Tag: Reviews

As always when I start these things, a massive shout-out to the guys and gals over at Wube Software for tossing me a copy of this one. I actually have a history with this game going all the way back to the PC version. Years ago a friend of mine wanted me to pick this one up and play with him when he played it, he often referred to it as “Cracktorio” because of how addictive it was. Truthfully he wasn’t wrong.

This is not about the PC version, it is about the Switch version. One I honestly did not have high hopes for. I didn’t think the controls could be done well, I wasn’t sure how it would handle graphically with the frame rates when things were getting busy on screen with so much going on, especially when it wasn’t docked. My concerns may be too many to list. We will get to all this later, but if you simply want the quick version I was absolutely amazed, and that doesn’t happen often.

If you don’t know what Factorio is, the concept is simple. You crash on a ship and your job is to build a sprawling factory and eventually a ship to escape. You will start small by digging up things like rock, iron, copper, and coal. This can be used to build things to automate small things such as mining these very things and moving them maybe into a box or into another furnace to make iron plates. These can be turned into armor for yourself maybe, or possibly sprockets for more important tools. You will have to decide what you feel is important or needed for you at the time.

Later you will be able to make electricity with steam for example and become more productive and research bigger and better guns and turrets. These are needed since the local life forms don’t appreciate you mining the place and polluting everything. The more you pollute the bigger and more dangerous these things become.

That is the basic idea, its easy to understand but mastering it, well I still haven’t managed that. You will be building cars and trains to move things along with robot spiders before you know it and you will still be finding out there were better ways to do it. All this means nothing if the game doesn’t function.

Earlier I mentioned being worried about the controls, remember this was a PC game made for mouse and keyboard. Playing the tutorials it wasn’t long before I felt playing on the Switch was pretty much as natural as on the PC. I never felt like I was truly handicapped playing on console. It slows the game down a little bit, but considering this game is a slow burn to begin with because you will constantly be planning, evaluating and doing it all over again this meant very little to me.

Graphically is where I was most astonished. Outside of one big loading time at the start which I clocked at just over one real time minute, there really aren’t any until you start running around a bigger map and even then they are barely noticeable. I never felt like there was some insane frame rate drop because I built a ton of conveyor belts that were moving stuff around or because my research plants were kicking into over drive. At one point I was being attacked by about 20 bugs at my power plants that had conveyor belts pumping coal into and my turrets were just cutting them down. My Switch didn’t lose a step, and this was in the hand held mode.

The sound is also great, I loved listening to my little factory tic away as arms moved things from one belt to another or as I would bang away with a pick axe on some iron. It has a nice calming feeling when things are going right, but gets a bit nerve wracking as things are going wrong and you hear something taking down your stuff.

There are a lot of great factory building games out there, Factorio however has pride of place at #1, and in my opinion it is not even close. If you ever wanted to try this out but never could, now is the time. If you simply want to play it more but on the go, now is your chance. This game is an absolute gem, 9 out of 10. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

As always I like to start these things out with a huge thank you to the people over at Clockstone Software and Thunderful Group and everyone else involved with this one for tossing me a copy of this one to check out.

    Next, it should be said if you are looking for a quick laugh and excitement like many of the Lego series games like Lego Batman or Lego Star Wars, this is not really the game for you. This is at its core an attempt to recreate the love of building with real life Legos. Minus of course the unbearable pain of stepping on one because the kids can’t clean up after themselves. (Sorry mom,not so sorry to my dad that knocked over my castle though)

  The game does this very well actually, you can even return to places later on and refine the things you build. There is a story mode that is worth checking out obviously but the real fun is always going to be the sandbox mode for many.

  Graphically,the game looks good for what it is and the sound does its job nicely. It won’t be winning any awards because of them but when it comes down to it I am sure that’s not what they were aiming for.  What they did give us are some great looking blocks and sounds that will make anyone feel like a kid again.

My only real gripes here are one, the controls take some getting used to. I always felt like getting the camera or the Lego in the right spot was just a little out of reach and it was frustrating. Not game ruining but ok bigger projects it made me want to snap a Lego guy in half. My other complaint was if you look at the real Lego instructions and the ones you get in game,the game ones aren’t really very detailed for a game trying to recreate the Lego feeling and it becomes more of a puzzle game at times.

  None of this ruins the experience,in fact if you like building with Legos I highly recommend this one. It isn’t for everyone however and if you are the type to toss your blocks across the living room for your parents to step on, maybe think twice about this one. 7/10, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

As always a huge shout out to the people at Klabater for sending me a copy of this one to check out. I always appreciate it.

