keymailer – Savior Gaming

Aegis Force: The Scorian War Steam Preview

Aegis Force: The Scorian War was sent to me as a bemo by the people over at Deseret Game Studios, and I always appreciate it. For those who haven’t heard of it, think of it as a tactical grid game, similar to the old Fire Emblem Games or Shining Force, if you skip the zoomed-in attack scenes.

The story begins quite simply: you play as a small group of soldiers and friends in a forest, attempting to solve a mystery. That mystery is why supplies continue to go missing. It doesn’t take long to discover it is due to a local cult kidnapping people and stealing the supplies. This results in a few battles that teach you how the game will work. If you have ever played one of these games, the controls are already really comfortable.

I definitely recommend playing this one with a controller; it just feels better. The mouse and keyboard are absolutely doable, don’t get me wrong, the controller just feels right. The demo has plenty of treasure to be found enemies to be fought, and all around does a great job showing you the potential this game has. Will it live up the the hype of the golden days of grid-based RPGs? I can’t say from a demo. What I can say is the demo paints a picture of a game that is being made by people who love and respect the genre, and that is enough to make me look forward to the full release. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bastide (early access) Steam Review

Bastide was sent to me by Medieval Nexus, and honestly, I probably should take that as a threat. I do appreciate it, though. The game is probably just the worst city-building strategy game I have ever played. My PC has well beyond the recommended specs, but even on the lowest settings, it runs like my computer is struggling to survive a Diddy party.

Moving beyond this, multiple buildings would just stop producing stuff. Not because I ran out of stuff it needed or I didn’t have workers, if I built a new one, they would go back to producing just fine. It was like the game suddenly stopped recognizing my buildings.

The game is also missing some basic functions, it seems. You can’t really control your people directly when you get attacked, and there also isn’t a way to rally them to fight, either, so producing weapons sometimes feels pointless. I’ve lost plenty of people to small attacks, people rather than fight, they would just stand there and get slaughtered by a force much smaller than my town.

Normally, I’d say the game is in early access, and there is plenty of time to turn it around. This is a screenshot I took today as I write this review.

For 5 years, this game has been in Early Access alpha. Your $13 is better spent supporting someone else. This game is barely playable, 3/10. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Collectible Cars Shop Simulator (PS5 Review)

This is another shop game sent to me by the fine folks over at Nostra Games, and if you read my review of Collectible Card Shop Master (PS5 Review) you know exactly what to expect. This time, instead of game cards, however, you are selling toy cards.

I don’t really know how this works, but they seem happy

Also, instead of playing a card game, they somehow race them on a track, which I don’t understand how that works exactly, but they all seem happy to do it, and they pay me money, so have at it. My confusion aside on how a store would stay open or have so many clients selling exclusively toy cars and toy car paraphernalia, the game works.

The game functions well, I had no issues with shelves, customers glitching in or out, and my employees did what I wanted. Oddly, that is all I can say about the game. It isn’t a bad game. It functions well, it’s got some easy trophies to collect, and it is worth the price you pay to buy it. I just don’t understand why it exists. It seems so random to me. That being said, if it catches your interest, there’s no reason not to pick it up. 7/10, game functions, and is as much fun to play as any other shop simulator. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Ammossum (Steam Demo Review)

Ammossum is a demo sent to me by West Glade, and I have to be honest: I’m not sure I will ever forgive them for that. Don’t get me wrong; the game is perfectly functional. It looks pretty decent, and while the controls are way too slow for this type of game, they work.

I use the term works very vaguely. The demo does a very bad job of explaining what anything does. Does anything carry over from one run to another? What do weapon upgrades do? Why do they suddenly split off but don’t seem to do anything new? It doesn’t really say, and trial and error doesn’t do much when you die and get tossed new stuff to try to figure out every five minutes.

Eventually, you will figure it out, but that doesn’t really change how you end up feeling once you do. There is no sense of achievement since all you did was figure out a basic game function.

The game looks fun, and it sounds fun, but truthfully, it ends up just being an overall frustrating experience. At no point did I enjoy my time with this demo, but the potential is there, and with a few months before release, I am hoping it turns it around. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Nif Nif (Steam Review)

Nif Nif is a cute rogue-like card battler sent to me by Springfox Games. The general idea is you play as a pig cleaning up the forest. As you make your way through the single-level you will use different cards to wipe mud and dirt off different forest creatures.

