Posts Tagged ‘Steam’

October 16th, 2013 Featured, PC, Reviews 1 Comment »

Cook, Serve, Delicious! Review

Cook, Serve, Delicious! Boxart

Developer: Vertigo Gaming
Publisher: Vertigo Gaming
Platform: Android, iOS, PC – Desura, Direct, Steam (Reviewed)

For some reason, I’ve always had an affinity for games that have to do with food. Whether it’s BurgerTime, Cooking Mama, or Ore no Ryouri there has always been something uniquely appealing about them. It seems developer Vertigo Gaming shared my passions because in the early 2000s they released Ore no Ryomi 1 and 2. These two titles were fun, if simplistic fan games. In 2012, after serious growth as a developer, they published Cook, Serve, Delicious! This title blows basically all other cooking games out of the water.

Cook, Serve, Delicious! Screenshot 1

You begin the game as the owner of a brand new, and quite frankly, unappealing restaurant. The location gains customers primarily because of being situated in an office complex rather than word of mouth. With a zero star establishment under your name, it’s up to the player to get it into shape and eventually make it all the way to a five-star restaurant. Although you’re the boss, this is not a simple management simulator. In fact, most of the gameplay takes place in the kitchen.

Players must cook all the food that customers order! After selecting the food you want to serve for the day, you must sit behind the counter and wait to serve guests. As they pile in, they rattle off their food choices and the player must get to work preparing them. With an item selected, you have to choose all the proper ingredients and then serve. For example, if someone asks for chicken noodle soup then you’d better make sure to put chicken, noodles, and the like into the soup before cooking! Adding and interacting with food items (in the PC version) can be accomplished via mouse clicks or keyboard shortcuts, but keyboard is definitely the way to go.

Keyboard is suggested because things get incredibly hectic almost from the get go. There is often a steady stream of customers popping in, but things get even worse during rush hours. At these times, you’ll see all your prep stations fill with waiting orders that you want to fulfill. It’s possible to ignore orders, but then customers will leave frustrated and not return. Some food items are super easy to prepare such as corn dogs, but others require real attention. After a while though, you’ll likely start to memorize the various keyboard presses for different food items.

Cook, Serve, Delicious! Screenshot 3

Because keyboard play and quick reading is basically integral to being successful at Cook, Serve, Delicious! it is not a game suggested for young children or anyone with various hand/wrist strain injuries. It would also definitely be hard for those who type using the “hunt and peck” method but could actually help them memorize letter locations. As for me, my average WPM fluctuates between 90-110 and there was still a learning curve to become skilled at hammering out orders. With that said, the layout is mostly genius because many food item keybindings are directly related to their name. For example, to add bacon you type “B”. It is also possible to change most of the buttons if you need to.

Okay, so food is hectic to prepare and serve but also a lot of fun. Serving customers perfect meals makes more visitors arrive next time. With more meals served, your restaurant generates more money. And with more money you can buy a host of goodies for the business. There are many recipes to choose from, equipment to aid the player, and you can even place bets on how well you expect your next performance at work to be. Money is integral and easy to burn so manage it well!

After a while, new opportunities pop up. First, there is the ability to cater events. This is one great way to make money on the side. Many other, increasingly odd, avenues of play appear as well. It’s these concepts which expand beyond purely “cooking food in the restaurant” that make Cook, Serve, Delicious! and even better game. It just seems like such a vast product which is weird when simply looking at it at face value.

Cook, Serve, Delicious! Screenshot 2

The game is deep and will last a while. Even after all this discussion, there are still neat mechanics at play such as ratings on menu items that affect you in positive or negative ways. Then there are the e-mails you get daily that range from helpful to just plain awkward. Then there are the silly touches such as the names given to specialty menu items (such as “cheesy leaves” for a cheese-covered salad). Visually, it’s easy to see the attention Vertigo Gaming gave the title. Food looks routinely delicious with its cartoonish depictions and overall everything just seems pretty polished.

As for issues, it can be tougher to do certain menu items because they require a hand to move from the main portion of keyboard to arrow keys. Yes, these bindings can be changed, but it would have been cool to see an alternate layout available by default. Otherwise, it can be hard to make one that works well for yourself. I’ve ended up looking through the Steam Community of this game for one. It would also have been appreciated to see multiple difficulties available. I understand that the game is meant to be hectic, but it is probably nearly unplayable for those who have less than ideal keyboarding skills. An option to tweak speed, or disable rushes entirely could go a long way.

