All posts by Jake Combs

Many games allow you to play as an insect and many more allow you to play in a first person perspective but only Metamorphosis allows you to play both!

Based on the writings of Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis begins with players waking up in a hotel room, vague memories of the night before. After leaving your friend behind you enter a strange hallway and start to notice things about yourself changing the further you get. Soon after you realize you have not only turned into a bug of some sort but see a letter offering you employment at a secretive location called The Tower. Deciding to accept the offer the page sucks you into a dizzying world where you use the written words as stones to bridge your path.

Along the way you encounter various dangers and puzzles to solve to bring you closer to The Tower. As a bug you find that traversing steep slopes is far easier and with the help of something sticky can easily walk along vertical walls. One of your first tasks is to return to your friend and wake him up to try to get him to see you as yourself and not just the bug you have been turned into.

Visually the game leaves a bit to be desired as an Xbox One title I would expect the visuals to be a bit cleaner. Gameplay is quite fluid as you traverse the many varying terrain in ways you never expected but can be quite glitchy. Multiple times over the course of an hour of play the game crashed and required rebooting the system before I could return to the game to only do it again. Glitches and visuals aside though, the team at All In Games made an enjoyable title that is well worth playing for the mechanics alone, not to mention an interesting story that will leave you wondering what’s at the tower? After nearly four hours of play (including two reboots) I feel like I am nowhere near the tower but wanting to get there and learn it’s secrets.

Maledictions is a Warhammer Horror Anthology from the Black Library and features such names as Graham McNeill and Josh Reynolds!

There are numerous anthologies published by the Black Library that are centered in the 41st millennium but Maledictions is the first in their Warhammer Horror lineup. Some of the authors have been around since the earliest days of the Black Library like Graham McNeill, Josh Reynolds and C L Werner. There are even some newcomers to the ranks of fabulous writers- Cassandra Khaw and Lora Gray! Lora Gray you may remember from last year’s Digital Horror Week.

The worlds of Warhammer 40k have always had a tendency to fall along the lines of horrific between the machinations of Chaos or the terrifying swarms of the Tyranid. This means that these stories must be absolutely dreadful to be labeled as Horror. Many of these stories however are about on par from what we’ve come to expect from the Black Library but a few definitely pushed the envelope a bit further. What makes this book really stand out is that it is the first I’ve seen that contains both Warhammer Fantasy AND Warhammer 40k stories. Overall this book is a great read when you are looking for easier to digest stories. These stories still kick some major ass despite their length.

Here’s the full story and author list (some of which were previously released by the Black Library as short stories outside of this collection):

Nepenthe by Cassandra Khaw

The Widow Tide by Richard Strachan

No Good Deed by Graham McNeill

Crimson Snow by Lora Gray

Last of the Blood by C L Werner

Predation of the Eagle by Peter McLean

The Last Ascension of Dominic Seroff by David Annandale

Triggers by Paul Kane

A Darksome Place by Josh Reynolds

The Marauder Lives by J.C. Stearns

The Nothings by Alec Worley

Ever wondered what the world would look like if you woke up from a coma? With Neversong you can!

Neversong is a side scrolling platformer from Serenity Forge that requires ingenuity to solve it’s many puzzles and defeat the many adults. I mean monsters. The world has become much darker upon Peet’s waking up from his coma. His best friend (and possible love interest?) has been kidnapped and it is up to Peet to find her. She has been taken to Blackfork Asylum and her fate looks grim.

The puzzles require some thought and many can’t be completed until returning later with new abilities. Graphically the game is rather simple but quite endearing in its simplicity. You are greeted with a dark story-line where this same darkness permeates everything and yet still manages to feel like a game to be enjoyed by the family. Neversong looks and plays similar to games like Limbo and it’s sequel Inside.

When I first started the game I felt a weird kinship with Peet having been in a coma myself at the beginning of the year. The coma was handled tastefully and was an interesting starting point for a story. For someone that barely recovered from a coma he is quite athletic.

Overall I found the game enjoyable and look forward to being able to spend more time helping Peet save his lady love.

