Game reviews – Page 15 – Savior Gaming

Alan Wake 2

13 years since we last joined writer Alan Wake and his battle against the otherworldly Dark Presence. 13 years since he went missing in Cauldron Lake, a new threat has emerged in Bright Falls. Violent rituals being perpetrated by a cult seemingly inspired by Wake’s works have attracted FBI attention. Agent Saga Anderson and her partner Alex Casey are on the case- quickly realizing nothing is how it seems and Bright Falls has more than a murder cult and a cast of strange characters to contend with. Reality is being rewritten and the Dark Presence is returning, this time under the guise of the malevolent Mr. Scratch. As Saga’s history comes crashing down, the mystery of all mysteries is what happened to Alan Wake?

Alan Wake remastered was a solid action experience with a great story and some really irritating parts. Wake 2 is a modern horror masterpiece. The story is absolutely fascinating with plenty of twists and character development. Visually, the game is incredible, blending animation and live action flawlessly. The gameplay is improved but overall the game is more difficult; full disclosure, I sucked at this game because I’m the worst pathfinder in existence and I rushed through many of the goodies that would have helped a lot for the endgame. I was impressed how genuinely errie and tense the game gets, especially in the second half. Poets of the Fall return with new bangers as the Old Gods of Asgard, including a great live performance with the cast. What gripes I have are pretty small- I wasn’t a fan of the upgrade system for weapons, the reality shifts as Wake himself get confusing, and the game requires a learning curve for Saga’s mind place and Alan’s writing room but they don’t really subtract from the game for me. I will warn you, the real ending appears after the second playthrough on the Final Draft, but both endings are damn good. In the end, I highly recommend this if you love old sci-fi, classic David Lynch and Stephen King, or want a different kind of horror game. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

How 2 Escape: Lost Submarine PS5 Review

How 2 Escape: Lost Submarine on PS5 is a sort of escape room puzzle meant for 2 people. It was sent my way by the guys and gals over at Just For Games, and I always appreciate that.

Playing this with my girlfriend actually gave me a fun perspective. See, only one person needs a copy of this to play, one person plays from an app on their phone, and the other one from their PS5 ( it is available on Xbox and Steam), and you are both given different info. One can explore the ship and mess with different controls. For example, in the first room, you can look through a periscope to see lighthouses or some controls. The other person can see some menus on how to operate those controls.

The two of you must work together and pass information back and forth to unlock the room and get to the next room. Each room has different controls, items to find, and puzzles to solve. If you are like me, this is fascinating and a lot of fun. If you are like my girlfriend, this is torture, and you demand to know why I am doing this to her and what she did to deserve this.

After a couple of rooms, I was forced to pick a different partner and restart the game. I figured my ex-wife would be a great choice. This turned out to be an even worse choice. It was sort of like doing an escape room with someone who has no desire to escape because eventually someone will open the door for you, or because they know the rest of the class will do all the work.

I then moved on to my third choice. My 19-year-old daughter. This time went much better, I let her take the console and I used the app on my phone. It felt nice and was easy to use. We managed to get through the game fairly well together.

The story is fun and the game functions well, and the app works well even on my phone, which is in dire need of replacement. With a price point of about $13 regardless of where you buy it, calling this a 7/10 game that escape room fans will love is a fair statement. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Tiny Aquarium: Social Fishkeeping Steam Review

Tiny Aquarium: Social Fishkeeping is a small title from Lunheim Studios with a straightforward concept. One, they were nice enough to send me to check out, and I always appreciate that.

The idea is to let you build your own virtual fish tank. You can buy eggs of different qualities, and they hatch into random fish. And don’t worry, while you can separate them into fresh or salt water, you don’t have to. The fish won’t even eat each other. This is a stress-free environment for you and the fish.

Other people can come and visit your tank and leave little reactions if they enjoy it, and you can do the same for them. It is a nice touch that there are sometimes rewards for doing. You can’t spam the reactions ( you are limited to about 5 a day), but you can view all the tanks you want.

Another nice touch, if not a bit unethical, is the ability to get a group together to go fishing. This seems to increase your odds of catching more rare fish to toss in your tank. (Don’t do this in real life)

/ So what are my thoughts? The game costs $5 and has the option to just sit on the bottom of your screen while you do work, or you can focus on it when you have some time to kill. The graphics are cute, and it functions very well. I wish I didn’t have to spend so much in-game money just upgrading my tank to keep more fish, or that it was easier to get the decorations I want, but the game is great for what it is meant to be, an easy 9/10 must buy for this genre. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Maximum Football PS5 Review

Maximum Football on PS5 is a free-to-play football game from Maximum Entertainment, but as always with my full disclosures, they did toss me this a bit early and with a few freebies tossed in so I can dive in and really check out the customization. So if you are one of the people who played the Scranton Dragon Fire, you are welcome. I am horrible at this game, but my team looks damn good I think.

