Reviews – Page 9 – Savior Gaming

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition is an old-fashioned RTS from Relic Entertainment that they were kind enough to send me. The game was originally released back in 2004, and if you have fond memories of playing this as a child and think this will bring that back, I honestly can not tell you if that’s true. I never played the original release. What I can tell you is that it has been a long time since I sat down and played an RTS where I just zoned out and enjoyed building a base, teeing up some troops, and just watching the mayhem unfold. And for that, thank you, Relic.

Now graphically, the game looks better than ever, but the game still isn’t as good as most modern games. So if you are looking for this game to be a modern masterpiece, you will be very disappointed. It is, however, a very nice upgrade from 21 years ago.

The controls are simple and easy, and are pretty much on par with any other RTS, with 90% of the controls working from the mouse as you would hope, and being able to do some quick commands from the keyboard. On easy or normal, this isn’t at all necessary, but on hard, it makes a very big difference.

This brings me to the very few complaints I have. None of them are major, but while the game will run on just about anything these days, when battles get massive, there can be some frame rate drop on slower machines. On the bright side, I did this on my laptop and was purposely seeing if I could make it happen, and it never happened during normal gameplay. Just be aware that if you are riding that line on the recommended specs, don’t try to hit that cap on troops and vehicles for the hell of it.

Next, there is no keybinding. This doesn’t bother me personally, but the few negative review on Steam seems to mention it. I get it in a way since most games have it now, but to me it isn’t worth being upset that they didn’t add it to a game that never had it to begin with, and it was never important to do anyway.

At the end of the day, the game is called the definitive edition, and for $30 you get everything the game has ever offered, in the best-looking version that has ever been offered. Does it have its issues? Yes, is it perfect? No. Is it worth the price? Absolutely. This 8/10 experience truly is the definitive experience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bus Flipper: Renovator Simulator Steam Review

Bus Flipper: Renovator Simulator from Polden Publishing is an odd game for me. I love that they sent it for me to check out, and I normally love games like this. The premise alone seems like it would be great: buy old buses and campers, fix them up, furnish them nicely, and sell them for a profit. How can this possibly miss?

Truth be told, the game doesn’t really miss. The game is exactly as advertised. It also doesn’t even do a single thing badly. It looks pretty decent, and it controls pretty well. The sound is nice, and even the story that goes along with it is ok.

That, however, is kind of the issue; everything about it is just painfully average. Now the game costs less than $15, so expecting anything on par with House Flipper would be unfair, but there is very little room for you to be original. The game gives you some idea of how to furnish each bus after you clean it up. The ideas they give you are honestly what you should do, not because it gets you the best price, but because it doesn’t seem to matter. I tried the first mission twice and got the same offer on my bus when I tossed a bunch of coffee cups and a plant into the yard, as I did when they were on the bus.

This brings me to my next point, the mini game for negotiations. It is essentially a bar that zips back and forth, and it is basically a game of luck. The game isn’t by any means bad; for less than $15, there is some fun to be had. There are just much better games out there. Unless your heart is truly into fixing up buses, this one is better off staying on the auction block. 5/10, best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Giant Machines 2017 PS5 Review

Giant Machines 2017 on PS5 is another game I am grateful to Ultimate Games for sending me to Review. The game itself is a simple concept; they take some of the biggest machines known to man and let people use them to help launch a spaceship. The type they used to rip a mountain to pieces, for example. Some of these things are quite literally bigger than houses.

The issue is that the game is terrible. Driving a huge dump truck and hitting even a small guardrail will send your truck bouncing around like a character from a fighting game. If this wasn’t bad enough, sometimes you don’t have to hit anything to make this happen. You can mitigate this by staying on the road, but not everywhere you need to be is even near the road.

You would think that maybe using a huge saw and tearing apart a mountain would at least be fun, but you would be wrong there as well. I never expected getting this thing into position to be fast, since you are essentially moving a small building around. I did, however, expect it to be entertaining in some form when I got there. It was really just frustrating.

