REVIEW / Swag and Sorcery (PC)

 

The problem with reviewing is you find yourself lumping titles into boxes. Firstly, there’s the “It stinks but I’ll slog through it if I have to” box. I don’t always want to play something but in fairness to you lot and deference to my ebbing sanity sometimes I have to, but thankfully very few games go here. Secondly, there’s the “I’m playing this for review but I’ve got too many other things to look at to keep going” box. I love a game, and as much as I’d also love to admit I go back and finish everything I start, I’d be lying. Lastly, there is the very rare “I’d forgotten I was supposed to be reviewing this and I’m playing it like I’ve bought it” box. This is where Swag and Sorcery falls; it’s great for when you don’t have a lot of time to play anything else.

 

 

There is that little spell of time that occurs most days. I might be getting ready for work, or having a coffee before I go out, or anything really that means I don’t have a lot of time to kill but still want to get my gaming fix. Swag and Sorcery is one of those games that scratches the itch perfectly. I call them coffee break games because it’s exactly what they’re excellent for. I’m not saying you can’t pick this up and play in long spells, you can and I have but just a ten or twenty minute burst can be enough this is brilliant. Right … enough waffle; on to the game.

Swag and Sorcery is the most non-idle, idle game I’ve ever played. As a rule I don’t like idlers. I want to be able to play a title and certainly don’t want my game playing itself for me. This game turns the idler onto it’s head. The core mechanic is basically idle, you send your heroes off and get you stuff or get killed depending on how you’ve prepared them. You can watch them on their adventures but it’s not necessary and while they’re questing you can get on with the best bit of the game. The planning, building, crafting and mission completing that goes on in the background.

 

Your village is the heart of the game.

 

This clever little game is by Lazy Bear Games, the same folk behind Graveyard Keeper and it shows. As in the aforementioned game you’re given bugger all and have to do all the work yourself. The majority of this goes on in your town. You start with a guild and this is where you buy your sword fodder, (heroes,) who start out as just your average unfortunate soul off the street. You do this by outfitting them and training them into the classes that RPG fans will know and love. This means erecting more buildings. For fighting equipment you’ll need a forge, for mage’s gear a magic shop and so on. This is where the game starts to get interesting.

All of the buildings in your town are upgradable. Each time you level a shop that building’s inventory expands and you can better equip your characters. It’s not just the town you’re looking after though, you need goods to make the items to outfit your heroes and it’s these items you’re sending them on their quests for. There’s a plot to but we’ll get to that in a minute. So for swords you need Iron ingots. This means you need iron ore. Better swords require better ore and additional, sometimes semi-magical components. These magic ingredients can’t just be found, they like everything else in the game need to be made.

 

If you’re board question you can always enroll in a fashion show.

 

To make a set of semi-decent armor you might need a sorrow stone. To get one of these items you’ll need to obtain ghost tears and take them to your potion shop and make the stone there. Two sets of tears plus other ingredients might equal one stone and you might need six stones plus all the other ingredients for for the item you’re crafting. This is just one item. This principle follows through the entire game and this is where the grind comes in.

The grind doesn’t actually feel all too bad. The reason for this is that you’re always thinking about the next task you have to complete. As long as you have a decent sized party you can send a couple out to get the goods while others remain in town. To make items you have to staff buildings with your adventurers. So the best person to staff a blacksmith is going to be a fighter. The quality of gear from that shop relies on a good strength stat. Fighters are built to be strong so will fare better, a mage on the other hand will be needed for a magic shop as it’s gear relies on intelligence. As long as you can plan correctly there is plenty for you to do other than watch the same quest animation on loop for hours.

 

Every adventure yields look. It’s all about what you do with it.

 

Swag and Sorcery has a really addictive nature. I think this comes down to the fact that you never feel like you’ve gotten to a stage where there’s nothing more you can do. You’re always multi-tasking and thinking about the next thing you need to make or how you might train your characters for more difficult battles to come. The fact that you’re constantly concentrating on bettering your town and heroes also means that there aren’t any massive difficulty spikes. If you’re having a tough time you just need to refocus your efforts on building the right gear to succeed and this is all very doable.

I mentioned the story earlier. The basic premise involves a big evil (obviously) and a nasty advisor (it’s fantasy, so also obviously), and the king’s costume. This is where the comedic element of the game comes in. You’re looking for a particular set of garments that will be needed to save the day. These are hidden in places full of really evil things. Most of us would use a wardrobe but each to their own. Leading on from this fashion … really silly fashion … is very much a thing. You can put your heroes into fashion shows to build prestige for your town. This is fun and gives you something different to think about. Not all the gear your make is serious, in fact one of the weapons in an electric guitar. Seriously, play the game it’s really funny in places and very well written.

 

Equipment is vital to success and you’ll make every bit of it.

 

From the slightly silly story comes your missions. You have main missions which want you to upgrade your town, make specific items, kill bosses etc. These are needed to give the game form and pace and give you a good idea what the hell you’re doing. Then you have sub-missions which are basically fetch quests which might involve killing so many creatures or retrieving a certain number of items. We’ve all seen this in RPGs so nothing new there. Lastly you have events. These are little story elements that crop up at random and require you to make a choice or hand over gold or resources. These can appear at any time and are worth doing as they can yield some pretty handy stuff.

Okay so nuts and bolts. Graphically we’re going back into the 16 bit realm. This is great and gives the game a comfortable retro feel. This is like something I’d have happily stuck into my Megadrive and whiled away a few hours on as a kid. Sound is virtually nonexistent and what is there is a little repetitive. It’s not enough to cause annoyance but not really worth commenting much on either. One notable point on this, though, is the narration which is brilliant. As for the controls it’s all mouse managed which makes everything run smooth and easily. Considering the mental gymnastics that are going on here some simplicity is very much a welcome thing.

 

Adventuring is fun but it’s only a tiny part of the game.

 

As I said at the start of this review I think I decided I liked Swag and Sorcery before I actually decided I liked the game. By this I mean that I was subconsciously playing it for hours on end and then just happened to remember I needed to tell you lot about it as well. This in my opinion says something. I’m not sure whether I’d want to spend an entire afternoon indulging in Swag and Sorcery but for an hour or two at a time this is a great little game.

