Youtube Review: The Neo Nerd

Hello folks, and welcome to the first of many Youtube Reviews!  Every Tuesday tune in to see my thoughts and opinions on various up and coming (no pun intended) channels for you to check out.  This week I’d like to reintroduce you to a very familiar, but also one of my favourite channels currently, The Neo Nerd.

Having started out very similarly to me with a blog, The Neo Nerd expanded into a full youtube channel earlier this year, and has grown to over 700 subscribers as of the time of this post.

What originally drew me to The Neo Nerd’s channel was the amount of really absurd, bizzare games he had in his library of videos.  Everyone has seen a million different posts of Five Nights at Freddys, or Call of Duty and all the usual Youtube roulette of popular games, so these odd, strange games were an amazing find for me to watch and explore.  Steering away from a lot of mainstream games makes the channel unique and helps it stand apart from the rest.

This one for instance is a little odd….

After getting through the strange, you’ll also find a great deal of great games that he has played as well.  Though The Neo Nerd doesn’t focus on full playthroughs, not doing so means there is a lot of variety to the types of games you’ll find.  From the odd and quirky games like Facade (above) to awesome games like This War of Mine (one of my favourites), to epic survival games like Ark:Survival Evolved.  There’s going to be some game here that connects you the viewer, and The Neo Nerd.

Though the channel is still relatively young, there has been vast improvements to both audio and video quality from his early videos.  Opting for edited Let’s Plays, The Neo Nerd does a pretty consistent job of keeping the videos moving at a fast and humourous pace to keep the viewer invested and usually laughing.  He also consistently puts a lot of effort into the thumbnails, and opening sequence to each video.  For this relatively new channel, you’ll likely be wowed by his opening sequence, featuring the expanding universe and a solid musical track.

The thumnails are equally well rendered, and are sometimes funnier than the videos themselves, with The Neo Nerd’s face cropped very well into a screenshot of whatever game it may lead to.

Everybody poops, some more than others.

Throughout it all, The Neo Nerd does regular fan appreciation videos, filled with highlights, or that literally draw inspiration from his followers.  His Draw Your Tweets videos are easily the most genuine on the channel, and garner a good deal of interaction from his followers showing their appreciation for the entertainment he provides.  Continued commitment to the fan base should help to continue to grow the channel in the future.

That all said, the range of content, the amusing collaborations, and The Neo Nerd’s genuine commitment to his followers leads to an overall quite entertaining channel.  I am very interested to see where the channel goes over the next few months, and what steps The Neo Nerd will take to maintain a unique feel to the channel, as he has so far resisted the great urge to fall into the usual tropes of many other Youtube channels.  Here is looking forward to what may come.

Stay tuned next week when we will visit another channel, and as always, make sure to comment and like below. Let me know what you think of The Neo Nerd’s channel, or let me know other channels you’d like reviewed!

More Youtube: Weird Wizard Dave, My First Encounter

Rewind Review: Earthworm Jim

Who’s going to save Princess What’s-Her-Name from a bunch of power grabbing mutants and a flying cow?  None other than Earthworm Jim of course!  This side scrolling Sega Genesis classic is hard to forget for anyone who’s played it.  Inspired by other classic games like Sonic, and popular comics and toy lines like The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, this 1994 release is a bizarre but great blend of both.

Wait are we underground or not?

Imagine your life as a simple earth worm, eating dirt, and avoiding feet during a rain storm, when suddenly a super powered suit falls on you, giving you the power to save princesses and fend off wave after wave of crazy mutants.  That’s the plot in a nutshell.  There’s no deep seeded reflection, or violent beginnings here.  Just enough exposition and explanation to get us started on an adventure.

It’s the quirky nature of the game that really helps this game stand out.  The levels are comic like and colourful, and full of enemies.  Most of these levels have a stranger, eerie, alien like subterranean feel to them.  You’ll encounter mutant frogs, birds, and grannies along the way.  Yes, mutant grannies.  With a rogues gallery that includes the likes of Queen Slug-For-A-Butt, Psy-Crow, and Major Mucus, you can imagine some of the artistic leeway the developers were given here.

