Do you like an addictive challenge that slowly grows on you? Are indie games with an old-school vibe your thing? Will I stop asking questions and get on with this? If the answer to all three questions is yes, then you’ll love Arkan: The Dog Adventurer, and I can get on with this review!
Developed by Taverna Game Studio and published by Sometimes You, this is an Arkanoid platform game with a retro twist. You control a dog who is hell-bent on destroying everything and everyone he sees. He is a dog like no other and has special powers and a badass attitude.
So many foes for one dog.
Arkan: The Dog Adventurer is simple but addictive.
Like the great arcade games from the past, Arkan: The Dog Adventurer has a very simple concept. You must control the doggy hero as he throws a ball at the destructible scenery. Like Arkanoid, you must annihilate every block. If you don’t, the scenery will act as a defensive wall for the monsters. Failure to kill them all will prevent you from collecting your stars and progressing.
There are three worlds to visit, each comprising twenty stages. You aim to collect each of the stars, kill the monsters, and survive. This is easier said than done as your enemies become more aggressive and increase in size. You must plan how to eliminate the blocks, aim your throws, and dodge projectiles.
During the early stage, this is relatively easy, but it quickly becomes problematic. You will fall down pits, be struck by bullets, and fail levels. It’s infuriating, annoying, but it adds to the addictive fun and demands you have just one more try.
Arkan: The Dog Adventurer is no ordinary dog, he has special powers.
It wouldn’t be much of a platform game if the hero had no special powers. Luckily, Arkan: The Dog Adventurer is loaded with game-changing skills. He can; jump, double jump, power up his magical ball, and teleport to slow time.
These skills take time to get used to and they add a tactical element to an otherwise simple premise. Worried about facing a barrage of bullets? No problem, teleport out of the way. Are all your foes hidden behind blocks? Don’t worry, leap like a gazelle and take them down. Is the action going too quickly for you? Slow it down and give yourself time.
Dodge those projectiles.
A game of luck, patience, and some skill.
Like Arkanoid, there is some skill needed to be successful. But mostly you’ll need luck on your side and a heavy dose of patience. The ball will bounce around the right-hand side of the screen and there is nothing you can do about it. An invisible force field stops you from entering and you simply must wait for the ball to return to you.
This was pretty tiresome and I wish the developers had used an option to reset the ball. There were moments where you stared blindly at the screen as you became a voyeur in your game. It wasn’t necessary, and it impacted the enjoyment factor.
A classic indie old-school look.
There is very little that’ll surprise you about this. The fixed screen perspective leaves nothing to the imagination. The pixelated graphics are good but lacked originality. I liked what I saw, especially the different backdrops for each world and the unique monsters. However, I would have liked to see something unusual that matches the weird combination of genres.
The audio is similar, and it has a pleasant array of songs to listen to. Each matched the look and help to build the manic atmosphere. It was a shame that it sounds like many retro indie games on the market. I was disappointed as I hoped for more from this bizarre title.
Don’t let the freezing cold stop you.
Practice makes perfect.
When the controls are simple, you’d expect to pick them up quickly. Strangely, I struggled with it to begin with. The timing was a key element and if you get this wrong, you floundered in the air and missed the ball repeatedly. Fear not though, practice makes perfect! Once you nail the finer points, it quickly becomes second nature.
With many stages to complete and lots of stars to collect, this will keep you going. Three difficulty modes are available to make the game harder and this increases the longevity vastly. A small achievement list adds some challenge but can be completed in a few hours. It’s inexpensive so you get a lot of value for your money.
Arkan: The Dog Adventurer is challenging, fun, but plateaus.
This is one bizarre title that I’m glad to have played. Never in a million years did I think this would work, but it does. It’s challenging, fun, and addictive, yet the gameplay plateaus quickly. It keeps you interested throughout, so it’s worth giving it a go. I liked it and recommend you to buy it here! Break the blocks, collect the stars, and kill your foes.
I’m sure you’ve been asked who your favourite superhero is on hundreds of occasions at this point. So who would you respond with? Batman? Superman? Captain America? Well, have you ever thought about what their life was like outside of being so idolised? Do they have a normal life? Do they attend school? What do they do in their spare time? Luckily, DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power lets you live through all parts of the day to day life of our heroes.
Fun for everyone
DC Super Hero Girls started as a cartoon on Cartoon Network, and due to its extreme popularity, Teen Power was released so fans could live the lives of their favourite heroines. Following the story of SuperGirl, BatGirl and Wonder Woman, you are set with the challenge to explore the fantastic world of Metropolis, meeting more beloved characters along the way. With a cast entirely narrated by the original voice actors, you really get to know each heroine. And before you know it you’re saving the world side by side.
As someone with no prior experience in the franchise, I was skeptical to suit up and start this adventure. I didn’t really know what to expect, but after playing it for just an hour I had gained a whole new appreciation for the franchise. Characters are witty and fun, and you gain such an insight on the world behind saving lives and kicking butt. Rather than following a single narrative and living the life of one character, you take on the lives of all three. You also get to witness the villainous demise of DC characters, like Poison Ivy who I definitely admired growing up. Although this is a great feature, and you never find yourself bored of the cast, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated when the main characters didn’t realise that their high school besties were their counterparts in crime.
More than enough to explore
The storyline is as expected of a superhero game. Fight any crime that comes your way and save the city from potential peril. You’ve heard this a thousand times I’m sure, but it shouldn’t put you off. I’ve been a fan of superheroes much like everyone else, and so I feel like I’ve seen it all. DC SuperHero Girls: Teen Power is not worth sleeping on because of this though. There’s something so refreshing about experiencing something entirely new. Even if that is just living the life of an undercover teenage hero. Going out for ice cream has never felt so exciting, much the same as attending highschool. I felt smug going about daily activities as BatGirl, because no one around you knows. Now I understand why it feels like the biggest secret anyone could ever tell you.
Just because it’s based on a cartoon certainly doesn’t mean that it is easy. I really appreciated that DC SuperHero Girls: Teen Power is a challenging game. You have to work hard and put in the time to progress, much like if you were a superhero. Things don’t come easy, and even with a magical whip or the ability to fly, you still have to work hard. And I definitely did. I spent hours buzzing about Metropolis without even realising. There are hundreds of challenges and quests to complete, so it’s not short of content either.
Final thoughts
If you’re looking for a lighthearted, action packed experience then I cannot recommend this game enough. Even with no prior experience with the wonderful world of Teen Power, this game is an enjoyable and arguably an unforgettable experience.
There are plenty of jobs in the world, each with varying levels of difficulty and skills required. Some are tough, while others are easy. With long hours, back-breaking work, and toiling away in all weather’s, I think we can all agree that farming is a challenging career. So to make this difficult role harder, why not add in some zombies to complicate matters further. Farm for your Life plays with this idea in its colourful and cute world.
Developed and published by Secret Item Games, this is a fun but challenging resource management farming sim. Like many titles in this genre, you must help the local community, build bonds, and become the rock that people turn to. It uses many well-trodden mechanics, but introducing the undead adds an interesting twist.
Runaway from the zombies.
It’s raining zombies!
I’ve played many cute life simulation titles and I particularly enjoy the farming themed games. There is something relaxing about cleaning up a dilapidated farm and making it successful. Farm for your Life plays with this idea in a slightly different way. Instead of you inheriting a farm from a long-lost relative, you are already a resident of this small island. A storm strikes and ruins the infrastructure. The islanders now depend on your crops to survive. What’s worse is the storm awoke a zombie apocalypse. Yes, you read that right, a zombie apocalypse!
It must have been one heck of a storm for it to bring the dead back to life. Fortunately, the slow meandering creatures won’t hurt you, as they don’t crave brains. Instead, they want to destroy your farm! They steal your crops, ruin your cafe, and take your resources. Nighttime falls and they plod on to your land. If you don’t kill them, they run amuck ruining your plans and taking your crops.
