‘Reviews’

September 27th, 2013 PC, Reviews No Comments »

Gamebook Adventures 6 – The Wizard from Tarnath Tor Review

Gamebook Adventures 6 - The Wizard from Tarnath Tor

Developer: Tin Man Games
Publisher: Tin Man Games
Platform: Android, iOS, PC (Desura)

This post is part of the Indie RPG Bundle review collection

Many of us have “played” gamebooks in the past whether or not we called them by that name. Perhaps you played Choose Your Own Adventure stories or the Lone Wolf series. Whatever the case, Tin Man Games have been focusing on creating gamebooks for the digital audience and they do quite well at it. The Wizard from Tarnath Tor is the sixth in their Gamebook Adventures line.

The story focuses on your lead character, who begins the story stuck in a trap. You are saved by a wizard who then regales you with a tale about how he came to be there. According to him, he was a wizard from the great City of Tarnath. At least it was until it was destroyed in a rampage. This man asks for you to return to the city and fetch his wizarding tools because he senses that something evil has begun to take place there. And, of course, whether that is believed or not – that’s the journey you must undertake!

The Gamebook Adventure series pays great attention to keeping their games very book-like. Pages look realistic and page flips are animated as well. In a really useful move, you can also increase or decease the font size which is something that can’t be done with a traditional book. The Wizard from Tarnath Tor has a great deal of pages and choices to make along the journey.

As you might expect, it’s the choices that make these games the most interesting. After reading pages of text you are regularly presented with a new choice to make. Choices may reveal hidden objects, new dangers, or simply flesh out the adventure. Battles occur in turn-based fashion with dice rolls deciding the offense and defense of each side.

However, it seems something must have been amiss during its production because the writing does not stand up as well against The Siege of the Necromancer (the only other game in the series I’ve played thus far). No, it’s not necessarily the skill level because I was still curious to unravel the story. Instead, my eyes were regularly drawn to grammatical flubs. That, and the phenomenon of re-using the same word many times in a short span was also common. Even with these troubles, I still found the experience enjoyable.

Score: 3.5

3 1/2 out of 5 alpacas

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September 27th, 2013 PC, Reviews No Comments »

Iron Soul Review

Iron Soul Boxart

Developer: BluBee Games
Publisher: BluBee Games
Platform: PC
Review code provided

The ideas behind Iron Soul are great. The game is a mix of 3rd person shooter and platformer in a sci-fi future filled with robots. Developer BluBee Games even name-dropped MDK as one source of inspiration for their title. With that being the case, they have some big shoes to fill. But it doesn’t seem to reach that lofty goal, or perhaps MDK is just not that fun in the modern era.

Players interact with the game through a robot by the name of H-25. H-25 is equipped with a laser gun (to start) and able to jump pitiful distances before obtaining double jump. With that said, the bot does look pretty snazzy in its cab-colored paint job. In the beginning, players are simply tasked with following orders from omnipotent voices – presumably, one is your creator.

Iron Soul Featured

One thing that Iron Soul gets right is the visuals. It’s rare to see independent developers create fully 3D environments but that’s exactly what they’ve done. Once you get out of the lab, things start to look quite pretty as well. Robot designs are a little silly though as your main enemies are orb-shaped bots that either walk on the ground or zip about in the air.

So what brings this game down from being great? Despite the serious work on visuals, the world itself is hard to traverse during platforming segments. Super Mario 64 was not the first game to attempt 3D platforming, but it was the first time it was done well. Iron Soul falls into many of the pitfalls of a bad platformer. It is hard to tell where H-25 will land! Thankfully, most platforming segments are brief, but they can be incredibly painful.

Firefights suffer as well, unfortunately. Perhaps in regards to keeping this game “authentic” to older PC titles, there is no automatic cover system in place. You can cover, but it requires pressing CTRL twice by a wall. This adheres you to it, allowing you to pop up for shots. With this half implementation of a feature it adds more annoyance to fights than there needs to be. After all, you just want to run into cover, not focus on making sure you’ve set it up right.

Iron Soul Screenshot

 

Shootouts are also usually not massive but they can be incredibly annoying as well. For example, an early boss fight features an enemy with an instant kill laser attack. It’s easy to dodge if you can see it coming. However, little enemies will scatter behind you, making you need to face them to shoot. Doing so turns your back to the big enemy though leaving you entirely prone to unexpected laser deaths. Overall, fights are more frustrating than fun, but at least health is plentiful.

