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PC Games and Gaming News
Bioshock Infinite’s Number of Reviews Continues
Apr 17th
Yep, It’s Bioshock Infinite developed by Irrrational Games and published by 2K Games and I know the question. Why review a game that already has an endless supply of reviews from just about everywhere? Well, because I can and I felt like it. I wanted to at least give my ups and downs to the game, without spoilers for those who have managed to avoid them. I don’t think I need any more reason, so lets move on.
Let’s get on with the positives:
1. Amazing Story
2. Good gameplay
3. Visually Appealling
4. Nice Pacing
So what are the Negatives?
1. Short Campaign about 12 hrs
2. Difficulty level is about the only Replay reason.
3. No Multiplayer
So let’s sum it up, before I rate it. The positives all work together well, to create a game that flows well keeps you entertained and keeps you coming back till you finish it. The negatives are it’s relatively short although I suppose it’s a typical campaigns length these days, but that really stands out more with the general lack or replayability or multiplayer. Sure you can keep playing the harder difficulty, if you really want.
Honestly, this game may not have me playing it over and over like some titles, but I definetly felt it was one of the best games I’ve played in a really long time. I give it a 5 of 5 for that alone.
Anodyne Review
Apr 16th
So, I sat down to play Anodyne by Analgesic Productions or Sean Hogan and Jonathan Kittaka . I’ll be honest and say I wasn’t sure what to expect from the game. I thought it was an RPG not an action adventure game in the vain of Legend of Zelda before I started playing.
I felt the gameplay was pretty solid. The graphics were well done for the 16 bit retro feel. The music was fitting. The storyline was odd and truly would be where the game was held together or fell apart depending on your perspective.
What I mean by that is Anodyne’s storyline while humorous at times, was filled with a lot of issues a person learns to deal with throughout their life. Making the general tone of the story more somber or dark, even though the game never felt like it really hit home on that note. Eventually leading to an end that seemed a tad lackluster with the evolution of the character or lack of character evolution. At least that is how I felt. To be honest, I felt the main character was a fairly one dimensional hero, with a tacked on story that attempted to make more of the character but never really succeeded.
This isn’t to say that the game was bad, but more that the story seemed more like a separate entity from the game itself. While both the game world and story had a disjointed sort of reality going for them, they never really felt like they really came together. The game did feature numerous nods to previous games which were nice little Easter eggs within the game. Not to mention, once the game is beaten there is more to go back and do to completely accomplish everything.
In the end, I did enjoy the game and the humorous moments in the story. I just felt it tried a little too hard to have that deeper meaning. If you like games like the original Legend of Zelda this game is worth checking out, but more for the gameplay than the cohesiveness.
I give the game a 3.5 out of 5.
Euro Truck Simulator 2 Review
Mar 23rd
It’s time to grab your lorry and hit the European roads. I said lorry not loli and definitely not a loli named Lori. You sicko’s it means truck. Euro Truck Simulator 2 by SCS Software; the same devs who brought us 18 Wheels of Steel and other simulators, has gifted us with this for our simulator collection. Is it a gem or more gum on the motorway?
Why should I care about a truck simulator, well read on and you shall see.
Now as far as driving in Europe, well I’ve never done it nor have I driven a Semi either. What I can say is this game is Fun and that was with a capital F. The driving is a blast and while some routes can be long and a little too straight that you are just flying along, others are a really harrowing experience with more turns than any road should rightfully have.
The game offers you more experience, if you park it yourself or you can take the easy route and let them do that once you make it to the destination. So in some ways the difficulty is dependent on you. As you level up you gain new skills that open up more types of deliveries and higher bonuses for completing them. Making that 14 hr in-game drive really does feel like an accomplishment. Just don’t look at how much time it took in real life to make the trip.
The game boasts some neat features, a sleepy driver can cause you to lose control of the vehicle. You need to stop for gas. While the game isn’t extreemly complicated it is a simulator and does throw a lot of things at you. To name some things you can expect; speeding tickets, damage from hitting things, price of tolls, ferries, gas not to mention the need for sleep and one can never ever forget asshole drivers. Excuse my English.
As far as the business end is concerned. You can upgrade your starter garage and buy more trucks and hire more employees to start. You’ll need to take loans or some of this can take a really long time. You can even build garages in other cities as well and expand your empire. With the goal of having a trucking empire all the while you can manage your garage more choosing what traits your drivers will learn when they level up as well.
There are lots of customizations that can be made to the trucks from paint jobs to added lights, better engines down to even the door handle. So you can make your trucking fleet all look pretty as a peach. With multiple companies you can buy from depending on the truck dealers you have found and your current level you can purchase more types of trucks for your fleet.