Bringing up these points is important to me because Cook, Serve, Delicious! is an excellent game that could easily attract attention from gamers of all types. It is far from the “casual” experience that supposed hardcore gamers ignore, and yet, non-gamers could even get into it. Having read comments from players so far it also seems that fans of different genres have still gravitated to the simple fun of playing this title. Cook, Serve, Delicious! is a seriously fun way to spend some time and I recommend anyone who has had their curiosity piqued to check it out.

Score: 4.5

4 1/2 out of 5 alpacas

Review code provided
About our rating system

October 15th, 2013 Featured, PC, Reviews 2 Comments »

Unholy Heights Review

Unholy Heights Boxart

Developer: Petit Depotto
Publisher: Active Gaming Media Inc.
Platform: PC – Playism, Steam (Reviewed), Xbox 360 – XBLA

When you first look at Unholy Heights it seems like an adorable version of SimTower. After all, it appears to have some of the same gameplay based around increasing your tower while providing adequate housing for tenants. Once actually playing the game however it is quickly revealed that Unholy Heights is far more devilish than its cute chibi artwork lets on.

In the game, players are the Devil. But instead of wreaking havoc, eating people or something generally evil, the Devil simply focuses on creating a monster-only housing unit. You take the executive role of letting new tenants into your rooms, redecorating said rooms to please your customers/attract new ones, and slowly expand the building to increasing heights.

Unholy Heights Screenshot 1

This is no easy task, even for the Devil. It’s a hard life for monsters which means human adventurers, townspeople, and heroes will routinely come to harass them. Sometimes, this leads to your customers being killed and other times they simply steal money. In either case, this is where Unholy Heights requires players to think strategically and fight back! If a tenant is home, you can summon them from their room to have them fight against the invaders. Each monster has their own health bar and they can be sent back home if it gets too low. Otherwise, the poor little monster will get killed.

How do you make sure your monsters are tough and healed? A monster’s attack and defense levels are based on their happiness levels. If they’re stuck in an ugly old room they won’t be happy at all. However, if you heed their requests and buy them what they want then they’ll have increased power. If and when the monster finds a mate and has a child, that child can benefit and be born with higher default stats than the parents. Unfortunately, there are some odd issues with monster happiness. The main one is that monsters have biases against other monster types and therefore won’t ever be completely happy if they share the building with one of those types. So far, I have found no way to counter this aside from restricting certain monsters housing.

Unholy Heights Screenshot 2

Battling is easy enough to understand but taking out enemies efficiently can be pretty tough. You’ll have to develop strategies to attack because each monster type has their own range. You have to unleash them in the proper order to make maximum use of ranged attacks. Secondly, it’s often useful to surround the enemy on both sides, or even crowd them by the stairwell (once you have a second floor). When there are a lot of enemies, it can be hard to tell who your monsters are. Sometimes I left tenants to die simply because I couldn’t distinguish them in the line of my monsters and enemy humans. Every so often, the game would also refuse to accept my click to send one back to their room. It’s likely this was caused by characters overlapping but is an annoying way to lose a character.

In order to build new apartments the player must first have enough money for each successive floor. The best way to gain money is by doing quests, but they increase in difficulty quite fast. Some of the best strategies for generating powerful monsters are ones you must devise yourself since Unholy Heights never goes to great effort to explain them. Basically, players should take things slow by cultivating strong children instead of immediately rushing through each mission. If you don’t, things quickly become rough and you have to hang back for a while anyway.

Unholy Heights Featured

Even though the game is quite tough it is still a lot of fun. Primarily this is due to the simplistic nature of the game as well all the charm it exudes. The graphics are adorable and so are the little bitty monsters who inhabit your building. Funnily, the translation is good but perhaps raunchier than would be expected. Items such as erotic cakes exist to make your monsters mate, and at times, the monsters will spend their free time in humorous ways. Definitely check out what they’re up to from time to time for a laugh.

Make no mistake, this is a difficult game. Still, the easy to understand gameplay, graphics, and music help make it a tremendously charming experience. Definitely give the demo a look to see if this is the kind of game for you. It’s also very fairly priced at $4. Normally I wouldn’t care about a strategic apartment sim but I’ve found myself adoring the vast majority of Unholy Heights.

Score: 3.5

3 1/2 out of 5 alpacas

Review code provided
About our rating system

October 11th, 2013 Featured, Previews No Comments »

Early Access Preview: The Dead Linger

The Dead Linger Preview Boxart

Developer: Sandswept Studios
Publisher: Sandswept Studios
Platform: PC (Steam)

If there’s one trend that has been seeing major success over the last few years it is wedging zombies into every game humanly possible. From adding zombies into a special mode of Call of Duty to having zombies fight against gardens in Plants vs. Zombies, we’ve seen them become quite the stale enemy type. With upcoming games such as The Dead Linger though it is obvious that some companies want to make zombies back into the fearful creatures they used to be known as.

