Oxenfree 2 takes this intuitive system up a notch. The dialogue rarely stops, informing as it does so much of the narrative, but it’s some of the best writing and voice acting I’ve heard in such a small-scale game. In fact, Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals is that perfect kind of sequel that uses the original game as a solid foundation, and then builds upon it in every way it can.

Perhaps the most telling element is the “Netflix” logo that fades in as Oxenfree 2 begins. This feels like a game made for the Stranger Things generation, as indeed the first one was before Stranger Things was even a major hit. The “small town gone bad” theme is prevalent, evoking parallels with Netflix’s paranormal TV show.

We’re introduced to protagonist Riley right away, as she prepares to start her first shift working for an environmental research department, planting radio transmitters along the coast near the small town of Camena. It sits opposite Edwards Island, the small lump of rock and sand that served as the setting for so much calamity in the first game. What begins with a simple radio chat with Evelyn, Riley’s supervisor, soon degenerates into something much creepier. Shortly after meeting her co-worker, handyman Jacob Summers, Riley finds herself repeating the same moments again and again thanks to a transdimensional anomaly on Edwards Island.

It doesn’t take long for Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals to become unsettling. Together with Jacob, Riley is tasked with planting four transmitters at the highest points around Camena and the nearby abandoned ghost town of Garland in a bid to overpower and remove the anomaly. But rather than this be a breakneck race to the finish, it’s much more intentionally slow-paced. Jacob and Riley have no vehicle, and must hike and climb to their destinations, dealing with increasingly hostile spirits trying to break into our world, and what may or may not be a sinister cult known as Parentage who have a connection with Camena’s checkered history.

Riley is a great protagonist too. A former resident of Camena, she joined the military to escape a broken home and has returned now, in her thirties, with secrets of her own. She’s strong, and confident, but carries an air of someone who has earned that confidence through training and conditioning, and developed that strength by fighting her whole life. She’s outdoorsy, athletic, pragmatic, but she’s also a realist who has little time for flights of fancy or what-ifs. Jacob is the perfect foil. Mild-mannered but courageous when his loved ones are in danger, unsure of his place in the world and living in the shadow of his more successful, estranged twin brother.

The interactions between Riley and Jacob power the beating heart of Oxenfree 2 in a more vital way than the relationships between Alex and her friends in the first game. It helps that these two are world-weary adults instead of snide teenagers, but it’s more than that. As they face increasingly messed-up, occasionally terrifying phenomena, they come to rely on each other, encouraging and supporting one another. Of course, you can choose to play Riley as a stone-cold bitch at times thanks to the dialogue system, but I found the warmer version to feel more natural.

It would have been quite easy for the writers to skew the dynamic between Jacob and Riley, to either include romance or, worse, make her a Mary Sue and him a bumbling cliche. Instead we get a relationship that feels believable, and proceeds along a natural course given the events that unfold. But it’s not just these characters who grow and change as the story progresses. Without spoiling too much, there are also “cult members” to contend with, who seem hell bent on opening a portal to let the Sunken into our world.

These antagonists continue the plot from the first game. Sailors on an experimental submarine, lost at sea thanks to a tragic friendly fire accident, now trapped in another dimension and seeking a way to return no matter the consequences – the Sunken are a terrifying, single-minded presence in Oxenfree 2, often possessing the living and steering events out of your control. Beyond that, though, Riley has a walkie-talkie with which to communicate with various other residents of Camena, including Evelyn, park ranger Shelley, fisherman Nick, and scientist Hank. Through your actions and choices these and other characters may or may not survive the night, adding an undercurrent of menace and accountability.

Outside of one moment in the first hour that felt a little slow, the 5-hour campaign is incredibly compelling, pulling you from mystery to mystery, exposing the secrets and pain of Riley’s haunted past, but also offering flash-forwards to a potentially grim future. I say “potentially” because, again, your choices will inform multiple events and endings.

While I felt the first Oxenfree had some issues with pacing, Lost Signals has no such shortcomings. There is, as I said, a moment early on where I was running for a long time with little to do, but in fairness I had gone the wrong way and had to backtrack. And the running was still filled with exposition and character building, so it wasn’t a waste. Arguably, Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals lacks big “wow” moments. There’s a few larger set-pieces in the back half, but it rarely comes close to thrilling, instead pulling you along with its incredible atmosphere, smart writing, and likable characters.

It doesn’t hurt that it’s gorgeous. Characters are animated with exaggerated personality, slumped shoulders, waving arms, ragdoll physics when they fall that add an unsettling air to moments of crisis. But the backdrops are often beautiful, and the environmental detail and juxtaposition of muted colours with the sharp, digital aesthetic of the otherworld are always effective. The map seems much larger than it actually is, and travelling anywhere never feels laborious, even if Riley has a tendency to force you to walk sometimes.

Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals is a special game, one that feels almost old school at times despite the modern spin on dialogue and storytelling. It’s a small-scale adventure with far-reaching consequences, starring characters that are never sure whether they’re saving the whole world or just their own skins – or if they’re imagining it altogether. You don’t necessarily need to have played Oxenfree to enjoy Lost Signals (though I’d advise you to anyway because it’s a great game), but knowledge of the characters and events would help you understand some of the intricacies of the plot and the backstory of Camena and Edwards Island.

It’s not often a game of such comparatively small stature keeps its claws in after the credits roll, but Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals will likely stay with me for much longer than just another playthrough. Partly, this is down to the mysteries and secrets, some of which you just won’t see in one run because of the weight of choices you make. It’s occasionally scary, often funny, consistently creepy, and manages to be moving, usually when you’re not expecting it to be. But it’s also good-looking, fantastically well acted, and very clever. It’s quite light on puzzles and things to do beyond running, climbing and talking, but I devoured it in two sittings and couldn’t wait to play it again to make different choices, and find all the things I might have missed along the way.

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The trade-off, of course, is that your phone is not directly connected to the controller, so it will not sap more of your precious bars during play. When everything is connected it is, length-wise like a slightly elongated Switch when you connect a HORI Split Pad. Battery life on a full charge is an impressive 20 hours. With the phone sitting flush inside the Nacon MG-X Pro, there is obviously no access to the headphone jack, so if you want sound, then you will need to connect to another Bluetooth audio device, or rely on the speakers on your phone.

Nacon offers a smaller version of the MG-X which is more portable and folds away nicely, however the buttons and D-Pad on that bad boy will be too fiddly if like me you have proper sausage fingers. The Pro is completely different and the spacing of buttons and feel of all the components is much more comfortable to play. The build quality is lovely: it feels premium, holds your smartphone in place effectively, and has excellent ergonomics up there with an actual Xbox official controller. The triggers and bumpers feel great, and the D-Pad is particularly impressive – I think I may actually prefer it to the one on the standard Xbox controller. The only real downside I can see other than the lack of access to headphone jack, is the omission of any rumble features, but that is to be expected and is par for the course for most devices of this ilk.

Gaming wise, you can stream directly from the Cloud using Game Pass, and during several hours I experienced only a few occasions where there was lag. Obviously, your gaming is only going to be as reliable as your internet connection, but if like me you have a stable wi-fi network everything should work like a dream. To eliminate any potential technical issues, if you have the ability to download games to your phone, then this is obviously the way to go. As well as Game Pass, there are also multiple games available on the Play Store that are compatible, opening up the accessibility on some games that are naturally fiddly to play using traditional touchscreen methods. If emulation is your thing, then I can confirm that it seems to work well with these sorts of things.

Interestingly, I was also able to get the device working with my PlayStation 5 using the PS Remote Play App on my phone – albeit only in the same room as my console. If like me you have Love Island-related limitations on access to the main television in your front room, this is a lovely surprise. I was particularly impressed at the lack of any lag or latency issues when playing a complex fighting game like Street Fighter 6.

There are a wide variety of controllers available now for use with mobile phones, however considering its current very generous pricing, near-Xbox official level aesthetics, and surprisingly good compatibility, the Nacon MG-X Pro is an excellent option.

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Yes you read that right, Omega Strikers is a 3 on 3 game of air hockey, but with a vast selection of different heroes with abilities that change the game. Some just hit the core (which is essentially the puck) really hard or from a distance, others require a bit more planning to use. One character can throw down a blockade that the puck bounces off for the ultimate defence, another places her slime buddies on the field that automatically blast the core toward the enemy goal. It takes a while to learn the different character’s abilities, but once you do this game is magic.

To ensure the matches aren’t over before they start, each goal is blocked at the start each round. To open the enemy goal so you can score the big one, you’ll need to first hit a couple of targets near the goal. These targets differ depending on the pitch you’re playing on; one stage might just have two blocks you need to hit in front of the goal, another might want you to hit some triangles to either side which could lead to some wild bouncing you can use to your advantage.

After the short tutorial gets you used to your first and simplest character, you’ll probably jump into quickplay for a battle online. This basic three on three contest is perfect for beginners, with the first team that scores five goals winning the match. One especially nice aspect of quickplay is that if nobody scores for two minutes then the speed of the core is ramped up massively, making the games nice and quick (which is perfect for trying out new characters).

The range of heroes you can play as in Omega Strikers is just wonderful, with all sorts of unusual powers and strategies to use against the enemy team. Some characters fire projectiles to strike the core from a distance, some can cast buffs to boost the rest of the team, and one can even turn invisible and reappear to get a surprise shot off for a cheeky goal. Hell, if all this goal scoring isn’t for you, you can even play as a hero that can deal massive damage to the other team and eliminate them from the game for a while.

Once you’ve found the right hero for you, you need to decide if you’d rather play up front or as the goalie. I expected to be all about those goals, but with the right character defending against the enemy offense is a blast. Some characters are better in certain roles than others, but you’ll soon get the hang of that and be ready to start playing Competitive.

It’s only when playing this ranked mode that you’ll get to see all of what Omega Strikers has to offer. The MOBA elements become apparent rather quickly, when you get to vote to ban a character for the other team. Alongside this significant addition are the power ups you get to pick from between sets. A selection of eight are available to choose from for all players, but the order they’re chosen is based on who has been playing best. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and the other players will have left a power up you want, but choosing from the dregs can be pretty disappointing so you’d better play well.

The range of buffs on offer are often pretty game changing. You might get an extra use of one of your abilities without having to wait for a recharge, or perhaps you’ll move faster if you can avoid being hit. By the time you’ve selected a few of these power ups you’ll be unstoppable, and will often need to adjust your play style accordingly.

If all this sounds appealing then you’re in luck, because you don’t need to spend a penny to get started with Omega Strikers. The majority of my time playing the game was as an entirely new user who hadn’t dropped any cash on the game, and I thought the starting heroes and amount of time it takes to unlock the others was really fair. You’ll never have the coolest cosmetics if you don’t pay, but Omega Strikers is more than playable for free.

The only issue that the free to play nature of Omega Strikers brings is a currency one. Especially when starting out the menus full of different types of moolah are beyond confusing, and I never really knew what the different rewards I was getting for completing daily and weekly quests actually were. I still found the menus to be a mess even after hours of play too, and often gave up trying to find my rank or character affinity levels after a few minutes of flicking through nonsense.

This complexity does mean that there are plenty of hooks to keep you playing regularly though. The aforementioned daily and weekly quests are well worth completing (and mean you’ll keep coming back for more) and there’s also a Battle Pass to level up full of cool outfits, emotes and player titles to unlock.

If Odyssey Interactive continue to update Omega Strikers long term then competitive air hockey could keep me coming back for years. New heroes and maps would absolutely shake up the meta and freshen things up if done right, and I’m hopeful that this could be a multiplayer game with a long life and happy ending.

Omega Strikers is a fantastic and innovative multiplayer game, which is easy to jump into but has plenty to master. Learning how to best use different characters is seriously compelling, and those progression hooks kept me coming back for more every single day. With a bit of luck and regular updating, this could be the multiplayer success story we’ve needed in 2023.

The post Omega Strikers review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The main story of Desta: The Memories Between is all about resuming broken friendships and facing the past, no matter how hard that might be. Desta returns home after some time, meeting back up with their friends who were once close to them. Their father died and it broke them, as we find out how close they were to one another, yet it left their relationship with their mother somewhat fractured. It’s not just Desta’s relationship with their mother that was damaged after they left home. You’ll encounter a host of friends who were once close to them, and seeing new faces pop up during your journey, understanding more and more about why Desta drifted away, and how these bonds can be mended is done delicately.

Many themes are covered in Desta: The Memories Between, from mental health and gender identity, and all of it is done with respect and love. I liked Desta a lot, and seeing how vulnerable they are and their struggles with facing their past kept me invested throughout. It helps that the gameplay is a lot of fun, featuring a deep level of strategy when taking on the dioramic dream levels filled with opponents who want nothing more than to launch a dodgeball right at your face. Desta starts off with two Action Points, and can use these to move and throw the dodgeball. They can choose to activate a special ability, with new ones unlocking as you play.

Desta can power up her throw as well, and a well-placed shot can hit two enemies at once. They can also land a throw that, if aimed correctly, can bounce back into your hands. Not only are you managing your AP usage, you’re trying to make every play of the ball count. Stages take place in a whole manner of familiar British hangouts, like down the park, on the street, or by a pub. It helps to connect you with the story and add that familiarity, all while giving you a thrilling battle of wits that forces you to utilise your surrounds and abilities to clear out an area of opponents as efficiently as you can.

Along the way, Desta is joined by friends who become teammates, each with their own abilities and skills, such as the ability to teleport across the playing field. Of course, opponents also have particular skillsets, and often it is Desta’s former friends who act as the stage’s ‘boss.’ Each enemy has a health bar to break down, and after all of them have been beaten, you’ll progress to the next stage and part of the story. The further you get, the harder it becomes, and if you lose, it’s back to the drawing board, literally. You’ll have to start again, keeping hold of your upgrades but losing your friends. It presents a bit of a slog, but there’re difficulty options that can help you to get back to where you were. You can also return to the latest chapter, but there’s a randomness to your upgrades that take away the personal arsenal of skills and abilities you’ve built up.

Desta: The Memories Between tells a story many will be familiar with. Everyone has suffered a loss that has affected them greatly, whether a close friend or a family member. These losses can have a big impact on our mental health, and the way Ustwo Games has dealt with the subject matter is commendable. Not only does it offer a poignant narrative, the strategic gameplay compliments the dodgeball elements in a great way. Despite having to replay certain aspects over and over again if you choose to embrace the roguelike elements, each battle is varied and enjoyable.

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The simplicity of Pirate Outlaws’ approach is appealing from the start. Battles are quick and flow with an unexpected grace, much similar to how Jack Sparrow conducts himself at sea. The fundamentals see you start with a deck of cards ranging from melee and ranged attacks. Melee attacks don’t cost ammo (essentially your attack points), but ranged attacks do. You can play cards that restore ammo, but this may take up a turn that could’ve been used to do damage. Some attacks are brutal and some are tactical, and with so much choice, battles can take on a variety of different forms.

The purpose of the main mode in Pirate Outlaws is to make your way across a map filled with pirate battles, visits to taverns, markets, and random events, then up towards the ultimate goal of taking on the boss. Every choice you make on your journey requires some thought as to what comes afterwards, as the wrong decision could lead to a battle you can’t win, or a missed opportunity to pick up some much needed rest or a fancy new relic that grants a specific buff or ability. That risk and reward is present in everything you do and gives you plenty of replayability with each new run. If the gameplay wasn’t engaging, this would be a problem, as there’s little in the way of story or atmosphere.

While not a massive concern, I’m a sucker for some kind of narrative regardless of genre or style, but Fabled Game has chosen to focus solely on how it plays. Thankfully, I thoroughly enjoyed the battle system. It’s simple yet varied, with multiple enemy types and cards available, making each playthrough feel different from the last. By visiting markets and taverns, you can purchase new cards and relics, and regain health or upgrade your cards. There are also encounters across the map which might lead to a new card or buff, but could also lead to a loss of health points. You can regain health during each run, but again, managing this is imperative if you want to reach the boss at the end. Your success in each playthrough leads to Repute, and by earning this, you’ll unlock new heroes and maps.

If you don’t quite get on with Pirate Outlaws’ gameplay or art style, the urge to grind will mean new challenges, enemy types, and more won’t be unlocked. It can take a long time before you start to see the spoils of your efforts because it takes multiple runs to gain anything of substance. Providing you enjoy playing, this won’t be an issue, but it requires hours until you start to see all the good stuff the game has to offer. I was a big fan of combat, especially when balancing the risks of playing certain cards at the behest of my heroes, and the satisfaction of victory is great. The art style is rather basic, lacking a lot of detail, but it’s still something I grew rather fond of.

If you’re looking for a deck builder with tons of replayability, Pirate Outlaws is a solid choice. Battles are fast, offering a vast assortment of cards to be unlocked and used. When facing tougher enemies, you are pushed to the limits, and dying only pushes you to keep playing. Whether taking on pirates across the different maps, or surviving the challenges that await you in the Arena, there’re tons of hours to spend enjoying the fluid gameplay it offers. There is plenty to unlock for fans of the grind, and if you dig games like Slay the Spire, then this is one you won’t want to miss out on.

The post Pirate Outlaws review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

You take the role of heroine Estra, a fierce Midgardian warrior who carries the unfortunate burden of being the last living part of her familial lineage. She is a superb character, brought to life not only by the absolutely beautiful 2D aesthetics but by a cracking story that is far and away the biggest draw Atone brings to the table.

A bawdy opening scene with some alcohol related banter swiftly takes a dark turn as we are shown the fate that befell Estra’s dad – slain after the village is wiped out by an insidious curse known as the Blue Vein turns its denizens upon themselves. Clutching a necklace imbued with mystical power once belonging to her old man, Estra sets out on a quest to scour Midgard and reach the Elder Tree so that the curse can be lifted.

The game moves along in a linear fashion with glowing signifiers showing you the next point of interaction on your quest. The action is generally viewed from a top down perspective, but there are some great animated cutscenes and well rendered puzzles. These vary in difficulty, with some simply matching or sequencing runic symbols, and others requiring a bit of deeper thinking and even the use of the hint button which eventually looms into view. Such cheating comes at the cost of items or cash, so there is a definite reward for using your brain.

Things deviate quite radically during combat. You see, rather than swords and sorcery, or turn based mechanics, Estra battles the denizens of Midgard using what can best be described as a rhythm action minigame. Imagine something of Harmonix construction, such as Amplitude. Or even that other musical oddity Vib Ribbon. The quite wonderful original music is piped in, and you have to use your button timing skills to match the shiny indicators as they pour downwards on the screen. As this takes place, a stylised battle scene plays out in the background. Now I will say, this all looks and sounds amazing. But in execution it is flawed on a few counts.

Firstly, thanks to the way the plot branches or the choices you make in the game, these sections are entirely avoidable. So, if you wish you can play Atone solely in Story mode, solving puzzles, and taking advantage of the multiple endings that ultimately give it replay value.
There are two difficulty modes should you fancy testing yourself in battle. One of them restricts things to two buttons and two musical tracks.

The hardest setting has four buttons and four tracks, and gets hectic, very quickly. As there is no feedback or vibration, it becomes difficult to time things. Would this work better with a touchscreen option as it was originally intended? The whole system feels incongruous and at odds with the story, despite the relatively solid execution. If you click with it, and want to do your musical thing some more, you can replay all of your battles post-completion, should you wish.

Issues with the combat aside, there is much to enjoy in what Untold Tales has served up, here. I was immediately engrossed by the story, and by the sumptuous visuals with a fine juxtaposition of darkness and glowing light, runic motifs, and an artful blockiness that even reminded me a small bit of Breath of the Wild. There are some decisions to be made as you play that deliver upon the promise of multiple endings, and some genuinely entertaining puzzles to enjoy. Even the slightly clunky combat is almost saved by the excellence of the musical tracks and the ultimate satisfaction you can get by burying an axe in your opponent in a quirky muso style. Worth a look, for sure.

The post Atone review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

I mentioned Journey three times in that opening paragraph, so there’s clearly something within the review that’s leading to a hefty comparison between the two games. That’s because there is. A huge one, in fact. What Sky: Children of Light has tried to do is bring that feeling of companionship and platonic intimacy not only into the present, but also to evolve it and make it grow. While it doesn’t share that same powerful connection of meeting others that Journey had, it does manage to reintroduce the warm and comforting glow you feel whenever you meet other players online.

