2021 has been an incredible year for the PlayStation 2 modding scene. The PS2 may be over twenty years old now, but the community around it is still quite strong. Earlier this year, MechaCon was dumped in full. This allowed […]
Developer: Monolith Productions, Nightdive StudiosPublisher: Nightdive StudiosPlatform: PC – GOG, Steam I first tried to play Blood years ago but failed due to extreme inability on my part. The game seemed way too tough to even survive the first level! […]
Director: Greydon ClarkWriter: Dana Olsen, Michael Spound I didn’t know quite what to expect from Wacko. Horror comedies are all over the place these days, but they were still a fairly new concept in the 80s. And like many 80s […]
Director: Michael Anderson Writers: Edward Abraham, Valerie Abraham I was recently introduced to Vinegar Syndrome. These purveyors of obscure genre films quickly caught my attention due to the fact that they released many films I wanted – and many I didn’t know […]
Director: Anthony Hickox Writer: Clive Barker, Peter Atkins Year: 1992 The original Hellraiser left quite an impression on me. Not only was it creepy, but it had a powerful visual aesthetic that stands up today. Years ago I watched the sequel and didn’t […]
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!
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!
4 out of 5 alpacas
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.
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.
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!
2 1/2 out of 5 alpacas
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.
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.
3 out of 5 alpacas
Developer: Rampant Games
Publisher: Rampant Games
Platform: PC
This post is part of the Indie RPG Bundle review collection
If you miss the feel of first person dungeon crawling then you might be initially swayed by Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon. It sets you off on a quest with four warriors as they trek around dungeons, collecting loot and facing monsters as they go. What makes this so different from other games of the genre? Well, for one, the crew are one odd bunch.
Perhaps the biggest way to differentiate this game from other RPGs is the effort done to give each character a distinct personality. Each of the teammates is unique and converse with each other regularly. Through these conversations players get to see how ineffective and ridiculous their team seems. Thankfully, they can perform their roles of attacking, using magic, or anything else effectively.
That level of uniqueness is unable to penetrate the rest of the game beyond some enemy designs. If you look past these features, then you’ve got a mostly by the book dungeon-crawler. One neat bonus are so-called Drama Stars which can grant you aid when it’s most needed (ie: reviving a party member), but that’s not a major tweak. Battles can be breezed through if you hammer on keyboard shortcut keys. This is convenient but unfortunately other GUI elements are less user-friendly.
It’s easy to see what Rampant Games were going for when creating this title. Although there is a definite amount of effort evidenced by the title, it would have done better to be backed up by more entertaining gameplay as well. If you can handle the grind, then it might be worth adventuring with the crew of Frayed Knights.
1 1/2 out of 5 alpacas
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.
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.
2 1/2 out of 5 alpacas
Developer: Nitesh Gupta
Publisher: Nitesh Gupta
Platform: PC
This post is part of the Indie RPG Bundle review collection
Do you like roguelikes? Well, you’d better if you choose to give Dungeon Fray a shot. That’s because this title follows the genre conventions pretty stringently. You begin the game as one of a handful of classes, then get to work clearing dungeons, collecting loot, and leveling up (or dying). So why is it that, as routine as the game is, that I can’t stop playing?!
With simple mechanics, Dungeon Fray is extremely easy to get into. There’s very little pretense here. You just select your hero and are plunged in the middle of a dark dungeon. Maneuvering around is simple, as is fighting enemies. All you’re required to do is bump into them to initiate an attack (Y’s anyone?) although you can also cast spells. Once they’re dead, you gain much-needed XP.
With enough experience your character levels up and that grants a free, much-needed health boost. Of course, you’re also collecting money from treasure chests and the like. With this you can increase stats (health, strength, defense) or choose to buy potions and spells. It’s important to improve your character but also maintain a healthy amount of items otherwise you’ll find yourself dying quickly.
Visually, there’s very little impressive about the experience. It has much less finesse than its brethren Hack, Slash, Loot, but somehow that quickly becomes a non issue. I prefer this game by far because it’s tough, but fair. You can always keep a close enough level to enemies by clearing floors, and there are a great deal of objects in dungeons to aid you. With easy to understand gameplay/controls and fast action, Dungeon Fray is the kind of game that compels players to go “just one more dungeon” (before playing many more).
4 out of 5 alpacas
Developer: Muteki Corporation
Publisher: Muteki Corporation
Platform: PS3, Vita (Reviewed)
Review code provided
Many genres fall in and out of favor over the years but one that has stood proudly throughout time is the RPG. Popular in various flavors across the world, the genre has produced some of the best known series’ in all of gaming history. Every once in a while you have one which attempts to poke fun at itself, but they’re not as common as you might think. Dragon Fantasy Book II attempts to inject a RPG with some much-needed humor.
