Game reviews – Page 26 – Savior Gaming

Bus Simulator (PS4 Review)

As always, huge shout out to the ladies and gents over at Astragon Entertainment for hooking me up with a copy of Bus Simulator. When I first got this one I thought to myself there was no way this game would be interesting or fun, and I would play it for an hour and regret that decision. Well before I go further here is one of my busses.

Cute isn’t it? Like the color? I got a bunch more some bigger some smaller, all different colors and designs. Yea what I thought would be a one hour and dislike game turns into one of the most relaxing games I have played in years. The graphics aren’t stellar but they are nice.

The game has some issues like any game. For example, pedestrians seem to just walk in front of your bus, which isn’t a big issue but it has still happened to me a couple times. This can cost you a lot of money. You also don’t get to see it, they just kinda disappear and your bus just teleports back to the road. You can however just plow over cars if you want. This will, of course, cost you money, but it is an option.

The real joy here tho is just making bus routes and taking a relaxing drive. The controller functions well with the L1 and R1 buttons turning on and off your blinkers, the D-pad controls other functions and open menus while you drive and you can mostly look around to hit stuff as well. You can also just use the square button, for example, to open and close the bus doors. Don’t do this while driving tho, it engages the parking break so to speak and slams the bus into stopping.

The game also sadly gets very repetitive quickly, like most driving games. This has less to do with the game itself and more to do with the genre itself. It is very relaxing tho and a joy to play, but it is a very niche game. For me, it is a 7/10. It is a must-buy for fans of simulation games, but everyone else should really wait for a sale. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Tropico 6 (PS4 Review)

As always I want to take a moment to thank my friends over at Kalypso for hooking me up with a copy of this one prior to release. It is always great to be chosen to receive a review copy of a game but when it is a series you are a long time fan of, it is truly special, and this time I abused the privilege

For those that are unfamiliar with the Tropico franchise, you will play the dictator of a tropical paradise. You will run every aspect of this tropical paradise. You will choose what to build, where to build it, what to important export and who to kill and imprison. That isn’t a joke, by the way, you can imprison and kill people if their existence annoys you, after all, you are El Presidente.

We will get into all that in a bit, but one of my favorite things they added is the ability to customize your palace in new ways. You change the layout and color, the windows or even what it is made of. Want to change that fountain into a hedge maze, have at it. Here is a picture of mine for example. Honestly, I just wanted it to stand out so I could find it easily, plus I really just wanted to play with stuff and this is what I ended up with. You can also separate the building so it is on different spots of the compound, stuff like that.

Another great thing they have done is it is now easier than ever to sift through the information you need. There are separate tabs so you can see where the pollution is or happiness levels, just everything you can need. This for me made things run much smoother. All this info was available in the other games of course just this time around it seems much easier to find and utilize.

Speaking of utilizing information, you can now plan most of your island beforehand. You can now see the best places to build which types of plantations, where you can find what types of metals for you mines or even oil and fish. Honestly, I didn’t do this because I am kind of an idiot, but it can be done. I also encourage you to do this since you can for example build stuff on the best places to dig for oil or minerals.

Graphically the game isn’t a huge achievement but it does look great for what it is. I enjoyed watching the people run around and the fire trucks putting out my buildings that a volcano set on fire, a lot.

Tropico 6_20190922200419

Tropico 6_20190922200940

Tropico 6_20190923150545

Tropico 6_20190926224243

The control are also great to me, tho I do have some minor complaints. For example, the combat is still pretty terrible. You basically just build towers and bases and attacks happen. You have some control obviously, but I feel like if you had more the game would really benefit from it.

Another small issue I have is trade seems to be a bit unbalanced to me. I always seem to have a ton of money, or I am pretty much bankrupt and it really seems like this kind of discrepancy shouldn’t be so frequent.

