Tag game review

Skirmish Mode Games brings the latest in console warfare with Warpips- a game where 8-bit and 3d rendering coexist.

Skirmish Mode Games brings the latest in console warfare with Warpips- a game where you must prioritize the financial cost of war against beating your enemy. The units you use to fight are rendered in chunky 8-bits where your base and some of the terrain have 3d rendering. It makes for an odd pairing that simply works with the game. Even the blood on the ground is rendered in a pixilated 8-bit style on the ground.

Players gradually earn money automatically which they then use to purchase troops. The troops follow some basic AI to always move forward and kill the targets they find. Some will even search for traps and remove them. Are you smart enough to survive the coming onslaught? I played the game campaign AND the additional Endless mode and must say I am terrible at this game. Of course I set the difficulty to the maximum but most games I start there. Seriously though, DO NOT start on the hardest difficulty for your first try. Try the easiest and build up from there, it will make a huge difference.

Graphically, as mentioned before, is an odd hybrid that works well for the game. There isn’t much of a story to speak of other than go and kill. Why are we killing each other? I don’t require much reason mind you but something is better than nothing. Even if it is just a single cutscene and then done. Of course I have not completed the campaign so it could be there and my bitching is for not. The game is unforgiving at almost all times and still a bit of fun.

Wayward Strand is a story that takes place on a hospital that is also an airship where you help your mother tend to patients.

In Wayward Strand, by Ghost Pattern, you play as Casey, a journalist who must help her mother tend to patients on a floating hospital. You are there to both write a story on the airshop and, as far as your mother is concerned, to help care for the patients. What this means for Casey is she is expected to interact with each of the patients and improve their demeanor in the process. To get every story told in the game will require multiple playthrough as some characters will overlap each other in availability. Eaves dropping on one conversation may catch the attention of one of the nurses since you aren’t talking to patients.

The game’s art looks and feels like a children’s storybook. Controls are very simple to learn and the overall story takes a while to get moving. If you are looking for a game with some depth to the story but not a fast pace then you will enjoy this game. However, if you are playing late at night or early morning you may just take that nap your body will be craving.

Missile Command is the latest to get the Recharged treatment from Sneakybox and it is just as chaotic as it has always been.

Sneakybox brings us another Atari title getting the Recharged treatment and this time it is absolutely brutal. Missile Command was always one of the most brutal titles I’ve ever played. This is by far worse than I remember. By worse I refer to the insanity of the game, or my skill, or both. I remember playing this game and being able to get several levels into it before losing my base. With Recharged I couldn’t complete the first level. The missions however I could complete a few.

This game is pure chaos. Simple as that. You man orbital cannons that are tasked with destroying missiles as they fall from the sky. Placing your shots you must lead the missile and force it to crash into it. Graphically it is crisp and yet simplistic. It really captures the look and style of the classic game. Controls are easy to learn but a nightmare on a controller with drift. If you deal with drift this game will be virtually impossible. All of my controllers drift.

If you are looking for a game like the classic or something you can easily pick up and dive into without much effort you’ll enjoy this one.

Lego Bricktales is both an entirely original story as well as supplying entirely unique worlds to explore.

In Lego Bricktales you play as an adventuring minifig without a name who must help their grandfather. The grandfather also doesn’t have a name and is simply referred to as Grandfather. Who would have guessed it? All kidding aside I think this move was brilliant. Leaving the names out allow the players to fill the roles themselves, they can become the character. To further emphasis this, they are able to fully customize their minifig.

The story is centered around going to an abandoned amusement park where your grandfather is working on his inventions. He’s been tasked with restoring the park or lose it forever and his inventions have been distracting him from that role. He you come to save the day, put him back on task and restore the park. Can you do it? Like all Lego games this is not overly complicated but for once forces you to be creative. You get to build objects with Legos! I don’t just mean the classic Lego game builds where you hold a single button. I mean you actually choose the pieces and place them where you want them. There are limitations to the builds but it’s up to you to design and complete.

Controls are simple to learn and graphics are as good or better than most of the recent Lego games we’ve played. Overall the game is a ton of fun and the creative building features make this game so worth getting and playing and the best part is there is no risk of losing or stepping on Legos!

Fans of games like Overcooked can rejoice! A new “cooking” game is here and this time it is about repairing and fueling your spaceship in Fueled Up.

Fireline Games brings us Fueled Up, a game where you risk being stranded in space and must keep your ship both fueled and in one piece. The game looks and feels exactly like Overcooked, and that’s not a bad thing. The Overcooked franchise is one of my family’s all time favorite games to play together. It can get stressful at times trying to manage everything. This game is exactly like that, except in space and running a spaceship instead of a restaurant.

The controls are almost exactly the same and graphics are on par if not slightly improved in comparison to Overcooked. Solo play feels even more stress-inducing because you must manage the actions of two players alone. Playing the game with one or three other people is ideal for managing the stress and tasks. Overall the game is a crap ton of fun but high stress so best playing in smaller doses.

Humanity has spread to the stars and in Tinykin, from tinyBuild, they make their way back to Earth but humanity has changed drastically.

Tinykin is here with a unique take on what happens after humanity spreads out to the stars. Most games see this expansion as bleak and dangerous but in this game from tinyBuild and Splashteam we get a much more friendly and upbeat title. Curious about humanity’s origins you travel by soap bubble back to earth. This travel method reminds me very much about the bubble travel from Disney’s Meet the Robinsons. Upon your arrival you learn that humanity is much smaller than it once was and team up with little creatures called the Tinykin.