This is evidenced from the very start when you are introduced to the hero Ogden. Instead of being a spry young male, he is instead a bald, bearded man. Although I did not play the original game, it doesn’t seem you need to. Players are easily ushered into the world and get going on their quest. However, players do begin with characters already leveled up somewhat to compensate for the first chapter.
The first thing that players notice (and what may attract them to the game to begin with) is the graphics. Dragon Fantasy Book II is made to look like a 16-Bit RPG that would be right at home on Genesis or SNES. However, the enemies seem more like Earthbound creatures sometimes with a man in a shark suit and rocks with pirate hats in just the first area.
One interesting feature of the game is that the battles are not random. Instead, enemies can be seen on the field at all times, meaning you can sometimes avoid them. This is mostly just a technical truth though because most of the time pathways are so small you won’t be able to avoid an enemy. Other times, they will jump out of the bushes and initiate a fight themselves. There’s a dash of Pokemon in the gameplay too as you can catch weakened enemies and add them to your party.
Unfortunately, there is one gameplay based problem that is continuous. After walking into a new screen (area, building, etc), if you continue to press in a certain direction that direction will not function upon entering the new area. If you let go and then press the direction again it will work, but there’s something odd going on to keep it from being mapped initially. The issue is not game breaking of course but is annoying when all you want to do is hammer up to hurriedly run through an area. In an area that is sure to annoy writers, a fair amount of the text also features typos.
I played the game on Vita because that’s where it seems the best fit. It is suited easily toward quick bursts of play since you can just fight through a few crowds of enemies before pausing. The game also happens to be fully playable with both controller buttons and touch screen. Using the touch screen actually is my preferred way of navigating the big button menus. You can move Ogden around the screen with it too, but my thumbs aren’t keen on hovering over the screen continuously, considering the size and heft of the Vita.
Dragon Fantasy Book II is a cute little RPG that packs a lot of gameplay value into the experience. It isn’t a very in-depth game or up to par with the best SNES visuals, but it’s likely it still will exceed expectations. If you like classic RPGs then give it a look. Just be aware that it is rough around the edges. Still, it’s hard to go wrong with a game that oozes an obvious love for RPGs of yore.
3 out of 5 alpacas
In the past, video game magazines were something I treasured. Unfortunately, it seems that all but the few biggest publications are still around thanks to print media losing a lot of steam. Game Informer, to me, is nothing more than a giant ad with three pages of redeeming content. But what of more industry focused magazines such as Game Developer?
Well, this one also bit the dust recently. But the promised sharing of all back issues has finally happened! Back issues from 1994 all the way until 2013 are available. That’s a serious amount of content to go through and I’m excited to check it out. One of the most interesting features of the magazine was that it was geared for developers so there is a lot of interesting industry and development talk that you don’t usually see otherwise.
If you’re interested in checking out some of the back issues yourself then here is the link to them all. Each issue is a PDF and can be viewed on the site or downloaded to your computer for later reading use. Considering they’re all free, I see little reason to not just download them all! But then again, excess is my middle name.
Developer: David Williamson
Publisher: David Williamson
Platform: PC
This post is part of the Indie RPG Bundle review collection
If you’re looking for quite the difficult dungeon crawler then Hack, Slash, Loot is likely up your alley. With a roguelike style, it appeals to the hardcore player but also anyone who has found themselves interested in the whole “die once – start over” mechanic. But this title isn’t a one trick pony. There’s so much to master that this game is likely to suck up hours and hours of time.
First, let’s start with the basics. You begin as a specific character class and choose the level you wish to undertake. In the beginning there are only three characters but there are a massive 32 in all. Each has their own skills and attack ranges. Of course that’s not all there is to it. There are a multitude of enchantments and the like which can be applied to your weapons, health, or defense. This is on top of the general stats of all your gear which you can change via new loot pickups.
Loot is one of the most important aspects of any dungeon crawler and it’s littered everywhere in Hack, Slash, Loot. You’ll find a great deal of potions around, but also new weaponry as well as boots, shields, and more. Oftentimes, loot is worse than what you’ve got already, but some is incredible! Try to trek around an entire level before venturing to the next to make sure all loot has been uncovered.
There is a definite learning curve to this game. At the start I was lost but also entranced to keep playing, death after death. This is due to the simplicity of play. More than anything, it seems like luck is the biggest factor working for or against players as they start out. Simple to understand gameplay paired with deeper concepts and an attractive pixel aesthetic make Hack, Slash, Loot a roguelike that’s incredibly easy to recommend.
3 1/2 out of 5 alpacas
September 24th, 2013 