Swag and Sorcery is a really fun title if you’re looking for something to do that won’t be overly engrossing. If you like crafting games and don’t want something that is asking to eat your life this might be a really good way to go. It’s not a block buster but it’s a really serviceable and fun experience and well worth a try.

 

 

 

Look and Feel: 7/10
Challenge: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Story: 7/10

7.5/10

 

 

 

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.

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REVIEW / SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech (PC)

 

I don’t like steampunk. I’ll give you a moment to recover from your shock before I continue. Yeah, the style just never clicked for me. But that doesn’t mean I hate it; it just means I don’t go out of my way to play steampunk games. That includes the SteamWorld series, of course, even if it isn’t strictly steampunk. But what I do like is fantasy adventures, and Switch games, so I was willing to try SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech. A fantasy RPG with robot characters is a strange premise to be sure, but as long as it recognizes that and provides something new, I see no reason it shouldn’t work.

I don’t have much to say about the visuals, because they retain the signature style of the SteamWorld series. That means (fortunately) that while this game used 2D visuals, it does not use pixel art. It uses a hand drawn motif that I’m always happy to see in an endless wave of pixelated indie games. All of the robots do look out of place in an otherwise typical medieval landscape, but that may have been the intent. It isn’t distracting, in any case, and just makes the experience more unique. The playable characters have appropriate and recognizable designs, ensuring they’ll stay with you and remain relatable.

The plot follows three main heroes, with others unlocked along the way: a knight named Armilly, an alchemists named Copernica, and a mechanic named Galleo. These characters fit familiar tropes, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be entertaining. Armilly is my personal favorite; she’s a wannabe adventurer with too much energy and a list of fantasy adventure tropes she wants to cross off. Her enthusiasm drives the plot, for better or worse. The other main characters are, unfortunately, less interesting. Copernica is your typical overly-serious mage. She’s a great (albeit unoriginal) foil for Armilly, but it often feels like that’s her only purpose. Galleo is a cowardly mechanic who serves as the party’s healer. He’s a gentle giant sort of character, but he joins the party at the beginning of the game for little reason. There are other heroes who later join your party, but these three are going to be with you throughout your time with SteamWorld Quest.

One party member represents the group in the overworld, each creen of which acts as a square on a grid. While combat is turn-based, enemies are visible in the overworld, much like in the Paper Mario and Persona games. But the battle system itself is something less common: it uses cards. It may not be a completely unique idea, but Steamworld Quest unquestionably benefits from implementing it. While the characters and world are entertaining, they’re a tad short on depth. The card system adds the extra bit of depth the game needs, without going completely crazy. Each character has a relatively small deck, and there’s a relatively small number of cards accessible each turn, but picking a set of cards from all of your party members allows you to customize each turn. If you need an all-out attack, you can use three of Armilly’s cards and get a small bonus for matching. If you need to hit an enemy’s elemental weakness and heal, you can use a mix of Copernica and Galleo’s cards.

There’s something to be said for light RPGs. Most of the genre is defined by games with mountains of impenetrable lore, so it’s nice to jump into an RPG that doesn’t require understanding of a fictional world’s entire history to get into. For me personally, though, SteamWorld Quest didn’t have the storytelling to keep me excited to play. There may not be a happy medium to find there, but in the meantime, I still think SteamWorld Quest is a fun little game. It’s easy to jump into and its mechanics work really well.

 

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Slay the Spire hits PS4

 

I’ve just spotted a really good bit of info that I just had to share with you all. One of my favourite games of recent months has just been released onto the PS4 thanks to Mega Crit and our good mates over at Humble Bundle. The title to which I’m referring is Slay the Spire, and for console owning fans of roguelikes and card games, this is pretty great news.

I actually reviewed the PC version of this game a few months back so if you want to get an in-depth view of what this title is about and my thoughts on the whole thing, you can have a look here. The PS4 version has all the same content as the PC one so don’t think you’ll get something different than what I’ve reviewed. If you haven’t got time to be reading something lengthy (it’s not that lengthy, honest), keep going for a bit of a summary.

This is a game that pits one of three playable characters, each with their own deck and play style, against the monsters of the Spire. The premise is relatively simple. All you need is to complete each floor and survive with the deck that you have been building as you play. As always, an easy premise can make for a fiendishly hard gaming experience.

Each character plays very differently and this is as much a game of choice as it is a game of cards. Playing well will only get you so far in the Spire. This title’s roguelike nature means that you won’t know what you’re going to be facing until you encounter it, so it’s really hard to plan ahead effectively. Having the wrong deck to combat what you’ll meet later in the game is only going to result in one thing: you starting over. As with all games of this style, you only live once, and a screw up might just be your ticket back to the title screen.

I can honestly say that this is a really good game for killing just a bit of time or losing an afternoon, depending on your mood. I actually enjoyed this one so much that I might just have to grab a second copy on my PS4. It’s not often I’ll do that because it’s totally unnecessary and a bit of a waste of cash. I might just want to get killed sitting on the couch instead of sitting in my office, though … so worth it.

Don’t go off my rambling. Watch the Youtube videos, read the reviews, and decide for yourselves, but if you like roguelikes, cards, strategy, or just frustratingly fun games, you should at least have a look. It might be well worth your time. To be statistical about it, since leaving early access in January, it’s managed to rank itself as third best PC game of 2019 on Metacritic. That in itself is pretty good going.

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Audio-based action adventure game The Vale brings triple-A quality narrative to the visually impaired and sighted gaming communities

 

Falling Squirrel, Canadian indie developer and winner of the 2018 Ubisoft Indie Series Special Prize, has just announced that their action-adventure game, The Vale, is coming to Windows PC via Steam this August. This is exciting news for a number of reasons, chief among them being the accessibility of the game for those with visual impairment, while also being immersive and highly compelling for sighted gamers, as well.

The developers of The Vale heavily consulted with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) during development. The game forgoes traditional visual design and relies heavily upon binaural audio technology, haptic feedback, and triple-A storytelling that will create a compelling and highly engaging experience for sighted and visually impaired gamers alike. The Vale offers a literally eyes-shut, out of the box experience for sighted players.

