Cloudbreaker was sent my way by Ballast Games, and I always appreciate that. Cloudbreaker is the typical bullet heaven game where things will try to murder you as you gain experience and survive as long as you can and improve your ship. When you die, in typical roguelike fashion you can earn permenent upgrades to make your next runs easier.
You may have noticed I normally love these games, and this one isn’t bad. It also unforutnaly wasn’t one I found fun. It does sit at a positive rating on Steam with 24 reviews, and one of the negative reviews simply says that it “does not break clouds” which is technically true, during my time I did not break a single cloud. I did laugh when I saw it however and thought it was worth mentioning.
My issues with the game come in two flavors. One the grind is very real, your first few runs, and by few I mean many you won’t feel like you are getting any stronger. Then suddenly you will until just as suddenly you hit a wall again.
My other issue is while the Steam page it says it is compatable with an Xbox controller, it really isn’t. I was force to use the mouse for many things and it didn’t even pause when going into menus like it does normally.
As for the game play itself,the game does it well. Putting different types of weapons and shields and such on your ship takes thought and strategy and this is thankfully where the game shines. At no point did I die and feel like it was cheap, it was simply either my mistake or being outgunned which is what I expect from these sort of games. The issues I meantioned however did limit my enjoyment a bit. For the price of $12 fans may still want to check out this 6/10 title. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Gladio Mori (fun fact, means die by the sword in latin, yes savior took some latin in high school) was sent my way by the fine folks over at Bonus Stage Publishing which I always appreciate. I almost passed on this one because I thought it probably looked fun but played badly,I won’t lie.
I was so wrong. For a game that cost $20 and looks so lazily made, it is anything but cheaply done. Yes you are basically fighting with crash test dummies, but you can custimize them if you want; I have even seen a few people take the time to do it. I haven’t, but I have seen it done. Nobody seems to do it; we all want to get to the main point here. Killing each other.
See the game comes with a quick tutorial which teaches you what you need to know takes about 5 minutes. Then you can hop into the campaign modes which are basically more training for the main event. There are 3 difficulties with some settings to mess with, battles can be fought at .25 speed all the way up to full speed. This sounds silly but it helps get timing and distance down.
Before the fights you pick your gear, a weapon, some armor and it is all real and has legitmate advantages and disadvantages. That long spear will allow you to stay away from the guy duel wielding hook swords, but if he can hook your spear or get in close, he will literally open up your stomach. Want to know how I know? This has happened more than once to me. Want to smash a guys head in with a mace? Go ahead nobody will stop you, except the guy living his samurai fantasy that will chop your head off as you move in. Yes that is a personal experience. Yes there is plenty of gore to go along with it.
Now, of gore isn’t your thing but you still want to play you can turn it off. You may notice I talk about my own experiences but use assets from the PlayStation Store. That is because I want to be able to explain what you can do and show what the game is and can be. You can shut most of the gore off.
Is the game perfect? No, but it is damn close. In a game where movement and distance in key I found at times movement when people get close especily near walls id try to move in one direction and my character just wouldn’t. Also a few times I would win a fight by causing Aorta damage but I smashed a guy in the head with a mallet. Or I woul lose a fight from blood loss after being stabbed in the leg, but the other guy was legitmatly fighting half the battle, missing his shield arm and a leg. None of this is a deal breaker, this one will be in my rotation for a long time to come and is a must buy but it does drop it from the perfect score I would love to give it to a 9/10. I hope to see you on the battle field, because it is a good day to die, over and over again. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Mortal Shell 2 is the newest souls-like to hit the market from Playstack, and as the clock struck the 0 hour to get my request in, through a weird twist of fate over on Twitter (yes, I still refuse to call it X), I ran into Playstack’s very own Charlotte, who worked I don’t want to know how many hours the weeks leading up to release to get review codes out to slobs like me. So thank you, Playstack, and a special thank you, Charlotte; you did not go unnoticed.
Without a shell, dude is ugly.