Steer very clear of this game. Between the bugs, lack of polish, and the fact that the game was originally released back in September 2016 on Steam, there is no reason to buy this 3/10 experience. I’ve never driven these machines in real life, but I have driven some large machinery, and it fails in every way as a simulator and as entertainment. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Mecha Godzilla, not in the game. But I wanted something positive

You will notice above I have a picture of Mecha Godzilla. He isn’t in the game, but he is a giant machine. I wanted something positive in this post, and this is what you are getting.

Whimside Steam Review

Whimside is a cute creature collector sent my way by Toadzillart, which I am always grateful for. The concept is quite simple and straightforward. It sits at the bottom of your screen while you go about your day; in fact, I am playing it right now as I type this. Every so often, creatures will wander past, and you click on them to capture them. You can then breed them to make new creatures with various physical attributes to unlock new areas to visit, which allows you to continue on your quest to unlock more areas.

This doesn’t mean the game is easy; it takes time and a bit of luck to breed the right creature to unlock the next area. You also get a small area you can decorate and keep creatures that will spawn gems to spend in the store to buy new things and upgrades to make your quest easier. This can be things like more room for eggs, auto collectors for gems, or just new decorations.

This is honestly a very niche title; it won’t appeal to everyone. The collector in me that loves to have something to do while I write or just watch random videos, however, loves having this thing on the bottom of my screen. There is also a setting that lets you minimize it completely and gives you a notification when something you need to be aware of happens. The game is sitting at very positive reviews on Steam, and with very good reason. At less than $6, the game is a steal. 8/10 experience at this price point. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Gold Gold Adventure Gold Steam Review

Gold Gold Adventure Gold is an early access title with an extremely catchy song sent to me by a company whose name I think someone was stoned when they came up with, not judging, I have made some amazing decisions that way. But huge shout out to Can can can a man for hooking me up with this one.

Seriously, I love the song. I could give you the early access trailer, but I won’t; you are getting this one. Enjoy.

Anyway, now that I have attempted to make you listen to a song and said I thought the guy who named a company was a stoner, let’s move on to why you are here. The game is all about building a city, inviting heroes to live there, and then using those heroes to go out on missions to kill monsters and go on adventures to make you money. Think Majesty for those old school gamers.

This game has a ton of potential; it even has a built-in way to make sure you, even if you run out of money, have a hero available in the form of a pet. You can choose between 2 as of now, and it evolves as it levels up into a much larger creature. Make sure you pet him and give him love, by the wa,y so he does what you want. That isn’t a joke; there is an in-game mechanic that allows you to pet and brush him when he does things you like.

We all know what this looks like, but it’s a forge

The main way to progress through the game is to build different buildings, places to recruit heroes, a forge so your heroes can improve their weapons, or a place for them to train.

The premise is quite simple, and the game works fine about half the time. I lost my first game, however, because of a weird glitch. Most of my heroes either got stuck on a wall and couldn’t attack the enemies, or were shot through the walls and were killed by the enemies. Both scenarios made the walls completely useless.

The game did pay me back with my first win. Which also came when on day 2 of 6, a level 40 spider came and killed all my heroes while I was attempting to upgrade my main building. This caused them to not be able to attack my main building at all because of the fence that gets put up around it. They were forced to just stand next to it, then attack the farms that pop up automatically. 6 days later, I won my first game.

The game is a lot of fun, but most of my games have come with some weird issue. Only those 2 were of the sort I would consider game-breaking, but both soured the experience quite a bit. The game is at best a 6/10 experience. It has a lot of potential, but it needs a bit more time. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Chained Echos- Ashes of Elrant Review

Back in 2022, Deck13 and Mathias Linda tossed me a copy of what I can only describe as a masterpiece in Chained Echoes PS5 Review. Fast forward a few years, later they offered me a copy of the DLC Ashes of Elrant. I took my own advice from my review of Echos and ran to say yes. But could lightning strike in the same place twice?

