Whimside is a cute creature collector sent my way by Toadzillart, which I am always grateful for. The concept is quite simple and straightforward. It sits at the bottom of your screen while you go about your day; in fact, I am playing it right now as I type this. Every so often, creatures will wander past, and you click on them to capture them. You can then breed them to make new creatures with various physical attributes to unlock new areas to visit, which allows you to continue on your quest to unlock more areas.
This doesn’t mean the game is easy; it takes time and a bit of luck to breed the right creature to unlock the next area. You also get a small area you can decorate and keep creatures that will spawn gems to spend in the store to buy new things and upgrades to make your quest easier. This can be things like more room for eggs, auto collectors for gems, or just new decorations.
This is honestly a very niche title; it won’t appeal to everyone. The collector in me that loves to have something to do while I write or just watch random videos, however, loves having this thing on the bottom of my screen. There is also a setting that lets you minimize it completely and gives you a notification when something you need to be aware of happens. The game is sitting at very positive reviews on Steam, and with very good reason. At less than $6, the game is a steal. 8/10 experience at this price point. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Gold Gold Adventure Gold is an early access title with an extremely catchy song sent to me by a company whose name I think someone was stoned when they came up with, not judging, I have made some amazing decisions that way. But huge shout out to Can can can a man for hooking me up with this one.
Seriously, I love the song. I could give you the early access trailer, but I won’t; you are getting this one. Enjoy.
Anyway, now that I have attempted to make you listen to a song and said I thought the guy who named a company was a stoner, let’s move on to why you are here. The game is all about building a city, inviting heroes to live there, and then using those heroes to go out on missions to kill monsters and go on adventures to make you money. Think Majesty for those old school gamers.
This game has a ton of potential; it even has a built-in way to make sure you, even if you run out of money, have a hero available in the form of a pet. You can choose between 2 as of now, and it evolves as it levels up into a much larger creature. Make sure you pet him and give him love, by the wa,y so he does what you want. That isn’t a joke; there is an in-game mechanic that allows you to pet and brush him when he does things you like.
We all know what this looks like, but it’s a forge
The main way to progress through the game is to build different buildings, places to recruit heroes, a forge so your heroes can improve their weapons, or a place for them to train.
The premise is quite simple, and the game works fine about half the time. I lost my first game, however, because of a weird glitch. Most of my heroes either got stuck on a wall and couldn’t attack the enemies, or were shot through the walls and were killed by the enemies. Both scenarios made the walls completely useless.
The game did pay me back with my first win. Which also came when on day 2 of 6, a level 40 spider came and killed all my heroes while I was attempting to upgrade my main building. This caused them to not be able to attack my main building at all because of the fence that gets put up around it. They were forced to just stand next to it, then attack the farms that pop up automatically. 6 days later, I won my first game.
The game is a lot of fun, but most of my games have come with some weird issue. Only those 2 were of the sort I would consider game-breaking, but both soured the experience quite a bit. The game is at best a 6/10 experience. It has a lot of potential, but it needs a bit more time. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Back in 2022, Deck13 and Mathias Linda tossed me a copy of what I can only describe as a masterpiece in Chained Echoes PS5 Review. Fast forward a few years, later they offered me a copy of the DLC Ashes of Elrant. I took my own advice from my review of Echos and ran to say yes. But could lightning strike in the same place twice?
Well, let’s get the facts out of the way: it costs about $10, which falls in the middle of DLC prices. It costs less than most season passes or expansions, but more than most cosmetic packs. This price point nails it perfectly. You can easily spend 10 hours on the DLC just taking in the sights, trying to finish up the new board, and playing the new mini games.
I won’t say much about the new character, not because I don’t enjoy him, I love this dude. I won’t say much because it would spoil the story, and I can’t think of a way to explain him without doing so. What I will say is that he never left my party, he is relatively simple to use, has some great abilities, and his character arc itself is fantastic to see play out.
Speaking of the story, this is another one that is hard to speak about. It takes place before the very end of the main story, and you select it from the title screen. You can just hop right in if you want. It involves the Crimson Wings being hired for an important mission that also happens to pay far too well to pass up. (Small spoiler alert, for once in this situation, you actually do get the money)
The story primarily focuses on certain characters over others, making some of them sort of just feel along for the ride, but the lore we get is great. Many of the in-game changes this time around are much appreciated as well. No more searching for crystals out in the wild; monsters just drop them. They are all just one level now and can just be equipped at will from your inventory screen.