Farm for your Life is slow-paced but strangely hectic.
If you’ve ever played one of these games, you’ll know they are a slow-paced relaxing experience. You march around your land planting crops while tending to your livestock. However, Farm for your Life takes it to another level with its strange tower defence model. Alongside your defensive duties, you are also expected to run a cafe to feed the locals. It’s nonstop from the get-go and this makes it stand out from its peers.
The hectic nature of the gameplay keeps you on your toes and forces you to plan. You are constantly juggling between selling items and buying new crops. This was a nightmare and felt unbalanced. The cost of seeds was astronomical and slowed progress to a crawl. It made the game a bit of a grind until you hired the locals to help. This mechanic was a game-changer and prevented it from becoming tiresome. The help of the dreadlock wielding locals allowed you to explore, improve your facilities, and collect resources.
If all else fails, throw the produce at them.
Upgrade your tools to improve your life.
The basic tools you are given are useful but make the easiest of tasks arduous. Digging the soil takes forever, your watering can is useless, and a twig has the strength of a mighty oak. Buying or finding upgraded equipment is a must, and this helps to reduce the grind. Finding these items is linked with opening up new areas and exploring the island.
The land is split into several zones. One has resources that respawn regularly but is filled with zombies. You must dodge them while seeking stone and wood to improve your farm. The rest of the map is opened up by building new bridges and removing obstacles with the improved tools. I liked how your farm stayed productive while allowing you the freedom to explore. The island isn’t massive, but there is enough variety to keep you entertained on your journey.
Farm for your Life is colourful and cutesy.
I love the cartoon graphics that was used. The OTT characters, the vivid colours and the cute creatures give it a wholesome appeal. The world is simple to look at, but there is enough detail to identify each item. The bird’s-eye perspective allows you to have a clear view of the action, though a lack of manual camera movement impedes line of sight. It ran smoothly and looked great, mostly, but I found one minor issue when talking to the volunteers. The text was jumbled, making it hard to read what orders to issue. It didn’t impact the action as it was easy to guess what was written.
Farm for your Life has a cute and upbeat soundtrack to match its graphical approach. The calming influence of the music is at odds with the Zombie invasions and the hectic day-to-day demands. I loved the sound effects of the groaning undead and the tools when you worked the land. There were no surprises from the audio, but it did its job perfectly.
Cows and crops.
Clumsy controls and a lacklustre tutorial.
I hate having to watch gameplay videos to understand what I have to do. Sadly, that’s exactly what happened here. The tutorial is confusing and lacks clarity. You are given quests to show you the fundamentals, but no further information is given. It was frustrating and tainted my opening hour. Luckily, though, once you understand the basics, it is very easy to play.
This has been ported from PC and the controls are clumsy because of it. Using Mouse and Keyboard would have been quick and accurate, whereas the controller isn’t so responsive. It affects the gameplay slightly, but you get used to its quirky ways.
As with all simulation games, this one is jam-packed with replay value. You’ll lose hours of your life gathering resources, purchasing crops and getting new animals. Exploring the island is fun, as are the constant fights with the undead. Though the gameplay doesn’t evolve too much, there is enough there to keep you going. There is a moderately sized achievement list that requires hours of game time. If you are a completionist, gaining all the achievements isn’t easy. So, if a 100% is your goal, you are in this for the long haul.
Farm for your Life is an unusual twist on a much-loved genre.
It was refreshing to review a game that has a unique insight into a tried and tested genre. I liked most aspects and though there were negatives, the developers countered this successfully. Using helpers removes the grind, and the exploration elements break up the monotony. If you love the genre, then you’ll adore this even with its clumsy and quirky controls. I enjoyed my time with it and recommend you to buy it here! A wrecked farm, helpless people, and a zombie apocalypse, what’s the worst that can happen!
Entertainment is supposed to be wholesome and enjoyable for everyone. Yes, there can be laughter at people’s expense, but everyone must get something out of it. Our future selves are depicted as getting a thrill out of killing and maiming one another. Films like; Running Man or The Hunger Games show our lust for blood and murder. Then there is the classic game Smash TV that depicts one man’s attempt to survive a barrage of attacks. The future is a scary and sick place if any of these ideas become reality! Galaxy Champions TV is the latest title to follow this thought process, and you are left vying for your life while entertaining a screaming audience.
Developed by aQuadian Games and published by Silesia Games, this is a top-down, closed arena shooter. It’s a modern take on Smash TV and fans of that title will love the up-to-date aesthetics and fast-paced action. The future is a brutal place and people will do anything to become rich and famous. Surviving the arena is difficult, but if you live, you will be wealthy and adored by your many fans.
Arena battles quickly become hectic.
Galaxy Champions TV is a wonderfully simple concept.
What makes Galaxy Champions TV so great is the simplicity of its core concept. You enter each arena with a machine gun or any weapon you have scavenged. Waves of enemies are released from any of the four doors and you must mow them down to win. This is the game, nothing complex, no in-depth lore, just kill or be killed. It’s easy to understand and bloody marvellous to play.
Bullets fly left, right, and centre and you quickly become overrun by the hordes of enemies you face. Their projectiles zip around the stage, and you must be fast on your feet to survive. You’ll be blessed with new weapons and power-ups to help you. A stopwatch, health boosts, and more can be collected. You must destroy the hovering robots and collect the weapons they drop. These androids are essential to your victory, as the extra firepower will turn the battle in your favour.
Not only are you granted new weapons, but you also have upgrades available at the end of each stage. You may choose from the limited options; upgraded weapons, ricochet bullets, faster movement, increased speed or health, and so on. Your basic warrior quickly becomes a super-powerful menace. However, you soon realise that your jump in strength is minimal as your enemies are also getting stronger. The balance in gameplay is great and at no point does it feel like a walk in the park.
Let the minigun do all the talking.
Monstrous enemies and enormous bosses.
You are expected to survive four worlds, each containing a unique arena and six hectic stages. Once you clear each one, you will face a boss battle. As you slowly work through the levels, you’ll work out tactics that ensure you survive. The arenas are small, open planned, and laced with bombs that will blow up whenever you touch them. They are obvious to see so the danger you’ll trip them is minimal. It was a shame the developers didn’t make more of these hazardous objects and it would have been nice to avoid spikes or falling debris. If there were more traps it would have added extra layers of danger and another tactical element to the crazy gameplay.
With a lack of environmental dangers, you must focus your energy on defeating your angry foes. As the game progresses, you’ll see a growing roster of warriors. Basic grunts, samurai, exploding turtles, hulking beasts, and so forth. It soon becomes a nightmare and you run around in circles like a headless chicken. Once you’ve destroyed each opponent, you are rewarded with a boss battle. Four must be killed to be crowned champion, and each has unique powers and abilities that you must study and avoid. Their methods of attack lack complexity, but it takes times to learn the best way to defeat them. Death is guaranteed, but you’ll come back stronger.
Galaxy Champions TV has a polished old-school look.
Viewed from a top-down perspective this fixed screen arena shooter is easy on the eye. With its polished old-school aesthetic and soft pixelated look, it offers enough for old and new gamers alike. Each arena has a unique colour and style, but they all appear similar. This matters not as the action is hectic and you’ll have little time to admire the landscape. The later levels become a quagmire of bullets and bodies and I was impressed there were no issues.
Though the graphics were given a modern touch, the audio is stuck in the 80s. This is not a bad thing as the upbeat aggressive synth-wave funk works perfectly. The high-energy soundtrack blended with the OTT sound effects was fantastic. I particularly loved the screams from the audience as you moved through the arenas. The audio isn’t complex in its approach but it matches the theme and genre to a tee.
Dash and shoot, dash and shoot!
An easy twin-stick shooter to be played alone or with a friend.
