Category: Game reviews

The Axis Unseen

The Axis Unseen on Xbox Series S/X was sent to me by Dark Product, you may know them as the people who also brought you Ratshaker PS5 Review, which was one of the more wtf games I played. Now, The Axis unseen isn’t in the same realm, and it was made by a solo developer (Nate Purkeypile), and I have to say, while I have played a lot of games made by solo devs before, not many are this ambitious.

At its core, this seems to just be a hunting game where you explore, kill strange creatures, and see what you can find. Dig a little deeper past the opening bits, and you will see it is so much more than that. With a soundtrack made by Clifford Meyer of the bands ISIS and Red Sparrowes, you will quickly find yourself hunting mythical creatures, enriched with folklore to heavy metal music that truly fits the landscape.

There is a minimalist approach as well to this game, which I normally don’t like, but The Axis Unseen manages to make sure you don’t lose any information. At the push of a button, you can check how many arrows you have, but this isn’t a wasted movement since this is also how you check wind direction. You bow itself holds a wealth of information as well.

There are some downsides, if you can call them that. The story is hidden behind journal entries that can be long. If you don’t want to explore or hate reading, this could be a problem for you. The game does have a pretty steep learning curve as well, but the game pretty much has every difficulty option you want, to the point that there is a pacifist mode where enemies won’t even attack until you attack them. While you won’t be able to beat the game like this ( you basically have to kill stuff, obviously), it will let you explore at your leisure and only fight when you choose to.

Is this game great? Honestly, no, there are some bugs, and the enemies are a bit weird in their movements. Is the game good? Absolutely, it is. The game is a 7/10 experience that can easily improve with an update or two. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Hunter Call of The Wild Premium Trophy Mount DLC Review

Yesterday, you may have read my review for The Hunter Call of the Wild: Scotland Hunting Reserve DLC Playstation 5 DLC Review. Well, today we are talking about the smaller, but for some of you, just as important Tropy Mount DLC. Once again, Avalanche Studios was kind enough to send me a copy of this to check out, so I would love to thank them for this once again.

The real question with all of these DLC packs is, are they worth the price point? This one is smaller, only $4, and comes with a few things that I will copy and paste from the PlayStation Store as to not mislead anyone.

THE PREMIUM TROPHY MOUNT PACK – EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO CUSTOMIZE YOUR COLLECTION
THIS PACK CONTAINS

One Special Floor Mount – Supports Red Deer, Black Bear, Wild Boar, Roe Deer and European Bison
One Special Wall Mount – Supports Red Fox, Ring-Necked Pheasant, Merriam Turkey, Coyote and Canada Goose
Four Premium Platforms per size (40 total) – Authentic display to admire your achievements
Four Premium Plaques per size (16 total) – Museum-quality presentation of your trophies

Blackbear looks great imo

The real question for all of you is, do you enjoy mounting trophies and hunting these specific animals? For example, I have only shot a handful of birds my entire time playing the game, never shot a boar, and only a couple of coyotes when missions demand it. Being from Pennsylvania, however, I have hunted deer and bear all day because I don’t get out to hunt much these days in the real world. If you aren’t going to hunt these animals, why spend the $4? On the other hand, if your bread and butter, so to speak, are these animals and you love mounting your best kills, this is money well spent.

I can’t say this is a great DLC for everyone, and we all know I judge games and DLC based on the value it brings and how well it is done. For $4 and the right buyer, this is a 9/10 DLC. But think hard before you purchase it, because a lot of people will be spending $4 on content they will never use. Personally, it would be well worth the $4, for I know a few players who should never purchase this. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Hunter Call of the Wild: Scotland Hunting Reserve DLC Playstation 5 DLC Review

It’s that time again, my friends at Avalanche Studios have hooked me up with the new Call of the Wilds DLC, this time we are in the Scotlands Reserve on PlayStation 5. This time, we are asking the question, is it worth $12? Well, it is a simple one. Do you want new animals to shoot? This bad boy has 17 new ones. Do you care about the quest? This is packed with 8 main quests and 10 side quests. Some serious, some less serious. One of the first I came across was hunting some haggis.

