Tag: Review

Horde of Distraction Steam Demo

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 Steam Review

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 Xbox Review

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.

Hotel Architect Steam Review

Some of you may remember that a long time ago, I played the Hotel Architect Steamfest Demo Review, and now they were nice enough to send me the full game as it hits 1.0. So if you still haven’t checked out Hotel Architect from Wired Games, now is a great time.

First, as I noted in my Steam Demo review, a game that revolves around building anything, how building functions matter more than anything. It felt great in the demo, and it feels even better now. The menus aren’t clunky, and sorting through different things like carpets and wood floors is simple and intuitive. This applies to anything you want to build, from rooms to items for the rooms. Even adding an extra floor is super simple.

The graphics are also great, I love just watching my little characters bounce around the hotel, cooking meals, or cleaning, and my guests hitting the gym or relaxing. I do mean my people because, since my last time playing, you can create your own guests and workers. The community as a whole is pretty great. I’ve been in their Discord for a while, and there always seems to be some sort of contest going on if that is your sort of thing.

It is also nice how all the menus are crisp and clean and easy to understand. I was never left guessing what a customer wanted or why a critic left unhappy. Don’t let the cute graphics fool you; the game isn’t easy. I have made mistakes that were hard to come back from. The early levels will lead you into a false sense of security.

Which leads me to my only real complaint. There does seem to be some odd difficulty spikes for me. Nothing that can’t be handled, mind you, but they did seem odd. Like going from playing a game on very easy to suddenly being on normal. It was a bit jarring. It is still one of the best simulators out there currently. 9/10, best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 R-Type Dimensions 3 PlayStation 5 Review

 R-Type Dimensions 3 was sent my way by Inin Games, and there is a pretty excellent physical edition available on their website. I know how much you guys love that. ( I do NOT make any money if you buy it from that link) I just know many of you enjoy that sort of thing. Anyway, on to my review.

As you can tell from the trailer above, it is your typical old-school side-scrolling arcade shooter. If you like that sort of game and how they play, and you want to be able to play in the old-school 2D or new 3d graphics, you will be happy here. The sounds and music are fantastic, and the controls are crisp and clean.

Now I am sure you are wondering, I said a lot of good things all at once. The review can’t be this short. Is there that much bad stuff? No, not at all. The bad things I have to say aren’t even that bad, but admittedly, they will either have you running to the store to buy it or running away from it. Let’s hit the story first. It is pretty standard stuff. You fight for the Earth Defense Corps, flying the R-90 Ragnorok. A new ship dedicated to defeating the Bydo Empire, a sort of bio-machine empire trying to destroy humanity.

Onto the bad. This game is hard. I don’t mean like when people say something is hard, but it was hard for them. The game has two modes, normal and infinite. Infinite gives you unlimited lives just to let you learn how to play the game and see all the levels, so you can memorize them without having to restart over and over again. There are entire sections of the game where there is only one place on the screen you can go, so you won’t die. The game is fair, I never felt the deaths were cheap, or because the game didn’t co/ntrol well. This is just the design of the game and who it is made for. It is an 8/10 title. I enjoyed my time with it. Not everyone will feel it is worth the $35 price point, though. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Grind Survivors PlayStation 5 Review

Grind Survivors was sent my way by Assemble Entertainment, a company that has been great to work with in the past. This time around, they sent me their new Rogue Survivor game that has a nice twist to it. Rather than the usual fight until you die, unlock things, and move along, you will also collect weapons. You can then either recycle these weapons to collect ashes that can then improve other weapons or combine weapons to create stronger weapons.

There is no shortage of weapon types either. While initially you only have a couple, such as dual machine guns, a pistol, and a shotgun, as you beat more difficult runs, you get a Tesla rifle that shoots electricity and buzz saws. Multiple characters to choose from will also increase the strategies available to you, as each one has its own special ability.

The first level and difficulty last 10 minutes, with every one after that usually lasting about 20 minutes. Each biome also has an endless mode to truly test your skill and build on. This brings me to my biggest complaint about the game. When you start, you can only choose the burnt forest biome. Until you beat this at level 5, you can move on to the others. Each time you move up, you are basically stuck repeatedly running through the new difficulty level, upgrading a legendary weapon to beat it, as your old weapon is essentially outdated already. This really throws off your flow.

