Augmented Empire for Steam was sent to me by Coatsink and is a turn-based strategy RPG. The story is pretty straightforward: you live in Savannah in the year 2058. The world is a corrupt place, divided by class and who you know, more than by ability and what people deserve or have earned. Your choices will change all that, maybe.
The game plays great, as no time during my time did I experience any sort of stutters, slowdowns, or crashing. The hand-drawn maps and backgrounds are gorgeous as well.
The game is rather short, and the battles are pretty simplistic compared to other games in the genre. Only 26 battles, which can be beaten in about 10 hours. This isn’t bad, though the game only has a price tag of about $8.
Now you all know by now when I review games, I review them based on games around a similar price point. The problem I have here is that I really don’t have anything to compare this with. The story is good, but not great. It doesn’t do anything new, but what it does is solid and worth a playthrough. The graphics aren’t great but for the price they are damned good. The voice acting is comparable to games at twice the price, easily.
I find myself wanting to give this game a 9/10. The game isn’t the best, but it is one of the best games out there at this price point. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
How in the hell did we get a sequel? Normally, I’d start with a synopsis, but truth be told, there isn’t much of one. Marshall and Washington reunite begrudgingly to take on a new syndicate and Tommy Wiseau. I just explained the movie and saved you a lot of boredom.
Samurai Cop 2 misses a lot of what made the first great. There is bad acting and garish effects but nothing that reaches into the legendary WTF territory as the first. The pacing is atrocious. Halfway through Savior and I kept asking when it would be over. Tommy Wiseau was…Tommy Wiseau and though he’s the final villain, he is too annoying to be funny. There are a lot of callbacks that don’t go anywhere. In the end , forget this movie exists and stay with the original. May the gaming gods bring you glory.
When the violent Katana Gang goes too far, it’s up to 2 mispaired cops to bring them down: the laid back Frank Washington and his partner Joe Marshall, the Samurai Cop, trained in Japan… ok let’s stop there.
Samurai Cop absolutely earned its legendary status in B movie culture. It’s got everything a bad movie can ask for: Godzilla-style dubbing, random sex scenes, hilariously bad fight scenes, WTF dialogue, porno level level line deliveries and hair that is clearly a wig. This movie is a laugh riot that thankfully doesn’t try to take itself seriously. Savior and I had a blast reciting lines from it between laughing our asses off at the bad fights and the mankini scenes. There’s not much to say for this Lethal Weapon knock off except it’s a damn fun time with friends that lives up to B movie legend. May the gaming gods bring you glory.
To set the stage, a long time ago in the 1930’s maybe even longer, reports started coming in of people occasionally seeing something. Even once hit something with their car and were chased back to it when they went to check on what it was. This was in the great state of Wisconsin near Elkhorn. A creature with red eyes and a canine-like face.
The Beast of Bray Road has a long history and has been featured in movies, books, and documentaries. It is described as being between 6 and 7 feet tall and can move either on all 4 or more like a human walks. Either way, it sounds much more like a traditional werewolf than its own type of creature. Perhaps a family of them has been living in the area over the years, since the most recent reports are from 2020.
There are also more plausible and mundane explanations. Grey wolves, while uncommon, are known to live in the area, as are black bears, and one living with mange would closely resemble what people have described, except for the eye color, which a simple trick of the light would account for.
While we will probably never know what it truly is, it is an interesting possibility. With so many sightings, it would be silly to think there isn’t something living out there in Walworth County. If it’s a cryptid or a common animal, we will never truly know. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Publisher Graffiti Games and developer Fervir Games are excited to announce that Creature Keeper, the monster-taming, action-adventure RPG where you tame, train and fight alongside wild Creatures in real-time combat, is available now on PC via Steam for $14.99! Build your party of charming companions to take on any challenge, then coordinate powerful attacks and combos on an action-packed, retro-inspired journey across a vast world full of dangers and secrets to discover.