Here is the important part to me, however, because truthfully, if you enjoy the game, you obviously want to do these things anyway. How does the map look? This map is absolutely beautiful. The views are breathtaking. I spent some time just riding around on my ATV, just taking in the sights or walking around. This might be my favorite map that the game has.

I truly can’t say enough about how great this DLC is, not because it does anything new or unexpected, but because the map itself is everything I had hoped for. It adds enough animals to hunt to be worth it alone, but the map is fantastic. This is a short review, I know, but it is an open map with great views, and it is easy to hunt. Also, if you have the feeder DLC, it becomes a great way to make money. It is a 9/10 DLC in my opinion. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Beneath Playstation 5 Review

Beneath is a first-person shooting horror game sent my way recently by the kind people over at Wired Productions. There has been a significant update recently that added a really interesting way to play the game. It focuses on a new retro look and gives it a 90s vibe. You can check out the trailer below. If you enjoyed the game before, I highly recommend jumping back in and checking this out. It is very well done. You can see the trailer for this below.

Now, for the base game itself, you start out under the sea itself as part of a crew investigating a submarine that many people have searched for decades to find. After a brief talk with your daughter and another friend, you make your way inside, only for what feels like an earthquake and an impending storm to halt your investigation. As you make your way back to your ship, some weird things start happening, and worse, you receive a distress signal from your ship above.

You eventually find yourself back on the ship, struggling to find your daughter, surrounded by dead bodies. These won’t stay dead long, and armed with nothing but a pistol, I found myself quickly overwhelmed and died a few times. Turns out you don’t have to kill everything you come across here.

After a great scene, I won’t spoil it for you. You wake up in a station, lost and confused. This is where the game starts to pick up. Up need to investigate the surrounding area and find a weapon to defend yourself from all sorts of threats, some as mundane as the station’s human security, and things that are far worse. Unlike most horror games, the fear isn’t generated by getting lost; the game actually posts maps for you to follow if you pay attention. The fear is from being in an environment that feels quite real. The place isn’t huge; it feels like a place people may actually work. Signs are hanging to show which rooms do what, bathrooms are properly labeled, offices have numbers, and elevators are properly labeled. There are even arrows showing where things are.

The fear is not knowing why things are the way they are, or what is around the corner. Papers are strewn about, and power comes and goes in certain places. Security is looking for someone or something, it seems, and many of them seem scared. Reading emails on computers that are left on paints a picture that something isn’t right, and the friendly people you meet as you struggle to save your daughter have very few answers.

The gameplay itself is solid; the guns could feel better, but this isn’t meant to be a simulator. This is a budget title after all, only costing $20 after all, and at that price point, I have no issue recommending this and calling it a 7/10 title. Also, knowing there are plans through 2026 to add more modes to the game, horror fans should really check this out. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders – Highlands Playstation 5 Review

Yesterday, you may have seen my review for full game review for Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders. Megagon Industries was also kind enough to send me a copy of the Highlands DLC to check out. I won’t be talking much about the game itself here because I recently covered that; instead, we will be discussing is the DLC is worth the $8 price tag.

First, the new slopes. There are 4 new trails with 2 slopes each. All of them add new challenges and times to beat. If you read my review, you would know I spent most of my time smashing into trees once again. I won’t hold my lack of skill against the game, however.

For those who can play the game well, all new leaderboards to master and climb. You won’t see me on them, but you guys feel free to set all sorts of new records.

This DLC also comes with new cosmetic armor to unlock, for example, the armor my character wears. It doesn’t offer any real protection, but it looks hilarious. So does the kilt. This brings us to the conclusion: is it worth $8? Truthfully, it all comes down to do you enjoy this game. Despite my crashing more than a toddler left alone with his Halloween candy, and the sugar wearing off, I am still having a lot of fun trying to figure out the best way to shave a few extra seconds off my time. A few extra trails and cosmetics are a nice add-on. It surely won’t be for everyone, however. It is a 7/10 DLC that only the most avid fans will want to pick up at full price. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Frostpunk 2 Fractured Utopias DLC – PS5 Review

Some of you may remember that not long ago, I covered the release of Frostpunk 2 PS5 Review. 11 Bit Studios was kind enough to send me the Fractured Utopias DLC on PS5. The question is, will this be worth the $13 price tag? Let’s explore that question.

