Steel Defier is another game tossed my way by the fine folks over at Ratalaika Games, and we all know how much I love those guys. They always toss me such fun little gems to check out. Last week they hooked me up with Ultra Pixel Survive and over the weekend I spent some time playing Steel Defier.
Steel Defier is a simple game, you are trapped in a malfunctioning space ship and as the sole survivor your mission is to escape. Each room is a slightly more difficult wave of sliding boxes, lasers and other assorted defenses to stop you as you collect 15 key cards to unlock the doors.
Seeing this means new power up
There is no real guesswork involved,it has a map that is easy to follow to the exit and the game isn’t overly difficult. Not to say the game is easy, I was able to complete it in less than an hour and get the platinum in not much longer and all through normal gameplay. Simply collect all the power ups and complete the rooms on the ship and escape. Hop on over to the survival mode and collect 50 key cards in one run and boom, easy platinum.
The game cost about $5 (US) and was honestly a good looking game with a nice a nice sound track, and I was able to get both the PS4 and PS5 platinum. I played a few runs even after I got the platinum to see how long I could last in survival mode (72 for those that are curious) Definitely pick this one up, especially if you are a trophy hunter. For what this game is definitely a 9/10 must buy for anyone looking for something to just pick up and play or that is looking for some easy platinum trophies.
Ultra Pixel Survive is another indie title Ratalaika games was nice enough to send me to check out, and I always appreciate that.
This title is a bit different from what they normally send my way, it is a simple side scrolling survival game. At least it seems that way at a glance.
The Bunny girl is one of many fun characters
The game features many characters,from simple swords men and lumberjacks to dragon knights (don’t get excited it’s a guy with a spear not a real dragon) and even a plague doctor. The premise is simple, you can chop down trees, but up rocks and various other things to create spike traps, walls or food to protect your house and survive as long as possible. These materials can also be used to build anvils and such so you can upgrade your equipment.
At the start you will notice you only get one character and you will need to unlock the rest with these red gems that are rare to come across during game play. You do have to buy these,but the coins you earn in game is the money you use to buy them, no real money is used to do this. Simply kill monsters, save your money and use that money to either unlock new characters or power up your favorite characters so they start each run stronger and stronger.
This woman offers advice and occasionally scolds you for hiding out
I have in essence explained the entire game to you,and truthfully it’s not exactly much harder to master. But damn if this game isn’t addictive. I tossed this title and told hey check it out and toss us a small review. Instead this game quickly sucked up around 30 hours of my life over the course of my daughters spring break and shows no sign of slowing down. I definitely recommend picking this one up when it launches April 14th. It is an easy 9/10, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Experience Rhapsody II & III for the first time in the West! Following the events of Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, join young Kururu, the daughter of Cornet and Ferdinand, on her quest to find true love in Rhapsody II: Ballad of the Little Princess! Then, gear up for another dose of musical adventures as the songs and stories continue in Rhapsody III: Memories of Marl Kingdom!
Once again we are back with Monster Friday, and this time we are going to talk about The Loch Ness Monster, Nessie. Now before we go any further, I should acknowledge scientist have many times debunked Nessie’s very existence in a variety of ways. In fact aside from the Vox article above here is a clip from the Today Show. This isn’t to say I believe these articles simply they exist and can be used to start your debunking search.
The modern Loch Ness Monster story goes back over 80 years to what is known as “the surgeons photo.” It was published on 1934 when a doctor by the name of R. Kenneth Wilson sold a photo to the Daily Mail that became the face of Nessie for decades to come. It is 100% fake, and you can read an excellent article from PBS for all the small details, but essentially a man named Ian Wetherell convinced Dr. Wilson to help take the photograph and sell it as his own, and since he as a respected doctor nobody would really question it.
Surgeons Photo
One fake photo doesn’t prove the creature doesn’t exist however, even Alastair Boyd the man that managed to find everything that proved this photo was a hoax firmly believes in Nessie.
Possibly an Eel or snake
As for what Nessie is, many think of her as a plesiosaur, others as a giant eel or snake. In 2018 scientist conducted DNA surveys of Loch Ness and didn’t find any sign dinosaurs or giant sea creatures. Eels however are still a possibility as several species do live in the loch.
As many of you are aware back in 2021 Steam was given the Pixel Remasters of Final Fantasy 1 through 6. This was met with plenty of mixed emotions by many since veterans of the many other remasters felt the graphics weren’t good enough or they didn’t add enough new content (or any at all) or that they removed some things other remasters had.
