Category video game

It is rare to find a game where you are blind and not from a lack of information. The Vale is the first I’ve played without any visuals.

Falling Squirrel Inc have not only envisioned a game where players must rely on senses other than sight but have delivered on their goal. The Vale: Shadow of the Crow is the finished product of that endeavor and we were given a copy to review. As with every game we either received or purchased we put in at least one hour of gameplay before sitting down to write our thoughts and in this instance we played for two.

When given the opportunity to review a game we rarely read many of the press releases and as such when it came time to play my expectations were that this would be some sort of RPG (Role Playing Game). I was shocked when I started the game to be greeted with a screen that was almost entirely black save for a handful of floating sprites. I went on to listen as the story was told and then expected to defend myself against wolves. I feel like the concept for this game was meant to give players a truly blind immersive experience. With the right sound setup you would get a three dimensional cue where threats are attacking from and be able to meet them in kind, however most people rely on television speakers and this advantage is lost. Players can find foes eventually by audio cues indicating when they are hit and then able to keep hitting them but without the immersive feel it falls flat. The audio work on this game is a much higher quality than most games, but it isn’t able to give players the true feel of the game. This game has a lot of potential but not in a two speaker world.

Puzzle games and platformers are both rife with frustration but this feeling is usually accompanied by enjoyment. What happens when you blend the two and throw in cute slime? You get Gelly Break Deluxe.

ByteRockers brings us an adorable platformer and puzzle hybrid called Gelly Break Deluxe. You control one or both of two gellies, an orange and a green one, and when stacked together the one on top becomes a turret. When playing solo the turret gelly is controlled by one of the sticks where movement is controlled by the other. When playing together each gelly is controlled by one play and whichever is on top is the turret and can only point and shoot. Most levels will have three hidden gellies to find and most will give an audio cue when you approach them, even if you can’t see them.

The puzzles can be quite challenging as the stages progress but with a little patience can be overcome with minimal effort. The only truly difficult part of this game is finding the secret passage needed for the related achievement. I have completed every level I’ve seen and found every hidden gelly and yet I still can’t find this passage. I will keep replaying until I do because it is very well hidden but despite having to replay levels the are enjoyable enough that it’s worth it. For the complexity of some of the puzzles they remind me of playing Splosion Man, and that’s a good thing. This is a family friendly title that will easily end relationships if playing together- I suggest playing solo if you want to save your friendships.

You can pick up your copy on Steam, Xbox One, PS4 and Switch. Our copy was given to us by Byterockers for the purpose of this review.

Nothing brings out the frustration and rage like a game of Overcooked 2 and the newer stages that come with the Season Pass are no exception!

The kinds folks over at Team17 shared the season pass to their game Overcooked 2 with us and honestly this article took way to long to be written and for that we do apologize. Nearly a year ago we reached out to the developers and requested the opportunity to review the downloadable content for an already great game and they agreed. Now fast forward through the year and I soon realized my play style was not going to cut it for this coverage. When playing this game, whether the core title or any add one, I always did so with my wife. Between yelling at ourselves for missing a goal or one of us pleading with the other for one more level, it has always been the two of us playing.

Out of a sense of obligation to Team17 I have decided to continue only far enough to share thoughts on each dlc without my wife as we have found it difficult to find time to play the game together.

Too Many Cooks

This DLC pack is a chef only pack which adds a Cat, a Pink alien, a Unicorn, a Walrus and a Monkey. The Unicorn is the family’s favorite.

Surf n Turf

The focus of the meals in this pack is one food you’d eat on the beach or during summer. This includes smoothies, burgers and kabobs. We had a ton of fun with this one, one of the easier worlds by far, and even got to 3 stars with my children. It was quite amusing to use squirt guns to clean the dishes.

Night of the Hangry Horde

Conceptually this was my favorite of the worlds as it brought zombies into the game. Now with this game the zombies are made of food, just like the king and instead of eating your brains you cook them a meal and send them on their way.

Campfire Cook Off

Following the Trail Mix trail the chefs focus on making meals that are centered around camping- hotdogs, smores, pancakes and oddly pizza is even on the list. Where in most other modes of the game ingredients are stored in cases, this time they are stored in backpacks.

Carnival of Chaos

As one would expect the them of this DLC was around the carnival. You will see things like donuts, hotdogs, pizza and even combo meals. It even features magic portals and canons to launch you from one part of the kitchen to another. As the name implies it can get quite hectic at times but that’s nothing outside the normal from the Overcooked franchise.

