Category: Game reviews

Oh NIS America I love you guys, and as always they have sent me a copy of this game as they did with void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium! PS4 Review many years ago, and it was a fun-filled game that despite its flaws kept me diving back in for more. Has the sequel changed anything however is the question however?

The game takes place after the first one, once again we are taking care of our cute human Toriko who is the last human on earth. While the games are directly connected you don’t need to play the first Void Terrarium to understand this Void Terrarium as the start of the game does a solid job of filling you in on the details without spoiling the last game. Just know you will end up caring for Toriko in a new tank in a new section of the same contaminated world, as the same robot with the same A.I. partner.

This time the game adds a bit of a twist to the story, as the A.I. figures out a way to send you into a sort of VR representation of what the world used to be in order to discover more about our dear Toriko whose health isn’t exactly great. Along with this new section of gameplay you will still be decorating her tank, growing plants in it as well as crawling through the wasteland attempting to find food and supplies to create new items from the blueprints you are supplied with or find.

The combat is simple and straightforward. You will move around a large map, and each move counts as a turn with you and the enemies going back and forth much like many other dungeon-crawler roguelikes. Each time you return home all of your items are transformed into materials for creating things, however, each time you create something most things have a permanent stat buff that applies to your character, Robbie the Robot. This makes getting further into the dungeon easier each time even if the random drops aren’t in your favor.

Each time you level up you will be given the option to choose abilities for these runs, some are extra item slots, stat buffs, or increased healing abilities. Which skills you pick can vastly change how you play, and often you will pick and choose which item to bring and which one to simply leave behind.

This was one of my main issues with the first game that is still an issue in this one, item management is far too difficult and because of it, you will end up making far more runs than I would have liked just to make something simple like a chair. It felt like they were trying to really stretch it out by making you run through the same sections over and over. You will be doing a lot since for the most part, you have to repeat each section each time you want to get to a different section. This is understandable since enemies get stronger as you go it was repetitive and very fast.

Graphically and the sound of the game weren’t very different from the first one. It is an upgrade, and both set the tone and serve the game well. There is nothing wrong or any sort of glitches with them, they also aren’t amazing or anything to brag about. All in all, if you enjoyed the first game this one is an upgrade and you will enjoy it, but you won’t suddenly like this game if you didn’t like the first. I enjoyed my time with it, and I feel safe recommending it to fans of the genre. A sold 7/10. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

So I was at home when I got an email this morning from the company Red Black Spade. I don’t know a ton about it, but Slava Gris was kind enough to toss me a review code for the upcoming title Choice of Life:Middle Ages 2 for the Nintendo Switch.

Before I get into that however, I did discover this isn’t the first game from Red Black Spade I have played, they are also responsible for Catmaze Xbox series S/X Review which was another title I covered.

That brings me to Choice of Life which is essentially a series of choices given to you on cards. Starting as a baby you are given simplistic things, some of them as amusing as simply trying to communicate by saying goo goo or gah gag. As your young prince grows the decisions also grow. Do you want to sleep through class? Throw a tantrum on your birthday? Or do you want to study hard and learn even when it isn’t the most fun time.

The repercussions for these decisions can be anything from getting scolded by an Aunt or Uncle, to losing an item like I don’t know,your crown getting stolen (not that this happened to me…) Or death. Ok these aren’t random examples, I enjoy screwing around and seeing what happens. This prince probably doesn’t like me very much.

The graphics these play out in are simplistic and have no voice acting which is fine because this isn’t some massive AAA experience,in fact when I mentioned I got an email from Slava Gris, he happens to be the one guy in the company and it might be a bit odd if he were doing all the voices. They serve their purpose well and I actually believe the game is better because of it.

I sank more than a few hours into this game today, much to the dismay of my family because I wanted to see what happened to this prince,and what sort of bad things I could make happen to him. The game thankfully makes this quite easy because unlike most games like this death doesn’t send you back to the start,it simply lets you make choices again. If you simply want to play a stress free story, this one is great. 8/10, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

When developer Soleil and publisher 110 Industries tossed me a copy of this one to review I wasn’t really sure how I would feel about this one, and I am grateful they took me out of my comfort zone with this one. Thanks by the way guys and gals. The makers of Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive also created this one, so I knew I was getting into something special, even if I was about to hate my life for a while.