If you follow my reviews you’ll know I’m not the best at twin-stick shooters. Fortunately, Galaxy Champions TV is simple to control. You can dash, move, or shoot, and that is all. aQuadian Games were so confident of its simplicity that no tutorial is offered. The lack of button choices makes this great to play, and I enjoyed jumping straight into the action.
Running around an arena killing people is a timeless endeavour. To ensure you don’t get bored though, there are several difficulty options, couch co-op, and a champion mode. The couch co-op is brilliant fun if not a little stressful. Mowing down enemies with a friend or significant other becomes heated quickly. You get in each other’s way and tactics go out the window, so there is likely to be bloodshed at home and on the screen. The champion mode is as brutal as can be and is reserved for hardcore gamers. One life, one chance, and completing it is bloody hard work. A tough achievement list requires patience, skill, and a lot of luck!
Galaxy Champions TV is gory, fast-paced, and mindless fun.
I loved Smash TV, so I was always going to enjoy this. With plenty of blood, overpowered weapons, upgrades, and power-ups, the gameplay always feels fresh. A well-balanced approach keeps the difficulty in check ensuring you can’t steamroll your way to victory. If you love gratuitous violence, twin-stick shooters, or arcade games, buy this here! It was brilliant and I recommend you try it. Bloodlust and violence are all the rage, and money and fame are what you desire. Jump into the arena, defeat your opponents, and become the champion!
From the moment I first watched the reveal trailer for Scarlet Nexus it captured my curiosity. Having at the time just finished an incredible time playing CODE Vein, I was ready to sink my teeth into another Anime styled action-adventure RPG and Scarlet Nexus certainly ticked all the right boxes. But it has been an agonisingly year long wait to finally get to play it myself, beginning with the early access Xbox Series X demo but then trying it on PlayStation 5. Once I tried out the combat I was hooked and the rest well, Scarlet Nexus blew me away!
Scarlet Nexus is set in a Japan in the far distant future where science has discovered a psionic hormone in the human brain, granting people extra-sensory powers and changed the world. With so many of the population now wielding incredible mental powers, psionics have been scouted for their talents and began being recruited to the Other Suppression Force (OSF), a task force designed to keep humanity safe from the threat of Others, monstrous deranged mutants that began to descend from the sky with a gruesome taste for human brains. These monsters were highly resistant to conventional attack methods and so the OSF was created to use the new Psionic abilities to build a defence against the others.
The story and setting are everything I love about a good Anime story and world but something I also came to like was the quite western sci-fi elements threaded throughout the story. Playing through the game’s dual stories is very rewarding and rather than an anime film, it really feels like I was playing through an episodic anime series because of how it is structured from dramatic cutscenes to gameplay and satisfying combat and boss fights to the causal relationship building with the various characters in the game, something I did not expect but came to really appreciate and took the time to get right but I will come to that a little further on.
Right away I must talk about how incredible the visuals and art style of Scarlet Nexus are and how they help immerse the player in its world so effortlessly. Every trailer I have seen before being able to enjoy the full game just had my eyes wide open. I love the continuity of the cutscenes to the action of the gameplay and combat just leaps out of your TV or monitor and never gets tired of being one of the coolest looking action-adventure games I have played in recent years, something I am truly coming to adore from Bandai Namco games. The vibrance of the colour pallet really comes to life with the 4K and 60FPS performance on the PS5 and just looked astonishing on my TV. The cutscenes are a blend of storyboard with voice over and fully animated scenes making it at times feel like a comic book brought to life.
In the game the smoothness of the 60FPS really shines through as you move through the various locations in the world but more importantly, helps make the combat system in Scarlet Nexus one of the most fluid I have experienced in what in essence is a party-based fighting system. The player can choose to play the story as either Kasane Randall or Yuito Sumeragi and though both characters have the psycho-kinesis ability, each one has their own story narrative which will mix with the other but immediately gives this game instant replayability in order to experience the story of both characters. They have different weapon and fighting styles with Yuito relying on his sword for up close and personal combat whilst Kasane uses her knives for a faster quick attacking style. The combat has the usually melee style of weapon strikes with combo’s you would expect but it is how the psycho-kinesis ability is used that elevates every battle into something special as the ability also allows you to throw objects at enemies as part of combo and it is quite the visual spectacle to see a good sword combo end with the throwing of a nearby box, rubble or even a car, yes a car going smack into the face of one of the Others.
The psycho-kinesis power adds so much to the fighting when you have the freedom to see an object you think will do a good amount of damage, set up the sequence to best make use of it then trigger the power with right trigger and watch the animation in real time as the object flies up, builds up momentum then smashes into the monster. Others come in a variety of types and sizes and the strategy to defeat them determines on their type as some may have an elemental weakness whilst the bigger Others could have armour protecting their weak spot and you will need to work out what it will take to break it. Now, once you have found the weak spot and you have done enough damage you can perform an execution with left trigger and the animations of the executions are thrilling and extremely satisfying when triggered.
Earlier I mentioned how I felt the combat was very squad based and this is because as you progress through the story, other OSF members and friends, will join you as your squad, who you have will be determined by playing as either Yuito or Kasane. One of the more surprising elements to the combat is that your squad members will have their own ability such as Hanabi who has Pyrokinesis and Gemma Garrison with Sclerokinesis. As Squad Leader, you can instruct the members of your squad to share their ability with you for a short time so for Hanabi, she can her ability giving you access to have fire-based attacks whilst Gemma, whose Sclerokinesis ability is defensive, will give you armour stopping you taking damage for the duration of its use. Every time you take their power, it goes on cooldown to show how long you can use it and then how long before you can all on it again. New member will be added depending on what the element the story feels you need such as a new type of Other requiring a certain ability to fight it and the OSF member with it, will be added to your squad. So how you fight now has the added factor of having the capability of using the powers of squad members as well as you own and balancing out which to use on what Other whilst making sure the timing is correct so you will always have access to the right power for the right fight.
The deep and rich combat system is one of the big reasons I loved my time with Scarlet Nexus, the next is the natural element to having a squad of different people, relationships. Maintaining and improving your relationships with your squad mates not only adds more story elements in terms of learning their character histories but also in combat as well as the stronger your ‘bond’ with them, the stronger the sharing of their powers will be, giving you more elements to the fighting and improved use of their shared abilities. This comes from talking with them, giving them the right gift, that they will enjoy and via ‘bond episodes’ where a dialogue exchange will create a chance to have some one-on-one time with them allowing you to learn more about their relationship with your chosen hero and their life story. These all happen via the Hideout, a safe place between the Story Phases, where you can hang out with your squad and take a pause which is why the story feels like an episodic story rather than a full-length animated feature film. The pacing helps the player take stock of the team and to apply much needed skill points via the brain map to enhance your own abilities.
You can also stop to use the shop and save point, something the game is very generous providing in every location you find yourself in during the story, where you can buy health supplies for you and your squad as well as upgrading weapons and booster add-ons. Now whilst I do not want to spoil any of the story, I will advise to always take a look at the “Exchange” area of the shop as this is a very handy way of making sure you always have the best weapon for you and your squad and for buying the Presents to gift the squad with, a hear will show by their thumbnail to show how well that gift will be received, it is all a little Stardew Valley that way.
With an amazing combat system that becomes more and more fun the deeper into the story goes as well as that story being full or surprises and twists all the way through to keep the narrative entertaining, there are just so many elements to Scarlet Nexus to enjoy and there are quite a lot of those factors that all come together. From the visual art style to the incredible soundtrack that accompanies all you do, to the mechanics of managing and building the best squad possible to improve your combat just creates a brilliant experience that has genuinely been one of the most enjoyable of 2021 so far.
The demos released only scratched the surface of what is capable with the fighting mechanics and once you are in the world and meeting some totally unique and wonderful characters in an exciting world with a rich anime story, this is a fantastic game to have at this point of the gaming year. For me personally, this has certainly been worth the year long wait for release and I am still enjoying just listening to the digital soundtrack and planning my 2nd run through the game but this time as Kasane!
