Game reviews – Page 55 – Savior Gaming

Naughty Bear

naughty bear

Dude, when I first heard about this game in Fangoria magazine (man that seriously brings me back) my brain truly had no idea how to comprehend this game. Essentially what we have is a Grindhouse- exploitation revenge tale in a kid’s program. Naughty Bear is a outcast on a island of happy, friendly Teddy Bears. One day, he snaps when one of the most popular bears doesn’t invite him to a birthday party and the madness ensues. Naughty goes on a violent stuffing filled rampage, facing off against the police, military and even freaking ninjas as he gets his revenge.

The opening level, in a rare feat, actually shocked me. Naughty has a huge range of possibilities to kill the other bears, whether you are going to traditionally melee or blast your enemies away or take more creative, sadistic measures like drowning them in a toilet, burning them alive in a campfire, or bashing there heads in off a DJ mix table. The aesthetic and music pretty legitimately feel like a children’s TV show, including a really creepy, sinister narrator that sounds way too cheery to be telling the story of a teddy bear who went postal. Despite the insane premise and horrific possibilities, the gameplay sadly rather sucks. Everything feels clunky and the levels feel repetitive and small. The base game is really short, so I seriously recommend if you try it, to get your hands on the special edition with the bonus levels to extend the length but even then it’s a short ass game. I recommend checking it out if you play a truly batshit game, but I don’t think it’ll make any top 10 lists. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Monster Energy Supercross

monster supercross

This review is going to be pretty straight forward because of all the games I’ve played this year, this game honestly sucks the worst and I gave up pretty quickly for some pretty huge reasons.

First reason I gave this game the finger was my first impression. It installed and was ready to use so I gave it a try. Immediately I saw the Monster energy drink logos and a start screen that stalled for almost five minutes. After that, without further menus I was taken into a game I had no choice in. I wasn’t given options for character, map, or even game mode; I thought perhaps it was a tutorial until the final disastrous look at the scoreboard at the end of a match I didn’t choose to be in. There was prompts telling me controls and hints, but yet it wasn’t a tutorial because I leveled up, not even knowing I had a level to begin with. The controls are easy enough to learn but the bikes handle like shit. Talking with Savior, he agreed and it wasn’t just me. Trying to make simple turns was harder than hell and most times I just flung myself out of the ring.

Weeks later, I tried again. My second time around, there were menus and customization options but I found it dumb there were no stats on the bikers and the tracks look mostly the same. Strangely there was muddied look to the faces of the drivers too which was weird. The driving is still shit and I still don’t understand why you need a different control ground and air when I can’t do a trick in mid air. After another match that did nothing but raise my blood pressure, I quit and deleted it.

In the end, I hated this damn game and even free, I still say you’re paying too much for this obvious cash grab. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Star Wars Trilogy Arcade

With Rise of the Skywalker debuting close to Christmas this year, I want to look at one of my favorite childhood Star Wars games. Me and my dad, Duke, spent many a hours at the local arcades as a kid. Besides the awesomeness of Air Hockey, the Star Wars game was my favorite. It is simplicity itself, a joystick and a big red button but what was done with it was pretty impressive. The opening three stages come from Star Wars , The Empire Strikes Back , and Return of the Jedi . The Death Star run is exceptionally done and feels epic as hell. Hoth and Endor are done really good. My favorite parts are the special stage boss battles where you follow the prompts and battle Boba Fett and Darth Vader; while they warped my anxiety as a kid,they were also one of the biggest victories I faced as a kid. I could never beat the last stage, the second Death Star run because it was frankly insane. The graphics and music are damn good and overall, it’s some of the closest I felt to feeling like being in Star Wars. If you ever find it in a arcade, I urge you to give the game a try. May the gaming gods bring you glory and may the force be with you.

Ancestors: The Humankind Odssey

As always I would like to start this out with a huge thank you to Private Division, Take Two Interactive and Panache Digital Games. Getting a review copy of a game is always an honor and appreciated and this is no exception.

I have to say I honestly didn’t know what to expect going into this one. A survival game about the evolution of humans from our earlier ancestors seemed interesting yet silly. Where is the fun in playing as a sort of half monkey half human thing that can’t talk and has to figure out how to use tools? Turns out that is basically all of the fun.

As the game starts you instantly notice the jungle is a beautiful and dangerous place and you play as a small child, scared and trying to find a place to hide. Once you do this you will swap to an adult tasked with finding this child and leading it back to your tribe. A tribe you can switch between any member of by simply walking up to and selecting the appropriate option.

It is important to know outside of telling you what you need to do, such as building a sleeping spot, this game will not hold your hand. It explains the basics and it is left up to you to guide this tribe among its journey, from a group that walks like apes on all fours but can stand and swing sticks to standing upright and hunting with make shift spears and everything in between.

The game can be repetitive however, but this is all survival games. It seems worse in this one tho because rather than chopping down trees you are finding new things to eat or smell and examine. You can’t even drink water until you examine and smell it. This adds to the experience tho, as like the tribe you are also learning about this world that has been beautifully crafted for you.

The strongets part of this game to me is also its weakest part. If you enjoy the survival genre and want it to be as realistic as possible and just leave you to it, this game does an amazing job. If this however is your first survival game or you aren’t familiar with how they work this might be really frustrating for you. I do have to give this game a solid 8/10 and recommend it to anyone that likes this sort of game. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Super Punch Out

Super Punch Out is another game I love to go back and play occasionally. It is a boxing game where each fight follows a set pattern and each one has its one set of moves. Tho I still don’t get how I can get kicked in the damn face so often in a boxing match.