If you never played a Mortal Shell game, you play as a hero in Mortal Shell 2, the Harbinger sent on a quest to collect the Ova (of which you are a surviving one of) and save the world from evil. You can inhabit what are known as Shells; each has its own abilities to help you fight. Tiel, for example, is more stealth- and speed-based, while Proxima is made to take advantage of her lightning to essentially stunlock enemies. There are 8 in total to choose from once you find them all.
The flowers do not help at all
I am going to get the bad out of the way before I gush over the game, because admittedly it has some issues. Far more so if you play on PC; luckily, I know a few others who played through side by side. It is very unoptimized on PC currently, with people falling through the floor on the final boss, enemies doing extremely weird things like running away for no reason, and frequent crashes. The game is playable, but there are some decent issues.
Found a lute, had to play it.
On PlayStation 5, I did not have a single crash in at least 50 hours. However, I loved the lute as a side arm, and I did die a couple of times when attempting to run because my character would simply sit down and play the lute. See if you have the lute out and hit the run button; he plays it. This should not be an issue, but currently there is a weird glitch where he will occasionally sit down and play his main weapon like the lute. I won’t say it is rare; I have seen it at least 10 times. But it also isn’t common, considering that in my 50 hours I probably had the loot for 40 of them.
These spots don’t do anything; you can just enjoy the view
Once, while trying to sit next to a random guy with a bag on his head, I suddenly found myself in the sky. Also, while getting the Tiel Shell, I walked through a door instead of opening it. Both soft-locked the game, and I had to quit out and restart. Nothing major, but it was annoying.
Now, on to the good. First, the game is beautiful; it is better looking than some AAA titles I have played. Second, I wasn’t sure how I would feel about the lack of stamina in combat, which is becoming more common nut Mortal Shell 2 nails it. Dodging and light attacks being infinite sounds like it would make the game easier, but it is easy to get caught up and then be punished. A new level of patience is now required for some enemies, not just bosses.
Another thing I love is the exploration; while I wish beacons were a bit better proportioned, discovering a new dungeon or beacon feels like an accomplishment. It reminded me of Elden Ring in many ways. Stumbling on a new weapon or tarstone was always a treat.
proof I saw the ending
There are so many good things to say about Mortal Shell 2; I actually can’t say them all in one review without this thing going even longer than it already has. Expect to see me talk about this one again. While I love this game and I wish I could give it a higher score, the technical issues can’t be ignored. For now, it is an 8/10 because, to me, the fun I had can’t be ignored. But to go higher would be dishonest. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Doloc Town was recently released in 1.0. If you remember, I was sent an early access version by Redsaw Games to review. Now I am back after putting some time into 1.0 after getting early access to it, which I always appreciate.
You can read my earlier review if you want to get into some of the details of what the game is; I mostly want to focus on what is new. For example, the story finally has a finale. You can see how it truly all ends now. Don’t worry, your hard work won’t go away; you can still keep playing.
We all know I love fishing
Another new thing is automation. I enjoy farming, but I don’t always love taking care of the farm itself. Now you can eventually set up machines to take care of all that dirty work for you while you reap the rewards. This, to me, is a huge game-changer because it leaves more time mid- to late-game to solve many of the quests, including the new three final quests and the new residential area to explore.
There are also new characters and enemies, and plenty of balancing issues. Now you may have noticed I haven’t mentioned any fixes for other issues, like the game running better. That is because the game has always played great. Even when I played in early access, I never ran into crashes or stutters. The game still has overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam. I once rated this game a 9/10 experience, and that has not changed. Why is it missing that 1 point, you may ask? Is it tradition because I have never given a perfect score? Am I being petty? No, the game does falter in one area. I don’t find the characters very appealing. They are cute, but overall, many of them simply exist in the world. In a game with what is a very nice story, the lack of intriguing characters is kind of heartbreaking. Regardless, the game is amazing. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Far Lands on PlayStation 5 was sent to me by Axyos Games, a company I have worked with a few times in the past on games like Ebola Village and Apartment No 129. The good thing about Axyos Games is that you always know what you are going to get. The bad thing about them is it will never be a fantastic game. Far Lands continues that trend; it is an open-world survival game where you survive a plane crash and find yourself with nothing but a rock. Do not lose this rock until you use it to mine some more rocks and wood, or you will have problems.