The Dead Linger is a game that is currently in alpha and available through Steam Early Access. It has been in progress for months now but just came to Steam in late September after a huge shift to the Unity engine. Because of this, it appears that updates to gameplay have been relatively minimal but are about to pick up speed again. Thus far, they have stuck to their commitment of bringing out new updates every two weeks. This preview is based on Build 10 (hotfix 10g).

Despite all these updates and fixes, there is still tons lacking from the game. Considering this is not even a beta yet it does make sense, but will likely turn off those who aren’t aware of what the term “alpha” really means. This is already evidenced by some comments on the Steam Community forums. Of course, the game is currently being sold at a higher than usual price of $20 makes some of their anger understandable.

The Dead Linger Preview Featured

How does The Dead Linger play if you were to buy it right now? As it stands, there is a ton of work that obviously still needs to be done. You are thrust into a large map in either single or multiplayer and then must go around scavenging for food and weapons, finding suitable buildings to hunker down in, and possibly interacting with other players. With that said, none of these mechanics are fully fleshed out yet. You can find food and eat it, but weapons are a whole different story. Whether you’re equipped with a plunger or rifle in multiplayer you won’t be able to damage zombies! They just stand there (sometimes gliding around with no leg movement) and gnash their teeth at you.

This is a really unfortunate issue because they do fight in single player. But with them completely harmless in multiplayer there is currently no reason to even play that mode. When checking out a server myself, I saw people just standing around or sometimes chatting. There just isn’t any reason to scavenge to survive when there’s no threat! Once the zombies are reanimated in a future update then they’ll have a much more presentable game project.

Although the game doesn’t look fantastic currently there are various players who have complained about framerate issues. It seems the best fix at the moment is turning down/off grass but this is likely a silly issue in development that can be resolved. After all, in the case that zombies do end up chasing you, the last thing anyone wants to deal with is a game suddenly running slow. As for the overall experience, there are many times the game crashed or caused other odd issues. This is expected of an alpha product and will hopefully be smoothed out through the beta.

The Dead Linger Preview Screenshot

So far, Sandswept Studios have shown that they have many great goals for The Dead Linger. This is apparent by checking out their development roadmap. It is absolutely filled with neat-sounding (but currently un-implemented) features. They want their zombie simulation to be as realistic as possible which is why they are currently working on various systems related to character stamina, health, infection level, and hunger. Of course, many gameplay improvements are also in the works related to functionality of various gun or melee types as well as interactive vehicles.

Jumping into The Dead Linger in its current state is not suggested for the average gamer. After all, you are not paying for a fully released product but something still working itself into a playable form. The main reason to buy now is to support independent developers such as Sandswept Studios. That, and, buying now is $10 cheaper than buying once the final version is ready. There’s no guarantee with purchase that the game will ever be exactly what you want it to be, but the developers definitely have some great ideas in mind. We’ll have to wait and see if they can live up to their own goals.

October 4th, 2013 Featured, PC, Reviews No Comments »

Omegalodon Review

Omegalodon Boxart

Developer: North of Earth
Publisher: North of Earth
Platform: PC (Desura, Direct, Steam)

There are a few things I’ve always really wanted to do in games. One is to get to be a serial killer in a cheesy horror movie-type title and another is to be a rampaging dinosaur. As you might guess from the title, Omegalodon fits into the category of “rampaging dinosaur” (or at least some sort of giant fish-reptile hybrid). The question is if it can stand up as a worthy experience.

When first playing Omegalodon, I was incredibly confused as to what to do. Judging by the Steam forums, this seems a somewhat common response from new players. If you take the time to read any user-created guide though you’ll see things are pretty simple. You can play on the side the giant monster or with the police and army who are trying to stop it from destroying the city. If you join monster team then you can either inhabit the actual omegalodon (only one per game) or be an enviro. Enviros are trying to preserve this rare species and have healing powers.

Omegalodon Featured

Of course, the army and police units exist to stop it at all costs. They can hop around in a variety of weaponized vehicles and attempt to stop further destruction. Unfortunately, they can also engage in shooting each other which is what some games devolve into if nobody play as the monster. You can always tell who is on what team by opening up the map and checking the color of their location marker.

So the game is actually quite simple. But even so, there are not many people playing right now. This is the same issue that befalls a lot of indie multiplayer releases. I have encountered two kinds of regulars so far. One group was incredibly rude to newbies and the other appeared to be a group of children who were having fun roleplaying rather than sticking to the army/soldiers vs. monster gameplay.