Other people pointed out that these were Pixel Remasters of the original versions of the games and were simply graphical and musical improvements of those. I obviously have no opinion because I have not played them, but now console games, at least Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch players will soon have the opportunity to do so. Coming April 19th the Pixel Remasters of Final Fantasy 1-6 will be coming to console. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Pearl is the prequel to X and basically tells the story of how Pearl ended up on the farm with her husband. If you recall Mia Goth played both the main characters Maxine and Pearl in X and in this one also plays Pearl once more as a young lady.
Pearl has a much different time than X, taking place during the Spanish Flu of 1918 while most of the men are away during the first Great War it starts out quite happy as Pearl dreams of escaping the family farm for a life of dancing like the girls in her films.
We quickly find that her father is confined to a wheel chair and has very little know of what is going on and needs constant care and her mother, Ruth, an older German woman is quite the uncaring woman. She is constantly speaking down to Pearl and her dreams and simply wanting things done because that is what is best. One example of this was when Pearl rode her bike to town for more medicine she stopped for a show and didn’t bring back 8 cents. Ruth noticed this forbid Pearl from eating dinner and she was only allowed to eat this for breakfast the next day to make up for the money she spent.
This is where we see the madness in Pearl go from subtle to more and more pronounced as she desperately wants to leave this farm and her family behind.
The movie is great and makes an excellent edition to the series of films and there is more to come. It perfectly captures the feeling of the early 1900’s without resorting to using far outdated technology or anything silly like that. This one is definitely worth checking out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Every so often I get the chance to review an Indy title with an interesting concept that seems a bit off,but I need to know more. Black Salt Games and Team17 were awesome enough to toss me a copy of such a game,and that game is DREDGE.
The idea is simple, and it plays just as simple as it sounds. You are a fisherman, who crashes their boat at a small port town of Greater Marrow. You are quickly given a new boat and told you can pay it off as you help out the town.
You will start by meeting the townspeople, they are nice enough people that are willing to fix your ship and buy your fish along with selling you upgrades and sending you on some fetch quest. Oh and they do give you one small rule, don’t go out at night.
Rule 2: be careful what you try to investigate
The fishing is done with various mini games, timing hitting buttons with the green box, or hitting the circle when it lines up or in the case of dredging up new items making sure you don’t hit certain spots on a spinning sort of dial. It is all very well done.
I did get a little tired of simply fishing during the day and decided I needed to see what would happen if I went out at night, because like anyone else told not to do anything I have to try it out. The darker it got the higher the level of panic level went. The fish also became more rare and sold for more money.
This is when things started to get weird. Eyes began to stare at me from a distance. Red smoke would begin to follow me and attempt to overtake my boat as I would flee not wanting to risk losing my days haul. The longer you spend out at night,the worse these things become until the stop being things that watch you and become things that can end your game prematurely.
That’s probably ok right?
The game isn’t perfect,I wasn’t a fan of the inventory system. Imagine the Resident Evil cache case. I often found myself having to toss out fish or wood I needed for upgrades because I needed something else just a little bit more. It made the game more difficult than it needed to be in some aspects when other things were made quite simple and relaxing.
The graphics and sound could have been better I’m sure,but personally I loved them both. I don’t think I will ever forget the first time I heard a foghorn in the night or when an arm of what I can only describe as a kraken crushed my ship because I decided to try to rush back to port in the night.
I know I haven’t mentioned the story and that is intentional. First, you are either going to love it or hate it and second I feel like it should be seen blindly just like I did.
I do however feel comfortable saying this game is a great buy. 8/10 with ease,and at $25 this is one of the better Indy titles on the market.
Once again NIS America was nice enough to toss me a copy of their new game, GrimGrimorie Once More to check out,which of course is always appreciated. This one is a bit different from what they usually send me.
You play as a new trainee magician named Lillet Blan at Silver star Tower. The game starts out like many PS2 games, and that’s what this is. A beautiful remaster of a PS2 game many of us missed. It is a real time strategy RPG that is almost like a tower defense.
The game is simple and straight forward, you use some units to collect magic powers or mana (which ever is easier for you to think of them) which are then used to create new magical circles or buildings. (again however you want to think of them) These act as either towers to defend your base or to create new units, all of which are magical creatures with their own strengths and weaknesses. They range from elves to fairies etc.