For starters, everything comes into play during the Utopia Builder mode. So if you don’t play this mode, you are already out of luck. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see why you wouldn’t play what is basically the main mode of the game, but it is worth noting that this is where all the content is. Right from the start, you will notice you have the option to start with a faction, of which there are 8 new ones in total to discover.

Each faction also has its very own skill tree to make your way through. This alone will add hours of gameplay, making your way through each one can be a challenge, and it leaves plenty to see. I find this alone well worth the money.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what is new. Each faction has new variants on housing, unique laws, HUBS, abilities, and more. So much so that after hours of playing, I haven’t seen them all. I have also seen at least 40 new narrative events, and the store page claims there are over 100.

The only disappointing part of this is that we were only given one new map to play on. The two new premium tales, Doomsayers and Plague, are nice, however.

At the end of the day, this is a very nice DLC. We have all paid far more for DLC and gotten far less. $13 is a fair price for everything it gives. I would have liked one or two more maps, but I can live without them. It is an 8/10 DLC that fans of the game should definitely pick up. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Sleep Awake Playstation 5 Review

Sleep Awake is a psychological horror game from Blumhouse Games that they were kind enough to send me a copy of to check out. Now, most of you can probably figure out that Blumhouse Games is connected to Blumhouse Films. With that knowledge, you can probably figure you are in for a ride.

The story is simple: you play as Katja, a citizen of the last known city on Earth. Everyone is attempting to stay awake to avoid The Hush. The Hush is a weird phenomenon where anyone who sleeps disappears. Everyone in the world suffers from sleep deprivation; many can’t tell the difference between reality and make-believe. Some are running different types of scientific experiments to stay awake, and others swear pain is the saving grace for staying awake.

I won’t go more into the story than that because this is a game you HAVE to experience with as little knowledge as possible to truly enjoy. Suffice it to say if you see the trailers or enjoy Blumhouse movies, there is a good chance you will enjoy the game.

Instead, I want to focus on the gameplay and music. First, the music. Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails does music for this bad boy, and it is truly worth listening to. Each track lends itself to truly making the environment as eerie as possible when it needs to be, and when it doesn’t need to be, you feel like the world is as empty as you would imagine it to be. It isn’t the best music in gaming lately, but it is up there.

The gameplay itself is nice. The Puzzles aren’t hard for no reason, but they also don’t insult your intelligence. The maps leave you with room to explore without feeling empty and needlessly big. Stealth sections can be a challenge, but I never felt like the game shoehorned me into following an exact route or getting killed by a cheap enemy. Speaking of death, I never died and lost a ton of progress.

The game admittedly isn’t for everyone, but for people in this niche crowd, it is an 8/10 experience. So turn down the lights, and prepare to get creeped out. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dungeon Rampage Steam Review

Some of you may remember the good old days of flash games; Facebook was full of them. Dungeon Rampage was quite popular, and it has returned to Steam. Gamebreaking Studios was kind enough to send me a copy to review.

The game is quite simple: 1-4 people hack and slash their way through levels to find gold and treasure chests. You can use that gold to buy keys to open those chests to get powerful weapons and items. The experience you gain from this will also help you level up, and each time you level up, you will gain 5 gems. Gems can be used to buy new characters and cosmetic items for them, such as outfits.

This is where the flaw comes into an otherwise decently fun game for $10. The original version of the game was free to play, and like many of those games, it was essentially pay to progress. If you weren’t willing to sink potentially 100 or more hours into the game, you weren’t unlocking everything. The real money aspect has been completely removed; you buy the game, and you can play it as much as you want.

The issue is that they do not seem to have rebalanced the game. After the first hour, you will have more chest than you can open. Without the option to buy gold as the game intended, you start collecting more than you can open. Relying on leveling up and daily rewards to get gems also puts you on an extremely slow path to unlocking characters. The archer character is the cheapest to unlock, costing only 150 gems, which isn’t bad. The next 2, however, cost a whopping 800 each. That’s roughly 350 levels, which is way too long to be playing a game that doesn’t have a ton to offer to begin with.

The game does function as advertised, if that is worth playing or not is completely debatable, and I legitimately worry they will eventually turn it back into a pay-to-progress situation. It is a 5/10 for me. It functions, but I can’t recommend it. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.