Have a cow man

Gameplay here is really similar to another classic of the previous era Bionic Commando.  Jim’s power suit gives him the ability to think and act like a human.  Besides the usual running and jumping, Earthworm Jim’s suit also happened to come with a handy gun that can fire off several rounds in quick succession.  When in a pinch, Jim can take advantage of his still elasticity worm body to whip across the screen and grapple from point to point.  If that doesn’t work, he can blow his head up into a balloon and float down to platforms, or use the buoyancy to float up through water.

This side scrolling adventure is broken up by various different levels.  Some levels are basically rail shooters, where you have to pilot Earthworm Jim around on obstacles on increasingly ridiculous devices as you fire at enemies along the way.  One level in particular has you protecting Peter Puppy, a seemingly harmless pup with Jekyll and Hyde tendencies that often get Jim in trouble if he should happen to run into harm’s way.  These different levels break up the pace well, and keep you doing different things along the way.

What do you mean you’ve never seen an earthworm in a super suit riding a hamster before?

Boss battles are common to encounter at the end of each level, and are pretty classic patterned events.  They are of course set aside by Earthworm Jim’s overly clever sense of humour, and completely over the top villains mentioned earlier.

Wait. Is this really fair?

Consider among one of the best games to ever come out during the 16-bit era, and one of the best characters ever, Earthworm Jim brought a lot to the table.  Though later sequels would eventually show a decline in character, charm and gameplay, the original game still stands as one of the best.  With it’s quirky sense of humour.  Literally down to earth protagonists, and smooth easy to get into gameplay it’s very hard to argue.

Thanks for reading, and as always leave a comment or like below, and let me know what you thought of Earthworm Jim.

Check out last week’s Rewind Review too!

Ark: Survival Evolved: Early Access Preview #2

Welcome back to the next dive into Ark: Survival Evolved.  In this episode we will dive right into the core gameplay of Ark.  Though still only in early release, there is a lot of game here.

At it’s core, Ark is has the pretty familiar basics of any survival game.  Land on a seemingly deserted island and quickly find food and shelter to survive.  Early gameplay is fairly cookie cutter in it’s mannerisms, though Ark does add a few new ideas here.  Your first day however will still involve punching the heck out of a load of trees to collect wood and thatch.  You’ll also find other resources scattered around like stone and berries.  Stone acts like any other game’s stone, but berries add a somewhat unique add as many of them have special affects and become extremely useful in later gameplay.  Narco berries for instance can help keep fallen enemies asleep, or yourself if you accidentally eat them.

Pretty sure I can take him

You’ll have to juggle a variety of deadly statuses early on in the game.  The usual things like hunger, and dehydration are here, as well as managing the heat and cold temperatures.  All of these affects can lead to your untimely death, and that’s not to mention the very aggressive enemy A.I.  Death can come from any angle when you step across the path of both small and large carnivorous dinosaurs.  Though you can try to fight them, early on it’s always better to run.  Even the small Dilo’s can quickly take you down with their blinding poison attack.  Luckily the one way you can’t die is by getting stepped on by a Brontosaurus.  With the world’s full day  night cycle, and weather dynamics, death can be around any corner and you won’t see it coming.

To avoid early death it’s important to take advantage of the robust crafting system and also level up your character.  Experience is handled uniquely as it is dolled out in small amounts as you survive.  You can also gain experience by performing any actions in the world.  Gathering materials, crafting items, or of course defeating creatures all help you advance your level.

As your level advances it opens up points to be spent on both your personal stats as well as crafting engrams for which a new variety open up with every major advancement in level.  You can of course build shelters, equipment, clothing, as well as weapons and consumables to help you in your quest to survive.

Time to design some new duds!