Oh to be a microscopic form of life. Swimming about, interacting with all manner of organisms. Your world, while monumental in scope to you, may as well rest on the head of a pin to humanity. It’s a strange place; positively alien. Odd shapes and colours form the bulk of your environment. Unfamiliar sights defying description and treacherous paths to reach the unreachable. A recipe for a great game.
I Can’t Stop Looking
I am in love with Ynglet’s art style. The levels, creatures and puzzles are all hand drawn. Its design is beautifully abstract; like doodles come to life. Little organisms float around as you explore. Explosions of colour flash before you as you swim about. Everything is reactive and alive. As you slip in and out of bubbles or interact with its many modes of transportation, the world’s reactions are like a firework display. It’s a treat to witness, and proved to be somewhat therapeutic to me. The world is strange, but peaceful, opening up to you as you explore.
You play as an oddly adorable little organism with a bunch of tendrils trailing behind it, something akin to a jellyfish or octopus. Ynglet starts off with a wordless cinematic in which a comet or asteroid-like flying object crashes into your home. Separating you and your comrades from one another. The brave creature that you are, you go off in search of your lost friends. You fearlessly explore an alien world, rearranged from the way you once knew it.
A Platformer, With No Platforming
Ynglet is a side-scrolling platformer that has very little in the way of platforms. Instead of the traditional hopping from one platform to another, it takes things in another direction. It has you move between bubbles that act as a safe haven. Though I couldn’t decide if these resting spots were bubbles or cells.
As soon as you swim outside of these bubbles, you find yourself coming to terms with a little something called gravity. You drop like a rock from the playing field, only to bounce back into the last bubble or cell you rested at. Therefore traversal means swimming from haven to haven, aiming for the ideal trajectory to assure safe travels.
Getting Around
The means of travel don’t just end at these bubbles though. There are a number of clever ways to get around, littered throughout the game. From walls and platforms you bounce off of, to bubbles that eject you should you overstay your welcome. There are even pseudo-railway lines that zip you across the map at breakneck speed. All of these form ways in which you make your way through an abstract and alien world.
While swimming, bouncing and zooming all offer fun methods of movement. You’ve got another trick up your sleeve as an octo-jellyfish. You can teleport! Well, maybe not exactly teleport, but something that sure looks a lot like it. You quickly jump forward at the push of a direction key and press of a button, to close the gap between two bubbles. This dash ability interacts with the world in beautiful ways, creating a pulse which causes colours to bleed out from every surface, and lines to warp for a bit. This ability also has its use with another set of walls and platforms which you can dash into and bounce off of at an angle. Some bubbles decay from its use, and others are affected by it like a switch, phasing in and out of existence with every dash.
Music That Reacts To You
Ynglet has an interesting soundtrack to it to say the least. It comes across like experimental music, which really compliments the abstract art style well. Percussive ticks and pings hitting at all manner of odd time signatures. But it does something else very interesting. Remember those explosions of colour and shapes that litter the campaign as you swim about and explore your environment? The music here operates in much the same way. When you’re still, the music slows to a crawl, simple ambient notes play out to express the way you find yourself in that moment. Dormant.
As soon as you move, It picks up pace and complexity offering a fitting tempo to your race to find your friends. The music adapts to whatever environmental objects you interact with as well, like the crescendo of sound that accompanies you on those railway lines. This makes for a soundtrack that is not only reactive, but dynamic, resulting in a unique body of music.
Is That a Metaphor I see?
Now Ynglet doesn’t claim to be some elaborate metaphor for cells or microscopic forms of life and Human modes of transport and infrastructure. However, I cannot help but feel the connections. I see the bubbles you travel between as cells. And I see those pseudo-railway lines as something similar to our veins and arteries allowing for the rapid spread of blood cells and organisms alike. Even the hub world that allows you to travel between levels looks like an aerial view of a town.
Ynglet is a pleasant slice of platformless platforming that I can easily recommend to anyone. It’s controls are simple, It’s minimalist art style is beautiful and its reactive music was a pleasure to experience. Although it may be a bit on the short side, Ynglet is a great time all the way through.
Peace and harmony rarely go hand in hand. The fine balance is often ruined because of power, money, or greed. War between nations is commonplace and fragile, peaceful bonds are easily broken. Empire of Angels IV uses this idea at its core while adding its fantasy flare to the mix.
Developed by Softstar and published by Eastasiasoft Limited, this is a turn-based strategy JRPG. It is the fourth instalment in this fantasy series and has finally made its way to console. The latest addition to the franchise ignites the lore and mechanics from the series. If you’ve never experienced an Empire of Angels game before, fear not, as this standalone sequel requires no prior knowledge.
Empire of Angels IV is a classic turn-based game with a sexy manga twist.
Everything about Empire of Angels IV screams old-school turn-based game. The dated but wonderful 3D in-game graphics, the shrill sound effects, text font, and the core plotline, all have a retro feel. I haven’t played a JRPG turn-based title for a long time, so this was a fantastic trip down memory lane for me. If you’re a fan of the genre, you will instantly fall for its charms.
The story was as absurd as I both hoped for and expected. It jumps to a level of madness because of the strange costumes and scantily clad maidens that are thrust in your face throughout. I normally find this over-sexualisation tiresome, but in the weirdness of this fantasy land, it worked. It added a sexy layer to the game while also highlighting the vulnerabilities of each character.
The story is set in the kingdom of Asgard where you join the Namtar Investigation Team. They patrol the lands, maintaining order against the plague that drives ordinary people to mindless violence. You witness a glowing orb falling from the sky and this act casts a shadow over everything you know and love about your world. You begin a quest that spans the kingdom intending to uncover the truth.
Just a lady dressed as a frog.
So many battles, quests, and female warriors!
Empire of Angels IV and “girl power” go hand-in-hand. This all-female cast is filled with powerful warriors, knights, wizards, healers, and archers. They all have issues and they join the fellowship. With a distinct lack of male company in the kingdom of Asgard, you wonder what on earth is happening. But then you spot the half-dressed ladies and forget your concerns.
The storyline follows a path across the vast green lands. You visit an array of biomes, encountering beasts and angry women en route. Every stage funnels the story to a specific point that loosely links the action to the plot. I loved how vague it was and how newly met characters progressed the tale.
As well as the core plot, you’ll have zones to grind up levels and areas to collect new pets, more on them later. The grinding areas were exactly what I expected from this genre and followed the same pattern as the main encounters. Your team moves, attacks, or heals before the enemies turn. This format continues until you or they are victorious. You are given objectives to work towards and achieving them will give you better rewards and a higher rank per fight.
Just a snippet of Asgard’s beauty.
Levelling up, teamwork, and pets.
Levelling up your team is a key concept of any RPG but in Empire of Angels IV, it’s essential. As you move through the story, your opponents gain ungodly powers. You’ll need to grind out battles to max out your chosen teams potential. With many fighters to choose from, it’s difficult to find the right mix. Using the side quests or grind battles can be tiresome, but they are a great way to experiment with your tactics. No matter how high your character levels are, you will need to earn Merits from the main story fights. You are awarded them each time you are successful and they allow you to alter the role of each character.
Do you want a fast-moving horse rider or a defensive tank? A healer or a mage? A rogue or a fighter? You must decide what style works as your decision is final. Each upgraded character brings new skills and these can turn the tide of any war. Teamwork is essential and leaving yourself isolated is certain death. You must observe your enemies, attack their weaknesses and work together.
As you progress, you’ll be given the power of summoning. This allows you to use pets as part of your line-up. Each creature has special powers and abilities and you’ll find one that compliments your play style. New pets are acquired by completing side quests in previously visited areas. Finding all of them is a bit of a grind, but the effort is worth it for the additional firepower.
A modern take on an old-school game.
