Final Fantasy 8 Remastered Release date

The release date has finally been released, and for those that don’t want to listen to me talk or watch the beautiful trailer below, that date is September 3rd, 2019. The 20 year anniversary is bringing us upgraded visuals, 3X speed boost, no encounters, and even battle assist if you want to. Or you can just break the game the old fashioned way and get the Lionheart on the first disk by abusing the card game and the junction system. You can also just play the game normally which is what I intend to do.

Final Fantasy 8 has long since been one of the more argued over games in the series as it seems people love or hate it, tho the Triple Triad game is universally loved it seems. ( I probably logged 20 or 30 hours into just that as a kid on just my first playthrough) I fall into the I love it camp, so this for me is going to be a must-have so look for a review sometime in early to mid-September. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Realm Grinder

Realm Grinder is one of the tap games published by Kongregate but this one is just not good. It explains very little really, the gimmick of good and evil really do very little except changes the buildings you get to choose from and they make no real difference anyway. This may be the very definition of busywork that I don’t understand how anyone can possibly enjoy. It is just a matter of clicking on buildings that give you money to buy more of them to buy different buildings but it never feels like you are being rewarded for doing it. it is just a matter of doing it for the sake of doing it. This one is best avoided. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bid Wars Pawn Empire (Mobile)

Bid Wars Pawn Empire is a mobile game from Tapps Games and the idea is simple. You bid on a storage unit and sell the contents in your store. Use that money to upgrade your store and vehicle so you can carry and buy more things to sell. The problem is that is really all there is to the game and it gets boring pretty fast.

You will quickly be running into the same items fast and going through the same motions over and over again. The game is fun at first, but it didn’t take long for me to lose interest. Best wishes an may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Angry Birds 2 (Mobile)

Angry Birds 2 is a lot like the first. You will be flinging at random structures to kill green pigs. Levels will inevitably get harder and harder and you will unlock new birds that do different things. Some will explode while others split into separate birds or fly fast to slam through targets.

The game is, in theory, simple and straight forward. Just chuck a bird through the structure and boom, stuff falls over and pig dies. Later on, however, it gets much harder. You will have to aim carefully to take out supports or push wheeled carts over and take things out that way. The game for me, however, failed to recreate the magic of the first one.

When the first released I remember being infatuated with it, playing for hours and draining my cell phones batter. This one looks better than ever and allows for plenty of customization but I just never had that strong desire to play. The game is fun of course and its good to kill a bit of time with, but for me, it just doesn’t do the same job. By all means, try it, it is fun, but it won’t likely be the nostalgia trip you were hoping for. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Junkyard Tycoon Business Simulator (mobile)

This is one of those games that looked pretty cool if you like tycoon games, had decent enough reviews to be worth checking out, and turned out to be horrible.

The general idea is you buy an old car, strip it for parts, and then sell them when the price is high to make your money back. This sounds easy and it techncially is, but it can be very time consuming. Many times I would spend more time waiting to sell parts than it took to get the parts in the first place.

The game starts off sloq as you can only have one car at a time, but as you get more money you can buy more space and more cars. This doesn’t really get you money faster so to speak, you still spens most of your time waiting. The more expensive cars are worth more money obviously but the waiting still sucks.

As with many mobile games I review, this one is best avoided. There are just better games out there that are far more fun. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Forager (PS4)

Forager is a game that out the gate seems overwhelming and weird. You basically start as a guy with a pickaxe and are told to build something. After that, the game basically leaves you alone. You then collect resources with your pickaxe to build new things and collect money. More money will let you unlock more land and build bigger and better things.

Over time you can build machines that will blast resources for you as they pop-up and you can get new skills to auto collect them. There is quite a bit of land to explore, temples to explore, enemies to fight and plenty of things to build and upgrade. There is no shortage of things to do, tho they do get a bit repetitive most notably at the beginning when you are simply doing the same thing while struggling to get what you need to build basic things. It isn’t long before things start to open up tho and you start to notice how many things tie together to create a pretty original experience despite the fact it feels like a cross between Minecraft and Terraria, both great games in their own right. If you like them tho, you may enjoy this one. So by all means check it out, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Fishing Paradiso

Fishing Paradiso is a mobile game that is pretty simple and straight forward, tho a bit odd in terms of story. You play as what appears to be a child,who is dead and in Heaven. A huge star looking whale tells you he wants to see you again, but you have to reach him at a higher place in heaven, which seems to be in space.