If this game is starting to sound familiar, it is because it is basically the premise of most other survival games out there. You will also get attacked by zombies, only a couple different kinds, and very quickly run into guys with guns. Yes, if you are quick, you can kill them with the aforementioned rock; they don’t track you very well with the gun if you get close. None of the enemies are very smart, truth be told.
I know this sounds like I didn’t like the game, and I still haven’t even touched on how bad some of the animations are. I don’t know who designed the horse riding animations, but those look like something from the N64 days. Not liking it actually could not be further from the truth; you see, what they made was a FUN game. Yes, the game is clunky and adds nothing new to the genre. The game isn’t all that good-looking, but you can build some interesting things if you want; just looking around is fun in its own way, and there aren’t many survival games out there for $15 that function well and also offer this many ways to customize your base.
This game definitely isn’t for everyone, and the best way to play this is with friends who don’t take it seriously. It is a 5/10 game if I ever played one. I can’t hate it though. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
TheHunter: Call of the Wild’s “Peru Hunting Reserve” DLC was once again sent my way by the fine folks over at Avalanche Studios, which I always appreciate, and I always love working with these guys on The Hunter series. This new DLC brings us to Peru for a whole new place to hunt, and it will set you back about $12. Now, the question that is always asked is, is it worth the money? Well, let’s be honest, 14 new animals in a beautiful and scenic tropical jungle, what can go wrong?
From a gameplay perspective, not much. The place is beautiful, every square inch of it is stunning. Peru quickly became my favorite place to just walk around and take in the sights. But if I get attacked by one more damn jaguar, I am going to hunt them to extinction. ( in the game, not in real life.) These things will attack you if you get too close to them, make no mistake. This is the first time playing this game where I felt like an animal actually hunted me. I can’t prove they do, but the only thing that has done more damage to me than the jaguars in Peru is me driving the quads like an idiot. This is not a complaint; it is amazing.
Also, don’t shoot the capybara. Nothing happens if you do other than make some money; I just like them. Such cute little guys running around, I once got attacked by my mortal enemy, the jaguar, just watching the capys hang out eating. Admittedly, that one was on me.
Even the places you sleep and adventure to are unlike anywhere else in the game. They have such character to them. This DLC is a home run. It is a 9/10 experience that every fan of the game should pick up. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
The Gate Must Stand is a new tower defense game sent my way by Yogscast Games and Gamersky Games, both of which are always great to work with. The concept here is very simple: hack and slash your way through demons that are attacking your gate. Doing so will gain you experience and coins, which can be used to hire all sorts of help from the tavern, from different types of mages to guys with huge shields to distract enemies, and so much more.
Occasionally, you will be offered missions, such as guiding a transport to the gate, dealing a certain amount of magic damage, repairing the gate, or even keeping the gate at full health for a certain amount of time. These will reward you in various ways, such as increasing the level of your minions, giving you money or even just giving you free minions. These minions can then be placed on the map at key places to help you fight the enemies or combined with the same type to increase or promote them. For example, two level 1 fire mages to make a level 2 fire mage. Now, if the levels don’t match, they can still be combined to increase the level of the minion, which is nice. Once they reach level ten, they transform into an ultimate form.
Relics have all sorts of uses and will help you in all manner of ways, from increasing your speed or attack power to increasing stacks of bleed on enemies. These usually come from beating mini bosses or bosses throughout the run.
At the $10 price point, the game offers plenty of replay value and is quite fun. While the game is far from perfect, I really don’t have anything to complain about, except that it just isn’t as much fun as it could be. They really seemed to make the game harder than it needed to be simply to increase the time it takes to play it, rather than just making the game longer or adding more to the game to unlock. This will never sit well with me. The game is still a 7/10 experience and worth picking up. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Horde of Distraction is a game being made by Static Feed, and they asked me to check out their demo. The game is described as “An incremental game inspired by classic RPGs. Fight monsters, collect rare gear, progress through a vast skill tree, and defeat powerful bosses!” on their Steam page, and honestly, I really didn’t know what that meant. Turns out it means use your mouse to hover over stationary enemies, and either they die, or you do.