In The Vale, players are thrown into an emotional story of the second-to-the-throne – blind from birth and newly exiled to the edge of the kingdom as their elder brother is crowned king. The hero, embodied by the player, relishes breaking free from their sheltered existence and finally gets to experience adventure as they travel to the borderlands. The player’s hapless caravan is attacked not far into their journey as hordes of troops invade, ravaging the land and heading towards the capital. With the help of a local shepherd, players must master skills, branching magic, befriend companions and survive the treacherous long and perilous expedition home. Along the way, they will reveal startling truths about their kingdom, the land, and the royal family.

 

The Vale will offer all of the following features which will help make the game a moving, engaging experience for all gamers:

• Accessible Gaming For All: Haptic controller feedback, binaural audio technology, and cinematic voice acting guides players through battle, quests and cut scenes, making this an experience that is accessible to visually impaired and sighted players alike.
• Diverse Soundscape Environments: The bustle of busy villages, the gentle rustling of leaves through the trees in the forests, the eerie echos of the unknown in dank caves — full 3-dimensional sound surrounds players as they adventure over 20 diverse locations ripe for exploration.
• Immersive Medieval Combat: Players are immersed in the action in a way that is completely refreshing as enemies attack with random and story-based encounters, boss battles, and more. During combat, intuitive battle clamor guides players towards enemies as they attack and defend against their foes.
• Meaningful RPG Elements: Presented with a choice of gender and combat styles, players will guide their fully-voiced hero and build their potential as they unlock branching magic paths, loot enemies, hunt animals for valuable items, and visit shops to purchase weapons and armor — each with unique sounds and stats.
• A Story for the Ages: With branching narratives determined by player choice, over 20 side quests and more than 20 audio cut scenes, players will uncover twists and surprises as they travel the land and speak with the many unique and fully voiced characters they encounter.

 

The Vale will be coming to Steam for PC in August 2019.

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Tfue sues FaZe Clan!

 

Mount St. Helen’s, a volcano located in Washington, hasn’t had a major eruption since 1980. Over the weekend, twitter and the Fortnite community made that eruption look like a pop rock hiding under the tongue of a toddler. The news explosion came about from what started as an Instagram post from the father of one of the most popular twitch streamers- Turner “Tfue” Tenney. Tfue is widely regarded as one of the best Fortnite players right now and continually proves it with the numbers he puts up on Twitch.

According to the “Hollywood Reporter,” the eSports pro is suing FaZe Clan over his “oppressive contract.” Tfue’s attorney Bryan Freedman writes that the gaming organization is violating California law and the Talent Agency Act. It took me awhile to actually dive through the whole statement, mainly because I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that there’s a living, real human attorney whose name is actually “Freedman.” Aside from the hilarity of having the perfect name for his profession, the man makes some pretty astounding claims regarding the contract from FaZe. The report states the conglomerate is raking in a ridiculous 80 percent of the content creator’s earnings, while concurrently “limiting his ability to pursue his profession.” The attorney also goes on to call FaZe’s gamer contracts “illegal” and “limiting.”

After the report hit the airwaves, everything else kind of just hit the fan. FaZe’s frontrunner “Banks” responded with an emotional video and every streamer tossed in their 2 cents like the situation was a water fountain that grants wishes. FaZe, of course, denied all of the claims, so as of right now the truth of everything going on is murkier than the waters of Moisty Mire (RIP). The only sort of speculation I can give is that maybe Tfue’s contract doesn’t exactly represent his current value because he got signed way before he took off like he did. If that is the case, the 21 year old is using the lawsuit as a sort of legal blackmail that’s used in big businesses to get out of a current contract. This means, the man’s STRATS are just as good in real life as they are in game. When he’s not streaming, the guy is literally neck deep in law books and probably “the art of the deal” is the only explanation with which I can come up.

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REVIEW / World End Syndrome (PS4)

 

World End Syndrome is a romantic visual novel game developed by TOYBOX and published by Arc System Works that was released on the Switch and PS4 this month. The story follows a 17 year old high school junior trying to escape his troubled past. He is invited to transfer to Mihate High School after accidentally causing the death of his older sister. He moves to coastal Mihate Town hoping to start a new life and forget his past while working through the depression, guilt and grief surrounding his sister’s death.

 

 

Mihate Town appears to be a quiet seaside paradise, but all is not as it seems. The legend of the Yomibito is well known; the dead are said to come back to life every 100 years. Once resurrected, the Yomibito attack the living to regain their sanity, but their thirst can never be quenched.

Of course, as you would expect,  our sad protagonist just happens to move to Mihate on the 100 year anniversary of the last known incident. Sure enough, strange and horrifying things start to happen in the town not long after the protagonist arrives; this starts with a student at the high school suddenly dying.

 

 

After a lengthy prologue, World End Syndrome gives you essentially a month (your summer school holiday) to run around the town as you please in morning, afternoon and evening chunks. While wandering around, you can encounter events with other characters, some of which will help you in boosting your “aura” with other characters (typically the girls you can romance). Each girl is represented by a different color of aura, for which you can check the status in your handbook.

The game doesn’t actually explain this to you, however. On top of that, it’s almost impossible to determine where certain characters are going to be unless you happen to encounter them a day or day segment beforehand saying where they’re going next. Further, you can reliably show up somewhere you know someone will be (e.g. at their job) over and over and over again, encountering them many times, and never receive special events or aura.

 

 

When you first play World End Syndrome, the game railroads you onto a particular path with next to no choices. When you get to the end of the first run, you have a choice, but there’s only one option you can choose. After that, you get the worst ending. Following that initial run though, text you’ve seen before on certain days and times will show up as yellow and you can also see places on your map where you’ve encountered people before, thus aiding you in making different choices and pursuing different relationships with subsequent playthroughs.

On my second run, I romanced Saya. This was completely by accident – I just happened to keep running into her. The third time I aggressively went to the same place over and over where I knew another girl would be and encountered her constantly. However, that didn’t build up enough aura to trigger any special events for her romance line and I received the worst ending again.