The series has been around since the early 90s and much of the look is faithful to the first title. The developers have done well to maintain this original look while still maintaining a modern finish. The dialogue cutscenes are wonderfully detailed with vivid colours, eye-opening images, and a classic Anime style. What I found to be unnecessary was the breaking of your enemy’s armour. Whenever they died, their armour would break, leaving them exposed in their underwear. It was a tad pervy and voyeuristic and added little to the gameplay.
The audio matched the graphical approach. With loud sound effects, high tempo music, and Mandarin acting, this was faithful to the original games. The English subtitles were well translated, but they weren’t perfect. Unfortunately, it was wooden in places and there were some comical errors. However, it’s hard to dislike what was presented. The music is touching, full of emotion, and works well with the theme. The sound effects varied and brought every character to life. It tastefully pulls the franchise to 2021 while still highlighting its 90s roots.
Use the grids to plan your attack.
Lots to learn, but it’s easy to play.
I worried that I’d struggle with this. I’m rusty with the genre and I feared it would be complicated to play. Now, there are lots of elements to master, but each was easy to grasp. Well laid out submenus kept it from becoming confusing and a thorough and clear tutorial explains the basics. You have a lot to learn and plenty of approaches to take, so mastering this will be a challenge.
With many characters to select, pets to summon, and roles to choose from, Empire of Angels IV will keep you busy for hours. A long main story is supported by secret missions, side quests and grind battles. There is plenty to do and a challenging achievement list makes completion a tough ask.
Empire of Angels IV is a welcome addition to the console market.
There is much to love about Empire of Angels IV. Its crazy story will have you hooked and you’ll love the characters for more than their skimpy outfits and shapely physiques. It’s a clever tactics game that balances difficulty with fun. I enjoyed the modern take on the old-school concept and recommend you to buy it here! Gather your fellowship of females, hone your skills, and solve the mystery behind the plague. Without you, peace will be a distant memory.
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Sports bring people together. You can be from different backgrounds, have alternative beliefs, but this matters not! Whenever people in a room love a particular sport, it unifies them. Yet, there is one divisive sport that can be performed on the track or the road. Travelling in packs, these sportspeople rile every other road user. I am, of course, talking about cycling. Men and women cover their bodies with lycra and then fill the roads with their two-wheeled machines. Whether you love them or loathe them, you admire their determination and the fitness levels required to compete. Tour de France 2021 captures the competitive element perfectly while allowing you to take part in the world’s most gruelling races.
Developed by Cyanide and published by BIGBEN INTERACTIVE and Nacon, this is an ultra-realistic sporting simulation title. It’s a brutally challenging racing game that will test your tactical approach, mental stamina, and team management. You will take in many stunning landscapes as you race across different countries.
Tour de France 2021 is a time-consuming beast.
If you are a fan of road races, you’ll know these events are long and arduous. Tour de France 2021 is no different. If you love to be in control and influence each race, you’ll be investing hours of your life on each tour. Most events have several stages and each comprises hundreds of kilometres of roads to cover. You must ride your bike from start to finish focusing on many stats and teamwork. Races can take hours to complete and during this time you can not let your guard drop once.
Now, you may think, “that does not sound fun!” I admit, for large chunks, I’d agree with that statement. However, it’s oddly addictive and you grasp the sense of competition as each racer jostles for position. The game is simple to play, which is great as your energy is saved for each battle that lies ahead. The gameplay is split across five modes; race, practice, my tour, pro team, and pro leader. Each uses the same mechanics, but the core focus shifts depending on which mode you select.
Tuck in and hide from the wind.
Ultra-realistic with plenty to get your teeth into.
Now, you may call me greedy, but when I buy a game, I want as much bang for my buck. Tour de France 2021 is certainly generous in this department. With eighty-nine stages to choose from, a plethora of teams to ride with, and stats to maintain, this is one that enthusiasts will love. Yet, I can’t help but worry that its desire to be challenging and realistic will alienate a large portion of players.
With stages taking up hours of your life, and a complex team order system, this can be overwhelming. Keen cyclists will surely adore the chance to compete across the great mountain stages. But other sports fans may not appreciate the complexities. I struggled to maintain concentration for long periods, allowing myself to lose my race position while admiring the scenery.
It was tough to focus on each stat and command a team of cyclists when you didn’t know everyone’s strengths or weaknesses. As you ride, you are expected to maintain red and blue energy levels, speed, and road position. It’s difficult to do and you must plan when to attack or stay with the peloton. Ensuring you don’t burn out is imperative to success. Consuming gels and hiding in the pack keeps you in peak condition. It’s a wonderful game of cat and mouse, but it takes a lot of patience and practice to get right.
Time to ride in the peloton.
Are you a loner, or are you a team player?
What I loved about Tour de France 2021 was the tactical element. Each game mode allows a different focus, and this was key to keeping me entertained. The race mode allows you to jump into a team, earn XP, and open up each of the grand tours. My Tour lets you pick a unique tour made of any style of race or location. It’s perfect for veteran gamers to revisit their favourite stages while still competing. And then there is Pro Team and Pro Leader. These modes follow a similar focus, one concentrates on the success of the whole team, the other on a lone rider. You must choose your riders from an available roster, pick your specialists and decide what team you like to run. As you earn more points and you improve, you’ll build a better team to compete with the best.
The Pro modes were great with so many layers to focus on. Yet with no short races and no way to skip forward without jeopardising your race plan, every step forward was long and time-consuming. If you decide to take this on, be prepared for the long slog ahead.
Tour de France 2021 looks stunning.
I love when a developer creates a stunning world to look at and Cyanide has done just that. With plenty of time on your hand, you’ll enjoy quaint French villages and many glorious landscapes. Rolling hills, rugged mountainsides and quintessential towns have all been recreated beautifully. Player animation is equally good with the character models and bikes moving smoothly at all times. I was impressed with the smooth gameplay which wasn’t impacted even when the peloton was packed with riders. Sadly, though, it wasn’t perfect. If you ride close to the edge of the road your bike simply stops. You can’t run wide and there are no falling mechanics, no, you just stop. For an ultra-realistic title, it was disappointing and tarnished the end product.
At first glance, the audio appears to be very good. With fantastic atmospheric sounds, crowds cheering, and noises you’d associate with the sport. But, when you listen to the audio closely, you realise it’s not great. The crowd sound file is on a loop of repeated sayings and the shouts from the crowd are the same. When a game asks you to invest plenty of time into it, the minimum you expect is varied audio. I was disappointed as this also affected the realism factors.
Form the breakaway and win the race.
A brilliantly thought out controller setup.
Tour de France 2021 asks you to focus on many elements, which could be a confusing mess. Fortunately, the developers created a balanced and well thought out control setup. I particularly enjoyed the coasting option that allows you to follow teammates or other riders. This allows the race to drift by as you ride in the pack to conserve energy and wait for the breakaway. It was brilliant and allowed you time to plan your attack.
Cycling games attract a niche audience and this title is no different. Yes, the Olympics and the main tours will pique interest. But this will only inspire keen fans of the genre and the sport to part ways with their cash. If you fall for its lycra wearing sweaty charms, you’ll be dome obsessed with it. Otherwise, you’ll probably want to give it a miss. There is plenty of longevity to be had, which is helped in part by a large and challenging achievement list.
Tour de France 2021: A brilliant time-consuming niche title.
I was disappointed by its drawbacks as these tainted the experience. However, it’s a great realistic sports title that is great value for money. It will only attract a niche audience but those who love it will rave about it. It wasn’t a game that captured my attention but I can see why others will love it. If you like a challenging racing sim, or you enjoy cycling, buy it here! Grab your lycra, select your team, and be crowned King of the Mountains.
On first starting Realpolitiks II, new players are immediately going to be faced with the tutorial. Unfortunately, this also happens to be the part of the game where the problems start. There’s a lot to get into here, but to keep things fair, let’s begin by explaining the game is and what it does right, rather than dwell on the negatives.
