This game came out years ago on the X-Box Live Arcade and I know many of you would have missed it. So great news, for about $5 ( or your regional equivalent) you can check this one out now on PC. Here is a quick blurb they sent me about the release, and who knows maybe I will have a review up soon. Stay tuned to find out.
Many of you may have noticed I haven’t been writing as much lately. It has been unfortunate but it has been a rough year. I won’t say 2025 will be my year though, that seems to be a curse for people. I did want to let you guys know about the new podcast my buddy Donny, Nick,and myself have started. It is called The Nerd Narrative. It is basically all of us bullshitting about things like video games, movies and monsters. Either way check it out on Spotify.
Deck13 Spotlight are ending 2024 with some incredible news.
Chained Echoes was nominated game of the year in Germany 2023 and was acclaimed throughout the world as one special JRPG. Now the awesome announcement of a new experience with DLC that will be released in 2025 across all platforms!
Deck13 Spotlight and Umami Tiger, the newly founded Studio from Matthias Linda, areproud to announce Ashes of Elrant, the official DLC for the masterpiece and award winning indie JRPG Chained Echoes. The expansion will launch in the second quarter of 2025 for PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.
The Crimson Wings are needed once more!
Ashes of Elrant takes players to a new land, away from Valandis. It is set right before the final fight of Chained Echoes so you can prepare yourself for meeting your beloved heroes once again. The Clan of the Crimson Wings has to answer a call for help from the land of Elrant. A land where nothing is as it seems. Get yourself ready for a new playable character – the White Wolf, visit new areas, fight over 40 new monsters and bosses and listen to 15 new tracks by mastermind Eddie Marianukroh. And also grab yourself a fishing rod – you will need it.
Leave The World Behind, a movie adaptation of the book by the same name, which, no, I did not read and have no intention of reading. Yes people that read the book,I’m sure the book is better. You always say that. This movie clocks in at about 2 and a half hours, so I doubt the 9 weeks it would take me to slog through the book would be better.
This movie was weird for me. Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali were fantastic in this movie. They all were. The story itself is great. A family goes on vacation to get away from a life that’s making their parents miserable. The kids are enjoying themselves. It’s well acted.
Two strangers show up telling tales of a black out which may or may not be true, they may or may not be the owners. There’s some slight racism going on with Julia Roberts’character but it’s kind of understandable given the situation so maybe it isn’t racism it’s just healthy skepticism.
The problem I have honestly was with the pacing of it all. This move felt like it lasted 4 hours. By the time Kevin Bacon’s character shows up again I forgot he was even in the movie to begin with. His scene was pretty tense and his character was very necessary. If the movie was a little shorter I may have even been wondering where he was.
The movie does have a fantastic story and I don’t want to spoil stuff for you. You will notice I haven’t really said much about anything you won’t see by reading a movie poster. And I will still recommend watching this movie because while it feels long it is worth checking out. Just make sure you bring a drink and popcorn. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Honestly if you have ever seen any Romantic Comedy with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston you know what this movie was about. Adam got his heart broken by a woman, he does some insane shit for years.
He meets Jennifer Aniston,this time she works for him. He meets a woman he actually loves, he convinces Jen to help him fix the horrible situation he created. Some will they won’t they ensues.
Happy Fake Family
The movie has its funny moments but the real star here is just the overall chemistry that Adam and Jennifer have. I always enjoy their movies together because they just seem to enjoy being around each other. It would be super weird to find out they actually hated each other at this point. Shout out to the kids for playing their parts well. The movie is a must see for romantic comedy fans. It doesn’t break any new ground,but it does the entire genre well. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
So I got an email from Sextant Studios which you can find over on Blue Sky ( also feel free to follow me here ) Asking me if I would be interested in checking out their demo, and of course, I was only too happy too.
The game has an odd premise, and I am as the kids say, here for it. Hell has indeed opened up in the fields you call home, and you must connect the cities to defend yourself. You do this in what I can best describe as an auto battler meets strategy game for people who have little time to waste but want to have a hard time mastering something. Also, they grew up loving Minesweeper.
Did I mention, that you play as sheep? Yes, Flocking Hell refers to the fact you are indeed sheep. I do not know or care how these sheep built these full-fledged cities, but they have done it. You click these empty spaces to discover towns then connect them and watch these adorable sheep run to and fro to reinforce each other to defend against the incoming horde and after 80 turns, there will be hell. Sort of, the demons are honestly as cute as the sheep. I love those little guys even when they wreck me, and they did. For two hours I couldn’t get past level 4, I suck at this game. But damn if I don’t enjoy it.