Well, let’s get the facts out of the way: it costs about $10, which falls in the middle of DLC prices. It costs less than most season passes or expansions, but more than most cosmetic packs. This price point nails it perfectly. You can easily spend 10 hours on the DLC just taking in the sights, trying to finish up the new board, and playing the new mini games.

I won’t say much about the new character, not because I don’t enjoy him, I love this dude. I won’t say much because it would spoil the story, and I can’t think of a way to explain him without doing so. What I will say is that he never left my party, he is relatively simple to use, has some great abilities, and his character arc itself is fantastic to see play out.

Speaking of the story, this is another one that is hard to speak about. It takes place before the very end of the main story, and you select it from the title screen. You can just hop right in if you want. It involves the Crimson Wings being hired for an important mission that also happens to pay far too well to pass up. (Small spoiler alert, for once in this situation, you actually do get the money)

The story primarily focuses on certain characters over others, making some of them sort of just feel along for the ride, but the lore we get is great. Many of the in-game changes this time around are much appreciated as well. No more searching for crystals out in the wild; monsters just drop them. They are all just one level now and can just be equipped at will from your inventory screen.

Another interesting addition is that you can increase stats from these sorts of glowing wells, and every area pretty much has one or two for you to find. This, combined with the new Party Point (PP) system, lets you unlock things like a fishing minigame or the chance to do damage before the battle starts.

There are a few downsides this time around. Part of that PP system, for example, lets you increase the size of the green overdrive bar. If you took your fully leveled characters into the DLC, you can basically just destroy everything when you start in overdrive mode. It is nice to feel like a god however. Which brings me to my next point: the DLC is self-contained, the new character and the changes stay in the DLC, away from the base game. So if you love the new character, you won’t be able to bring him back to the game and enjoy him there. The same goes for all the weapons and stuff you gather there, since you lose anything you have in the main game when you load it over. (don’t worry, it’s still in your game over there)

So did lightning strike in the same place twice? Chained Echoes is still my highest rated game ever, and the DLC is a respectable 8/10. The lore is great, and while I’m not a fan of all of the mini games, or that it is a self-contained experience, it did give me more of what I wanted at a fair price. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Ritual of Raven Steam Review

Ritual of Raven from Team17 is a story-based farming sim that they were kind enough to send me to check out. It is truly one of those games that you will probably love or hate, and I find myself playing it, thinking at parts this is great, and then at others wishing this part did not exist.

A good example of something I love is the story. It starts with you being sucked through a magical portal into a world where magic is real. A witch has lost her familiar, and she needs help getting it back. To do this, she needs your help, and you get to learn magic, something your created character is very excited to do.

This brings me to something I hate. To grow, water, and harvest crops, you need to use a little robot. These robots are programmed with tarot cards. Each action has to be planned out, including where and how they move and what they do when they get there. You can then retrieve items from their inventory.

I love the freedom to design my own garden and area

This didn’t take away the joy I found in designing my own little area of the world, or meeting Raven, my own familiar. Getting to know Raven, despite his very literal name, was great. Seeing the countryside and watching the story unfold is fantastic. I never really felt rushed by the game to get things done. To me is the sign of a true cozy game, not feeling rushed to get things done, so I can just relax. While some aspects of the game aren’t for me, the game is still a nice little time killer. 8/10 experience. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Death Relives Review (All Platforms)

Death Relives is, at its core, a survival horror game, much like Amnesia or Outlast. It was sent my way by the fine folks at Nyctophile Studios, which I always appreciate. It is also worth pointing out that I got to check it out on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation 5.

The story and gameplay are the same across all three, and the controls are also the same. You spend the game dodging an ancient Aztec warrior while trying to rescue your mother with nothing more than an old spirit gun and dagger for protection. You will spend most of your time hiding with the aid of an old skin cloak, which hides you from the ghost sent by the Aztec warrior to find you. This will also help you kill those ghosts and collect their blood.