 

 

After meeting all of the main cast members, particularly all of your romance options, I chuckled at the trope-iness of it all. Maimi is your cousin of some distant persuasion. She’s tomboyish and rough around the edges while still wanting the typical high school girl experience. Saya is the haughty rich girl. Yukino is the slightly older, carefree one who knows a bit more than she’s letting on at first. Miu is the quiet, cold one who just happens to wear a frilly maid outfit when she’s working at her brother’s cafe. Hanako is – no spoiler warning here because it’s that obvious – the huge celebrity idol that everyone is going mad for that’s trying to disguise herself as a regular girl to get a taste of the high school experience.

Oh, and of course there’s your sexy and mysterious teacher, your class clown friend who’s a massive, intolerable pervert, and small collection of other characters you may bump into along the way. I was decidedly pleased to discover that the further you dig into your relationships with the girls individually as you progress their romance routes, they develop into much more complex and interesting characters.

 

 

While there’s some obvious fanservice thrown in for good measure in both the dialogue and the still images, the romance events are usually pretty mature and handled well. However, having looked at the aura guide sent by the developer, so much effort has to go into building up enough aura to trigger events and get on various romance routes. I’ve subsequently learned that you need to complete all of the available romances in order to find out the truth behind the mystery in the main storyline. I would be fine with that if it was at all clear how you were supposed to track these girls down at the right time to build up the required aura to actually romance them.

The main plot is actually quite interesting, once you’ve put aside the initially tropey, sometimes unbelievable setting (e.g. sure, parents and the school administration would be perfectly comfortable with a teacher making a special club that only specially-invited members get to attend but it’s also not officially registered and they go on special trips together?). But because the slice of life and romance aspect completely dominates the plot, you only get tiny slivers of the actual mystery as you go through each route. The developers dangle an intensely frustrating carrot by only allowing you to eke out little pieces of the plot as you form relationships with others.

 

 

I’ve read ahead a little and found out that pretty much all of the plot climax and conclusion happens right at the end after you’ve strolled through all of the romance routes. I really wanted to find out the truth behind the Yomibito legend, but the game really asks too much. I’m not saying they should make it easy, but there’s so much trial and error involved that it seems like some times you would be doomed to fail or would have to sit there, saving and reloading every time you didn’t locate the girl or other person you wanted to see. Exhausting is what I would call that.

I only have nice but not overwhelming praise for the audiovisual side of things. The voice acting is really good, no question. The character voices are distinct, clear, crisp, and the production value was clearly very good. The subtitling is pretty spot on, with only a few grammatical and typographical errors to speak of. The backgrounds are very pretty and the characters have very unique, different designs from one another, as well as very distinct personalities.

 

 

That said, while the protagonist in a visual novel is usually a blank slate, I was mildly pleased to see that the protagonist has a bit of sass to him…but only a bit. Most of his dialogue is “Look at how brooding and poetic I am” monologuing when he’s alone and it honestly makes him once of the most teeth-gratingly unlikable protagonists I’ve ever encountered. I may have actually preferred the blank slate. Granted, he’s depressed and grieving, but that doesn’t make having to sit through his moaning any less painful.

I really wish that World End Syndrome didn’t hide so much of its actual plot behind the slice of life and romance portions of the game, as even your choices in these sections don’t seem to actually lend themselves to letting you explore the actual mystery you’re supposed to be trying to solve. There are many good features such as the yellow text for previously-seen scenes, the fast forward option which is deactivated when it’s something you haven’t seen before but stops if you’re fast-forwarding something old and something new or a choice comes up, and the map markers for things you’ve seen before. It certainly makes replays easier, but it doesn’t actually help you do anything more than avoid romances you’ve successfully completed on previous runs.

 

 

I may return to World End Syndrome in future when I have time to spare and a guide open to assist, because I’d love to see the actual ending and also a few more of the girls actually have their full character development. Regrettably, at this stage, there’s too little plot and too much trial and error for World End Syndrome to get my recommendation.

 

 

 

Story –  5/10
Romance – 7/10
Audiovisual – 6/10
Gameplay – 3/10

5.25

 

 

 

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.

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First look at Oddworld: Soulstorm

 

Any Oddworld fans out there? I’m hoping there will be a bunch of you, as our good mate Abe has been floating about the gaming universe for a very long time. Those of you that don’t remember the original games may be fully aware of the reboot of Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee entitled Oddworld: New n’ Tasty. If you played and enjoyed this re-envisioning of the game, you’ll be pleased to note that we can now give you a bit of a sneaky peek at gameplay of its sequel Oddworld: Soulstorm.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is to be the second in a planned Pentalogy of games. With this in mind and in true sequel fashion, Oddworld: Soulstorm picks the story back up from where New n’ Tasty ends. If you haven’t finished the first one or you want to play it, please skip forward a paragraph now. I’m about to throw a few spoilers into this and I’m not going to start redacting things. Have they moved on? Good. For those of you that have completed the first game, you’ll know that Abe has defeated Mollusk the Glukkon, his former boss and Rupture Farms’ meanest inhabitant. In doing this he has also liberated a bunch of his fellow workmates.

In Soulstorm, Abe finds himself and around three hundred emancipated Mudokons without food, water, or a place to call home. Thirsty and stranded in the desert, the group come across a mysterious new brew, a delicious drink that has nefarious properties and insidious ramifications for their newly found freedom.

Oddworld has always had a smart way of chewing up themes of environmentalism, consumerism, capitalism, and addiction, and these things have made the game very popular on the triple A indie circuit. We will definitely be seeing more of this here; the games get a point across without making any over-obvious statements, and this certainly adds a good amount of charm.

If you’re really excited for Oddworld: Soulstorm , you won’t have too much longer to wait. This installment of the ongoing story is planned to hit console and PC next year. This will give those of you who haven’t played the first game plenty of time to catch up. If you like well-written, humorous puzzlers, this is a series I definitely recommend checking out.

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REVIEW / Crimson Keep (PS4)

 

Before I talk about Crimson Keep, I think it will be helpful to talk about a different game first. I’ve talked many times about a VR game called Vanishing Realms, a dungeon crawler for the Vive that I both previewed and covered on one of the earliest episodes of the Vivestream. These two games are very similar; they’re fantasy dungeon crawlers, played in a first person perspective, and they keep things pretty simple. So why is Vanishing Realms a classic, while Crimson Keep seems destined to be forgotten?