Crafting opens up the next big phase of the game, capturing and taming your own dinosaurs and animals.  Every creature in the game can be tamed to be your personal conveyer of goods, extra combatant and most can be ridden if you have the right materials to build their saddle.  This is where the pace of the game stiffens right up though.  Capturing dinosaurs can be a massive endeavor, no pun intended.  Though the smaller animals and dinosaurs tame fairly quickly, larger beasts can take hours to tame.  After carefully knocking the creature out, you must keep them under with narcotics and the before mentioned narco berries, all the while managing their health and keeping them well fed.  Larger creatures like mammoths and stegosaurus can take days of in-game time to tame.  Though this makes each tame animal rewarding, the balance for more casual gamers is lost unless they can find a group that is willing to help in taming creatures for them.

Crafting also becomes tedious at higher levels.  Rather than adding more complex, or higher level materials to combine to create more powerful items, the game instead chooses to have you collect hundreds, upon hundreds of basic materials instead.  though this again adds accomplishment to each task, finding 240 hide to make a mammoth saddle felt very unrealistic, and entirely redundant.

After you are done collecting trophies.  You can also start collecting tributes, to summon creatures to be defeated for unique items at Ark locations throughout the island landscape.  So far this seems to be the available end game for you to build up for and start farming high end equipment and weapons.

Meet ‘Kitty’

With this game still in early access, I am impressed by the amount of content here.  Though the most fun parts of the game lack some balancing, if you can find a good team of players to play along this is lessened.  Low level players can still be useful by gathering mats and help building bases, regardless of whether they have the time to invest in taming high level creatures to their sides.   Hopefully as the game develops this balance will improve and offer more for each type of player to enjoy in game.  Till then I’m going to keep crafting hide pants.

Thanks for reading, and as always, make sure to comment and like below.  Let me know what you think of Ark: Survival Evolved.

Check out part #1 of this two part review here!

 

Kingdom Come: Update 0.4 Preview

It’s finally here!  Kingdom Come: Deliverance update 0.4 is here and with it comes our first taste of sword combat.  I have been really excited to see this update based off of all the talk about how much detail was planned for the sword combat system.  Let’s be honest, shooting a few arrows off at still targets was not nearly enough for me or any of you adventurers.

The new pretty map!

Let’s jump right into the nitty gritty.  This update allows you to partake in a one on one duel in a newly added mercenary camp.  A small wager gives you an opponent in 3 different skills levels to attempt to overcome.  You can also choose to go in your street clothes or gather some armour for more protection.  It also doesn’t hurt to put a small wager on the outcome for some additional funds.

Check out more video on Warhorse Studio’s YouTube page

Combat is controlled from the mouse and movement keys as expected.  You are given a target lock and are able to strafe around your opponent freely, moving in and out as needed.  You can control the angle of your attack with the mouse.  Rotating the mouse around will change your positioning as indicated by a star on your target.  Each time you do so, you get a sense of your balance shifting, and the weight of the sword in your hands.  Holding your sword drains your stamina, lifting and holding it above your head quickens this loss.  Each strike you take feels weighted and heavy.

Just give me the sword already!!!

Strikes can be parried by swinging your sword in the right direction in time with your opponent’s blows.  You can also use a blocking mechanic to avoid the hit altogether and try for a counter attack when your foe falls off balance.  Though it is difficult to master the timing, the movements and reactions feel very realistic. There is definitely a learning curve here over traditional games in the genre, which is exactly what Warhorse studios has been aiming for with Kingdom Come: Deliverance.  You’ll also notice the striking animations were are incredibly smooth and add even more realism to the combat.

Stay on target… Stay on target!

This update has also added more quests to try out, each with multiple ways to solve, and different outcomes.  We are also welcomed to a much larger space to explore and a new town with more people and dialogue to find as well.  Though in my opinion the towns still feel a bit empty besides all the chickens and sheep.  Warhorse has been able to add many more layers here, but the world still doesn’t feel quite as lively as it should.  Now that I have gotten a taste of combat however, I am dying to see more, especially in the form of larger scale battles, or potentially even sieges, though it is yet unclear if these will be included in a later version of the game.