None of this hurts the overall experience too much, the game is still beautiful to play and fun and I will continue to play it long after this review is posted. It is also worth noting the console version comes with a few things that weren’t with the PC release and those will be listed below. As for a score, easily a 9/10 for me. If you enjoyed the rest of the games in the series or are looking to get into it, this one is a must buy. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Four new traits for El Presidente
New edicts (e.g. Free Housing)
New overlays
Special effects of buildings are visualized
Revised balancing (e.g. tourism, media building)
Revised pathfinding of the Tropicaner
New variations for parks and squares
New Decoration: Space Monument
New decorations for El Presidente in character adaptation
The language can be changed at any time during the game.
color-blind mode
More than 300+ bugfixes

Star Wars Episode 1: the game

menace game

With the final movie of the Skywalker saga in Star Wars coming out at the end of this year, I’m going to start looking at pieces of the Star Wars I growing up. Given to me as a gift way later in life so I checked it out before upgrading to the PS3, brand new at the time. I can tell you this game did not age well at all.

The Phantom Menace game recounts the events of the game ( minus the pod race and thankfully the debate scenes). You play as Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Padme, and her bodyguard dude I can’t remember the name of. For Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan you primarily use your lightsaber and try to reflect blaster shots back at the enemies which requires pretty acute timing but is still hit and miss. You can use a force ability which helps. The other two characters are strictly shooters which wouldn’t be so bad if the game didn’t use tank controls. Yes, tank controls, so be ready to feel like you are going through a chore. The graphics are pretty bad, and you don’t get much resolution in the characters which can look kinda creepy at times. The music is fine but loops too often and the sound is Ok. This is one of those games I rage quit and didn’t look back from; between getting lost so often with the bad controls and bullshit deaths I just couldn’t bring myself to get past level 4. I can’t tell you if I would’ve liked this game more back then but in a more modern day, hell no. Regardless of your opinion on the movie, I can say you are good to skip this game. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Football Field Kick (Mobile)

Foot Field Kick is a Mobile game from that is pretty simple to play. All you do is tap the screen when the meter gets where you want it and your player will kick the ball. As you earn money you can upgrade your stats and kick the ball further, make the ball bounce higher and so on and so forth. The game is honestly fun for about 3 minutes until the ads every 30 seconds will drive you nuts.

Seriously, this game would have been perfectly fun to me if it wasn’t for all the damn ads. I get companies need to make their money, but these ads make the game pretty much unplayable for me. Skip this one guys, there are better free games out there that are far more interesting and engaging that won’t give you ads all the time. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Pokemon snap

pokemon snap

So the other day, walking down memory lane, I covered Hey You Pikachu and decided today why not cover an unusual Pokemon game that actually works. Again, much like Hey You Pikachu, this game was a cool concept: go on expeditions through various locales taking pictures of the native Pokemon that inhabit the region. It was a cool concept done surprisingly well. The camera was fluid and the expeditions were pretty fun; I remember a volcanic area full of fire Pokemon which were some of my favorites at the time. An unexpected bonus was how much fun it was playing with a friend, seeing who could photo bomb more Pokemon and who could get the cooler shots. Violet and I had a ton of fun doing this as kids. I feel if replicated today, the modern game market would abuse the hell out of this game, adding who knows how many DLC packages and micro transactions which makes me sad a bit. In the end, it’s a simple, wholesome game I recommend for Pokemon fans or families with younger kids. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Hey You Pikachu

hy pikachu

I can’t lie, until randomly at my job that isn’t the blog, I forgot this game pretty much existed. Once I recalled it, I had to think to a time way back to when there were only 151 Pokemon and Pokemon: The First Movie was THE movie in my school and news of Pokemon 2000 was the equivalent of Star Wars hype. But, I digress… Hey You Pikachu was a game for the Nintendo 64 with a lot of ambition. Requiring a special microphone attachment for the N64 controller, you talked to Pikachu and had him to command and essentially lived your own little Pokemon fantasy. As far as I’m aware of, there was no battling, so there goes a huge chunk of that fantasy. I have to be 100% honest, I’ve never seen this game in person actually really work. Talking to Pikachu became ultra frustrating super quickly because the controller itself was nearly useless and the entire game was trying to talk. When you’d get Pikachu to follow your instructions it was so cool, but then enjoy the 15-20 minutes it took for his next command to register. I’ve seen people pitch hissy fits and whip there controllers over this game. Simply put. I can’t recommend this game to anyone. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Borderlands 3 first impressions

bl3 characters Like many I’ve been wild with anticipation over the release of Borderlands 3; I sold most of my hard copy games just to afford the $100 edition. So far, I’ve put roughly 10 hours into the game with Moze and about 3 hours with Zane.