As you can see from the trailer above,unlike many simulation games this one has a very legitimate story. This will follow you through the entire campaign not just the tutorial as well and that was a nice change of pace. Watching your character go from just some nitwit learning the ropes from your uncle to who you inevitably become was nice.

Designing your own inn is also very well done. Put tables where you want, build store rooms bedrooms even secret rooms that only trusted friends and customers can enter. The detail on this is amazing as well because if you place candles you will actually have to order candles to keep these things burning.

That being said, this isn’t done in an annoying way. I never felt like I was being punished by having to make sure individual candles were lit or anything silly like that and I greatly appreciated that. This game does a lot of things I love and the potential here is absolutely amazing.

Unfortunately, it is in many ways only potential. Many slowdowns plague the experience graphically and this was enough to harm the experience for me and long time readers will know I am very accepting of this usually. There is no shortage of bugs in the game either minor or major. Thankfully none of them are truly game breaking but they are again enough to take a great experience and really hurt it.

This isn’t the only issue, many times workers will simply do their own thing while standing next to what they are supposed to be doing. Once a character fresh off his break washed a couple dishes and returned to his break, he did this for about 3 in game days. Many times getting things to my store room proved to be almost impossible because half way through the job they decided it just didn’t need to be done anymore.

Crossroads Inn is a game I want to love,and there is joy to be found here for some people. It does however require a lot of patience and interest in a niche area within a niche genre. To me this game is a 5/10. Do I enjoy it? Yes. But the many technical difficulties are hard to get used to and many people simply won’t want to do it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

First, as always, I would like to thank the people over at Klabater for tossing me this one to review. Working with them is always great.

This review is going to be a little different than usual, I usually try to focus on the things I like about a game and only bring up the negative if I genuinely think they impact the ability to enjoy or play the game. This won’t change here, but there are a few key things I do think people need to know going into this.

Starting out do not do what I did at first, play the tutorials. Even with a wealth of experience to draw from this made things so much harder than they needed to be. From figuring out which buttons did what ( seriously the Y button to give orders? who does that) The game does a good job without it explaining how the game plays out however and why each unit should be used the way it should be.

The hexagonal battle screen works great for showing you where units are and choosing where you want them to be, but here is my first complaint and it is a big one. The writing is so small it seemed almost unreadable at times. I would often be unsure if I was missing important information.

This by no means made the game unplayable, but it definitely had moments of making me not want to. On the flip side having served in the military around artillery I can say from experience this game does artillery pretty well. The sound of it sailing over my infantry into cities to soften up targets for my bombers and later infantry was nothing short of spectacular.

This is important by the way because this is a war you are fighting. WW2 to be exact, and how you manage your troops and how you attack with them matters, and it feels like it. Leave your bombers unprotected and enemy fighters will shoot them down. Let your supply lines get taken out and it isn’t long before you find yourself without fuel. It also goes without saying you have scouts for a reason and you won’t want to find your infantry out in the open with tanks coming at you.

The graphics are also solid for what they are. Nobody plays these games hoping for a graphical masterpiece and you shouldn’t either. They do their job and they do them well. Units look nice, but the towns do leave something to be desired. I do appreciate the detail on the flags for each country. For the most part, however, one town was the same as another for me.

I won’t say this was a bad or a good game. It is a solid 7/10. It has a lot of great ideas and if you enjoy these games you will enjoy this. Most people won’t be into it tho and with the small writing and numbers, I have a hard time wanting to play it for long periods of time. I have certainly seen bigger offenders, but there shouldn’t be any. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

As always with these things I like to start out by saying thank you to the fine folks over at Klabater for tossing me a copy of this one to review. It is always appreciated and great to work with them.

Weedcraft Inc. as the name would lead you to believe is a game about learning to run a business about growing and selling that lovely Mary Jane. The ganja if you will. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is just a game for stoners however,this is a very solid and detailed simulator.

The game starts with you going home to your brother,a typical stoner with a plan after the passing of your brother. A man with some knowledge and seeds. You however are the man with the knowledge of running a business. Knowing you aren’t happy about having to drop out of school he pitches the idea that this is how you will keep the lights on. Don’t worry,it’s medicinal, as long as you sell it at the market.