Especially if someone you’ve already met pops up again, or you see the nickname you gave them reappear on screen. For all you know, they could be GretaHater42069 or DrowningInClunge of Reddit, spouting bollocks about how climate change is a lie or some fascist drivel behind the comfort of their keyboard. However, to you, they’re just Chonky or Samuel, a sweet pet name they’ve adopted by the hand of your own imagination. Of course, if they’re playing something as sweet as Sky: Children of Light, they’re probably wonderful, but it does make you wonder.

Regardless, Sky: Children of Light’s focus is on making connections and getting lost in a beautiful world, allowing time to slip by as you explore a world rife with wonder. What’s rather liberating about it is how you’re free to do what you want when you want, without completing fetch quests or getting lost behind stats and upgrades familiar with most MMOs. The controls are relatively simple, where all you tend to do is fly across the different lands. The length of time you can fly for is improved when you rescue a spirit, and you can also make those familiar hoots and toots by pressing Circle; a form of communication that is more effective than it should be.

Whatever you want to say to another player seems to be said perfectly with a boop, whether you just want to say hello or help guide someone to a spirit or secret. You journey through the world lighting candles, leaving notes for others to uncover, and freeing spirits. It is in the latter where you begin to understand the point of Sky, and how the story being told isn’t some grand over-arching narrative, but rather about personal tales of those you meet along the way. On that personal level, your friendships with real players can grow by interacting with them, giving them gifts, or even creating music together.

Sky: Children of Light might not be as ground-breaking as Journey was when it came out, but Thatgamecompany has managed to improve the social aspect it began to build back in 2012 with new and exciting ways to make friends through the medium of video games. It’s a simple game to understand and master, but when so many other online communities are known for being toxic, this one is about as pure as you can get. The ability to unlock new cosmetics with the easily earnable in-game currency and focus on making anyone who plays not feel alone in the world elevates Sky to something everyone should play and experience, if only to feel a genuine sense of happiness for however many hours spent in its beautiful world.

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Designed for iOS devices (an Android version is available for the same price), the first surprise is how it feels in the hands. I’ve been playing a whole lot of mobile-style games lately, thanks to the Nintendo Switch, and Steam Deck. As the weather gets colder, sitting comfortably on the sofa with the curtains shut, there’s something appealing about sticking some headphones on and engaging close up with a game you’re enjoying.

First up: it’s lightweight. The mechanism that lets you change the size of the controller for whichever iOS device you want to use feels spot on, tension wise, and there’s no issues pulling it wider for a larger phone. The only real negative is that it’s slightly awkward to connect it all up, which is via a single lightning connector on the right side of the controller. I should also note that I had to remove my iPhone case, as it wouldn’t line up properly, and even though it’s an official Apple magsafe case, I can’t really complain too much about Backbone not accommodating every potential phone protector out there.

When you connect it up, your phone instantly knows something is happening. You’ll be recommended to install the Backbone app, which acts as a hub for all things controller based. You’ll have the PlayStation and Xbox apps within the Backbone app, as well as games that are recommended to you, like Shovel Knight Dig, which is perfect for controller use. In truth, the only downside I had is that the App feels thrust upon you. There are chat rooms within it, and it wants you to buy a premium subscription, and it’s just entirely unnecessary. Furthermore, the app seemed slightly unresponsive when it came to letting me grab suggested games. I have an Apple Arcade subscription, but it became easier to just use the Apple Store and grab games that way.

The subscription model also puts a paywall in front of the “screen capture” recording setup that has its own button, too, which is a shame, but I suppose there are options on iOS to do that elsewhere. I do understand that companies want to make more money from users, but Backbone serves its purpose really well otherwise, and I suspect nobody is buying it for anything other than said purpose. Anyway, a handy bright orange button will take you back to the Backbone app at any time, which is nice if you do enjoy having all your remote play and game options in one place.

In practice, however, the Backbone works pretty much flawlessly. Sitting outside kids’ football training I managed to get a bit of Sonic Frontiers in while streaming from my PS5 to phone. You will need to tweak some settings as initially it’ll be set up to not allow data over mobile network, but it’s a few seconds, and a valuable thing to have defaulted to off, since mobile data can be costly. Switch it to 720p at 60fps, and you’re going to be pretty happy. With a PS5 connected, you can get a seriously impressive visual experience, here.

With the iOS version, you can easily just use your AirPods if you have them, but Backbone even added a headphone slot in the bottom left of the device, and a charging port bottom right, should you get caught short on battery. The Backbone itself doesn’t require power, instead using your phone as the battery itself. I had no issues with it draining remarkably quick, but obviously brightness, use-case (4G vs Home Network) etc will mean this varies.

The buttons have a satisfying click to them, and the triggers are good enough to do the job. The bumper buttons are arguably on par, if not better than the Steam Deck ones, so that’s a bonus right away. But honestly, everything about Backbone just works as you’d hope for, and it offers a comfortable way to play games on the go, whether you want to stream the biggest blockbusters or play some cool indie titles from the App Store, this is a device that’s easy to recommend. As long as you don’t mind the app itself begging you a little, the size, comfort, price, and ease of use makes it pretty much best in class.

The post Backbone One review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Each game consists of six rounds. On each field of play, three locations (with the likes of Wakanda, Attilan, and Asgard on offer) present themselves, and you’ll need to play a card on one of them. Not all of them are available straight away, instead opening up at different turns. One location might give the next card you play there an additional three power, or it might not allow you to play another card there from a certain turn. Each card has an energy and power statistic. Power lets you know how much damage it’ll do, and the energy shows you how much it’ll cost to drop it onto the board. Each turn increases the energy, starting from one and ending in six.

Those are the basics of play, but it’s how Second Dinner has made sure each card feels unique, making battles go a hundred of different ways. Factoring in the locations, what cards to play, and how certain cards’ special abilities make for a fast-paced and enjoyable gameplay loop. You’re never waiting around for a game (or at least, I wasn’t during the review period), and when you do, the joy of seeing your small yet impactful deck come out victorious is as pleasing as it gets.

Favourite heroes like Iron Man, Hulk, and Cyclops all play a role in Marvel SNAP, but not all have special abilities. Placing The Punisher down at a location provides one additional power to you for each opposing card; if you play Medusa down at the middle location, you’ll gain an additional two power; and playing Mister Fantastic will give adjacent locations two additional power. It’s fun seeing what abilities do what and how they’ll impact all three locations. To win, you just need to have a higher power number than the opposing player on two of the three locations.

You can upgrade cards by using credits, which make them rarer, along with giving them more definition. Cards can also be turned ‘3D,’ through upgrading, making them look pretty damn fantastic while also increasing their collection level. There’s an obvious grind, and this will put off players who want to build their collection with the best looking cards, but as far as I can tell, your money is solely used for cosmetically improving your deck. Spending real money on gold will improve rarity as well as grabbing some cool comic book-based variants (like a Thing ‘Fear Itself’ variant or some pixel-style designs), but there aren’t new character cards with stronger stats for purchase.

Playing games and completing daily missions and weekly challenges is the best way to get new character cards throughout the season pass, along with other rewards. Improving your collection level will also unlock new character cards like Wolfsbane, Odin, and Nightcrawler. There’s a definite grind, but real money doesn’t help you become a better player with better cards, playing matches and being victorious does. Marvel SNAP is a great game, with simple mechanics forming great action on the playing field, and as long as you’re willing to grind for new deck additions, there’s a lot to love about it. Visually, it’s one of the best out there, and having such vibrant cards and battles make this one of the coolest games to play on the go.

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When you first load up dot big bang after signing up you’ll be tasked with creating your character. Once you’ve created a wacky enough avatar you’ll be sent to the hub area, and are bombarded with everything the game has to offer. All the happy block based characters will wave you over for attention, and there’s a heck of a lot to choose from. The most important of these are probably the games though.

The main building in the middle of the hub has a variety of games to jump into, and they were all created using the tools available to everyone who wants to use them. There’s a lovely variety to choose from – 3D platforming obstacle courses, FPS deathmatches and quizzes are all ready to play, so pick your poison and get started.

First I jumped into a featured game called Preston’s Diamond Dash, which is essentially a series of levels where you dodge deadly traps to gather up all the precious stones. It would be fair to say that 3d platforming has its issues with a mouse and keyboard, but I still had a good time jumping past the deadly lasers and crushers to get those lovely diamonds.

Next up I went for a game of “Would you rather?”, a multiple choice game where you have to guess which answer is more popular. This was another fun distraction with an interesting selection of questions. Turns out most people prefer vanilla ice cream to strawberry though, so my faith in humanity was shaken slightly.

I decided to go for something with a bit more action next, so jumped into an FPS deathmatch. I had to find one with other players first, but once I did I got to play a simple three minute match against a couple of randoms. There was a variety of the usual weapons floating around the arena, and I had fun using the shotgun on my enemies. It’s admittedly basic, but fun with friends especially when you could be the one who makes it.

The main hook of dot big bang is the creation side of things, and honestly it’s easy to see why. The tools they have are impressive, and are really easy to use. You can jump into a template to see how it all works, and after watching a quick YouTube tutorial (which the game plays for you on launch) you’ll have all the information you need to start shuffling things around, changing the mood lighting and making your own games.

If you really want to get deep into the creation and fancy learning a bit about programming, then you can get into the script side of things. Under the hood of every game there’s all the “if then” statements you could ever dream of, so if you’re wanting to dip your toe into the world of game development then this is a great place to start. There’s even a section for teachers if they want to use dot big bang with their students.

If making full blown games is a bit overwhelming, you can always just make objects instead. Thanks the the voxel art of the game, the simple tool to make objects works like a dream. You just stack coloured cubes on top of each other, and before you know it you’ll have a lovely new gun, crate or tree stump ready to plonk in a game.

When you aren’t making games and objects, you can always kick back in the hub area and make bank instead. There are loads of odd jobs to do in the hub, from delivering packages to catching and selling fish, and if you do enough of them you’ll earn enough money to buy adorable pets that’ll follow you around as you play.

Dot big bang is currently in Alpha, and has plenty of features planned for when it reaches full release. A simpler visual scripting will be an easier way to learn the programming language without coding experience further down the line. There will also be tools to edit the terrain, as well as sound editing and a way to earn money from your creations. This may be a way in which dot big bang intends to monetise the game, because at the time of writing I couldn’t see anything that I could pay for even if I wanted to.

Dot big bang is a powerful creation tool, that will absolutely lead to some great little games in the right hands. Most of the games I played in it were a little basic, but the fact that they can be experienced on any device with a browser is pretty astounding. If you’re looking for a way to make and play games with your friends and don’t want to worry about consoles or cash, there’s no better option then dot big bang.

If you want to try dot big bang for yourself, check it out here.

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South of the Circle | A link to the past

The narrative of South of the Circle revolves around the main protagonist Peter, who is a Cambridge academic, and the setting is the 1960s in the backdrop of the Cold War. He’s on an expedition to the Antarctic when his plane crashes and he must now look for rescue in the frigid, unforgiving wastes. Interspersed with exploration are flashbacks to key moments in Peter’s life. The main thread of these revolves around Clara, another academic from Cambridge with whom Peter becomes increasingly romantically involved. Other flashbacks include conversations with others around the university, including peers and your professor, as well as also going right back to Peter’s childhood.

The gameplay aspects are rather stripped back. You control Peter as he explores Antarctica, moving him around as he discovers various buildings or landmarks to help with his rescue. Some of the flashbacks also have some movement and interactions with the environment that you control. The main inputs for you as a player revolve around your reactions to conversations. You can choose to respond in certain ways to other characters. Different emotional responses appear as different icons above Peter’s head, and you highlight and select which one to go with. This allows a little bit of tailoring in Peter’s approach to conversation, but critically it doesn’t dramatically change the flow or thrust of the story.

And this is important to understand before going into South of the Circle. It has a story to tell that you as the player have very little influence over. What it does allow State of Play to do is focus on how it wants to deliver that story with the impact and nuance that it deserves. Various themes are explored, including war and patriotism, love, gender roles and stereotypes that were very much of the time. It’s impactful because it doesn’t deviate because of a player’s choice. The beats consistently land because you see and experience everything you are supposed to.

Smooth transition

Alongside the story is a visual style that, whilst simplistic in approach, means the pastel, almost grainy character models remain consistent. The style allows for dramatic use of light and dark to add to the atmosphere of the scenes you experience. The transitions between Peter’s current Antarctic crisis into flashbacks are also incredibly considered and well done. Some are sharp and blunt for dramatic effect, whereas others are more soft and nuanced, invoking different emotions, depending on the setting, and it helps you adjust to the new chapter in the way the developers want you to, to land the story well.

It helps that the story is so well written and tugs at your emotional heartstrings throughout. You’ll feel fear, hope, sadness, consternation, and anger as well as that warm fuzziness you get from watching two people fall in love. There’s strong voice acting from the cast, with the relationship between Clara and Peter being a particular highlight. The soundtrack that sweeps over the story as a whole adds appropriate punctuation and drama, further reinforcing the action on screen.

South of the Circle is an excellent example of how to create and tell a well-crafted narrative that is thought-provoking and impactful. It ultimately comes down to how much credibility players put on experiencing a story vs feeling like they are a part of it. You don’t take decisions that sway outcomes or scenes that you see; you are consuming an intended story and nothing more. But the standard of that story is high and will leave a mark and indeed a moment of reflection after the credits roll. A passive experience it may be, but one still well worth experiencing.

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Paladin for example gets access to Lightforged Cariel, who equips a shield that blocks half damage for the rest of the game and has a Hero Power that buffs a minion in your hand by 4/4. The most impressive Hero is probably Dreadlich Tamsin, who draws Warlocks a load of cards and adds Rifts into your deck that summon Imps when drawn. Not every Class has a Hero card that’s particularly impactful at the moment, but all of them will likely see some use in the best decks throughout the next year.

The new keyword for this set is “Honorable Kill”, which rewards you for killing an enemy minion by dealing damage that’s exactly the same as its health. Hunter’s new Bloodseeker weapon showcases this nicely. It’s a fairly standard 2/2 weapon with an Honorable Kill effect, so if you can hit that sweet spot it gains power and durability for the continued killing of all your opponent’s minions. It’s a clever new mechanic that’s harder to take advantage of than you’d think.

The main issue with the new Honorable Kill cards is that because it can be so tricky to get an exact kill on a minion, the effect needs to be worth it – and the majority of them just aren’t. This means you’ll either use the card without getting the bonus effect which makes it woefully underpowered, or leave the card dead in your hand for far too long. There are exceptions that are absolutely worth playing of course, but compared to some of the other impactful keyword introduced Honorable Kill is just a bit underwhelming.

The final new card type introduced in Fractured in Alterac Valley are the Objective cards. These spells can be played to activate an effect that lasts 3 turns, and gold copies of them are handily earned by beating enough of the other faction to level up the new Honor system. The absolute standout of these is the Shaman Objective that summons a 3/4 Elemental that freezes, which is a perfect fit for new Freeze Shaman decks. Outside of that outlier a lot of these cards aren’t seeing a lot of play, and some are beyond underpowered. I like the idea of these temporary effects that can turn the tide of battle, but with so many powerful decks in the meta they just aren’t getting a look in.

That is unfortunately my thought on the set as a whole. Launched into a meta that turned some players away, Fractured in Alterac Valley just doesn’t shake things up enough. Out of all the decks I’ve tried and the hundreds of new cards I have access to, my best performing deck (Pirate Warrior) doesn’t contain a single card from Fractured in Alterac Valley. I can’t think of a single time this has happened in all my years of playing Hearthstone, and it’s sad because I’d rather play with all the shiny new cards.

At the time of writing Blizzard have released a new patch to try and address the balance of the new meta, and so far it hasn’t really changed much. If anything my Pirate Warrior deck seems to be even stronger now, after not being hit as hard as other popular decks. I’m not necessarily an expert when it comes to top level Hearthstone play (far from it!) but so far I’m just not seeing enough of the new cards to say this set has only been out for a couple of weeks.

Fractured in Alterac Valley has a great theme and contains plenty of powerful cards that will certainly see play over the next couple of years, but ultimately it just doesn’t shake up the stale meta of the game. If you don’t mind playing slightly lower powered decks though there’s still a lot of fun to be had, especially with the new Hero cards that are as exciting as ever. Unfortunately if you’ve got sick of Standard Hearthstone over the last few months, you might want to wait for the next expansion and stick to Mercenaries until then.

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Don’t go into Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic expecting to meet up with all your favourite sci-fi characters though, as the game is set 3,956 years before A New Hope. There’s still plenty of Star Wars elements throughout the game though. Lightsabers, Droids and that blaster sound that triggers all of your dopamine are all present, but if you were hoping to rub shoulders with a Skywalker you’ll be disappointed.

In a world full of Sith, you can be sure there’ll be plenty of fights to dive into in Knights of the Old Republic. Combat is D&D based, with each action triggering behind the scenes dice rolls to determine damage and if you hit a foe. Although combat appears to take place in real time it’s really turn-based, with each action you choose being unleashed every six seconds. The mechanics of battle mean that early game combat is a little lacklustre, as you watch your character miss with their blaster three times in a row. This doesn’t last long though, and before you know it you’ll be using force powers, grenades and precision shots to decimate your foes.

There are a bunch of decisions you’ll need to make when leveling up your character, with stats, skills and feats to choose once you’ve got enough XP. Skills are generally used outside of combat, and can make your life easier in all manner of ways. A character good at Computer Use can use a console to activate turrets or open locked doors, Demolition expertise will allow you to disable or even pick up mines placed in the world, and Treat Injury makes you better at treating injuries. The class you choose at the start of the game will determine which of these you are better at innately, but fortunately you’ll make enough pals on your adventures to be able to cover all of the bases.

Feats are more important when it comes to taking down Sith directly, and either boost your stats passively or are actions you can choose. Knights of the Old Republic is a very difficult game, so choosing the right action each turn is vitally important. For example using a rapid fire attack might make sense when trying to quickly finish off a foe, but since it lowers your defence you’d better be able to handle the return fire. Once you’ve got three characters to manage you’ll need to use all their skills in tandem, with incredibly satisfying results.

When it originally launched, Knights of the Old Republic was one of the earliest games to feature a morality mechanic. Interacting with people in different ways will earn you light or dark side points, which has huge implications throughout the game. As well as affecting the story, your alignment also affects which allies will want to stay with the party and what force powers you have access to. To this day one of the best experiences I’ve ever had with a morality system was when my KOTOR character went from goodie goodie to Sith menace after fighting for Wookiee rights got out of hand. Even in 2021, it is truly exceptional.

I can’t talk about Knights of the Old Republic without mentioning Pazaak. This legendary Star Wars card game is the single best optional RPG card game of all time, and where around half of my play time on any KOTOR run is spent. Pazaak is essentially like Blackjack, where you are drawing cards with the aim of hitting a total of 20. The difference is that in Pazaak you bring four additional cards to a game, which you can use to add or subtract (if you’ve gone over 20) from your score to beat your opponent. Gambling of Pazaak is dangerously compelling, and I often end up spending more on new cards than I do one laser guns.

I first played Knights of the Old Republic on the original Xbox, where it ran pretty terribly. Upgrading to the Switch for this playthrough was an absolute delight, with the game running incredibly smoothly. Whether you play handheld or on the big screen, this version of the game is simply one of the best ways to play KOTOR. I played mostly in handheld mode, and it never really stopped feeling magical that I was able to enjoy a sprawling Bioware RPG on the go.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is the best game Bioware has ever made, and this Switch port of the game is exceptional. It’s a game where choices matter, whether it’s a decision that affects your morality or what you put a stat point in. The story is exceptional whether you’re a Star Wars fan or not, and if you’re anything like me Pazaak will steal hundreds of hours from you. It might take a while for the combat to get truly exciting, but for the greatest Star Wars game ever made it’s worth persevering.

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First off, it’s worth mentioning that Mercenaries is a completely separate mode of Hearthstone that requires absolutely no knowledge of the game. Nor does it require you to have collected any cards of your own, with its own booster packs full of heroes and coins to collect. If you want to play some turn-based battles with a Warcraft theme and have no interest in card games, you are more than able to play Mercenaries exclusively.