If this sounds simple, it is because it kind of is. My second run let me finish the whole thing. This unlocked the second character, a cat. The cat plays very differently but the game doesn’t really get any harder. You will however notice that enemies, including the final boss, do change and it will take a few runs before you see them all.

Leveling up each character unlocks new skins and hats, hats give you power-ups for the run

Leveling up unlocks new skins and cards, and finishing runs unlocks hats. Each hat offers a powerup for the entire run, and finishing the run while wearing a hat unlocks a new hat. There is also a full garden to unlock, which can be used to create food and cards.

They managed to do a lot with this game while also making it friendly for younger gamers. As a fan of these types of games I still enjoyed it, not every game needs to be super challenging, sometimes I just like to relax. This is a 7/10 game. I would like to see moe levels added to it, but aside from that I had a lot of fun with it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Blow It Up (PS5 Review)

Blow It Up is a physics destruction game sent to me by Brain Seal. Anyone familiar with the Angry Birds craze will instantly know how to play this game and what it is about. You aim, fire, knock over a structure, and kill some aliens.

There are 7 different, let us call them people, to throw at these structures all with different abilities. Some will simply move faster others explode or act as a bombers and just drop bombs in a row. They are easy and quick to unlock.

The game admittedly does not look the best, but for what they are going for and it being a budget title I don’t think it is fair to expect it to. Graphically it looks as good as it needs to. The sound is also solid, with explosions being satisfying and walls crashing down feeling like they have some weight to them.

My only real gripe was occasionally if you want to restart a mission you failed to succeed I did experience a couple of crashes and freezes, this was easily avoided tho by being careful when you pause.

The game is simple, and kind of short, it is also only about $8 so realistically the real question is, is it worth that price point? It has around 70 levels which is more than enough to keep you occupied for a few hours trying to collect gold trophies on all of them, there are gold coins to collect as well. The platinum is pretty simple so for hunters that will be an incentive. All in all, it is an 8/10 game. I had fun with it, it did a great job capturing that angry bids feel without completely ripping off the game. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Recycling Center Simulator Steam Review

Recycling Center Simulator on Steam was sent to me by Balas Games and I have to be honest the idea of running a recycling center seemed a bit weird at first. I wasn’t sure how fun it would be to to cut deals with places to pick up trash, bring it back, and toss it into a sorting machine then into other machines to make different materials like crushed plastic or wood chips to sell.

Turns out, outside of a few annoyances like using the hand truck which you get used to fast, or having to carry plastic totes around which you can actually just throw a pretty good distance anyway, it is actually a lot of fun. I found myself just tossing on Spotify and letting my hired help do the sorting while I hopped in the truck to various places to pick up more stuff for them to sort and focus on the business side.

This brings me to my biggest complaint. The locations you go to are very much the same over and over again. There only seem to be a handful of places to visit. This is by no means a deal-breaker. You can unlock everything fairly quick if you rush but at a modest price point of $15, you will get your money’s worth. Definitely a 8/10 game. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Collectible Card Shop Master (PS5 Review)

Collectible Card Shop Master was sent to me from Nostra Games which is always appreciated. It is one of many simulator games being released in recent months and I have to say it is kind of a mixed bag. You run a card shop, a premise anyone familiar with TCG Card Shop Simulator (Steam Review) will be familiar with. You name your shop, buy some supplies like card pack, dice, etc and sell them to customers.

The game is quite simple to get into, and its price point looks nice and functions well. Honestly, I was expecting a complete train wreck with glitches everywhere. This, however, is not the cash grab I was expecting. Outside of a few quality-of-life improvements I would like to see, for example, I hate having to put one card at a time on the card stands, this game has everything the Steam competitor has for the most part. Customers come and go, and if the price is too high they will let you know. There are plenty of options to let you set up your shop however you like, but not so many that they seem useless or get confusing.

As an added bonus, trophy hunters can get the platinum in about 20-30 minutes. That isn’t to say the game is short. Having the platinum simply isn’t linked to actual progression. They all have to do with opening card packs or selling items and waiting on customers. When you have it there are still plenty of things to unlock.

If you are on a console the game is good enough to scratch the itch, it is a 7/10. While I prefer the Steam release myself this is a good alternative that even as I write this received an update I haven’t played yet. I will update this if there is anything in it worth mentioning. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.