Honestly, the gameplay is solid, I would say don’t come in here expecting Madden, but I don’t know if that is a compliment or not. Running feels nice, and while I may be the world’s worst QB ( Dak Prescott during the playoffs excluded, Go Eagles!) the game does play well.

There are a lot of small things I love about this game. While they take a great pro football approach, there are some arcade aspects to it. For example, I haven’t played a game where someone hasn’t gotten hurt, and the game always tells me exactly what it was and how long they are out. Big hits also look vicious without looking cartoonish.

My only real issue is that, for a game with a ton of custom options and that is made to customize everything, basically everything is locked. I know they need to make money, and not everything requires real money to unlock, but damn even with a headstart I had to make a lot of choices.

All this being said, if you want to play football and don’t want to spend $60 on Madden, this is a 7/10 experience. There is no reason this should not be in your rotation if you enjoy sports. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Drug Dealer Simulator PS5 review

For those who have been waiting, it is finally over. Drug Dealer Simulator has finally hit PlayStation. Now, many of you have already read my review of Drug Dealer Simulator (Xbox Review), and if you have, you honestly do not need to read this one. The people who sent me the game over at Ultimate Games have done a great job making the experience pretty great across every console.

From the start, a typical day starts like this. Use your laptop to contact Eddie and tell him how much of each drug you want. Then go pick them up from the drop-off point and bring them home. Hopefully, you don’t get nailed by the cops and really screw yourself over. Don’t worry, early in the game, this is pretty easy to do. From here, you set up your deals again with the laptop. Use your table to split your drugs up into smaller quantities and make your deals.

With more experience between versions, I can say right from the start, I found it worth it, just not selling weed and only selling amphetamines. This was where you could spend some of your money to mix baking soda with your drugs. This could take your 100 grams and turn it into 130 grams.

This was just my preference, and you can obviously do whatever you choose. This is honestly one of my favorite aspects of the game. For the most part, if you don’t like dealing with something, you just don’t.

The price point for this game is also fantastic, $25 for a game with hours of time to play, a story to follow if you want, dealers to hire, and more property to rent than you can shake a baggy of dope at, and the ability to customize them into little hide outs and drug houses is amazing. I also find it relaxing to just rummage through garbage to find jewelry and stuff to sell to help launder money to pay for it all.

The game is an 8/10 experience. If you like simulators like this, this is probably the best one out there. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Ship of Fools PS5 Review

Ship of Fools is a rogue-lite from Team 17 Software, and they were kind enough to send me this after they sent me Nice Day For Fishing Steam Review, which I appreciate both. They make some great games, so please go check them out.

The game starts out simple enough: you are stranded on an island thanks to some calamity, given a boat and some cannons, and you must go fight evil creatures in an attempt to collect power-ups, save new crew members, and stop the forces of evil.

I think that’s the story anyway, I wasn’t paying attention, I was killing flies, trying to sink my ship, and smacking stuff with a boat oar. It takes effort to run around loading cannons, collecting wood to fix my ship by firing harpoons, and all that jazz that keeps the game exciting. Make no mistake, playing solo, the game is fast-paced and exciting. Do not be fooled, though, while there is a trophy for playing solo, most people don’t have it for good reason. This game is made for two players, either online or couch.

With fluid controls and cute graphics, and multiple crew members known as Fools to choose from, each with different abilities that make them better at certain things, the replay value is pretty high. Even the process of unlocking them will take more than a few runs.

Which Fool to use isn’t the only choice to make; which cannon to use is also a decision. Do you want two cannons that fire slower but will auto-target enemies when you aren’t using them? Do you want one that can be charged up to unload all of its ammo? Speaking of ammo, different ships have different ammo, and different ammo can be found during a run. Some freeze enemies occasionally, for example.

Ship of Fools is an amazing game if you like multiplayer games, but it does lose something when playing alone. It is still an 8/10 game, but it is absolutely made for 2. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Stalker Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition PS5 Review

This version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on PS5 was sent to me by the guys and gals over at GSC Game World, and I always appreciate that and like to get it out of the way first.

This review won’t focus on the story of the games too much, as there are 3 games in the trilogy with wildly different stories, for example, the first game in the series, Shadow of Chornobyl deals with the exclusion zone after the fall while the 2nd game in the series, Clear Sky has you playing as Scar and is a prequal to the first game and takes place before it all.

Instead, I want to focus on how the gameplay and functions compare to previous releases of the game. Well, outdated, honestly, in many regards. The movement feels kind of janky and jumpy compared to modern games and less fluid, something that easily could have been taken care of. Do not get me wrong, it works just fine, but if you are used to modern games, the sudden return can feel jarring. Following the map, most notably in the first game, can also feel awkward.