Hearthstone Mercenaries sees you and your team of three heroes from the depths of Warcraft lore, doing battle against a rival set of heroes in turn-based RPG combat. Each turn sees every character using a chosen ability, followed by a round of combat where the fists start to fly. If you’re playing against AI opponents (which depending on your PVP enjoyment is the bulk of this mode) you can see what they’re planning to do this turn, but against real world players it’s all about reading your opponent.

Your heroes are broken up into 3 types, which deal double damage to each other in a classic rock paper scissors style. Protectors beat Fighters, who beat Casters, who predictably are good Protectors. You’ll never struggle to tell which type is which, as they are all handily colour coded so you know who you’ll be able to hurt the most.

Each mercenary is completely unique, with a range of abilities that can turn the tide of battle if used properly. One strategy you might want to use is hiding your frail characters behind a beefy Protector with taunt, or maybe you’d rather use skills that delay enemy attacks so your heavy hitters can act first. Different tribes make their return from the standard card game too, and it’s often worth bringing a group of Murlocs or Beasts to your lineup which all buff each other while attacking.

To start with you’ll only have the option to take on the AI in the fully fleshed out Bounty Hunt mode. Each bounty you go on sees you taking on a variety of battles, before reaching the boss you’ve been hunting. To get to the boss you can choose a variety of routes (reminiscent of something like Slay the Spire) that’ll see your party taking on different enemy types, upgrading your abilities and even getting free coins from random events. This slight roguelike twist really livens up the adventure, and means if you fancy grinding away to improve your mercs it doesn’t feel too repetitive. 

There are a bunch of ways to power up your mercenaries between runs. The most standard is simply by levelling them up through battle, which will unlock their base abilities and beef up their attack and health. To upgrade the abilities themselves though you’ll need coins. While playing through bounties, completing dailies or opening packs you’ll get coins corresponding to different characters. Gather enough coins and you’ll be able to upgrade abilities for and more, significantly increasing the overall power of each character. There aren’t many ways to consistently get the coins you want, and it’s often more worthwhile to use the characters you get coins for rather than the other way around.

If you’re willing to part with your cash, packs will net you a bunch of characters and coins to give you some more variety. I was given a bundle of 50 packs and the Diablo hero for this review, and honestly I was a little underwhelmed with the contents of what I opened. Initially I was unlocking loads of new characters to choose from, but once you’ve opened 20 or so you’ll rarely get anything but coins and new portraits that only offer aesthetic benefits. Compared to getting new cards in standard packs, it just doesn’t feel that rewarding. 

After a few bounties you’ll unlock the ability to play against real humans in the arena, which is a different ball game entirely. Using what you’ve learned from bounties, you’ll need to take down the enemy before with no knowledge of what attacks they’ll use or mercenaries they’ll send out. It can take some adjustment to get used to this style of combat, but once I did I really enjoyed the PvP. The matchmaking feels really good too, with each match feeling fair and like the better player won. The only real issue I had was wait time. I understand that the player base is spread out between a lot of different modes nowadays, but waiting over 4 minutes for a match feels pretty awful in 2021.

Hearthstone Mercenaries is my favourite addition to Hearthstone since launch. The turn based combat is different to anything else the card game has to offer, and the roguelike single player options are incredibly deep. It’s a bit of a shame that upgrading and unlocking characters is a slog though, even when spending extra on packs. Still, with plenty to enjoy on your own or with others, Mercenaries has now become an entertaining staple of my daily gaming.

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Crying Suns: A compelling rogue-lite

Each time you die and are re-cloned. Then the procedurally generated campaign begins afresh, with new locations, encounters, and choices to make. Your fractured memory is a good excuse to have Kaliban dish out exposition, too. You’ll be constantly bombarded by decisions that need making, from whether or not to engage in a given battle, to whether you should investigate a distant anomaly. Sometimes you’ll come across other ships and settlements in the darkness of space, and will need to decide whether to share, trade, or attack.

Alt Shift do a pretty good job of making you care about each decision. You can’t tell what’s going to happen until you commit, so you’ll never know if you’re about to be rewarded or punished for taking a chance. There’s a grand “space opera” feel about it all, as you interact with your crew during snatched downtime, and Kaliban waxes lyrical on the history of the Empire. The writing is decent, though the plot itself isn’t overly exciting. For the most part you’ll be jumping from one sector or solar system to another, investigating signals or scavenging vital Scrap. Often, you’ll be forced to fight for survival.

Rogue squadrons

You assign different NPC companions to different roles in your crew. For example, you’ll have someone in charge of your onboard weapons, and someone else commanding your squadron. Combat is grid- and turn-based, which gives you plenty of time to think and plan. The enemy will scramble fighters while its larger weapons charge, and you’ll do the same. Your squadrons will need to intercept the enemy to protect your command ship, but once your powerful primary cannons are charged you can unload massive damage on the enemy.

Various weapons, abilities and ship types will became available as you progress, allowing for varied tactics against some of the tougher enemies. The encounters go fairly quickly from manageable to super difficult, and you will fail often. Of course, certain things will stay with you when that happens. You’ll feel a sense of progression even when you’re losing, but Crying Suns never gets easy. As you dig deeper into the fate of your once-beloved Empire, you’ll begin to care about its history and about your relationships with your crew.

Crying Suns: Pixelstar Galactica

It looks and sounds wonderful, too. The 2D pixel art has a modern feel to it that’s always welcome, and the soundtrack is impressive. I rarely get too into a game’s soundtrack, but I found myself really enjoying the music in the background of Crying Suns. It’s essential to maintaining the atmosphere, as a lot of the slower portions of the campaign require a lot of reading and info intake.

If there’s an issue with the Switch version it’s that on the smaller screen, the text is tiny. There’s a lot of data on the battle screen in particular. Those who struggle with this may have trouble here. It’s well-presented, but tiny text can be an issue for many. I’d have also preferred some touchscreen integration. This is something sadly missing from many Switch ports, and Crying Suns is no different. It’s a shame, because it would have made navigating the menus and combat scenarios easier and smoother.

As a tactical rogue-lite, Crying Suns feels kind of unique. It has some things in common with FTL (Faster Than Light), but really it’s very much its own beast. The story is intriguing if not overly compelling, but the moment to moment gameplay, expeditions and choices make it a worthwhile adventure to undertake.

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If you haven’t played The Game of Life before, it’s fairly simple. You move your piece around a board while aiming to have the best life possible. A winner is decided by how much money you’ve earned, number of children, and a variety of other things that mean your life has meaning depending on the version played.

The Game of Life 2: Digital twists

This digital version works in much the same way, but with a few twists. As well as total wealth, your score at the end of the game is determined by how much knowledge, happiness and wealth points you have. Most spaces have a choice for you to make, so if you want to be happier maybe you’ll spend money on a cruise. There’s a points bonus for whoever has the highest of each of the 3 stats at the end, so there’s some strategy to be implemented.

No matter how many of these points you get though, money is always a factor. You get to select a random job at the start of the game based on your choice of education (college is expensive but could pay for itself) which gives you a steady wage but tax payments if you land on a tax square. You’ll be given plenty of ways to make some wonga in your life, whether it’s from property investments or wedding gifts from other players. When those spaces give you the choice between money and points, there’s a careful balance to walk if you want to win.

Fun that doesn’t quite last

I had fun playing a few rounds of The Game of Life 2 with my partner, but it didn’t take long to see that each match is pretty similar. It rarely feels like the winner has done anything but got a few lucky rolls, so playing more than a round here and there gets old fast.

The different board options could do a lot to make up for this, but they are just re-skins of the classic stage. It’s pretty fun to change out all the standard jobs for vampire’s assistant and mad scientist, but when you’re just rolling around a dark or snowy version of the same old level it’s not going to keep you coming back.

There are quite a few customisation options to personalise the way you play. There’s the ability to change a piece’s outfit, the vehicle you drive around the board, and the symbol that represents you. There isn’t a huge amount to choose from to start with, but there are more to unlock if you play a lot.

Grinding and unlocking

Each board has a selection of unlockable outfits, vehicles and symbols to earn by playing, but the requirements to get them are a serious grind. There aren’t really a ton of inventive objectives you can add to The Game of Life, so it just comes down to grinding away wins and points.

There are plenty of options of how to play The Game of Life 2, based on who you can rope into joining you. AI play is an option for solo gamers, but there’s also pass the console or play online. Online can be done with friends or randoms, but I unfortunately struggled to find anyone to test this with pre launch.

Above all else, the most painful aspect of The Game of Life 2 is the price. It costs £29.99 on Switch (without the season pass) but has been available on Android for months for £3.99. It’s simply an unacceptable premium to pay for buttons, and makes this version almost impossible to recommend.

The Game of Life 2 is good old fashioned fun for a few rounds, but it’s repetitive gameplay just isn’t going to keep your attention past that. If you’re really into board games and catch it on sale it might be worth a try, but at £26 cheaper on mobile this game of finances feels like daylight robbery on Switch.

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Even now, those words are enough to terrify Doctor Who fans the world over. In 2007, ‘Blink‘ became one of the most notorious episodes to feature the Doctor ever since its reboot in 2005. It introduced the Weeping Angels as a new enemy, one that could touch any individual and send them back in time. These monsters took the form of angels, a powerful species that needed time energy to survive. If you looked at them, they wouldn’t be able to move, but the moment you turned you’re back on them or blinked, they would zap you into the past and feed on the energy from the life you would’ve lived.

Since Sally Sparrow and Lawrence Nightingale were able to trap them in a state of suspended animation in the basement of Wester Drumlins in London, they’ve featured heavily in various episodes, literature, and other media. However, their debut cemented just how horrifying they are, and the fact that Kaigan Games has created a ‘found phone’ game set in the same timeline as ‘Blink’ made me more than happy to give it a go. I adore Doctor Who, and that episode is one of my all-time favourites. Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins is a lot of fun. It manages to build on the excellent work Kaigan Games did with Sara is Missing and Simulacra but utilise the lore and characters from one of Britain’s much-loved TV shows.

Taking place in 2021, you find the phone of Lawrence from the famous episode. He’s gone missing, and with the help of popular UNIT operative Petronella Osgood, you must work out what’s happened to him. What unravels is a mystery that taps into the history of the characters of Larry and his new wife, Natasha. as well as Wester Drumlins, Sally Sparrow, and that fateful episode. There’re tons of nods to the series, whether that be a reference to Blink, Petronella, or to the Doctor himself. Fans of the show will love it, but it’s also the gameplay that excels as you begin to uncover the whereabouts of Larry and his wife.

By looking through the phone’s gallery, emails, messages, and web browser, you’ll unlock clues that can be sent directly to Petronella. With every new discovery, she’ll provide you with some context to what is going on, and try to work out how this plays into Larry’s whereabouts. You are given dialogue choices with every response via the SMS service, and it helps you to create a friendship with the loveable scientist. Whenever you find a new clue, such as a picture or a piece of text, you scan it by simply pressing on the screen. Its easy interface makes searching for clues interesting as opposed to some drawn out, awkward system.

There are plenty of text conversations between Larry and Nat, Mr Flint (the new proprietor of Wester Drumlins), his friend Mo, and even Sally Sparrow herself. It was cool knowing what everyone is up to fourteen years after the episode, even if your character is none the wiser. There are various emails to read through, with smart interactive sections where you’ll need to use previous information to type in to progress, so its a good idea to have some paper and a pen handy. You’ll receive mysterious phone calls that will also require you to make notes of what you hear. There’s plenty to read, and sifting through the information will not only provide clues, but also help with fleshing out the interesting story.

As you find more clues, new ideas and content will start to pop up, such as audio files, videos, and even face-to-face video calls. Live camera feeds can be watched in the later stages, providing tons of different ways to make use of the ‘found phone’ formula. I was constantly engrossed by what was going on, but that was probably down to the fact I know a fair bit about the Weeping Angels. If you’re not a Doctor Who fan, it probably won’t be as enjoyable, but the gameplay is excellent. It might be a great place to start your Whovian journey if you haven’t done so already, but I’d suggest watching Blink before you dive in.

Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins is an enjoyable return to the Weeping Angels’ origins, featuring some great ideas to keep the genre feel fresh. It was great to see Finlay Robinson return as Larry, and Ingrid Oliver is fantastic once again as Petronella, but new characters like Nat, Ayesha, and Mr Flint also did a great job of keeping me engaged until the very end. There haven’t been a lot of great Doctor Who games, but I’m hoping The Lonely Assassins is the first of many to follow, starting with the upcoming game, Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality.

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JORJ is a big fella, who wants to make his way up Grindstone mountain. Unfortunately for him, all manner of monsters and jerks make this mountain their home, and the only way to journey to the top is by carving his way through their fleshy bodies. With the help of his trusty sword and an assortment of power-ups, you’ll need to help JORJ charge through coloured enemies to carve his way to the exit.

Each level takes place on a square grid, packed full of colourful enemies. JORJ can slice through baddies of the same colour in a straight line, turning them into piles of perfectly square meat. Chaining more than 10 together drops a Grindstone onto the field, which if you collect allows you to switch the colour of enemy you can kill. This then leads to some incredible screen-clearing chains, that help you reach the goal number of enemies dispatched to beat a level.

JORJ isn’t the only aggressive character on the mountain though, and the longer you take to finish a stage the more enemies will get angry. A worked up monster will attack all adjacent squares to it, so it’s best to end each attack chain on a tile away from potential damage. It won’t be long until you’ll be faced with screens full of aggressive little beasties, and you’ll need to make sure you finish a turn surrounded by previously sliced foes.

It can be worth sticking around once you’ve unlocked the door to the next level, with plenty of precious loot and Grindstones still up for grabs. Killing baddies and breaking items littered about a stage will sometimes drop crafting materials, and since they count as any colour they can even help you pull off some impressive combos.

Between stages, you can spend your hard-earned stone at the Inn to recover health and craft items and clothing. There are dozens of handy tools to create, each able to help out in a sticky situation. Shields block damage for a turn, bows can kill a single enemy that interrupts a combo, and single-use potions can heal you or even teleport you to any square you want. You’ll unlock more blueprints as you make your way up the mountain, which gives a really nice sense of progression.

You’ll need to be well equipped for the tougher foes that reside on the mountain. Each with their own unique attacks, this nasty lot can only be taken down by building up a combo stronger than their toughness. Despite the potential danger these jerks bring, beating one means you can switch colour. There’s simply nothing more satisfying than chaining together a room full of tougher enemies in one deadly path.

The action of Grindstone is made all the more enjoyable thanks to the delightful art style Capybara have used. All the weird and wonderful creatures that lurk on the mountain give off serious Cartoon Network vibes, and watching JORJ carve them into chunks is a feast for the eyes thanks to some exceptional character animations.

There’s no shortage of content in Grindstone, with hundreds of levels spanning multiple worlds all with their own obstacles. With additional secret worlds, a daily challenge and tons of optional objects, there’s almost as much content to devour here than in your favourite open-world game.

To unlock all the levels and equipment you desire you’ll need to do more than just slice your through to the exit gate. Each level has a chest that drops once the door is open, which you’ll need to find a key from a basic enemy to unlock. There’s also a Royal Slob that spawns in every level, granting a crown to anyone who can take them down using only their colour.

Grindstone has so many interwoven elements that you’ll unlock as you play through the game, but they are introduced at such a perfect pace that you never feel overwhelmed. The added complexity as you progress also prevents the fairly simple gameplay from ever feeling stale.

Grindstone is simply sublime. Its gameplay is easy to learn but hard to master, and the amount of content available is incredible. Clearing out full screens of jerks never ceases to be satisfying, and the constantly changing cast of baddies in your path means it never gets stale.

The post Grindstone review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Since thwarting the evil Dr Fetus, Meat Boy and Bandage Girl have had an eventful few years. The birth of their adorable new baby Nugget is keeping them busy, but this idyllic family life wasn’t made to last. The dastardly unborn medical practitioner is back, and is hellbent on revenge. An unsuspecting Nugget is the perfect target for his villainous plans, and one kidnapping later you’re flung into an auto-running rescue mission.

The main difference between Super Meat Boy Forever and its predecessor is the fact that you no longer control your movement. Meat Boy runs automatically, so your job is to jump, duck, and dash your way around obstacles. There are only two buttons you need to worry about as you hunt down Dr Fetus, the jump/dash button and the duck button. Jumping is fairly self-explanatory, and when in midair dashing can give you some extra momentum as well as smashing walls and enemies. Ducking isn’t just handy for dodging saw blades. If you’re flying through the air too fast, a quick hold of the duck button will send you plummeting back to the safety of the ground.

Unlike a lot of auto-runners, stages aren’t straight lines to the goal. There is a lot of verticality thanks to Meat Boy’s trademark wall jumping, and you can even change direction by bouncing off a hard surface. There’s generally one set path to take to make it through a stage, but sometimes you’ll need to follow paths to switches or bounce backwards and forwards down a corridor to slowly break down a wall.

Throughout the few hours it takes to rescue Nugget, there’s no shortage of new obstacles put in our meaty mate’s path. The trademark saw blades make their triumphant return, but there are also fans that blow you across levels, gravity shifting areas, and even metal boxes you can shove about the stage. Every new level brings something entirely new to the table, and by the end of the game, you’ll have mastered dozens of different mechanics.

Each of the four worlds ends with a screen-filling boss fight. These confrontations are some of the most infuriating sections of Super Meat Boy Forever, and only get worse as you progress further. Instant death means you’ll have to flawlessly execute your attacks and evasive maneuvers, with one wrong move standing between you and despair. In a game that runs only a handful of hours, I spent around a third of that time butting heads with the final boss. Failure after failure stacked up, and my entire time facing the big bad was utterly miserable.

Outside of the bosses, there are plenty of other challenges in Super Meat Boy Forever. If you beat the par time on a stage you’ll unlock its dark world variant, which turns the difficulty up to 11 without making you want to tear your hair out. Stages also have hidden pacifiers that unlock characters if you collect enough of them. Finding them is tricky and collecting them without dying is even harder.

Even though the game runs short, the replayability of Meat Boy’s latest jaunt is vast. Stages (outside of bosses) are procedurally generated, meaning there’s an infinite amount of autorun platforming to sink your teeth into. Despite the fact levels aren’t expertly crafted individually, the level design manages to be pretty impressive. If I hadn’t noticed the seed when starting the game I wouldn’t have realised they were made by some sort of magical platforming robot.

As much as I enjoyed my time with Super Meat Boy Forever, it’s hard to ignore how disappointing it is that the sequel moved away from platforming perfection to a genre associated with mobile gaming. Swapping from the precision control of the original game to having less control by design is a tough decision to stomach, especially after over a decade of waiting.

Super Meat Boy Forever is an entertaining autorun platformer that never manages to step out of the shadow of the first game. Although packed with ideas and an almost infinite amount of content, Forever’s lack of control and dismal boss encounters fail to live up to the high standards that Team Meat has set previously.

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In Among Us, between four and ten players will have to complete tasks aboard one of three spaceships whilst Impostors do whatever they can to throw a spanner in the works, literally, or just stab the shite out of you in a dark corner. Whether you are a crewmate or the dreaded impostor, Among Us never has you twiddling your thumbs. The tasks you have to complete are varied, including blasting nearby asteroids, fixing the reactor, downloading important data, and watering the plants. Even if you’re killed, you can still complete tasks as a ghost. Once everyone finishes their tasks, the Impostor loses – however, it’s never quite as simple as that.

Being the sneaky bastard who goes round killing the crew is so satisfying, especially if you manage to get away with it. You can also sabotage the ship which sends crewmates frantically running around to try and fix whatever you’ve done. You can hide in vents to avoid suspicion, or go around pretending to complete the jobs yourself. The most important thing you need to do is fit in and avoid giving yourself away.

If a crewmate comes across a dead body, or feels they might know who the impostor is, they can call an emergency meeting. It is here where the fun really begins, as everyone involved has to discuss who they think the impostor is. If you’re not sitting in a room with your family or friends, relying on the game’s keyboard to discuss is far from ideal. Thanks to touchscreen support, it’s much easier to type your thoughts, but when playing docked it takes a lot longer. Due to the Switch not having voice chat,those without Discord are left in the lurch. However, when you’re playing with people you know, Among Us is at its best.