This blood is important because it keeps you alive when you use a certain object to help you solve puzzles and navigate your way through this mansion. Run out of blood and you die. This only matters if you kill the warrior, however. He does come back a bit stronger each time, so when and if you kill him is completely up to you. Sometimes it is worth it just to get a puzzle out of the way, for example.

This game, however, was far from enjoyable for me. On Xbox, there were definitely some graphic issues with tearing and such above doorways and such, and a few crashes. PlayStation also shared these graphical issues, but the crashes didn’t exist. Steam users didn’t seem to have either of these issues, and I didn’t notice them myself.

More often than not, while crouching behind a table, the warrior would see me anyway, despite the in-game tutorial telling me that it would keep me safe, and unlike most games where these challenges felt like an achievement to overcome, I usually just felt grateful it was over.

Speaking of things that I was grateful to be over, the game is short; you can beat the game in under 5 hours, and that is being generous. The companion app to the game can be helpful, but it is not completely necessary. All this being said, I am in the minority, it seems, for disliking the game. The game was 6/10 experience for me personally, but Steam users are enjoying it, and even PlayStation users are rating it 3/5 stars. For me, the game was just so painfully average that I have no interest in playing it again. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

JDM: Japanese Drift Master Steam Review

JDM: Japanese Drift Master was sent my way by Gaming Factory, which is always appreciated, and I do like to be up front about that.

The game itself attempts to be a super realistic racing experience that plays as well with a controller as it does with a full racing setup. They wanted to combine the everyday player with the more serious enthusiast and make a game both could enjoy.

The map is massive, and would feel right at home with any more open-world game like your Grand Theft Auto titles. This also leads to the downside where a lot of it is locked behind missions, causing you to miss out on a ton of beautiful scenery.

The driving took me a bit to get used to as I went into it thinking it was just another racing game, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The game does offer driving schools to teach you everything you need to know, and my biggest mistake was going into this without doing those. Between wanting that raw experience and thinking I could just drive like I do in any other racing game, I made the game far harder than it needed to be on myself.

My biggest, and only real complaint about the game the options for the starter car are extremely limited. By this, I mean there is only one car. Combine this with a relatively empty. It should also be noted that I played strictly with a controller, and most of the negative reviews you will see on Steam have to do with steering wheel integration. The game is a solid 7/10 experience, and drifting fans will love it, I think. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Back to Dawn Steam Review

Back to Dawn was finally released from early access as version 1.0, and Spiral Up Games was kind enough to send me a copy for review. Big shout out to them, as always, for doing that.

The game itself is a prison escape RPG. You have two different characters to choose from. I went with the recommended first-timer route of Thomas the fox. A news reporter who, when given the chance to take a bribe to bury a story to help out a major business and political leader, makes the morally right choice. This, of course, lands him in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

Your job from there is simple: be a good inmate, work your inmate job, and get to know everyone. Don’t forget to be where you are supposed to be when you are supposed to be there to avoid problems, and when the time is right, get the hell out of jail.

Everyone in jail has a story to tell, and getting to know them will at least let you know who won’t be helping you out. They will, however, have information for you. The narrative is fantastic, and the controls and visuals are great. I went into this expecting the escapist with a bit more of a story to it, and this is anything but that.

The game features various branching story paths, and it is entirely possible to fail at your escape and need to start over. The game is insanely well done, and with over 6000 Steam reviews, it is still sitting at very positive reviews.

No game is perfect, however, and it can get repetitive, and the start is very slow. This will turn some people off, and I can’t blame them. Once it gets rolling, it is a lot of fun, but the first hour or 2 can be a bit rough at first. The game is still an 8/10 experience, however, maybe even a 9/10 if this is your preferred genre. Back to the Dawn is also available on Xbox and with Game Pass. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.