Anyway the first fight is against a guy that has a record of 1-99. Not sure who he beat, you can basically win this fight randomly smashing buttons.

As the game goes on the fights get more challenging. Some guys you have to stun before you can hit a weak spot or you have to dodge and counter a certain move. The last two guys have a similar record tho one is undefeated and the other has one loss against the other which I always thought was fun.

This is another game that seems like it wouldn’t be fun but to me was the best this series had to offer. Best wishes and may the gaming gods being you glory.

Super Mario RPG

Every so often I love to go back and play what I consider a classic, and Super Mario RPG is one of those. You play as Mario and start out by raiding Bowsers Keep to save the Princess. Suddenly a giant sword slams through the castle and everyone is tossed out.

After this you will set off on a journey to find the Princess, tho this time you will be doing it in a turn based RPG filled with characters to join as you try to find magical stars. These characters do include the Princess herself and Bowser along with a few others. Each character has their own play style and moves to master.

It was always just fun to see the Mushroom Kingdom in this way, and to see new enemies, a new boss and even new characters made it even better honestly. The story is still great and graphically for its time it was phenomenal, and holds up well with controls that to this day are fluid and easy to use. If somehow you missed this one, go try it now.best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Cell To Singularity: Evolution Never Ends

Cell to Singularity on the surface is a fun idea. You start by creating the world, slowly add different things like amino acids until you create simple life forms and eventually work your way up to bigger things like fish and such. In reality, you are just playing a tap game like any other. hit the screen to earn currency faster, buy things to make you earn it faster when you tap or are idle and when you set your phone down spend what it makes while you are away.

I’m not bashing that style of game, some of them are really well done and quite addictive. This for me was not one of them. It is free to play so it may interest some of you, but the game is more of the same and to me is done much better elsewhere. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dragonball Z Boudakai Tenkaichi 3

dbz bt3

Has anyone ever picked up a licensed video game, yearning for the experience to live out your favorite series? You ever feel a heap of soul crushing defeat when you realized this game was crap? Well, good news, this post won’t be about that terrible experience.

Dragonball Z Boudakai Tenkaichi 3 is is the best DBZ gaming experience I’ve had. Combat is fast and the areas are open. The character roster spans from Dragonball Z ( The Saiyan Saga) to DragonBall Z: Buu Saga (Kid Buu) and the full list of movies while including key moments from the original Dragonball and Dragonball GT as well as having a few What IF segments that are pretty good. The roster is impressive, including transformations that are show accurate; Saiyans can go ape during the night stages, you can fuse Goku and Vegeta as well as Goten and Trunks mid fight and the story mode evolves as the story does, instead of multiple one fight missions. Besides a full sized story mode, there is also a variety of tournaments and even a mini RPG surrounding a fight with Cell. Throughout the story, Dragonballs are hidden throughout the environments and once all 7 are collected, the Dragon can be summoned and exclusive items can be found which is epic as hell. The entire time, I felt like I was in the show. It’s one of my favorite fighting games of all time and I highly recommend checking it out if you have a Wii or PS2. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Orna: GPS RPG (Mobile)

So I was bouncing around the play store looking for something to mess around with and I came across what looked like an old fashioned Final Fantasy style game and figured hey let’s give it a go. You build a character, choose a class and away you go. Battles are turn-based and you can choose to attack or use spells and such. This isn’t really anything special but the map is based on your current location. For example, you get rewards based on areas you have claimed, I own the area my house and my mother’s house is in. You can travel around fighting bosses and claiming land. You can also form parties with other people, tho sadly at least in my area the game isn’t very popular. It is free to play, but not pay to win tho there is some cool stuff to buy. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Outlast 2

outlast 2

I tried…I really, really tried. I tried my ass off to hop on the Outlast bandwagon. When I wrote 5 more games that were a huge bummer , I briefly talked about my experience with the first game. When the second game came out I gave it a week long shot, driving myself forward after the Outlast 3 announcement trailer . As I said dear readers, I freaking tried…

We play as Blake, a journalist investigating a series of brutal kidnappings and homicides in the deserts with his wife and fellow journalist, Lynn. Unexpectedly, in the dead of night, there chopper gets shot down and crashes on the outskirts of a rundown old mining town. The deformed, mad townsfolk take Lynn to appease there twisted religion and it’s up to a helpless Blake to rescue his wife and uncover these isolated atrocities while uncovering his own childhood sins as well…

Sin is the name of this game and I warn those with weak stomachs, don’t even bother. This game is gory as hell and there is some great imagery and some great, intense atmospheres. The graphics are pretty impressive. The sound is really good, though the chase gets really annoying really fast. The story has promise but most of it is told through missing bible pages and hidden notes and a lot of it feels cliche. My biggest problem is the gameplay itself. Running is 90% of the game’s content; hiding is hit and miss at best but most of the time running, even not knowing where the hell I was going, solved most of my problems. The night vision on the camera, which is a vital tool in the game, drains batteries super quick so you constantly have to keep a look out. I’m fine with the idea of flight over fight but it’s irritating as shit to get killed by these withered meth-head looking motherfuckers in surroundings loaded with dangerous farming tools and all you have is a damn camera; I mean seriously, a rational bastard would at least swing at these nut jobs. In the end, Outlast 2 is meh at best but I really can’t get the hype over the series. I won’t tell anyone not to try the series, but I will tell you this game will piss you off. May the gaming gods bring you glory.