I will say this, I can’t make more than a couple trips in a row without getting groggy-eyed as fun as this game is it is tiring at times. I don’t mean boring, I mean tiring like any long drive can get. Your watching the road and the next thing your pulling to the side and the guard rails way to close. So I take my break the whole time just wanting to get back in the game and make some more cash and pay off that nasty loan or hire another driver.
The good and bad of it all.
The good
1. so many trucks, routes and types of deliveries.
2. the business, once started runs itself allowing you to enjoy the driving simulator aspect, but also allows for more depth.
3. You level up with experience.
4. It’s got an easily accessible list of European radio stations to listen to while you play. (Not a huge deal, but definitely adds to the feel a lot).
5. It’s moddable. That is always a great feature.
The bad
1. It’s kinda hard to keep track of the speed limit in some areas.
2. The light of other cars at night is horrendous, you can’t see them (luckily there is a mod for this).
3. The AI of other drivers isn’t all there, but hey I am the one hitting the guard rail to squeeze past them in a traffic jam. So who am I to talk about their intelligence.
I give this a 4.5 out of 5. Keep on trucking, with this simulator that can be enjoyed by just about everyone.
Hellforces Review
Mar 22nd
On to Hellforces developed by Orion and published by GMX Media or BUKA Entertainment (I’ve seen both depending on where you look). OMG, what possesed me to play this? Oh yeah, killing zombies and the forces of hell. Sounded like fun to me, you know that it sounds fun to you as well. Well this FPS took a wrong turn somewhere very important.
That wrong turn lead me to NEVER even completing the first area. So let me tell you why, to save you all the heartache and headache while giving you the chance to laugh at my pain and even my pathetic game playing skills for those of you who did manage to get further. You crazy gluttons for punishment.
So what was right and wrong with this game?
The Right
1. You could change the key map and probably should if you are used to most other FPS’s.
2. Um the graphics, weren’t too bad.
3. The story seemed mildly interesting.
4. Some would say, because it has zombies. If you aren’t already bored to tears by the genre.
5. um.. you can kick boxes around and really high.
The Wrong and oh my was it.
1. The game was glitchy things you killed would fall to the ground you’d bump them and they would get caught in a fence and twitch around. That was a bit amusing but when looking for things coming at you, you certainly don’t need the things you’ve already killed twitching away like you haven’t. You waste ammo that way. Especially when they have managed to float half way up the fence and are now at head level.
2. The keys are slow and unresponsive, now if this was a straight run and gun I’d say screw it this can be dealt with. Check item 4 on this list and you’ll really see why this becomes a test of whether you will throw your keyboard across the room.
3. Just in the first area alone it took me forever to open a gate after I had killed everything in my area AND everything visible on the other side of the gate. Nope you need to find keys hidden among the trash and stuff. But the starter area was small yet it still took forever and a day to find this out.
4. Now they want me to do a platformer-esk jump to a broken balcony. Sounds easy. Should be easy. Would be easy if the controls actually did what you pressed when you press it instead of horrendously lagging. Seriously I can run much more processor intensive games and have never had the keyboard lag like I did in Hellforces. Then add that a spot requires what seemed like a precisely timed jump. This was a painstakingly suicidal experience. (I had already spent hours just getting passed the damn gate). After an hour of failed jumps I stopped and went and made repeated successful jumps over a bunch of saws in Super Meat Boy, just to make sure it wasn’t me.
So, the game story seemed mildly interesting and the first stage had a decent look to it so much so that it peaked my interest long enough to kill hours of time. The butchered game-play made me down right pissed off and mostly at myself for my oh so serious attempt to get further into this game. In the end I ended up torturing myself more than I got to shoot things and it just made me want to scream. I uninstalled this bad boy and hope it never sees the light of my harddrive again.
Save yourself the pain. I wouldn’t let a demon from Hell force me to touch this game again 0.5 out of 5! Yeah, it may be kind of playable, but you really, really shouldn’t.
Dear Esther, the sort of Review
Mar 21st
Dear Esther by thechineseroom is really more of an interactive story than a game that started as a mod. It may use a game engine, but all you as the player will do is listen and look at the surroundings as you traverse the terrain to reach the end of the story.
You move at your own pace, exploring the art, story and music of this game. Now I am in no way saying this is a bad thing. It’s a wonderful story and the scenery and music is excellent. If you rush your way through Dear Esther you are really only detracting from your own experience, so take your time and look around.
The issues I see in this game is that you may not get into the story and if you don’t you will quickly feel like you wasted the money you paid to get it. The other element is because it lacks all combat, puzzles or anything like that and it is all about exploration and listening to the story as you walk to the end of this story.