After an hour of playing, this is me killing everything
Now this sounds pretty boring, honestly. Trust me, I understand being skeptical; I certainly was. The demo starts out pretty slow, in typical RPG fashion, killing rats for a little bit of money and maybe earning some levels. You then use that money to buy some upgrades. I tell myself one more run.
I went a little overboard and got them all
After a little bit of rat killing and barrel breaking, some new enemies show up. They are a bit tougher; they do more damage. I tell myself one more run, again. I can’t go out this way. At this point, I have some basic gear, and I am hoping to get some more so I can merge it into better stuff. One more run turned into many more runs.
Before I realize it, I have killed the final boss of the demo, and I am asking myself questions about my life I didn’t know I had, most notably, how was this fun, or when can I get my hands on the full game? Most importantly, why is there a skull in my inventory that seems to have no use?
I obviously won’t be giving a score to a demo, but I encourage everyone to go check this thing out. It plays very well and is far more fun than I ever expected it to be. As an added bonus, the trailer has a bull playing guitar. Check it out below, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Arms of God was sent my way by Galaktus Publishing and Dark Jay Studio, which I always appreciate. The best way to describe this game would be a roguelite arena shooter with a sort of bullet-hell (or heaven) feel. Top that off with some pretty serious gore and some metal music, and you pretty much have Arms of God. Imagine Doom if Doom Guy were a religious zealot and could use 5 weapons all at once.
They kick ass for the Lord
Here is where I won’t pull punches; the game for many will feel short. You can run through it if you don’t care to do it all in about 3-4 hours, depending on your skill level. Honestly, for less than $12 thats not bad, especially in early access. If you are the type, however, that wants to truly dig in and experience all the difficulty settings and unlock more characters and see how all the weapons can be combined, this game offers far more than the surface implies.
I quickly found myself wanting to know if my holy hammer would work better as an electric hammer. Could this pitiful gun be made into some sort of beast of a weapon? Just when I thought I was done and had this thing figured out, I found a new blessing that made what I thought was an ok weapon an amazing weapon.
Is the game perfect? No, of course not, nothing is. Enemies, for the most part, feel kind of meh to me. I would like to see some more variety in what I am killing on each level, or maybe they could be scarier since they are demons after all. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t bad by any means. We have all seen far worse in more expensive titles. The rest of my complaints are so minor that I am more than happy to blame them on my system than the game. This is a 9/10 title that fans of the genre owe it to themselves to play. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Psyvariar 3 was sent my way by Red Art Games, something I always appreciate. First, a little good news, bad news. Bad news, Psyvariar 3 takes place many years after Psyvariar 2, and the stories are connected. Good news, it doesn’t really matter. Reading the game’s description, or my review, will catch you right up. Basically, a group of people decided Earth was too important to leave abandoned and went back and resettled it. Now an alien signal sends everyone off to war. I am, of course, paraphrasing.
Ok, now that the story is out of the way, which let’s be honest, I can’t be the only one that didn’t care, I just wanted to fly cool ships and blow stuff up. With 7 playable characters and Cotton from the Cotton series to fly around as each with their own way of shooting and their own bomb type, there are plenty of ways to play. On top of this there are numerous game modes, ranging from arcade to quicker mission based modes.
The gameplay felt a bit, odd to me however. You don’t really collect power ups and level up in the typical way. See you get “buzzed” by enemy fire, this is essentially getting hit but not quite hit to gain shields and levels that power you up. This is basically skilled flying giving you an advantage. It takes a lot of getting used to, and at times it felt like what counted as getting “buzzed” one time got you blown up the next. This may have been on me, but sometimes it felt more luck based than skill based. That isn’t to say the game isn’t fun, I had plenty of fun with it.
More importantly, the game stacks up well against games at a much higher price point while this one cost less than $20. For fans of the genre this is easy to recommend. it is a 8/10 experience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