Thanks to Among Us supporting crossplay, I was able to play with my wife and kids. Having to lie to my daughter’s faces was not something I was proud of, but you have to do what you have to do, right? Needless to say, my youngest daughter Hollie showed a very different side to herself. She’s ruthless, using her womanly wiles to play innocent and sweet, whilst hiding the fact she’s the one going round snapping necks and destroying the ship.

It’s exciting and hilarious, especially when you’re playing with others, but sometimes the community is less than welcoming. Innersloth are doing a fantastic job of making sure the player base are a decent bunch, but every now and again you encounter a real dick that doesn’t want to play the game in the way it was intended. This is only a rare occurrence, as most of the time the online community all want to have a blast.

Unlike the other versions, there aren’t any skins or pets available, but I’m sure that’s something Innersloth will be looking at as the weeks roll on. It’s by no means a gamechanger, but it would be nice to have some more diversity in the way your character looks. The spaceships are all vastly different from one another, which provides a different kind of game each time. Also, the tasks you need to complete vary depending on the location. Although it’s simple in its design, Among Us still has a pleasant look to it.

Among Us allows you to be devious, calculating, silent, or brash, but whatever method you choose, the fun is in the mystery of who the Impostor or Impostors could be. Now the game is on Nintendo Switch for under a fiver, it’s the perfect time to get involved, especially as you don’t have to put up with those annoying adverts. If you’ve yet to experience the joy that is Among Us, grab it now so you’ve got something great to play after your Christmas dinner.

The post Among Us review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

After your success in the original game, the titular Gungeon is falling apart. Instead of exploring floors for loot and delving deeper into its bullet filled corridors, you’ll now be frantically rushing upwards and out of this crumbling structure. After a brief tutorial on how to survive the threats ahead of you from one of many charming and funny NPCs, you’ll be thrown into countless failing runs as you attempt to Exit the Gungeon.

In Enter the Gungeon, dodge rolling was the key to dodging the walls of incoming bullets and staying healthy. The handy skill makes its return here, but with a vertical twist. Jumping is considered a “Vertical Dodge Roll”, which means that any time you spend in the air you are completely invulnerable to damage. It’s an ingenious way to make the incoming projectiles feel less overwhelming, but you’ll need to make sure you have a safe area in mind for landing when you become vulnerable again.

Each stage is generally a single platform where you’ll fight off foes while being propelled toward the Gungeon’s exit. As an elevator or train carriage barrels through the ruins, you’ll need to dispatch the enemies in the mini arena while avoiding the hazards of each area. One stage sees you riding a platform held up by balloons, which regularly get popped destroying parts of the environment. Another elevator ride can be controlled horizontally by switches, enabling you to dodge floating mines that release extra bullets if you collide with them.

In the standard “Blessed” mode, your weapon is empowered by a deity and will randomly transform into a different weapon. One minute you’ll be firing from afar with a machine gun, then in a flash you’ll have a Blunderbuss equipped that is useless unless you’re pressed up against an enemy. When you kill enemies your combo meter will build, and as long as you don’t take damage will continue to rise. The higher your combo, the better the random weapons you get will be. This makes the whole affair feel much more arcadey, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Since you can’t control what guns you’ll be using, it’s important to spend your money sensibly between stages. The shop stocks all sorts of passive buff items (which can also be found in smaller optional rooms in the same hub area) as well as health, armour, and blanks that wipe the screen of projectiles. The various items can make all the difference during a tough stage, and range from simple health upgrades to jump height boosts.

Although each time you die you’ll have to start again, there is a level of permanence in Exit the Gungeon. Any characters you rescue from prisons throughout the Gungeon will take residence in the hub you visit between runs, offering a variety of services. Any bosses you beat drop credits that you also retain, which can be spent to add new guns to the random pool, or even items that’ll turn up at the shop.

The new Arsenal mode added to Exit the Gungeon in the Hello to Arms update changes the game in a huge way. Although you still have your usual randomly cycling weapon, you’ll also find un-blessed guns as you go. These guns can be swapped to any time your random gun isn’t the right tool for the job, but they only have a limited amount of ammo. Whenever you have an un-blessed weapon equipped, you can also see what your random gun transforms into so you don’t miss out on a powerful weapon.

The guns in Exit the Gungeon are truly creative and really fun to use. Although there are a decent number of firearms that you’ll recognise from a standard shooter, the vast majority are off-the-wall and amusing. There’s the Directional Pad that fires bullets out of each of it’s directions, the Lower Case r that fires the letters that spell BULLET, and my personal favourite – a Mario brick that fires green, red and blue shells that have the properties they do in Mario Kart. Getting to know how each gun works is essential if you want to survive when it’s thrust into your hand.

The enemies you find in the Gungeon are just as interesting as the weapons, and are all gun themed. There are basic enemies that are bullets, shells and sniper rounds, which all fire their respective weapons at you. The bosses especially are particularly creative, and this is summed up perfectly by the newly added terror that is The Gloctopus. With a gun in each of his 8 tentacles, anyone but the most experienced Gungeoneers will perish to his mollusc might.

Although I really enjoyed my time with Exit the Gungeon, I did have occasional frame rate issues in the more hectic areas. In such a precise game these frame drops were fairly off-putting, but fortunately, they aren’t particularly frequent.

Exit the Gungeon is an absolute blast, packed full of charm, challenge, and arcade action. The unique midair immunity mechanic means the dodge based gameplay is incredibly satisfying, and quite unlike anything I’ve ever played. The framerate issues might occasionally frustrate, but the sheer amount of delightful Roguelike content (especially with the Hello to Arms update) makes Exit the Dungeon well worth a purchase.

The post Exit the Gungeon review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Odd is definitely the operative word when talking about the Oddworld series. Packed full of capitalism, dark humour and genocide, the games have shifted in genre and changed their main character multiple times across the four titles. Despite having regular releases over multiple generations, there hasn’t been a new Oddworld game since Stranger’s Wrath in 2005. With a new title coming to PS5 next year, there’s no better time to replay the first game in the series in the form of Oddworld New ‘n’ Tasty on the Switch.

The updated version of the PS1 classic Abe’s Oddysee sees you playing as Abe. Abe’s life (similarly to many of his Mudokon brethren) is a life of slavery, toiling away in a food processing plant that is secretly planning to make his species into the next tasty product. When Abe discovers the fate of the Mudokon, he takes it upon himself to use his unique powers to escape the factory and save as many of his colleagues as possible along the way.

Abe controls in the rigid style of some of the oldest platformers (the 1989 Apple II Prince of Persia for example). He can jump from standing or running, or hop upwards, and every time you input one of these maneuvers the outcome will be identical. Once you jump you have no control over your trajectory, so you’d better be certain you’ll make it to the other side of a pit, or over a landmine. It takes some getting used to this style of movement, but once you do it’s strangely satisfying to use such a limited set of jumps to make it past a tricky section.

Abe has plenty of other tricks up his sleeve to get past the security personnel standing in his path. One of the most unique of these is his ability to possess an enemy by chanting. Taking over a gun-toting guard and walking them into a whirling blade of death is consistently satisfying, and an incredibly effective way of dispatching your oppressors. As strong as this ability sounds, the amount of time required to dominate the mind of an enemy is significant, so you’ll need to find a safe place to chant. There are even some areas that prevent you from chanting at all, with a hefty dose of electricity awaiting you if you try.

The varied environments of Oddworld New ‘n’ Tasty are packed full of traps just waiting to end Abe’s fragile life. Trap doors, proximity mines, motion sensors and more litter the lands, and you’ll need to find way to avoid their danger at all costs. Almost every one of these hazards can be turned on your foes too, with hilarious results. Getting the attention of a guard, only to pull a lever and watch them tumble to their doom is just so pleasing.

Getting rid of these baddies is important, but not as important as rescuing your friends from their capitalist captors. Using Oddworld’s Gamespeak system to communicate was incredibly innovative in 1997, and it’s still pretty charming today. Each direction of the D-pad corresponds to a different phrase you use to talk to your fellow captors. You can say “Hello” to get somebody’s attention, get them to follow you or wait, or just let out a delightful fart to lighten the mood. Once you guide a Mudokon to a circle of birds, you can chant to create a portal for them to escape through, saving them from becoming tinned produce.

No two sections of New ‘n’ Tasty feature the same challenges. Some areas require you to throw grenades to set off traps from afar and blow up enemies, others are full of steam that you’ll need to hide behind. Sometimes you’ll be tasked with riding a wild animal to progress through a desert, other times you’ll need to memorise a string of Gamespeak commands to input a password. The sheer variety is seriously impressive and means that the game feels fresh through it’s 10 hour runtime.

It’s worth mentioning that much like its original release, Oddworld New ‘n’ Tasty is a really tough game. The remake added a few extra checkpoints so death doesn’t feel quite so devastating, but even in the opening hours you’ll die a lot. The precision needed to get past an obstacle course of blades and explosives may be off putting for some. Even the puzzles are tough to navigate, and you’ll often be plopped into a room of traps with only your wits (and plenty of respawns) to help you escape.

As much as I love the original Oddworld, the Switch port of the game is one of the worst versions technically. The framerate suffers on the Switch, and in a couple of the busier visual sections, it really takes a hit. One of these sections is the opening 10 minutes of the game, which is the most unfortunate first impression. When this happens, the camera feels juddery as it follows Abe (especially when running) and the end result left my head hurting. The vast majority of the game is much more playable, but it’s such a shame that areas have this issue.

Oddworld New ‘n’ Tasty is the perfect way to experience the start of the Oddworld series, but the Switch port is not the version I’d recommend from a technical standpoint. It still feels satisfying when you manage to maneuver Abe through a hallway of deathtraps, all while saving a friend or two, but the framerate issues make this a tough port to stomach.

The post Oddworld New ‘n’ Tasty Switch review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

You begin Genshin Impact choosing one of two twins. The other is immediately captured by some sort of god, and you’re dropped into the fantasy world of Teyvat. Your twin of choice has no idea what the deal is with this mysterious land, but soon embarks on an epic adventure full of dragons, chests and powerful friends you’ll meet along the way.

The immediate comparison that you will undoubtedly make upon starting Genshin Impact is to Breath of the Wild. MiHoYo themselves have talked about how much it inspired this open world RPG, with its engaging exploration, stamina-based climbing, and gliding mechanic. There are certainly worse games to be compared to though, and getting to experience the joy of discovering something new in every corner is even more impressive in a game that you can play for free.

You’re introduced to the game by being tasked to complete 4 dungeons, each focusing on the powers of a different character the game gives you. Your first character uses wind powers to dispatch foes and solve problems, but you’ll soon have access to fire, ice and electric pals each with their own unique attacks. Puzzles are often solved by using the right element on the right object, but the element system goes even deeper in combat.

Every character in Genshin Impact plays completely differently, with your initial group of 4 bringing swordplay, archery and magic to the party. You’ll soon learn to use the best character for each situation, as you discover the weaknesses of each fantasy foe. Setting an enemies wooden shield alight will ensure you can dispatch them with ease, whereas freezing a liquid based foe makes it easier to ignore while you batter its friends.

The elements also interact with each other in interesting ways. This can be as simple as shocking a soaked foe, or as complex as causing an electrical explosion by electrocuting a burning baddie. You can switch characters at the press of the dpad, meaning it’s easy to perform sick elemental combos. The elemental effects can be applied to the environment too. Using a well-placed flaming arrow to create a wall of fire leading to an explosive barrel is intensely satisfying every time you do it.

You’ll be given a range of interesting missions to complete when you fancy a more focused experience, made all the more enjoyable by the incredible English voice acting that brings the characters to life. Quests that focus on a specific one of your party members tend to be the most memorable, as you get to know more about your allies while chasing down enemies or competing in cooking contests.

When you run out of quests to complete, you’ll need to head out into the open world to raise your adventure rank and unlock more. As well as finding loot to help you level up and upgrade your items, each chest you open or fast travel point you activate gets you closer to the next set of quests. The world is jam packed with interesting environmental puzzles and camps of nasty orcs, and I never felt bored with the range of activities to enjoy. You might find a set of glowing critters that when grouped together form a gust of wind to propel you to a chest, or a statue that when worshiped raises your overall stamina.

When you need to power-up your party there are plenty of upgrade options you can take advantage of. Leveling up can be accomplished by pumping adventure manuals into your team, whereas ore is needed to sharpen your swords. You can also cook up a storm to improve healing items and gain buffs, and even equip sets of accessories to gain interesting effects.

All of these systems are incredibly enjoyable early on, but as you progress further, the amount of items you’ll need to upgrade becomes an issue. Features are unnecessarily locked behind reaching a higher adventure level, and top tier loot can’t be gathered without dipping into your wallet.

One feature locked behind hours of playtime is multiplayer. After reaching adventure rank 12, you can invite others into your game. Each friend you bring in controls one of your character slots, and can help you batter the tougher bosses of the open world. Unfortunately a lot of features are unavailable when playing with pals, and the invited players especially get very little benefit for joining you on your adventure.

You can experience hours of entertainment without spending a penny, but late game enjoyment is difficult to come by unless you want to empty your bank account. Weapons and characters can be unlocked by spending currency to Wish for a random unlock. You’ll be able to afford the occasional lucky dip as you play, but when you get a weapon for a character you don’t own it’s pretty frustrating. There are some systems in place to ensure you don’t get shafted too badly if you buy 8 booster packs in a series, but with the rarest items having a 0.4% drop rate you’d have to get incredibly lucky to get the ones you want.

Another issue I had playing Genshin Impact was in its technical performance. I had a lot of frame drops in even quiet areas, despite playing a smartphone game on my PS4. It is a gorgeous looking game, but I never felt it was particularly pushing the hardware to its limits.

Genshin Impact is an incredible open world RPG to have access to for free, but its stingy late game loot model prevented me from playing as long as I’d have liked. If you wish Breath of the Wild had more loot and want to experiment with some elements, Genshin Impact is a hugely satisfying experience with deep RPG systems to invest in.

The post Genshin Impact review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Your objective in Worm Jazz is simple, reach the golden apple at the end of the stage while eating as many white pellets as possible along the way. Each white pellet you eat makes your body longer, which means you’re essentially playing a puzzle version of the Nokia classic Snake. It’s important to choose which pellets you chow down on first, as certain tight areas of the grid-like stages will end up trapping you if you’re too long.

You move one square at a time as you traverse the soil-laden environments, so no twitchy skills are needed to navigate, only thoughtful consideration. When you make a blunder though it’s no big deal, as the undo feature allows you to essentially rewind any level to whatever point you think you goofed. It’s a really helpful way to ensure you are able to learn the mechanics of pellet swallowing without the frustration of constant restarts.

After a set number of tasty white circles are consumed, the golden apple activates and you can complete the stage. Finishing with a one or two-star rating is often easy, but to get three stars you’ll have to collect every pellet. This will likely require you to follow one exact solution, and for you to plan every step (or wiggle) that you take. I was able to manage this without too much hassle on earlier stages, but once different puzzle elements and hazards get added the difficulty seriously amps up.

Landmines are the first obstacle to join the passages of Worm Jazz, alongside life-saving green pellets. Touching a mine will predictably blow our soil-dwelling friend up, but if you’ve eaten a green pellet then only the part of your body created by pellets eaten after the green will be destroyed. There’s no benefit to keeping your body long (as you are rewarded for pellets eaten rather than worm length) so it’s usually best to eat one of the handy shields early and use the mines to reduce your size as much as possible.

The complexity only escalates from there, with red pellets that can blow up walls when you collide with a mine, and even portals you can teleport through. These elements are introduced at a gentle enough pace that I never felt overwhelmed by the more advanced stages. Figuring out the exact order to consume pellets to set off the perfect chain reaction for a 3-star solution can take some time, but when it works you feel like a genius.

The complex puzzle gameplay would potentially be much more frustrating, if not for the delightful smooth jazz soundtrack. Jazz as a musical genre is criminally underused in video games, and in Worm Jazz it immediately makes the game feel incredibly chilled out and slightly more upmarket.

If you want to feel even classier while playing with worms, you can customise your pink playable pal with a number of hats you unlock throughout the game. The Top Hat is an obvious choice for maximum snobbery, but there are plenty of other options like a Santa hat for those already feeling festive in October.

Worm Jazz might not be the flashiest puzzle game on the market, but it’s easy to learn and hard to master gameplay is satisfying from start to finish. If kicking back with the smoothest of Jazz and solving a puzzle or two sounds like your idea of fun, then this combination of Snake and planning is well worth relaxing to.

The post Worm Jazz review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

You play as Sam, a boy attending at the titular Academy. Upon arrival strange occurances immediately begin to happen, and it’s up to Sam and his pals to work together to unravel the school’s riddles while keeping their grades up. It’s a classic teen adventure, but with some supernatural twists to keep things interesting.

As you progress through the story, you’ll be tasked with solving puzzles to continue, in the style of a Professor Layton game. These are usually displayed as a still image, where you’ll be tasked with selecting the appropriate answer. There are Maths based riddles, visual puzzles and tests of logic all ready to test your brain. Even at the start of The Academy the difficulty is pretty full on, and you’ll really need to think outside the box to continue Sam’s education.

If you’re stumped with a puzzle, there are bars of hint chocolate you can find around the school grounds. I was particularly impressed with how the hints don’t directly reveal the answer, and instead provide the perfect amount of help so you can solve it yourself. You are also free to guess at the solutions, but every wrong answer will take points off your score.

Puzzles aren’t the only exercise for your brain at The Academy, as your daily classes also require some studying. Before attending a lesson, you’ll be assigned a chapter (generally only a few paragraphs) of a workbook to read. You’ll be tested on the subject in the lesson, and there are no excuses for not doing your homework. I enjoyed this change of pace, and it really makes you feel like a student.

Between lessons there’s plenty to explore around The Academy, with collectables, chocolate and bonus puzzles around every corner. Unfortunately navigation isn’t particularly easy on Android regardless of the method you use. I found the virtual joystick method too unwieldy, and walked into a lot of walls; whereas the more traditional point and click resulted in Sam not getting stuck on obstacles in his path. As you never need to navigate the school under time pressure, this is more annoying than it is game-breaking.

Moving Sam from A to B isn’t the only action made harder by control issues. A regular puzzle type you’ll come across involves piecing a mysterious magical item together by dragging stone pieces into place. The problem is how exact the bits of rubble need to be slotted in, and I spent too much time dropping pieces to feel like a jigsaw whizz kid.

With all the magic, mystery and boarding school hijinks, you’d be forgiven for mistaking The Academy for a game based on the Harry Potter books. This isn’t helped by the fact that you immediately meet your ginger haired best friend and book smart female companion. Potions and Charms are replaced by history and machine classes, but if you’re a fan of J.K Rowling’s wizarding world you’ll certainly be able to spot some similarities.

The Academy is a schoolyard adventure full of mystery and brainteasers. If you can wrestle the controls into submission (and don’t mind a particularly familiar setting) the well thought out riddles and twisting plot will provide you with hours of puzzling entertainment.

The post The Academy review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The announcement of Silent Hill content coming to Dead by Daylight was met with delight and shock from fans of the asymmetric multiplayer horror game. The pressure had to be on Behaviour though, releasing the first content from such an acclaimed horror series in many, many years. The new Silent Hill chapter contains 2 characters from the franchise, alongside a new map available to all players.

The highlight of the package is undoubtedly the ability to play as Pyramid Head as a Killer. The sinister and mysterious antagonist of Silent Hill is every bit as deadly outside of the series he’s known for. Sporting his trademark Great Knife, the sight of him sprinting after you dragging the oversized blade is incredibly intimidating.

For anyone new to Dead by Daylight (brought in by the allure of Silent Hill content) the aim of a Killer is to prevent your victims escaping, killing them before they can repair the generators and open the exit gate. In his quest to attack, hook, and kill the survivors, Pyramid Head has a plethora of unique skills available to aid in dismantling his victims. The Rites of Judgement ability will see you carving the ground with your huge knife to leave a trail on the ground, which will Torment survivors who run over it. Tormented survivors have their location revealed to you briefly, and when downed can be sent to the Cage of Atonement instead of having to carry them over to a hook, saving time and negating some of their potential perks. Outside of tormenting the poor souls in his path, Pyramid Head can also send a wave of destruction along the ground, damaging survivors in a line through any obstacles.