As always, make sure to comment, like and let me know if you have tried the latest version of Kingdom Come!

Make sure to follow development on Twitter with the guys at WarHorse Studios

Make sure to check out my last preview for update 0.3 here.

Ark: Survival Evolved: Early Access Preview #1

Want to go epic?  Go Ark:  Survival Evolved.  One of the more recent entries into the survival genre, Ark: Survival Evolved brings one of the more polished early release titles to the fray.  This game of “large” adventure was developed by Wildcard, and is currently available on Steam in Early Access form.

I’m so pretty!

Like most games of the it’s like, Ark drops you into the thick of things, naked and alone, with only your fists to serve you along the way.  At first though, you’ll notice the incredible visuals.  Assuming of course your system can handle them.

On Epic graphics, Ark is beautiful.  The land is detailed and full of texture.  Water ripples against the wind, and the various weather affects set in quite realistically.  The sky ranges from clear, to overcast, to raining.  Fog rolls in amongst the valleys and hills.  In turn these effects also hinder your character in adverse ways.  Sunny days raise the temperature and cause you to over heat, where adversely the rain cools you off.   This is not to say of course that the visuals are perfect, this work in progress game is full of visual bugs and faults.  There are various clipping issues resulting in hilarious finds with creatures sticking out of walls or hills, or looking kind of obscene as they press up against each other in all the wrong ways.  There are also the whacky fun time trees that turn 2 dimensional and start waving frantically across your screen.

Though these small faults are funny and sometimes a nuisance they don’t break the game in anyway, and allow you to enjoy the unique survival aspects.  When you spawn you are treated immediately to the various prehistoric lifeforms.  There’s a fairly good amount of variety here with various types of dinosaurs wandering around.  For the most part these creatures are scaled fairly realistically and add to the Jurassic Park awe of seeing all these long extinct creatures go about their daily routines.

Hello little guy, wait why is the Theme to Jurassic Park playing?

The world is fully alive, and interacts not only with the player, but with itself.  Raptors roam the jungle, taking down prey in packs.  Sabertooths fight mammoths on the frozen hill sides.  The occasional Tyrannosaurus Rex might pop up and try to take out a Brontosaurus.   All of these NPC creatures act more or less as they should, and will react to the player’s presense around them.  Though the various herbivores will generally ignore you, don’t get too crazy and steal a stegosaurus egg and expect not to get chased down by angry parents.

The character creator is also fully purposed and allows you to create a wide variety of character looks.  From the normal, to the sublime to the outright weird.  You have a lot of control over how your character is going to look.  This means there are a lot of ugly characters out there unfortunately.

Optimization on all these graphics is still a work in process, and can vary from server to server once you add in lag and latency issues on top.  This can be a major detractor on the very full official servers, but can be avoided by finding a smaller unofficial server where the lag can be avoided.

That covers the look and feel of Ark: Survival Evolved, stay tuned in a couple of days when I dive into the gameplay and more detailed features of the game.

As always, don’t forget to comment, and like below, and let me know how your experience with Ark:Survival Evolved has been.

For amazing gameplay videos of Ark, check out The Neo Nerd, and The Flying Squirrel Girl on Youtube now!

 

Ghouls and Ghosts: Rewind Review

Welcome to Rewind Review, this week we are going 8-bit!  Let’s adventure into one of the best ports of the 16-bit era, Ghouls and Ghosts for the Sega Genesis.  Originally released in 1988 in arcade’s, the grueling hard platformer made it’s way to the SMS in 1989.  The sequel to Ghosts ‘n Goblins continues the saga of Knight Arthur as he fights off the undead in side scrolling fashion.

I don’t need no stinking armor!

Knight Arthur’s quest takes him through various eerie and quirky levels as he fights to release the soul of his love, Princess Prin Prin, captured by Loki among many other souls.  The usual left to right jumping and platforming from this point on are familiar traits, though there are several twists added in.