What makes Vanishing Realms so good is that it’s extremely immersive in VR. All of the combat is in real time, you can interact with almost anything you see, and the environments are beautiful. It’s a short experience, and there’s not much in the way of equipment customization, but it still manages to draw you in. But what if you took out the VR? Without the immersion, Vanishing Realms is just another basic dungeon crawler. It’s well made, but it would be too simple and repetitive by itself. So a similar non-VR game like Crimson Keep needs to add something significant to be worth your time.

Crimson Keep’s most prominent addition to the formula is that it’s a roguelike. In my experience, that can be a good thing or a bad thing. And unfortunately, here it’s a bad thing. Vanishing Realms only has a few locations, but they’re well laid out and beautiful.The environments in Crimson Keep are dull and repetitive. You’ll often find yourself in a narrow passage with more enemies than you can reasonably handle, and there’s not much you can do about it. Beyond that, it just isn’t a well made game.You can’t step back when you’re attacking; instead, dodging is a special action that you can only use a limited number of times. While you do unlock new abilities as you go on, they do little to break up the monotony of the gameplay, no matter what class you choose to play. The inventory system also needs a redesign; items are not organized by type, and instead must be moved over to the appropriate slot from an overall list. These are things one might be able to forgive in another game, but there’s little reason to do so here.

And finally, let’s talk about the visuals. I think my boyfriend Alex summed it up well when he called the graphics “bush league.” We also questioned the use of floating hands; there’s a reason that most first person games either show arms, or only show the weapon being used; floating hands just look weird. The enemy designs are interesting, I suppose, but they’re nothing particularly original or creative. A good visual style can be a game’s saving grace, and I always appreciate when something unique is used, but everything in Crimson Keep is run-of-the-mill.

Crimson Keep isn’t the worst game of its genre that I’ve played, nor is it the worst game I’ve reviewed for the site (I haven’t forgotten Pumped BMX +), but it still isn’t worth your time. There are plenty of well crafted dungeon crawlers out there, VR and otherwise. This title’s brand of ARPG can be fun, but the first person view isn’t enough to make it stand out from the crowd.

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Swords of Gargantua VR to offer open global beta

We haven’t really had a great amount of VR news for a bit so here’s an interesting little something I found and this one has a prize attached to it. The game is an upcoming VR action title called Swords of Gargantua and it’s about to go out into the wild for a weeks global open beta.

So the open beta will, as I’ve just mentioned, be globally accessible and will be happening through Steam and the Oculus store. From Wednesday next week through till Tuesday the week following, (that’s the 15th – 21st,) players will be able to test their sword wielding skills against the mighty Gargantua’s minions. This in and of itself is obviously a very cool thing, any chance to play a new game before release is well worth taking but there is an added bonus.

During the beta players will be able to take part in a leaderboard challenge. The lucky so and so sitting at the top of the leaderboard at the end of the beta period will win some swag and it’s one hell of a prize. Up for grabs is a NVIDIA Geforce RTX 2080 Ventus 8G OC graphics card. For tech-heads amongst you that’s one of these gizmos here. You’ll be playing in the multiplayer beginner quest to achieve placement so don’t expect to have to master a full game to stand and chance at winning.

If you’ve never heard of Swords of Gargantua I’ll list a few of the game’s key features for you. To begin with Swords of Gargantua is boasting hyper realistic VR swordplay. To give you the right feel the battle system has been honed and refined with accurate haptic feedback.  The game is also offering both single and multi-player modes. Solo players amongst you will have 100 single player missions to battle through with an arsenal of 30 weapons to unlock. Those of you favouring a bit of team battling will find a cross-platform 4 player co-op mode with native voice chat. This will allow you to develop strategies, revive downed friendlies and battle hordes of enemies in order to protect your mana station. Succeed and you’ll find yourself up against an enormous foe. If you’re skilled enough to survive the barrage of foes you will find yourself going toe to toe with the massive titan Gargantua.

If you’d like to get a chance to see what this VR experience is about and maybe even get your hands on that graphics card you can sign up for the beta at the game’s Discord page here. One last important piece of information to note is that the beta dates I’ve given you are in Pacific Daylight Time. Those of you in the rest of the world might want to sync those watches.

So there you have it! Oculus owners and VR fans might want to get in on this. I’m not a huge hardware buff but even my layman’s brain can see that this is one awesome prize to have. The other great thing about this is that you’ll all be in the beta together. The fact that you won’t be up against other players with years of practice evens out the playing field and gives you a pretty good chance at winning. This reason alone might just make getting involved worth your while.

 

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Monster Hunter World: Iceborne expansion coming September 6th

 

Today, Capcom has announced new details for an exciting, highly anticipated, and massive expansion to Monster Hunter: World, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne will contain a brand new storyline, monsters, gameplay options, and more. In addition, the base game will have a free trial and new content updates for consoles later this month.

Iceborne intends to build on every aspect of the original Monster Hunter: World, starting with an all new story picking up after the conclusion of the main game. Hunters will be taken to a newly discovered, frosty location called Hoarfrost Reach. The new snow-covered terrain offers an ecosystem that contrasts areas in the main game and expands as the story is progressed. Hoarfrost Reach will be the largest region in the game so far, offering a wealth of new content with even more quests to undertake than in the original release.

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne also introduces a new higher difficulty: Master Rank. This is a new quest tier that makes new and existing monsters even more ferocious. New monsters that hunters can expect to encounter in Hoarfrost Reach are foes such as the horned brute wyvern Banbaro and the snow-buried Beotodus. These monsters will interweave in the ecosystem with fan favourites such as the Nargacuga, who has been buffed with a few extra tricks in his moveset. The mysterious new flagship monster, Velkhana, an elder dragon with powerful ice attacks, will be a pervasive threat in the new story.
New gameplay options will also be made available, creating opportunities for exciting new hunting strategies. The Slinger can now be used while the main weapon is drawn, regardless of weapon type. New features have also been added for the Slinger such as the Clutch Claw used to grapple onto monsters with more direct control and the Flinch Shot which unloads Slinger ammo to stun monsters. Each of the 14 weapon types will also get new combos and new elements, offering additional depth to master in combat.