I myself was not disappointed in this game and really didn’t expect the ending and found the story engrossing. I found no flaws in the game or bugs, everything ran smoothly.
I give this a 3 of 5 it is over in about 2 hours and doesn’t really have any reply value, but it might leave you thinking.
War of the Roses Review
Mar 20th
War of the Roses is an medieval multiplayer action game by Paradox Interactive. War of the Roses takes place during the battle between Lancaster and York. If you like big battles, close combat fighting games or just multiplayer in general then read on.
As of right now War of the Roses has 3 game modes; your typical Team Death Match, your Conquest Mode and the fun yet dangerous Pitched Battle Mode. A fourth mode titled Assault Castle will be coming out with the Kingmaker update. Team Death Match is your common TDM mode. Conquest is your capture points and hold them as you fight for the next location. Pitched Battle is a bit harder, it is your one life only Team Death Match Mode divided into rounds. Team that wins the most rounds wins. As far as the Assault Castle Mode goes we’ll have to wait till tomorrow (March 21st, 2013) for its release if I have the date right.
The fighting mechanics are a tad confusing at first. With attacks and defending relying heavily on the direction you move your mouse as you press and hold the defense or attack. A wrong direction here can quickly cost you your life or have you banging your sword into a wall. I like this element to the game, the added complexity, while not great, is enough to keep me on my toes. As a result the game lends towards practiced play especially with one’s chosen weapon(s).
As you level up more weapons, perks, armors and fighting styles, metal types and numerous other features from mounts to colors. The perks, weapon and armor will be what makes the most difference to how you play, the fighting styles and metal types, and other little features make small adjustments both positive in some aspects and negative in others allowing for a ton of tweaking to find the set up that fits you best. While it seems at times some weapons are overpowered *couch Longsword cough cough*. There are ways to get around all weapon and armor combinations. I just haven’t figured out the longsword’s weakness, I will though.
All the weapons, armors and everything really is purchased through coins earned on the battlefields, or bought. Although I can say it doesn’t make the game feel unbalanced. I don’t feel it has that pay to win feeling at all. It may take you longer to earn enough to unlock everything (especially if they continue to add more and more weapons and features), but it seems definitely doable. Until then you just need to be more choosy about which upgrades you take to figure out what works best for you. Really it isn’t hard to earn experience and gold though as long as you have a few friends to get a match going with there are always open servers at least every time I’ve been on.
The game currently has two complaints on my part. One Squad leaders have abilities that can help their squad yet rarely are they ever used. I know this isn’t at the fault of the game, but more at the community. The other issue is that I have seen one hack to the game allowing a character to speed around like they had a motor attached to their ass. I was disappointed by this and hope a fix will stop this in the future.
Outside of my issues I look forward to the Kingmaker update can’t wait to see all the stuff it adds to the game as well as how the future controller support plays out. It may make the combat more fluid and a bit less difficult to master, but in the end how will it hold up to the current game speed is a question.
The War of The Roses is a game that brings damn good fun and is a welcome multiplayer game. I hope they keep voice chat out of the game, to often do I feel a good game experience is ruined by obnoxious, rude and insulting other players. Forcing them to type out their ignorant statements and becomes far easier to ignore.
This game easily earns it’s 4 out of bloody 5 and that’s a high score for a multiplayer only game in my books.
Winter Voices and I’m Frozen
Mar 20th
I fell in love with Winter Voices created originally by Beyond the Pillar now owned by Inner Seas. It’s an tactical RPG with a focus on non combat. I know you are probably asking what the hell that meant, well hold your horses and I’ll tell you.
First, what I mean by non-combat is that all the battles aren’t about dealing damage to the enemies. Nope they are about getting to a certain point on the battlefield without collapsing, or surviving a certain amount of turns. Some have a vague clue as to what you are meant to do like lose in a battle that is really easy to survive in. This all may sound confusing, but it really does fit the somber story well.
The story is about grief and the many ways it’s dealt with. As you level up you gain new skills that follow along these paths of grief management. All to better help you deal with the haunting nightmares and terrible memories that you had long since cast aside, but with the tragic event that starts off the game have now come flooding back. All of this makes for an interesting story and interesting game-play.
You even gain experience from the conversations you have as well as completing the “battles”. These conversations can be amusing and annoying depending on what you say and the attitude of the person you talk to.
The 2 aspects many people would probably dislike a great deal about this RPG. First, it is an incredibly somber and slow placed story. Second, there is an incredibly large quantity of what many would call psychobabble on the gambit of emotional turmoil. Now this didn’t bother me for the most part, but there was some points where I thought damn just shut it, I get it I’m sad and feel worthless.