Starting off in a full suit of armor Arthur can fire various weapons in four directions to fight off skeletons, undead and yes of course, ghouls and ghosts.  As he takes damage pieces of his armour fly off, till you’re reduced to fighting in your tighty whities!  As you proceed through each level, you’ll find enemies throughout, as well as obstacles that need to be avoided through jumping, scaling ladders or the like.  Though the difficulty for the 16-bit version is also scaled down from the arcade original, there is still a lot of though areas, and precise jumping skills required to get through each level.  Not to mention of course giant boss battles at each level end.  These generally demand you hit a boss 4-6 times in a particular hit box while avoiding fireballs as usual.

I guess I had this coming….

You’ll find more layers to Ghouls and Ghosts in the form of various weapons and armour that can be collected, or bought in each level.  These items are hidden in chests, or secret doors that you activate by jumping in certain locations.  As an added bonus, some of these chests hold an evil magician who will fire a magic bolt at you once the chest is open.  get hit and look forward to spending several seconds as a helpless duck, or an old man with a cane.  These affects make you killable in one hit, but they don’t last long.

You can also call upon limited magical abilities to help you clear the screen of enemies.  These vary depending on the armor you are wearing.  Silver arm throws a blue wave in front of you, red armor summons fire to your side, and the ultimate gold armor gives you control over lighting itself.  These abilities are limited, and you need to bide your time before using them to avoid wasting them on only a few enemies on the screen.

Thor ain’t got nothing on me!

Ghouls and Ghosts consists of five levels with a sixth boss level, but just to add to the charm and difficulty, you’ll have to play through the first 5 levels twice before getting to the real ending.  You’ll also be tasked with finding the gold armor, and the only weapon that can kill Loki along the way before you can proceed to the final phase.  This is a good one to remind us just how hard games used to be.  Though the levels are not actually that long, the difficulty means you will spend hours trying to complete the full game, and get the true ending.

A very awesome full playthrough to enjoy, via SaikyoMog

This game became a great early example of how hardcore games could be ported and dumbed down in a sense for a broader audience.  The core of the game was still maintained very well, but Ghouls and Ghosts became open to a much broader audience after it’s arcade port.  It’s a situation that often vexes modern publishers that port, or re-release games to more modern technology, or to a bigger selection of consoles.  Ghouls and Ghosts still stands as one of the better conversions to date, and remains very playable.  It’s unique setting, simple but challenging gameplay and quirky humour stands the test of time extremely well.

As always, thanks for reading, and don’t forget to comment and like below, and let me know if you have tried Ghouls and Ghosts!

And while you are at it, check out last week’s Rewind Review

 

Subnautica: Early Access Review

Tired of punching trees and looking for rocks to build a campfire?  Then Subnautica is the survival game for you.  Subnautica throws you into a vast ocean full of dangers and mystery and tasks you with not only surviving, but finding out what went wrong to get you stranded there.

Well it could be worse…

As seemingly the sole survivor of your terraforming mission after an explosion sends your craft on a collision course into a planet with an endless ocean, Subnautica’s first objective is survival.  Like most survival games, you must quickly find resources to help you stay alive in the game’s varied environments.  The trick with Subnautica is that all of these environments are submerged which adds a unique twist to the genre.  Not only are you managing the usual things like thirst and hunger, you are also limited at first by your capability to carry an air supply below the surface.  This adds an extra layer of danger to your chances as each dive could be your last if you don’t time everything right.

Subnautica does a good job early on with making things seem both familiar but very alien all at once.  Set in the far future with advanced technology that can craft items in seconds with a fabricator, you are still made quite familiar with the basic components needed to craft these high tech items.  Throughout the ocean environments you will find various of these resources strewn about on the ocean floor, lime deposits holding various metals and minerals, salt deposits, corral, and other useful flora, and of course fish.

The beautiful sunset…

The animals of the ocean are where the alien concept of the planet first shows it’s colours.  The fauna of the planet are incredibly diverse and alien like.  They vary from small and fast fish, and uniquely useful Airsacks, which are very useful early on, and quite harmless, to large predators you need to avoid, to small exploding fish, to massive whale like creatures so big and slow corral has formed on their backs.  The fauna AI ranges from passive, to very aggressive, and the day and night cycle affects this nature as well.  Fishing for small fish at night for example may have you find several sleeping and easy to catch.