That being said, this is truly the best way to experience the game. It has never looked better in a release, and the controls have never been more fluid than they are now. The sound has also been greatly improved, as you imagine.

I know many of these seem to go against what I just said; that is because the game is quite old, almost 20 years at this point. The original was released in 2007, and a lot has changed since then. Games have come a long way, and they haven’t all aged the same. Playing the 2007 version of this game is a painful experience at this point, and this release gives everyone a chance to experience this in a way they can enjoy it again. It isn’t great, but it isn’t bad either. 7/10 experience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Windward Horizon Steam Review

Windward Horizon, over on Steam, was sent to me by the people over at Tasharen Entertainment, which I am always grateful for.

The game itself is technically just a sailing game. Your captain dies, and you are somehow voted the new captain by the crew. You return him home, the crew gives you some recommendations on what to do as sort of a tutorial, and away you go. You start off by getting some new sails and are told that a new ship would be smart. How you get there is pretty much up to you.

If you want to spend some time fishing and sell it for profit, feel free to do so. You want to hunt down pirates or work on a quest, that’s up to you. With a small sloop at your disposal, trading isn’t easy at this stage, but it can be done.

This is kind of what I enjoyed about the game the most, sure it looks nice and it plays well, the controls function great. But it is rare that a game says play it how you want and then doesn’t force you into doing what it wants you to anyway. I was never forced into fighting pirates, really, outside of certain world events, and even those, if I didn’t want to do them, I just stayed away or left that part of the map, no harm, no foul.

My only real issue with the game I came across is that once, during a sea battle, my ship and an allied ship got stuck together. It worked out well because our cannons still worked, and he kept healing me as I kept killing people. We did eventually separate, and it was a one-time occurrence. It is something to be aware of during battles that it can happen.

The game cost $20, however, and it is well worth every penny of it. It is an 8/10 experience, and it will be something I play for a long time to come. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Stunt Flyer Xbox and PS5 Review

Stunt Flyer on Xbox Series S/X and on PS5 (PlayStation version available June 12th) were both sent to me by the people over at Ultimate Publishing. I always like working with these guys and appreciate when they send me games to check out.

Stunt Flyer is a very basic and user-friendly game when compared to its original Nintendo Wii release. The PS5 and Xbox versions have much better graphics and contain a split-screen co-op mode and vastly better controls. The switch version, I am told, also has all this, but I haven’t played that version.

The game does show its age in some ways, the game tosses you straight into a tutorial, then just lets you free fly around. You fly through rings to start missions such as shooting targets with water balloons or flying through rings in a time attack sort of race. There are also about 50 gifts to collect. As an adult, I quickly grew tired of this.

There is a flip side to this; my 8-year-old daughter loved the game. The controls were simple, and the graphics are cute. She crashed the plane just to see the character shake his fist at the screen a few times. Most of the missions are also not very difficult, and the only punishment for taking a long time is that you have an easier time improving on the score later if you want.

This game is honestly not bad, but it very much seems to be for younger kids. If you are a parent looking for something reasonably priced to play alongside your kids, $15 is a small price to pay to see them smile. I would never buy this game for myself, but with my daughter, it was a 9/10 experience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Prey

Have you ever had that 1 game that haunted you? You wanted to get into it, pmped hours in, but never never clicked. Prey is one such game for me. Long time followers will know I wrote mini posts on my time with it nearly a decade ago. In my time away, I managed to finish it and months later my thoughts are still pretty potent.

We play as Morgan Yu, newly brought onto the Talos 1 space station by your brother to get a new life, with a fancy new job and life. Life looks great. That is until Morgan wakes up to catastrophe as a inky, black, extraterrestrial called the Typhon unleashing on the station. The Typhons can mimic nearly anything, living or inanimate as well as possess extraordinary abilities. Not only must Morgan survive but also uncover Talos’s secret while struggling to stay human, but then again, what is human?

So Prey is a hell of an experience. At first, I was expecting Bioshock in space. There are some pretty deep questions about humanity and identity in the game and it is a creative sim unlike no other. The number of solutions to problems is pretty impressive. The AI for the Typhons is pretty damn smart; you are tense because literally anything can be an enemy. Resources are scarce, and enemies hit extremely hard, and you do have to think about each encounter which is one of my favorite things about the game but also why I hate it. Normal for prey is hard on any other game. Story mode is the medium setting. This game will kick your ass if you aren’t a surviaal, stealth, horror veteran. The only complaint I truly have is the pathfinding is rough; you’re definitely going to be looking up videos because many times during my playthrough, the hub confused and mislead me. The setting is beautifully rendered. The music fits like a glove. I seriously recommend this game with caution because while not an easy game, there is a lot of great things to experience. May the gaming gods bring you glory.