This isn’t to say the game is simple,just that the concept is. And while the game is fun (if not a bit repetitive) and the story is intriguing, the mystery of who the ghost in roaming at night and why there is a devil teacher is pretty nice it does show its age in a few areas.
Graphically and music I have no complaints. They did a nice job bringing it up to date. The game play itself follows the same pattern and gets dull fast. Mine mana, build the same buildings, send the same creatures up and down a 2D surface to kill the enemy, repeat. Every so often they add a new enemy or unit. The game isn’t bad,it just wasn’t my kind of game.
We all know I won’t punish it for that,fans of the original GrimGrimoire will appreciate this,and it is a solid 7/10 and worth checking out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
We all know my love of these types of games, and Urban Games was awesome enough to hook me up with a review code for this one.
The idea behind this game is pretty easy, deceptively so. The map is covered in different cities and different businesses. Each city in Transport Fever 2 wants something from these industries, it might be food or construction materials or even liquid gold, I mean of course fuel. You have one job, bring all these things together in the best way possible and make millions.
This is more fun than it looks I pormise
The problem is, everything is easy when you say at first but actually do it,not so much. You can start basically at any time between 1850 and 2050 and the technology will match. 1850, all you got is his horses and some basic trains. Now do you use trains to get wheat from the farm to a bakery then use some trucks to ship it to a nearby city? How you do things means as much or more than what you do.
My first free play game I had a nice run going. I had 3 trains set up running crude oil to turn it into oil. Then one that ran it up to a fuel depot and turned it into actual fuel to be delivered to a nearby down. Eventually I was making money hand over first and decided I could make more money by upgrading my trains.
This is when I didn’t realize the oil cars I had would transfer to the new train and I went bankrupt. You live and you learn I guess.
That is the basics of the game, how it plays is what matters. I am happy to say it plays beautifully. As much as I love these games historically they don’t play well on consoles, which has been changing lately thankfully. Transport Fever manages to nail putting the controller in this format. I never felt like I was held back not having a mouse. If you do feel that way, good news, that’s an option here.
Yes you will see wild animals if you look
The game looks beautiful as well,more than once I’ve just rode one of my trains and watched the trees or occasional animals go by. In the 1850’s seeing the horses just troy along and the people jumping in and out of the carriages is simply mesmerizing. It doesn’t change with the time either, watching trucks show up to drop off merchandise or pick up a load of logs. It never seems to get old for me.
Normally at this point I would start to wrap things up, but I do want to offer some advice to anyone playing this game. First,start with the campaign. Even if you don’t finish the campaign it acts as the tutorial. It will teach you everything you need to know about getting things set up,setting up lines for your vehicles and what connects to what to make some money.
Second,don’t feel obligated to play on normal or hard. Start in easy and work your way up, even doing things right on the higher difficulties doing it at the wrong time can be just as bad.
And last but not least, money made is based on distance traveled from point A to point B, but done as the crow flies as they say. Going around mountains and such won’t help, the faster you can get from point A to point B the better.
Now those looking for a score in this one, this is probably the best simulation style game like this I have ever played. It’s a 9/10 must buy for fans of the genre. It has vehicles from the US and Asia and Europe, different animals and cities etc. Definitely check this one out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
The Guise is a new metroidvania game from our friends over at Ratalaika Games and they were nice enough to send me over a copy to review. Now at a very reasonable price point of $6 U.S. dollars, and the company it was coming from I expected exactly what was advertised. A short but solid Metroidvania game that would be fun to play through,get a pretty reasonable Platinum trophy for trophy hunters and be a fun little story.
What I got was a pretty reasonable Platinum trophy for the hunters, a fun dark fairy tale about an orphanage of kids going into a room they shouldn’t have and one of them being trapped in the body of a monster and of course some solid,but not perfect by any means gameplay.
During the boss fights it always seemed like dodging didn’t quite go as consistently as it really should have. This caused a few deaths that were a bit annoying. Nothing that stopped me from enjoying the game of course, far from it. It was easy to adapt to in fact,just be aware of it.
The sound however, chefs kiss. It is the perfect level of sinister for what the game is trying to portray. It was actually my favorite part of the game,aside from playing as a creepy monster that can eventually spit acid on things.
This guy should die in a fire
All in all the game is fun, cheap an reasonable Platinum and most importantly it is fun. I can easily recommend this one for fans of metroidvania games, trophy hunters or just someone looking for something new to check out. 8/10, pick it up and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Savior Gaming 