Players will need to already own the Monster Hunter: World base game. While Iceborne players will be able to enjoy some of the gameplay options such as the Slinger and weapon updates right away, they must have completed the main story through Hunter Rank 16 in order to access the new story and quests. So if you haven’t done that already, get moving on it before the chill takes over. Depending on location, special editions and pre-order bonuses are available, so be sure to check your local stores for more details.

The new free trial of Monster Hunter: World is available on PS4 from today through to 20 May 2019. In the meantime for existing console players, the last new content update for the base game will celebrate the aggressive flagship monster Nergigante who will finally appear in the Arch-Tempered form for a limited time from 11 May UTC. Defeating this ultimate challenge will net the user powerful Nergigante ? (gamma) armour.

Further information on Monster Hunter World: Iceborne will be revealed at E3 this June!

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REVIEW / Outward (X1)

 

Are you tired of being an RPG hero? Do you hate being on a mythical quest as the chosen savior of the kingdom? It’s so cliche and worn out that the epicness of the event is truncated by all of the repetition. Enter the developers at Nine Dots Studio, the creators of the open world action RPG Outward, to create an RPG with a different approach to an RPG protagonist’s quest.

 

 

In Outward, you are not the hero or the destined savior of the world. You are just an average villager trying their best to make a living in a dangerous world. This concept is hammered home in both the plot and the gameplay loop over and over. At the beginning of the game there are no expectations on you other than to pay your rent or you lose your house. When you travel beyond the town walls the enemy encounters are unforgiving and make each fight feel like a desperate struggle.

Despite the fights being difficult, your character cannot “die”. You can fail, but when you fail in combat you are taken prisoner by bandits or rescued by a hunter. Just a splash screen of text saying what happened when you lost the fight and where you are now. You can lose all of your items pretty easily though and that makes the survival aspects all the more difficult. I was ambushed by wolves after a difficult fight and lost my weapons, clothes, items, and armor. I was in such a bad position it was just easier to restart the game.

 

 

The reason it was easier to restart is because Outward employs a unique dynamic save system. The game keeps a rolling autosave that keeps overwriting itself so there’s no possibility to turn back the clock or undo a costly decision. The intent of this system is interesting in that it forces the player to commit to their actions and live with the failures, but from a quality of life standpoint it can be infuriating for the player. The whole world is strange and new, you don’t know what enemies can one shot kill you or what NPCs will randomly lock you in a dungeon, which unintentionally guides the player into playing very conservatively and missing out on experiences for risk of losing progress.

The combat of Outward is very similar to other 3rd person action RPGs such as Assassins Creed Odyssey or Dark Souls. Where there are dedicated buttons for a light attack, heavy attack, dodge, and block with a separate trigger for special abilities such as magic. Outward does enough to separate itself from the others in the form of requiring a plan of attack; you need to quickly unattach your pack if you plan to roll around dodging and you need to setup wards for effective spellcasting.

 

 

However, Outward is a little loose on the combat side of the mechanics, being very heavily animation based and having hitboxes that don’t even look close to the character model. There was an encounter I had with a bandit that stabbed the area far to the left of my character and it counted as a hit, which is vital due to the low amount of hits it takes to fail a fight.

You can make things easier with the co-op feature that works in both online and couch co-op modes. You can have a ranged character pull aggro while the melee character chips away damage to get the kill. This mode works well in that there’s an extra security layer if things go south in a fight and you’re at risk of losing your items. If it all possible, this is probably the best way to experience Outward, as the single player mode leaves a lot to be desired.

 

 

When it comes to appearances, Outward is more than a little rough around the edges. Upon first impression of the character models and world it very much felt like I was playing a game that had been released in 2005. The character models are always ugly up close and the structures seem a bit too blocky to fit naturally into the world. The open world areas are impressive comparatively, with great use of flora to set each area apart from the other and appear unique. However, these large open areas are very empty. In all of my time running through the world, which you will be doing a lot due to the lack of fast travel, I only ran into 1 friendly NPC not in a town. Everything else tries to attack on sight, and even those are spaced out pretty far.

Outward is more than just combat and exploration though; it blends in a healthy mix of survival elements that you need to track to ensure your characters health. There are thirst meters to keep in check with water, hunger meters with each food item having its own expiration timer, body heat so you need to adjust clothing per the area, stamina bars affected by the pain your character is in or by the time since your last rest, there’s even a variety of illnesses such as colds and indigestion your character can contract out in the wilderness.

 

 

The game gives you the ability to juggle all of these, but it’s by no means easy to do so. You need to keep track of your materials, the weight of them in the pack, the best options of preparing or preserving them, and when and where to rest. It is entirely possible to be ambushed during sleep.

Outward goes so far out of its way to provide a difficult hardcore experience for hardcore gamers that it ends up feeling very archaic and obtuse in design. The autosave everywhere makes it very easy to back into a corner that will wipe hours of progress. Having a large map with no fast travel is a real unnecessary hindrance and requires a lot of time spent backtracking. There is no mini map or objective markers, which is fine as a design choice, but the map that is provided is just a normal paper map with no compass or indication of where your character is on it other than some vague monuments that you can try to use to reorient yourself. It’s actually just easier to explore and memorize the map locations, but this is still a hassle and feels like the game is demanding more from the player than it does to deserve.

 

 

There is a niche crowd that will adore the concepts Outward tries to hit despite its flawed execution, but it’s very obviously hyper focused on just that small crowd of that small niche that it can be very frustrating to try to get into. Outward requires patience and an ability to accept failures and try again. This game needs you to be fine with playing for hours just to lose that progress by failing a stiff, un-enjoyable fight sequence. You can bring a friend along with the co-op feature to make the grind a bit faster, but it’s still just that, a grind.

 

 

An adventure to be wary of

Outward is a survival RPG that appeals to the hardest of hardcore RPG fans, who even then have plenty of faults to overlook to enjoy the experience. The combat is stiff and uninspired, the design is archaic, the difficulty is punishing to the point of frustrating even without juggling the variety of survival mechanics, and the characters and buildings look like they’re out of a late original Xbox RPG.

5

 

 

 

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.