Have you ever wanted to punch a luchador with an elf or brawl as a character from Battle Chasers? In Bounty Battle you can!

Bounty Battle from Merge Games is a meta fighter that doesn’t require a classic fight-stick. Huge vortexes have opened and pulled dozens of heroes from not just different video game titles but different genres as well. As these vortexes pull our different combatants to the field of battle the throws you right into the game with your menu. For this game I started on the tutorial, more so because I assumed there would be an achievement. The tutorial takes you through the basics of the game, focusing mainly on grapples, hard and light hits.

By performing different chained attacks and hitting the opponents you build up a combo which gives you an increasing amount of bounty points. Get defeated and lose your points. It’s rather straight forward. The goal is for you to defeat all of the characters in the multiverse and bring glory to your home world. What’s unique about this brawler is that as you get wounded your character starts to glitch. We’re talking like Penelope in Wreck it Ralph but without the benefits.

Overall I found the game to be easy to pick up and learn but found it severely lacking in terms of story. This is brawling for the sake of brawling.

Dark Harvest follows the exploits of Harran Blackwood, a Warrior-Priest that must confront his past if he is to survive in this novel by Josh Reynolds!

Harran Blackwood was a Warrior-Priest, meaning he was a priest of Sigmar that was also a warrior in the first Warhammer Horror novel Dark Harvest. When I requested this book from the Black Library for the sake of review I hadn’t even read the details about the book. Simply put I saw the name of the writer and the cover and that was enough for me.

The story starts with Harran receiving a letter that reminds him of some rather painful memories. Arriving in the town of Wald in search of the sender finds something far older and more evil in the area. The story focuses more on slow building tension than outright horror. Along the way you learn that practically everyone in Wald is not someone worth redeeming. Told in a first person perspective Harran comes off as surprisingly relatable. He’s constantly trudging along despite his growing unease, while simultaneously battling with his own inner demons and the lies he tells himself.

Overall I found this book to be quite engaging and well worth the read. Josh Reynolds as always knocks this out of the park!

IT IS RARE FOR ME TO SEE A MOVIE WHEN IT’S STILL IN THEATERS BUT THANKS TO PARAMOUNT PICTURES I WAS ABLE TO CATCH UP ON SOME THAT I MISSED!

Recently the fine folks at Paramount Pictures (their home page is here) had sent me a code to some of the movies I missed so that I could share my thoughts on them with you. Part One discusses Overlord and Instant Family and Part Two focuses on Bumblebee and What Men Want! Part Three discussed Isn’t it Romantic, Pet Sematary and Wonder Park. Part Four discussed Rocketman, Addams Family/Addams Family Values Anniversary Edition, Light of My Life, Galaxy Quest Anniversary Steelbook, Crawl, Dora and the Lost City of Gold and Night Hunter! Part Five discussed Official Secrets, Playing With Fire, Shutter Island Anniversary Edition, A Quiet Place Steelbook, Gemini Man, Terminator Dark Fate and Beverly Hills Cop Triple pack! Part Six covered Like a Boss, Clueless 25th Anniversary Steelbook and The Hunt For Red October Anniversary Steelbook. Strap in and grab some popcorn and let’s get started! For our first segment of this series with NerdCultOnline we are resuming the series with a new numbering with Part 1 and discussing the classic film Airplane.

Airplane 4k

The film follows Ted, a man who is afraid to fly, take over the plane and help it land when the pilots become sick. This film is a classic that I had honestly never seen before now and boy did I miss out! This film holds up under the 4k release and is worth the pickup, I would just advise that this release did not include a digital copy.

THANK YOU TO PARAMOUNT FOR SHARING THESE FILMS WITH US!

SO WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THESE FILMS FROM PARAMOUNT? LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

In Save Your Nuts players control various animals in search of hording all of the nuts. Will your animal come out as king?

Have you ever wondered which animal can horde the most nuts? Traditionally you would think the squirrels would be masters of their nuts but Save Your Nuts, from Triple Scale Games, puts players in command of various creatures to steal all of the nuts. Each animal has it’s own boosts like stronger hits, more durability or more speed.