Final thoughts on Overcooked 2:

Each add-on brings a unique set of recipes and challenges. Some are downright maddening but in summary this game in all of it’s forms has been a hell of a lot of fun and worth grabbing a copy, just don’t expect to get the 3 stars on your first few tries.

Focus Home Interactive brings us a new offering in the Warhammer universe with Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground!

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground is bringing a new war to the mortal realms thanks to Focus Home Interactive and they were generous enough to share a copy with us! Playing the tutorial you must start as the Stormcast Eternals but after that first stage you unlock the ability to play as both Nighthaunt and Maggotkin of Nurgle. Players take turns moving and attacking with their units on a hexagonal map, each unit has their own default distance they are able to move and crossing difficult terrain will slow them down.

The movement mechanics look and feel like a cross between two of the different tabletop games set in the Mortal Realms- Age of Sigmar itself and Age of Sigmar: Underworlds. Visually, in every aspect I’ve seen so far, the game is absolutely stunning. I have read numerous comments about glitches in the game and after a couple hours I have yet to experience them myself.

As a whole I found the game to be an amazingly built adventure into the realm of death that exceeded every expectation I had for the game and on images alone they were already higher than most titles.

Green Hell is an FPS survival horror game based in the uncharted jungles of the Amazon where you must survive physically and mentally.

Creepy Jar is an awesome name for a game developer and those same minds brought us their newest release, Green Hell. Green Hell was previously released on Steam years ago but we were not able to play it until it was ported over to the Xbox One and we recently received a copy for the purpose of this review.

The game itself feels quite unique, or at least I have yet to play anything that came before that had this same feel to it. Some of the mechanics are tried and true across many games but this particular recipe feels new and that is rare. Before playing the game and before even seeing images of the gameplay I saw there was a tabletop version of the game about to go on kickstarter so it gave me a different expectation of the gameplay. I thought that the game would be an isometric game where you had to navigate the Amazon to some unknown end (I literally went into this game without doing any research on the story) and was shocked when I loaded the game up for the first time and was greeted to a first person shooter styled experience.

For the game mechanics you will likely recognize crafting mechanics similar to those in 7 Days to Die or the fact that any items that can be picked up as they are will receive a glowing outline like in so many other games. Graphically the rendering is not the best I’ve seen on the Xbox but I would say that it is on par with the earlier releases of the Xbox One. The story focuses on Jake and his Mia as they arrive in the Amazon. Their first step after making camp is for Mia to earn the trust of a local indigenous tribe. One day you wake up to her screams over your radio and you go charging into the jungle (as Jake) to find her. With several comments regarding Jake’s mental health throughout the tutorial led me to wonder if her voice was real. Very quickly you begin to question everything, like during the tutorial there was a path near your camp and after the tutorial the path is replaced by a stream. Very few games I have played have messed with your senses like Green Hell has and that was just in the first couple hours of the game. I can’t wait to see how else the game screws with my head.

Order of Battle: World War 2 is a turn based take on the battles of World War 2 by Slitherine Games.

Have you ever wanted to command troops during World War 2 over land, sea and air? With Order of Battle: World War 2 you can. Slitherine Games shared their newest Xbox One release to try and share our thoughts.

The visuals for the game are like something out of the early nineties. I don’t mean to say that this is garbage because I have played and enjoyed much worse. It’s on par with the original Command and Conquer games as far as the visuals are concerned but play style is quite different. Each turn you move your various troops up to a certain number of hexes (each varying from unit to unit) and most can also attack.

The gameplay is slow and tedious but still the game was enjoyable. I found myself on many occasions saying “just one more level” and after several hours I’d wonder where the time went. The game is tedious and everything about the interface screams that you need a mouse and computer to play this but it is enjoyable. Though it would likely be even more enjoyable with a mouse or an upgrade to the controls and interface.

BeeFense BeeMastered was once a mobile game that has been remastered for the current generation of consoles by Byterockers’ Games.

BeeFense BeeMastered is a tower defense game from Byterockers’ Games and the latest in a series of cute, adorable, family friendly titles of games (most of which are on mobile). In BeeFense you assist a bee hive defend themselves from evil wasps and their bug allies. Where most tower defense games you earn currency by waiting, this is more of a hybrid mixed with RTS mechanics (Real Time Strategy). Specifically you must farm pollen for purchases, nectar to feed your bees and honeydew to pay for researching upgrades. You can also farm water which gives your weapons a boost to their effectiveness. Most levels give you three goals that award honeycombs (instead of stars).