Another interesting addition is that you can increase stats from these sorts of glowing wells, and every area pretty much has one or two for you to find. This, combined with the new Party Point (PP) system, lets you unlock things like a fishing minigame or the chance to do damage before the battle starts.
There are a few downsides this time around. Part of that PP system, for example, lets you increase the size of the green overdrive bar. If you took your fully leveled characters into the DLC, you can basically just destroy everything when you start in overdrive mode. It is nice to feel like a god however. Which brings me to my next point: the DLC is self-contained, the new character and the changes stay in the DLC, away from the base game. So if you love the new character, you won’t be able to bring him back to the game and enjoy him there. The same goes for all the weapons and stuff you gather there, since you lose anything you have in the main game when you load it over. (don’t worry, it’s still in your game over there)
So did lightning strike in the same place twice? Chained Echoes is still my highest rated game ever, and the DLC is a respectable 8/10. The lore is great, and while I’m not a fan of all of the mini games, or that it is a self-contained experience, it did give me more of what I wanted at a fair price. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
We live in a world of nostalgia and remakes, most of which exist for a quick cash grab. DeadSpace was a classic in horror gaming. Well, thankfully, the folks at Motive understood the assignment. Dead Space is honestly the best horror remake I’ve played, beating Resident Evil 2 (2019) .
The story at it’s core is virtually the same. What changes is everything around it. Issac is no longer a mute protagonist but rather is voiced by the same VA as Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3 as well as given a much-needed backstory, adding to the pathos of the engineer. All the characters are flushed out more. The story is told with a deeper narrative emphesis instead of being hidden away in the logs around the ship.
The Ishimura has expanded. Now there are side missions that make you want to retrace your way through the doomed vessel. There is a price, however. Combat has drastically improved but so have the nercomorphs. The weapons are the same but reworked so that the Plasma cutter won’t easily carry you through the whole game. Ammo is much more scarce so you do have to get creative. On the flipside, the necromorphs are smarter, more aggressive, and respawn more throughout the ship. The necromorphs are nothing short of nightmare fuel. The attention to realism, especially when chopping them down, is nothing short of masterwork.
Perhaps what I really admired was that Motive fixed nothing that didn’t need it. The controls are basically the same as 2 and 3. They replaced the annoying gravity jump mechanic with the booster jets from the later games. Parts like the meteor shower and the congestion boss are no longer a pain in the ass but are arguably highlights now. Every weapon has a good pro and con to it. The atmosphere, creatures, story and experience have either remained pure terror or have been carefully elevated.
Unfortunately, this is an EA game. While well-loved by critics and players, they canceled the Dead Space 2 remake, so as of now, this slice of horror game perfection is all we have. Stranger things have happened but I cannot recommend this horror masterpiece enough. May the gaming gods bring you glory.
Winter has fallen since Baldur was slain. Kratos and Atreus struggle to evade Freya’s fury and fear the wrath of Odin. Odin comes, accompanied by an enraged, grieving Thor, looking for peace. After an awesome battle between the former god of war and the god of thunder, the duo finds themselves on a new journey, uncovering Odin’s cruelty, Loki’s destiny, and testing the strained relationship of Father and son…
Being the very first game I played on my PS5, I was blown away. Ragnorak is easily the best game in the series. The story and voice work are S-tier. Kratos and Atreus are incredibly developed. I was pleasantly surprised by how fun Atreus was to play and how invested I got in his story. Kratos vs Thor is nothing short of legendary. I loved the game’s depiction of Odin, Thor, and Heimdall. Visually, the game is breathtaking. The music is powerful. My only real complaint is that the Norse saga is basically closed now and where the GOW series is going, I don’t know, but I wish we got a little more in Norse myth. In the end, GOW 5 is an incredible sequel and easily one of the best games on Ps5 I can’t recommend enough. May the gaming gods bring you glory.
Ritual of Raven from Team17 is a story-based farming sim that they were kind enough to send me to check out. It is truly one of those games that you will probably love or hate, and I find myself playing it, thinking at parts this is great, and then at others wishing this part did not exist.
This is something I hate.