Welcome to Thera, a magical and mysterious land filled with fifty fantastical Creatures to raise and fight alongside in epic combat. Embark on a great adventure to restore balance and stop a strange sickness from bringing calamity to the world.
Build and customize your party, level up and unlock new buffs and powers, and learn all about Creatures through your battles and experiences. Befriend a wide variety of Creatures like the adorable Amphibiole, the powerful Molectus, the gigantic Lutras, the jacked Swolfe, and the almighty Bep. Power up your team, fill out your Bestiary, grow a garden on the go, and embark on a fantastic journey to fulfill your destiny!
Key Features
Build Your Team & Fight: Assemble your dream team by befriending a variety of unique Creatures to battle alongside you in real time. Choose your Creatures wisely to handle any challenge that stands in your way!
Customize Your Creatures: Create powerful, diverse, and stylish playstyles through gameplay-altering skill gems, perks, weapons and more while looking fashionable with tons of hats to dress your Creatures up in.
Potent Plant Power: Use your Pocket Garden to grow food and create helpful Connection Bonuses for your Creatures in an engaging organization mini-game.
Knowledge Is Strength: Fill out your Bestiary of fifty unique Creatures to unlock powerful buffs and items for your party.
An Epic Journey Awaits: Explore the vast world of Thera and all its secrets as you take on your quest of destiny.
Creature Keeper is available today on Steam for $14.99 and is coming soon to the Epic Games Store and Microsoft Store. The game is also in development for Nintendo Switch. It will be featured in Steam’s Creature Collector Fest May 12-19 and will be debuting a developer diary at the OTK Games Expo on May 25 (where it previously won the expo’s $25,000 grant in 2023).
Fervir Games is a one-man studio founded in 2021 with a focus on pixel art and animation, currently working on the monster-taming RPG Creature Keeper.
About Graffiti Games
Graffiti Games is a video game publisher comprised of a strong team of games industry veterans. With a powerful, global distribution network encompassing both digital and physical retail partners, Graffiti achieves worldwide reach and maximizes sales potential for its games. Graffiti is known for a portfolio of high-quality games, including the recent best sellers Blue Fire and Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion. To find out more about Graffiti and our portfolio, please visit www.graffitigames.com.
Polterguys Possession Party is a party game sent to me by Amplified Games,which is always appreciated. The game itself is pretty simple to get into. You play as a ghost that possesses random items, and you must avoid a larger ghost. Last one standing wins.
This sounds like it would be easy, but there will, however, be other people trying to sabotage you. Fences that can be moved on you as you try to escape, power-ups that can be used against you (or by you), or even levers that can launch you out of hiding places just as the ghost shows up. These are all possibilities of what can be done to you. They can also be done by you.
There honestly isn’t a ton to be said about this game. For a game with a $10 price tag, it has a lot to it. You can practice with bots before going online with real people. The game also has plenty of things for you to unlock when it comes to toys and food to possess for your little ghost guy. Some in levels, some are hidden in your room, which acts as a sort of in-game hub for you and your friends. The game is also 2-4 players couch co-op, so if you want to play with your real-life friends as opposed to online with strangers, that is an option. Don’t get drunk and play with your girlfriend, tho, they don’t appreciate being tossed to the ghost. The game is a solid 8/10, even though it did have me on the couch for a night. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Hot Rod Mayhem is a kart racer sent to me by Casual Brothers, and of course, I always like to disclose that and thank them up front. There are probably a million kart racers out there, so it is always a dicey genre to enter. This one is available basically anywhere you play games.
The biggest selling point of this game for me is that they chose a very old-school feel for this one. There is no online mode; this is a couch co-op adventure. Each person (up to 4) just creates a character before the race, with plenty of options from perfectly normal to pretty outrageous. Then you pick a car to race with, each with its own good and bad points.
There are only two real options when it comes to racing: a single race or a full-blown championship series. I like this choice as well because they do a lot with a little. You can unlock 10 tracks, but each one of these tracks can be reversed, and there are multiple difficulty options. When you add in the power-ups, races can get kind of wild and hectic.
