Tag: Reviews

 God of Weapons PS5 Review

God of Weapons on PS5 is a game I have played before on PC and Xbox. Ultimate Games, however, was kind enough to send me the PS5 version to check out, and I figured, like my many nights of one more run with it, why not give it one more run.If you want to know how I felt about the Xbox Version, by all means, check that out. God of Weapons Xbox Review

As I said in my previous review of the game, if you have played any action rougelike, you know the general game flow. Choose a character. I like the ranged characters, start weak, move around the map, kill enemies, and level up. In between levels, buy better weapons and items, repeat all while hoping the stronger enemies don’t kill you. When they do, buy permanent upgrades that make the next runs easier, and when you finally win, move on to more challenging difficulties that have bigger and badder bosses and enemies.

The game has plenty to unlock and doesn’t offer anything new to the genre, but it is still probably the 2nd best game in it. The PS5 version is also my favorite version to play. It is absolutely a 7/10 experience and worth playing. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Endzone 2 Steam Review

Endzone 2 was recently released from early access to 1.0, and Assemble Entertainment was kind enough to send me a copy to check out. I always appreciate this and like to get it out of the way upfront, as most of you know by now.

The game has been met with mixed reviews on Steam for quite some time now, and with a city builder, this is always one of those things I see and take with a grain of salt. We, as fans, are usually quite picky. One thing is out of place, and we tend to be a bit mad about it. Let’s look at this piece by piece and see where maybe this comes from.

The Endzone 2 takes place right after the first Endzone. Humans are now resettling into the world after a nuclear apocalypse, and the world is a bit irradiated. No, it isn’t the story, as cliché as it is, cliché is for a reason; it works.

This brings us to the controls; they work. They work well. Even if you read the Steam reviews, nobody complains about the controls. The controls are what you would want: fluid, easy to use, and pretty intuitive. No, they aren’t perfect, but nothing is.

This brings us to graphics. Yes, this is pretty universally the issue. I have mentioned in reviews before my hatred for this idea that darker is the only way to get across a dark and gloomy atmosphere. This game breaks the rule of feeling that way. The vast majority of the time, while playing the game is so dark, especially seeing anything is a nightmare. Even messing with my monitor settings only did so much.

All in all, if you enjoyed the first game and can get passed how dark this game can be, there is no reason why you won’t love this one. For me, I will stick with the first game as this game dove far deep into saturating everything in darkness to be enjoyable. It was a 5/10 experience that I have no intention of repeating. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Wandering Village PS5 Review

The Wandering Village on PS5 was sent my way by Stray Fawn Studio, for which I am grateful. I had previously played this on Xbox, and I must say that there seem to be some substantial changes over that time. The opening, as an example, now includes a beautiful anime-style video that wasn’t there at first.

The game takes place on the back of Onbu

In a world being rampaged by a poisonous plant, your tribe finds itself on the back of a massive creature called an Onbu. This traveling giant is content to ferry you around and let you live on the resources that grow on it. In turn, you care for it and guide it, if you can get it to trust you.

The game is a classic city builder at its finest, and a solid story has been naturally built in. As the people living on the last known living Onbu and the only people traveling the world, it has fallen on you to collect ancient seeds that might be able to be planted to fight back against the poisons that are destroying the world.

The game looks magnificent, and the controls are great. My only gripe is that a few times when trying to click on certain objects, the camera angles get a bit weird, but this is a minor annoyance and never really ruined the gameplay for me. Just watching my characters build things and live their lives as my lumbering creature travels the world to different biomes is a nice experience.

Another nice experience is the characters you meet along the way, many feel desperate for your help without coming across as sad and pathetic. They are hopeful while still giving off a sense of urgency. It is a nice touch, you don’t often get. At a $30 price point, I have no complaints about this game, and with everything just being included by the in-depth tech tree that is still small enough to allow multiple play-throughs on various difficulties, there is a lot to love here, definitely a 9/10 experience for fans of the genre. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition PS5 Review

Reviewing Neverwinter Nights 2 on PS5 is a bit odd for me. No, it isn’t because it is based on the 3.5 system, and I played Dungeons and Dragons 5.0. Also, before I go further, shout out to Aspyr Media for hooking me up with a copy of this one.

The story of Neverwinter Nights 2 is pretty standard fare in 2025. You are an adopted child whose parents died and are thrust by your uncle into an adventure you seemingly were born to take. After what was a rather in-depth character creator for its time, which for today’s world is bare bones. You move on to participating in a summer festival of games, which serves as your tutorial. It will teach you everything you need to know about casting spells, how to steal, and avoid traps, and equipping weapons and combat.

You can skip the tutorial if you want, and move right on to the city being attacked, but you will miss some story elements and the chance at some early items, nothing fantastic, and that you will outgrow soon anyway.