This is such a shame because Iron Soul looks great. It just feels bogged down with the worst aspects of older games. There’s nothing wrong with chasing a hard, authentic experience (see another game with the name “Souls” in it) except when it will primarily alienate the players. With that said, Iron Soul may find an audience thanks to fairly good (and unintentionally campy?) writing that is marred by oddball voice actors. There’s something to the game that is intriguing, but you have to get through all the frustrating bits to see it.

Score: 1.5

1 1/2 out of 5 alpacas

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September 26th, 2013 PC, Reviews No Comments »

Unemployment Quest Review

Unemployment Quest Boxart

Developer: Charles DeYoe
Publisher: Charles DeYoe
Platform: PC (Desura, Direct)

This post is part of the Indie RPG Bundle review collection

Chances are there’s probably been a time in your life when you’ve found yourself struggling for work. For me, the struggle is current and not something that should be desired by anyone. At the very least I’m lucky enough to have a place to call home until luck finally strikes. So maybe it’s because of my current state but I found Unemployment Quest to be quite a neat and unique title.

You start the game as a young guy who has apparently survived college but can’t find work anywhere around town or even at the mall. Some of his friends have found work and it seems only the main character is left out. Day after day, he must return home to his parent’s house to confront a supportive but disappointed mother and outright annoyed father.

Unemployment Quest Featured

So how does this factor into a video game form? You see, the player must battle those he wishes to give a resume to, and battle for increasing confidence (and gaining money). The fights are much like a typical JRPG and the art style meshes with this. It looks much like a 16-Bit game even if it has some different thematic elements at play. Leveling up helps a lot with fights but still doesn’t seem to change the mood of prospective employers.

In a way, I appreciate the commitment to making job acquisition an impossibility for most of the game. However, because of that, it seems silly that money is so easy to come by in the game. For a while you’ll be stuck broke, but soon enough there are treasure chests that start popping up with gratuitous amounts of money. Real life doesn’t work that way although I sure wish it did! Of course, the money is needed for buying new items a la every other RPG out there.

Once you get past the few iffy points like that, Unemployment Quest is definitely worth checking out. It’s cool to see the various ways the typical JRPG world was tweaked to service a story about the incredibly relatable task of looking for a job.

Score: 4

4 out of 5 alpacas

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September 25th, 2013 PC, Reviews No Comments »

The Wizard’s Lair Review

The Wizard's Lair Boxart

Developer: Magicbane
Publisher: Magicbane
Platform: PC (Desura, direct)

This post is part of the Indie RPG Bundle review collection

Roguelikes, roguelikes, roguelikes! It seems like that’s all coming out of the indie scene at times. Of course it’s not, but there are certainly a great deal of them coming out recently. The Wizard’s Lair is definitely another roguelike, but it’s pretty fun, even if there’s little to differentiate it from the hordes of others.

In this game, you are a little adventurer heading through a multitude of dungeon floors. With no knowledge of the layout, the world around you is completely black. This fog of war dissipates once your character moves close, but by then, there might already be a swarm of monsters ready to burst out of the darkness. There’s little you can do at that point though other than to point your measly sword at them before being overrun.

The Wizard's Lair Featured

As is standard of the genre, once you die it’s game over. After that there’s no time to mourn. Simply pick up another game with a brand new character. There are a great many sprite characters to choose from although they don’t appear to change your skills. Basically, all skills and equipment are generated by finding weapons, potions, and scrolls in the dungeon. As your inventory is limited there is only so much junk that can be carried at any one time.

Visually, The Wizard’s Lair seems to fall in the middle of roguelike graphics stylings. After all, there’s only so much one can do with the highly recycled premise of dungeon crawling for loot. Actually, perhaps that’s not a fair assessment with other roguelike games such as FTL existing. In any case the graphics are serviceable. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any music. There are sound effects though (which can be toggled off if you wish).

There’s nothing wrong with The Wizard’s Lair but it’s not particularly distinctive either. The nicest feature to me was instant compatibility with a 360 game controller. It also is a very fast game, making it easy to run through a few levels during a break.