Realpolitiks II is a political simulation strategy game. Players are given control of a country of their choice and are tasked with expanding their power. There are three starting scenarios to choose from: On The Brink Of Tomorrow, which is the ‘standard’ game mode that most closely resembles normal world politics; Pandemic Aftermath, which models the world immediately following the Covid-19 pandemic; and Nothing Ever Changes, which imagines a world utterly destroyed by war and disaster, with only tiny pockets of society clinging to survival. The first two scenarios are largely similar, although countries have different starting stats and there are some different decisions to be made. In contrast, the third scenario plays like an almost entirely different game. There are no recognisable countries left and most of the landmass is reduced to empty, unclaimed wilderness.
It’s clear that a lot of development time has gone into designing these scenarios. Every country has different starting resources and relationships depending on their general global standing, and something as simple as selecting a different starting nation can drastically change your experience with the game. Nothing Ever Changes in particular is a thrilling diversion from the norm if you’re tired of the other, more traditional settings. The lack of shared borders and extreme resource shortages, coupled with the sudden availability of land, completely change the possibilities of diplomacy or cooperation. If you, as I did, worked through the first two scenarios making alliances and avoiding conflict, Nothing Ever Changes will thoroughly catch you off-guard.
Gameplay itself consists of deciding your political actions in a number of different ways. On the diplomatic side of things, you can interact with foreign countries either positively or negatively. Currying favour and investing money in your allies will strengthen relations and enable you to form alliances; in contrast, aggressive actions like imposing embargoes will worsen your relationships dramatically. At home, you can choose to run a vast range of projects to influence different country statistics, as well as react to real-time events presented to you by your advisors. For players with a more aggressive stance, you can create and control soldiers, vehicles, and spies to attack enemy states.
None of that is bad, in theory, but there’s a catch. If you read that list and thought ‘wow, that sounds like a lot of number balancing’, you’d be right. This is where the problems with Realpolitiks II start and it’s most easily summed up like this: the game just isn’t a lot of fun.
There are moments of humour to be found – I particularly enjoyed the dog advisor who grants a +10 bonus to your relationship with absolutely everyone – and a lot of the ‘story’, such as it is, doesn’t take itself too seriously. For all that, however, Realpolitiks II’s core gameplay feels more like balancing a complicated spreadsheet than running a country. Most of the actions you take are simply a numbers game, weighing up the cost of a project or activity and deciding if it’s worth it. To some extent this is the primary mechanic in most simulation strategy games, but in this one the veneer wears particularly thin.
I said at the beginning that the problems start in the tutorial, so let’s circle back to that. A common tutorial technique for games in this genre is to give players a pop-up explaining some central aspect to the game, and then letting them play out a short scenario involving that mechanic. It’s not overly engaging, but it’s a reliable way of getting a lot of information to the player in a way that sticks. In Realpolitiks II, that’s clearly the type of tutorial experience the developers were going for, but it just doesn’t happen. Instead, the tutorial almost entirely consists of a huge amount of reading too-small dialogue boxes. There are a few brief sections where it switches to gameplay to implement the mechanics you’ve just been reading about, but the severe lack of actual stuff to do in this game besides clicking on something and waiting means these tasks are incredibly short.
And, even with its brevity, the tutorial’s gameplay still manages to be so poorly explained that the game needs to give you three separate dialogue boxes telling you what to do.
Notice the three dialogue boxes all telling me what to do in different ways
The result is a very long tutorial that ultimately does a bad job of imparting any lasting lessons on the player. From there, the main game doesn’t particularly expand; while you gain access to new countries and projects, the slow, monotonous pace of the tutorial persists. Almost all the time players spend in game will involve either reading dialogue boxes, resource management, or waiting for tasks to complete.
Combining that lack of interactivity with some very shaky performance – while the game never crashed on me, it frequently started chugging even when I wasn’t trying to do anything – I can’t say that I enjoyed my time with Realpolitiks II. Simulation strategy games aren’t for everyone, but even as someone who does like them, I just could not get into this game. A lot of time has clearly gone into crafting the different countries and their economies, but the actual gameplay is so lacklustre it feels like a lot of that effort has gone to waste.
I really wanted to like Realpolitiks II, but if you’re looking for something to scratch that simulation strategy itch, I can guarantee you there’s a better title out there.
Based on a 1987 game that never existed, The Eternal Castle Remastered is a retro-inspired 2D platformer with an effective 2-bit color design that’s as striking as its attempt to convince of the supposed original’s existence. Seemingly stealing a leaf from the Polybius playbook for creating noise out of thin air, it’s a clever attempt at standing out in an industry that loves a remaster more than Mario loves spacing out on mushrooms.
Despite its dated color range suggesting otherwise, TEC has all the functionality of a decent 2D platformer with enjoyable gameplay mechanics and some tremendous animation. The story, on the other hand, is utterly superfluous but, according to the wall of near-illegible text in the intro, places the main character on a space colony created to ‘re-establish a self-sufficient ecosystem in space’, only for war to break out during the project and potentially claim victim to the protagonist’s partner. It’s a largely pointless preamble as the story offers nothing beyond the intro, but it does provide a decent excuse for its sci-fi dystopian setting with levels that range from a mad scientist’s mansion with experiments roaming the grounds to the front line of a war zone.
You might wonder how one could differentiate such dramatically different environments based on the screenshots, but while the basic design might lower your expectations, its animation will blow them out of the water. The difference between them is so stark that judging the title’s visuals from screenshots is virtually impossible, making a video (like the trailer above) the only way to do it justice and convey the game’s visual strengths. As someone who would watch flash videos of stickmen shooting each other with metal music blaring in the background during school breaks, this visual style is very appealing to me, even if it lacks the heavy soundtrack and super-fast action that also accompanied them.
A stylish prison scene with caged spectators sharing their opinions.
Combat provides its kicks with hand-to-hand combat and an array of weapons (such as axes, assault rifles, swords and shotguns) that satisfies as you dismember your silhouetted foes with smooth movement and nice sound effects. Adding this to the great level design and scenarios that highlight the action’s qualities, and it comes together brilliantly, keeping you on your toes with sections such as chasing a sniper while a helicopter attempts to mow you down with bullets or a nightclub full of enemies that turns into a mass strobe-light brawl. Great little details are also peppered throughout these levels that give the NPCs character (such NPCs conversing over a game of chess) and it’s this method of storytelling – through the characters – that might’ve made more sense than how it was actually implemented.
While you can’t exactly tell from this screenshot, the NPC on the far right is kicking a football up in the air. I can’t get enough of details like that and this game is full of them.
These aspects alone should be enough to play to the retro-esque indie crowd, but in my opinion, TEC, like many other indie games, tries too much with too little, seemingly attempting to create an ‘impressive’ laundry list of features for its Steam description. Overreaching instead of doubling down on the enjoyable core gameplay, its saddled with average-at-best boss fights, with style but no substance (oddly flipping the switch from TEC’s formula of minimalistic design and enjoyable gameplay) and forgets what makes the preceding action fun. This consequently bookends all the good stuff with unsatisfying set-pieces, making its worst impression with the nonsensical ending.
Do yourself a favor and check out some footage online
New Game + is also included, but its existence is more prominent as a representation of the many features that lack any real explanation and no real investigation helps – apart from being forced to the internet to find other bemused players. Perhaps you could call that its online features?
My biggest issue, however, is a soundtrack that simultaneously misses the mood the game offers and also fails to enhance the gameplay in any way, leaving half the experience on the table when the gameplay is left to play against an almost silent background.
I hope you’ve been sharpening your blade, cause your gonna need it!