But how does this enhanced edition play? Well, it is the definitive way to play it on console. It comes with all previously released DLC, and graphically, it has never looked better. So if you happen to own the original release, this is definitely an upgrade. If you have never played it and have Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition (PS4), this is definitely something you will want to pick up as well. The game isn’t without faults; however, a few times, my main character would get stuck on seemingly nothing. This is easily fixed by simply switching to a different person. The stuck character simply moves on his own, and you are free to swap back. Once or twice during the dialogue, people’s lower jaws decided to just overlap their front jaws, and their teeth just sort of appeared in front of their faces. I also once had to restart when, mid-fight, I got stuck in the pause menu while swapping characters.

All of these things were very rare, happening once, maybe twice, across an entire playthrough that could easily last 60 hours if you are a completionist. I wouldn’t at all advise against picking it up based on these minor and rare bugs that I haven’t seen anyone else really mention. It is still a 7/10 experience that I think fans of D&D and Neverwinter will enjoy. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Horror Night with Tung Tung Tung Sahur PS5 Review

Horror Night with Tung Tung Tung Sahur on PS5 was sent my way by Source Byte, which I am grateful for, but admittedly, they don’t always put out the best games. They help a lot of very small indie companies publish their work, and it can be a bit hit and miss for them. Horror Night honestly is one of their hits, and I did not expect that from a meme game.

For those that don’t know, and I imagine it is most of you without children, Tung Tung Sahur is considered an Italian brain to character that shows up a lot as one of the bad guys in Sprunki Logi videos.

The game itself follows typical horror movie and game logic: you crash your car outside, you knock on the closest building for help. The door creaks open, and you walk inside only to be trapped inside with some crazed or demented entity or person.

There is honestly absolutely nothing new or inventive about this game, and for $10, you shouldn’t expect there to be. What you should be asking for at that price is, was the game entertaining, and was it functional, and the answer is yes, it is, for about 2 hours if you take your time. The game has 11 ratings on PS5 and is sitting at 4 out of 5 stars, and this seems fair to me. I call it an 8/10 experience compared to other games at this price point. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Holdfast: Nations At War PS5 Review

Holdfast: Nations At War is now a new game; it is simply new to consoles. Anvil Studios released it back in 2020 on Steam and finally put it on consoles, and were kind enough to send me this masterpiece of a game. I am not calling it a masterpiece because it is beyond reproach; it is actually quite flawed.

For example, the graphics are pretty dated, and the controls can be clunky. I am not a fan of the melee weapons at all, and it feels like swinging through pudding regardless of the weapon. If you know anything about the Napoleonic Wars or World War One, you can imagine what it is like playing a FPS where half the weapons are essentially black powder rifles with slow reload times.

I know I just said a lot of bad things about a game I just called a masterpiece. Truthfully, I have not had this much fun with a $20 game in a very long time. I even spent $5 on the American Forces pack because I wanted to support the company and use the 103rd Infantry Regiment stuff that comes with it, along with in-game shouts. and such. Admittedly, it is basically just character skins you can pick, but it is a small detail that the game gets right.

This is where the game shines. The player base is full of people just enjoying themselves. Proximity chat is full of people laughing, making harmless period jokes about doing it for queen and crumpets while charging over a wall only to get shot down and respawn and hop on a boat and play with a steam whistle. You will see guys chatting while launching shells of artillery shells, and as an artilleryman myself in the army, I appreciate this because that’s basically how it really goes. But it is real people just chatting away in these 150-person games. (75 on each team)

The gameplay is basically as average as it gets, but the community is as good as it comes, and the game itself is a blast to play, and for $20, it shouldn’t be missed. It is truly one of those hidden gems on the PS5. 8/10, best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Scum Steam Review

Scum recently transitioned from early access to 1.0, and Gamepires sent me a copy, which I greatly appreciate. SCUM prides itself on being the most realistic open-world survival game on the market, and honestly, it might just be. Where most games are happy to let you just eat anything to refill your hunger, what you eat matters here.

The story is no slouch either, you find yourself on SCUM island, a place for criminals to work of their crimes by entertaining the masses. Death doesn’t save you, as you are revived and sent back to the start of your attempt to be the last one standing. Ok, so that part doesn’t really make any sense. To be fair, none of us is playing a game with a genitalia modifier for the story anyway, right?

A few words of warning, the requirements to play this game are hefty. For the first time ever, my laptop struggled, and it struggled hard. I have more than the minimum requirements, and I still find myself messing with settings. Also, ignore the negative reviews you find on Steam for the most part. Many of them are long-time players, with over 1000-2000 hours, complaining about what isn’t in the game or how their ideas weren’t used, etc. While some of them are perfectly valid, they do ignore the fact that the game is incredibly detailed.