Score: 2.5

2.5 out of 5 alpacas

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September 25th, 2013 PC, Reviews No Comments »

Foul Play Review

Foul Play Boxart

Developer: Mediatonic
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Platform: PC (Reviewed), Xbox 360 – XBLA
Review code provided

“All the world’s a stage” is a quote which well reflects the realm of gaming. Games themselves tend to be visually represented stories, often mimicking tricks used first from plays or films. But every once in a while we get a game that doesn’t eschew that fact. Instead, we get something like Foul Play in which the lead character narrates his story and then acts out memories through a stage play.

Baron Dashforth is a self-proclaimed “daemon hunter” as well as a gentleman. That much is evidenced through things like his top hat and mustache. Despite his supposed gentlemanly nature though we are tasked with making Dashforth brawl his way through copious enemies and stages. From a beginning in Egypt all the way to the hellish daemon plane, there’s a lot to see.

Fights themselves can easily become button mashing fests. In order to lessen this, developer Mediatonic chose to offer special challenges on each stage. There are three at a time and often ask players to either defeat enemies in a certain time frame, keep civilians safe, or destroy enemies in a certain fashion. Successful completion of all three grants the player a new reward. The hardest challenge to complete almost always ends up being the one that asks players to chain successful attacks in excess of 100 hits.

Foul Play Featured

What makes pulling off a 100+ combo difficult? Primarily, it is the controls but the visuals also play into it. For one, Dashforth is small and not particularly speedy. Because the game takes place on a “3D” plane, he can move into the foreground, middleground, or background. Getting from one side to the other is pretty slow, even after gaining a useful ability in the third act. With not enough speed, you can find yourself losing a chain simply because you can’t get to another enemy in time.

The art style also causes trouble. Many of the characters are the same skin tone as Dashforth and about his size. When they aren’t dressed up in costume, it’s easy to lose track of your character among them. Similarly, when a massive enemy (or group of them) appear, they can completely obscure the view of your character. Static objects become see-through when you’re behind them so why can’t the big baddies do the same? Then, when there are enemies clustered all over each other, it is simply easy to not notice one is prepping an attack that will break your combo. Dodging and blocking is very easy and quick, but you can’t dodge effectively if you can’t see what’s coming!

Foul Play Screenshot

Players can enter into Foul Play solo or engage in local or online co-op. When in co-op the game makes more sense. This is because story scenes feature both characters and then have the second disappear once the single player resumes control. Perhaps the story itself isn’t that exciting, but it is able to offer some laughs along the way.

I did not much care for character designs, but that’s not to say the art as a whole is awful. This is not the case. The animation is smooth and the play aesthetic is used well. Heading to a new part of the screen often has backdrops being switched out, and new things hanging from wires off the ceiling. Similarly, enemies dress up as crabs, bears, and more and you can always see their face tucked into the costume. The concept of having the game be one big stage play is executed well thanks to the art design.

For as cute and silly as the visuals are though there is still work that needs to be done to tune up gameplay. It is easy enough to play but frustrating in other design areas. Even with all moves unlocked, it’s still hard to keep attack chains going far beyond 100. At times, it feels like a chore and that’s something you never want a game to become. Foul Play is one game that seems to emphasize style over substance. Pick it up if you and a friend absolutely adore brawlers and can run through the five acts together.

Score: 2

2 out of 5 alpacas

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September 24th, 2013 PC, Reviews 1 Comment »

Gamebook Adventures 2 – The Siege of the Necromancer Review

The Siege of the Necromancer

Developer: Tin Man Games
Publisher: Tin Man Games
Platform: Android, iOS, PC (Desura)

This post is part of the Indie RPG Bundle review collection

Before being part of a bundle, I have to admit I had never heard of Tin Man Games or their Gamebook Adventures series. However, after playing, I have found that The Siege of the Necromancer is an incredibly entertaining game and something I need to have more of in my life. Why is that? What exactly is a “Gamebook Adventure”?

If you’ve ever played with a Choose Your Own Adventure book then you’re likely familiar with the premise. In this title, you are presented with a long story, almost purely comprised of text (although images pepper some pages). As you read, there will often be choices presented which can lead to very different outcomes. The main goal is, well, to survive the adventure!

