Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ventuswings]

Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II

When I turn the game on, it freezes on the loading screen for two minutes. Menu is non-responsive as it takes all resources trying to process what I assume to be frames of animated background (which I can see is something blue).

Lesson to be learned is to not trust minimum requirements when it comes to mac ports, at least regards to this game.

Just so I can feel like I did something, I watched some playthrough; I can see VO and art looks good. As for the gameplay, I wouldn't have given accurate impressions anyway as I never played action games before the compare it with. 

[GentlemanRaptor]

Air Guardians

A Review Distinctly Bereft of Images

I'm going to be a bit less snarky in this review, mostly because I think that this game could, with some improvements, genuinely be great. That out of the way, let's get to it.

Now, while this game might at first glance appear similar to Ace Combat, it really is only a superficial resemblance. It has planes, and some of them are impractically oversized, but that's it. For one, the planes are not real-world fighters - they are futuristic, bulky-looking things, and I absolutely love their designs. One of the best parts of the game. The second big point of separation lies in the mechanics. There are only three weapons in the game: a minigun, seeker missiles, and dumbfire missiles. The seeker missiles don't track targets you lock on to - as there is no lock on mechanic. Instead, they seek whichever hostile they are closest to. This feels a little clunkier than Ace Combat, as it forces the player to manually track targets with the Mk. 1 Eyeball in order to finish them off. Ace Combat comparisons aside, here's what I like (and don't) about the game.


The Good

• Plane Art: The plane designs are just gorgeous.
• Flight mechanics: Enjoyable enough, and you don't have to fight the controls to win the game.

The Bad

• Ground textures: Just when I'd thought I had my eyeballs all fixed up from that Discovery game, I get stuck with this. They're bad, pixelated, and really make you want to avoid any low-altitude dogfights.
• The ammunition mechanic: Or rather, lack thereof. Not having to manage any missile ammo makes the game tremendously easy.
• The options: Or lack thereof. No graphical settings to speak of, and no way to invert the controls.

The Indie

• Voiceover: The game has very few voice actors, and it really shows. They aren't that great, either.
• Length: It's really short. Won't take any more than an hour or two to beat, tops.
• Story: Not all that compelling. No real character development to speak of (in fact, I'm not even sure that the player character is ever identified).
  

Now all that said, do I think it's worth your money? The answer is yes, but only because it's dirt cheap - currently $2.99. However, if you have a little more money to spend and are looking for something that hews closer to the original Ace Combat games you could try Vector Thrust, for $24.99, though I'd wait for a sale. It's not perfect, but I had fun when I played it. Just make sure to have a gamepad or a PlayStation controller handy.

[Krevsin]

Welp, I had most of last week all the way to saturday consumed by college stuff, so I did not have the time to do a video of this as I had originally planned. Here's the script, at least:

Frederic Ressurection of Music

Frederic Resurrection of Music is a music rhythm game in the vein of your Rock Bands and Guitar Heroes. Only with remixes of classical music.

Honestly, I wish this game had a peripheral since emulating a piano with the keyboard is suboptimal.

Either that or I've really forgotten my piano lessons.

The plot goes thusly: Frederic Chopin is resurrected by something and must now travel the world to fight stereotypes in order to win something. I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention. Mostly because the voice acting in the cutscenes is really really, astonishingly bad. I mean in the 'ask one of your friends to say some things in the mic' bad.

Still, the art style on display is nice. Too bad the core mechanic will keep your eyes fixated on the central column where the notes are coming down from and not on the things going on in the background. Which is a shame because a lot of detail went into said backgrounds and I personally really enjoy the art style.

The core mechanic is simple and immediately recognizable if you've ever played a rhythm game. Hit the appropriate keys when they are at the appropriate spot with minor variations on that theme. I am really really bad at this sort of things so I kept losing on all but the easiest difficulties.

The game is short, only took me about 30-40 minutes to get through all the songs. Speaking of said songs, I quite liked the songs. They were nice.

In any case, Frederic Resurrection of Music is not a bad game if you're into music rhythm games. The art style is nice, the music is good and the central gameplay loop is tried and tested. If you can forgive the game its brevity and poor voice acting (and all the stereotypes) it's quite a lot of fun.

[Sappho]

Nearly done now! Almost everyone has submitted both their reviews. One more person did drop out for personal reasons, but too late for me to redistribute the games, so I'll keep them on hold for something else. There are two dorfs who have acceptable reasons to be late, and aside from those the only missing reviews are from bQt31 (Legends of Aethereus) and a1s (both The Stanley Parable and Virus Jigglin' Fever). I'm sure a1s will surprise us at the last moment with two really stellar reviews. I'm sure he didn't just grab the games and disappear into the night, laughing at our gullibility. I'm sure.

Tomorrow (if I can find time, Tuesday otherwise) I will choose some winners for best reviews in categories of my own invention, and they shall be awarded a very special honor.