The multiplayer aspect is amazing, the base building is very in-depth, and while the learning curve is pretty steep, you are rewarded with a one-of-a-kind experience. Everything needs to be balanced in this game, from your diet to weight management with your inventory, but not to such an extent that I ever felt like the game was a chore to play.

I do have a few small issues, and you will see these are pretty common complaints. Melee combat is basically as clunky as it gets. The learning curve is also huge, making the game pretty much impossible to just dive right into. The community also isn’t always exactly the most inviting, either. You can find great people in it, don’t get me wrong, but others are pretty much the definition of toxic and take the last man standing part very seriously.

So is it worth the $40, however? As a survival fan, absolutely, it is a 7/10 experience that I don’t regret for a moment. Just maybe avoid it if you don’t have the time or patience to learn it. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Empyreal PS5 Review

Empyreal on PS5 is an action RPG, which I think is fair to call a soulslike, that doesn’t tell you that’s what it is. Secret Mode sent me a copy of this to check out, and I had a great time playing it. They also did a great job lulling me into a false sense of security.

The game starts out with a letter explaining to a young man that he is inheriting a family mission. To explore a monolith full of treasure and secrets. This results in us fast-forwarding to the present day, when you, an elite mercenary, show up to search the monolith that everyone else has failed to truly discover the purpose of.

You start off meeting some people who honestly aren’t thrilled to meet you, except the bartender. The man in charge sends you through the front door of the place, but doesn’t bother telling you that the place essentially spits you back out after you get through the hallway.

The game employs a card system where you enter the monolith, and it informs you if the area is Very Easy, Very Hard, or somewhere in between based on your gear score. The look of the game is to enter the place, find stuff to upgrade your gear, and challenge new places. This moves the story along and lets you find new gear and upgrade certain shops and NPCs.

Unlike most games of this type, where skill means more than gear, they took a very different approach here. If you aren’t upgrading your gear, rerolling stats, and abilities, you will find yourself dead and having to go back to easier places to grind for gear. The first couple of hours, this doesn’t seem all that necessary until you notice the bosses and such getting a bit harder. Then the levels, which do not have a map, start taking more out of you as you have to explore more and more.

The game itself is a ton of fun; it looks and plays great. It isn’t going to match games like Dark Souls, obviously, but it has a nice sci-fi feel to it, and you aren’t limited to a sword. You can smash enemies with a shield or blast them with a /huge gun. The game is definitely a 7/10 experience. The price is $30, so I might wait for a sale if you are on the fence, but if it is something you are definitely looking forward to, feel free to pull the trigger. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Worms Armageddon Anniversary Edition (PS5 Review)

Worms Armageddon on PS5 is a hard one for me to review. Team 17 was nice enough to send me a copy to check out, and I love those guys for hooking me up with a game I loved playing during my childhood. I spent countless hours with my friends blowing each other up as little worms and laughing at the silly noises they made, or as they put on little bandanas before punching each other off a cliff.

It’s hard for me because the game looks better than ever. It truly has also never sounded better. Each worm is now rendered in great detail, and their voices are immaculate. The battlefields now look like I imagined they did as a kid and a young adult, when we had epic battles, and we laughed as my friends’ final worm would find itself on the receiving end of a perfectly timed sheep bouncing into a hole he dropped into thinking it was salvation.

It is hard because the game just is not fun. Playing with my kids, some the same age I was when I found this game amazing, really drives home how much I have changed as a gamer. My 8-year-old finds it hilarious, if not a bit frustrating, and my 20-year-old thinks it’s a nice way to kill time; however hates the controls. At my age, the game just isn’t what nostalgia remembers it as. The game is still a 7/10 experience, graphically, functionally, and all the game is what you would expect. But beware, if nostalgia is what you are looking for, you may not get what you are thinking.

Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Fly Corp PS5 Review

Fly Corp on PS5 was sent to me by Klabater, and I always appreciate that. The game itself is simple and straightforward. You start with one airport, and you connect to a different airport. As your plane travels back and forth, you earn money and unlock different places to connect flights.

There are different game modes. In Free play mode, there is no game over mode. In another, you have 3 minutes to unlock the next country ( don’t worry, this stacks; if you unlock one in a minute, you now have 5 minutes), but you can also lose by having your airport overflow. Upgrading planes and airports is essential. I would like to create a hub to let people connect to flights to multiple less-traveled cities. There is never enough money tp upgrade everything so being tactical is essential.

Fly Corp is basically the definition of easy to learn but hard to master, and the game is better for it. The controls take less than 3 minutes to learn, but the game gets pretty fast-paced. I don’t really know how else to describe the game except calling it a puzzle game, but that does not feel right either.

At $15, the game is fun to play and can be played as a quick time killer or for a couple of hours. The only real question is, does that time have any value? For me, the game was oddly relaxing, and I can’t explain why. It is a nice 7/10 experience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.