You awaken on an island with a bird pecking at you to get you moving. He explains that fishing in heaven isn’t quite the same. Fish in heaven are special and as such is treated differently in heaven.

The mechanics are simple, and bait recharges over time or you can pay real money to get infinite bait. Admittedly doing sill will make the game go real quick I am sure as most of what slowed me down was waiting for bait to recharge in the first place. It is pretty fun as far as mobile games go and it is a nice way to waste a fee minutes at a time, but don’t spend any real money on it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bear With Me-The Lost Robots (PS4)

As always, the first thing I want to do is say thank you to the guys over at Modus games for hooking me up with a review copy of Bear With Me- The Lost Robots. It is a prequel chapter to the rest of the Bear With Me series, which is also available on Playstation 4 with the Bear With Me Complete Collection, which as of now I have not played.

The second thing I would like to do is apologize for this review being a bit later than I would have liked. There was a pretty nasty storm earlier this week that knocked trees down and caused some flooding and as such caused some internet issues for many in the area that I am still trying to get sorted out.

Now, onto Bear With me. The game stars Flint and Ted E. Bear as they try to solve the mystery of, you guessed it, the lost robots. I feel I have to say, I don’t like point and click adventures. The story is usual meh at best and you send all your time blondly clicking trying to figure stuff out. I went into this thinking I love Modus games but hate this genre but because of who it was I wanted to keep an open mind and I am glad I did. Paper City is full of interesting people that are well written. The sounds are nothing short of stuff and well placed and even the music tells you exactly what the setting is.

The writing tho is where this game truly shines. Flint and Ted just compliment each other well. Ted is a smart kid with problems of his own that clearly is only helping for the sake of his sister, but this doesn’t dampen his enthusiasm. Ted is a sarcastic, cynical and some times lazy bear that is good at his job. At one point I kept looking at a projector just so Flint would ask Ted if he could fix it because I enjoyed listening to Ted tell me even if he could he wouldn’t because there was one directly next to it that worked.

The excellent writing doesn’t end there, I am not ashamed to admit there is a chameleon named OCD that I discovered if you examine his bulletin board Ted will pull down a story and tell him it has a typo. The results kept me occupied longer than I would like to admit.

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Above you can see OCD just minding his own business editing the local paper.

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Now if you look above you can see what happens when Ted tells him there is a typo. He will freak out and start all over again. The game is full of small details like this. Most of those papers on the wall can actually be examined to get a small piece of dialogue, most of which are some sort of witty joke or pun.

I don’t want to give to much away since the entire game is based on these interactions and everything I have talked about so far was very early in the game. They are by no means the best or even only such things you can do. The story itself is also well written and has its own twist and turns that are worth diving into all on its own. If you are a trophy hunter the game is also pretty good for that as well. There is just really no reason to not check this game out, more so when you look at its price point. A solid 8/10 game that would do any collection well. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

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Ted E. Bear knocking over a sign and fence with a car.

 

NHL 20 Open Beta

For those that may have missed it, the NHL 20 Open beta was this past weekend. It gave us a chance to check out the CHEL mode as well as the new NHL Ones mode. CHEL mode is still CHEL tho it has been improved. Fans of that won’t be disappointed. Threes has also made its return which made me happy. Ones tho is pretty cool, tho the name is a bit misleading. Threes is a 3v3 game so a person would thing ones is a 1v1 game.  It is not, but that is a good thing.

Ones may be my favorite addition to the game because it forces you to become good at puck handling and taking advantage of your opponents’ mistakes. See you will pick one NHL star, and face off against two others in a 1v1v1 game. that’s right it’s a three-man free for all. The graphics and sound are also top notch as you would expect. All in all, if you are a hockey fan this open beta convinced me to say this one is worth buying even if you picked up NHL19 assuming you aren’t just a casual fan that plays a game here or there. If you happen to have an older version like 17 tho, now is certainly the time to get this one. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.