LT Stone

You play as LT Stone, leader of what is known as a Zombie Squad ( don’t worry you aren’t actual zombies) and the game takes place over about a week in Hong Kong. while the game is a combination hack-and-slash third-person shooter there are plenty of mini-games to pass the time between missions. I want to get this out of the way first because honestly they are pretty minor but range from interesting such as the crane game and the many different options to play in the shooting gallery to the more annoying or nonsensical such as eating as much Ramen as possible. Don’t worry though you can’t get stuck at them and they don’t change the story it is simply a do-your-best sort of deal and many can be outright ignored.

I just like this cat

Graphically the game is nice and gory. It won’t be long before heads and arms are flying off. There is even a chainsaw at some point and they actually censor bar parts of it. It is actually rather refreshing. This isn’t the only thing I loved, setting off a sprinkler system and watching the water just cascade down was a nice touch. The lights on the water were also fantastic I thought.

The sound was also pretty great, I wasn’t exactly fond of the music but the guns sounded nice and powerful, and swords slamming into each other or cutting through was excellent.

The part everyone is here for however is how-is the gameplay and I will not lie you can tell the Ninja Gaiden creators were involved. It is very fast-paced, whether you are dodging strikes, grenades, or bullets. Taking cover is quick and intuitive, and for me, it didn’t even matter. The game offers two difficulty settings, essentially normal and hard. So the first level I was doing ok until I hit around halfway and I died. Over and over again. Then something pops up, in true Nina Gaiden style, and asked if I wanted a hidden difficulty setting and made the game even easier. I of course said no and died over and over again. countering and dodging and I still could not get the hang of it.

Eventually, I just accepted the difficulty setting whos name I can’t spell and won’t even try, I will just call it Savior Sucks at Life Mode. Now Savior Sucks At Life Mode made the game a lot more enjoyable, gave me some more heals, made the game a bit easier and let me die a little less. I still died, the game isn’t at all easy but it is fun. I love the characters and the 80’s action feel to it.

The game isn’t for everyone, but for fans of action games, especially those that want to relive their love of Ninja Gaiden, this game is for you. A solid 8/10. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

As always with these things I like to start out with a huge shout out to Publisher Deck 13 for tossing me a copy of this one to check out as well as Matthias Linda. I know it’s weird to see me toss a specific name out there but he actually developed the game himself, and for that he has my eternal gratitude.

In case you want to go into this game 100% blind like I was blessed to do, here is my quick opinion. Don’t walk to purchase this game, run. If you like RPG’s that will remind you of what many consider the golden era of the genre, this is your game. If you want to know why, keep reading.

The story starts off introducing you to what will basically be the main characters, of which there are many. There is Lenne a princess her friend and admittedly but obsessive guard Robb. My personal favorite Sienna whose one goal in life seems to be to steal anything that isn’t nailed down. This is a small portion of the characters admittedly.

The battle system is very reminiscent of Chrono Trigger in many ways, there are no random battles and you will see exactly what you are about to engage with with a few exceptions for boss battles. Another very nice thing is at the end of all battles your HP and TP will replenish completely and anyone that dropped will be revived.

This doesn’t mean you can just go all out with your best moves however. In the upper left hand corner there is an overdrive gauge. When it is yellow you will take normal damage and when it is red, that damage you take is increased. But that sweet green spot is where you want to keep it. When it is there you will take less damage and give more. Every action you or an enemy take will move that gauge. Defending will always lower it,and certain move types will also lower it but that move type changes often.

This is a level of strategy that does nothing to take away from the enjoyment of the game, in fact some of the best times I had with this game were losing a boss battle because I screwed up, trying again and winning with no issue because I managed to keep the gauge where I needed it while taking advantage of my ability to paralyze the boss with one character and attack that weakness with another. Each time I did this however it became harder to paralyze the enemy. The game doesn’t allow you to simply spam a strategy and rewards experimenting without making the game a chore.