I honestly can’t pick a favorite game of this genre right now, between this and Devil Jam. PlayStation 5 Review: Fans of the genre are eating well right now. At $15, this 8/10 should not be missed. This game will test your skills in the best way possible, and the replay value is absolutely there. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Frostpunk 2 Fractured Utopias DLC – PS5 Review

Some of you may remember that not long ago, I covered the release of Frostpunk 2 PS5 Review. 11 Bit Studios was kind enough to send me the Fractured Utopias DLC on PS5. The question is, will this be worth the $13 price tag? Let’s explore that question.

For starters, everything comes into play during the Utopia Builder mode. So if you don’t play this mode, you are already out of luck. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see why you wouldn’t play what is basically the main mode of the game, but it is worth noting that this is where all the content is. Right from the start, you will notice you have the option to start with a faction, of which there are 8 new ones in total to discover.

Each faction also has its very own skill tree to make your way through. This alone will add hours of gameplay, making your way through each one can be a challenge, and it leaves plenty to see. I find this alone well worth the money.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what is new. Each faction has new variants on housing, unique laws, HUBS, abilities, and more. So much so that after hours of playing, I haven’t seen them all. I have also seen at least 40 new narrative events, and the store page claims there are over 100.

The only disappointing part of this is that we were only given one new map to play on. The two new premium tales, Doomsayers and Plague, are nice, however.

At the end of the day, this is a very nice DLC. We have all paid far more for DLC and gotten far less. $13 is a fair price for everything it gives. I would have liked one or two more maps, but I can live without them. It is an 8/10 DLC that fans of the game should definitely pick up. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Demonschool Playstation 5 Review

DemonSchool from Developer Necrosoft Games and publisher Ysbryd Games is a tactical RPG, and proudly wears its Persona and Italian horror roots on its sleeve. Thankfully, they sent me a copy to check out.

The combat is interesting; unlike most of these games, you won’t simply be moving a few squares, choosing an attack, gaining levels, and learning new skills. Every character simply knows the attacks they will know. You, of course, can learn new skills throughout the game, but these work like buffs. Your healer learns to weaken enemies, or your attackers can learn to also stun enemies, things like that.

Killing enemies will see them explode into blood

The other interesting thing about the combat is that you move in directions, not to spaces. This may sound odd at first, but it works out very well and creates an interesting dynamic. This becomes even more true when you realize characters like Namako will move through a group of enemies, stunning them just to end up on the other side of them. Faye can then attack that same group and create a combination attack with Namako.

Bosses are an entirely new situation

Bosses create an entirely new situation, however. They are all very large and have their own gimmicks to overcome. Many, if you stay in a certain zone for too long, will kill you in a single shot. This works in both directions, however, and trapping an enemy there will also kill them. Each boss has their own reason for existing and is part of the story attached to them.

Now you will notice I haven’t touched on the story yet, and that is intentional, as I don’t like to risk spoilers. You play as Faye, probably one of the only people left in the world who knows about a prophecy that demons will return to start the apocalypse. She journeys to this college on an island in an attempt to stop it. She teams up with Namako right away, another person with demon hunter blood in her family, despite her initial refusal. There are several tone shifts throughout the game, and they are all amazing.

The writing can be a bit cliché and silly at times, and it won’t be for everyone. The game, however, is a solid 8/10. The battles can be a bit redundant, but I enjoyed them. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Duskpunk Steam Review

Duskpunk is inspired by tabletop games and is definitely a mature title, not because of its visuals, but because of the images that will spring to mind by the words on the screen. Sent to me by Clockwork Bird, this title is not for the faint of heart. It is both challenging and grotesque in how it plays how, and I mean this in the best way possible.

My first play-through saw me as a soldier, missing part of my memory nursing an injured leg that I would soon lose. Struggling to survive and even find food in a world at war that didn’t care. I won’t go too deep into specifics, but suffice it to say, even the clergy offered me drugs to help me get by and ease my suffering. Every choice is life or death at times, from gambling in hopes of gathering enough money to eat to choosing where to sleep.

There are some downsides, however, while the story is fantastic and every character I came across is interesting and well thought out, dice rolls can be brutal even on the easiest setting. The game seems to be built on making you fail since many even simple decisions require multiple dice rolls to succeed, but only one to fail. Even a small injury to a stat can be game-ending. I don’t say this to discourage anyone, but gathering resources while racing against the clock and fighting dice rolls won’t be for everyone. After multiple play-throughs, I am still enjoying the game, but I can understand why some people would not.

This is one of those games that fans of this genre need to check out. For example, if you enjoyed Citizen Sleeper, you will likely enjoy this as well. However, if you don’t like games like this, I don’t see this being the game that changes your mind on the genre. At a price point of $20, it is an 8/10 that fans of the genre should’t miss. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.