The game is far from perfect. It relies heavily on boosting as opposed to skill to win races at times, it seems, and bumping other racers can end your race faster than anything else. As far as I can tell, the computer racers don’t suffer from this issue the same way human players do.
The game cost $20, and for kart games I’ve played at that price, it is definitely solid. There are certainly better out there, especially if you are playing on the Switch. But for Xbox on PlayStation, the game is solid enough. It is a 7/10 game in a genre piled with quickly tossed-together junk. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Live War is a real-time strategy game that Mirage sent to me, and I have always appreciated it. I should also point out it is a preview version of the game, which means it is still being worked on, so I won’t be giving it a score as it seems unfair to grade unfinished work.
The game itself is easy to learn. You command your troops; each troop type has strengths and weaknesses. Don’t try sending a couple of foot soldiers after a tank, obviously. Also, maybe don’t send that tank after air support. This seems like common sense, but I tested it anyway. Do not do that.
It is also nice to see how easy it is to learn, but hard to master the game actually is. In the first couple of battles, you can kind of get away with just sending a ton of troops straight into the action. This is a quick way to lose the war, though. Also, the old school rope a dope doesn’t work. Sending a couple of troops forward to entice the enemy to chase you into an ambush rarely works.
Now, how does the game function? Well, I can play on my laptop just fine. I can’t imagine his will cause any real issues for anyone with a half-decent setup. I did have some mild slowdowns when there were a lot of explosions on screen, but this was very mild and very few and far between.
Real-time tactics fans are definitely going to want to keep an eye on this one, even the preview version I was sent is a ton of fun to play. Hell, I don’t even know what was missing from it.
This one is weird for me to write, because I always thought it was common knowledge until this past weekend when discussing it at work, when I was the only one in a group of 6 people that knew this, 3 of whom were college educated. Back in 1818 Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein. In this story, Victor Frankenstein creates a monster out of spare human parts and brings it to life. He is described as being 8 feet tall and having pearly white teeth and lustrous black hair. His skin was yellow and tight to the point it barely concealed the inner workings of his muscles and arteries.
He also does not have a name. They simply referred to it in the abstract by calling it, well, “it” or ” monster” and things like “creature” and “demon,” but it doesn’t truly have a name.
Now I say all that to point this out, calling him Frankenstein isn’t actually wrong. Universal Studios has been doing it for over 100 years now. Hell there is even a movie called The Bride of Frankenstein.
Look she didn’t marry Victor
I think, in all honesty, it is time to admit, we are basically just calling this dude by his last name. His creator’s (dad’s) name is Victor Frankenstein; he never gave him a first name, so we call him by his last name. I just never realized so many people knew there was a book, but didn’t know he didn’t have a name in it. Enjoy monster Friday, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Hook Complete Edition is another game sent my way by Ultimate Games, and it is kind of an odd one for me. I don’t normally like Puzzle games. In fact, I am not exactly a fan of this one, yet I couldn’t really stop playing it. Even my 8-year-old daughter gave it a try. The concept is simple and very minimalistic. Each level has a few hooks. All you have to do is click on them to release them in order so that they all come loose without anything preventing it.
This is a level as well.
Pretty much every level you complete gives you that nice achievement sound. It starts off pretty simple. Do I mean this one first or this one first. It isn’t long, however, before you are following lines and trying to figure out if something needs to be twisted so only one half moves. It gets addictive fast.
Full disclosure, there are already multiple videos out there that will allow you to speed through this game and collect every achievement in a few hours. The game isn’t long if you want to do it that way, but there is plenty of fun to be had here if you like this sort of game. It won’t be the game that makes you fall in love with puzzle games, but if you like them or just want some quick achievement points, this is a great option. This is even more true when you see the price point is less than $5. 8/10 on this great low-price game. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Savior Gaming 