Two unlockable modes are made available after completing the story – Duel and Sacrifice – and they are most welcome additions as they cut the fat weighing down the main story. Duel hosts 1-on-1 battles and Sacrifice acts as a separate and more difficult ‘story’ mode without save points. Both of these use TEC’s best points and run with it – minimal to no story and a focus on action. I personally would have liked to have seen this greater arcade focus in the main mode. I think it might have dulled the perplexing ending and made it a more consistently entertaining title.
The Eternal Castle Remastered is a short and wonderfully stylish 2D platformer with a enjoyable gameplay loop, but a few issues that weigh down the title hold it back from being much more than a unique title that excels in spurts. Ultimately, the game achieves its goal of remaining a mystery, but it’s debatable whether or not that’s a good thing.
Red Solstice 2: Survivors is the third instalment by Ironward on their Red Solstice franchise. It should be noted that I’ve barely spent any time with the first game, so I went into this sequel pretty much like a new player to the series. Still, although this sequel seems to be much superior to its predecessor in every single way, it, unfortunately, suffers from a lot of problems, but we’ll get to those in due time.
Red Solstice 2: Survivors takes place during a rampant STROL virus infestation on Mars. That’s the same virus that wiped out all life on Earth. Now it has made its way to Mars, thus bringing Humanity to the brink of extinction. Players take on the role of the Executor, a cybernetic soldier that acts as the commander of The Cell, the active military force that’s fighting off the STROL plague on Mars.
Much like its forerunner, Red Solstice 2: Survivors stays faithful to its inspirations, by delivering a solid real-time tactical experience. It may look like a twin-stick shooter, but I can assure you that it plays nothing like that. Instead, the game focuses on delivering a slower and much more methodical gameplay loop. Instead of raw action, it focuses on thoughtful planning and teamwork. At least that’s what it’s supposed to do in theory. The reality is, things don’t always go according to plan.
In terms of gameplay and controls, Red Solstice 2 is actually much closer to something like an RTS, rather than a twin-stick shooter. However, the key point here is that you control a single unit. The mouse is used for telling your character where to go and to manually aim. In any case, there’s also an Overwatch mode that is essentially aimbot. With this enabled, you’ll automatically shoot at any enemy that comes within range until they’re dead. Obviously, there are advantages and disadvantages to using both methods of shooting. Therefore, it’s up to the player to find when’s the right moment to switch from one to the other. Likewise, you can also lock the camera to your character or freely move it around. In general, movement, shooting, and inventory management are extremely intuitive.
The game offers two different game modes, Campaign and Skirmish, with varying difficulty levels and up to 8-player co-op thanks to online multiplayer. There is also the option to play the Campaign solo, with 3 AI-controlled companions. With that said, don’t ask me why these bots don’t work in Skirmish, personally, I just can’t make sense of it. Nonetheless, Campaign and Skirmish are two very different experiences. In Skirmish, missions are much longer than in the Campaign, usually ranging between 40 minutes to an hour. Meanwhile, the Campaign focuses not only on telling the story about how the STROL virus is decimating Mars, but it also features a strategic layer.
If you’re familiar with the newer XCOMs, then you’ll quickly get a grasp of it. Essentially, it’s your typical planetary campaign, you’ll slowly expand throughout Mars, develop your mobile base, research new technologies, manufacture new weapons and items, and then choose to take on a myriad of main story and side missions. This all happens while the virus is spreading, which you can fight by continuously completing missions. It’s not an innovative concept, but it’s a concept that works really well. Furthermore, this implementation fits exceptionally well in this universe and with the gameplay loop of Red Solstice 2.
With that said, although much shorter than the side missions, the main story missions are a lot better paced than the rest. The side missions are a slog to play, mostly because you’ll find yourself having to run back and forth on a huge map. It just feels like they serve to artificially stretch the length of the game. It also doesn’t help that there’s isn’t that much in terms of mission and objective variety. Actually, side missions even have side objectives within them, but the game doesn’t make it clear what rewards you get for completing these. There’s only so many civilian rescues, convoy escorts and search & destroy missions that you can do before it starts to feel tiring.
Furthermore, despite featuring huge maps, there isn’t much incentive to go out and explore after the point where you get what you need to complete the mission. If you complete the mission with your inventory full of items, then these will just be lost. There’s no way for you to take them back to base and use them in future missions.
Now, one of the biggest problems with Red Solstice 2 is its progression system and how bad of a job the game does in explaining it to players. It’s extremely confusing. Honestly, it took me a while to fully understand it. I even had to read about it on the forums, but even then I still couldn’t fully comprehend it. With that in mind, I’ll be concise. First and foremost, if you’re going to hop into someone’s Campaign lobby, you might get spoiled, as the game doesn’t take how far you’ve progressed in your campaign into account. Having said that, when you play on someone else’s campaign, you’re only gaining experience and levelling your profile. To progress in your campaign, you have to host your own lobby. Meanwhile, since Skirmish is its own thing and consists of random missions, everyone progresses equally when playing there.
However, the problem with the way things are structured, as I’ve just described, boils down to the profile system. Each player only has one profile, which acts as your account rank and levels up as you play the game. In turn, as you level up you gain points that allow you to unlock new stat bonuses, new weapons, new classes, and so on. The thing is, when you’re playing your campaign, you can only see part of your profile, with the rest of it only being accessible when you’re in Skirmish. Still, there are only a few things that are shared between Campaign and Skirmish. For example, weapon and class unlocks don’t work in your Campaign, because you unlock them by researching them. However, they work when you’re playing some else’s Campaign or when you’re in Skirmish mode. By reading this, it may all sound simple, but the fact is that the game doesn’t tell you any of this. The game just presents itself to you, and you have to make sense of how it actually works.
In spite of all that, the fact is that the game can be quite entertaining. There are 6 classes that you can play with, and you can customize pretty much everything about them. The game not only allows you to change how they look and their weapons, but also their passive and active abilities, as well as other minor stat boosts. When you combine this with a decent array of weapons and gadgets at your disposal during missions, plus a potential team of 8 all working together, you have the recipe for a whole lot of frantic action. Having to face constant and unrelenting waves of mutants as you make your way through each mission can become something trivial when you have the right tools for the job. There are proximity mines, gas pipelines, artillery strikes, tactical nukes, nitrogen grenades, chain explosives, stimulants and many other items that you can find stashed throughout each map.
Red Solstice 2: Survivors would’ve been a terrific game if its only problem was how poorly it conveys information to players, but unfortunately that isn’t the case. For example, although having AI-controlled teammates will surely please players who are looking for a solo experience, unfortunately, they aren’t that great. I’ve had issues with companions refusing to move or follow me, despite me ordering them to. They also aren’t that smart, as they’ll always stay next to something that’s about to explode other than run away from it. Despite all that, the most annoying thing about them is that they don’t recognize when you’ve placed a trap to capture mutants (which can give you permanent stat bonuses). In such cases, they’ll just continuously keep killing everything that comes within range. It’s incredibly annoying, and nigh impossible, for a solo player to capture mutants. There’s also the issue that you can’t manage the bots’ inventory, which plays a huge role during multiplayer, as resource management is a bit part of the gameplay.
Some of the problems that bots have are probably just bugs, but unfortunately, the game also has plenty of those. For example, the camera lock doesn’t always work. Sometimes it does, but other times it simply focuses the camera on my character but it doesn’t latch to it. I also can’t reliably drop items from my inventory. When I try to do so, my camera will incessantly move in a random direction instead of staying in place. I’ve also had times where, for no apparent reason, I’d just be unable to shoot and use items for the rest of the mission. This last one was undoubtedly the most egregious bug that I’ve experienced because you just lose the ability to do anything. These are just a few bugs, the ones that I experienced. If you take a quick look at the bug reporting section in the Steam forums, you can see plenty of other bugs that other people are experiencing. Needless to say, this hasn’t been the smoothest and most stable of game launches.