Once basic survival is covered, advanced resources like titanium and silicone will allow you to build both structures and vehicles.  As most materials can be very rare, with enough patience you can build underwater craft, and even submarines to help you search the ocean bottom.  Surviving long term means manufacturing parts to build your own underwater base via  a network of tube parts that you can connect together, and even draw oxygen to from the surface.   Later equipment even allows you to terraform the environment to you liking, or dig holes through ocean floor.

All the while in the distance stands the ship you arrived in, the Aurora, where the yet to be completed end game seemingly will exist.  Surrounded by radiation, and protected by massive mutated squid like creatures, the Aurora plays an integral part in the gameplay.  Not only is the ship filled with various high tech components to be grabbed once you have the right tools to do so, but it also affects the nearby environment.  The various radiation leaks in the craft result in regular explosions, which litter the ocean with components and larger explorable pieces of the Aurora where various components can be found.  It also seems like a bad idea to be too close to the Aurora when one of these explosions occurs.

Oh, my bad, things can get worse

It looks like we still have a bit of a wait to see what mysterious affect brought down the Aurora, but there is still enough here in Subnautica to keep most people busy for several hours.  The potential for some type of end game in the survival genre is always a welcome feature as it sets goals for the player to reach, rather than have them simply build bigger and better structures to ease their survival.  Thought the environments are well built and colorful, they do sometimes still lack some life, as several areas are not well filled with lifeforms.  Generally each area has but a handful of fish floating around at any time, and I have yet to encounter huge school of fish, or any bottom dwelling creatures crawling around to add variety.  These will all hopefully be things we see added in upcoming updates.

Crafting in style

Available now in Early Access, Subnautica adds a fresher flavour to the somewhat overfull survival genre.  With colorful graphics and environments, and a unique survival protocol taking place almost entirely underwater, this game is a  lot of fun.  Though the game still lacks some content, regular features are added, and with a potential end game in store there is a lot to explore here.

Want more?  Check out Stranded Deep!  Don’t forget to comment and like below, let me know what you thought of Subnautica. 

Dragon Force: Rewind Review

It’s 1996 and you just plugged in your Sega Saturn.  What do you play?  Well another one of my favourites of course, Dragon Force.  An amazing tactical strategy game translated for the North American market by Working Designs, Dragon Force takes you to the world of Legendra.  Here you take control over one of 8 possible rulers to control the land and face off against a powerful evil.

After choosing your ruler, you set out onto a top down map of Legendra.  The map is represented by various small villages, forts and castles that you can proceed to on pre-designated paths.  Each ruler starts off with a small assortment of Generals, each with their own basic type of army at their command.  The main strategic map works in “real time” though travel times are very slow, and opening a menu pauses any actions.  Each turn, or week, allows you to place commands for your generals, recruit troops, or engage in combat.  The ultimate goal here is basically to take over all the other castles in order to face off against the final boss, Madruk.

Everybody’s favourite character

Every general has their own stats and abilities as well as troops.  They also increase in level as they take part in battles.  Every level of course updates the standard stats like health, magic and strength.  It also allows them to command more troops into battle up to a maximum of 100.  They can also use several items, or equipment for advantages in battles.  Each general is unique, and you can recruit more during the game.  You can even recruit foreign generals while on the field, even with the castles they may be holding.

Battles take place whenever a general comes in to contact with another general, or a castle.  At the start of each battle, there is a quick discourse between each general, and then you are given the option to attack, retreat, or try and recruit the enemy general.  The actual combat is mostly rock, paper, scissors.  There are a variety of clases available, from archers, to monks, to soldiers, to mythical creatures like harpies and dragons.   You then enter a 2.5D plane where combat commences.  You can choose various tactics for your troops to follow, either offensive, defensive, or some special attacks, all of these along with different formations that add defensive or offensive power to your troops.  From here, the rock, paper, scissor mechanics take over as each troop type favours another, and though you may use some magic to sway the tide, battles are generally pre-determined by either troop type or simply numbers.