You befriend and work with various creatures, most of them are friendly or just less than friendly insects. I have the suspicion that I am just barely scratching the surface of this world and that something sinister is lurking somewhere but every level I’ve played continues to prove me wrong. Where’s the big, bad, monster to fight to give some sense of fear or suspense? Even if I’m wrong and there isn’t one, the game continues to prove that it is a lot of fun.

Visually the game is stunning. You have a beautifully rendered 3d world where 2d cartoon characters interact. On the surface it is a family friendly title that is absolutely adorable. I hope I’m proven right. If not I won’t be sulking though, I’ll still be having fun and it will further solidify my suggestion for the younger children at home to play the game.

Another classic Atari 2600 hit has returned with the Recharged treatment with Yars: Recharged!

Originally published in 1982 on the Atari 2600, Yars has returned with Yars: Recharged from SneakyBox and Adamvision Studios. The game features an alien bug that resembles a dragonfly that is sent to destroy the alien ships that have come to subjugate the planet. Do you have what it takes to survive this remastered bullet hell? As more bullets fly it is natural to panic and I am prone to panic in these situations.

I had only ever heard of the original game but never played. It was one of those that my friends steered my away from due to its difficulty in grade school. It’s THAT old! Playing this one is a ton of fun. If I had known this is what the game was like I would have likely played it when I was much younger. Graphically it reminds me of the Dead Space arcade game that was on the 360 but it is pure chaos. Some levels require pure luck to survive. If you like a game that is sleek and an absolute challenge you will love this game.

Are you smarter than a 5th grader is the quiz show turned video game that uses children as trivia support.

Are you smarter than a 5th grader is a quiz show centered around topics found in grade school education and proving how useless some of it is. The American Education system is nowhere near where it should be and I suspect this is secretly what the show’s creation was meant to highlight. Of course there are questions that everyone should know like how to convert tablespoons to teaspoons or millimeters in a centimeter but there are some truly useless answers there as well.

Each player answers the questions as best as they can, get it wrong and the show/game is over. You start with two questions for each grade and a final eleventh question that covers sixth grade topics. Answering the sixth grade question means you are truly smarter than a fifth grader. For a trivia quiz show it’s not bad. The actual show gave time to meet the students who would help you answer your questions and the game does as well. The problem here is these are fake kids so I’m not interested in their written commentary about their lives or schooling. Perhaps if they allowed the spot to be filled by an actual player instead of an NPS then I would care more about them.

Graphically the game is crisp, free of glitches and some solid rendering. It definitely fits in the current generation of graphics engines. Controls are very simple, only requiring the letter based buttons once in the game. Overall I had a good time with the game, pushing myself to answer without the “cheats” made it more challenging too. If you like trivia you will enjoy this one.

Peter must survive the Cold War but in the extreme colds of Antarctica in South of the Circle from State of Play Games.

In South of the Circle you play a Cambridge professor as he navigates love and the Cold War itself. Ultimately he ends up in Antarctica and must survive there after his plane crashes and he starts his trek through the frozen land to find help for himself and the pilot.

The controls are easy to pick up and the mechanics seemed odd to me. Specifically the dialogue mechanics. You have a limited time to select one of two options where you are given an emoji to identify the type of response you are giving. The options don’t really appear to make a difference in the dialogue trees and you have no idea what the responses will be other than the good or bad implications of those emojis.

Graphically the game fits with indie titles, using what appears to be a limited color pallet with cell shading. Overall the story was slow paced and failed to drive home the urgency of your quest as you wander aimlessly trying to figure out how to rescue yourself and the pilot. With no real control over the story or the conversations it feels like you would be better off playing a FMV title instead or something with a faster pace as I fell asleep twice while playing this title.

Way of the Hunter is the latest first person shooter game centered around hunting the creatures of the forest.

Way of the Hunter is a hunting game where there is a mysterious deer meat virus and its your job to kill all the creatures needed to fund your endeavors. THQ Nordic and Nine Rock Games brings us this FPS game where the ultimate goal seems to be furnishing a hunting lodge. You play as River as he takes over his Grandfather’s ranch and use hunting to fund all of your endeavors.

Your first task after gaining access to the lodge is to visit your friend Echo. Echo is no real friend but a point where your voice echoes easily. After that you take your first steps towards hunting. The first hunting task is at the shooting range. There you practice adjusting your scope, breathing properly and aiming. It is all quite easy to pick up but leads you to a task your grandfather meant to do himself. The hills are filled with badgers and they MUST die. Hunting them was quite tricky at first. The trick is to anticipate where they are about to be and shooting there just before they cross that path. With each kill task you are given unlocks other kill tasks focused on other animals and harder kills.

Overall the game has what I would call mixed graphics, where some aspects are highly details and others not so much. Specifically the scenery is where all the detail is and it is beautiful. I thought it was a cool touch to see real weapons and real gear featured in the game to assist you with your hunts. The story is slow and the hunts even slower but are much more realistic than I anticipated. Walking through tall grass quickly, not worrying about my noise, is bound to scare off the animals I’m hunting and I thought firing the gun or being seen would be the only way to do that. I applaud the designers for their attention to realistic detail there. For a hunting game I liked the realism but was hoping for something more forgiving like hunting in Red Dead Redemption.