Tag

review

Browsing

Beyond Sunset is a fairly decent retro cyberpunk shooter and a fantastical journey through the story and sound, provided by Karl Vincent of a wild cyberpunk world. The world is bleak but so full of character, embodying the idea of synthwave / cyberpunk aesthetics weaved with a lot of DOOM. This review covers the November 2023 Early Access Build. This is one of the few games where the smooth door animations actually impress me. A world built around a strong cyberpunk theme waits for players to jump and slide their way through its streets and towering mega-skyscrapers. If you’re at all into the music or the gameplay of DOOM, this is a definite purchase. If you need some more details, let’s dig in. What is Beyond Sunset? Built on GZDOOM, Beyond Sunset is a retro DOOM-like FPS with multiple hub maps, a full story driven campaign, inventory, RPG elements, side…

Archetype Arcadia is an Isekai (Wikipedia) visual novel with an exceptional amount of content focused and a very deep story. The game has more content than the larger novels out there and it’s presented beautifully beside great backdrops and rather kicking music as you make your way through 50+ hours of gameplay. If you’re looking for a very long visual novel then the Archetype Arcadia is the hidden gem you’ve been missing. It has a story that is unique (as much as the genres and tropes it plays with allows) and the gameplay that is more than read and choose which is nice. The Story The world has fallen to a disease known as “Peccatomania” which has wiped out most of humanity. Rust, the protagonist, is immune from the disease but his sister suddenly falls ill. The only way to slow the progression of the disease is to spend time…

Cult of the Lamb is a game I was iffy on for a long time and was happy to find the motivation to spend a week playing it to completion. It mixes city management alongside a roguelike top-down hack and slasher which is very appealing, but it only really offers great gameplay if you more or less want to run the same few dungeons (four in total) over and over again. There’s a lot of games that evoke the same feelings in the same way Cult of the Lamb does, like Trigger Witch, where they have all the parts that make an amazing game but none of the substance or content to deliver. There are a few weapon types, a few spells you can use. The game’s pacing is predictable and every note you expect it to hit strikes. I both love and don’t love Cult of the Lamb. We…

The Bus Simulator 21 School Bus Extension is really good. It reminds me of Bus Simulator 2008 in all of the good ways. It adds three new buses, school route related missions and new schools to act as the final drop-off for the kids. The three new buses are: The nice thing about the school bus extension is again, you get the route content meaning you can run real school bus routes. Which is really fun and a lot more interesting than moving bus stop to bus stop. What’s Cool About the Bus Extension Here’s a list of what makes the bus extension worth the $12.99 to us: The Not So Great The expansion doesn’t include a few nit picky bus features like strobe lights at the top of the bus. That’s about it. Conclusion If you want to drive a school bus, this is it. Go for it. You…

Arcade Paradise is a brilliant subversive story of growing, nostalgia, chores and arcade games. A game, somehow, that starts mostly with you doing laundry was more profound than many of the recent visual novels I’ve watched. The game is slow to start, with the primary focus on earning money and casually playing what’s available. Yet, as the game continues and more features unlock, it becomes something much more. The basic premise is that you’re working at your dad’s laundromat. You clean, handle the drop-off laundry and collect cash from the coin exchanger. In the back is an arcade, where you can also collect the cash from the coin hopper. The first haul is huge, leading to an adventure to build an arcade in the rear of the laundromat against the dad’s wishes. The game’s subversion, I’ll explain later, but first let me talk about the authenticity of the nostalgia. If…

Boti: Byteland Overclocked is a 3D platformer that satisfies every itch that 3D platformers have to scratch. There’s collectables, challenging platforming, an easier linear path where you can avoid the optional challenging content. The controls are tight, the power-ups are fun and the level designs are very cheery and positive. Humor-wise the game lands its jokes softly as you run through a cybernetic future. It’s about 10-14 hours of platforming joy, if you absolutely love games like Astro’s Playroom or Tinykins then this game will definitely charm you. There’s a lot of negative reviews on Steam focusing on bugs, but throughout our playthrough we didn’t experience any. One big thing, if you’re looking for a game to play co-op with someone else this is definitely one of those amazing co-op games that you can pick up and just play without any frustration. If you’re looking for a new couch co-op…

ABRISS is a beautiful puzzle game that is engaging both visually and auditorily. It’s a thrill to work level by level and engage various Rube Goldberg-esq contraptions to destroy the level. It’s even more thrilling to replay each level to perfect your build and get a higher completion rate. Ultimately, for the price, ABRISS is a must buy if you love puzzle games, demolition and kickin’ rad audio. Destruction & Controlled Mayhem ABRISS has you place various items in the game to fall, move or be controlled to destroy various red targets. Each level has a more or less ideal solution to it but there’s some room to be creative past the tutorial levels. There’s definitely room to tighten up your build to destroy more and get a higher score or better shots in the photo mode / gif creator. The game doesn’t have a story or depth or tricks…

Arcadegeddon is a colorful mashup of arcade nostalgia and roguelike action that mostly succeeds thanks to its vibrant style, frantic gameplay, and reverence for gaming’s past. Arcadegeddon is effectively if you took Risk of Rain 2 and removed the sadder overtones and replaced them with a Saturday morning cartoon gamer vibe aesthetic. The music is absolutely worth the price of admission alone. We recommend this game, if you’re wondering why read on below. You play alongside Gilly, a likeable underdog trying to save his retro arcade from being bulldozed by the evil Fun Fun Co corporation. To drum up interest and funds, Gilly cleverly hacks together the greatest hits of arcade gaming into one super game called Arcadegeddon. However, Fun Fun Co retaliates by injecting a virus that corrupts the creation. Now it’s up to you and friends to dive in and exterminate the bugs overrunning Gilly’s digital dream. The…

You should play Mondealy if you have the chance to. That’s our review. If you want to know why we say that, read on, but ultimately, we’re going to tell you to play Mondealy. If you don’t like visual novels, that’s fine. If you don’t like pixel art, that’s fine. If you don’t like indie games, that’s fine. Go play it. That’s as high of an honor as a game can get from us and we’ll gladly hand it to this year’s best visual novel adventure game. Mondealy is a journey of friendship in a weird world that exists slightly below our own. The best way to describe is what happens in Undertale if the barrier went down but no one left and classism is at the top of the discussion list. Modern culture weaves through with love and affection as Michael journeys through a world that evokes both nostalgia…

The wacky moving simulator Moving Out was a hit, so naturally the devs at SMG Studio cooked up a bigger, better, and even more chaotic sequel. Moving Out 2 takes the ridiculous physics-based gameplay we loved from the original and turns everything up to 11, delivering double the content and a whole lot more over-the-top action. To put it simply if you’re looking for something like Moving Out or Overcooked, then you need to get Moving Out 2. The improvements to the game are well worth the cost. It can get repetitive yes and some of the later levels are eh, but Moving Out 2 is 2023’s best cooperative game released so far this year. In a genre that needs more, it delivers. Massive improvement as well to Moving Out 1! What was to me at least an already great game has gotten better. Let’s check out some high-level reasons…