Each game my son would insist on changing animal types to keep the game fresh along with new maps to enjoy the full experience. There are dogs, wolves, turtles, raccoons, squirrels and armadillos. Wolves are the quicker option that is more durable and because I’ve always had an affinity for wolves so they were my go to. Each map offered new obstacles and new ways to screw over the competition. The power ups can be quite entertaining as well- its hilarious to watch a 12 year old fall over laughing when dropping toxic poop piles all over the ground.

Overall I found the game to be great fun when playing as a family but against the AI it is more frustrating than enjoyable.

Adeptus Mechanicus troops face off against Necrons in this latest issometric Warhammer 40,000 tactics game from Bulwark Studios!

Feeling old? I know I am! Join the Adeptus Mechanicus today to replace your aging parts with tested machines! In Warhammer 40K: Mechanicus players take control of a small band of adepts in search of new technologies to exploit in the name of the Omnissiah. Borrowing from the classic Tactics format of game play, Bulwark Studios brings us a smooth foray into the world of Warhammer 40K and specifically that of the Adeptus Mechanicus and Necron tomb worlds.

Game play feels like those classic and oh so good tactics games, taking advantage of the simple mechanics to build an engaging game full of 40k lore, characters and models. The fact that the weapons effects and overall graphics are stunning is not to be looked over either!

The timing of this release though seems interesting as only a few months after the initial release the Indomitus boxset with the new Warhammer 40k edition was released. The two main factions were Necrons and Imperium of Man- Space Marines. The Space Marines are not quite the Adeptus Mechanicus but they fight for the same team and fight together often. The fact that this was first release some time prior on pc/steam leads me to believe this is more of a coincidence than anything else.

Matt Hawkins has returned with another thriller with The Clock, this time centered around weaponizing cancer!

Before Covid-19 was even on the horizon, before anyone knew it was even in the United States, Top Cow Productions shared the first issue of The Clock with us.  This was back in December of 2019. Being one of my favorite writers I devoured this first issue wanting more.

Now this is where things get eerie. Weeks before I read the first issue I had already come into contact with Covid and by this point was already sick. Approximately a week later I was hospitalized and spent over a month in the hospital. By then listening to the nurses speculate about what had kicked my ass and doing the same regarding Covid (which everyone still believed wasn’t here), one of them asked what would happen if someone weaponized the virus and targeted the United States. For days I thought about the implications of that and was reminded of that issue of The Clock.

The story follows Jack Davidson as he is trying to identify why some communities are hit by a viral cancer and others are not. By the end of the first issue his wife was killed by lung cancer, seemingly unrelated to his research. Naturally inquisitive Jack quickly asks too many questions and as a result becomes targeted by the villains of the story.

The story flows at a steady pace for the first three issues but seems to make a major leap in the story in issue four. Normally I love the four issue format of his books but felt the finale should have been fleshed out just a bit more before then, meaning one to two more issues in the story. As a whole it was a dark story that was well told, I just wanted a bit more.

In West of Dead players work to remove the many outlaws from Purgatory, Wyoming by any means necessary.

West of Dead is the brainchild of Raw Fury, a studio known for “indie titles” with some cool concepts and a flair for the unique. You play as the deceased William Mason. Typically I play games with the volume low but when you have someone with real acting talent like Ron Pearlman then you need to turn that shit right up!

Mason’s character design was clearly inspired by Marvel’s Ghost Rider but with a wild west twist. Controls are easy to pick up, even without following the tutorial, and fit the world dynamically. The visuals were one of the best things about this game. It feels surreal, like the world is twisted by you rejecting the afterlife in search of punishing the outlaws. Tension is built up quickly as you step into each room to discover treasures, weapons or more often enemies who can use their own paranormal soldiers to fight you. You can easily pick it up and play it for hours or just a few short levels.

With smooth visuals, controls and game play that are appealing to players of all types it will bring you back wanting more.