts like within the game. Knowing that the brands of the equipment are legit in the real world leads me to believe that the builds and tests you may do in the game would hopefully be very similar to their actual counterparts in real life that you could purchase and create, so maybe if you are an avid drone enthusiast and you enjoy building drones, maybe Liftoff: Drone Racing could be a clever way to work out that tough drone idea you've been thinking of doing.
Once I played for a few days and sort of got a hang of what I was doing I started to become less frustrated over time, though I still personally prefer my races to be on the ground with rubber on the pavement rather than drone blades in the air. It could be that I don't have a knack for being a drone racer or flyer, that I couldn't get a good understanding of how to control the drone intuitively, or just that I got too dizzy playing for me to really focus and get into the game. That doesn't mean that Liftoff: Drone Racing isn't the right one for anyone, but it may be a bit more of a niche.
Perhaps you have a friend or family member that isn't into gaming but is really into drones and you want to crossover the hobbies to spend a little extra time together without the overall cost of the drone equipment and/or potential damages. If so, then go ahead and give Liftoff: Drone Racing a try, but otherwise, maybe see if you know anyone who does play with drones in real life and see if they have one you can learn on; it might be more fun.
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
ScourgeBringer
ScourgeBringer is the latest solo roguelike platform game from the developers Flying Oak Games & e-Studio. The game is officially described as “Set in a post-apocalyptic world where a mysterious entity wreaked havoc on all humanity", and ScourgeBringer puts you in the shoes of the deadliest warrior of her clan: Kyhra. Help her to explore the unknown and slash her way through ancient machines guarding the seal of her past, and maybe the reclamation of humanity. The story opens in a post-apocalyptic world ruled by a pillar that rains fire down on the cities. The few last remaining habitants believe it cleanses the earth of its sins. You play as Kyhra, a warrior who is the chosen one to defeat the Scourgebringer.Through the first few areas of the game you learn the basic moves and controls. I also found it hard to pass up the chance to try and hit the little various sized bells tied with red ribbon. I haven’t figured out the purpose yet but its fun to try anyway. Eventually after you pass the “training rooms” you find yourself at the Chiming Tree, where you meet Garu, a mystic from a past expedition. He is there as a guide to give you hints as to what you should look at, discover or obtain in order to move the story forward. This area then becomes your respawning point and basic “base camp” type area for every new attempt when you eventually die and restart. Every attempt you start out with eight lives, and when out of lives you then get told your stats for that attempt (how long you played for, what number attempt it was, and what “judged” you.)
In each attempt it appears that Kyhra’s goal is to navigate a maze of rooms/chambers, discover her history and hopefully save all of humanity. Find the basic map and you get the general knowledge of what’s on the other side of the door you choose. Find the full map and you see which direction continues to more options after the next room. Once you have defeated all the enemies in each room a selection of doorways become present and it's your choice which direction you go in. Gameplay continues in the same general manner unless you reach a boss level which has much more challenge.
Within the storyline there is a quest to find the Nexus computer which contains the logs and the data entry from the previous explorers, the only trick here is that you have to find the lost logs within the levels to help continue the story and put together what might have happened to everyone prior to Kyhra's adventure.
The controls were super responsive and smooth, though sometimes resulting in a bit of button mashing to get the swarm of enemies coming at me with an arsenal of moves that help jump from one enemy to the other without even touching the ground. Where one continuous combo can take out an entire room and give you a false sense of security, and just when you think you can take a break more enemies will spawn out of nowhere. It really kept me on my toes and added a bit of adrenaline and excitement to playing ScourgeBringer. I really enjoyed being able to run up walls, double jump, slash, smash and dash through the enemies in each room as well. But I'll be the first to tell you that I enjoy doing that in most games where it makes you look good.
Another unique element in combat is the ability to use a smash attack that lets you hit bullets back at your enemies as long as you have activated that skill in the tree. Be aware of your attack strategy with the smash attack though because timing and availability are a factor to its use. It can be risky but also rewarding, especially during the boss fights where a well-timed strike can do large amounts of damage as you send back a barrage of bullets.
“Practice makes perfect” is a saying that comes to mind when playing ScourgeBringer, as you may end up replaying the first few levels of the game quite a few times, as you simply can’t grind your way through this game; Improvement is the way to get through and progress further in Kyhra's journey.
In Scourgebringer the boss challenges have 2 stages. First you must defeat the Guardian(s) that spawn randomly in each area of the room. These are less of a challenge before the big boss of the level known as a Judge. Judge Blood is earned from defeating the Judges and guardians and comes with different abilities, HP increases and other things; one of which is a combo meter that rewards speed and variety. The faster you defeat enemies and the more types of attack used, the more the combo meter rises, which in turn increases the drop rate of regular Blood that normal enemies drop.
All in all, I think anyone who plays either roguelike's or platform genres will enjoy playing ScourgeBringer. I found it an entertaining game for when I wanted to get in a game and smash some bad guys, even for a short period of time. As an action platformer, ScourgeBringer is a really great example, even if it is a bit short. As a roguelike, it checks the boxes but doesn’t really do much else that's unique. Give ScourgeBringer a shot if you like either of these styles of games and want a challenge, plus it's on GamePass as well.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Stories Untold
Stories untold is a single player narrative driven adventure game that includes a mix of classic experimental text adventure, point and click and more. A mystery anthology where four short stories come together to make one encompassing narrative, making you feel like you are playing in a game-within-a-game. Or as I like to call it 'Game Inception'!When the story begins you start out with chapter "The house Abandon". It's difficult to review because spoilers would be a massive disservice, so I'll do my best not to spoil the surprises. You first find yourself sitting down in an 80's-esque environment to boot up your sweet new text based adventure game.