You will start out with a single strain of regular weed you are growing under a busted lamp with poor soil to some homeless men at the market from your stall. The game does a solid job of teaching you the ropes a little bit at a time. For example your new friend Bump that has been in the business awhile will explain that if you change the nitrogen and phosphorus levels amongst other things your weed will increase in quality and can be sold for more.

It won’t be long before you can buy new strains and better soil and sell to new clients. New clients want better and different products like Northern Lights or Haze. These better products sell for more but require more attention and better set ups.

Graphically the game is nothing amazing and it doesn’t need to be. Each plant looks different and it’s nice to watch cars drive around and wonder what the police cars will do when they drive past your house and you are illegally selling weed out of it. It may be legal to sell at the market,but it’s not legal to sling it from home but you can still do it.

It is also great to watch as you run other businesses out of town,which is something you will have to do because you aren’t alone. Others will attempt to move in and steal your clients.

Another thing to be noted,the sound is top notch for what the game is. I’ve hung out with stoners and the music in the game reminds me of some of the stuff I’ve heard them listen to.

Last but not least the reason you are here. Is the game worth playing? Absolutely. As a fan of these games I highly recommend this one. While the game can be repetitive at times and the controls take a bit of getting used to, I enjoyed my time with the game so far. I say so far because I will be continuing to play it. 8/10, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

As always a huge thank you to NIS America for hooking us up with a copy of this one to review. It is greatly appreciated.

A little background real quick, as the name says this is a trail of heroes game connected to the other games with the same name you may be more familiar with, Cold Steel. This one takes place 3 months after Trails in the Sky the 3rd and is the first game in what is known as “The Crossbell arc.” This game actually runs at the same time as the first two games in what is known as the “Erbonia Arc” which is also thought of as the main Cold Steel games.

Now that everyone is caught up with the when everything is happening we can get into what’s important. Was it worth the wait to finally get this game in the west, as it was only ever officially released in Japan. Short answer, yes. Long answer? Definitely yes.

The combat is nothing new,and it wouldn’t be. The game was originally released in I think it was 2010 in Japan. It is a standard RPG, you travel around see monsters and try to either avoid them or sneak up on them. This will bring you into a battle with grid based movement that is turned based. We have all been there before,but it is done very well.

Graphically it has been updated but it won’t be winning any awards and the same goes for the sound. My only real issue is there are some quality of life improvements on the PC and Nintendo switch versions that simply don’t exist on the PS4 version. Nothing huge honestly,just some UI options and such so it isn’t a deal breaker but it is still a bit annoying that they couldn’t make it happen for everyone.

All in all I have no real complaints about this one. Some of the gameplay feels a little dated at times, because the game is 12 years old. However any RPG fan will enjoy this one and fans of the Trails series need to check this one out. A solid 8/10. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

God of War on PS4 is considered a masterpiece and almost a revamping for the entire series. Truthfully, this is the best God of War of them all, and it isn’t even close. Graphically, the sound, the gameplay. All of it is top notch.

I also don’t like it. The game is so repetitive. Fight monsters, pretty much by either throwing your axe or swinging your weapon of choice. Find an item, move on to the next area. I also realize I am the only person I personally know that feels this way.

The upgrade system is pretty awesome by the way with plenty of variety in upgrades and armors to choose from. Many of you will be looking forward to Ragnarok,so enjoy the trailer below.

Circus Electrique is a new RPG from Saber Interactive and they were gracious enough to toss me a review code for this one.

The game takes place, you won’t believe this,at a place called Circus Electrique. You play as the niece (Amelia) of the owner and noted journalist. As always I won’t waste too much time on the story because I don’t want to risk spoiling anything. It is safe to say it is full of twists and turns and well worth a play though.

The combat is a lot like Darkest Dungeon but replaces the dark stuff with strongmen and fire breathers. In total there are 15 different archetypes of characters. One of my favorites are the clowns. They have a mood that increases the morale of everyone and snacks people with hammers.

The game takes place over the course of days. First pick a circus act to earn money and items. They all have different sets of attributes you need to reach to be allowed to use them. They all have different requirements and each character has things they are better at and people they get along with.

Really the only thing left to cover is the graphics and sound, both of which are solid. Neither one is anything to write home about but they don’t disappoint. I also never ran across any glitches or crashing and in the era of gaming it is hard to come by. The difficulty is fantastic. It starts off simple enough but it does spike later on. It is a great 8/10 and I definitely recommend RPG fans, especially if the Darkest Dungeon sort checks this one out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.