These abilities all add up to you feeling powerful and oppressive against those pesky survivors. Saving time on hooking your victims gives you more time to keep the pressure on other survivors, preventing them from repairing the generators too quickly. Alongside this quicker method of dealing with downed foes, with a bit of practice you’ll be able to end a chase quickly by dealing damage through walls. There’s nothing more satisfying than accurately predicting where someone will be heading, and hitting them when they least expect it.

If killing isn’t your style, the Silent Hill chapter also comes with new Survivor Cheryl Mason from Silent Hill 3. Unlike Killers, all Survivors essentially play the same outside of some unlockable perks. Unfortunately, not only are Cheryl’s perks almost useless, but her character model looks distinctly unwell.

For those of you who don’t plan on buying any of the new content, you’ll still be able to play on the new map – Midwich Elementary School. Inspired by the location from the original Silent Hill, this twisted environment really invokes the dark and corrupt feeling of the Other World. Complete with barbed wire, huge chains and huge metal fans, Midwich Elementary School has that industrial aesthetic synonymous with the classic horror franchise.

The Silent Hill chapter update is not without its faults, but for fans of Konami’s long lost series the new Dead by Daylight content really respects the source material. Cheryl is a let down every conceivable way, but Pyramid Head is my favourite new Killer in years. There’s nothing quite like chasing your victims around Midwich with the Great Knife to quell the thirst for a new Silent Hill game, and I know I’ll be putting hundreds more hours into mastering my new favourite murderer.

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You begin the game receiving your invite to The Primate Observation Club. This shady Illuminati esque organisation has its members watch various hidden camera feeds, and gather information about the contents. All members must buy more cages (camera feeds) to advance in level and slowly learn more about the club. The only rules in The Primate Observation Club are that of discretion, and to not interact with the subjects of your spying – do not feed the monkeys.

You’ll soon discover that there’s a vast array of interesting characters that you’ll be peeping at. From a lonely old man (who may or may not be Adolf Hitler) and his carer, to a janitor trapped in a lift and the friend he made out of a mop. Slowly learning the stories of each of your Primates is rather compelling, and eventually you may even have the chance to disobey the rules and help them. Not all feeds are created equal though, and you’ll also be subjected to some dull security footage of museum exhibits and factory equipment.

A large portion of Do not feed the monkeys takes place behind a computer monitor. You’ll receive emails from The Observation Club, DMs from friends, and use the browser to find out more about your subjects. Navigation is simple enough even with a controller, and the Switch even has touch support for even easier spying.

Flicking between surveillance cameras isn’t a new activity in video games. With games like the Sega CD’s Night Trap, and the horror phenomenon Five Nights at Freddy’s utilising this unusual style of gameplay. To ensure you spot as much of the action as possible, cameras light up when something important is going on. You can also record interesting moments, and even use night vision to see any shady goings on. If you want even more voyeurism content in your life however, you’ll need to raise the funds to afford new cages.

It’s outside of club life where you’ll need the raise cash to afford your peeping habit, as well as food and rent. Part time jobs are available to make ends meet, but balancing the time they take with rest and spying isn’t always easy. Money and health management are a huge aspect of Do not feed the monkeys, and if you eat too much junk food or don’t have the money for rent it’s all over for you.

You can also make money by fulfilling the tasks given to you by The Observation Club. You’ll regularly be asked to find out a specific detail related to one of your cages. Sometimes you’ll need to find out a name, sometimes a location. This information will often lead you to discovering new ways to interact with your primates, if you’re willing to defy the club rules for the sake of morality.

The issue with the moral quandries that the game throws your way, is that it’s rarely clear what you can do to help someone you’re spying on. You can get items delivered to their location to try and improve their life, but they can be rejected even when they seem like the perfect gift. Also, some of your cages will become empty in certain circumstances, and you’ll miss out on any potential narrative. My first video feed featured a man taking photos of a famous woman getting changed. I filmed this act and sent it to a lewd clip show for a quick buck (naturally) and the police discovered his location and arrested him. This meant that the feed to his house showed nothing for the rest of my playthrough, and I learnt nothing else about the photographer. It’s rare that these consequences will be clear, especially in my case where the show guaranteed anonymity.

Trying to help the victims of your peeping isn’t the only aspect of Do not feed the monkeys with a distinct lack of explanation. You are never really told the reason to investigate the cages if you don’t have an email to do so, and the shop to send your subjects gifts doesn’t initially show you that they deliver items to the camera feeds (I thought they’d bring perks to my character). Even earning money isn’t that clear cut, with some jobs refusing to pay out if you come to work slightly tired. Discovering how the systems work yourself does have its merits, but I do think a little more guidance wouldn’t go amiss.

Do not feed the monkeys is truly an odd game. It’s often unclear as to the best way to progress, but the selection of unusual characters to investigate means spying on the Primates is a compelling experience. Balancing healthy living, bills and voyeurism isn’t always easy, but it’s worth it to discover more about the caged animals and the shady club that wants you to monitor them.

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I am soft-hearted, and also terrible with detail. When a gentleman calls me in obvious stress about his cat being stuck up a tree and the light is failing, then I will, of course, divert one of my available fire crews to go and rescue it. The problem is that by doing so I left a man who had called me with a terrible stomach ache to die. I thought he was over-reacting and wasting valuable emergency services time, but it turns out that he may well have had a ruptured appendix. How was I supposed to know? The kitty in the tree was more pressing than a man calling 911 with a “stomach ache”.

Lesson learned then. Or was it? I managed to pass that particular scenario somehow and was promoted to lead the EMT call unit for Miami. I have never been to Miami, but it looks big and complicated in all the movies I have seen. Turns out on my first day there is a music festival that needs monitoring. This is a big event, I’ll need ambulances on stand-by to deal with any revellers that injure themselves, the fire department will need a presence and I’ll need some police officers to keep everything in check as well. I check my available resources, equip them with the things I think they will need: a defibrilator, fire safety equipment, and because this is an American city, I arm my cops. Money is tight though so I can only give a couple of them body armour. I begin the day.

Things go well at first, I receive some calls complaining of the noise, but the event organisers have all the required permits and I can’t do anything about it. Politely I ask the man complaining to stop obstructing the emergency number. Then things kick off, there’s a speeding car driving through downtown and it’s knocked someone over, another person in the north-west of the city is having a heart attack, over to the east a domestic altercation is breaking out and shots have been fired, and now I have a bomb threat on my hands. I’m fairly certain the bomb threat is from the man complaining earlier, but can I run the risk that it’s not? Needless to say I failed and was fired after my shift.

911 Operator has tonnes of detail for you to pore over. There are two modes you can choose form, either Career or Free Game. Before starting either you will have the opportunity to review your existing resources. You can check your fleet of vehicles, each one detailing how fast it can go, and how many personnel can fit in it. You can examine each of your personnel, their driving, marksmanship, first aid and tech skills as well as their job performance overall. If none of your available resources look suitable for the challenge ahead you can sell it and purchase new items, providing you are within your allocated budget. Once you are satisfied you launch into the scenario.

Everything is viewed from a top down perspective. The city viewed as a map with icons popping up intermittently where incidents are occuring. It is all pretty cool, however the biggest issue I have had is that once things start to get going it is very easy to lose track of which resource is which. Each emergency service is colour coded for ease – red for fire service, blue for police and white for the ambulances. The issue is that drilling further down into each of those is much harder to do once the game is running, it is far too easy to send your police van on the tail of a speeding vehicle and your better sport patrol car to an altercation that requires the larger van to ferry suspects back to the station. The pace at which events occur that require you intervention can be incredibly fast. You will have to deal with scenarios that just pop up as well as answering calls from concerned members of the public. Of course, as with all micro-management sims you can pause the action to make a more considered decision, but it can still feel overwhelming at times.

The audio work is very good. Upon launching the game it recommends that you play with headphones, and they do make a huge difference as you can hear other incidental information that can help you to make a judgement as to whether the call requires instant intervention or not. During the calls you will have the opportunity to ask questions to glean more of the situation. Responding to the calls is where the game shines, and I wish that more of the interaction revolved around the calls rather than the generic icons popping up on the screen.

Playing on Switch I, of course, opted to play in handheld mode. It works fairly well, but the text is extremely small. There is also an issue with the precision required to highlight events and direct resources to it. On both the smaller and larger screen this was an issue. There is a snap to icon function, but I couldn’t help feeling that much of the gameplay has been centred around the use of a mouse rather than a control stick. You can zoom the map in, but it is still a little too fiddly to highlight the icon you specifically want when a few are grouped together.

The Deluxe Edition comes with the base game along with the four DLC packs: Every Life Matters, Special Resources, Search and Rescue, and First Response. There are tonnes of scenarios for you to get stuck into, as well as equipment and vehicles to unlock. The Career mode is extremely challenging with lots of variables for you to tinker around with to ensure success. I was particularly struck by the high-quality audio and voice work, as well as the vast variety of events and scenarios that randomly crop up. The controls are a little fiddly and with the rate that events come at you, it is often far to easy to mess up because you are fighting with the controls a little too much. That said, I enjoyed 911 Operator, it is an interesting take on a simulation game, with enough variance to keep things interesting.

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I played tons of Tony Hawks Pro Skater back in the day – even Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX – but all that experience meant nothing. Shred 2 is punishing, and that might be due in part to the control system. There’s little to learn in the grand scheme of things. Along flat surfaces, it’s important to pedal so that you don’t come to a standstill, but for the most part you’ll be using something called a pump. Holding in A at specific points allows you to sit into your bike and pick up speed whilst riding over bumps or going downhill. When you get to a certain point, letting go will see you glide through the air. Depending on the size of the gap between ramps, you’ll be tasked with busting out a trick, but some of the tracks don’t give you adequate time to perform them.

Each one of the forty tracks has a set number of objectives, such as finishing in under a certain time, or performing a specific set of tricks. The problem with this is that you don’t always get the space to do so. If you’re tasked with hitting a backflip, you need enough airtime to perform it, but you’re so focused on landing correctly that you rarely get the right opportunity. It’s tough, but replaying the track enough and getting to grips with every window you have does allow you to learn exactly when these opportunities arise.

There’re a selection of tricks for you to perform, and these are activated by pressing a direction on your right stick. The biggest problem I had was how unresponsive the system is. I’d often press a direction, but it wouldn’t always work. I found that I had to press quite hard for any trick to work, and pressing a fraction too late meant I came hurtling down into the ground without completing what I wanted to do. Holding a pump in mid air makes you fall faster, and that means you’ll pick up speed for the next ramp/jump, but it’s such a challenge to do so. More tricks equal a higher score, but it’s more important to focus on hitting your objectives so that you can progress through the game.

Each new set of courses is locked behind a star system. You earn a star for every objective met, and the more you collect, the more chance you have to move through Shred 2. There’s a range of courses that get you to utilise every move at your disposal, and there’s a fair amount of differences between tracks. Sometimes you need to land a succession of tricks, whilst other times you need to manual over ledges after hopping up onto them. Pressing A allows you to hop, but again, the button isn’t as responsive as it should be. When it comes to a manual (balancing on your front or back wheel), I found it rather satisfying to rack up points because it isn’t particularly hard, but it did mean I had to sacrifice speed as a result.

Shred 2 lacks the polish of bigger games in its genre. The visuals are pretty bland, and it suffers as a result. Textures are limited, and the weather isn’t particularly dynamic or detailed, but it is a port of a mobile game at the end of the day, so you’re never going to get a vast amount of detail or sharpness. There’s enough diversity in the tracks, but if you want fancy backgrounds that are interesting to look at, this isn’t a Trials game. Sam Pilgrim and his bike don’t look particularly great either, but you’re not really paying attention to it when you’re trying so desperately to master the controls.

I will say that not all my time playing Shred 2 was me crying into my hands as I failed time and time again to proceed. You do get times when everything flows and you’re flying through the tracks with a tasty amount of gusto; however, it requires a ton of practice and replaying to get you up to the level Shred 2 requires. There’s little else to do outside the actual tracks. The omission of online leaderboards is disappointing, as it would be cool to see how everyone else is getting along with the tracks, and without any multiplayer elements, it’ll struggle to hold your interest if you can’t get on with the controls.

I may sound like I’m not a huge fan, but the truth of it is I just couldn’t get to grips with the controls. Sam Pilgrim is a hugely successful mountain biker, and many of his fans will love this. Perhaps I’m missing something, and a lot of people will get to grips with its mechanics a lot faster than I did. Unfortunately, though, the delay in initiating a trick and getting used to the pump system never gelled for me. It does bring a much loved series to Xbox One, but along the way its poor visuals and frustrating control system just wasn’t for me.

If you’re a MTB fan, and loved playing the Shred! series on mobile, there’s probably a lot here for you to enjoy. Unfortunately, the controls aren’t as sharp as I’d liked, and without stable button inputs and a trick system that would have been better mapped to something other than the right stick, it feels as though Shred 2 would’ve been better suited remaining on a less powerful console. The original soundtrack is pretty good too, but is that enough to keep people hooked? Only time will tell.

The post Shred! 2 review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

A lesser-known Games Workshop title, it was one that kept me and my dad up way past my bedtime, despite it being genuinely pretty complex. A few years ago the digital version was released on PC, Vita, PS4, and mobile, along with the 4th Edition ruleset, and now the same version has come to the Nintendo Switch.

The first thing I remember most about the board game was the vast selection of hand-painted character cards. A multitude of heroes, villains and monsters were yours for the choosing, each with slightly different stats and styles. The second thing I remember is the punishing difficulty.

Ostensibly, Talisman is about rolling a dice and moving around a board in whichever direction. The outer board is essentially the wilderness, comprised of forests and meadows, with a settlement of some kind in each corner. Each time you land on an outer square you draw an Adventure Card, which may present you with an item or event, or a fight. Combat is so fast it’s almost pointless, as you and your opponent (AI or player) simply roll the dice, add the value to your Strength or Craft value (which both do the same but apply to either warrior or magic classes). The final score determines who wins. If it’s a player; they lose one of their three lives and deal with the consequences (being robbed, for example, and losing all of their gold).

The inner board is where it’s at, though. By the time you reach this area you should have survived enough trials that you’re a tougher prospect for lurking enemies, and you’ll be in a better position to seize the Crown of Command, the McGuffin that allows you to pretty much dominate every other player or creature on the board until all that’s left is you atop a pile of bodies.

Unfortunately, the Digital Edition retains the difficulty and complexity of the original game and does very little to explain its systems properly to you. This, coupled with the speed at which the game moves, does nothing but disorient you, and unless you’re here for the nostalgia like me, I wonder why you’d stay at all.

The artwork is still pretty enough, but the vast majority of characters are locked behind paywalls and you need to buy the expansions to make them available. To me, this is the biggest crime of all, when a £17 game has over £80 worth of additional content. Sure, it’s optional, but the game simply doesn’t make you want to spend money and so it feels a little cheeky.

Ironically, my biggest issue with Talisman is that it’s so similar to the source, and the source isn’t far shy of 40 years old. Times have changed a lot and, despite the many expansions and revisions the board game has seen, it’s still an overly complex and sometimes genuinely unfair experience. Fans of the original game may find the Digital Edition enjoyable, but the fact that so many characters are locked behind microtransactions, and the overall experience often amounts to a high-speed gankfest, I find it hard to recommend Talisman to anyone but the hardcore fanbase.

The post Talisman Digital Edition review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

You play the role of Jayjay Falcon, a fledgling defence attorney. After finally receiving your first high profile case, you’re tasked with defending an innocent socialite in court and finally getting the kudos as a lawyer you need to succeed in Paris. With some help from your eccentric assistant Sparrowson, you’ll need to gather evidence and information that will help you win convince the jury that your client is innocent.

Much like the series it takes inspiration from, Aviary Attorney has two main sections of gameplay: investigation and the courtroom. The investigation sections take you all around the city, talking to potential suspects or searching crime scenes. When searching the streets of Paris for clues, each area you travel to takes a day out of your calendar. With only a set amount of days to collect evidence until your court date, you often have to make a judgement call on which lead is more promising. You also have options of how to approach the key people in your latest case, putting too much pressure on an uppity feline can result in you losing potential evidence and struggling in the courtroom.

Not all investigations call for the same tack when it comes to discovering the truth. There are times where the only way forward seems to involve the spending of your carefully earnt Francs. Without getting the payday you need from a successful case, it may become necessary to take to the Blackjack table, or as its known in Aviary Attorney, Jacques-Noir. A simple game seeking 21 can net you a handy boost to your wallet.

Inevitably, your court date comes whether you are prepared for it or not. Your time before the judge is quite simple – the prosecution will present witnesses, detectives and the like, and you will ask questions about key phrases in their testimony. When inevitably something seems unusual about a statement, you’ll need to use your hard earned evidence to prove something is amiss, and hopefully your client’s innocence. Unlike Ace Attorney success is not the only way to end a trial, and if you don’t have the evidence you need you might have an innocent client take an extended stay at his majesty’s pleasure.

It cannot be understated how funny a game Aviary Attorney is. Sparrowson is undoubtedly the star of the show in the comedy department. When searching a crime scene he’ll constantly chip in with terrible puns and goofy antics, and will often get overexcited when food is mentioned in an all too relatable way. Sparrowson also introduces you to some important mechanics, including the “Face Book” where you collect information about the citizens of Paris. There are a whole host of charming and over the top characters joining the law serving duo throughout the game. From a salty old war bird missing a hand (claw?) to a cigar smoking aristocat, the larger than life cast rarely fail to induce a smile.

It isn’t all laughter in the life of an Aviary Attorney however, and with France on the cusp of a revolution the game gets unexpectedly dark. Corrupt judges and potentially dangerous rebels soon become common in your adventure, and a shake up to the very heart of government seems inevitable. The twists and turns of the game’s story are incredibly intriguing, and I rarely felt that I knew what was around the corner on my quest for justice. Failing in certain cases can even shape how France deals with the shifting balance of power, with three entirely different final cases.

The fact I’ve gotten this far into the review without mentioning the beautiful art style of Aviary Attorney: Definitive Edition is almost criminal (leave your coat; just go – Ed). Inspired by the work of 19th century caricaturist J. J. Grandville, it may be one of the most beautiful games I have ever played. Every scene is simply a piece of art, and I could spend hours just taking in each character’s jaw dropping portrait. The gorgeous monochromatic shading needs to be seen to be believed, and the accompanying classical soundtrack is a perfect fit for the setting.

I have very few complaints from my time with Aviary Attorney: Definitive Edition. The court cases are often a little straightforward as the focus of the game is more on collecting evidence. When asked where the blood from the defendants hands is from, choosing the only item with blood in it is hardly a brain teaser. I also thought it was over with too quickly, but I’m fairly certain that’s just because I loved it so much.

Aviary Attorney manages to be beautiful, hilarious and shocking all in the same breath. It mimics Ace Attorney is all the right ways, while also showcasing an entirely different world and a revolutionary story. It may not be the hardest or the longest game, but my adventures with Falcon and Sparrowson left me wanting more.

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Your role is an investigative good Samaritan who has found a girl’s phone. Her name is Anna. You quickly realise she is missing, and as the holder of her phone, your access to her messages, email and social media platforms might prove invaluable. You’ll need to piece together what has happened to Anna before it’s too late. Along the way you’ll interact with various characters and solve puzzles to move one step closer to finding her. If that sounds invasive, it’s because that’s the intention. This is not just a horror game, but a story that delves into aspects of privacy and secrecy. And as we all have phones, that makes it just that little more personal than other horror experiences.

True, the missing person trope is a little cliche, and there’s a large dose of drama added in too. However, that drama isn’t misplaced, as right off the bat the tension feels real. Interacting with Anna’s friends and family reveals an instant concern that raises the stakes. Most of the communication is done via text messages on various social platforms. But, there are also one-way phone conversations where the tone and pace of voices on the other end of the line increase the anxiety levels.