Ninjas vs Samurai! Who will win?

Each battle ends when one general or the other’s health is depleted, or they retreat, or all armies are defeated, in which place a general on general duel takes place.  This continues until one side has lost all of their generals.  At this point the castle is won or lost, and the defeated generals who didn’t retreat are captured and sent to the nearest castle as prisoners.  They can later be freed, ransomed or recruited to your army.

I have the best negotiation skills

Though you have limited control over the battle, there is still a great deal of tactics at hand here as you need to mix the right generals together, defend multiple areas, all while managing your troop levels.  This mix of choices both on the tactical map and in each battle adds a lot of deep layers to what might otherwise seem a fairly simple game.  However, the game pace does suffer due to this layering as you can feel like you are in the game for a long time without much progression.  The way your generals slowly walk across the map while the time slowly flickers down just makes it more apparent.

Story wise don’t expect to be blown out the water. The general dialogue is quaint and to the point but doesn’t exactly exude gravitas. Where the story does stand out is the 9 unique stories that play out depending on which ruler you choose. At the end of the game you are treated to a short scene, at which point you can choose to play as enemy faction and take control of Marduk’s generals.

There is a huge amount of gameplay and replayability here that current similar games lack.  Though the pace of the game really doesn’t suit modern gamers as much as it means long hours of play before you might see much result in the game.  For completionists however there is so much to come back for.  The surprising depth of the game is also not limited on anyway by the seemingly simple combat, and often predictable A.I..  If you still own a Sega Saturn and haven’t tried Dragon Force you are definitely missing out on a gem from that console’s short lived span.

Don’t forget to comment and like below, and share the review if you like it!

If you missed last week’s Rewind Review click the link!

For more retro gaming be sure to visit Retro Gaming! for a lot of great articles videos and random stuff.

 

Fractured Space: Early Access Review

Welcome to space.  Fractured Space.  Where massive capital ships duke it out over vast, asteroid filled maps.  This tactical shooter is all about controlling these regions and taking out the other team before they can.

The first thing that will strike you about Fractured Space is the amazingly detailed ships.  Each ship in the available three classes has an incomparable amount of detail.  The lighting effects are especially good showcasing the ships precise design.  Each ship is entirely unique, and easily recognised from a distance.

These ships are gorgeous

Of the three classes of ship there are large carriers equipped with a potential variety of fighters, fast support cruisers which can repair other ships, hunters which have a blink ability to outmaneuver the other ships.  Each class, of course, has it’s own set of unique abilities, strengths and weaknesses to help you get an advantage over the other ships.  Though these differences help each ship seem even more unique than their appearance, the actual abilities aren’t that unique from other similar games.

gameplay is similar to other recent beta’s like World of Warships.  Teams start off on opposite sides of the map, and must race to control various flags or bases across the map.  Each base captured adds experience for the controlling team, and gives you a place to retreat for cover and repairs.  As you defeat enemies, or take over more bases, experienced gained advances you in level, and returning to a base upgrades your hit points and shields.   Battle continues until one team can capture the opposing team’s home base.

These explosions are really dynamic

These battles are usually fairly quick affairs.  The fights are often decided by rock, paper, scissor, as each class suits taking down another if piloted well.  You need to be slightly ambidextrous to work with the default controls as well when they require much mutli-pressing buttons with one hand or the other.  Once you get past this though, the short battles are still fun, but don’t always feel that tactical as you are generally just spamming the attack button and waiting for your special abilities to refresh.  Though taking advantage of positioning does help some, the map is fairly open and generic.  Ducking in and out of cover, or around asteroids doesn’t happen often, and battles quickly become more about numbers and accuracy.