A good example of something I love is the story. It starts with you being sucked through a magical portal into a world where magic is real. A witch has lost her familiar, and she needs help getting it back. To do this, she needs your help, and you get to learn magic, something your created character is very excited to do.
This brings me to something I hate. To grow, water, and harvest crops, you need to use a little robot. These robots are programmed with tarot cards. Each action has to be planned out, including where and how they move and what they do when they get there. You can then retrieve items from their inventory.
I love the freedom to design my own garden and area
This didn’t take away the joy I found in designing my own little area of the world, or meeting Raven, my own familiar. Getting to know Raven, despite his very literal name, was great. Seeing the countryside and watching the story unfold is fantastic. I never really felt rushed by the game to get things done. To me is the sign of a true cozy game, not feeling rushed to get things done, so I can just relax. While some aspects of the game aren’t for me, the game is still a nice little time killer. 8/10 experience. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Death Relives is, at its core, a survival horror game, much like Amnesia or Outlast. It was sent my way by the fine folks at Nyctophile Studios, which I always appreciate. It is also worth pointing out that I got to check it out on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation 5.
The story and gameplay are the same across all three, and the controls are also the same. You spend the game dodging an ancient Aztec warrior while trying to rescue your mother with nothing more than an old spirit gun and dagger for protection. You will spend most of your time hiding with the aid of an old skin cloak, which hides you from the ghost sent by the Aztec warrior to find you. This will also help you kill those ghosts and collect their blood.
This blood is important because it keeps you alive when you use a certain object to help you solve puzzles and navigate your way through this mansion. Run out of blood and you die. This only matters if you kill the warrior, however. He does come back a bit stronger each time, so when and if you kill him is completely up to you. Sometimes it is worth it just to get a puzzle out of the way, for example.
This game, however, was far from enjoyable for me. On Xbox, there were definitely some graphic issues with tearing and such above doorways and such, and a few crashes. PlayStation also shared these graphical issues, but the crashes didn’t exist. Steam users didn’t seem to have either of these issues, and I didn’t notice them myself.
More often than not, while crouching behind a table, the warrior would see me anyway, despite the in-game tutorial telling me that it would keep me safe, and unlike most games where these challenges felt like an achievement to overcome, I usually just felt grateful it was over.
Speaking of things that I was grateful to be over, the game is short; you can beat the game in under 5 hours, and that is being generous. The companion app to the game can be helpful, but it is not completely necessary. All this being said, I am in the minority, it seems, for disliking the game. The game was 6/10 experience for me personally, but Steam users are enjoying it, and even PlayStation users are rating it 3/5 stars. For me, the game was just so painfully average that I have no interest in playing it again. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Nothing in modern horror has possibly made me sadder than the decline and implosion of the Conjuring universe (that should never have been a cinematic universe to begin with). This film looks better than The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It but after the flood of pointless spinoffs and steadily bad sequels, I can’t say I really care about the “final” Conjuring. All I can hope for is that the saga goes out on a fairly positive note. May the gaming gods bring you glory.
This caught me by surprise. While I’m not a huge Darksiders fan, I do appreciate them for their art style and gameplay. It is pretty cool seeing the 4 Horsemen reunite. I’m hoping it’ll bring something great to the table. May the gaming gods bring you glory.
The game itself attempts to be a super realistic racing experience that plays as well with a controller as it does with a full racing setup. They wanted to combine the everyday player with the more serious enthusiast and make a game both could enjoy.
The map is massive, and would feel right at home with any more open-world game like your Grand Theft Auto titles. This also leads to the downside where a lot of it is locked behind missions, causing you to miss out on a ton of beautiful scenery.
The driving took me a bit to get used to as I went into it thinking it was just another racing game, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The game does offer driving schools to teach you everything you need to know, and my biggest mistake was going into this without doing those. Between wanting that raw experience and thinking I could just drive like I do in any other racing game, I made the game far harder than it needed to be on myself.
My biggest, and only real complaint about the game the options for the starter car are extremely limited. By this, I mean there is only one car. Combine this with a relatively empty. It should also be noted that I played strictly with a controller, and most of the negative reviews you will see on Steam have to do with steering wheel integration. The game is a solid 7/10 experience, and drifting fans will love it, I think. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Savior Gaming 