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REVIEW / Forgiveness (PC)

 

“There are two kinds of people in this world- the people who spend their lives helping others, doing good, caring about the world… and then there’s you.” In Forgiveness, this is the greeting you receive when you “awake” in a strange room with symbols painted on the walls, with a challenge that if you escape in thirty minutes or less, you’ll earn your way out of purgatory. At least, that’s what the guy on the loudspeaker claims.

 

Wrath

 

If you’re a fan of escape rooms, Forgiveness might be right up your alley. Each level requires you to solve three to four puzzles in sequence in order to finally unlock the door. And like most popular escape rooms, these all have a theme- the seven deadly sins.

Players can choose to take a personality test, choosing between two options in a series of “Would You Rather”-style questions, and having your very own Deadly Sin chosen for you. This allows you to experience the “story mode” version of the game where you hear the charming introduction of Dr. Benjamin Smith, supposedly the new God, and solve an introductory puzzle as a sort of tutorial, gathering clues to discover the code to unlock the door.

 

 

Aside from Dr. Smith’s initial speech, there is no additional dialogue, although in “Normal” mode, an audio cue will play whenever you discover an item relevant to solving one of the puzzles. Players also have access to a “hint” function in all levels including the tutorial (listed as “Prolog” in the menu). As far as I can tell, there is no penalty to your final time for using the hints.

Escaping the Prolog room luckily does not count against your thirty minutes. It also never changes. If you’ve solved it once, you only need to remember the door code in order to move to the actual level. The doctor’s dialogue also remains unchanged.

 

 

Players also have the option to choose the level directly, which also gives you the ability to choose by difficulty level. Only the Prolog room is “Easy”, 2 sins are “Medium”, 3 are “Hard”, and Wrath and Envy are “Insane”. These descriptors are, depending on your experience with puzzles, somewhat accurate.

Experienced players (especially veterans of classic adventure games) will quickly recognize certain mechanics – coded messages on walls, clues hidden in the titles of books or paintings on the walls, or obstacles that require the use of tools (an axe to open a locked chest, or a crowbar to prise something off the wall, for example). In some cases, first instincts will be correct- in others, players will need to scour the room for additional information pointing them to the puzzle’s solution. There are always one or two red herrings that might draw attention away from the true goal and end up eating a lot of the allotted time.

 

 

While the timer is always running, it is only in Extreme mode that the clock will run out at thirty minutes. You also lose access to hints and the audio cue. However, winning in Extreme mode does not offer additional dialogue or any kind of bonus material. It also doesn’t affect whether you earn the achievement for the room.

There are some fun easter eggs hidden here and there, but Forgiveness does its best to impart a sense of horror in its players without resorting to jump scares. The soundtrack is changes from room to room, varying from ambient haunted-house style noises to adrenaline-fueling scores you’d expect to hear played when deciding whether to cut the red wire or the blue wire. While most of the puzzles are fairly harmless, one true moment of horror was in the Gluttony room where part of the puzzle requires that you eat a dead rat. There’s not a key inside of it or anything, but you still have to eat it. It’s not even gory – you don’t see it disappear bite by bite or anything – but it seriously gave me the heebie-jeebies.

 

 

Win or lose, you don’t meet Dr. Smith. There’s also no question that you really are dead, experiencing some sort of pre-hell afterlife; Smith’s dialogue specifically says that he hasn’t killed you yet. For those who devour horror-game lore, there’s definitely fodder for some theories, particularly in the Pride and Envy rooms.

Win or lose, you don’t meet Dr. Smith. There’s also no question that you really are dead, experiencing some sort of pre-hell afterlife; Smith’s dialogue specifically says that he hasn’t killed you yet. For those who devour horror-game lore, there’s definitely fodder for some theories, particularly in the Pride and Envy rooms. The Pride room is a study/library style area, and one of the puzzles involves collecting a series of books- all about psychology. Could Dr. Smith a psychologist? The room with the most narrative gameplay, Envy, is set in the loft apartment of someone named Jean. Part of the puzzles involve reading the chat logs on her laptop, and the only time an item description is less than straightforward is when you look at the shoes next to the bed. A pair of white flats simply read “Jean’s shoes”, while a brown hiking boot reads “I don’t know whose shoe this is”. The only other voice actor listed in the credits is for Jean’s voice, which you hear in a different part of the puzzle. Like I said, lots of theory fodder for those so inclined.

 

Pride

 

Since the puzzles never change, replay value is not particularly high. However, the game has good atmosphere, solid theming, and each room offers a unique challenge. There is little to no overlap in the mechanics of each room’s puzzles, meaning that solving one does not give you any advantage for solving another. My best recommendation? Buy the game, invite a bunch of friends over, and hook your computer up to your TV. The game only costs about ten dollars on Steam, so you’re saving money over a real-life escape room by about ninety bucks. And hey, if enough people do that, maybe they’ll come out with a sequel, where we finally learn more about the enigmatic Dr. Smith.

Forgiveness is available on Steam, 50% off until May 13, and you can visit game publisher Chaos-Minds at their website.

 

 

 

It’s Like Resident Evil, But Just The Unlocking Doors Parts

Forgiveness is a well-themed, engaging puzzle game that is certainly on trend with the rise of real-world Escape Rooms. None of the aspects of any level are randomized, lowering replay value, but with the character of Dr. Benjamin Smith, the game has some potential to join the host of lore-loaded indie hits of recent years.

8

 

 

 

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.

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Trailer shows off new Priest Class in Bandai Namco’s upcoming MMORPG, Bless Unleashed

 

If you have been waiting for more juicy tidbits from Bandai Namco about their upcoming Xbox One action MMORPG, Bless Unleashed, then you will be happy to hear that the company released a little taste today to keep you coming back for more.

A new trailer was released which highlights the new Priest Class. As both a healer and warrior, the Priest brings a unique skill set to the battlefield. Priests can unleash a fury of attacks from afar with lethal combinations and pinpoint accuracy, as well as set down buffs and heals for their teammates. Those who chose to master the Priest will definitely be a force to be reckoned with.