Siege of the Necromancer Featured

Gamebook Adventures 2: The Siege of the Necromancer starts you out in the middle of action. You and a band of a couple of men are seeking to survive rampaging goblyns. Things quickly go downhill, but you make it out alive. From there, you must explore and visit new environments on your travels. There are a great deal of helpful tools to find but, unfortunately, there are also a great deal of enemies standing in your way!

Battles are more interesting than the Choose Your Own Adventure books of yore because they actually play out more like a RPG. During a fight, you roll dice to set attack power or defense. Enemies roll as well and whoever has the higher roll will either be able to attack, or alternately, dodge an attack. It works out quite well and becomes tense as you watch the dice fall on-screen. Those who think the animation is too slow can also make it quick.

Beyond that, there are seemingly hundreds of choices to make throughout a single playthrough of The Siege of the Necromancer. Even after a successful playthrough there’s still so much left that you can easily give it another run. Put simply, the game is a ton of fun although most might not even consider it a “game”. It certainly makes me want to check out what else Tin Man Games has to offer!

Score: 4

4 out of 5 alpacas

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September 24th, 2013 Editorial, Reviews No Comments »

Ghosts in the Machine Review

Ghosts in the Machine

Author(s): Rollin Bishop, Andrew Vanden Bossche, Ian Miles Cheong, Shelley Du, Denis Farr, Ryan Morning, Maddy Myers, Lana Polansky, Ashton Raze, Matt Riche, Dylan Sabin, Alan Williamson, Alois Wittwer
Editor(s): Lana Polansky, Brendan Keogh
Purchase: Amazon, Gumroad, Lulu

Ghosts in the Machine is an intriguing anthology of short stories by a cast of well-known people in the games writing scene and artists. At least, they appear as figureheads of the communities I follow on Twitter. It’s likely the gaming “majority”, whatever that consists of, is less aware of those invested in critically discussing video games.

In any case, the stories aren’t necessarily all about games, but use them as the starting point. Game glitches, the things we all laugh at or get angry about, are what each story shares – although in very different ways. Because Ghosts in the Machine is a special sort of book, I’m going to try to give the review a conversational tone, responding to the short stories with my own thoughts rather than necessarily dissecting them.

Of course, a standard review will also be provided. Take a look at that if you don’t want to see my ramblings. Or read both! With that said, here is the review.

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September 23rd, 2013 PC, Reviews No Comments »

The Legend of Kyrandia Book One Review

The Legend of Kyrandia Boxart

Developer: Westwood Studios
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platform: PC – GOG*
Review code provided

It’s a shame we don’t see more adventure games in the modern era. Before FPSes and 3D landscapes became de rigueur for games, the adventure genre flourished. Here was a genre that gave players a view of vast creative, beautiful, or even disturbing landscapes that they were free to explore! Many classics came from that era. The Legend of Kyrandia series is not one of the well-known highlights from that time, but instead stands as a hidden gem.

In The Legend of Kyrandia Book One you begin your journey unexpectedly. Your grandfather has just been turned to stone by the power-hungry jester Malcolm. As a young man named Brandon, you seek to get your grandfather back to normal. Along the way, you come across multiple citizens who point you in the right direction, usually alongside new puzzles.

Puzzles are the make or break aspect for most modern gamers who try out adventure titles. Most modern ones feature easier puzzles or hints, but The Legend of Kyrandia is hint system free! A handful of puzzles require you to cycle through multiple attempts to figure out the proper solution. However, you can save at any point so it’s not very painful to retry puzzles. And unlike some games, you can never be stranded without a necessary item later on. No matter what, items will respawn if destroyed or you can backtrack to find them again.

The Legend of Kyrandia Featured

With that said, there are aspects of the game that are pretty hard to figure out without help. If you pick up the GOG release it comes with a PDF of the old Prima strategy guide. Although it doesn’t give you a point by point breakdown, it does showcase all solutions. It’s pretty handy, although many online guides exist too, such as this excellent one.

The game is not quite as fanciful as others of the time period, and it shows. For example, there are multiple areas to explore, but their forests are visually identical. Brandon even makes a remark about this. Funny as it may be, it doesn’t help the player to differentiate the landscape. Basically, you’ll need to create a map or use one someone else has drafted.