[Tiruin]

Nearly done now! Almost everyone has submitted both their reviews. One more person did drop out for personal reasons, but too late for me to redistribute the games, so I'll keep them on hold for something else. There are two dorfs who have acceptable reasons to be late, and aside from those the only missing reviews are from bQt31 (Legends of Aethereus) and a1s (both The Stanley Parable and Virus Jigglin' Fever). [...]

I think you forgot me?

I've been having...time...uploading pics for my review!
==+==

Unofficial official Part 2 to my review of BoxesWithGuns: Screenshot edition.

I gave the game another try--reinstalling all 121MB on Steam (which takes quite long given my connection)--to get down to facts in knowing what certain aspects actually mean--given the total lack of a help guide, game manual (even in the folder there is no manual), or otherwise apparent information on how things work other than metaknowledge and visiting the Steam page.

The spoilers below are comparison views. Some of them are set adjacent to each other for better comparison over a couple-or-so seconds timeframe. It was worse on my eyes when played continuously:

Spoiler: This is the screen right after 'New Game'. (click to show/hide)

There's a lack of refinement with many features--the formatting of the info box, and that 'needless' glare that personally affects me.
This was taken in the span of ~7 seconds in between.

What isn't known upon playing the game are several different aspects:
> There's a timer in the lower left part of the screen. This is important in the screenshots section because it shows the difference over time given the many lighting effects happening. That timer corresponds to the total time the SONG is playing (which particularly helps when you shut off the music; you however have no control over what song is playing, and it seems to play from a direct set...all along the same genre of dubstep/electronic).
> That timer counts down; the 'effects' I mentioned earlier in my review still seems to have no effect in game. The flashing still occurs--all screenshots were taken with music/effects turned off.
> The gamma or lighting cannot be controlled, though it is assumed within the options.

Mental imagery helps play the game. I imagined I was a player in Counterstrike. Wearing an Oculus Rift. With flashbangs/stun grenades. It got me through. I tried to keep the mouse steady, but I noticed one crucial aspect of the game.

It uses patterns. I have sadly not been able to progress past level 1 due to the mechanics, however the pathing by the enemy-boxes are just like them playing Snake. Dodge one, dodge the whole line.

Spoiler: Gameplay Screenshots! (click to show/hide)

This one started just a tad bit after I pressed Continue, above. The game begins in a serene black background with a grid. I wished it stayed that way, personally.




The timers here are 1:09 and 1:05

Herein you see my 'life'! It's determined by how many boxes I have!


This is the center timer I've been talking about. I'm that tiny box to the side!

As a correction to my review: The game sadly didn't feel challenging at all. It has great ideas, but the implementation was not practical. It's not challenging not because its 'me playing on level 1'. It's because the difficult is not in the game itself--it's in the background and other details sprucing up the background, rather than facing the actual antagonist (being those snake-boxes running around).

I've also forgotten to mention that there are power-ups! I don't mind not knowing about them in advance, it's more that I have no idea what they do, and trial and error does not relatively help due to how they also mesh with the background. (they are those tiny spheres that don't move or try to kill you, and have an icon on them which has an assumed effect).

Rating stays the same due to programming effort.

Gonna make a post in a few hours for TheBlueFlamingo.
Sorry Sappho for the wait!

[Sappho]

No worries, Tiruin, and I didn't forget you - I count you as having an excuse for lateness if necessary, due to your internet situation. Looking forward to your second review though! And those screenshots... My god, I would cry if I tried to play that mess!

[penguinofhonor]

You're missing my second review, but it will be up today.

[Sappho]

You're missing my second review, but it will be up today.

Aha, yes, thank you. Missed that on my messy note sheet. Looking forward to it!

[BFEL]

And those screenshots... My god, I would cry if I tried to play that mess!

I cried just LOOKING at it.

[penguinofhonor]

I saw Teleglitch was a horror game so I decided to play it late at night for maximum effect. I then promptly fell asleep early. So here is my 10 AM review of Teleglitch: Die More Edition.

Before anything else, you're introduced to the setting: the planet Medusa, which has been quarantined due to failed military research. Pretty standard sci-fi horror setting. I then boot up the tutorial - the game is a top down shooter with 16-bit-esque graphics. You move with WASD and aim with the mouse. For the simple graphics, it's still very effective at setting up a claustrophobic atmosphere.

I get to the first shooting section, featuring some simple targets. My computer crashes. This is a bad sign. Oh well, I lost like two minutes of gameplay. I restart the tutorial and complete it without any problems - guess it was just a fluke crash.

Now I start the real game. Your character holed up on Medusa after the disaster waiting for help, but the planet got quarantined so obviously nobody came. He is out of food and has decided to make his way to the Master Transporter to escape. It is a powerful teleportation device that also happens to be the reason everything has gone haywire. The AI controlling the station is hostile and there are zombies and mutants running everywhere.

The game mainly consists of running through this abandoned military facility and fighting off zombies. There are panels scattered around that give background information about the facility and the people and experiments there. Overall the panels, level designs, and sound effects do a very good job making the setting feel mysterious and unnerving. At the end of the level there's a pair of teleporters where you can choose which of two levels to go to next, which is a mechanic I always like. I tried to go to the plankton farm but went to the military biology lab because the directions meant my character's left instead of my left. Oops.