This is ultimately a game about decisions and, yes, you’ve guessed it, your choices lead to different outcomes. But this isn’t like other stories where the end of the tale is a mystery unraveled over time. Here the desired outcome is clear; above all Anna needs to be found. That single-minded message forces you to consider your options from the very beginning. Do you reveal the truth to everyone you meet, or are some people better off thinking Anna is perfectly fine? If you’re anything like me, your logical, maybe well-intended decisions don’t always yield the desired result. With Simulacra being a little over three hours long, there’s scope to retry for different endings.

“But how is this a horror game?” I hear you ask. You’re not the person that is missing, so what’s so disturbing about piecing together a disappearance? You begin to notice after only a few minutes that Anna’s phone isn’t working 100% properly. Surprise glitches accompanied with loud screeches provide jumpscares that exaggerate the tension level. And as you uncover more of the story, there’s an unnerving realisation that you’re not as in control of information as you first thought.

However, jumpscares alone do not make a good horror game. Thankfully Simulacra has another trick up its sleeve which I found far more effective in the horror stakes. You’re asked at the start to wear headphones, a common request for horror titles these days. But aside from sending those loud screeches roaring down your eardrums for maximum effect, there’s something much more subtle at play here.

At first, you won’t notice it. You’ll be scrolling through some social media posts or texting one of Anna’s friends and you’ll stop and you won’t know why. Shrugging it off you’ll persevere until it happens again – a faint sigh in one of your ears. There’s no warning or context for it, and if anything that makes it more uncomfortable. I won’t spoil the other things it does, except to say that at least once I thought my wife was purposefully trying to freak me out. Pausing the game, I marched into the lounge and confronted her, to bemused looks. Well done, Simulacra, you win this round.

Simulacra doesn’t get everything right though. I forgave the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, and put them down to text message realism. But the thing that jars is the voice acting. This either comes up when characters call you for a conversation where you don’t speak, or when you play back audio messages people have sent Anna before she went missing. Whichever type you’re listening to, they always feel really awkward and scripted. They kill the immersion you’ve built up by reading messages and formulating characters in your head.

On top of that, the audio often feels unnecessary. The amount of phone calls where people are happy to talk at you and hang up is frankly ridiculous. They are clearly there just to offer a shock courtesy of the phone making a loud screech before the name of the caller appears on the screen. Also, the audio messages appear randomly in the middle of text conversations with no rhyme or reason. There’s often no explanation why that line of dialogue was chosen to be recorded rather than being typed out. Thankfully the recorded videos are much better. Anna herself feels much more natural in front of the camera in her personal vlogs. Her dialogue flows fairly well amongst the mediocrity of the rest of the cast.

And whilst I won’t spoil anything here, how Simulacra ends its story is interesting. It leaves you wanting more, which is both a good and bad thing. It prompts replayability, something which is easy to do due to the short playthrough time. There’s even a useful NG+ mode where gameplay is quicker for story veterans. It’s clear that the ending is teeing up the sequel due out later this month, where more is revealed about the larger things at play in the story. All this is great, but in isolation, you can’t help but feel that Simulacra as a narrative entity on its own, doesn’t quite hit the mark. The ending feels a little anticlimactic despite cleverly raising the stakes throughout.

Moving Simulacra to consoles was always an interesting decision. There’s no doubt that playing a found phone game on an actual phone is the most immersive platform to experience this on. However, the Switch version at least offers some functionality above its Xbox One and PS4 counterparts. The touchscreen in handheld mode takes you one step closer to phone functionality. However, I feel they missed a trick by not allowing you to play in portrait mode like you could in Downwell. True holding the Switch this way isn’t 100% natural, but it feels like a quick win to elevate it above other platforms.

Overall Simulacra is a decent horror title, often at its unnerving best when it delivers subtlety over jumpscares. The found phone format is instantly familiar, and you get a sense of tension and urgency to find Anna right from the start, which sets the scene perfectly. Decisions you make along the way can significantly change the end result, which allows for different tactics on future runs. The mix of investigation and decisions gives a sense of control, rather than just plodding through a pre-defined narrative. The voice acting is a bit of a misstep, with often more characterisation coming from the simple text message conversations than anything else. But it’s the wider messages here around personality, honesty and data privacy that leave a lasting impression. You don’t often get such self-reflection off the back of a horror game.

Do you know where your phone is right now? Maybe go and check, it’d be awful if you lost it. Who knows who might pick it up, and what they might find…

The post Simulacra review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

You play as Holly, reluctantly returning to her home town and the aforementioned reunion, for the sake of childhood bestie Flynn. After a tragic accident ended in the death of his fiancee Grace, Flynn’s life and his friendship with Holly never really recovered. The relationship between the two is very touching, and sets a very human backdrop to an otherwise otherworldly game.

The reunion soon turns sour – and after a few brief moments of small talk with former class mates, it doesn’t take long to find your first dead body. Graphic murder scenes are in an abundance, as it seems a serial killer is hell bent on picking off several members of the small community you grew up in. Holly and Flynn soon get separated, and reuniting quickly becomes your first priority.

The gameplay in Worse than Death is simple but effective. Moving around the 2D environments is as simple as it gets, with a d-pad, an action button and a run button. Most of your time is spent thoroughly investigating each of the stages, looking for items and notes that will help you solve the puzzles blocking your way.

The puzzles have a very old school adventure game feel, and taking notes is often crucial. You’ll find yourself repairing generators, and finding codes for doors in all manner of unique ways. The solutions are never overly difficult, but keen observation and a good memory (or notepad) are the key to progress.

The puzzles aren’t the only obstacle you’ll find on your adventure, as ghostly presences wander the halls too. These translucent monstrosities are incredibly intimidating, and entirely unkillable. A lot of care was taken in making these enemies faint enough to ensure you have no idea what they look like, and even after playing through the whole game I couldn’t begin to describe them. Finding small dark nooks to hide in is the only “weapon” at your disposal, so patience and stealth is essential. The fear of the unknown made every encounter sneaking past the “ghosts” very unnerving, far more so than if I was facing a more tangible enemy.

The chunky pixel art style of Worse than Death is implemented beautifully, especially when combined with the eerie lighting of the locations you visit. When you arrive in a room coated in blood, as a single flickering bulb illuminates only vague silhouettes around you, the anxiety immediately creeps in. It’s these small details that really bring the game to life. The warm breath of Holly on the cold night air, the comforting glow of a neon bar sign; it’s just magical.

As the game progresses, you’ll start to piece together more about life in this small community. There’s a deep backstory to discover in both the town itself and its inhabitants. From start to finish there’s enough drama, horror and plot twists to keep you invested in the narrative. It’s worth pointing out that the entire experience is just a couple of hours long. I found the length to be ideal for playing in a single sitting, it just felt like settling down to watch a horror movie.

Immersing yourself in the beautiful world of Worse than Death is a great way to spend a Halloween evening. It’s not the most groundbreaking game, but it tells a wonderful story in a way guaranteed to distress you in all the right ways. It also teaches you a valuable life lesson…never go to a high school reunion!

The post Worse than Death review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Hyperforma doesn’t delve that far into the question, but presents us with a frequently stunning journey deep into cyberspace interacting with AI-powered firewalls and security algorithms. As a hacker you’ve got to decrypt the routines and bring these AIs into line in a quest to find the mysterious user known as Princess, and this is done via throwing your little avatar at a range of spinning cubic clumps in an effort to get to the centre and claim the decryptor.

Essentially the idea is simple: you’ve got to remove the ‘ice’ around the outside so you can get to the middle and claim it, but by the time I got to the end I still had little idea what I was doing except for repeating processes over and over until I achieved success. Your little yellow avatar bounces around the play area and removes certain cubes should it make contact, although some cubes don’t go away, others trigger the cluster to act in certain ways, triggering traps while white ice just bounces you back outwards to where you can’t do any damage. Your primary attack is initiated by pressing the A button which launches you toward the centre, and as well as being the main way you’ll remove cubes is how you have to attack the centre once it’s exposed.

By rotating the left stick you can pivot the cluster to get a better angle to attack. Although the ways in which the movements of the stick affect the cluster are obvious, I really couldn’t ever get the cluster to move how I wanted it to and often found myself moving from good positions for attack to putting ice into the path of my charge at the centre. There are power ups too, such as Discharge which eliminates several cubes around the area you hit, or Clone which creates a duplicate of yourself allowing you to double your attacking efforts, it also doubles as an extra life in case you get blown up, so you’ll find yourself using that more often than anything else. The power ups stack too, so if you use discharge your clone will too, so it doesn’t make sense to not have a clone out at all times.

There’s a lot of pressing of the A button in this game, if you’re not doing it to attack then you’re doing it to skip through the lines of text dialogue that crop up in the – admittedly gorgeous – cutscenes that bookend each chapter. The journey through cyberspace sees you encountering large obelisk-like AI programs and it’s their defensive sub-routines that the cubic clusters belong to. Take out those and you’ll confront the program in a boss battle, which for some reason removes all of the power-ups you have access to. These fights boil down to memorising a pattern and sticking to it, you’ll use the left and right triggers to dodge around the boss in a circle and once again press A to attack. There’s no energy bar for the boss though, so how many times you’ll need to attack is down to guess work and your own patience.

Hyperforma’s aesthetic has a kind of 2D neo-Aztec vibe, comprised of dark greys and blacks but also lavished with bursts of yellow and alongside these gorgeous visuals is a rather sparse soundtrack that leans heavily on deep bassy sounds, kind of like when gaijin-style creatures are introduced in action movies, wearing headphones is recommended to draw you in to the action, I mean, you can play without the sound, but the experience isn’t quite the same really.

Going back to the fact that I went through the game with little to no idea what I was doing, there’s a level about mid-way through that declares ‘The sphere holds a secret’ and even after re-playing it I have no idea what the requirement is to actually finish the level. I went for ages trying to work out what I was missing and eventually the whole thing just burst into a whole load of colour and extra clusters. I don’t know what triggered it, I just know I was bashing away at this green mesh sphere for what felt like an hour before the damn thing finally relented.

That’s the thing you see: you get all these powers, and you get told what the powers do, but you’re never told the differentiation between the cubes the clusters are made out of, you’re left to work that out on your own. Some seem to break down from getting hit, others don’t, I understand that white ice rebounds, but I just couldn’t figure out the black ice for the life of me. The general rule is that if you just throw everything at the cluster in front of you then eventually you’ll finally pass, which isn’t really the way things should be.

Hyperforma at least doesn’t outstay its welcome thanks to a short run time, meaning that while you’ll spend the game constantly trying to guess what you’re doing you won’t be doing it for long. The narrative is intriguing enough to keep you invested through to the end while the stunning visuals and sound make for an experience you certainly don’t get many of on Switch, but at the end of the day spending your time in a state of stupefaction doesn’t make for the most enjoyable game.

The post Hyperforma review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Agent A is a puzzle game similar to Fireproof Games’ The Room series. Granted it’s considerably less spooky, but moving from place to place, piecing together the narrative and interacting with objects to solve puzzles is instantly familiar. Anyone who’s played a room escape game or even a point and click adventure will be well versed enough to understand just what Agent A is asking of them.

The game has been on iOS and Android for a while as an episodic series and finds its way to home consoles just as the fifth and final episode comes out. You play as Agent A and are infiltrating the home of a spy by the name of Ruby La Rouge. Even for a spy Ruby’s house is inundated with gadgets, gizmos and obtuse mechanisms which would surely confuse and frustrate a resident let alone a guest to the property. Accessing Ruby’s postbox alone requires you to solve five puzzles beforehand, a bit of an issue for anyone just to get your hands on your mail.

Stepping away from the frankly silly idea of someone deliberately scuppering a comfortable home life to ensure the frustrations of visitors, puzzling in Agent A does have a natural flow to it. A solution grants items or clues to something else and normally links to something you noticed earlier, so now you know you can go back and solve what you couldn’t before. This is where feedback comes in, just a line of dialogue here, a noise a visual cue, all of these are implemented to make sure that when you solve something, then you know.

That’s not to say that Agent A is a challenging game though. I managed to get through the game in a pretty short time because the puzzles are pretty simple, provided you ensure you click on pretty much everything and obtain all the clues. There was one puzzle in chapter five that caused me considerable consternation due to a lack of feedback when I solved it, it’s probably my own fault really, but without that all important notification I wound up lost for nearly an hour. Thankfully that was the only time this happened and it was right at the end of the game too, if it had come sooner I’d probably have been less annoyed.

You won’t feel quite like a secret agent as you try to untangle Ruby’s web of doohickeys, but the game’s got a neat Art Deco vibe to it which lends the cutscenes a nice charm. Couple this with the suitably 80s spy soundtrack and you have a game that echoes classic spy films admirably. There’s one inconsistency between chapters two and three where the sound bugs out and goes a bit crackly, but I didn’t notice this anywhere else. I was also playing on Switch so it might just be localised to that console.

Speaking of Switch it should be noted that the game does allow for the same touch screen implementation of the iOS and Android versions, however I played the entire game with the joycon controls as I just found them to be much more friendly to use. PC will obviously use a mouse, but the joypad interface is easy enough to use so PS4 and Xbox One players won’t lose out with their versions. For this you have a reticule that you move about the screen, point at something and press a button to interact. Items you pick up are added to a translucent menu bar on the right hand side of the screen ready to be used should the situation call for it. The reticule moves at a decent lick and if the item can be interacted with you’ll either pick it up or get a comment from Agent A, so you’ll always know if something can be ‘used’ so to speak.

If you’re someone who finds the Room games a bit too creepy then this is a great game to play if you’re into narrative puzzle adventures. Agent A is not too taxing while also providing a decent work out for your grey matter. You’ll want to ensure you’re taking screenshots to refer back to later just to ease the burden on the old memory, but overall you’ll never have the feeling that you’re brute forcing any of the solutions and Yak & Co. should be commended for that. Agent A won’t leave you shaken or stirred but will provide you with a few head scratching moments – but in a good way.

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In 2015 Sam Barlow distanced himself from Silent Hill to create Her Story and brought us a narrative video game unlike any we had seen before. The question was how would he fare with the often tricky second album? The answer is here with Telling Lies, a similarly structured narrative adventure focused around a man and the relationships he has cultivated around him. The thing is, it’s really hard to talk about a game like this without giving too much away, but I’ll try.

Anyway, like Her Story we find ourselves sitting at a computer terminal in the shoes of an as yet unknown protagonist as she pores through hours of video footage to find clues as to what exactly has happened in the lives of these people. As you watch the videos and read the subtitles you’ll focus on words within the text and typing these into the search bar brings up more video clips; some of these are much more revealing than others.

Let me just state for the record that you do not need to watch all the video footage to suss out what’s going on, although it may take you some time to piece everything together. I have a list of ninety-eight keywords to search up and I have made it through forty-one before I triggered the credits sequence; for others this will be very different. However long you want this game to last is up to you, it all depends on how much of the six hours of recorded video you want to go through before you decide to do what the game requires and finalise proceedings.

We eventually find out the man’s name is David, and we meet his wife and child and find out that he’s currently living away from home due to him working on a project for his employer. While he’s living away David is understandably lonely and takes to chatting to his wife and kid via webcam. However, it’s after those people have gone to bed that we see David’s lonely dark obsession of talking to a cam girl, and there are several moments within the footage where I didn’t feel very comfortable with what I was witnessing. Yet, it isn’t even guaranteed that you will see the same stuff as anybody else.

Such is the open ended nature of the investigation work that you can literally bypass a load of the story on your path to the ending, yet still wind up with the conclusion that the game always intended you to. In the early stages there’s so much open to interpretation about David, his wife, the cam girl and the other people we meet through the clips, I must have thrown out about five different possibilities as to what was going on before the game came to a sudden stop I wasn’t quite expecting and some shocking revelations came out. This is surely a sign of excellent storytelling design in ensuring everyone can find out what’s going on yet everyone can still see something that their friends haven’t.

Because this is based on webcamming there is one glaring weakness in how this is structured and that’s through the one sided conversations each clip shows as taking place. All the conversations can be paired up, and for the most part, searching for the right key word will bring them side by side for easy pairing. But, why these videos aren’t already paired up to begin with is a mystery to me. I get that in a way this is a measure to elongate the game’s run time and make you put in extra effort to find the conclusion, but it wouldn’t suffer for video pairing at all, if anything it’d benefit from it.

The reason why this would benefit is solely down to one thing: uncomfortable silence. A lot of the clips are quite short, while some short ones are actually cut down versions of longer ones which can be viewed in their entirety should you search for the right key word – the problem is that some of them are six or more minutes long. Do you see where I’m going with this? No? Ok, so, in a conversation someone talks and the other person listens, as a result one of the parties is being quiet, this means that for much of a six minute long video you get someone staring at a camera listening intently to the point you start to wonder if you’ve missed the fact that the video had already ended (hint: it hadn’t).

Considering this is the only real gripe I have with Telling Lies is a testimony to how good Sam Barlow and the team at Furious Bee are at spinning a psychoanalytical yarn. The characters here are well fleshed out and actually feel real; it’s like being in The Truman Show or a soap opera you didn’t know existed and that you are a participant in. As you study the clips and make note of the words you might need to revisit you can’t help but get drawn in to the web of deceit but also feel empathy for those involved. These may just be actors but their performances evoke very real emotion in the viewer, and for that everyone involved in projects like these deserves all the plaudits we can lay on them.

I guess it stands to reason that if you enjoyed Her Story then you’ll be right at home with Telling Lies, but (and this is a big but), many people will scoff at something like this for not being a “real game”, but you shouldn’t dismiss it so quickly. Doing yourself out of an incomparable narrative experience doesn’t make you any more of a gamer than anyone else, and learning to experience different things such as this can help you grow and appreciate the other games you play more, so stop lying to yourself and try Telling Lies, I promise, it won’t hurt.

The post Telling Lies review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Muse Dash is looking to succeed in doing what other games have failed and that’s by making rhythm action simple: there’s no multitude of button layouts to remember or an assault of icons flying around; here you’re asked to press two buttons and yet in regards to the rhythm, nothing is lost. As enemies scroll from right to left across the screen, you’ll need to press either the right D-pad button or the X button, each one corresponding to either an enemy on the top row or the bottom – it couldn’t be simpler. These enemies are colour-coded, too, so blue enemies indicate the D-pad button to be pressed, while pink ones are for X. This means that when the game does mix things up by throwing a blue saw blade on the floor, it’s coloured blue to indicate to jump over it.

Sequential hits fill up a combo counter and the higher your combo the more points you earn. Take a hit or miss an enemy and your combo resets to zero – it’s basic rhythm action stuff, but it’s in the simplicity of the controls that you get drawn in. Making it so that you’re not flummoxed by the button placements is a genius idea and really helps you to concentrate on hitting those beats. Even better is that you don’t need to use the buttons at all and can instead tap either the left or right side of the Switch’s touch screen, which, for me, is the better way to play.

Something else Muse Dash does exceedingly well is make easy mode accessible but still like it’s part of the music. There are enough notes to make it feel like you’re still playing along with the songs, but it’s still easy to miss a note if you get complacent. Now, now, I’m no heretic, hard or master is still where the real meat is, but it’s good to have an easy mode that doesn’t feel too easy or disconnected from the tune. That being said, the jump up to Hard is a doozy and the gap from hard to master is frankly just as big if not bigger. Clearing a song on master though is still attainable even to someone as completely disassociated from rhythmic ability as me (seriously, you should see me dance).

There’s plenty of songs on offer here, and most of them are absolute bangers ranging from what could well be anime intros to a bit of funk, jazz and electro-pop. The same cannot be said for the backgrounds: the enemies you encounter are well drawn and charming enough, but there’s only four environments which are regularly repeated throughout the songs. Then there’s the fact that the level requirements for unlocking tracks are unevenly distributed: it starts off at one per level, then it’s one every two levels before progressing to one every five levels meaning that regular playthrough across all difficulties is necessary before you’ll unlock all of the music.

That doesn’t annoy me though, not really, not when the songs are as good as this, and when they’re as fun to play as this. Playing through many of these on easy had me champing at the bit to try them again on hard, because you just know those note placements are going to be fire and it’s all wrapped up in a colourful little package with three characters that are just great to look at, especially my personal favourite Buro, who rides around on a giant teddy bear.

