Tag: Reviews

Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition (PS4)

Two things to get out of the way before we get started, first and foremost a huge thank you to Skybound Games and Beamdog. They hooked me up with a review copy of this one at release and it is always an honor and appreciated. Second, I do have to apologize for how late this review is getting out. Over the holidays there was a family emergency and a death in the family and things got a bit hectic and I couldn’t give things the time they deserved and I wasn’t going to unfairly judge things that way.

With that out of the way, let us get to what the enhanced edition of what Neverwinter Nights is, and what it probably isn’t. What it is, is almost the complete version of the game spanning its entire existence. It is, however, missing the Infinite Dragons portion. I doubt this is a deal-breaker for anyone but if this was the part you wanted, you will be a bit upset. The graphics and sound have also been updated as have the controls, UI and even boast online play there promises to be plenty of hours of fun for the truly dedicated. ( the DLC alone will clock in at around 100 for most people)

The story itself is pretty amazing but as with all my reviews, I won’t spoil anything, just know it is a true dungeons and dragons story of growth, betrayal death and far more. We do have to touch on what the game is not tho. While a lot has been upgraded, it still looks like a product of when it was made. Fans of the original will see these graphics and know it is an upgrade, people playing for the first time, however, won’t really see the big deal honestly. The controls also take some getting used to, tho you will get used to them. Truth is fans of the original will love it, and that is who it is made for. Hardcore RPG fans or people that love that older style will also think it is great. Newer fans that like flashy things, however, are better off skipping this one. It is a solid 7/10 game and the story is phenomenal, but I just think many fans of modern games won’t see the same joy as I did. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Ancestors: The Humankind Odssey

As always I would like to start this out with a huge thank you to Private Division, Take Two Interactive and Panache Digital Games. Getting a review copy of a game is always an honor and appreciated and this is no exception.

I have to say I honestly didn’t know what to expect going into this one. A survival game about the evolution of humans from our earlier ancestors seemed interesting yet silly. Where is the fun in playing as a sort of half monkey half human thing that can’t talk and has to figure out how to use tools? Turns out that is basically all of the fun.

As the game starts you instantly notice the jungle is a beautiful and dangerous place and you play as a small child, scared and trying to find a place to hide. Once you do this you will swap to an adult tasked with finding this child and leading it back to your tribe. A tribe you can switch between any member of by simply walking up to and selecting the appropriate option.

It is important to know outside of telling you what you need to do, such as building a sleeping spot, this game will not hold your hand. It explains the basics and it is left up to you to guide this tribe among its journey, from a group that walks like apes on all fours but can stand and swing sticks to standing upright and hunting with make shift spears and everything in between.

The game can be repetitive however, but this is all survival games. It seems worse in this one tho because rather than chopping down trees you are finding new things to eat or smell and examine. You can’t even drink water until you examine and smell it. This adds to the experience tho, as like the tribe you are also learning about this world that has been beautifully crafted for you.

The strongets part of this game to me is also its weakest part. If you enjoy the survival genre and want it to be as realistic as possible and just leave you to it, this game does an amazing job. If this however is your first survival game or you aren’t familiar with how they work this might be really frustrating for you. I do have to give this game a solid 8/10 and recommend it to anyone that likes this sort of game. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Super Punch Out

Super Punch Out is another game I love to go back and play occasionally. It is a boxing game where each fight follows a set pattern and each one has its one set of moves. Tho I still don’t get how I can get kicked in the damn face so often in a boxing match.

Anyway the first fight is against a guy that has a record of 1-99. Not sure who he beat, you can basically win this fight randomly smashing buttons.

As the game goes on the fights get more challenging. Some guys you have to stun before you can hit a weak spot or you have to dodge and counter a certain move. The last two guys have a similar record tho one is undefeated and the other has one loss against the other which I always thought was fun.

This is another game that seems like it wouldn’t be fun but to me was the best this series had to offer. Best wishes and may the gaming gods being you glory.

Super Mario RPG

Every so often I love to go back and play what I consider a classic, and Super Mario RPG is one of those. You play as Mario and start out by raiding Bowsers Keep to save the Princess. Suddenly a giant sword slams through the castle and everyone is tossed out.

After this you will set off on a journey to find the Princess, tho this time you will be doing it in a turn based RPG filled with characters to join as you try to find magical stars. These characters do include the Princess herself and Bowser along with a few others. Each character has their own play style and moves to master.

It was always just fun to see the Mushroom Kingdom in this way, and to see new enemies, a new boss and even new characters made it even better honestly. The story is still great and graphically for its time it was phenomenal, and holds up well with controls that to this day are fluid and easy to use. If somehow you missed this one, go try it now.best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Cell To Singularity: Evolution Never Ends

Cell to Singularity on the surface is a fun idea. You start by creating the world, slowly add different things like amino acids until you create simple life forms and eventually work your way up to bigger things like fish and such. In reality, you are just playing a tap game like any other. hit the screen to earn currency faster, buy things to make you earn it faster when you tap or are idle and when you set your phone down spend what it makes while you are away.