At the end of the day, even though I enjoy the gameplay loop of Red Solstice 2, it can quickly start to feel repetitive. There is very little variety in terms of missions and objectives, and the fact that a bug can completely ruin an entire mission is just too much to bear. I’m sure that a lot of people will enjoy the game and attempt to unlock everything there is to unlock, but others will surely get tired of it rather quickly. Overall, Red Solstice 2 is a good game, but woefully, it’s rough around the edges. It isn’t very welcoming, it can be extremely confusing, and people who play it solo will have a very different experience from those who stick to multiplayer.
I currently only have about 12 hours in the game, but I’m well aware that this is the kind of game that you can keep playing for hundreds of hours. With that said, whether it’s fun or not, it’s somewhat of a gamble. I enjoy playing it, but given all the issues that I’ve mentioned, I find it hard to recommend at the moment. You might want to give it some time to get to see if at least some of its issues get fixed. Red Solstice 2: Survivors has some really neat ideas, but given all the bugs and how bad the game explains itself to players, it just isn’t always a fun experience.
The world of arcade gaming has a strong fan base that loves hardcore titles. Hundreds of pounds worth of coins have been invested to try, and fail to get the top score. People love them as they offer something to everyone. Practically every genre is covered and there is instant gratification when you beat your friends. Capcom Arcade Stadium attempts to capture this feeling with its base game and three add on packs.
Developed and published by Capcom, this is a nostalgia-filled title that will make retro fans weep. I received the full package for this review, which comprises over thirty games from across the ages. If you don’t want them all, you can pick up the base model and download the pack that you fancy.
Time to get angry with Ghouls ‘n Ghosts.
Capcom Arcade Stadium is a blast from the past.
If any part of your being likes arcade gaming, there will be a title you will be dying to play. Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Final Fight, Strider, Street Fighter II Turbo, and more await. Capcom Arcade Stadium has an eclectic mix of games to play, so no matter your genre, you’ll be looked after.
Pack One – Dawn of the Arcade (’84 – ’88) Pack Two – Arcade Revolution (’89 – ’92) Pack Three – Arcade Evolution (’92 – ’01)
What I love about arcade gaming is the difficulty and almost harsh nature of the beast. Perfection and high scores can only be obtained through hours of practice. Now, Capcom has experimented with this much-loved foundation, and I worry it’s not the right approach.
With unlimited lives, the ability to speed up or slow down the action, and be able to rewind gameplay, it’s possibly a step too far. Removing the fear factor that surrounds failure eliminates most of what makes these games desirable. Luckily, Capcom redeemed itself by creating special challenge modes.
Old-school flying games….you can’t beat them.
Capcom Arcade Stadium is accessible to all.
The Score and Special Challenge modes retain the old-school approach. With only one life to your name, you must play through your game of choice, aiming to live as long as possible. The further you go, the more CASPO points you are awarded. Score enough and you can see where you stand in the global rankings. Older gamers will remember the competitive nature of the leaderboard. Multiply that feeling by ten and that is how this feels.
Though I disapprove of the “cheats” that the standard mode allows, I understand why they were created. Capcom Arcade Stadium is really accessible because of its user-friendly approach. It removes the frustrations associated with the platform allowing you the chance to try otherwise unwelcomed titles. You can of course still play each machine with a higher difficulty. But the challenge is nullified because of the rewind function and the unlimited lives. Purists will lean towards the two challenge modes to get their fill as they capture this culture’s essence.
Authentic arcade look.
I have to applaud Capcom for their attention to detail. The simple setup of the arcade machines all lined up together looks great. The authentic background and systems all look amazing. Chuck in the polished emulated games and brilliantly smooth gameplay and you have a wonderful nostalgia fuelled trip ahead. I loved the coin animation and the movement of the joysticks. The graphics transported me back to my youth and for that alone, it was worth playing.
The click of the buttons, the clunk of the coins in the mechanism, and faithful sound files, makes the audio just right. You won’t tire of what you hear, and you can relive the wonderfully sharp synthesised music and loud sound effects to your heart’s content.
The classic battle.
Nice with a controller, but it’s no arcade machine.
I was surprised by how serviceable the gamepad was when playing each title. The button mapping, though not always obvious, was easy to pick up. I simply mashed the buttons until the controls became clear. No tutorial is necessary, and this allows you to get on and play immediately. No matter how good and responsive the controls were, they’ll never compare to the original setup. Purists may be disappointed as this element doesn’t quite capture the arcade experience.
Capcom Arcade Stadium is addictive, especially if you have packs 1, 2, and 3. The variety of games will keep you playing for hours and there is plenty to pique your interest. With the CASPO points to level yourself up, leaderboards to aim for, and different games hitting the Special challenge mode weekly, you’ll want to keep returning. A tough achievement list is not for the faint of heart, so completing this is difficult.
Capcom Arcade Stadium does most things right.
With an eclectic bunch of titles, challenging additional modes, and an authentic feel, Capcom Arcade Stadium does most things right. Though it makes it much more accessible, I dislike the “cheat” features. It makes each game unnecessarily easy and cheapens the experience. Other than this, I loved it and recommend you to buy it here! Get in the old-school mood, fill the machines with coins, and aim to get a high score.
You know that feeling when you need to release one of your flies from its orb but the orb has fallen into a bird’s nest and the mother bird won’t let you near the nest while the baby birds are still hungry so you need to feed the baby birds but the only viable food sources around are the people wearing giant Easter Island Head masks who will only kill and butcher themselves into steaks if they connect with you musically but the strawberries you need to feed your fluffy long-legged orb instruments to get them to sing the right tune are hidden behind four different mini-puzzles?
Of course you don’t, because you don’t live in a point and click adventure game with its associated bizarro-world logic. But that’s exactly the situation we found ourselves in as Ungh, the titular hero of Fire: Ungh’s Quest, who has been cast out from his caveman society for letting the fire go out along with general caveman-based incompetence. To regain his social standing and save his village, Ungh needs to find a new flame by traversing a dangerous and unfeeling world, filled with absolutely nonsensical puzzles and even-less-sensical solutions. A setup that lets you know you’re in for a classic point and click adventure.
The thing that Fire: Ungh’s Quest gets absolutely right is the scale. Each level is set over three screens that you can move freely between and there are no more than around 20 things you can interact with in total on each level, with all of those things becoming useful to solving the level and some point. There is also a button you can press which highlights everything in the level that is interact-with-able. This avoids a lot of potential to get stuck thinking a colourful spider in the background is useful when it’s just there for artistic reasons, or jabbing every pixel on the screen to find something you’ve missed.
The small scale means it’s technically possible to brute-force a puzzle if you’re really stuck, so it’s almost impossible to get lost with too many seemingly incompatible options for things to do. The real genius behind Fire: Ungh’s Quests is how they’ve managed to make the game genuinely challenging with such a scale – you’ll still get a nice sense of achievement when you get to the fly orb that progresses you to the next level. The fact that that progression system feels sane and normal suggests that I’ve spent too long knee-deep in that madness. Let’s wrap this review up quickly so I don’t fully succumb.
The other thing to note about Fire: Ungh’s Quest is that it’s funny. It’s more goofy-funny than witty-funny but it sets a fun tone to frame the puzzle elements of the game which results in an enjoyable and light-hearted experience. However, it doesn’t quite nail the humour of the early LucasArts Adventure Games – the peak of point and click adventure game humour in my humble opinion.
All in all, Fire: Ungh’s Quest is another entry in the gaming industry’s great history of ludicrous point and click adventures. It has a great sense of humour, some challenging puzzles and a scale that’s perfectly judged to keep you engaged and motivated with the game. It’s a great jumping-on point for the genre and is another example of a game that’s perfect for the Switch, with pick-up-and-play 10-minute adventures meaning that Ungh and I will be spending a lot of train rides together in future. Now, you’ll have to excuse me, I have places to be. I just need to find the jug to water my plants so the parsley will tell me where its hidden my flat keys.
