Category ps4

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.

Aerial_Knight and Headup Games brings us the endless running action game Never Yield and it is crazy addicting!

Most endless runner games throw random obstacles at you that you use one of a couple methods to avoid and will literally go on, forever. With Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield the formula is changed, it actually has an end. Simply put it just looks and feels like an endless runner. The bulk of the story is told through quick glimpses of action but no dialogue, no trailing prologue like in a Star Wars film, everything is centered around the action. 

The stylized characters look like something you would expect to see in Back to the Future’s version of the future but full of weapon-wielding drones and vehicles looking to run you over. Without quick reflexes expect to die, often, but with each death you see a continue screen where you’re given the choice between “Never Yield” or giving up, along with a death counter for the particular run. With enough skill you can complete the story in a single sitting within a couple hours tops, my reactive skills were not on point and it took me about five total hours to complete the story. I found the game to be fun, despite the frequent deaths and well worth playing through more than once.

Orbit Studio brings us Retro Machina, a game about finding beauty in a world where you are expected to conform.

Retro Machina begins with a your robot working on the assembly line as a butterfly flies in through the window. Distracted, your robot stops working and sets off alarms. With your newfound sense of adventure you seek an escape from the factory and soon begin your search for a machine to repair you entirely. This JRPG, or Junior Role Playing Game, takes you through a world where only robots and plant life remain.

The visuals are colorful and highly detailed but even when things are dire they give you a feeling of cheerful hope. Controls are simple to pick up but keep in mind that you can only hold onto one health item at a time so use them when you see another. Life and death is not a huge concern with this game as every time you you lose all your health you respawn at the point you entered the section of the same map section. Overall the game is quite a lot of fun, especially using the ability to hijack control of other robots and using them to destroy the others. The world is huge and I can’t wait to keep exploring it and not just to find all of the hidden references like the Tardis or Back to the Future’s Delorian!

Merge Games takes the ‘build a city’ game type to a new perspective- that of the buildings themselves with Buildings Have Feelings Too!

In Buildings Have Feelings Too players take control of a building who walks and talks along with other buildings. The intro to the game you see as several buildings discuss how they are falling apart, some due to negligence and your building decides to move to a new town. Upon arrival you meet two buildings that want to improve their own wellbeing and suggest you build a new structure and as you bring it to life determine that it will be a factory which upsets your new friends.

The rest of the game you must play a balancing act between improving certain stats by managing which buildings are near each other and what products they offer. What makes this easier is you can move the buildings back and forth without much consequence like moving the residences to be near the factory that is a giant smoke stack. This makes the residence upset but as soon as you use the move to upgrade the factory you can then immediately move one or the other immediately after, restoring the happiness of each building.

Controls are simple to master and the graphics are solid in this cute family friendly game about micromanagement and construction. The game itself was bit on the dull side but it takes a new look at building a city.

El Hijo is a stealth game about a young boy named, wait for it, El Hijo. He must escape the monks who are raising him and find his mother.

El Hijo and his mother live on a farm that is raised to the ground by bandits. Prior to the arrival of the bandits his mother teaches him how to sneak around and avoid detection, setting up a slowly paced tutorial that will serve you through each stage of the game. After the bandits have destroyed his farm, his mother leaves him with a group of monks in order to save him from the bandits.

Very quickly he decides to escape the monastery and begin his magical adventure through mythical land meant to resemble the American Mid-West. In the end all that matters for our little hero is that he find his mother.

Honig Studios created hybrid stealth adventure with about as many puzzles as as a Lara Croft game. Graphics are a little on the simple side but stop short of just the going for the retro 8 bit. The stealth aspect of the game is handled superbly. Each piece of the environment can help you if you time patrols right and use them to your advantage. Overall I found the game to be quite enjoyable with more challenge than I expected.

In Sir Lovelot your goal is to woo the girl by bringing her gifts and climbing through her window, seems a bit pervy to me.

The above is a rather simplistic summary of the Sir Lovelot and his overall concept but it’s not entirely wrong either. Each level you must find a list of items to give to your princess and by the time you start the next level your Knight leaves another princess broken hearted.  Pixel Games crafted a platformer that I can honestly say is unlike any other I have ever played before.

Be prepared to die a lot. Most platformers allow you to get injured and recover your health but with Sir Lovelot each time you touch an enemy or an obstacle it is instant death. The good news here is that you respawn and any collectibles picked up or enemies defeat remain in the same state. Each stage feels very much like Splosion Man in that it is a fast paced platformer that has some similar jumping mechanics but missing the meat explosion when you dispose of your foes. This knight is also armed with was equates to a gun.

Conceptually this is an odd title as you are using mechanics that don’t fit with your typical knight in shining armor, but the game style is fast paced and quite enjoyable. What makes it stand out though is the womanizing nature of our protagonist but done in a family friendly way. Very perplexing but still enjoyable as a whole.

TinyBuild’s Kill it with Fire allows players to kill their eight-legged foe fire but so many other options as well including C4.