The story itself isn’t as simple as it seems either. It starts out as a simple story of stopping the evil kingdom from taking over the continent. You however will start to notice little things intertwined that make you second guess what is going on even within your party.

By mid game I wasn’t sure if I should even trust my own people as an unexpected ode to Suikoden kicked in and I’m building my own clan and recruiting people to my island to provide various services.

I haven’t even touched on the reward system that will allow you to unlock bonus grimoire shards to help strengthen your characters and many other items. All of these are basically optional but mostly they happen as you play the game anyway and are worth doing.

There is so much to say about this game, and I am sure I missed a ton. The important thing to know here is that in about 6 years of reviewing games I have never given out a perfect score,and while that still stands this game has come closer than any other. This one is a 9.5/10 with my one and only complaint being there were a few times I managed to accidentally climb through the side of a wall while going up or down a rock ladder. This isn’t anything major and didn’t even interfere with game play,but unfortunately it does exist and it would be dishonest to not mention it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

As always when I start these things, huge shout out to NIS America for hooking me up with this one. Always appreciated.

Those that have played the PS4 version of this one are already familiar with this game. Adol an adventurer is traveling with his friend Dogi across the ocean on a ship heading for adventure when said ship sinks and he wakes up shipwrecked on a cursed island. Adol and his new companions then start to work on building a camp to start escaping the island and other castaways while Adol starts having weird dreams about a blue haired woman and an advanced civilization. It is up to you to make all this happen.

The story is nice, but it isn’t anything ground breaking. The real fun here is combat. You can quickly switch between characters with the touch of a button and each character does well against certain types of enemies. Some will break the defense of flying enemies and knock them to the ground or make armored enemies much easier to deal with.

It is also important to know when to time your special attacks because killing an enemy with one makes them cheaper to you. At higher difficulties the ability to dodge and block at exactly the right time to enable free attacks or stun enemies will mean the difference between life or death, especially with boss monsters even at the earliest of levels. That being said there are enough variety in difficulty levels that can be changed in the option menu that you should never feel overwhelmed or like the game is too easy.

Graphically the game is a step up from its PS4 counterpart,but unless you are a huge fan the graphical upgrade alone isn’t really worth purchasing the game again and the same can be said for the sound. The game was never a juggernaut in their departments anyway and this doesn’t change that. It does look and feel better,and with the many extras it comes with it is the definitive version to play. First time buyers should absolutely pick this one up as it is the best way to experience it,I just can’t justify spending the full price on it again.

There isn’t a lot left to say except it is a great rpg for the PS5, it is a solid 8/10 and worth a buy, assuming you haven’t already purchased it on the PS4. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

As far As the Eye is another title tossed to me by the great folks over at Klabater and developed by Goblinz Studio.Huge shout out to them both for hooking me up.

As Far As The Eye is an interesting title full of special words to simply say you will help a tribe survive on a hexagonal map by collecting food,wood and other supplies. There are no enemies to fight,but you are probably going to see the game over screen a few times anyway.

I’d like to describe my first experience with the game. I started the campaign knowing this is where I would be able to learn to play. While they did teach me to play it wasn’t exactly well done. Some of the instructions were unclear or simply not explained at all. It wasn’t too bad to figure out but this did carry over into later lessons and that became more of a challenge.

It wasn’t long however before I managed to get exploring and found the forest I was supposed to find and watch my little pupil turn into an animal that would collect wood. Yes your pupils turn into cute animals to do different tasks,I don’t know or care why but I appreciate it.

So after I collected enough wood, well I didn’t. The flood came and washed my tribe away. I had to restart it. I mean my entire Xbox, for whatever reason when this happened it also decided nothing would respond. I could move the map but I couldn’t pause,enter any menus.