What does bother me though is the unnecessary ecchi costumes PeroPeroGames has put in. All three characters have at least one ‘sexy’ outfit, and it’s just so not needed. Rin has a bunny outfit, Buro a clown with a crop top exposing considerable underboob and Marija has a maid outfit and a succubus costume. All of these have some considerable jiggle physics applied as well. I’m no prude, hell, I’ve read my fair share of lewd manga amongst other things but I couldn’t help but be disappointed at this. My son loves rhythm action games, and he would have played the hell out of this, but I can’t have him seeing those costumes, so as a result he can’t play it; a significantly large player base is alienated because of the bizarre desire to include fap material for a small percentage of people. Rant over.

Muse Dash is still an exceptional game though; simple yet still incredibly tough and the correlation between music and enemies during the tracks has been done perfectly. If you can see your way past the seedy element then there’s a brilliant game here for you to enjoy. If you’ve ever wanted to try a rhythm action game then this would be an excellent place to start, it’s forgiving, easy to pick up and incredibly compelling to play.

The post Muse Dash review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

In Alt-Frequencies you have acquired yourself a new fangled radio; it’s able to pick up a variety of channels and it can download and upload clips to and from those stations. It’s quite a handy piece of kit and once you’ve been taught how to use it the voice of Winston asks you to seek the truth and use the words of others to manipulate the radio stations to help others. So from here the goal is to listen to the separate radio broadcasts for clips you can use to influence the other broadcasters to say what you need them to say.

If this sounds difficult let me explain: the stations constantly repeat because for reasons that are never really explained the government has decided to induce a time-loop. So, over and over these broadcasts will go on until you can find the right clip to play to the right station to get the right reaction that either leads to a new bit of info or takes you onto the next day. It’s a clever idea in principle, but because there’s never any reasoning behind the main story beats the game is over far too quickly and with very little in the way of payoff.

Interacting with the radio is easy: you swipe left and right to change stations, you swipe down to download a clip and up to upload one – simple. The hosts of these stations all have distinct personalities and ask for listeners to contact them giving you an ‘in’ to distribute the lines you hear from the people on the other channels. One host is a cheery upbeat breakfast DJ and her compatriot, then you have a Piers Morgan-a-like offendatron, a News Channel and a student radio station. Each day offers up around three minutes or so of audio clips which you’ll need to listen closely to so you can pick something that’ll be a good response for one of the other stations.

As you poke these people with little snippets more information becomes available pertaining to the relationships of the government official behind this ‘time-loop’, Minister McMillan, and it all takes on a very menacing vibe with people getting sick and others feeling like they’re going mad when it turns out they’re just not affected by the loop. But, overall, it just feels like it doesn’t go anywhere, the choices you make are far too obvious and there’s nothing outside of the main choices which means you’re constantly being led by the hand. Even the one moment that seems like a pivotal point for a separate ending turns out to be nothing more than a red herring.

Overall it’ll take you about three hours to get through this on your first go, that is, if you decide to play through it again afterwards, but with an ending as disappointing as this it’s a hard sell to yourself to go again. There’s a good core idea here, but it’s just not fleshed out enough, and there’s so little being said of motivations for both the government and the ‘terrorist-instigators’ against the time-loop. Granted, not everything needs to be a ‘both sides’ issue, but humanising an enemy is normally a good part of storytelling and when this point finally comes it’s too little and too late.

Alt-Frequencies then is an excellent concept let down by its execution. If a bit more was put into fleshing out the machinations behind the time-loop and what the government’s official line for implementing it was it could have been great. Some more flexibility in the reactions would have been good too. There are canned responses for clips that aren’t relevant to the stations, and the scope here for play would have been fantastic but it never delivers on the promise of just constantly feeding radio station hosts with a barrage of constant rubbish.

At the very least the game is short enough to not outstay it’s welcome and it’s charming enough to at least bring you to the end of it’s story. Don’t expect too much of a challenge, and try to overlook the issues with the story and you’ll at least enjoy it the once, and I guess that’s what we generally expect from mobile games. I just wish it had more.

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The Switch is a great machine, and more than fitting to take the crown of the handheld for indie games, as well as a console for home users. Because the Switch is such an excellent platform for indie games, we’re seeing a lot of iOS developers bringing their wares to the machine, and it’s allowing us to find games we wouldn’t otherwise know about. Take Golf Peaks for example, a game I never managed to find because it doesn’t come up in any of the top suggestions by typing ‘Golf’ into the iOS App Store search. Hell, you’ll find Snooker and Solitaire games well before you find Golf Peaks, which is a shame as this is a decent puzzle title – and one that should pique your interest (see what I did there?)

Let’s deal with the elephant in the room first: yes, this costs £4.49 compared to £2.99 on iOS (the Switch premium strikes again). Thing is, you now have touch screen and button controls and it’s incredibly easy to play it on your big television screen without a £200 attachment on top of an £800 tablet or phone, so overall you’re up considerably, money-wise. It’s funny, I’ve often moaned about game prices on the Switch before, but sometimes you really have to think about whether an overall cheaper cost really benefits you.

So, let’s talk about the game itself. Golf Peaks is a charming isometric mini-golf puzzler that sets you up with a limited amount of shots and types with which to hole out on a series of courses. There are no windmills or dinosaurs here; instead the courses will be increasingly littered with a series of hazards which you’ll need to figure out how to bypass using the limited amount of shots at your disposal. You can aim your shot in any of the four directions you have available to you, but you’ll need to select your shot from one of the several types lined up at the bottom of the screen.

So, you’ll have your standard shot which can move the ball from one square up to nine, then you’ll have chip shots which allow you to jump the ball over obstacles or onto higher areas. These can vary in air distance, but can also carry upon landing. Understanding how these shots work and spotting your route from beginning to end is what Golf Peaks wants from you, and a lot of the time it does enough to make you realise what the solution is but still make you feel like a genius for working it out. There are too many puzzle games out there where you’ll kick yourself for not figuring it out sooner, but somehow Golf Peaks avoids that.

Courses start off with ramps and eventually progress onto jumps, then warp holes and eventually conveyor belts. Generally you’ll be able to trace a route from end to beginning, or you can luck out and figure it out through blind luck, but Golf Peaks never feels like it fed you that solution; it often feels like a natural thing to do. Working out how the hazards work and using that to your favour is key; for instance, mud will swallow your ball should it land on it, requiring you to restart, but you can roll the ball over it. Water on the other hand will sink the ball, but put it back on the last surface it was on before submerging. So you not only have to consider the shots at your disposal but also how you can use the hazards to your advantage too.

Where most games fall but this game doesn’t is in the introduction of new mechanics. Completion of a world sees new hazards introduced, but old ones are never forgotten, meaning that you’ll need to work out how to combine previously learned elements together. This is good considering Golf Peaks considerably short run time doesn’t have you learning pointless new things over and over. Golf Peaks is a bare bones production, with a nice serviceable aesthetic and calming sound, it’s a lovely game to relax with. You won’t find anything that’ll tax you to the point of frustration, but maybe that’s something that would have been welcome? Just to really get the synapses firing?

I guess what I’m really trying to say here is that Golf Peaks isn’t going to make everyone want to take up golf or have everyone salivating, but as a palate cleanser, as a calming experience after a frustrating gaming session or the terrible tension in, say, Resident Evil 2, then something like this is welcome. Let’s face it, we all need somewhere we can turn to help us calm down in today’s world, and for this price it’s hard to not give Golf Peaks a recommendation. Just try not to blitz it right away, or it really won’t last.

The post Golf Peaks review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

For the most part this is the same game many fans will have played back in April; there’ve been a few interface changes, but nothing groundbreaking. Selectable elements are still too small to actually make use of the ‘touch’ functionality (more on that later), and because of the considerable amount of options available to you, many of the menus are once again hidden and accessed by using the shoulder buttons on the Joy-cons. You are now allowed to take inductions to help new players get to grips with some of the finer complexities of managerial life, but much of the real micromanagement is still missing and, while Football Manager 2019 introduces VAR into the match engine, it’s noticeably absent here in the Touch version.

Touch is still sadly lacking the ability to give team talks, so you can’t try to rouse your players with a monumental half-time speech, and when making substitutions during games you cannot see which roles suit a particular player best, leaving you with only your ability to remember details to figure out who is suitable to replace who (a big problem with someone as scatterbrained as me), and not only that but the substitutes screen is separated from the tactics screen, so you can’t adjust player positions when making substitutes, but oddly you can arrange substitutes from the tactics screen. It’s a really odd design choice, and would have been more effective had they ditched the ‘Make sub’ button and just amalgamated everything into the tactics screen.

Another irritation when making substitutions through the sub screen is the ‘hit windows’ for certain screen elements. You make personnel changes by dragging the player you want to sub onto the replacement – or at least, that’s the idea, but the actual window to get it to work is difficult to pin down, as there’s no highlight to indicate when you’re over the marker. I wound up making the wrong substitute several times and on many occasions didn’t realise that my substitute goalkeeper was now playing at right midfield. What’s worse is that it happened over and over again. This is 100% not down to my scatterbrain, as it’s often difficult to move players to positions on the tactics screen because you cannot see when you’re able to select the location you want, because the player marker is bigger than the position marker and thus obscures your view.

The Football Manager games have always been known to be pretty processor heavy and FM19 Touch is no different. Many loading times are long, and most screen transitions take a while to occur after selecting something, so you’ll need to be patient with it after choosing something otherwise you’ll find yourself involuntarily jumping between screens. I know the Switch isn’t exactly a powerhouse when it comes to processing oodles of lines of code, but there again the match engine isn’t the most graphically demanding out there either. And yet it’s grainy and moves at a consistently low frame rate. After a couple of matches you’ll be heading into the options to switch the action back to the good old 2D Classic match display (trust me, it’s for the best).

Do I sound harsh here? I probably do, but there’s a good reason for that. Football Manager is a great series, Football Manager 19 is an excellent game, and Football Manager Touch 2018 was a great handheld version, but if you’ve got Touch 2018 and you buy FM19 Touch you’ll be wondering just why you’ve got the newer version when not a lot has really changed. Hell, if you haven’t got 18 then you really should get 19 because of the updated rosters, but otherwise it’s not worth the outlay if you joined the party back in April.

FM19 Touch is still a good game. If you’re a fan of the series and you own a Switch then this is the premier portable version of the franchise. Keeping an eye on the news tickers, plucking youngsters from nothing clubs and turning them into the new Ronaldo is still a thrill. I took Notts County on a great run of results, seeing six straight wins before we went off the boil and had to settle for mid-table mediocrity. It’s those moments, the brilliant highs and the crashing lows, that make the magic of Football Manager, and the experience is no worse with the smaller screen and slightly fiddly UI issues.

If anything, I’d actually say that I’m not disappointed that FM19 Touch exists, but that 2018 probably shouldn’t have seen the light of day and Sports Interactive should have held off and just released FM19. That short gap feels ever so smaller when you consider it was the same year, and most of FM19 Touch’s issues have carried over from its predecessor, showcasing that overall not much has been improved or changed. Add an extra point to the score if you don’t already own 2018 Touch. This is no better than the previous game, but it’s not really worse; if anything it’s just a really bad fixture pile up.

The post Football Manager 2019 Touch review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition strips it’s parent software down to the ultimate bare bones, dispensing with anything considered fluff or filler and basically prodding you along a predetermined route from beginning to end. So strict are these cutbacks that the game loses a part of its personality while gaining charm and brevity. Bringing the game to mobile phones and tablets meant a complete reworking of the game’s visuals giving us super-deformed versions of the characters with some rather odd results. The main protagonists look good especially Prompto and Gladio, but the less said about Noctis’ permanent scowl and the eyes of Ardyn, Ravus and the young version of Lunafreya the better.

Anyway, combat is initiated by holding the Y button to attack, X warps to distant enemies (or close ones for a harder hit) and B dodges. You can switch between Noctis’ weapons by pressing L and R, but this is kind of hit and miss with how quickly it happens that is if it even happens at all. Thanks to the ability map I had extra damage should I warp strike while the polearm was my selected weapon, but so unreliable was the weapon switching I basically didn’t bother with it. The fact there’s no lock on either means that Noctis often combo strikes past enemies, flailing at midair while his combo ends. Both of these are considerable annoyances for a fighting system that flows so well on its bigger brother, and even worse is the fact that your AI compatriots are more than happy to stand in areas of poison or flames until their health whittles away to nothing.

This is probably going to get irritating before it starts getting better, but I have to get the bad parts out the way first, so I’m going to continue. Load times are considerable, which is a shame seeing as it’s not the most taxing game to look at. The worst offender is the original boot up which takes so long I actually thought my Switch had crashed before the game finally bloomed to life. And then there’s what the game’s new brevity removes from the overall experience.

The most saddening omission is Prompto’s photos, looking through those when making camp really made the ‘boys road trip’ feeling come through in the main game (despite the constant death and destruction the game throws your way), and not having them there just removes Final Fantasy XV’s loveliest feature. Also, while the lads banter and chat as they roam around (the linear environments) the repetition does tend to grate rather quickly.

Now, let’s talk positives shall we? There’s a considerable quantity of voice acting here, it lends the game some of the personality of the original and despite the fact that some of the drama is lost through a lack of facial expressions on the character models. Condensing a hundred plus hour game down to something that can be finished in sixteen hours is a considerable achievement, the fact there’s zero fluff left means you get a nice short game and what’s left are all the biggest story beats the game has to offer. There are no distractions, no myriad of side quests to trawl through, just a straight line start to finish. You can go back and play previous chapters if you feel like grinding, but it isn’t necessary to finish the game.

The distillation of the fighting system works as well, granted as I’ve said, there’s no lock on, but holding down Y and pressing B to dodge at the required time means you can monitor what’s going on even when there are several enemies on screen and explosions going off constantly. Not only this but for the most part the Unity engine manages to keep the frame rate steady during gameplay but fluctuates during cutscenes.

So, Pocket Edition means more than just taking the game to mobile. It means condensed and tweaked until anything extraneous and non-essential is removed. It’s not perfect by any means, and apart from the lack of lock on my issues with the game are nothing more than petty. As an introduction of a Final Fantasy to the Switch there probably should have been other titles first (which are coming) but this is a perfectly good appetiser before per the main course arrives.

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Mini Metro is a game about managing a subway network as well as you can. Your aim is to be as efficient as possible and make sure people, (the destinations are represented by shapes), can get to their destination quickly. The onboarding tutorial is a very nice interactive experience that will make sure you understand the game. While you can use the controller or Joy-Cons, this is definitely best played with touch controls. If you enjoy the pointer controls some games have, they are very well implemented here. Thankfully, the Switch version allows you to play however you want. As time goes by, you are rewarded with new carriages, new trains, new tunnels, and more upgrades and additions.

Normal mode is basically how you should experience Mini Metro initially. If a station gets too crowded, the game ends. Endless mode is about being as efficient as you can without the fail mechanic of Normal Mode. There is also a third super hard mode that does not let you redo line placements for tracks. I’d only recommend bothering with that if you have no trouble with any of the various map locations for the Normal Mode. You also unlock more cities with different geographic layouts by clearing certain requirements in previous locations.

I’m a big fan of minimal aesthetics. Mini Metro takes the best of modern signage and combines it with slick animation to deliver a visual experience that is both smooth and memorable. The use of subtle sound effects coupled with Disasterepeace’s score are only icing on the cake. There is a night mode option as well as one for colourblind players which all manage retaining the gorgeous and minimal aesthetic while being functional.

The only downside to this version is one performance issue which affects the game during some menu transitions. The gameplay has been great and smooth in my testing but while switching between menus, things stutter a bit. That’s the only negative for this port and this release in general.

Mini Metro on the Switch is nearly the definitive version of the game. It offers a good traditional controller option and has full touch support bringing in the best of the mobile version. If the performance issues during some menu transitions are fixed, this will be the best version of the game. If you’ve been aching for a good addictive strategy puzzle experience, Mini Metro is what you need to get right now.

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And with that begins the story. It’s mostly about Mira, a young girl, who has befriended a raccoon called BK. The raccoons run a donut shop in town (because why not?) and Mira is employed to help them. The issue is whenever a resident of Donut County orders a donut, what they’re actually ordering is a hole, which ends up sucking them into oblivion. As such a lot of the residents end up nearly 1,000 feet below the surface and recall to each other their story on the surface before they were sucked under. Reminiscing these memories forms the levels the player must complete, and what follows is a short tale of deception, the definition of trash, and some quirky dialogue.

The gameplay is fairly straightforward. Most of the levels require you to simply move the hole around, and engulf the detritus in the level in size order, beginning with the smallest blades of grass, up to the large buildings, as well as the individuals who mistakenly thought they had ordered a sugary treat from the raccoons. Whilst this puzzling is fairly rudimentary, there are times where you use physics to make items fit holes by tipping them on their sides, creating an extra layer of thinking. Also there’s a lot to be said for the catharsis of simply destroying entire settings and seeing them plummet through the hole into the void. It’s difficult to articulate, but wanton destruction is just satisfying, especially knowing that not even large structures are safe from your all-consuming hole of death.

What also makes it so entertaining is what’s going on alongside the gravity-manipulating shenanigans. Firstly the humour in is quirky and endearing. The banter between Mira, BK and the other residents is quite funny at times, and serves as light comic relief against the backdrop of the despairing situation they all find themselves in lost underground. All BK wants is a quadcopter, that he can only get by leveling up his hole app, seemingly oblivious to the disastrous ramifications of his selfish behaviour. Mira is the voice of reason, but has a scathing comment or two up her sleeve for BK when it is required. And the residents range from illegal fireworks dealers to those who love chickens just a little too much. It creates a ramshackle cast that you enjoy the interactions of in between the main levels.

The visuals are also clean and have a charming aesthetic. The clean and crisp low polygon character models and design of the various locations reinforce the game’s ultimately eccentric tone that perfectly back up the whimsical gameplay and quirky humour. The sound design is also very good, with delightfully delicate tunes and tones during most of the experience, and then more abrupt sounds during moments of panic or tension, either in gameplay or playful conversation between the residents. It serves to wrap up the Donut County package nicely.

In addition to the standard “put stuff in a hole” mechanic, there are some slightly more complex puzzling. You might need to heat up your hole to light fireworks to have an impact on the landscape, for example. There’s also a catapult add-on that allows you to fire certain objects you have swallowed back out of the hole into the environment to solve puzzles. This might be swallowing said lit firework to then fire up at a different location to have the desired effect. These parts of levels provide a nice change of pace and are a welcome addition, causing you to use a bit of grey matter, rather than mindlessly consuming everything with your ever-expanding hole.

There is a sticking point that is worth highlighting, and that is the depth and length, because both come up fairly short. The game is only a couple of hours long, with most of the levels taking a couple of minutes to complete, and nothing ever providing much of a challenge. It’s a fairly shallow experiences which is ironic given the gaping hole mechanic you’re asked to control. Unfortunately it all feels like it’s over just as it gets started. Whilst it does have a catapult mechanic, there surely could have been more of these changes to the base gameplay included to open up different types of puzzles to keep it fresh. It all culminates in a final boss fight, which is the first of its kind and feels like instead it should be a first boss of many, exploring new ways to use the hole mechanic to overcome different enemies, but unfortunately it runs out of ideas far too quickly.

It’s apt then that the central mechanic is a hole, because I couldn’t help but feeling a little empty when it was over. It felt like the potential had been sucked down under Donut County like the rest of the inhabitants, and that’s a shame. Sure the wacky humour and well designed sound and visual aesthetic make what you do play enjoyable, and the cathartic nature of seeing everything succumb to the abyss never gets old. But for the £9.99 price tag it feels like it could have been so much more, with different elements thrown in to mix up the gameplay. You’ll definitely enjoy what you play in Donut County, but for some, you’ll be left hungry for another bite or two.