We have a saying in our house when we see almost any bug, but spiders and scorpions especially- “Kill it with fire” and with this game you get to do exactly that and more, at least as far as spiders are concerned. The folks at TinyBuild saw fit to share the game with us, not once but twice. We got to test it out on both the Xbox One and the Switch. Personally I only played the Xbox version while my son played both. I will speak to the game as a whole and mechanics followed by his thoughts on which platform is the better experience.

Each stage you must locate weapons, upgrades and of course the spiders themselves. Some allow you to smash, explode, shoot and burn them. I’m certain there are other ways to kill the spiders as well but I just haven’t found them yet. As you find ways to kill the spiders you’ll find each death counts towards unlocking various doors. Some will reveal new rooms, others will reveal hidden documents, a secret chamber or even a storage for ammunition. Visually the game isn’t the most gorgeous but with a game like this it doesn’t need to be. It feels like the goal was focused more on user experience than on a stunning visual and for most of us that experience is much more important.

I thought a traditional controller would be ideal for gameplay but my son, having played both versions, believed that the Switch version was the far superior method for the game. We will have to agree to disagree.

My expectation of the game was it looked like it would be fun but would be forgettable. I make it a point to play each title for approximately one hour, a testament to the quality of the game is how much time I spent after that hour. I played this for three to four hours so far and wish I had more time to invest in it. I can say that this game is not to be overlooked. I look forward to finding each of the hidden weapons and upgrades to use to kill those eight-legged bastards.

Have you ever wanted to build a bridge AND kill zombies at the same time? With Bridge Constructor: The Walking Dead you can!

Merging Headup’s series of Bridge Constructor titles and AMC’s The Walking Dead, players must help fan favorite characters reach the other side while keeping them alive. The Bridge Constructor games have been full of innovations including a partnership with the Portal franchise. The concept is rather simple, you have a gap of some sort and a vehicle or people need to cross. Queue the builder, that means you, builds a bridge of some sort.

Each stage has a resource limit to reach but is not required to finish the level. With The Walking Dead version of the franchise you must also kill the occasional zombie. Each stage shows a broken building or ravine to cross, many of which include zombies trying to eat characters like Eugene Porter and fan favorite Daryl Dixon. Characters like Daryl will aggressively remove zombie threats while others will use their brains to out think the walkers.

Like the other Bridge Constructor titles this game is quite enjoyable but at the same time absolutely maddening. Some stages I simply lack the imagination needed to build my bridge effectively enough to complete the level while using less than the resource limit. I love this game despite my skill though.

Have you ever argued about what your favorite dessert is? With Cake Bash from Coat Sink you can let the desserts fight it out themselves!

Smash Bro’s was one of the first titles that gave players a comical brawler where you can beat the snot out of your family members and not feel bad about it. Gang Beasts took it a step further and added some ragdoll physics. Cake Bash is now here to turn the cute level to a twelve while beating up on your family and friends.

Players choose their confectionary of choice and then the games begin. Each round players will have a chance to vote for which map they will play on. The main game has a specific rotation of bash levels, purchasing decorations followed by a challenge level. This repeats about three times ending with a final purchase section to grab as many decorations to lock in enough points to be the final dessert standing. After you have played a location or level once you can then do so in freeplay to unlock related achievements.

Some modes require precision and numerous attempts just to get them right. The caterpillar level is still not completed for me and I’ve spent about two hours on it so far. The game allows for a lot of replayability. In small doses the game is quite fun but repeating the same level will make you want to walk away from the game for a while. At $20 for the game it is a reasonable price but if you see it on sale this will become a must grab.

The folks over at GameMill Entertainment have delivered on one of the greatest franchises ever known- GI Joe!

Being a child of the Eighties I grew up with the original GI Joe cartoon series and to this day still read the comics. Other than the original title on the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) I have even played every video game title released for the franchise. Very few forms of media have captured my attention or devotion like GI Joe has. Several months ago I learned that this game was going to be released and reached out to GameMill directly to see if we could cover the game using a review copy and they graciously agreed.

Expectations

Having played the other GI Joe titles I was expecting a simple game with very linear levels using the likeness of some of my favorite characters. What we got was something entirely different.

Reality of this GI Joe Title

The levels are mostly linear but with a bit of room for exploration. Collectibles hidden throughout the levels means you’ll have some replayability but not enough to overcome the monotony of some portions of levels. The characters and story look like they straight out of the comics. The story is very linear but focuses on both sides of the war, not just the good guys. This game is far from simplistic too. Even on the easier difficulties expect to die, a few times per level. This game is not your typical walk in the park, in fact I know seasoned gamers that commented on the difficulty level. My advice to you is to start on the lowest difficulty and replay on the higher difficulties. Replaying the levels on the higher difficulty will allow you to use built in level modifications and have a much easier time on the level. The best mods are those that give unlimited ammo or bigger shields.

The Breakdown

This game has the look and feel of the comics, as if it was written by Larry Hama himself, and has the world mechanics to cater to nearly every game style. If you are a fan of GI Joe or of a challenge then this game is a must play for you. (Editor’s note: The fact that this game was provided for review had no bearing on the thoughts/opinions expressed here.)