I’m not bashing that style of game, some of them are really well done and quite addictive. This for me was not one of them. It is free to play so it may interest some of you, but the game is more of the same and to me is done much better elsewhere. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Orna: GPS RPG (Mobile)

So I was bouncing around the play store looking for something to mess around with and I came across what looked like an old fashioned Final Fantasy style game and figured hey let’s give it a go. You build a character, choose a class and away you go. Battles are turn-based and you can choose to attack or use spells and such. This isn’t really anything special but the map is based on your current location. For example, you get rewards based on areas you have claimed, I own the area my house and my mother’s house is in. You can travel around fighting bosses and claiming land. You can also form parties with other people, tho sadly at least in my area the game isn’t very popular.  It is free to play, but not pay to win tho there is some cool stuff to buy. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Clicker Heroes (PS4)

Clicker Heroes is an odd game. There is very little to do as you mostly mash a button to attack a monster, but you don’t even have to do that. It will just attack while you watch, mashing the button just kills it faster. However, you don’t even have to watch. Stuff dies and you gather monther while you are gone and playing other games or sleeping.

That being said, it is oddly addictive. I look forward to checking in on my heroes, seeing how many levels they cleared, upgrading my fighters with new abilities, mashing the button to help kill a boss and then going away for a few hours. It’s just a relaxing thing to check in on once or twice a day. Every so often you can restart to get hero souls which give you a boost to all the damage. When the game restarts you keep certain things but heroes go back to level one and you start from the very beginning.

This is definitely a game you may want to check out since it is free to play. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Picker 3D (mobile)

Published by Rollic Games, Picker 3D is quite simple. Use a horseshoe-shaped object to snag balls and push them into a pit that raises it up so you can move on. You can get some power-ups that will and make it easier to collect them. The game isn’t really all that hard, but it was kind of cool to see this thing turn into a bunny and other assorted things.

The game is free and kills some time and doesn’t kill you with ads so I don’t see a reason not to give it a shot if it sounds like a bit of fun. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Death Coming (PS4)

Death Coming is a cute little puzzle game about a reaper that enlist the help of a recently dead person, you. You have a job, use the dangerous objects lying around to kill unsuspecting people. Different levels will require you to kill different people, and besides them, you will be required to kill a certain amount of people to kill to get medals and move on to the next level.

The way you kill people changes based on the level and can be as simple as knocking over a flower pot or as complicated as making a phone ring and removing a manhole cover or making something explode or even convincing a guy to leave a room and opening a secret door so a guard enters a hidden room so he gets caught by a jealous boyfriend visiting his hidden love.

The game isn’t very long but it is cheap and honestly is good for a laugh so it is worth picking up. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Farming Simulator 19 Platinum Edition

As always, full disclosure, the fine folks over at Focus Home Interactive tossed me a review copy of this one and I would like to both be honest about that and thank them for it. Good people over there that are always friendly and I hope this is just the first of many chances to work with them.

I am also a huge fan of the Farming Simulator games, Picked up Farming Simulator 15 randomly on sale for like 8 bucks years ago and fell in love with what I thought would be a boring game, then I bought 17 and that love continued. I never got the chance to buy 19 tho, so when they gave me this edition I was excited to get started. In fact, day 1 of playing I unlocked the trophy for 10 hours on one farm.

That is what this game is at its core, a Farming Simulator nothing more and nothing less. There is nothing else going on here. There are basically three ways to start your farm on the map of your choice, you can be a new farmer, get some basic equipment and a field and this is where I recommend you start. The middle difficulty so to speak will give you a little less stuff some money and the third gives you money and nothing else. You will need to buy everything from scratch and it is sink or swim. It is clearly for the more advanced players. Tho before this, the tutorials are a great idea if you have never played the series. They do an excellent job of showing you the ropes.

After making this choice, I will assume you took my advice, you will need to start harvesting your starter crops, plowing fields, planting new cops and deciding exactly what you want to do on this farm of yours. Are you going to grow some crops, raise animals, chop down trees? The choice is yours and honestly, in Farming Simulator 19 for me, this felt like it was true like never before. I quickly started harvesting wheat to feed my chickens and sunflowers for some profits. I used this to start chopping down some trees while I waited for things to grow.

What started as a trickle of money coming in from two fields became a small creek from 4 fields as I took out some loans and doubled in size and quickly paid those loans off. All this, however, means nothing if the game isn’t fun or looks and sounds bad.

In the sound and looks category Farming Simulator won’t be winning any aways, it isn’t a AAA title after all. It is, however, the best the series has ever looked or sounded, and it is also the best one you will find on the console market. The joy of driving any of these hundreds of machines around is unmatched by anything else in the simulator console market, and even without all the DLC from the season pass, there are so many machines to do so many jobs I doubt I will ever use them all. The options feel limitless.

That isn’t to say the game is flawless. The physics in the world have always been sketchy at best. The number of times I have launched my tractor or truck through the air like Eddie Gordo from Tekken or got a trailer stuck somewhere is a number I never bothered to count, luckily for me the store the machines revert to is close to my farm and rarely causes me any issues. It can also be a pain to line up the bucket or trailers or drop trees in stuff, something that after hundreds of hours into the series I have never mastered and have just accepted I never will.

To close this out tho, the new animals like horses and that you now buy plots of land not just fields is a nice touch but giving this game a number score is a bit rough. If you don’t like this kind of game this one won’t change that, its more farming. If you do enjoy it, this is the best of the best 9/10 must buy. That is honestly the best thing I can tell you on this one, it is worth it for those that enjoy the series or games like it, but if you don’t this isn’t likely to change that. Happy farming my friends, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.