A nice touch is the card system, you get them in between levels ( you do start with a couple) and they do various things like leveling up your cities or showing blocks, etc. They do cost sheep to use but the rewards usually outweigh the cost. I haven’t gotten the chance to use them all and I am far from having mastered the game and its mechanics, but check out the trailer below and absolutely check out the demo over on Steam.
Shadow of mordor man what a game truly a great game from monolith and wb games and during the past 3 weeks I think I’ve put in 15 hours for a completion of 50% sorry but the game has way to much to find and do and honestly I was getting bored and wanted to […]
Starbound finally made its way over to Xbox and chucklefish was kind enough to toss me a copy to check out which as you all know I always appreciate it.
Starbound starts out on what should be the best day of your character’s life. Graduating from a program that will allow your character to travel the galaxy helps your people survive. Just then, an alien force invaded your world and wiped the place out and you barely escaped with your life.
You and your trust pet make it off the world just in time for your ship to break over a randomly generated world for you to explore. From there you can do pretty much whatever you want.
Build up a small home, improve your gear, fix your ship up and explore the galaxy even more. Anyone familiar with Terraria knows how the game is played.
The game is quite nice to look at and it sounds even better. The sounds are great to listen to as you tinker with little things in your base or as you dog around trying to find something new to build.
My only real complaint is the controls aren’t great. Don’t get me wrong they aren’t bad, they are functional but not much more than that. Mouse and keyboard would probably function much better. Don’t let this discourage you from picking up this excellent title. It is a solid 7/10 and worth the $15 price point. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Wildermyth Console edition is a new tactical RPG from Auroch Digital that they were kind enough to send me. It is always appreciated.
As some of you may have noticed over the years,reviewing games isn’t always a pleasure. Occasionally I am sent a game that I have to slog through and it just kind of makes me hate my life. Then there is the story book world of Wildermyth. Where you can take randomly created characters,or take the time to name and customize them to your liking and get lost in the gameplay that combines turn based strategy combat and a map strategy that reacts to your every move.
Spending too much time securing one area could result in enemies attacking
The basic story (there are a few) starts out with you saving a friend, rival or romantic love interest (your choice) from the city that’s under attack. This will introduce you to the first 2 starter characters and how to do basic attacks or interactions with doors.
From there you meet your third character and how to use this game’s version of magic, which is another quick battle. This is essentially just using items on the map to use different attacks, for example using a candle to set enemies on fire or a tree to hit enemies with vine whips for example.
The game looks and sounds nice and comes with a varsity of difficulty settings and even can be mostly customized which is always appreciated. The combat is fluid and functions well, but unfortunately I do have a small issue. It isn’t game breaking but it is annoying. I’m sure it will be patched soon,and it is so rare that many people probably won’t run into it but I have been able to repeat it.
While in combat sometimes while using magic the game will just close out, and it always seems to be when using trees to hit bigger enemies. This may have simply been a coincidence but I did get it to work 3 times in the same battle and once more in a different battle, always using a tree against a larger enemy.
Aside from that the game has been great to play through and I am sure I will put many more hours into it. I would score it higher if it weren’t for that,but as of now it’s a 6/10. 8/10 if that glitch were fixed. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead from Stormmind Games and Saber Interactive is primarily a stealth game set in the world of the movie franchise, A Quiet Place. In case the name didn’t somehow give that away. They were also nice enough to hook me up with a copy of this one. Normally I appreciate this, but I extra appreciate this one since “my most middle child” affectionately calls themselves loves to watch these movies with me. So being able to continue on in this world with them was a nice treat.
Good Advice
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is a very odd enigma in gaming for me. It managed to create a very odd paradox where the game is simultaneously so slow and methodical I found myself bored and not wanting to play, but also on edge watching the phonometer creep its way between the environmental noise and the noise I was making and hoping a monster didn’t just out and eat me.
This is the key component of the game. You can not let the noise you make go higher than the environmental noises or the alien monsters that have taken over the earth will attack you. This requires you to walk very slowly pretty much at all times, and perform every action such as opening doors, drawers, air vents, etc. at a snail’s pace or risk certain death. While this makes for a tense and terrifying experience it doesn’t always make for a fun experience.
Don’t try to fight this thing
None of this makes it a bad game, it does look nice and the horror aspects of it are great. It does feel like You are sneaking through the world trying not to get killed by one of these creatures. And since you are playing as an asthmatic 20 -something year old the decision of hitting your inhaler and possibly alerting the alien or waiting it out can be exhausting.
Always a good time to be quiet
A Quiet Place won’t be for everyone, it is however a solid title. It won’t be winning any Game of the Year titles for example. At about 10 hours of playtime, however, fans of the series won’t be disappointed with the story of Alex and her adventure to find someplace safe for herself. I give it a 7 of 10, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you gloty.
Savior Gaming 