Now if you keep with it and try to figure things out you will be rewarded with a pretty good experience. I enjoyed trying to figure out the best way to build things up, did I want to build a cheaper but permanent structure I would have to abandon? Or do I try to build that expensive one I can bring with me?

There isn’t exactly a wrong answer honestly and unlike most games like this it was usually far better to have just enough stuff to get you by as opposed to stock piling things you would lose to the floor anyway. The journey to the center will be perilous and full of danger but all of them are your poor planning, except when it’s one of the bugs that crashes your game or fighting with the UI.

As much as I enjoyed my time with this game it isn’t for everyone. The bugs are easy to fix so don’t let that dissuade you but the UI isn’t fantastic. I give this one a 7/10, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

First and foremost,I want to take a moment to give a huge shout out to Astragon Entertainment for tossing me a copy of Police Simulator: Patrol Officers.

So what is Police Simulator? Well the name says it all. Let me walk you through my first day on the job. I walked out the door, read a couple tutorials, and read a manual for the job about all the laws while not realizing I did nothing to stop the time from passing and my shift ended while giving someone a parking ticket. So I walked right back inside.

My second day on the job I remember words from the movie The Other Guys. You aren’t a cop until you do a desk pop. So I pulled my gun and shot a round into the air. Huh, nobody cares. Time to walk outside and shoot the first person I see. Don’t do this,you will instantly be fired.

You also can’t shoot at cars and buildings, actually just do what the game tells you and don’t shoot your gun. There truly are no situations in the game that let you fire your weapon. This led to seeing how many innocent people I could just blast with my taser. The answer is four, then you will be fired.

Now that I had that out of the way I decided to take the game more seriously and moved on to my real day one without being a psycho or reading the entire shift. You can play in one of two modes, casual or simulation. I recommend you start with casual because the game is more forgiving of mistakes, for example you can’t really hit pedestrians with your car or get hit by them. In simulation both of these will instantly end your day.

The first few days will be foot patrols handing out speeding tickets, catching jaywalkers and stopping people for littering. The game does an excellent job explaining when you can ticket a car and it is quite easy to look up if you forget. Their explanation on when to tow cars isn’t quite as good but is still solid.

Eventually you will get your own patrol car and have the option to choose between foot patrol or a car patrol. You can do everything in a car you can do on foot, you can even park your car and walk around if you want. I do recommend however you be careful pulling people over as they tend to simply slam on their breaks and you will slam into the back of them. Nothing worse than catching that dude showing off his under glow lights and then doing an accident report instead. Speaking from experience.

This may be one of the most realistic simulation games I have ever played, and anyone that follows the page knows I have played my fair share. Giving tickets or arresting someone is as simple as a radial menu after speaking to them or interacting with a car and the options of what you can find or arrest people for range from something as simple as jaywalking to things like DUI for alcohol or amphetamines or simply having an outstanding warrant. This isn’t even getting into the times I’ve sat at a red light and suddenly see an accident in front of me and need to call an ambulance for some now laying on the sidewalk and discover the accident was two drunk drivers.

No game is perfect,and Police Simulator is no exception. I’d say I loved my time with it but my time with it is far from over but I have to hope there is more to come. There are plenty of bugs that need to be patched out. The graphics are beautiful, but the amount of times I’ve seen cars go around corners and drivers not be in the cars for a few seconds are beyond anything I could even try to count. A few times pulling up to an accident there was no way to take pictures of the accident and I never figured out why,or a witness would be impossible to access because they were pushed in-between cars by a third car and were blocked away.

Also me and a friend (he plays on PS5) ran into an issue where we would lose conduct points for trying to find or tow a car in a space directly in front of a sign that says taxi zone no parking. Nothing game breaking or even anything I would consider taking away from my enjoyment,but it would be wrong if I did not tell you they do exist.

So what’s the verdict on this one? Should you sign up for a shift or avoid it? Truthfully this is easily one of the best simulator games I have ever played and there is far more potential of what they can do with it if they choose. I’m giving this a 7/10 because of the before mentioned glitches but once those are fixed the score definitely goes up a point or two. If you like simulator games, you need to pick this one up. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.