Each stage becomes a dance between defending the path, feeding your bees and paying for everything. As stages progress you unlock new towers and upgrades for them. Personally I never enjoyed tower defense games but already found myself pushing replay on stages I missed goals until I completed them. Some levels feel impossible to unlock each of the goals but as you unlock permanent upgrades playing them again becomes easier than before but many are still quite challenging. 

With the level of control needed through many of the levels I feel that a mobile version simply allow you to effectively order your troops. Now keep in mind this is just an observation based on the mechanics on the Xbox One and mobile version could function entirely differently. I simply don’t know. If everything is controlled in the same manner then I don’t see mobile working very well. On the Xbox though it is a unique experience that will likely aggravate younger players but provide a challenge that will push adult gamers to their limits and do it in a world that you don’t need to worry about children being around while you play.

HeroCraft has released an Xbox One version of their mobile hit Space Wolf, a turn and card based strategy game.

When I discovered Warhammer 40k Space Wolf I immediately reached out to the team at HeroCraft to see if we could receive a review copy to try it out. Little did I know at the time this was the same game I had played several years ago on my iPhone. When it first released I found it to be a good deal of fun but soon found a new title to draw my attention on my phone. Fast forward to last month when I received the download code for the game.

I had the game installed for several weeks before playing it and within the first couple turns I realized how similar this was to a game I played before. After a few minutes on google taught me that my suspicions were correct, this game was an updated version of a mobile game I’ve played previously. That isn’t a bad thing mind you, merely an observation.

Gameplay is based on an initiative system that can be manipulated by various cards to speed you up or slow you down. Each character has a set of cards that are randomized and then dealt to be used. Each card can offer movement, some sort of buff, an attack or even healing options. Under the image on each card will list the damage the weapon CAN do but you are limited on ammo or it is a single use card. Compared to most Xbox One titles the graphics are a bit dated but appear to be a significant improvement off of the original. My only complaint with this game is that movement and targeting is along a predefined X and Y axis regardless of the rotation of the camera. Compared to the original format I felt this was a huge improvement as on mobile devices the screen is just too small to really enjoy the effects.

Biomutant as an RPG set in the distant future where corporations have made the planet unlivable for human and the mutations inherit it all!

Published by Experiment 101, Biomutant is an RPG that follow a mutant ronin that has returned to the land of his upbringing in search of revenge. Of course if you choose a lighter path your revenge takes the form of helping to restore the Tree of Life. You start the game with some amazing cinematics that gave me a lot of hope for this title.

As your character escapes the monster who killed your family, you go into a character creation screen. The level of customization is much higher than I expect but this is your first taste of the real visuals to expect through the game, and it’s not as stellar as the opening cinematic that’s for certain. You then pick up with your created character just before the fight you watched and must escape a bunker. Following the tutorial you will make it topside pretty quickly where the fight begins and you must play out the scene you watched.

Controls are easy to master and visuals are about on par with most titles you’d see on the previous generations of systems. Not the visuals may be a product of the fact that I’m playing this on the original Xbox One and it might be more dynamic on the new Xbox but I don’t have one myself to test that theory. The story is typical of an “all ages” role playing game that relies too heavily on slow dialogue trees and wandering through the world than with cut scenes.

Overall I found this game to be wanting and before picking up a copy yourself I would wait until you found it in the bargain bin or on a massive price reduction.

Leisure Suit Larry returns with the follow up game Wet Dreams Dry Twice from Assemble Entertainment!

Leisure Suit Larry started as an indie title that was always about getting Larry laid. The humor was crude and the breasts were large, as were other appendages.  Wet Dreams Dry Twice is the direct sequel to their first game in the franchise to hit the next gen consoles- Wet Dreams Don’t Dry and picks up where the story left off.

Larry is slated to marry the daughter of the village Chief to fulfill a prophecy and the love of his live is presumed dead. Following a discovery on your phone Larry decides to leave Cancum in search of his lost love, building a boat out of some rather useless junk and heading to sea.

The game plays like your standard point and click adventures but with a very adult theme. This game is in no way family friendly but that doesn’t stop it from building a game world that is simple to navigate and full of laughs. Thankfully this game doesn’t support any sort of virtual reality because interacting with many of the world objects would require a shower after or three, definitely three.