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Broadly speaking, Sunless Sea is a rogue-like, and with each run more of the game is uncovered. At the beginning all you are told is that the year is 1888 and London has fallen, stolen by bats and dragged a mile underground to a dark place called the Neath which is situated in the middle of a dark and dangerous ocean called the unterzee. You are a “zailor” seeking their fame and fortune on the waves, your reasons for which range from searching for the bones of your dead father, to a poet looking for tales of adventure, or perhaps a priest looking to commune with the Gods out in the terrifying blackness of the ocean. The world is an eerie, Lovecraftian nightmare vision of London, ruled by a shadowy group of people called The Masters. Nothing is clear, everything seems shrouded in secrecy waiting for you to peel back the layers. Over time you realise that those secrets are a currency to be shared with the various factions and individuals you choose to take on tasks for.

Previously released on PC, Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition marks its console debut, and it is an odd title for the platform. There is a sense that it plays like a table top game, or a choose your own adventure book with walls of text describing events and various options for you to choose from, interspersed with the physical movement of your ship travelling from location to location. Perhaps in keeping with the idea of a board game, you play Sunless Sea top down. Sailing is a matter of resource management, your main currencies being fuel and supplies. If either one of these depletes to zero then it is likely to be game over. There is also another resource for you to keep your eye on as you explore and that is terror. Let that become too high and you and your crew are likely to go insane and end up killing each other or scuttling your craft into the darkness of the zee. The early stages then are a matter of venturing out exploring, but keeping close to your home port so you can return to stock up on more fuel and food for your crew, and take some shore leave to quell the rising fear.

Exploration is the name of the game. As you venture out you will find other ports and islands, each with their own mysteries to uncover. Island exploration is done via the visual narration with options for you to choose from. Tasks range from simply securing a port report of the island for the Harbour master to consume when you return, to more involved quests that may or may not be unlocked for you depending on whether you have encountered one of the many other secrets the unterzee has to offer. The further your captain explores and survives the more information you gather and the more options open up for you, so much so that with a lengthy run through you are following the threads of multiple quest lines. It can be hard to keep track of each one, and after a while the various absurdities of the world of the unterzee start to blend in. Was it the island of cats that gave me the red honey? Or was it the island of masks? Which mask did I choose?, and who wants the red honey?

Unlike most rogue-likes, Sunless Sea is a ponderous game. The act of sailing from island to island takes time. Upon arrival the wall of text and various options to choose from take a while to read and process. This demand on your time actively works against the rogue-like elements. Whereas death is often a reward and an opportunity to try again in faster examples of this genre, the slower-paced nature of the movement and narrative delivery means that the loss of a successful run could be enough put you off trying again. Upon death you can choose to take on a lineage of your previous captain meaning your new attempt could start you with more currency, or a valuable crew member, as well as some knowledge of the local area around home base. Choose none of these things and the map starts from fresh albeit structured in a slightly different way. However, there is no escaping the fact that the early stages of the game will deliver much of the same stories you have already consumed and completed, but perhaps in a slightly different order. This has the effect of creating an experience of exploration with an ever decreasing sense of return.

Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition is without doubt a unique title. The bizarre setting and the way the game is delivered is under-pinned by some incredible writing that provides richness and intrigue to the world. The stories you gather as you play through each run are by far its greatest asset, however, the slow pace, as well as the deliberately obscure delivery won’t attract everyone. For those that do enjoy this type of thing though, there is a substantial amount of content for extended play, with hundreds of secrets to discover and story threads to follow.

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Whereas with the Iron Maiden game you were Eddie looking to piece himself back together, here you’re a student of a magic academy studying magical creatures which spawn from soulstones. It is your job to raise and battle with these creatures through a series of wave themed turn based battles with blooming great dragons waiting for you at the end of each themed area. Clearing each node awards you experience and items, while like most F2P games, regular log ins and daily missions throw materials at you to convince you to carry on playing, and, it works.

You won’t want for energy – at least at the beginning – and your creatures improve at an ok lick with battles, but their XP goes up much more when coupled with potions outside of battle; there are other ways to improve them too. Once a creature has reached the maximum level for their rank you can improve it, taking them from a two star rank to three, for instance, and then needing to level them up all over again. Then you can improve the three skills your creatures have by having them consume other creatures of the same elemental family. And finally you can evolve them once you have the required items, which will require a lot of chests to be opened and a lot of quests to be undertaken.

Battles take the form of your creature team of up to four fighting a group of enemies, each of which have their own elemental affinity. When it’s a creature’s turn to attack you choose the ability to use, the game then displays an arrow (green, yellow or red), and you choose which enemy you want them to attack. It’s pretty simple stuff in that regard. Where it gets more complex though is how your creatures attacks can buff their fellow party members, with either improved haste, strength or critical chance, and also the same goes for your enemies.

Thing is, games like this obfuscate progression systems behind many different facets for two reasons, to give the illusion of depth and to slow down real progression. The fact that levels are one thing, but you can separately improve skills, then evolution. Everything is done by consuming something else, and these are all gained by grinding the game. Eventually you hit a difficulty wall and need to go back and do things on higher tiers for more XP and loot, that will only get you so far before the wall hits again, and this rotation gets smaller and smaller because there’s only so much you can do without spending money.

F2P mechanics can be good, if they’re done right, but when you can’t be certain of tangible benefit after spending money it becomes hard to justify, and here I have to question just how far many will allow themselves to go without biting at the store’s teet. The drip drip drip of creatures and materials is agonisingly slow, and you’ll find the glut of levelling up potions slows exponentially very early into the game. I know they need to make money, but I really wish there was a way to charge for the game to do that, or to not complicate the progression systems so much, because this is a pretty good game outside of the nickel and diming.

Balancing your team, ensuring their buffs compliment others abilities, heck even the times when you crack open a soul stone to get a new creature it’s all very nice, nicely presented and designed to hook you. Thankfully there’s at least a glut of things to do. There’s the main missions, then you can re-do those at higher tiers, then there’s separate missions in similar areas and arena battles against other people, and you’ll have plenty of energy to take it all on as much as you want during a day. It all looks really nice, and it’s presented lovely and all, but your mileage will vary as much as you find F2P mechanics palatable.

All in all, take the F2P mechanics out of the equation and considering this is free you’ll find a lot to enjoy here because there’s a load of content to take part in when you come up against a wall. Roadhouse Games’ Legacy of the Beast was uninteresting outside of its Iron Maiden soundtrack, at least here there’s so much to do, and it’s so much nicer to look at; as a result this is certainly worth a look, you have nothing to lose at all, and considering it’s a decent RPG-lite you might just like it…just like I do.

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Inspired by the artworks of scientist Fritz Khan, Homo Machina charts the day of a person waking up, going to work and then going on a date in the evening. As part of the crew keeping them ship shape it’s up to you to move between the various bodily functions and prod, swipe, poke and strum to fulfil the tasks at hand. The body is mapped out like a steampunk robot with cogs, pistons, cranks, and old fashioned light bulbs on top of consoles.

Starting with thumping machines to start up the central nervous system and catching a whiff of the scent of coffee, you’ll find yourself in control of mastication – chewing up food and absorbing it into the system before heading to work and ensuring the body parts work to fulfil the daily job. The thing is, as fun and clever all this bits and bobs are Homo Machina runs out of ideas quickly, so much so that when you reach the end of it’s hour long run time you’ll be asking yourself “Is this it?”. This feeling is made worse by the puzzles themselves not being challenging in any way; although it can be difficult to tell which elements can be interacted with and which ones are just set dressing. Basically apart from one puzzle where part of the function of the ear is portrayed as an oscilloscope where you need to match the wave patterns, you won’t really have much trouble going through this.

Don’t misunderstand me here, the ending is really touching in a clumsy blundering way, but I feel it comes in too soon. We know what our bodies go through in a day, and it’s obvious that these actions that we’re performing take place in a split second, but I feel Darjeeling could have elongated the processes and made us perform more elements of a daily routine (driving a car, going to the toilet, or having a shower) it would have been great if the game could have gone on a bit longer, and unfortunately, once it’s over, the desire to go through it again just doesn’t materialise.

This brevity is disappointing because Homo Machina is incredibly charming. The way the little workers interact with each other, how the machinery works and the ending is all nice and twee to watch unfold, that’s why it would have been great if there had just been a little bit more of it. As a result what’s here is like a dinner at a fancy restaurant, it’s lovely to experience, but it’s a bit pricey and the satisfaction you get is short lived. At the end of it all, you’ll be wishing you had a palate cleanser.

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So, as you’ll probably know from the comparison to Hitman and Lara Croft GO this is a puzzle adventure game, you swipe in directions to move your vandal and avoid the cops waiting to catch you. If they spot you they’ll give chase meaning you need to shake them off. Illegal activities such as spray painting and cutting fences can alert them, while you can throw bottles and whistle to distract them and lead them on wild goose chases. You need to understand how the enemies move and how your distractions can affect those movements before you can even think of spraying the target.

The game mixes things up as you go, with bushes you can hide in to skip turns, manhole covers you can use to move through the sewers, cops that continuously move, and dogs that can see in all directions and also bark to alert nearby cops; there’s certainly enough variation in the puzzling itself to keep you entertained across the five cities ‘Gotta tag ‘em all!’

There’s a real kick here with being able to do the tags yourself, whether you freestyle it or spraying the name tag you created at the start, it’s quite fun. The actual toolset is pretty limited with only nine colours and three spray ‘sizes’, but you’ll be surprised at what you can do if you just spend a bit of time with it and use your imagination, which if you look at my examples you’ll see that I used neither a decent amount of time or a lick of imagination.

The look is purely inspired by Lara Croft GO, with angular, polygonal models and low-fi backgrounds and for the most part it works. Skulking around avoiding cops in the dead of night is a really nice angle; although what cops are doing just hanging around using up resources just to stop a single kid from spray painting a wall, I have no idea. The problem is, despite moving from city to city and year to year the actual locations have very little variation outside of layout. It’s the same greys, purples and blacks and the same looking buildings. Even the cops look the same, a bit of variety would have been welcome here.

Because of how the cops act and move, and what they do when they encounter areas they’ve been attracted to there’s a little lag to how you move around. After you move, the enemies move and while that’s going on you’re frozen in place, but inputs are still read. On several occasions I found myself making extra moves I didn’t want to make because I thought my original swipe hadn’t registered. They’re lovely animations, don’t get me wrong, but I feel they could have been sped up a bit just to make the game feel a little nippier in action.

There’s not really much more to say about Vandals really, it’s not quite as good as Lara Croft GO, but a bit better than Hitman GO, essentially if you enjoyed those other games and you’ve wanted something similar to get your teeth into. If you haven’t played those games I’d suggest getting Lara first before trying this out, just to see if this type of puzzle game appeals to you. It’s a nice change and it’s great that ARTE experience put their own unique slant on this, but it’s just not quite as good as what went before.

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You play as Zee, an adorable little boy who, while playing in a park finds a squirrel that he decides to follow, and by doing so accidentally falls into a portal and is transported to another world. This new world consists of two halves, a normal, every day scene and an upside-down realm that doesn’t always mirror the other half. Each of the seventy or so levels has the same objective – help Zee to navigate the space to exit out of the portal, and hopefully to help him find his way home again.

The game takes you to a variety of locations. You start in the park and travel via a suburban area to an amusement park and a beach. Each of the locations serve only as a background to the puzzle though and offer nothing by way of solution other than as a gorgeous hand crafted space to work in. Samsara is a very pretty game with a soft, hand painted feel to the backdrops. The mirrored, or rather upside-down world, echoes the real one but with a shadowy, purple hue. At times it feels like the world underneath is the reflection of the world above, as if mirrored in a pool of water, but it never quite feels right. There is a sense of unease about the underneath world that unfortunately isn’t expanded on.

There isn’t much by way of a story to Zee, or rather nothing is made explicit. It’s clear that Zee has fallen through to an alternate reality, and in that other dimension is another boy who resembles a shadowy version of Zee, or perhaps he is Zee, but he has been fractured in some way. As you progress further into the game you encounter levels where as well as guiding Zee to the portal you must also help his shadowy counterpart to his own portal as well. Each boy has a different, specific effect on the environment that in later levels you need to exploit so that their movements assist the other one to escape. It isn’t enough in these levels that our Zee escapes, his shadow must do also.

To solve puzzles you are given very limited tools that comprise of a small number of shapes that have different properties as you progress through. In the beginning you have objects that are simply placed in the world either in the top-side or upside-down worlds that create platforms and steps for the boys to cross via. If you place an object in the upside-down, it will mirror in the top-side world, conversely, placing that same object in the real world will not reflect in the shadowy world. Solving puzzles then, becomes a mixture of experimenting by placing and rotating objects in each half of the world to find the best fit. Later levels follow the same principles, however, the objects take on different properties, for example much of the late game puzzles use objects seemingly forged from a substance like gold that when placed in the underside space will shift up in the over-world as if repulsed by a force like that of two magnets opposing each other.

There are some really interesting ideas at work in Samsara. The different properties that each shape has as you move through the game, combined with the effect each boy has on the environment make for some reasonably challenging puzzles as you progress, but nothing was particularly difficult. Of the seventy or so puzzles that Samsara throws at you, there were only one or two that had me momentarily stumped and even then it was only for ten minutes or so. I am not saying that I wanted to be stumped for hours, but I was hoping for a little more consistent challenge, and I think therein lies the problem. For all of the nice ideas that Samsara presents to you, it never really evolves them as you progress. There are some puzzles that add complexity by placing teleportals that transfer Zee and his shadow to other places in the puzzle, but you are still only placing the objects in the world to create ramps and sometimes barriers to change the boy’s direction, you never have to think too many steps ahead to solve it. This is perhaps in part with the very generous system that retains all your object placements should you fail – each puzzle becomes a process of trial and error until the solution presents itself.

Although Samsara isn’t a huge game, the sheer amount of puzzles you solve makes it feel like it slightly overstays its welcome, something I think is amplified a little by the lack of variety. Once you have completed all seventy-seven levels you can go back through them all, but this time inverting them. The solutions are more or less the same, of course, however, you make much more use of the reflection technique that the under-world offers you.

For all of my criticisms of Samsara, I did enjoy what I played. The world was a nice space to inhabit, and I liked the duality of the two Zee’s and the challenges to get both of them through their respective portals. I did feel a little fatigued towards the end as the puzzles don’t really vary that much other than adding in a little gravity bending properties, and a teleport here and there. Samsara is a pleasant puzzle game, but it ultimately fails to provide any moment of real achievement at having solved something particularly mind-bending.

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Gorogoa begins with a strange creature flying around a city, and a young boy who seems to want to find it and communicate with it. Without dialogue or basic storytelling, it’s difficult to say what exactly the game is really about. Even by the end, I was still none the wiser. But it’s beautifully presented and there are hints of story here and there, possibly more easily seen by those with a bigger brain than mine. The way to commune with the creature, it seems, is to find five magical balls for some kind of offering. And so, with this in mind, the boy sets off to find these spherical trinkets.

This is where things get even weirder. You see, finding these balls isn’t as simple as visiting a few locations like Nathan Drake or Lara Croft might; it’s a little more complicated than that. The main mechanic of Gorogoa is moving scenes around so that they connect in abstract, yet somehow logical ways.

Let me explain, as you’re no doubt confused. Hell, I’m confused and I’m the one writing this bloody review. When the game begins, you’re presented with a large square in the centre of the screen, split into four smaller squares. In one square, you’ll watch the animation of the boy as he’s watching this mythical creature in the distance. Once the animation ends, the scene will remain static and you’ll use the mouse to discover clickable elements within the frame. This zooms into an item or pans across to another room, but soon enough you’ll find yourself dragging the image onto another square, revealing another scene underneath. Often, scenes will have a window of some kind and, once layered over another scene, this window will reveal something integral to the plot and your progression.

This mechanic is incredibly intelligent and certainly unique, and it gets more and more complex as the game goes on. There are six chapters, with five of them focusing on the retrieval of each magical sphere I mentioned earlier. They seem to span different locations and even periods in time, which further increased my inability to make any sense of its plot. But to be honest, the story felt less important than the puzzles contained within the two hours of Gorogoa.

Logic plays a big part in solving the puzzles throughout the game, as often it’s just a case of finding a ledge in one scene, that can be placed alongside another scene’s ledge to create a walkway. Or it’s about using a star to bring a lamp’s light to life, attracting a moth that then offers the next layer of the puzzle in the design upon its wing. That said, it sometimes stretches logic a bit and you’ll be forced to think outside the box, which can sometimes go against the flow and make things too complicated. During chapter four, for example, it becomes necessary to create multiple scenes at once, putting them together to form larger, animated scenes that will alter the state of each individual square. While this is happening, you’ll need to move other scenes around and prepare to switch things around quickly. The game doesn’t exactly ease you into this during earlier chapters, so it can become a bit overwhelming. That said, more intelligent folk than I might not struggle quite as much, but a truly great puzzle game would subtly teach players of any level, through intelligent gameplay mechanics as you play. It is possible to beat Gorogoa’s puzzles using brute force as I did on one particular occasion, but it should never have come to that.

It might seem like I’m being overly harsh on the game, but I want to assure you that it really is a good puzzle game. Its use of space in those four squares is phenomenal at times, and it’s a great feeling when you work out the solution to a particularly difficult brainteaser. Gorogoa also looks fantastic, thanks to its beautiful, hand drawn animations that often look like moving paintings. The variety in each chapter is great too, offering something different each time you’re presented with the next piece of the story.

But that is where things go a little wrong, too. The story rarely makes any kind of sense. I came away from the game’s ending none the wiser about what happened. Considering its brief length it’s not easy to overlook poor storytelling, especially when other games have done better, even without dialogue. It’s a shame, because Gorogoa is genuinely a good game with plenty of depth in its design, but sadly its problems do make it hard to recommend to anyone other than the most dedicated puzzle fans. Even then, I’m not sure it lasts long enough.

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Her Majesty is set in some sort of horrific, nightmarish alternative universe in which the United Kingdom has gone nuts and nationalistic identities have roared back to the forefront. As a result ol’ Liz has become dismayed with the political turmoil in her nation and she has decided that she can no longer trust her inept government so has disappeared in a Big Ben spaceship to find new, distant worlds to conquer to create a galactic British Empire. What a crazy concept, eh?

Aboard the HMS Imperialise, a mini-cooper-turned-space-shuttle, you play Captain Frank Lee English, who is accompanied by his Welsh sub-lieutenant Aled Jones, as they boldly travel through space in order to find new planets. Things immediately go awry and in true point-and-click fashion, it’s your job to find seemingly innocuous objects to solves a series of problems. Thankfully, unlike point-and-clicks of years gone by, the answers to every puzzle follows actual normal logic and with a bit of thought each puzzle is solvable. The only time I came into trouble is when I didn’t realise that I could interact with objects in my inventory, turn them around and such, which was often the solution to problems. So a little tip for you, there. Veteran fans of the genre may find the puzzles a bit simple, but I for one enjoyed the straight forwardness for a change.

Easily the best aspect here is the sharp and continuously funny writing. There are consistently hilarious jokes from start to finish, but there is a wide range of them, too. You have your obvious topical pokes at the EU Referendum, you have an abundance of meta, fourth-wall breaking jokes on video games and point-and-clicks especially, and the characters themselves playoff their obvious stereotypes in a knowing, humorous way. Frank is the star of the show and his “right good English gent” act is an easily recognisable pastiche on posh bastards, and it honestly got genuine laughs out of me on a number of occasions. My favourite line being, upon Frank seeing an electric fence: “Just like I told the boys on our rugby tour of the Netherlands in 87, I’m not touching that without protection.”

Her Majesty’s Spiffing may genuinely be one of the funniest video games in recent times. The only thing that didn’t really land for me, and felt a little trite, was the French characters that were introduced. While they were just as stereotypical as the Brits, it felt a bit lazy and not as clever or self aware. It’s just a shame then that it’s over so soon. I’d say it’s a two hour job at absolute tops, depending on how much you struggle with the puzzles. It really just feels as if things are about to get going when the credits (which are also funny) start to roll. I can appreciate that maybe the developers didn’t want the game to outstay its welcome, but I was left thirsty for much more of the writing and the sudden ending made the whole thing feel unfinished. Especially since there were some creepy horror aspects introduced that never appeared again.

But, it must be said, being left wanting more is a much better way to end than being overly fatty. Her Majesty’s Spiffing is a funny game for the entirety and its a point-and-click game for those who may not get along with some of the convoluted classics of the past.

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