Category: Game reviews

Pixel Starships (Mobile)

Pixel Starships is a mobile game from Savy Soda. The concept is pretty simple, you command a ship that you slowly build up over time to beat bigger and bigger ships. The graphics are pretty nice pixel graphics as the name implies and the sound is pretty nice.

My only real issue is that its a bit hard to control. You have to slide power bars to weapons or shields depending on what you want to do and it just doesn’t always want to go and it can be a bit frustrating and once or twice it did get me killed. If you enjoy this type of game tho it isn’t a deal breaker. There is also a story but honestly, it is pretty forgettable, I stopped caring like 20 minutes in. All in all, it isn’t a nad mobile game to kill some time with, just don’t go in expecting a ton. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Sex Drive (2008)

Sex Drive is a 2008 comedy about one man’s quest to lose his virginity to a woman on the internet by stealing his brother’s car, a 69 Pontiac GTO Judge, which his brother loves more than basically anything. Only a few issues with this quest, Ian (Josh Zuckerman) has a friend named Lance. (Clark Duke) Lance is kind of a ladies man and gets them chased by a pissed off redneck that decides he needs to score with a lady he finds crying at a gas station. His best friend from childhood, Felicia (Amanda Crew) is also kind of a cockblock. Not sure she means to, but she has done this quite a few times in their life including one sure thing early in the movie.

Then there is Ezekiel (Seth Green), an Amish man that will routinely save them when their car needs to be fixed. He learned while he was off on the Amish tradition of Rumspringa. The movie explains loosely what it is tho in an extreme version of it. Basically, it is the Amish (and from what I heard Mormon) tradition where at the age of around 16 people are allowed to leave the religion temporarily to experience the rest of the world and return around age 18 to decide if they want to stay or leave forever. Not every sect practices this is a general idea of what it is.

Anyway, after that little learning bit, I am sure most of you didn’t care about, our boy Zeke who is, in my opinion, the highlight of the movie will fix their car a few times and be very sarcastic the whole time. Not because he doesn’t like our group, they actually end up being great friends, he just missed the sarcasm. It is lost on his people according to Zeke.

The movie is typical for the genre, it has its serious moments, it has some nudity and crude humor and is just in general a fun movie if you liked movies like Porky’s or Superbad. If you didn’t however there isn’t much here for you, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Happy Alien day 2019

alien day 2019  Happy Alien day everyone and what a strange year it’s been for the Xenomorph, finding a new home with Disney ( a fact that still gets me to scratch my head now and then but laugh knowing the Queen is now a Disney princess). While we haven’t got any concrete news of a new movie, we have Fox helping to release some awesome fan films including Alien: Containment , Alien: Specimen , Alien: Night Shift , and Alien: Ore . This year is the 40th anniversary of the classic Alien , a icon of horror and science fiction that has nothing but my love and respect that proves in space, no one can hear you scream. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Happy Alien Day!

Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption

sinner 2

I can’t help but love a great boss fight in games and honestly there aren’t many outside the Souls series and the flock of games that followed in it’s steps, just in there own way. Sinner is a member of that flock that says F the grinding and gets us the main attractions from the get go.

We play as a lonely knight who has survived a cataclysm of sorts and has sinned to do so and become strong. For redemption, they must sacrifice their power and strength to vanquish the beasts and fiends sin created. With dwindling resources, can you face such greater evils?

Sinner is a cool game I can’t help but to have fallen in love with. If you are familiar to Souls type combat layout, you will have an advantage going in although you may want to customize the button configurations a bit. The weapons you get are what you get, but they are simple but effective. I like the art style and how it has a dark, fairy tale twist to everything. What enthralled me a lot is the strategy aspect there is to the game, having to decide which bosses to take on first and learning to cope with the piling of debuffs you accrue throughout the game. In the end, Sinner is a nice is on the Souls formula and for less than $20 on PSN it’s well worth the price. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

sinner

 

Anno 1800 Open Beta Review

It has truly been a long time since I played an Anno game. I am talking early 2000’s long time. I didn’t really know what to expect coming into this, but it was free and I will always check out a free game or beta when I have the time.

The beta starts off with you needing some money to get home to your sister so you use dynamite to blow up some fish. This will teach you how to use items and move the ship around, and it made me chuckle so that was fun. After this, it is a quick sail home to shock your friend and servant whose life you saved at some point with the fact that you are rich which will admittedly annoy him since you were just blowing up fish for cash and sleeping in barns while you and your family own an island and hundreds if not thousands of buildings.

Turns out dear old dad died in prison after being accused of treason and your sister needs your help to not only clear his name, but build a new empire and deal with your jackass uncle. I won’t go further into the story they shared because it does go along with the game they will be releasing but you will be attempting to unravel a pretty in-depth conspiracy it seems, and it did have me quite interested and I was a little disappointed to see it end.

As for the gameplay and graphics, both were smooth and offered me no problems even on my laptop even on medium settings. Building your town feels fluid and offered no problems and I never really felt like I didn’t know what was going on. Each building is explained pretty well and I didn’t really have to ask how they worked which I appreciated. The full release is looking like it will be worth buying. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Surge

the surge

I don’t know what it is about Souls type games but they help me unwind. There is just something about having to adapt to a hard situation overcoming some huge obstacles, and feeling awesome after beating them. I also hate machines so a game that combines the uphill battle aspect and the destruction of our possible mechanical overlords was a game for me.