If you haven’t heard about this new MMORPG, let me fill you in. Bless Unleashed takes place in an untamed world with a rich backstory created with hardcore MMO players in mind. With deep combo-driven mechanics, player customization, and cooperative (PvE) and competitive (PvP) multiplayer, there is an endless amount of content and gameplay possibilities to keep players engaged.

Developed using Unreal Engine 4, Bless Unleashed  brings unparalleled visuals to a fully realized fantasy world, offering one of the most stunning MMORPGs produced for console players. Players adventure across an open persistent world where mythical beasts roam the land and player vs. player battles can take place at any time.

Stay tuned to TVGB for more updates on this game as Bandai Namco releases them. In the meantime, check out the new trailer below and let us know if this looks like a game you will be considering for purchase when it releases.

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REVIEW / Heaven’s Vault (PC)

 

I think it’s safe to say that as gamers, we go through spells of playing games from similar genres. This isn’t always a deliberate or even conscious thing, it’s just something that happens. I’m not saying we don’t all have our favorite genres (because we do), but sometimes you get side tracked into something that turns into a real adventure. I’m finding this at the moment with story-driven games. Although I love a title with a good plot it isn’t necessarily the first thing I look for. Games like Firewatch and They’ve all gone to the Rapture aren’t my first choice because they go too heavy on the story at the expense of the player’s agency. I find the same problem with visual novels; there has to be something beyond good storytelling to motivate me to play. This aside I’ve plunged down the rabbit hole of point and click adventures recently and I’m not a bit sorry for it. This little journey has led me to the game we’ll be looking at today. It’s called Heaven’s Vault and I have a few mixed feelings about it.

 

 

In Heaven’s Vault you take the role of an archeologist called Myari who goes off to find a missing roboticist, taking her newly acquired robot with her. The plot starts with a very simple premise and branches depending on the choices you make. I’ll explain this in a bit more depth in a minute, but you actually uncover the story through the clues you discover and people you meet.

This is a game about delving into history and it’s all really interesting. My only note here is that it can be a bit slow going to begin with and I found this game a tad difficult to get into at first. I think I would have liked a bit more back story at the start to ground me but that’s my only real complaint on this.

 

The choices you make feel important to the story.

 

As I’ve just stated, uncovering clues is at the core of Heaven’s Vault. There is a really clever, innovative gameplay mechanic where you find inscriptions on a bunch of different items in the game. As an archeologist you have a basic knowledge of the ancient language but a lot of what you decipher is based on educated guess work. As you find more inscriptions the words you have already guessed will either be proven wrong or noted as correct. As these symbols appear throughout all of the inscriptions you have collected they get easier to understand as you go.

Your original guesses never seem completely ridiculous either. Myari will reason with what you have chosen and explain why your phrase could be correct, even if it isn’t. New inscriptions and items that you find also open up new areas of exploration on the map. This is true of archeology, it’s all about following a historic trail. This gives more basis to what you’re doing and makes your character’s career feel real and not just like a throw-away element of the story.

 

The inscription system is both clever and integral.

 

Following from this you also add to an evolving timeline each time you make a discovery, find a new site or interact with a new person. The steps on this timeline aren’t just save points in the game they form an evolving web of actions and discoveries that you can view at any time. You can see your actions having consequence and this is really cool.

Graphically this game is stunning. The art concept is great and follows a painted water colour-like theme which has been placed over a fully rendered 3D world. The 3D elements of the game I love, the 2D overlay not so much. When your character is moving it feels a bit stilted. It’s like watching pictures sliding over a background instead of moving against it. That isn’t to say that I don’t like the art style, everything is really well painted I just don’t really like the two artistic choices together so much.

 

 

Something that spoiled things a bit for me, and this is something I know the devs are working to improve, was a slightly wonky camera. Sometimes you find yourself having a conversation with a character that you can’t see because they’re off screen. In addition to this movement sometimes feels a bit awkward. I think many of you have played the first Resident Evil game. The best way I can describe it is a being a bit like that. Movement doesn’t always feel fluid and this isn’t going to do anything for the overall experience.

Parts of Heaven’s Vault are narrated but the majority of dialogue is written. The issue I take here is that most of the time you’re moving about in silence and this makes some of the spoken pieces of dialogue feel a little bit out of place. There’s nothing wrong with the voice acting but I’d rather they’d gone for a written or spoken format, not bits of both. This is an artistic choice on behalf of the developers and that’s fine, it just not something that works so well for me personally.

 

This is a genuinely beautiful way to travel.

 

The way you move between areas of the gameworld is really clever and gorgeously created. You travel by ship on intertwining streams of rushing water. These streams are effectively in space and this gives a really interesting take on travel between places which are vast distances apart. It’s via these rivers that you find new ruins and other previously undiscovered sites that appear as you collect artifacts and decipher inscriptions. These travel elements of the game can come off as a little long winded, not that this was a problem for me personally as it’s so gorgeously done. With this being said a fast travel option has been added for journeys between places you’ve already found for speed and ease of play.

Heaven’s Vault grows on you as you progress. I was really unsure during my first hour or so of gameplay as to whether I wanted to continue with the experience. I have to admit that I’m glad I did and that now I want to see all this game has to offer. Players that want to be hooked immediately or aren’t as patient as me when it comes to pace may not give this game enough of a chance. Now I’m a decent way in I can honestly say this would be unfair but as I nearly did exactly the same, (shame on me,) I can understand why it could happen.

 

 

This game should appeal to a lot of people. It’s part point and click adventure, part visual novel, part puzzler and it’s a really nice mix. This is also the sort of game that I feel you’ll need to play more than once to get the most out of.

I’d like to see what difference making other choices would make to the story. This is great as well, it gives this game longevity and replayability and that’s something I think is commendable. Whether Heaven’s Vault has multiple endings remains to be seen but there is definitely scope for the story to veer off down several different paths on a fresh start.

 

 

There are one or two things too many that I’m not sure about to give Heaven’s Vault a really high score. Please note that a lot of my reservations are based on personal choice as opposed to anything technical or game breaking. This is still a very sold, playable game it’s just not a ten out of ten blockbuster for me. If you like the art style and don’t mind the relatively slow pace I think you’ll have a lot of fun here. If you want something fast moving and action packed then I would advise looking elsewhere.

 

 

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.

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