After each battle, you gain experience used to obtain higher tiered ships and purchase new abilities for your current ships.  These new ships add a bit more strategy to the combat with stealth features, long range attacks and the such which opens up new strategies and play styles.

Tech Tree!

Fractured Space is still in development, and I am sure these minor gripes will be worked out in time.  Varied maps and effects would be great, but the overall gameplay is still quite good, and the ships themselves are really beautiful.  I am looking forward to coming back to this game upon release the see the new features and available ships.

As always, please comment and like below, let me know what you think of Fractured Space.

For my preview of World of Warships head here next!

 

Shining Force II: Rewind Review

Welcome back to Review Rewind!  This week we are going way back to a classic, and a game ranked among many people’s favourites, including my own, Shining Force II.  Brought to us from Japan in 1993 Shining Force II is the indirect sequel to the 1992 Shining Force game.  This somewhat unheard of, better-than-the-original sequel is a tactical RPG.

Squirtle?

Taking place in the fantastical world of Granseal, Shining Force II is filled with knights, mages, monsters and most every other basic trope to this genre.  The story starts off when a thief, Slade, accidentally releases an ancient demon after stealing two magical stones that kept it sealed for centuries.  Some of the demon’s power escapes, inhabiting the main character’s King.  You and the city’s wise man Astral, manage to free the king, only to discover the ancient demon has been released and is quickly gaining power.  Various shenanigans ensue, and you basically, kinda, accidentally get your town destroyed trying to seal the demon away and have to sail far off to an unknown land.

From this point, the story unfolds through straight forward dialogue boxes, some open world adventuring, and of course, many, many tactical battles.  These battles take place on a 2D, top down grid map.  Your units of varying types, races and abilities duke it out in a turned based system.  Every unit has up to 3 possible abilities to choose from depending on their class and restricted movement each turn.  Each unit gets to uses their abilities once per turn, and gains experience points each time to help them advance through levels.  Each action takes place in forced perspective, hand drawn animations, which add some charm to otherwise average looking graphics.

Each battle forces you to take advantage of both terrain, and your characters’ various abilities.  These battles can be long, though generally they aren’t overly challenging.  This changes of course if you happen to lose a particular character integral to your strategy, but a quick reload of the game lets you start over.  Your fallen allies can be raised by priests in towns for a small fee.  Priests will also save your game, promote your characters, or cure curses that incur when you equip powerful cursed items.

Gotta praise to be raised and drop a dime in the box too!

Shining Force II is filled with dozens of characters to collect, including several hidden characters.  As they gain experience and levels, their stats and abilities expand.  Once they reach level 20 you have the option to advance them to a new, more powerful class.  Some characters have options on what classes to evolve into if you can find the right item to activate it.  Some of the best characters are found hidden throughout the world, while others you must be very patient with until they can be promoted, and start with terrible stats, creating a mini challenge in each battle to get them experience without losing the battle, or getting them killed each time.

There are a vast array of items and weapons to find, buy and equip.  Each class has their own  specific types of weapons that they can equip, along with armor and special items which increase various stats, like speed, luck, or attack.  Though the best weapons are found hidden near the end of the game, you will spend a lot of time shelling out thousands of the game’s currency to upgrade weapons and armor at each town you progress to.

Time to upgrade!

Though overall a simple story, Shining Force II’s plot is still filled with various plot twists and interesting events.  There are also several stand out characters, though the main character is certainly the exception here, as the fairly bland young man who grows up to be a hero.  Though there are many characters, generally mid way through the game you tend to stick to your favourite 12 and rarely switch them out unless a specific battle calls for it.

Fail….

Graphics aside, this game still holds up well to today’s gameplay standards.  This shows even more with the various remakes, and sequels that followed.  With a long story, and just enough difficulty, this game is still a great one to go back and play.  Be wary however of the old school mentality, this isn’t a drop in and drop out game, you need to set time aside to make it through some of the later battles, but generally it’s worth it!

 

As always, thanks for reading, and make sure to comment, share and like below!

When you are done reading this, make sure to check out this Rewind Review from a few weeks ago!