The first chapter, which is purely in the old-school text adventure style, has the most effective use of this mechanic, despite being the most basic. Later chapters incorporate some puzzles, point-and-click elements and even first-person exploration, reminding me of a more modernized escape game format. There are a few puzzles within, but they are either too easy or too difficult. The bulk of the second and third chapters ask players to follow a direction and then carry it out but mid-game ends up feeling tedious. Then, on the other extreme, there are brain teasers where the information is presented in a series of oversized, rapidly flashing pictures that are hard to make out. I found myself wishing to return to the old narrative text style which, although less complex than these “puzzles”, had a unique hook that is virtually absent today.
The second chapter takes place at a lab where you perform an experiment on a mysterious artifact – this is where things become a bit more mysterious. The third ups the ante by pitting you in a station where you communicate using codes. Finally, the fourth... Let’s just say that all of my descriptions thus far simply skim the surface, and the fourth chapter makes sense of what’s really happening throughout the game, putting it all together.
The gameplay is easy to figure out, although younger players and non-gamers not used to the genre may find it clunky and the controls difficult at times. It can also get a little painful in the hands while playing due to the length of time having to try to hold the screen in place to be able to read the story happening on the screen.
Essentially, you spend much of the game looking at a monitor, whether an old television screen or a computer display. The monitor is actually part of a set piece, so you can also see the desk that the monitor sits on, as well as other details like photo frames and a flickering light. A textual narrative appears on the “screen within a screen”, telling a story. You respond to the text by inputting commands. For instance, if you are in front of a house you can input “Look around”, “Use key”, “Open front door,” or other related phrases to interact with the world around you. Some nonsensical commands, like “Go key” won’t work, but others will progress the story. The challenge lies in paying attention to the story and discovering which actions will work.
The sense of subversion is what truly makes Stories Untold stand out. The developer stitches in its scares by going beyond the text, giving credence to the set piece design. The backgrounds alter, images flash and voiced dialogue gives you a sense of confusion and dread. The changes are sometimes subtle enough that discovering them made me do a double-take. The settings, particularly the first one in the house, are fairly ordinary. But how the game finds horror in the mundane is what truly makes it spooky. This isn’t a jump scare game, but be warned that there are some shocking moments and unnerving imagery.
Stories Untold celebrates early adventure games with its narrative text format, telling a suspenseful story through limited visuals and thrilling narrative. It’s a compelling journey, and much of the excitement comes from one’s own imagination. It’s not a long game, but the tale kept me hooked. However, Stories Untold is not for everyone. Players not used to the text format may find the gameplay tedious or unintuitive.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Dustoff Z
Grab your guns and grab your ammo, it's time to hit the air in your makeshift chopper so you can rescue zombie apocalypse survivors and gather supplies. Dustoff Z is a sequel to the Dustoff Heli Rescue games from developer Invictus. Even though you can play this game with two controllers, it is a single player sidescroller with a layout that you might expect from a mobile game.The scene opens onto a picturesque view of a city in a graphic novel style cutscene. You see a dilapidated police station with the letters falling off the building. Two police officers are hanging out at their helicopter and then a zombie mob approaches. They quickly fly into action and grab their guns; it’s zombie killing time.
The first apocalypse survivor you meet is Betsy, whom will teach you some tips on how the game is played. After the first level you’ll rendezvous with her at the survivor’s camp. Your job is to pilot a makeshift helicopter made of salvaged parts, to rescue survivors, collect supplies and data, and of course kill some zombies. All in a limited amount of time though.
Dustoff Z is easy to get into and spend several hours playing, while at the same time retaining the fun laid-back approach of a mobile app, meaning that it’s also great if you only have a few minutes and can limit yourself to one or two levels before you have to do something else. Dustoff Z is fun and challenging as you fly your chopper on a 2D playing field, with the appearance of a full 3D world, without a background wall like some other sidescroller games. You fly over and under powerlines, busted bridges and damaged buildings while destroying zombies that are also hell-bent on killing you, all in the hopes of completing your mission one after another.
Combat is easy enough since you just need to pull the Right Trigger to fire your weaponry and you control your chopper with the Left Stick. Missions will become much easier once you figure out how to manage everything related to your chopper. This means you’ll need to get a hang of just how much ammo you are carrying, how close you are to the safe zone, where you get refilled with all ammo fuel and health and a few other minor things.
Upgrading is the way to get along farther through the game as the levels get more challenging with each mission. The Helicopters are upgraded with coins and cogs to get better speed, armor, and the amount of ammo it can carry onboard. With your shooters you’ll be able to upgrade their accuracy, their rate of fire and their damage with coins and beans. All are gathered either in level or by getting stars from completing levels, so it pays to work for the best outcome you can for more upgrade materials.
Dustoff Z seems like it could be a multiplayer game but unfortunately it's strictly a solo affair. While it could be fun played as a challenge with a friend or family member seeing if they could beat your score in a specific level, I would have enjoyed the inclusion of a multiplayer platform to play alongside with someone as well.
When I first checked out Dustoff Z, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this game, as I had never been introduced to the Dustoff line of games previously. The first time I played Dustoff Z though I got so caught up in it that I played it for about 4 hours before I had realized that much time had went by. It has enough of a challenge that I can continue to play and not get bored, but I also get frustrated because I can't get past a certain boss until the chopper and shooters get a bunch of upgrades, so there’s a bit of grind to it. That being said, after playing for a few days and losing a handful of hours playing it, it dawned on me that I rather enjoyed Dustoff Z more than I expected.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