When no one wants to play the game “properly” it’s hard to get a feel for how it is actually supposed to play out. When inhabiting the omegalodon, his health decreases fairly fast too which makes it hard to do too much before dying. Overall, it does seem like a game that needs a bit more structure more to feel like a fleshed out title. That, or simply needs more players who can make a match exciting. I’d like to have a good match myself, but after hours of trying, have yet to really hit it off with Omegalodon. If you’re committed to playing, make sure to rope in a few friends as well.

Score: 1.5

1 1/2 out of 5 alpacas

Review code provided
About our rating system

October 3rd, 2013 PC, Reviews No Comments »

Doorways: Chapter 1 & 2 Review

Doorways Boxart

Developer: Saibot Studios
Publisher: Saibot Studios
Platform: PC (Desura, Steam)

In the past year or so, it seems that many indie developers have been doing nothing more than riding off the successful formula of Slender. Although the Slender Man mythos itself follows a whole host of “serial stalker” tropes to begin with, many developers have latched onto the design as if it were the only way to make a horror title. Of course, it’s not, and we have a whole history of games within the genre to prove it. I say all this because Doorways does not follow that safe (and frankly, tiring) path and instead charts its own course toward creepiness.

Read more »

October 1st, 2013 PC, Reviews 1 Comment »

Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller – Season One Review

Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller Boxart

Developer: Phoenix Online Studios
Publisher: Phoenix Online Studios
Platform: Mobile – iOS, PC – GOG*, Steam, etc

Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller is an episodic point and click adventure series which just concluded its first season. It took Phoenix Online Studios about a year to pump out all four episodes, but now that it has concluded we can finally assess how the full product stands against adventure gaming competition.

Read more »

September 30th, 2013 PC, Reviews No Comments »

Ironclad Tactics Review

Ironclad Tactics Boxart

Developer: Zachtronics
Publisher: Zachtronics
Platform: PC

What happens when you mix the tension of the American Civil War with robots? Well, you get something like Ironclad Tactics. As strange as it may seem, developer Zachtronics have managed to pull off the unusual premise with their own brand of complex gameplay. Played as a tactical, turn-based card game it’s quite the unique title. Being unique isn’t necessarily a qualifier for a good game though, so let’s examine it in more detail.

Ironclad Tactics is played via decks of cards and a battlefield grid with opposing forces on each end. The player utilizes robots known as Ironclads, but also is able to use human troops and stat modifiers as well. All of these tools are summoned via the cards, which are pulled from the selected deck. At the start, there’s not much deck-building to do – you must successfully complete battles to unlock more.

Ironclad Tactics Screenshot

As turns progress, action points are accumulated. AP points are necessary to use any cards as each has its own AP score. Weakling Ironclads cost a measly 1AP while other, more powerful tools are far pricier. Keeping an eye on AP is important as it replenishes slowly. As each turn progresses, you gain AP back, but that also gives the enemy another turn to advance forward. As the decks draw cards randomly, moments of watching the AP meter refill can be intensified further by waiting for the “right” card to be drawn.

If you’re now interested in giving Ironclad Tactics a go then be prepared for some tough fights. This is one hard game. No, it isn’t as outwardly complex as Zachtronics’ previous SpaceChem, but it’s still tough. Without the right deck you just won’t survive. Similarly, puzzle matches (which require you to use a specific deck) can be difficult too as the decks are unfamiliar. Managing your troops against an onslaught of enemies is fun but expect to deal with a lot of retried stages unless you’re a maestro of all card-based games.

With that said, there is a lot of charm infused into the game, making it more than just a basic digital card game. All cards are rendered on the playing field in a cartoony fashion. Between battles, the story is told via comic panels. The art is gorgeously colored although the art style manages to create awkward faces for some characters. Regardless, it helps showcase the effort put into this product which is better than average.

Ironclad Tactics Featured

Unfortunately, likely because of low publicity, there are not many players online if you want to hit up an online skirmish match. The Steam Community forums reveal there are some, but you basically have to befriend them in order to give the mode a try. That, or make sure your friend grabs a copy as well. This isn’t the fault of the game though so much as it is a typical issue with any online component of indie games.

Ironclad Tactics is definitely not for everyone. First, you have to be interested in thinking strategically while playing. Secondly, you have to be able to grasp some basic card game concepts. The main thing though is being persistent and also willing to experiment with new decks. If you’re willing to do all that while playing a single game then go forth!

Score: 3

3 out of 5 alpacas

Review code provided
About our rating system

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

About our rating system

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

About our rating system

September 19th, 2013 PC, Reviews 1 Comment »

Hack, Slash, Loot Review

Hack, Slash, Loot Boxart

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.

Hack, Slash, Loot Featured

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.

Score: 3.5

3 1/2 out of 5 alpacas

About our rating system