In terms of raw gameplay, 3 is the biggest leap since Borderlands 2 from the original Borderlands and the strongest feature of the game. There’s a lot of small changes that welcome like the ability to power slide, being able to climb ledges, being able to customize vehicles more and the addition of alternate fires on some weapons. Speaking of customization, there is a huge amount of customization when it comes to your characters skill trees. For Zane as an an example, you can chose between 3 different skills to choose from, that you can switch up at anytime; each tree is dedicated to a skill and there are augments available to pump them up. It’s a bit to get used to but well worth it. Combat is much more intense because the enemies are smarter and you take damage much quicker. Guns also handle much better and feel crisp. It’s undoubtedly the best shooter I’ve played in a while.

So what’s the drawback? Sadly the story. After the awesome opening, the game hits a stagnant patch for much of your stay on Pandora. It tries to be funny but comes out flat a lot of the time. The Calypso Twins aren’t terrible as main antagonists but they get annoying when you figure out they are pretty much evil Twitch streamers. A change I didn’t like was getting rid of the Badass rank and replacing it with Guardian rank that you can’t access until you beat the story. Also, if you take too long to figure something out, the game will pester you until you figure it out at certain times.

Overall, it’s a awesome game so far and the review will be out soon. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Final Fantasy 8 Remastered

Oh Final Fantasy 8, how I have loved thee since I was a child. The GF’s, the characters, the world itself and the monster designs. As a kid, I used to love these things. However, did this translate to modern times and how did this remaster come out? According to my Platinum trophy pretty damn well.

The story is as you remember, that hasn’t been altered. You play as Squall Leonhart. Student of Balamb, member of SeeD. After being sent on his first mission and meeting Rinoa Heartilly things suddenly take a weird turn and our crew ends up on a quest to stop the Sorceress.

The story aside that I don’t want to delve into deep. The graphical upgrades to the characters are amazing, tho I am a bit disappointed the same treatment wasn’t given to most of the environment. The upgrades to the combat system are nice for an odd reason. You can up the game speed by 3 times, have no encounters and easy combat which basically makes you invincible unless you get killed in one hit, makes your gauge charge almost instantly and your limit breaks will always be charged. This makes the game a breeze to play outside of certain battles. However, if like me you are impatient and hate how long drawing all the magic takes, you can now do in minutes what used to take hours. That alone for me is worth it.

For the trophy hunters in this group, I won’t call this one easy but I will call it straight forward. Only about 3 of them are missable and if you are careful, those aren’t hard to get anyway. You only have to go slightly out of your way for them the benefits for doing so are pretty worth it.

The only issue is if you use the 3X speed upgrade, the game feels really slow in combat when you stop, and it’s really tempting to use the combat assist to heal yourself. Unless you are strong-willed or just want to experience the story avoid using them at all.

I did, however, love the game and have no real complaints with the remaster itself. I for one am glad to finally see this on a modern console and encourage everyone to give it a shot. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Gears Pop (Mobile)

Gears Pop is a mobile game where you control various people and creatures from the Gears of War universe and attempt to destroy the opposing player’s structures on the opposite side of the map. This all happens in real-time with characters that look like pop figures.

Truthfully as fun as this game is and as fun it is to have a multiplayer game, I feel like if this was just about any other franchise ( Command & Conquer Rivals (Mobile) for example) a lot of people would be giving this a real hard time. There are of course microtransactions which hey I don’t mind, the game is free after all. But we have seen this exact game before, and it got so much more grief for being a cash grab tho this one is getting a free pass.

That being said the sound is great and the controls are nice. The game is easy to learn and hard to master and requires quite a bit of strategy. I have no actual issue with the game and would happily recomend it to Gears fans or fans of this genre of game. I just see it as a bit unfair that many of the people trashing simialr games are praising this one. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Archery Go (Mobile)

Archery Go is one of those games you see an think I’ll give it a go, then after you do you wonder why the hell you did this. Then you keep playing for a while. The game functions fine, tho sometimes its a bit annoying trying to shoot with your own finger in the way. The game, however, is challenging and fun tho and has plenty of variety. You will be shooting at balloons, bottles, and even moving targets.

The game is free so give it a shot and see if you like it, but certainly, don’t spend money on it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.