Although this didn’t detour me, I was still heavily into it. Then things started getting bad. I am not really sure what chapter I was in because well the game has some bugs. One I found pretty early on. After I finished a chapter, no achievement was given to mark it. So I sort of lost track of where I was in the game. Other bugs caused me to reload battles because of the rare crash. It all came to a end though when crossing the frozen mountains my game froze. When I reloaded my save it froze again at the same point. Over and over I couldn’t get past that point and well I was not about to start from scratch so while I could never get to the last released chapter.
This is all really sad, becuase until this series of freezes drove me mad, I was more than ready to buy the last chapter whenever it would be released. I even had recommended it in the past. Prior to running into these bugs.
Now I’m incredibly conflicted, I have to rate this a 1 out of 5 simply because the bugs render the game unplayable via certain paths. I do know others have gotten past where I got stuck, but even if you never experience these issues the game is so very unique that I could only recommend it to the person who would like a wordy depressing TRPG.
Dream Pinball 3D, is it a dream review?
Mar 19th
In the need of a pinball fix? Well I gave Dream Pinball 3D a play and have to say I wasn’t disappointed. It contains 6 tables published by Topware Interactive. I picked this game up for cheap on Amazon and after playing it would have been willing to pay more.
It’s a pinball game so there isn’t a lot that can be said about it. The physics seemed sound to me. The table layouts were interesting and reminded me of old-school tables, not like the tables you play in Zen Pinball or Pinball FX2. Not that I don’t like those tables, but you got to love that classic feel if you are are pinball fan.
The game consists of difficulties, but they really seemed to only effect the count of starting balls, and didn’t really change much else. Dream lets you upload your high scores to their site and if you managed to get an insane score it may actually displayed on the site.
As a special note one of the tables is also based on the Two Worlds game franchise. I’m not sure if I would consider that a selling point, but it was a good table to play on. In all honesty I can’t complain about any of the tables though.
My two complaints about the game would be its low screen resolution and lack of support for multiple monitors was frustrating and played havoc when trying to switch from the game without closing it and completely impossible to play it when two monitors were plugged in. The second complaint was the activation, which I found to be tedious, and annoying as all hell. I rarely come across a game that has an online activation as complicated and frustrating as this game.
All that aside I give this pinball dream a 3 of 5. This is definitely worth getting if you enjoy pinball.
Not So Strategic War in Europe Review
Mar 18th
The Strategic War in Europe by Wastelands Interactive starts off seeming like a turn based WWII treat. Then you go through the tutorial, if you could call it one. So here is my review of this wonderful title.
Okay, I love turned based strategy games and this one had all the ear-marks of a good one. A building system that reminded me of Axis and Allies, terrain that affected speed movement and combat, all the pretty standard concepts of hex based strategy game combat… It even has a new system to navel warfare which makes it harder to find and battle enemy subs and ships instead of just going after the hex that you magically see them in. All this sounds great and really it was… at first.
Then it hit me. The tutorial was absolutely horrendous. It didn’t help me learn anything about the new features. So I turned to the manual… nope still nothing. Navel warfare – the major change that sets this game apart from so many other games of this genre and style – has no decent form of explanation. Sure I could have probably found a good answer to this issue on the forums, but come on. A full manual and a tutorial and it doesn’t tell me how to make an aquatic attack on an enemy city. Only how to move troops from one friendly port to another; and even that is a convoluted mess that takes more time to do than it does to just send them there via tracks.
Here is another one I loved. After reading on the game I was under the impression that while real events that took place will happen in the game – which is really cool – you could stop certain ones by not preforming the action that caused the event. Don’t attack Russia and they won’t attack you, the peace treaty will hold up. Yeah, sounds great in theory. In practice that didn’t happen. I was Germany in multiple games, and every time, as soon as Finland decided to join the Axis, Russia came stomping in like a bulldozer. How I broke the treaty I still don’t know, but I swear I never attacked them. In the end all these events kept turning my game from one I felt I had some control over into merely an altered variation of the original outcome.
Now if you can figure out the navel warfare and how to circumvent the default events, you may actually enjoy the game. The rest of it plays pretty basically with common, easy to understand mechanics. I had such high hopes for this game, really I did. I was so excited to play it, I tried multiple times with varying strategies. In the end I came to the conclusion that it is just really, really not the game I thought it would be, nor a strategy game that stands out enough to scream “Buy me over that other game.” Seriously, just pass on this one, I love historical strategic war games, but I don’t want to be played by them.
1 out of 5 because it did work, it just wasn’t any fun; and that had nothing to do with my repeated losing. I’m used to that, ask my wife.
Have a good day and I hope you come back for my next review, which has to be more positive.