We play as a dude named Warren about to get a job at the Creo corporation . Warren is a paraplegic who is given a robotic exo- rig like a majority of Creo’s employees to help with the heavy lifting. During the process, Warren wasn’t properly sedated and blacks out, waking up in the wastes of there corporate facility. The rigs have caused the workers to go insane and the robots have turned. Armed with weapons and armor made of scrap, Warren finds himself alone to discover what the hell happened…

I found The Surge addictive as hell as many games of this type and while the combat mechanics are pretty similar to Souls or Bloodborne, there are some neat mechanics that make the game stand. Being able to decide whether to finish an enemy quick by aiming directly for there weak spots or trying to smash off there armored pieces and use them for yourself. I also love being able to bank my credits so I can explore more safely. While Warren is kinda bland as a character, the creepy atmosphere and weird enemies make up for it. My only complaints are pretty small like the upgrade system could be better and I have the wavering shoulder lights in the pitch black areas. In the end, the Surge is a cool game that’s a steal for free on PS+ right now and worth checking out. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Rim World

oh Rim World, how the hell do I describe you. Well here is what Steam says.

A sci-fi colony sim driven by an intelligent AI storyteller. Inspired by Dwarf Fortress and Firefly. Generates stories by simulating psychology, ecology, gunplay, melee combat, climate, biomes, diplomacy, interpersonal relationships, art, medicine, trade, and more.

That is copy and pasted directly from Steam. It kind of tells you what the game is, but it really doesn’t tell you anything. My game started with three people crashed on a planet, it can be three random or customized people. You will start by gathering some resources and then building yourself a home. This is around the time a crazed rabbit attacked my startup colony and killed my dog. That isn’t a joke, I skipped the tutorial because I figured how hard can it be? Well, I didn’t know how to do anything and the damn bunny killed my dog before I figured it out.

After I went back to the tutorial, which you should play, things got a bit better. Notice I did not say easier. Why? Because the entire game is just trying to kill you. From food to raiders to animals, it can all kill you. In fact, the game is more or less designed to kill you. Yea you can escape the world you crash on but until you get some experience this isn’t likely.  For me the fun was just building stuff and trying to survive raids and seeing what happens. Is a bunny going to attack? Are their robots in these ruins? Who knows. There are also some pretty insane mods. I don’t use mods but I saw one that basically let you build in space, one that lets you make prisoners work for you.

The game, in general, is just a lot of fun, even when you lose. If you like building and survival games, this one is worth checking out just know that it isn’t easy. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order trailer

As every main hero of Star Wars has had to deal with, I too feel a powerful sense of conflict after seeing this trailer. The trailer’s story looks awesome; I love the idea of a young Jedi having to live in secrecy, hiding from the Empire and the Inquisitors, not trying to fight a grand rebellion but simply stay alive. BUT, there is a dark side- its a EA game. After the complaints about Anthem, as well as the last hand full of games they produced, it’s no wonder a game fan would cringe. There is hope I’m sure as always, at least I’m praying to the gaming gods there is but I ain’t holding my breath. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Victoria 2 (PC)

Victoria 2 is a grand strategy game from Paradox Interactive and is considered by many to be one of their more difficult games to master due to its complexity. I by no means consider myself a master, or even good at the game, I simply know how to play a bit. I have some experience with their other games such as Stellaris Console Edition (PS4) and Crusader Kings 2 (PC) and I have to admit, it truly is far more complex.

To start you pick a real-world country in the 19th century, and manage it in just about every aspect possible. I will use America as an example since that is where the tutorial takes place and it is my home country. You start just prior to the Texas war for independence from Mexico and is really one of your first major decisions. Do you want to get involved or do you leave them alone to fend for themselves? Well wanting to do the right thing for America, I helped them out and they later became a state, true to life. From here I was setting tax rates, attempting to settle Oklahoma and out west more and moved into what is now Canada. This pissed off the British who at this point still own Canada, they then invaded me. Not know how to really defend myself they took over my new settlements in the north, and the New England states all the way down to New York before I restarted the game.

I decided to not piss off Britan and rush the American Civil war by instantly pissing off the south over slavery, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of rebels and the North getting stomped in the Civil war. After that every 6 months a new civil war would start. Yup, time to restart.

Around the 5th restart I got the hang of the game, most of what is modern America eas under my control, I managed to outlaw slavery while avoiding the American Civil war completely and my tax rate was almost 0 due to my economy being insane with investments all around the world. Until the British, Mexico and for some reason I still don’t understand Haiti invaded me. About 2 months in and Hati quit the war, but fighting in both the north and south was taking its toll on my troops and economy. About 6 years later Mexico asked for peace and gives me Arizona for me to leave them be. The damn Britsh are the bane of my existence tho.

These are the types of scenarios you will come across in Victoria 2, and they get even more insane and weird if you decide to start as a country like Italy or Egypt. You can do things like make Canada never exist, let the Cherokee thrive, have a small African nation take over Asia, your skill level and imagination are the only things stopping you. Well, that and a pretty high learning curve and make no mistake, it is high. That is the only real issue with the Paradox grand strategy games, they take time and dedication to learn, but damn are they worth it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Depraved (PC)

Depraved is a pretty typical city builder but this one has some survival aspects to it as well. This is a nice change of pace from the usual build stuff, wait awhile build new stuff we usually get. This time in the old west you are not only picking a spot to build that will allow you ample room to build, but also access to supplies such as rock, wood, and food. You will then need to build enough houses for everyone, give them jobs and attract new people.

If this sounds easy, it is because I haven’t gotten to the part yet where bears will occasionally attack you if you wander too close, the winter will come and attempt to freeze you to death. Bandit attacks will also come and go because what is the wild west without that?

The game does a great job of making you decide what to build and when since it won’t be easy to stockpile materials in the early game. You will constantly be building something to attract more people or keep people alive. For an early access game, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of content, and I will be checking back in or more. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.