There were a lot of zombies in the military lab, which made me consider the game's combat. While it's not bad, most of the tension seems to come from clunkiness. Enemies mainly run towards you and make zombie noises, though I'm sure there's more variety past the second level. Hitboxes felt kind of unclear, especially in melee combat, where I was occasionally unsure whether I hit an enemy or they hit me until I looked at my health bar. This didn't ruin the experience by any means, but I did get the feeling the gameplay would be more satisfying with more of an action focus.

Overall rating: pretty good, I'll probably play it again.

[GentlemanRaptor]

And those screenshots... My god, I would cry if I tried to play that mess!

I cried just LOOKING at it.

I retract any and all previous statements about my eyes melting out of their sockets. That's just awful.

[BFEL]

Tomorrow (if I can find time, Tuesday otherwise) I will choose some winners for best reviews in categories of my own invention, and they shall be awarded a very special honor.

OI!

[Sappho]

Sorry guys. I forgot I had to write student evaluations yesterday. I don't know if I'll have time today either, but I'll try. Sappho is a very, very busy person, I'm afraid, what with the two jobs and the evening classes. But I have not forgotten you and I promise I will announce the winners and their prizes as soon as I can! I need to find time to go back through and read all the reviews again...

[Sappho]

Great apologies, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone else, for my delay. I promise I shall make it up to you, and you're about to find out how!

Before we get to the awarding of honors and prizes, let's get a piece of unpleasant business out of the way:

THE HALL OF SHAME
a1s - Sent me a PM promising reviews of The Stanley Parable and Virus Jigglin' Fever nearly a week ago but they never materialized.
bQt31 - Did his first review, but failed to provide a review of Legends of Aethereus, much to all of our disappointment.
Tiruin - Did not one but TWO separate analyses of Boxeswithguns, but never wrote one about The Blue Flamingo. As the Boxeswithguns reviews were so in-depth, I'm inclined to be forgiving, especially as I'm aware her internet situation is not great - but I'd like to see at least a sentence or two about the second game. - Review submitted! Hooray!
10ebbor10 - Arranged in advance that his reviews would come late, so is not blacklisted as of yet, but is on hold until the reviews appear.

Also, woosholay and MonkeyHead both dropped out for personal reasons after the games were awarded. MonkeyHead's games were redistributed, but woosholay dropped out very late so his games have been set aside for future use.

Members of the Hall of Shame will be sent PMs to poke them and see if we can get those last reviews out of them. Sadly, even though I love each and every one of you like my own children, I'll have to exclude Hall of Shame members from winning any of the prizes out of fairness to the others.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting so patiently for, the creatively-named:

BEST REVIEW AWARDS

The Owes Me a New Keyboard Award goes to...
GentlemanRaptor for his review of Discovery! A Seek And Find Adventure
With an honorable mention going to Redking for Uncrowded.

The Flashest Review Award goes to...
choppy for his video review of Gauge, which set all our eyes to bleeding.

The SO DISAPPOINT Award goes to...
penguinofhonor for Mushroom Men: Truffle Trouble, which I was also hoping would be better than it turned out to be.
Honorable mention to JimboM12 for his disappointment in Stronghold 3 Gold.

The Face-Meets-Palm Award goes to...
MetalSlimeHunt for his in-depth analysis of Ship Simulator EXTREMES and how thoroughly it failed to work.

The Braves Little Fool Award goes to...
Sheb for, even after the prizes had been awarded and the reviews had started coming in, STILL volunteering to join in and review the just-awful Naninights.

The Prettiest Pictures Award goes to...
Krevsin for his stunning images from Tidalis. I know he isn't the one who created the pictures, but he braved the bad game and took the time to find, photograph, and share these magnificent creatures of the game world with us all.

The I Know How To Play Now Award goes to...
BFEL for his detailed description of the mechanics of Transistor.
Honorable mention goes to Tiruin, who would have won but for the technicality of the missing second review.

And finally, the Dramatic Chord Award goes to...
Darkmere for his masterfully emotional descriptions of Evopullution and Sengoku.

And now for your prize. Each Winner of an award now has the opportunity to select, from my Steam library, one game that you would like to see me play and do a video review of. You may choose a cool game you'd just like to see played, or you may nominate a really, truly awful game that you know will torture me, and get your revenge for your suffering.

Once the nominations have been made, EVERYONE who participated in the giveaway and is not in the Hall of Shame will get a vote. Those with honorable mentions will get THREE votes. Once the results are in, I will make video reviews of the top THREE choices.

Winners, you may begin your nominations. Please do so as soon as possible so we can get the voting underway. I will also send this information to the winners by PM.

And now I cower in fear of the vengeance that will soon be wreaked upon me...

[Krevsin]

Well, I'm flattered you consider my amazing picture-taking skills to be noteworthy.

I was going through your game library and I noticed a familiar title whose demo I remember playing back in yon days.

Therefore I nominate Space Hack:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/315260