The Legend of Kyrandia Book One is a short and sweet adventure game with creative puzzles. When it comes right down to it, those are all the requirements needed to make an acceptable adventure game. It deserves some credit for never leaving a player without all required items, but isn’t quite as inspired as other titles. If you’re an adventure lover who has played all the big names but missed out on Kyrandia then go give it a shot!

Score: 2.5

2 1/2 out of 5 alpacas

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September 23rd, 2013 PC, Reviews No Comments »

Northmark: Hour of the Wolf Review

Northmark: Hour of the Wolf Boxart

Developer: Rake in Grass
Publisher: Rake in Grass
Platform: Mobile – iOS PC – Big Fish Games, Direct, Steam

This post is part of the Indie RPG Bundle review collection

Strategy RPGs are pretty popular but card-based counterparts are a bit rarer to come across. Still, when there are already such excellent card games out there such as Magic the Gathering it can be really hard to create something different. Northmark: Hour of the Wolf accomplishes making a sound card-based title without hanging onto other card games’ coattails.

The game begins with an attempted assassination. The kingdom of Northmark is in a panic because of it and you’re the one selected to basically carry out all their duties. Travelling from town to town you will come across helpful people, shops, and tons of opponents standing in your way. The only way to get past them is via fighting, of course.

Fights are when the game shifts into its card form. Both players select their warriors (cards themselves) and can then apply upgrades to them, as well as how they should be armed for attacks. You can tweak the fighters via cards which upgrade their defense, attack, and a number of other things. Weapon cards are used to actually fight the opposing cards, and all relevant information is weighed in order to see what attacks are successful and how much damage they deal.

Northmark: Hour of the Wolf Featured

It’s a surprisingly complex system and one that isn’t described very well by the in-game tutorial. Still, it’s not too hard to get a feel for it after a handful of battles. Between story mission, you can even jump into some prize fights to help level up your character and get more money. Said money can be used to pick up more cards for your deck.

Northmark: Hour of the Wolf also has some excellent presentation. The art looks great from the character models to world map view. Then there are the card designs themselves which look like they could be from a tangible product. Honestly, it’s surprising just how polished it is. The writing is a bit of a let down in comparison, although it has some nice snark about it.

Fans of card games will probably enjoy this interesting RPG-ized title. On the other side of things, those without a familiarity of card games in general should probably proceed with caution.

Score: 3

3 out of 5 alpacas

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September 21st, 2013 PC, Reviews No Comments »

Empires & Dungeons 2: The Sultanate Review

Empires & Dungeons 2 Boxart

Developer: Niels Bauer Games
Publisher: Niels Bauer Games
Platform: PC

This post is part of the Indie RPG Bundle review collection

RPGs have come a long way over the years. Most coming from Western publishers now seem to favor wide open fantasies with less interest in strategical planning. Still, others, mostly in the indie scene, cling to the minute specifics that made the genre so endearing to begin with. Empires & Dungeons 2: The Sultanate takes an interesting stance between the two. It is both “old school” but simplified for the modern player.

Players will first be greeted with a map of the current stage. It always shows the location of your castle, the enemy castle, the enemy themselves, and objects of interest on the field. These include resources (iron, wood, etc) as well as dungeon entrances. In this top-down world view you primarily seek out resources or dungeons while also keeping an eye on enemy movements. Resources are used to further strengthen your home base and help generate more, stronger armies.

Empires & Dungeons 2 Featured

Of course, if you want to get money and honor, you have to venture into dungeons alone. Dungeons are also shown from a top down view that is strangely confusing at first. Once you figure it out though, you can venture into different rooms within. Usually, there are enemies to fight although sometimes there are merchants and others willing to barter for items. Perhaps the best feature in this mode is that if you die there is little punishment. The gold won on that dungeon trip won’t be collected but that is the only result.

Perhaps Empires & Dungeons 2 could be considered too simplistic? Much of the play is simply devoted to clicking around the map for resources or spamming attacks in a dungeon. Although this is definitely a turn-based strategy RPG it is surprisingly light on strategy. The visuals are also like to be off-putting to many gamers. In fullscreen mode (the only option), the play screen takes up less than half of my 1920 x 1080 resolution screen. The frequent typos were also distracting. Still, there is some attractive gameplay worth looking past them for if you’d like to spend time with a less stressful RPG.

Score: 2.5

2 1/2 out of 5 alpacas

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